THIS ABOVE ALL
Making peace with Partition
Khushwant Singh

Three years before the Partition of India, Reginald Coupland who had done a report on the partition of Palestine to create the Jewish state of Israel was asked to do a similar report on the possible division of India to create Pakistan. Though he was against the British quitting India at that time, he forecast what the consequences would be. His forecast was much closer to what actually transpired than those made by Pandit Nehru or M.A. Jinnah.

Coupland was of the opinion that the division of the country would create a comparatively weak Muslim state, and do great harm to Indian Muslims than to Hindus... India’s leaders would see no benefit in being generous to the new Muslim country... the Muslims who stayed on (or were left behind) in India could become hostages in the literal sense of the world.

Jinnah, in contrast, believed that an independent Muslim homeland and in the Indian subcontinent would bring lasting peace in the region... the volatile north western frontier would lose all importance once a Muslim state was established in the north-west.... Frontier tribesmen would lose religious and political fervour for jehad against non-muslims... Muslim minorities in India, and Hindu and Sikh minorities in Pakistan could be hostages for peace within each country.

Nehru’s forecast was much the same as Jinnah’s: he believed that with Muslims getting what they wanted, communal strife would come to an end. For their miscalculations over a million innocent Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs lost their lives, over 15 million lost their homes and properties and there have been more Hindu-Muslim clashes since Independence than ever before.

Nevertheless, writes Radha Kumar, in her new book Making Peace with Pakistan (Penguin), the partitioning of India was less painful than partitions in other countries like Ireland, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Palestine and Korea. In those countries fierce hatred between communities continues, whereas between India and Pakistan, despite the three wars they fought against each other, there is as much love between people of the two countries as there is hatred.

She gives three reasons for this odd phenomenon. One that while other partitions followed ethnic strife, the division of India came after the Congress representing a predominantly Hindu India and the Muslim League representing the Muslim majority were only committed to democratic ideals but also agreed to separate before actual reparation took place. Second, in both countries the armed forces remained strictly neutral and in fact did their best to contain civilian violence and finally, while other nations had to divide cities (e.g. Berlin and Jerusalem), no cities in India or Pakistan met the same fate. Though I remain unconvinced by her analysis, it gave me much food for rethinking on the subject.

Radha Kumar’s book takes little more than two hours to read, but it is very readable. It is a refreshingly new look at India-Pakistan relations from their inception to the present times. It is accurate, unbiased and lucid.

Munir Kadri and his wife Chandra have made their home in Rotorua (New Zealand), famous for its large spread of hot water sulphur springs. He comes from a prosperous Muslim family of Ahmedabad. In his wallet he always carries a small photograph of his palatial 10-bedroom family home with an inset of his father, a princely looking youngman wearing a Rajasthani style turban. Chandra is a Chaurasia Brahmin from Meerut. The two met while studying in England. He was specialising in urinary diseases, she studying gynaecology.

Before he left for further studies in medicine, Munir was involved in the Civil Disobedience Movement and had been jailed. His family members were ardent nationalists. Munir’s brother also has a Hindu wife and is today one of the leading architects of Mumbai.

When Munir and Chandra decided to get married Chandra’s father was literally up in arms . He took his revolver and wife with him and flew to Europe . They summoned Munir and Chandra to meet them in Frankfurt. Before doing so, Munir and Chandra got married in a registry. When Chandra’s father pulled out his gun, Chandra calmly told him. "If you kill him, you will be making your own daughter a widow." He did not pull the trigger. Her mother was more compromising. She asked them to go through the rituals of a Hindu marriage. They readily agreed to do so.

Munir qualified as a urologist. Then the two proceeded to UCLA in Los Angeles where Urology was more advanced. He did not get permission to stay on in the US as he had been let in on student visa. His American professor fixed a job for him in Rotorua. And there they have been living for the last 35 years with their two children.

The Kadris make it a point of spending three winter months in the Indian subcontinent. Since he has specialised in urology, he performs prostate gland surgery free of charge wherever he goes. His other passion is Urdu poetry. He makes it a point to attend Mushairas in Pakistan and India. He arranges his visits to Delhi to be able to attend jashn-e- bahaaraan and Indo-Pak mushaira organised by Kamana Prasad.

There was a dramatic episode in the Kadri saga. When Chandra’s father was taken seriously ill, Munir went to Meerut to attend to him. His last words to Munir were a reluctant admission , "if I were to use a torch to look for a son-in-law for my daughter. I would not have found a better man than you."

It is somewhat odd that while millions of Bangladeshis have illicitly infiltrated into India, been given ration cards and the right to vote, a distinguished Bangladeshi novelist who has won a prestigious Indian literary award and has asked for Indian citizenship has not yet been given it.

EARLIER COLUMNS Making of a leader  March 19, 2005 Equality check  March 12, 2005 One man’s belief is another’s shackle  March 5, 2005 The good, the bad & the ugly    February 26, 2005 The light of other days    February 19, 2005 The fiction of Tagore    February 12, 2005 Gossip is what gossip does    February 5, 2005 Kingdom of God    January 29, 2005 Abandoned innocents    January 22, 2005 Gem of a man    January 15, 2005 Osho calling    January 8, 2005 All that passed by    January 1, 2005 Tomorrow yet to come     December 25, 2004 The truth about lies    December 18, 2004 From Aryana to Afghanistan    December 11, 2004

Taslima Nasreen has a fatwa pronounced against her and is threatened with murder if she returns to the land of her birth. At no time did she malign Islam or write anything about prophet Mohammed. What she exposed in her best known work Lajja (shame) was to expose what fanatic Muslims were doing to innocent non-Muslim Bangladeshis. It needed a lot of courage on her part to do so.

We have many Indian writers castigating Hindu fanatics who victimise Indian Muslims. We have a proud tradition of giving asylum to people who are persecuted in their own countries. A shining example of our extending hospitality to those whose lives were in danger was the way Hindu kings of western states allowed Zoroastrian victims of Iranian persecution to make their homes in India. Today Parsis are the pride of India. Why is the present government dragging its feet in offering asylum and security to Taslima?

(Contributed by G.C. Bhandari, Meerut)