Khushwant Singh's take on the partition

"Indians were never an integrated society. Besides caste and language divisions, the greatest was the Hindu-Muslim divide. They got along reasonably well but kept their distance from each other. There was never any real mixing of families visiting each other’s homes or even contemplating matrimonial relationships. The British fostered the feeling of separateness between the two. As the time neared for the British to leave, Muslims began to feel uneasy at the prospect of living in a Hindu-dominated India.

National divisions of India had been made before. Lala Lajpat Rai had made a rough map dividing India along communal lines. Later, Chaudhary Rehmat Ali coined the word Pakistan. Allama Iqbal, who at one time composed patriotic verses including Saarey Jahaan Se Achha, spoke of a Muslim state. Jinnah’s contribution to separateness was evolving the two-nation theory that Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations which would not live together in one state.

The feeling was echoed in the minds of middle-class Muslims across the sub-continent. After that no one, neither Gandhiji, nor Nehru, nor Sardar Patel nor Jinnah, could stop the process of religious cleansing of Hindus and Sikhs from Muslim-dominated areas. It may be recalled that as early as March 1947, Hindus and Sikhs were being driven out of towns and villages in north-west Punjab. There were communal riots in many Punjab cities, including Lahore.

By August 15, 1947, the migration of Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan had become a bloody exodus. Sikhs and Hindus of east Punjab made sure that this was not going to be one-way traffic: they drove out Muslims from east Punjab with double the violence. It was the most catastrophic exchange of populations in the history of mankind, leaving a million dead and tens of millions homeless.

Pointing accusing fingers at Nehru or Patel or Jinnah serves no purpose. Not one of them, nor indeed all of them put together, could have stopped the process of Partition. They were helpless against the tidal wave of hatred generated by history. They were the real causes of the wars we have fought against Pakistan and the continuing conflict over the future of Kashmir. "

- The Jinnah Legacy, Khushwant Singh, Hindustan Times
Link: http://www.hindustantimes.com/The-Jinnah-legacy/H1-Article3-448406.aspx


My Take: Perfectly put, couldn't agree more.