Organizer: Steven I. Wilkinson, Yale University, USA Chair: Paul R. Brass, University of Washington, USA Discussant: Paul R. Brass, University of Washington, USA This panel wants to explain variation in local and regional patterns of violence during the partition of India. It includes one paper (Chattha) that is the first to use the local police station reports from 1947 in West Punjab (Pakistan), two papers that draw on archival and interview data (Talbot and Brass) as well as the first ever statistical examination of ethnic cleansing in India in 1947-48 (Wilkinson & Jha).
Using new data, this paper assesses the reasons for 'ethnic cleansing' in the partition of India. We show that districts that raised army units that had more combat experience in the Second World War also experienced greater ethnic cleansing. The effect of this combat experience increased in areas that were
initially more mixed. We interpret these results as reflecting the role of
war-time military experience in providing human capital (enhanced skills at both
organising and at perpetrating violence) that become particularly important in
polarised societies in transition.
The Punjab region was the epicentre of the massacres which accompanied the 1947 Partition of India. The number of casualties remains disputed, although a figure of 1 million victims is frequently cited. This paper examines the killings in Sheikhupura city which over a three day period in August claimed an estimated fourteen thousand victims. Despite its severity this violent episode forms part of the hidden history of Partition.
The aim is firstly to explain the background to the killings, by drawing on previously unutilised documentary and oral sources. The paper will reveal that the heightened preparations for violence by both the majority and minority communities contributed to the making of the massacre. The clustering of refugees in the city was another important factor in the unfolding tragedy. The extent to which the violence was organised rather than a spontaneous mass frenzy will be laid bare in a discussion of the episode in the Ramgarh mohalla in which troops attached to the Punjab Boundary Force played a leading role. Secondly the paper will seek to reveal how a full understanding of the making of the massacre in Sheikhupura City can forward an analysis of the wider patterns and circumstances of the Partition related violence throughout the Punjab. The desire for loot and for what Paul Brass has termed ‘retributive genocide’ which were present at Sheikhupura were common features in other major episodes of violence.
Despite the recent advances of historical understanding regarding Partition-related violence in the Punjab, especially in terms of its organisation, the exact identity of the perpetrators is usually hazy. This presentation draws from hitherto unexploited sources, including the thana and district police records to highlight particularly the involvement of members of army troops, police force and railway in orchestrating the violence in West Punjab. It attempts to understand the significant of localized dynamics of the 1947 apparent communal violence in relation to (a) its spontaneity and (b) its organizational character through previously unused Police First Information Reports (FIRs) that lodged at local police stations at the time. The presentation not only seeks to uncover the principal perpetrators of violence in the region, but also adds considerable evidential weight to the argument that Partition violence cannot simply be dismissed as ‘temporary madness’ or aberration.
The town of Malerkotla in East Punjab, India is regionally famous as the town where the Muslim population stayed during Partition in 1947 and as a place where no one died during that violent upheaval. A multitude of factors contributed to this; not least of which is the way in which pre-Independence conflicts between religious groups were managed. Also important both then and now in maintaining overall peace and Malerkotla's reputation for communal harmony are the ways in which the community chooses to remember and memorialize certain events in the collective past that are conducive to the present interests of this Muslim majority town. This presentation draws connections between the myths and realities of the past and those of the present, focusing on how community members discipline their memories to serve the purpose of making space for a Muslim majority town in Sikh majority Punjab and Hindu majority India. These myths include the legends of the Sufi saint who founded the town and the Sikh Guru who blessed it, as well as the easily debunked myth that inter-religious violence or conflict has never occurred in Malerkotla. The spiritual myths represent collective ideals of communal harmony that motivate the population through repeated invocations at public events and private. The axiom that Malerkotla is eternally pacific may be easily disproved, but the more complicated reality that conflicts did and do occur is actually more useful as the experiences of managing those challenges have provided invaluable lessons for the collective in mitigating tensions.
Using new data, this paper assesses the reasons for 'ethnic cleansing' in the partition of India. We show that districts that raised army units that had more combat experience in the Second World War also experienced greater ethnic cleansing. The effect of this combat experience increased in areas that were
initially more mixed. We interpret these results as reflecting the role of
war-time military experience in providing human capital (enhanced skills at both
organising and at perpetrating violence) that become particularly important in
polarised societies in transition
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