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The Sikhs and Transfer of Power
A proud and majestic people who produced a sovereign of the stature of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the last independent ruler of India, became a confused, desperate and hounded lot of refugees in their own homeland, part victims and part perpetrators of violence and arson in a period of suspended sanity. Put at a severe disadvantage in the game of numbers, they found themselves pushed to the margins during the formulation of the partition plan by the British, with the Hindus and the Muslims both forming greater majorities, and therefore, having a greater say in the course of events preceding the Partition. The writer has earlier authored six books on various subjects related to the Partition of 1947 as it affected Punjab and its people. The Sikhs and Transfer of Power is his seventh book in this series, in special context to the various ways in which it affected the Sikhs. It is a special study of the responses and reactions of the Sikhs to various proposals and plans of the British government for the transfer of power and the partition proposals. The author has consulted records from the Public Records Office, London, the Punjab State Archives, the National Archives and the Khalsa College, Amritsar, besides other related material. He has given brief accounts of the missions, proposals, conferences and representations that preceded the final plan of the transfer of power to an independent, but vivisected India. He speaks of the draft declaration issued by Sir Stafford Cripps, which gave the right of secession to provinces, greatly alarming the Sikhs, who formed a mere 13 per cent of the population of Punjab, whereas the Muslims were in a majority with a population of 57 per cent. Master Tara Singh demanded the division of Punjab into two parts, giving the right of non-accession to each. The mission was a failure. The Shimla conference, held in June-July 1945, earned formal recognition for the Shiromani Akali Dal, which had emerged as the biggest political party of the Sikhs. But it did not take long for differences to emerge between the Akali leadership, i.e. Master Tara Singh, Giani Kartar Singh and Baldev Singh. Anyhow, the Pratinidhi Panthic Board, a representative body of various groups of the Sikhs, raised the demand for the immediate partition of Punjab, taking the Ravi as the boundary. The counsel for the Muslims wanted the boundary to be drawn near the Sutlej, resting their claim on population majority. Demand for the inclusion of Sikh shrines like Nankana Sahib in east Punjab became another rallying point for the Sikhs. Failure on the part of the leaders of the three major communities to reach a workable consensus and callous and grave lapses in the Mountbatten Partition Plan resulted in civil carnage and eviction the likes of which are unparalleled in world history. Communal riots in various parts of Punjab, Calcutta and Bihar caused about 5,00,000 deaths and mass dislocation of about a million people. There was utter breakdown of the law and order machinery and the British seemed to have abrogated responsibility and left a wretched people to work their way out of a bloodbath the best way they could. Particularly in reference to the Sikhs, the transfer of power brought forth a period of great insecurity, weakness in terms of sheer numbers and miserable failure of their political leadership. The feeble emotional voices raised at random by the Sikh leadership did not seem to carry much weight with the Congress, the Muslim League and least of all, the British, in that chaotic time when everyone seemed to have been grappling for their own narrow and parochial interests. One cannot help but think that maybe, the Sikhs could have had a better deal, and maybe, a large amount of bloodshed could have been avoided had the Sikh leadership shown a clear vision, a unified approach and better negotiations with the other groups involved. This is not to overlook the callousness of the British, the indifference of the Congress and the rigid and unrelenting stand of the Muslim League. The author, though having given a fairly good representation of most of the events and plans preceding the Partition, has laid more emphasis on documentation than on critical analysis of political and social factors. He has only sketchily touched the viewpoints of the Sikh leadership of that time, focusing primarily on Master Tara Singh, whom he mostly seeks to absolve of his gross failures through weak defences, even as he does touch them gingerly. If the reader is patient and can digest occasional grammatical mistakes and shaky sentence structures, he may find this a fruitful initiation into the subject.
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A
prominent historian, Dr. Kirpal
Singh, is a former professor and head, Department of Punjab Historical
Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala. He has sought to capture the
ominous and turbulent course of events as they unfolded in the immediate
period before the British left and the tragic aftermath of a plan put
together in callous and chaotic haste.