Population Transfers in Asia, Joseph B. Schechtman, Hallsby Press, NY 1949.From CojsWikiTHE phenomenon of mass transfer of population has become a familiar one in our age. The author of this book has, in an earlier work of his (European Population Transfers, 1939-1945), written an authoritative account of the part played by population transfer in the recent history of Europe. In this volume he directs his scholarly attention to some of the outstanding population problems of the giant continent which is steadily assuming a more and more important role in world history. He here applies to Asia the lessons learned in Europe, and the results of his research and analysis will be of interest to every student of world affairs. A close associate of Jabotinsky for thirty years, Joseph B. Schechtman has based this biography on intimate personal knowledge of his subject and on exhaustive research. Born in Odessa in 1891, Dr. Schechtman was educated in Russia and Germany. In 1917, he was elected to the Ukrainian National Assembly, but left Russia in 1920 to spend the next twenty years in various European countries. After arriving in the United States in 1941, be helped establish the Research Bureau on Population Movements and served from 1944 to 1945 with the Office of Strategic Services as a specialist on population problems. A journalist, author, editor, and political scientist of note, Dr. Schechtman has also been active in Jewish political organizations and was a member of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
UNTIL very recently students of international affairs thought of minority problems as an exclusively European matter. They seldom gave due consideration to the fact that in Asiatic countries, too, there are many complicated minority questions, some of them of so explosive a nature that they threaten world peace no less than the most acute minority problems of Europe. The author has made an exhaustive study of the transfer and exchange of European minorities during and after World War II. Against that background he attempts in this work to analyze a number of Asiatic minority problems which, he has become fully convinced, can be solved only by transfer and/or exchange of population, A few particularly characteristic and instructive instances have been selected for study. The first is the Hindu-Moslem conflict which found expression in the huge, epochal, unorganized exchange of population between the newborn Dominions of Pakistan and India. The second concerns Middle East Christians particularly: the repatriation of scattered Armenian minorities to Soviet Armenia and the desperate plight of the remnant of the ancient Assyrians. A special chapter is devoted to the plan of Arab-Jewish exchange of population, which, in the author's opinion, offers great promise for the peaceful development of Palestine and the entire Middle East. The scope and character of this study have been greatly influenced by the fact that it is a pioneer in its field. Because of the very recent or contemporary character of most of the events dealt with here, the author has had to rely largely on newspaper reports. He has made every effort to use this raw and often contradictory material in the most cautious and critical way, in order to piece together a cogent description of the transfers that have occurred and to present a thorough discussion of the problems involved.
I The Hindu-Moslem Exchange of Population II Transfer of Middle East Christian Minorities
III The Case for Arab-Jewish Transfer of Population Bibliography Maps Movements of Refugees from and to India and Pakistan Distribution of Palestine Arab Refugees in Neighboring Arab Countries
THE 389,000,000 inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent speak 325 recognizable languages, fifteen of them used for official purposes, and many more dialects. In addition to being divided by tribe, nation, caste, and race, they are split into several warring religions and sects, including Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, and Jains. They are separated into a number of distinctly hostile groups, for whom not their country but their religious community is the basis of nationality. “For that reason,” says James C. De Wilde who has had twenty-five years of experience in the Far East, “one will look in vain for an 'Indian.' That type, as we in the West fancy him, does not exist; one will only find Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs, Buddhists, etc.”1 All these communities are, of course, bound together by long centuries of common existence. Their conflicts are not fought on racial grounds: Bengali Muslims and Hindus have far more in common with each other than the former have with the Pathans or the latter with the Tamils. But there also are deep-rooted differences in ancestral origin, since some Indian communities are descended from the aboriginal inhabitants of the land, and others from the Aryan conquerors who came from various countries. The Moslems can never forget that they once ruled India as alien conquerors. Although many Indian Moslems today are descendants of Hindu converts to Islam,2 the great majority identify themselves with the Moslems who entered India in successive waves of invasion from the eighth century of our era onwards. Their thoughts constantly turn back to the great period of their rule, the Mogul Empire of Babur and his successors, the [2] greatest of whom was Akbar, a contemporary of the English Queen Elizabeth. Conversely, the Hindus have not forgotten that they were forced, over a long period of time, to act as the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the conquerors. In America and in Europe the terms “Hindu,” “Moslem,” and “Sikh” are used as merely designating religious groups. Technically that is correct. But in India those terms are understood and used differently. The word “religious” seldom appears in Indian newspaper headlines in connection with group conflicts. Indians refer to these group differences as “communal.” Religious sects or groups are called “communities.” That is closer to the real truth. It is the things that are held or done in common that identify and distinguish each group. Religion in India is not just a faith. It is a way of life, sufficiently differentiated from other ways of life to provide complete self-identification within each group.3 There is a deep gulf between the Moslem religion and mode of life and that of the Hindus. Their notions of social, political and even economic affairs are deeply divergent. Mohammed Ali Jinnah once defined the essential difference between his people and the Hindus as follows: “They worship cow. I eat cow. I defile a Hindu if my shadow falls across him. A Hindu would not take water from my hand. We are utterly different.”4 The Sikh way of life, too, with its denial of caste, that very essence of the Hindu way of life, sets barriers between them and the majority community. But between Sikhs and Moslems, also, there are long generations of conflict. For it was under the hammer blows of Moslem pressure in the Punjab that the Sikhs were forced into religious and military cohesiveness. There is also a basic economic difference between the 22 per cent of the Indian people who are Moslems and the 68 per cent who are Hindus. The bulk of the Moslems in India are poor agriculturists. It was chiefly the poorest Hindus who became converted to Islam. As a result, Moslems have been less advanced than Hindus educationally and politically. They have found it [3] difficult to compete with Hindus in commerce and, when there was open competition, in obtaining official posts. Thus they have suffered from a dual frustration, caused by the Hindus as well as the British. While the Moslems are for the most part farmers and producers, the Hindus are the middlemen who get the produce to market. The Moslems have become increasingly conscious of their economic inferiority; they cite countless examples in which Moslems have been “driven to the wall” by unfair Hindu business practices. In a study, Pakistan and Moslem India, published in Bombay in 1943 with a foreword by M.A. Jinnah, the Moslem author complains that “there are certain occupations (shop-keeping, the grain and cloth markets, money-lending) entirely reserved for Hindus and the Moslems have been completely shut out of them . . . even in the purely Moslem areas . . . The Hindu middle class is prosperous and flourishing, and controls the internal and external trade of the country. . . . The Moslem middle class in cities has no choice left except to work as laborers or to seek petty jobs in Government service. . . . The Moslems cannot look upon this state of affairs as a fait accompli. Nor can they accept forever the condition of being a debtor community.” (p. 4)5 Inter-communal tension increased noticeably with the preparations for British withdrawal from India. When offering dominion status to the whole of India, the British Government on March 29, 1942 made a special proviso that the future Indian Constitutional Convention conclude a treaty with Great Britain “for the protection of racial and religious minorities.” However, this British scheme for protection of racial and religious minorities in all of India, to be guaranteed by a treaty with Great Britain, has never materialized. Mohammed Jinnah's campaign for a separate Moslem state of Pakistan achieved its goal, but it also intensified and brought to a climax the mutual distrust and fear among Moslems, Hindus and Sikhs, in particular in those areas where the communities were fairly evenly balanced and one or more [4] of than dreaded becoming a minority after the partition of India. Each of these potential minorities felt uneasy and depressed at the thought of being left to the mercies of the surrounding majority. Embattled Pakistan was looked upon as a promised land by Moslems who felt themselves hopelessly submerged among the over-whelming Hindu-Sikh population of the Dominion of India. Similarly, a “minority complex” developed among the 19,000,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan who began to realize that in that fiercely nationalistic Moslem dominion they might degenerate into second class citizens. To each of these acutely self-conscious minority groups their respective co-racial dominions on the other side of the border became a kind of sanctuary. Aversion to minority status seems to have been particularly strong among the Moslem community. They pointed to their experience in the United Provinces in 1937-39, as evidence of the fact that where they have been obliged to live under a Hindu majority their rights have been ignored. Choudharry Rahmat Ali, founder and president of the Pakistan national movement, wrote in connection with this question:7 What is the fundamental truth about minorities? It is that there are times when minorities are the heralds of their original nations, and others when they are the symbols of their helplessness. Again, there are times when nations can fully assimilate minorities and others, when minorities can fatally sabotage such nations. Finally, there are times when to leave minorities in foreign lands, or to keep alien minorities in your own lands, is a sound policy, and others, when to do either, is childish folly: also when to do neither is saving statesmanship, but when to do both is sure suicide. It is the last contingency which concerns us in the current phase of our life and calls upon us to remember that, in the past, “minorityism” has ever proved itself a major enemy of our Millat, that at present it is sabotaging us religiously, culturally, and politically even in our national lands . . . To leave our minorities in Hindu lands is . . . to forget the [5] tragic fate that overwhelmed our minorities which--in more favorable times and with better guarantees than now possible--we left in Sicily, Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Austria, and Hungary. Where are they now? To ask that question is to answer it in the most poignant terms. Leaders in both Dominions have honestly tried to eliminate this tense and dangerous minority complex. On Independence Day (August 15, 1947) they eloquently reiterated their guarantee to minorities, “There is no doubt of the leaders' sincerity,” Robert Trumbull cabled the New York Times from New Delhi on August 16th, “but the question whether Hindus and Moslems can live amicably side by side remains to be answered by events.” The answer was given quickly. One month later Trumbull reported: “The leaders of both new nations urged these minorities to stay where they were and guaranteed protection. These leaders were simply not in a position to make such guarantees on behalf of the ignorant fanatical masses. Events proved that these assurances were worthless.”8 2. Trouble started in the strategic province of Punjab. Moslems were a majority--57 per cent of its total population of 28,418,000--and the Moslem League was determined to win the whole of this rich, food-producing province for Pakistan. This plan was violently opposed by the over four million Sikhs (the total number of Sikhs in India is 5,691,000) and by the Hindus. While forming less than 30 per cent of the Punjab population, the Hindus dominated industry, commerce, banking, and the professions in the province and feared that if it went to Pakistan, discriminatory legislation would very soon drive them out of business. The Hindu Congress demanded the division of the Punjab on ethnic lines as a pre-condition to the cession of Pakistan. This stand was finally accepted by the Moslems and the British. For the [6] Hindu position was logically unassailable. If a Moslem minority could not with any confidence accept its position in a Hindu-majority federative state, a Hindu or Sikh minority could not with any confidence accept a position in a Moslem-majority unit. It was thus reluctantly agreed that the Hindu and Sikh majority districts in the Punjab and Bengal provinces would be attached to the Hindu, and not to the Moslem, dominion. But having agreed on the principle, boundary commissions representing each side found it impossible to draw satisfactory or even tolerable frontier lines between the two dominions. In point of fact, no doubt seemed to exist on the basis for the division: it was simply a matter of consulting the census of 1941. But the communal representatives seemed unable to reach any compromise. The Hindu Congress and the Sikhs demanded a demarcation line which would have left some 9,500,000 Moslems (41.8 per cent of the entire Moslem population) in Indian East Punjab; the Moslem line would have left 6,725,000 non-Moslems (or 55 per cent of the total non-Moslem population of the Punjab) in West Punjab, where they then constituted 31.6 per cent of the province's population. At the end, the decision was left to Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the British chairman of the mixed commission, who drew his own line. This line reduced the minorities on either side to what is probably the minimum possible: some 27 per cent of the former Moslem population of the Punjab was left to the east, and 32.5 per cent of the non-Moslems to the west, in each case about 4,000,000 people.9 This demarcation line provoked violent criticism. Hindus, Sikhs, and Moslems alike objected strenuously to Sir Cyril's refusal to be guided solely by communal groupings in certain instances where other practical considerations were also highly important. As a result, numerous local communal majorities were converted into minorities overnight. Sir Cyril's own report maintained that considerations of administrative efficiency made these decisions inevitable. He pointed out that “legitimate criticism” would follow, whichever way he ruled.10 [7] In this he was undoubtedly right. For in India, as well as in Europe, no matter where boundaries were drawn, there would be large population islands left in a community and under a government they regarded as alien and hostile. No sharp geographical line corresponds to a rigid communal line. In fact, there was not one district in Pakistan, not even in the North-West Frontier Province or Sind, without a Hindu minority, while in some districts that minority represented a considerable proportion of the total population. Similarly, a good many areas with a large Moslem population were left on the Hindu side of the frontier. The Sikhs fared worst of all: they were split in two. Hopelessly overshadowed by the two larger communities, the Sikhs were not overjoyed at the thought of being ruled by New Delhi, and they would have protested vociferously if they had been placed en bloc within the borders of Pakistan. But to be split into two helpless fragments, partitioned between two alien regimes, was both the most catastrophic and the most humiliating thing that could have happened to them.11 Claims and counter-claims to Punjab areas were pressed so hotly that the fires of communal conflict were ignited several months before partition was effected. Spurred by religious fanaticism, reckless political propaganda, fright and often economic frustration, Moslems, Sikhs, and Hindus fell upon each other with knives, swords, clubs, and the torch. The first wave of communal riots in the Punjab came when the Moslem League tried to seize power early in 1947. With the support of the British governor, a provincial Cabinet had been scraped together from all the minorities; the League attempted to overturn it and to shake the strong police rule which had been imposed. Gigantic demonstrations by League followers reached strata of the Moslem population which had never before participated in politics, and the Sikh leadership decided to stop the movement by a show of force.12 In February 1947, Master Tara Singh, political leader of the Sikh community, proclaimed a civil war designed to [8] keep Moslem rule out of the eastern Punjab and significantly added: “But why should we stop there? We would try to drive them (the Moslems) out of the Punjab entirely.”13 The Moslems on their part took the offensive. In Lahore, commercial center of Punjab with a population of 671,000, Moslem goondas (thugs) began to set fire to the business houses and residences of the 300,000 strong Sikh and Hindu minority, justifying this as a way of establishing the claims of the majority. “Destroy their houses,” they said, “and with them their claims to Lahore on the basis of property.” Retaliation on the Hindu side came from a nationalistic organization called the Rashtriya Sevak Singh, whose whispered reasoning was, “Bomb the Moslems to death and wipe out their majority in Lahore.”14 The Sikhs retaliated in nearby Amritsar, their holy city, and in hundreds of smaller settlements in predominantly Sikh area. Between March 3 and June 23 (when the Punjab Assembly voted on partition), 3,200 persons were killed in the province of Punjab and at least 100,000 Hindus and Sikhs evacuated the city of Lahore which “was completely at a standstill.” Refugees streamed along the roads, and in spite of strongly worded appeals from Moslem League, Congress Party and Sikh leaders, rioting, bombing and arson continued unabated. The Hindus were the bomb throwers, while Moslems specialized in arson and stabbing.15 The partition of the province into West (Pakistan) and East (India) Punjab did not stop the bitter communal strife. Violence on one side begot revenge on the other. Old bloody accounts were revived and lavishly settled. “Talk to a Sikh,” the correspondent of the London Times cabled on August 24 from Lahore, “and he will declare that this is retaliation for what the Moslems did to the Sikhs in Rawalpindi in March--which was retaliation for the Hindu massacres of Moslems in Bihar, which was retaliation for Noakali, which was retaliation for Calcutta. So it goes back, violence begetting violence.” Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Chief Indian Delegate to the United Nations, aptly said that “when elemental passions infest vast masses of men, the cycle of attack and [9] revenge is apt to spread with lightning rapidity.”16 The communal fighting was attended by a fury never witnessed in all preceding conflicts and left cities and villages looking like battlefields. Neither side spared women and children from ghastly knifing, burning alive and crimes of lust. 3. For millions of human beings within this vicious cycle of attack and revenge there was only one salvation: flight. The exodus began in the spring of 1947, and by July some 250,000 Hindus had fled to India from predominantly Moslem West Punjab.17 Simultaneously, it was “semi-officially” confirmed in Lahore that there had been a substantial flight of Hindu capital from that city since the beginning of the disturbances in the spring. Similar movements took place out of the Pakistan North West Frontier Province. The Delhi controller of rationing announced on June 24 that approximately 75,000 refugees from all the disturbed areas had by that time reached the capital of the Delhi province.18 These first waves of refugees played a sinister and often fatal role in inflaming and spreading hatred and bloodshed between communities. “I think we can safely say that 75 per cent of what has happened in Delhi is the direct result of stories of refugees,” declared Indian Premier Pandit Nehru at a news conference.19 This does not seem to have been an overstatement. Robert Trumbull reported from New Delhi on September 7th: “These refugees, whose memories of recent horrors are still aflame, constitute the greatest menace to peace in Delhi. They consist of both Moslems and non-Moslems and their temper is kept constantly excited by stories of new outrages being brought to Delhi daily by evacuees from the Punjab. Thousands of them are armed and are eager to avenge themselves and their co-religionists. These newcomers nurse murder in their hearts against all Moslems as the result of atrocities against the Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. The [10] Moslems are equally vengeful for what has happened on India's side of the Punjab border, particularly in the Sikh country.”20 The Delhi correspondent of the London Times described the refugees as “carriers of infectious hysteria or mental derangement” which has beset India's communities. The incubation period, he said, is the time it takes a large number of refugees to move from one part of the country to another.21 If bloodshed and consequent mass flight only partly affected areas other than Punjab and a few other provinces, that is largely due to what Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the “strong man” of the Indian Government, ominously hinted at as the role minorities might possibly play as hostages. On October 16, a dispatch to the New York Times stated: “It seems generally accepted that if there is trouble in Calcutta where the Hindus predominate, the reaction will be swift and severe in East Bengal, where millions of Hindus are 'hostages to fortune' amidst an overwhelming Moslem majority.” Referring to attacks on non-Moslem refugees in Pakistan, H. S. Suhrawardy, Moslem League leader and former Premier of Bengal, significantly said on October 28, 1947: “For the sake of the life and liberty and honor of the unfortunate Moslem minority in the Indian Union, I beg the Moslems of West Punjab to see that such incidents are put a stop to at once.”22 Members of minority groups who had escaped slaughter or attack but feared that their turn would soon come, took to the road. Early in October, Hindus started leaving the city of Dacca in East Bengal in which the Moslem majority was 70.8 per cent of the population and which has been described as Pakistan's “eastern capital.” Dacca with a population of 213,000 witnessed serious communal disturbances in the autumn of 1946, but was relatively calm in 1947. Nevertheless, despite assurances by the East Bengal Government, the exodus spread to almost the entire province, and by the middle of October Hindus were reported coming by train, boat and on foot to Hindu West Bengal.23 Similar developments took place in Karachi, capital of the Dominion of Pakistan, with a [11] population of 359,000--55 to 60 per cent of whom were Hindus, controlling the lion's share of the city's commercial life, Karachi had long been relatively free from communal disturbances. None the less, in October about 3,000 Hindus were reported leaving the city every day, two-thirds of them on crowded little steamers bound for Okha and Bombay.24 V. Viswanathan, Indian Deputy High Commissioner to Karachi, said on October 11 that he could sell 60,000 tickets to India if he had space. By the beginning of 1948, when bloody disorders broke out between the Moslem and Hindu populations, about 100,000 Hindus had already left Karachi.25 In other parts of India, minority groups had to leave under pressure of threats or were “advised” to go. Sikh bands in East Punjab, after having attacked Moslem villages and killed many villagers, drove other villagers away with the warning: “Go to your Pakistan! If you dare come back here, we'll kill you to the last child.”26 And in Qadian, holy town of the Moslem Ahmediya sect in the Indian East Punjab, the Sikhs offered not to molest the 6,000 Moslems there resident, if only they left for Pakistan--indeed, the Sikhs would even escort them safely to the Pakistan border.27 Successive waves of survivors and of “voluntary” and compulsory refugees flooded every highway, road and cowpath linking Pakistan with India. Every means of conveyance--from airplanes to ox-carts--was used to escape annihilation and reach safety. Trains were jammed with passengers riding on the roof and hanging from the sides. Special trains moving 1,000 a day in each direction between Lahore and Amritsar were reported on August 21 by the Associated Press. But train travel proved to be both inadequate and extremely hazardous. A military spokesman of the Indian Government revealed on September 24 in New Delhi that at least seven trains had been attacked in both East and West Punjab, with considerable casualties among the refugees. Two thousand Moslems were killed on September 22 when a Moslem refugee train from Delhi, carrying several thousand persons, was [12] attacked near Amritsar, Sikh stronghold in East Punjab; only one hundred persons escaped uninjured. Two trains carrying Hindus and Sikhs to India were also assailed according to a Pakistan army communique.28 There were also numerous cases in both India and Pakistan in which fleeing minority groups were hurled from moving trains. The railroads, like the other roads, were lined with dead. Andrew Roth witnessed the arrival of a train at the Casur station with a “grisly freight of dead and wounded Hindus and Sikhs who had been attacked by Moslems while fleeing to safety . . . the train reeked with the sickly-sweet smell of death, and flies buzzed around the bodies of men, women and children cut to pieces because they belonged to the wrong community. On the same day the crack Punjab mail arrived in Lahore from Delhi with some four hundred dead passengers.”29 On August 25, the authorities officially declared that rail travel was unsafe in the Punjab. So many trains were halted by politico-religious fanatics that several rail services operating out of Delhi were suspended.30 The Indian Government made a determined effort to mobilize 1,500 trucks to carry refugees and their possessions in special motor convoys guarded by soldiers. But no more than 640 trucks were secured, of which 170 were disabled by lack of tires.31 A very spectacular but necessarily limited form of evacuation was air transport. As early as August 27, the London Daily Express reported that the Government of India had gathered a fleet of planes and trucks to rush Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities out of the Pakistan area of Western Punjab. On the other hand, the Pakistan Government, because of the danger to trains from mobs between Lahore and Delhi, had ordered twenty planes from the British Overseas Airways to fly 7,000 marooned Government officials and their families from New Delhi to Karachi. But air evacuation, naturally, proved to be inadequate, even for those who could afford it. A racket developed in which individuals chartered planes and charged terrific prices for seats.32 [13] By and large, however, the tragic exodus was conducted in the simplest and oldest way--on foot. Like the Children of Israel, but in ten to twenty times their number, millions of Hindus, Moslems and Sikhs began their self-evacuation over footpaths and bullock cart roads. Sometimes the caravans were relatively small, considering the danger they faced; sometimes they were unwieldy columns of hundreds of thousands of people. Forming what may be called the greatest single refugee trek in the world's history, 800,000 Hindus and Sikhs, coming on foot from Pakistan, were reported by the middle of October as being within twenty-five miles of the Indian border. The procession was forty-five miles long, with 400,000 in a single column and the rest in smaller groups. New Delhi newspaper correspondents reported on October 16th that the immense convoy had been attacked twice and suffered about 1,000 casualties. The exact whereabouts of the marchers was kept as a “military secret” to avoid further attacks.33 A month later, ten Moslem foot convoys, totalling 570,000, were reported moving across the Punjab toward Pakistan.34 In December, foot convoys, 30,000 to 40,000 strong, marched 150 miles from the rich agricultural lands of the Lyallpur and Montgomery districts of Pakistan West Punjab with thousands of head of cattle and hundreds of bullock carts carrying the migrants' meager possessions.35 Large or small, Moslem or Hindu-Sikh, all these convoys shared common emotions--misery and fear. For those individuals among them who had not been driven out by violence and had had ample time to make preparations before they left their homes, the food problem presented no great difficulty; people who joined the convoys with their bullock carts were generally able to carry sufficient supplies with them to last them for, say, a month. But in many cases the refugees carried only their clothing and a few pounds of food. Moving at the slow pace of the bullocks, ten to twelve miles a day, they had to forage or starve. Often the old and the very young dropped from hunger and exhaustion. Some were fortunate [14] enough to have relatives who could aid them when they fell, but others were simply left behind by the roadside, alone and helpless in a hostile land. The hardships of the trek, common to most migrations, were compounded by disease and mass murder. From the beginning, cholera flourished in the filthy camps and accompanied the travelers on the road. Armed bands of Moslem, Sikh and Hindu zealots preyed upon each other's convoys, and sometimes caravans were massacred in miniature wars between groups of refugees bound in the opposite direction. A great impediment to quick movement of the refugees, according to Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola, High Commissioner for Pakistan in London, was the practice of both sides searching the persons and property of the refugees to prevent the removal from each province of prohibited commodities. These searches held up convoys for days and it was soon realized by both sides that they would have to be stopped. Orders were passed allowing refugees to take with them all their movable property, except merchandise in bulk. “Unfortunately,” confesses Sir Ibraham, “it has in practice been found very difficult to enforce these orders.”36 The scope of the Indian migration, as well as its hardships, is almost beyond imagination. Organization and protection of this two-way mass movement became the principal concern of the Indian Army. On September 15, the Army began using tanks to escort long columns of Moslem evacuees moving toward Pakistan through the Hindu and Sikh country of East Punjab. At the same time the Indian Government, under an agreement with Pakistan, sent its own troops across the Pakistan border to protect caravans of Hindus and Sikhs leaving the West Punjab. By September 25, the Army had evacuated 400,000 Moslems to Pakistan and had 850,000 still to move, while in Pakistan 600,000 non-Moslems were marching toward the border of the Dominion of India. Thousands more were evacuated in both directions by train and motor transport.37 [15] The goal was to move this vast populace before famines and epidemics began and in time to harvest millions of acres of crops. The success or failure of this undertaking meant the difference between famine and adequate food for the entire country.38 Control of the situation in both parts of the Punjab was considerably hampered by the lack of liaison between the Indian and Pakistani provincial governments in Punjab. A great deal of this was caused by the refusal of Moslem under-officials to cooperate with their Hindu and Sikh opposite numbers and vice versa. The civil police “have not distinguished themselves,” reported the special correspondent of the London Times (August 28, 1947). “There is ample evidence to show that on both sides the police of one community not only failed to give protection to members of another community under attack, but actively assisted the attackers. Moslems have been murdering Hindus and Sikhs. Hindus and Sikhs have been murdering Moslems. Each side blames the other with passionate vehemence and refuses to admit that its own people are ever at fault.” The joint Punjab Boundary Force under Maj. Gen. T. W. Rees was, while it existed, the only liaison between the two Dominions. It brought some order into the disorganized and panic-stricken trek of refugees. But on August 29, the Punjab Boundary Force was dissolved and law enforcement was placed under the British-commanded armies of the two Dominions. Moslem, Sikh and Hindu units were segregated and allocated to their appropriate command. The work of the dissolved Punjab Boundary Force was continued effectively under Indian command in the Military Evacuation Organization which was created on September 5.39 4. The numerical scope of the chaotic population exchange between the two Dominions grew steadily and surpassed all estimates by Indian and Pakistani authoritative sources. [16] On September 16, a military spokesman in New Delhi stated that from September 5, when the Military Evacuation Organization began to function, up to September 13, 400,000 non-Moslems had been escorted from Pakistan into the Indian section of the Punjab on foot, 115,092 by rail and 51,940 by motor transport. Moslems moved in the opposite direction for the same period were 200,000 by route march, 148,909 by rail and 45,400 by motor. Some hundreds also traveled in both directions by air. Making these evacuation figures public, the Indian Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation--a new Cabinet department--emphasized that many thousands had crossed the border uncounted before the military organization began to function, while other groups, of whom the military had no count, were constantly moving. At a press conference held on September 13, Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru, India's Prime Minister, estimated that the exchange of minority populations between India and Pakistan would total four million, or about two million from each side.40 This huge figure of four million proved to be an underestimate. By October 9, 2,388,120 Moslems and 2,644,687 non-Moslems had already crossed the Indo-Pakistan border on foot. There were 837,498 Moslems and 1,372,329 non-Moslems still en route or waiting to cross. The total count of 7,272,634 included 95,000 Moslems in the Delhi encampments and 128,000 Hindus and Sikhs in New Delhi, some of whom found shelter with friends or relatives. It did not take into account the number who might decide later to migrate from one Dominion to the other.41 By the end of October, military reports stated that 1,800,000 non-Moslems were yet to be evacuated from the West Punjab and the North West Frontier Provinces (Pakistan) and 2,300,000 Moslems were still in the East Punjab (India) waiting to go to Pakistan. Organized and coordinated evacuation started on October 21, 1947. The position then was that about 2,800,000 Moslems were in India awaiting evacuation and about 1,500,000 non-Moslems had to be brought over to India from West Punjab and the Frontier [17] Province. The period following October 21 was divided into ten-day sections, and in each section arrangements were made both for evacuation by rail and for evacuation by foot and motor transport. The actual working of this system can be seen from the following table: Approximate Number Approximate Number of Moslems of Non-Moslems Period Transferred to Pakistan Transferred to India Oct. 21-31 600,000 550,000 Nov. 1-10 650,000 130,000 Nov. 11-21 380,000 180,000 Nov. 21-25 770,000 140,000 About November 25 the balance that remained to be moved was close to 400,000 Moslems and 300,000 non-Moslems.42 At a meeting of the East India Association in London, held on November 4, 1947, Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola, Pakistan's representative in Britain, revealed that “by agreement between the two Governments it was decided to send to East Punjab approximately 3 ½ million Sikhs and Hindus, who were anxious to leave the country . . . In return we agreed to take about 5 million Moslems . . . At one time we hoped to confine the migration of the Moslems to those in East Punjab less the Ambala Division and the States. This would have given the reasonable figure of 3,124,000 and would have met a fairly equal exchange. But our hands were forced by the Sikhs making life impossible for the Moslems in the States and in the Ambala Division, and we have to find room now for the very large figure of nearly 5,400,000.”43 Authoritative quarters in New Delhi estimated that the exchange of minority populations in the Punjab, augmented by relatively small numbers of evacuees from other provinces, would involve close to ten million persons: five to six million Moslems were involved in the westward migration to Pakistan while over four [18] million Hindus and Sikhs had moved or were moving eastward into India.44 An Indian Government press note partly corrected these estimates, placing at 4,131,000 the number of non-Moslem refugees who had crossed into India up to November 21 from the West Punjab, North West Frontier, Sind and Baluchistan; the number of Moslems evacuated in the same period to Pakistan from the East Punjab and Delhi was estimated at four to five million. “Every nerve is being strained,” the press note said, “to complete the evacuation of the remaining 500,000 or 600,000 non-Moslems from the West Punjab and North West Frontier by the middle of December. On an average more than 60,000 non-Moslems were brought to safety every day by using available means of transports--trains, motor lorries, aircraft, ships and on foot. Foot columns provided the quickest means of evacuating the largest number of refugees.”45 The population transfer was, however, far from completion by the eve of 1948. New danger spots constantly arose, demanding further evacuation of minority groups. According to Pakistan's High Commissioner in London, “a malicious attempt is being made by some Hindus and Sikhs” to increase the already huge number of Moslem refugees from East Punjab by many more from Delhi and the Western districts of the United Provinces.46 On the other hand, on December 26, a Government spokesman in New Delhi announced that India was negotiating with the Pakistan Government for early transfer of some 70,000 Hindus and 3,000 Sikhs in Bahawalpur State which had acceded to Pakistan, because of alarming reports of murders and forced conversions of the non-Moslem minority.47 About 25,000 non-Moslems were still waiting for evacuation in the North West Frontier Province.48 In the spring of 1948, the total number of transferees exceeded eleven million: a spokesman for the West Punjab Government put the number of Moslems brought to Pakistan to “about 6,000,000,”49 and K.C. Neogy, Indian Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation, said that “roughly the total number of refugees (including Hindus and Sikhs yet to be [19] evacuated from Western Pakistan) who needed to be rehabilitated in India would be about 5,500,000.”50 In addition, during the late spring and summer nearly 1,150,000 non-Moslems migrated from East Bengal (Eastern Pakistan) to West Bengal (India).51 It is, it goes without saying, difficult to ascertain the precise number of casualties that have accompanied the communal strife and the ensuing displacement of millions of persons. On September 7, Miter Sri Prakash, the Indian High Commissioner of Pakistan, told a Rotary Club meeting at Benares that almost 150,000 persons had been killed thus far in the two Punjabs (India and Pakistan).52 By the end of October, authoritative circles in New Delhi estimated that deaths directly or indirectly traceable to the Punjab communal disturbances and consequent migration53 would approach one million, the casualties in the different communities being approximately 10 per cent of the number of refugees.54 The huge number of casualties and refugees in the short period of approximately four months seems almost unbelievable if measured by a European population yardstick. But India's population growth and population losses are both of unprecedented dimensions. Between 1921 and 1941 the population of India increased by about 83 million; the increase in the single decade between 1931 and 1941 amounted to almost 50 million. On the other hand, during the famine of 1943, deaths from starvation in the province of Bengal alone were estimated by the end of October at 100,000 weekly. An expert on India's population problems aptly wrote in 1946: “A vast population breeds and dies lavishly.”55 5. The fact that disturbances and ensuing mass flights seemed to have followed the same pattern in widely separated areas, naturally suggested the existence of some organized plan conceived and effected at someone's instigation. Major General T.W. Rees who [20] commanded the Punjab Boundary Force told the Associated Press correspondent of his belief that “this program (of communal riots) was ably directed by underground leaders, using ancient and modern methods of war, who were deliberately keeping the rioting alive for their own purposes, despite the orders of the chiefs of the Indian and Pakistan Governments.”56 The Pakistan Government insisted that the organizers of the alleged plot were deliberately aiming at the destruction of Pakistan's statehood. Mohammed Ali Jinnah called on the India Government “to deal ruthlessly with this diabolical conspiracy and extirpate the roots of the plot and the powerful men who are behind the organization.”57 Other highly placed persons in the Pakistan Government categorically asserted that the fierce communal bloodshed and staggering migrations that have beset the Indian sub-continent since it was freed from British rule on August 15, 1947 were the results of a highly organized plot with the Sikhs at the core. They insisted that the Government of India had as early as July, 1947 known of the alleged Sikh conspiracy, but had not taken effective steps against it--through fear of offending the powerful Sikhs and the radical Hindu organizations exploiting the Sikhs' grievances.58 The Sikhs have thus been deliberately presented as the villains of the entire sad and bloody affair. This is hardly justified. It would be a futile endeavor to allocate blame for the state of affairs created in India after partition. The Indian controversy is too deeply rooted in the tangle of causes and effects, of ends and means, over a period of many decades. No deliberate diabolical conspiracy on the part of any persons or clans in so vast a country could within a period of a few weeks or even months give rise to the massacre of hundreds of thousands and the migration of millions. A far deeper and more complicated background, which the author tried to outline in the introductory remarks to this chapter, lies behind those dramatic events of August-December 1947 that have so drastically revealed the tremendous significance of India's perennial minority problem. [21] Foreign observers were quick to recognize the implications of the population movement engendered by partition. As early as August 22, the Lahore correspondent of the London Times reported “the beginning of a vast transfer of populations.” “In a few weeks' time,” he cabled, “at the present rate of transfer there will not be a Moslem left on the Indian side of the frontier or a Hindu left on the Pakistan side, except perhaps for some Hindu merchants in Lahore . . .”59 Simultaneously, the Associated Press correspondent cabled from Jullundur in Punjab that despite the peace efforts of the authorities, the opinion was expressed on all sides that there could be no respite until minority populations were transferred. Robert Trumbull of the New York Times also related that “more and more, sober observers here, both British and Indian, are coming around to the view that direct transfer of population is the only solution to the communal problem in India's minority districts.”60 Both Pakistani and Indian leaders, however, stubbornly refused to accept the exchange of population as a bitter but inevitable necessity and to conduct it in a constructive way. Mohammed Ali Jinnah was the only one to foresee the unavoidable developments. In an interview with Sidney Jackobson of the London Picture Post in January 1947, he expressed his conviction that only a wholesale exchange of minority populations between the future states of India and Pakistan could offer a solution to the ever growing conflict between the communities.61 But Mohandas K. Gandhi, the most outstanding spiritual personality of India, was categorically opposed to that idea: he told his prayer meeting in New Delhi that even at the risk of standing alone, he would oppose the large-scale transfer of populations between India and Pakistan. “The transfer of millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Moslems is unthinkable and wrong,” he declared.62 A few days later, the Government of India and the Acting High Commissioner for Pakistan in New Delhi joined in efforts to halt the flow of Moslems from India's capital into refugee camps whence they would be evacuated to Pakistan. Both announced that steps were being taken to provide “adequate protection” for the [22] Moslem minority in the twin cities of Delhi and New Delhi. A military spokesman told a news conference at Government House, residence of Governor General Viscount Mountbatten, that the Government wanted to keep the Moslems in their homes.63 At a press conference held on October 12 in New Delhi, Mr. Nehru frankly admitted that the Government of India “had no policy with regard to exchange of population and that there was no talk of it before August 15, although since March about half a million people must have come through the frontiers of the Punjab to the United Provinces and other places. We only accepted them because they came and there was no question of a general migration. None of us (Indian leaders),” said Mr. Nehru, “envisaged a major transfer of population at any time,” and he humbly confessed: “perhaps this was due to lack of judgement on our part.” The transfer undertaking, he added, “was thrust upon us and we had to admit that facilities had to be given and to face the problem squarely.” But even men, a clear distinction was made between Punjab and the Northwestern Frontier Province on the one hand, and the rest of India on the other. “We took,” said Mr. Nehru, “the Punjab as a whole and decided that it should be treated as one problem and the major transfer of population as between east and west Punjab; to that we added the Frontier Province. For the rest the problem is one of individuals wanting to go and to be given facilities to go or to come.” Motivating this position, Mr. Nehru stressed that “if this business of transfer of populations was extended to the rest of India, it would become not only a terrific problem but almost a problem impossible to deal with; we have no desire to spread this out all over India.”64 Following these statements, a very enlightening exchange of questions and answers developed between press representatives and Mr. Nehru. The first question was: “So far as this migration is concerned you have faced the inevitable. But instead of that why not take up the offer that Mr. Jinnah has made in his latest statement that exchange of [23] populations may be considered at Governmental level? After all it is not merely the exchange of human heads that is involved but very largely the exchange of property, means of production and means of earning income. Hindus and Sikhs may leave valuable assets on that side and Moslems on this side which may be all wasted. A regulated exchange of population might bring about such exchange as would preserve and maintain the assets on this side and on that side.” To this Mr. Nehru replied: “It is perfectly true that if the thing is to be done it should be done properly on a Governmental level without the loss of any property to any one. But to think in terms of this being done on an all-India scale is a problem which, I think, inevitably reduces itself almost to an impossibility--apart from its undesirability. You take the census figures and the distribution of the population; it can take us half a generation. But what is likely to happen is that it will be done improperly, because once this happens it will involve volcanic changes, it will upset the whole economy of India, a great deal of the production will cease, there will be starvation, there will be mass movements, there will be no railway system or any system whatever. Tens of millions of people will move and we will sink as a nation without any resources--a starving and a dying population.” “My question is,” persisted the press representative, “whether you would consider it on a Governmental level in a way which would make an appeal to the people and make it feasible. I think if the two Governments did it on a basis of friendliness and goodwill it may end up with an exchange of the urban population, though the rural population may not be affected at all.” Mr. Nehru's answer was that “so far as the Punjab is concerned, both Governments have tried and are trying to talk on that level.” He did not, however, suggest extending that policy to the rest of India. For his part, Liagat Ali Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, insisted that there was to be no deliberate transfer of minority populations in the Punjab, but only an organized evacuation “of those who wish to go.” Replying to a previous statement by Sardar [24] Vellabhbhai Patel, Deputy Prime Minister of India, the Pakistani Prime Minister denied that the two Dominion Governments would ever agree that all Moslems and non-Moslems in East Punjab should be transferred “as a matter of policy.” According to Liagat Ali Khan, the respective Governments agreed merely to facilitate the movement already taking place. He raised the strongest objection to any enforced evacuation of individual Moslems, reminding the Indian Government of its obligation to protect minorities.65 The only group in India which has unconditionally endorsed and favored the exchange of minorities is the Sikh. As early as May, 1947, the foremost political leader of the Sikh community, Master Tara Singh, insisting on partition of the Punjab, emphatically stated his belief that Jinnah's demand for exchange of populations in India as a whole was impossible of execution because of climatic, linguistic and cultural difficulties, but that such exchange was altogether practicable within a province and particularly in the Punjab.66 Several months later, he openly condemned what he said was the policy of both Mohandas K. Gandhi and Indian Prime Minister Jawharlal Nehru's Government in inducing Moslems to remain in the East Punjab and in Delhi.67 The Sikhs, he said in December, 1947, would bring pressure upon the Indian Government to continue the exchange of minority populations with Pakistan because “in case of war, minorities in both Dominions would be loyal to the other side”--Hindus and Sikhs to India and Moslems to Pakistan.68 Instead of anticipating developments and preparing a constructive scheme for channelizing the imminent mass movements, Hindu and Moslem leaders in both Dominions persisted in urging the minority populations not to move, promising fullest protection of life and property. These promises proved to be worthless, and Robert Trumbull cabled on September 14 to the New York Times: “The same leaders who so recently counseled minorities to stay put, now concede reluctantly that a tremendous exchange of populations must take place. It has taken place.”69 But being [25] unplanned, unwanted and merely tolerated, this unprecedented population movement took on a ghastly and ominous aspect. The Times correspondent rightly stated: “It may be argued that an exchange of populations is the best solution to this question. But for it to happen in this manner, accompanied by blood and violence, is not only to cause incredible misery among hundreds of thousands of simple people, but to sow the seeds of lasting bitterness between India and Pakistan, This cancerous growth may poison their whole relationship permanently, unless excised soon.”70 It was because of their reliance on the assurances of their respective Governments that the millions of victims had decided to stay where their families had lived for centuries. Mr. Nehru himself recalled at a press conference in New Delhi that he once came across a few hundred people trekking along the road, among whom he recognized old friends and colleagues of his. “They came up and charged me with having deluded them. They were referring to a broadcast I had made ten days previously from All-India Radio in which I had appealed to the people not to migrate but to stay on. They told me that they had followed my advice and this was the consequence; their families were all dead and they were the sole representatives left. After that it became impossible for us to talk in terms of asking them to stay on, in spite of those consequences, and face greater dangers.”72 On another occasion, when the Indian Prime Minister visited the refugee camp of Montgomery Gurdwara, southeast of Lahore, to comfort 1,500 Sikhs who had moved there in panic, one of the refugees angrily charged Nehru's Government with responsibility for the tragic developments. “Why didn't you tell us this was going to happen?” he asked. “Why didn't the Government arrange for a peaceful migration of Sikhs and Moslems many weeks ago instead of letting it happen through violence and terror?” The Prime Minister gave the only possible answer--the inability of anyone to foresee the events which have convulsed the Punjab.73 [26] 6. Bloodshed and massacre have, it is true, largely been limited to the Punjab with its population of 28,400,000; only a few serious outbreaks have occurred elsewhere, mostly in Indian Delhi (with its 918,000 inhabitants) and the Pakistan North West Frontier Province (with its 3,038,000 inhabitants). Using the 1941 census as a basis, one concludes that about 357,000,000 citizens of India, Pakistan and the Princely States have been living their normal lives in peace. Nevertheless, the partition and disruption of the Punjab--long famous as the “granary of India”--has had a serious economic effect upon virtually the entire population of both Dominions, with Pakistan as the greater sufferer. Aside from these disastrous communal disturbances and the dislocation of millions of lives, the partition of India into two countries within four months' time, completely destroyed efficient organization in Government services. At a joint meeting of the East Asia Association and the Overseas League on January 21, 1948, Sir Archibald Rowlands, speaking of the economic effects of partition, said: “Consider what happened to the railways. The East India Railway was manned to a considerable extent by Moslems, and they had left under the idea that it was unpatriotic to work for the Indian railways. Then, again, the commercial community in the Punjab was largely in the hands of Hindus. The only banks which could be said to be working at all were two British banks and one Moslem bank; the others had practically thrown their hands in; a large part of the financing and the growing of the cotton crop was in the hands of the Hindus, and it was difficult to get it into the factories.”74 The gigantic movement of over eleven million people has undoubtedly been one of the most staggering problems ever to confront any government. As a technical problem, it involved placing troops, patrolling roads, requisitioning trucks and railroads cars [27] and setting up emergency camps. Once the technical phase was over, even more complex questions faced both Governments--questions involving the entire economic and political structure of India and Pakistan. K.C. Neogi, Indian Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation, did not exaggerate when he said on November 29, 1947 that “the magnitude of the refugee problem has been such that there has been no historical parallel to it. Nowhere in history has a transfer of population of such dimensions taken place in such a short time and under such circumstances.” The problem itself was “not really one problem, but literally scores of problems, each one having an importance and urgency of its own.”75 Neither of the two Dominions was prepared for competent handling of the situation, for partition had thrown their administrative machinery out of joint. To quote Mr. Neogi once more, the “Government had no experience in this matter and our method has, in many instances, been one of trial and error . . . we have learnt by experience, by mistakes that we have made.”76 When making this statement before the Indian Constituent Assembly on March 12, 1948, Mr. Neogi had in mind his own Government, but his remark applied fully to the Government of Pakistan, as well. Some of the problems resulting from the exchange of populations can be solved adequately only on the basis of mutual agreement between the Dominions. The most complicated of these problems is the question of property, both movable and immovable, left behind by refugees. Besides millions of acres of land abandoned in India and Pakistan, a considerable number of industrial and commercial concerns have remained ownerless. In Lahore alone, the non-Moslem minority owned 167 factories (out of a total of 215) with a registered capital of over 60 million rupees ($18,000,000). Ninety-two per cent of the exporters of raw cotton, 88 per cent of the raw wool exporters, and 89 per cent of the exporters of miscellaneous items were non-Moslems; non-Moslems also owned 63 per cent of the shops.77 [28] In the early stages of the unorganized two-way flight, when the abandonment of property was considered a temporary phenomenon, the joint Hindu-Moslem Partition Council came to the conclusion (on August 6, 1947) that because “no arrangements have so far been made for the management of refugees' property, and because, so long as the local population and the majority community in villages and towns maintain a hostile attitude, the refugees will be unable to return and look after their property--the two Governments have decided to appoint managers, at a suitable level, for the administration of refugees' property in the various areas; the expenses of these managers will be paid out of the proceeds of the properties which they are appointed to look after.” It was also decided that, where this had not already been done, Provincial Governments should be asked to set up machinery for the assessment of damages to both the movable and immovable property of the minority groups involved.”78 Later on, when the exchange of minorities proved both unprecedented in scope and final in nature, the Pakistan and India Governments agreed on the principle that the ownership of refugees' property, movable as well as immovable, should remain vested in the refugees. Custodians were appointed to look after and manage such property on behalf of the owners.79 Similarly, Registrars of Claims were appointed and instructed to make records of the property left behind by the evacuees.80 Where the Custodian assumed possession or control of any undertaking or business, he had to report to the Ministry of Industries and Supplies regarding the feasibility of reopening and continuing the undertaking or business, which could only be reopened or continued in accordance with directions received from that Ministry. The Custodian was entitled also to sell livestock, standing crops or any evacuee property which was subject to speedy and natural decay or the sale of which would be for the benefit of the evacuee-owner.81 It was agreed that the Custodian's control and management, whether exercised by himself or through a lessee or any other person, would operate [29] only during the absence of the evacuee-owner. It would be open to the owner of such property or his legal heirs to claim its restoration on payment of the excess, if any, of expenditure over receipts during the period the property had been under the Custodian's management.82 All these de jure guarantees of the inviolability of abandoned property do not seem to have reassured the refugees themselves. They repeatedly expressed their anxiety about their property and demanded final settlement of their accounts on the governmental level. It was suggested that in each case “the Government receiving the refugees should claim compensation on their behalf for the losses they have sustained from the Government from the territory of which the refugees have to come away” and that the same principle should be applied to expenditures incurred during rehabilitation. As an instructive pattern for such procedure, it was recalled that after the disturbances in the province of Bihar, the then Government of Bengal claimed that the cost of maintaining and rehabilitating Bihar refugees in Bengal should be borne by the Government of Bihar. When this matter was referred to the Government of India, which was at that time headed by Pandit Nehru and Liagat Ali Khan, the Government accepted the validity of the claim and introduced it on an all-India basis. “Now if that formula had been agreed to, there is no reason why it should not be revived again in the context of Indo-Pakistan population transfer,” insisted Bimal Chandra Sinha.83 Thus far, no agreement on this or any similar basis seems to have been reached between the two Dominions. In August, 1948 the Governments of India and Pakistan signed an agreement for the removal and disposal of evacuees' movable property, envisaging the establishment of a joint government agency on which the two Dominions would enjoy equal representation. The agency would supervise the execution of agreements and would set up an organization to facilitate the movement of movable property by rail and road.84 A particularly painful and still unsolved problem for both India [30] and Pakistan is that of the recovery and repatriation of abducted women. During the troubled months of violence, tens of thousands of women, Hindu, Moslem and Sikh alike, were kidnapped. According to a broadcast of Mrs. Shrimati Rameshwari Nehru, the wife of India's Prime Minister, “their honor was outraged almost publicly while they were sold out to markets as chattels. The trader was not dealt with by law, the buyer was not penalized, and even the neighbor did not take exception in this trade. The Government could do nothing, while the Police never rounded up the criminals. This happened in a free India and in a free Pakistan.”85 On December 6, 1947 the Governments of Pakistan and India entered into an agreement binding them to make every attempt to return abducted women to their homes. The lists supplied by India contained the names of 33,000 non-Moslem women to be repatriated from Pakistan, while the lists supplied by Pakistan contained 21,000 names of women to be repatriated from India. However, up to August 20, 1948, not more than 9,659 women had been rescued in India, and only 5,556 in Pakistan.86 According to authoritative sources, “the desired results could not be achieved because interested parties carried on propaganda that the abducted women, after rescue, would not be accepted in their families again.87 This propaganda, unfortunately, was not completely unjustified. In an appeal to his fellow citizens, Pandit Nehru indignantly branded “the foolish and callous attitude” of some families who were “reluctant to welcome back these unlucky sisters to their original place of honor” and regarded “these victims of fate and fury of man as degraded.”88 An energetic campaign of enlightenment was launched by the most outstanding Indian leaders to combat this “most objectionable and wrong attitude.” There are many grave problems involved in the rehabilitation of those millions of refugees who have flocked to each of the Dominions. Mr. Neogi put the total number of Hindus and Sikhs to be rehabilitated in the Union of India at about five and a half [31] million--three million rural and two and a half million urban. Oversimplifying the problem of their resettlement, some members of the Indian Constituent Assembly have suggested that it would be easy to absorb them by spreading them out in all the 700,000 odd villages of India. Replying to this suggestion, Pandit Nehru flatly told the Assembly on November 29, 1947, that “this mechanical calculation does not take us any distance” and invited the House to “examine the problem on its merits, apart from vague statements and heroics.” He admitted that “the rest of India ought to do everything in its power to help the refugees” and that “land should be given in the United Provinces or in the C. P. or Bengal or wherever it may be, if land is available.” He stressed, however, that Hindu and Sikh refugees coming from West Punjab were mostly well-to-do peasants with average holdings of 20 to 25 acres of very good land, while the average holdings in the United Provinces were 2-½ acres. “In order to provide two persons with a room,” said Mr. Nehru, “you put them in a room where there are ten persons; you are putting two more in it. This would be simply unfair . . . We cannot be vicariously generous, we cannot impose a greater burden on the poverty-stricken people of any place merely because you want to be generous. Let us be generous, but not, obviously, because, apart from everything else, this is going to give rise, as it is giving rise, to grave discontent in various ways and an unfortunate tendency to dislike these refugees coming there. We do not want that to happen . . . this business of taking land where there is none and giving to somebody something is not a proper way of giving relief.” The Indian Government has, therefore, decided that the main resettlement and rehabilitation effort must be concentrated in East Punjab which includes the Punjab States and is considered capable of absorbing almost all agricultural refugees. “People seem to think,” insisted Mr. Nehru, “that somehow East Punjab is a tiny little place where people have not got room to stay and, therefore, they should spread out all over the place. The East Punjab from [32] any Indian standard is not only enough, but bigger from the population of India point of view, to absorb those who come.”89 As far as the agricultural refugees are concerned, it was decided that all agriculturists from West Punjab and those from the North West Frontier Province, Bahawalpur and Sind who have their roots in East Punjab must be settled within the pooled unit of East Punjab and Indian States in that area. Other agriculturists from N. W. F. P., Baluchistan, Bahawalpur and Sind may be settled on soil elsewhere in India; Alwar, Bharatupur and Gwalior in particular, have possibilities in this direction.90 It has been decided that lands vacated by Moslem evacuees in East Punjab should be allotted to non-Moslem refugees. Since the number of rural evacuees on both sides is almost equal, it was believed that the problem of the rehabilitation of agriculturists would be solved almost automatically. It turned out, however, that Hindu and Sikh refugees had abandoned 5.7 million acres of land in West Punjab, while the total area abandoned by Moslems in East Punjab did not exceed 4.5 million acres, of which 1.15 million are to be found in the insecure districts of Hissar and Gurgaon. Of the cultivable area previously owned by Moslems in East Punjab some 3.3 million acres are available for settlement. Since the non-Moslem families from West Punjab who are entitled to receive land in East Punjab number between 350,000 and 375,000, it quickly became evident that--even allowing for Punjab States--some 50,000 to 60,000 families cannot be provided for in East Punjab.91 Furthermore, the land abandoned by Hindu and Sikh refugees on the other side of the border is superior to that abandoned by Moslems, while the size of the average abandoned agricultural holding in Western Pakistan is larger that that of the average holding vacated by Moslem evacuees from India. Generally, all land allotments to refugees are made on a group basis: i.e. to a group of families coming from the same area in West Punjab for joint possession and management. Within this group framework each family is to receive ten acres of land for [33] cultivation, with an addition of three acres for married adult workers, and of two acres for unmarried adult workers. By the spring of 1948, 1.25 million acres of land in East Punjab had been allotted to over 177,000 refugee families, constituting about 50 per cent of the total number of rural families entitled to receive land in that province.92 Difficult as the rehabilitation of rural refugees is, the problems of urban refugees have proved even more complex. The number of houses in West Punjab towns previously Inhabited by non-Moslems are 175,203, against the corresponding figure of 170,480 for Moslem-owned houses in East Punjab. Allowing for new construction to provide for the increase in population since 1941, for the differing standards of accommodation among Moslems and non-Moslems, and for new additions to the urban population in East Punjab, the net housing shortage in the towns of East Punjab approximates some 75,000 to 100,000 dwellings. In sum, the economy of East Punjab is not capable of absorbing 700,000 urban refugees (120,000 to 140,000 families), though steps have been taken to repair damaged houses and bungalows, and schemes for the development of large cities and the building of a new capital for East Punjab are being examined. It has therefore been decided to assign dwellings in East Punjab only to those who have come from urban areas in West Punjab. Even so, 550,000 urban refugees had to remain under canvas and in refugee camps till April 1948, when they were supposed to be assigned to homes.93 The Government of India is intending to solve the problem “by not only building cities in East Punjab, but by taking the urban people to cities in the rest of India, having colonies, suburban areas, etc.”94 In response to a request by the Government of India, all Provincial Governments have generally agreed to waive their housing restrictions in the case of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan.95 Schemes of rehabilitation in India may broadly be classified in two main categories: those undertaken at the initiative of Provincial Governments, and those undertaken directly by the Central [34] Government. Basically, the East Punjab Government, with some financial help from the Central Government, is responsible for the rehabilitation of refugees from West Punjab, scheduled for resettlement in East Punjab and the East Punjab States taken together as a pooled unit. Rehabilitation of refugees from North West Frontier Province, Baluchistan, Bahawalpur and Sind--other than those who have old roots in East Punjab and can be resettled there--is the direct responsibility of the Government of India. For practical purposes this category of refugees comprises those dependent on urban occupations. In order to coordinate rehabilitation schemes as far as possible with the country's development plans, the Government of India has set up a three-man Rehabilitation and Development Board to work in close cooperation with the Provincial Governments concerned.96 The Indian Government rejected the suggestion to make the refugees and all the problems connected with them the exclusive concern of the central authorities. N. Gopalswami Ayyangar, Minister without portfolio, explained the reason for this as follows: “We have got to remember that whatever policy we may decide on at the Center with regard to these problems, a great portion, the bulk of it, will have to be implemented by machinery for which we shall have to depend on the Provincial Governments in order to make the scheme work. Now in a problem like settling people on land, it involves an amount of investigation and inquiry and exploiting of the information which is in the hands of the Provincial Governments, and the Center is not equipped for the task of doing that work with as much efficiency as a Provincial Government can, if only it went about its business in the proper way.”97 The Central Government has advised Provincial and State Governments to grant loans on a liberal scale to agriculturists and expressed its willingness to assist them, if necessary, in this matter.98 The Indian budget for the year 1948 contains an allocation of Rs 100.4 million (about $31.33 million) for refugee relief and rehabilitation, with an additional advance by the Government of Rs 100 million for setting [35] up a Rehabilitation-Finance Administration.99 This Administration has been authorized to sanction loans from Rs 5,000 to Rs 100,000, and also to extend guarantees to banks and other lending institutions against losses to the extent of 50 per cent in any individual case of loans and advances granted to refugees. The Administration is not permitted to charge more than a six per cent rate of interest; the loans must be repaid within the period of ten years. The Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation has likewise sanctioned advances up to a maximum of Rs 5,000, to be granted to traders' shopkeepers and those persons wishing to start their own workshops or cottage industries. In the case of doctors, dentists, radiologists, and homeopaths, the maximum has been fixed at Rs 3,000. Displaced persons wishing to buy a tonga and a horse to ply on hire in Delhi may be granted loans up to Rs 1,000. Other displaced persons are covered by the general loan scheme under which the maximum is Rs 500. These loans are available all over India and in the Indian States. It has been decided that grants should be confined to displaced persons who decide to settle finally in a particular town or place and who can be fitted into the economy of the area. The advances will be paid by the authorities of the district where the displaced person decides to settle finally. Those who require loans will be asked to produce proof of their having been registered as refugees and an affidavit to the effect that they have not previously received a similar advance from any other source. The advance will be free of interest for the first year, but interest will be charged at three per cent for subsequent years. No recovery will be made in the first year. Installments for repayment in the subsequent years will be fixed by the sanctioning authority, on the condition that the advance be completely repaid within four years from the date it is given. In case of default on any installment, the whole advance will be recoverable as arrears of land revenue.100 In spite of careful planning and considerable administrative effort, the resettlement and rehabilitation of the over five million [36] refugees is still far from completed. As late as June 2, 1948, the Government of India Information Services admitted that “a large majority (of the non-Moslem refugees) are still in refugee camps . . . Some of the refugees are doing odd jobs. Some prosperous merchants of yesterday are today plying tongas and cabs in Delhi and other big towns . . . The problem is to put these men on their feet again.” In the middle of August 1948, over 2,800,000 refugees were reported resettled; of these 2,148,000 were in East Punjab.101 On August 8, Robert Trumbull reported in the New York Times that two million refugees were still stranded in the cities, many without employment and shelter. These agglomerations of uprooted and unemployed Hindus and Sikhs constitute a highly disturbing and menacing element in the Indian situation. “The majority of the refugees,” wrote Margaret Parton in December, 1947, “are psychologically disturbed when they arrive in India and frequently, as individuals, work against the welfare of the whole.” In refugee camps most of them have refused to work, saying that they have suffered enough and should now be cared for; in the East Punjab many have appropriated more land than they have been allowed by the Government; in towns and cities they claw and fight for houses and shops, frequently refusing to obey Government regulations.102 Eight months later, Robert Trumbull fully confirmed this analysis in a cable from New Delhi: “The refugees are becoming increasingly menacing in their dissatisfaction with the Government's efforts for their rehabilitation. In addition there has developed a natural conflict between the settled urban residents and the destitute refugees who are desperately trying to wrest a living from the already overcrowded cities.”103 The Indian Government can hardly be blamed for this situation. Mr. Neogi, Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation, correctly stated in the Constituent Assembly on March 12, 1948, that permanent rehabilitation can be achieved satisfactorily only as an organic aspect of the general development of the country, and that it presents tremendous difficulties “at a time when production is admittedly at a [37] dangerously low ebb, and when the volume of trade and commerce in the country is shrinking.” Yet, Mr. Neogi, turning to the available literature on similar developments in other countries, stressed the fact that “in the case of Greece and Turkey--which were the first in modern times to have a similar experience of mass movements of population--the time taken for rehabilitation of a fraction of the population with which we are concerned today was five years104, and they seem to take pride that it was accomplished in that period . . . Greece took five years: we have not had as many months in India.”105 The problem facing the Pakistan Government proved to be quite as complex. The first effects of the Hindu exodus were disastrous. The Lahore correspondent of the London Times cabled on August 22 that all but 10,000 of the city's 300,000 Hindu population had fled to India and that “the immediate effect of this Hindu exodus is that the economic life of the city is almost at a standstill. Several banks are closed, as nearly all the clerks were Hindus.106 Many shops are shut. Railway, postal, and other services are only just managing to keep going, as the Hindu employees have gone and there are not enough trained Moslems to take their place.” This description applies quite as well to Karachi, Pakistan's capital. High officials of the Pakistani Government were so deeply disturbed by the exodus of some 1,000,000 Hindus and Sikhs who largely controlled the city's economic life, that they believed the emigration movement was being encouraged by “extremist Hindu elements in India wishing to cripple the Moslem State's finances at the outset.” Ghulam Mohammad, Pakistani Finance Minister, declared flatly that the exodus was organized by certain sections of the Hindu minority who had made plans for this even before the two states came into being. And Fazlur Rahman, Minister of the Interior, bitterly complained that those leaving Karachi for India were taking with them merchandise, machine parts and other things badly needed in Pakistan. “It must be part of a plan to paralyze our economy,” he said in an interview.107 [38] In order to prevent the disruption of steady business activities, the Sind Provincial Government completely disregarded the agreement between the Governments of India and Pakistan to the effect that evacuees from either Dominion should not be searched. Instead, special export regulations were enforced against Hindus leaving Karachi; they were not allowed to take with them “essential commodities”--machine parts, unsewn cloth, sewing machines, typewriters, and so on. Commodities prohibited for export might be disposed of by the owners.108 Restrictions were also placed on the panicky flight of capital from Pakistan--a flight which had grave repercussions on the money market, particularly in Western Pakistan. Even in Eastern Pakistan, in spite of comparatively peaceful conditions, there was considerable flight of capital to West Bengal. “Those banks which had their assets locked up in the Eastern Pakistan had a most difficult time and some of them have virtually collapsed,” states an Indian economist.109 Restrictive governmental measures have, however, only slightly improved the general situation. Nearly all of Pakistan's financial and professional men were among the millions of Hindus who fled to India. In return, Pakistan got four to five million impoverished Moslem peasants from India, most of whom left their agricultural implements behind. Pakistan found itself with camps full of landless farmers and an almost complete lack of skilled technicians or businessmen. The majority of workers in Pakistan's Industrial Department were non-Moslem and opted for India. Necessary equipment and machines were not obtainable and the Department lost some of its best institutions in East Punjab. When Moslem workers in the East Punjab cottage, hosiery, handloom, carpet, blankets, foundry and engineering industries started to arrive in West Punjab, their resettlement presented tremendous difficulties because factories abandoned by Hindu industrialists were closed down and some of them needed heavy capital investments before they could be in working order again. There was also a shortage of building material, spare parts, pig iron, mild steel, tool steel, coke, coal, [39] chemicals, etc., which had always been imported into West Punjab.110 Despite all these obstacles, the West Punjab Government claims considerable progress in the “even and methodical rehabilitation” of the Moslem transferees. Official figures released in February 1948 indicated that more than 5,100,000 had already been rehabilitated in the sixteen districts of the West Punjab, in place of the Hindus and Sikhs who emigrated to the Dominion of India; while not more than 773,500 Moslem refugees were at that time still kept in camps awaiting settlement.111 Of 9,843 towns and villages vacated by Hindus and Sikhs, 8,925 were occupied by Moslem resettlers; 3,600,000 Moslems were settled in rural areas replacing 2,200,000 evacuated non-Moslems. The West Punjab Government assigned Rs 21.5 million (approximately $6,670,000) from August 15, 1947 to March 31, 1948 for loans to refugee agriculturists. Each refugee peasant was entitled to a loan up to Rs 400 for the purchase of cattle, agricultural implements, seeds and manure and for the construction of wells. The Government decided, as an experimental measure, to cultivate some blocks of crown land through direct tenants under governmental management; the produce will be shared on the threshing floor, except for cotton, all of which will be sold and the cash proceeds divided between the Government and the tenants. Consideration is also being given to a scheme of cooperative farming in the canal colonies of the West Punjab. About 1,600,000 Moslems have found employment in urban areas in place of 1,400,000 non-Moslems who left for India. Factories abandoned by Hindus were leased out to Moslem refugee industrialists and experts; simultaneously, the services of industrialists and public volunteers were enlisted to save the factories from further damage. Dumps were created to conserve the material available, and syndicates were entrusted with their management. Despite all these efforts, of 934 factories abandoned by non-Moslems only 56 had resumed work by February 1948.112 [40] 7. As far as East Punjab, on the one hand, and West Punjab, on the other, are concerned, the two-way Moslem and non-Moslem migration has actually effected a clear-cut sorting out of the rival communities. “The scarcest thing in Lahore is a Sikh or Hindu, while in Amritsar there was not a single Moslem fez to be seen,” reported the New York Times correspondent as early as August 21, 1947. Not more than 150 to 200 thousand Moslems have remained in the whole of East Punjab, where 5.3 million Moslems lived in 1941. The last insignificant remnants of the 3.6 million strong Hindu-Sikh minority in West Punjab were evacuated in the spring of 1948. Of 238,000 non-Moslems in the North Western Frontier Province only 48,500 remained by November 1, 1947; these were almost completely transferred to India during subsequent months. The total population of Hindus and Sikhs in the province of Sind was estimated at 1,400,000 at the time of partition. Of this number 1,177,000 had left Sind by June 30, 1948.113 This unprecedented exchange of minorities seems to bear the mark of finality. There have been, it is true, some authoritative statements to the contrary. In an article published in the Hindustan Times of September 29, 1947, Syed Ali Zaheer, United Provinces nationalist leader and former member of the Interim Government, insisted that “the transfer of populations must not only stop but must be undone if real peace is to be established.” On the other side of the barricade, it was the late Mahatma Gandhi who told the Hindu refugees in the Kurukshetra camp that he believed that they, as well as the Moslem refugees, must “all be reinstated and return with honor and safety from where they have been driven out.”114 But there is little probability that this policy of “undoing the transfer” will ever be implemented. The overwhelming majority of those who left their blood-drenched and fire-gutted cities and villages on both sides of the Hindu-Pakistan frontier can hardly return. [41] Nor will those who would attempt to do so be permitted by their former Governments to return. A convincing proof to this effect was offered by the Government of India in the spring of 1948 when, with relatively peaceful conditions restored, certain groups of Moslems who had fled to Pakistan in 1947 began to return to India. Nearly 52,000 Moslems had returned to India during April, May and June of 1948.115 This return movement created a complex problem. Property hastily and informally vacated by the fleeing Moslems during the fall and winter of 1947 had been taken over by “evacuee-property custodians” for allocation to Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan; settlement with the former owners was to be made later. The return of these owners threatened to upset these plans. The Government of India, therefore, promulgated an ordinance called “Influx From West Pakistan (Control) Ordinance 1948” which prohibits the entry of any person into India from any place in West Pakistan, whether directly or indirectly, unless he has in his possession a special permit. The Pakistan Government, in turn, tightened its border controls and declared that permits would be required of all persons wishing to enter Pakistan from India.116 The exchange of eleven million persons between India and Pakistan was anything but an organized and constructive movement conceived by the interested Governments and carried out in an “orderly and human manner,” to use the formula of the Potsdam Protocol. It was voluntary only in that the Governments of Pakistan and India had not officially ordered it. It was compulsory in that it was forced by mass slaughter and stark terror. The people involved were driven by fear, not by hope. The respective Governments originally tried to suppress the causes of this mass migration--communal strife, killings and arson--and, what is more, bitterly opposed the very idea of it. Later, confronted with irrepressible realities, they reluctantly accepted the new situation and endeavored to meet the most urgent needs of the migrants. The results of their endeavors may seem considerable when the newness of the Dominions is remembered, but as far as statesmanship and foresight is [42] concerned, their policy was that of “too late and too little.” They never even tried to make a virtue out of necessity and to convert the obviously unavoidable tragedy of mass flight into a state-directed device for at least partial solution of the minority problem in the most explosive sector of the Indian sub-continent. The transfers which went on have merely been tolerated, but never directed. No serious attempt has been made to legalize and channelize this two-way migration through inter-state agreements. Not only the immediate causes of the migration, but the migration as such was considered and treated as extra-legal. Both Governments persisted in futile efforts to induce the menaced populations to stay put, promising them security and protection, though they were manifestly unable to keep these promises. Had the fear-stricken masses heeded these appeals and renounced or postponed their flight, the number of victims would have been considerably higher. But, as B.R. Sen, charge d'affaires of the Indian Embassy in Washington, reluctantly admitted, although “both Governments believe the migrations are unnecessary and unwise . . . the decision is being made by the people themselves.”117 Huge as it was, the exchange of populations that took place in 1947 and partly in 1948 did not solve the perennial minority problems of India. Over eleven million people have been transferred, but there are still about thirty-five million Moslems in the Dominion of India and some thirteen million Hindus and Sikhs in the Dominion of Pakistan (almost exclusively in East Pakistan). Their eventual organized transfer is not even envisaged by the respective Governments. As late as March 24, 1948, the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan published a joint statement expressing “hope and trust that minority communities will remain in their homes . . . this is in the best interests of all concerned.” Nevertheless, “this does not mean,” the statement reluctantly conceded, “that the Governments intend to put any obstacles in the way of those who, of their own will, decide to migrate from one Dominion to the other.”118 A few weeks later, an agreement designed to reassure [43] the Hindu and Moslem minorities in East and West Bengal and to discourage mass migration between Pakistan and India was signed in Calcutta by the Governments of the two Dominions.119 The presence of these tens of millions belonging to minorities causes tension and increasingly poisons the relationship between the sister Dominions. The Moslems minority in India is subjected to strong pressure on the part of the Hindu leaders who demand that the Moslems abandon their separatist attitude and become loyal citizens of the Indian Union. United Provinces Premier, G. B. Pant, insistently urged Moslems of India to “leave off thinking in terms of Hindus and Moslems” and to liquidate the Moslem League. “If a secular democratic state is to be established,” he said, “communal organizations cannot be tolerated.” Emphasizing that the good will of the majority community is the ultimate safeguard for minorities, Mr. Pant said: “No Government can save minorities without the good-will of the majority community and that good-will cannot be created merely by paying lip homage to the work of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru.”120 Moslem leaders have repeatedly stressed their willingness to adapt themselves to a status of loyal minority. Mian Abdul Aziz, acting High Commissioner for Pakistan in India, declared on September 18, 1947: “So far as the Moslems in the Indian Union are concerned, they seriously and honestly intend to remain loyal citizens of the Union.”121 One month later, the Indian Government Education Minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, endorsed the demand for dissolution of the Moslem League and advised the Moslems “to cooperate with the Government wholeheartedly.”122 The Conference of West Bengal Moslems, which met in Calcutta on November 9, also urged Indian Moslems to dissociate themselves from the “Moslem League, to abjure the two nation theory, and unequivocally to affirm their faithful allegiance to India.123 The Moslem Calcutta daily, Morning News, wrote on January 11, 1948: “Indian Moslems have accepted the fact of India's partition, and their leaders have time and again said so, that they are citizens of India and owe true [44] allegiance to India and to none else. Those that cannot give the India Government such unconditional allegiance have migrated to Pakistan.” In spite of these and similar conciliatory declarations, the relationship between Hindus and Moslems remains strained. On the international arena, India and Pakistan accuse each other of oppressing their respective minorities and preaching or tolerating their extermination. In January, 1948, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Sir Mohammed Zafrullah Khan, officially charged the Government of India with “carrying out a program of genocide against Moslems” in more than twelve provinces of the Indian Union and asserted that “the freedom and religion of the Moslems of India was in serious danger.” India's representative in the United Nations, M. C. Setalvad, categorically denied these charges and stated that “large masses of the thirty-five million Moslems in the country were living in peace, undisturbed and unmolested;” he saw the root of Hindu-Moslem conflict in the “continual preaching of hatred of one community by Moslem leaders for a number of years.” Mr. Setalvad quoted several instances of “lawlessness, murder and massacre rampant even today in Western Punjab and Sind.”124 In April Pakistan's delegation in the United Nations repeated charges of genocide against India and insisted that a “deliberate scheme of the suppression of the Moslems not only in a cultural and religious sense but even in a physical sense has gone on in various forms in different parts of India . . . Unless speedy steps are taken the world is going to witness a tragedy of vast magnitude involving the lives of a whole community numbering thirty million.”125 Sir Percival Griffiths, who revisited India during the first winter of partition, told a joint meeting of the East India Association and the Overseas League on February 3, 1948, that “the presence of these large populations, each of which will be nervous about its position and will suspect tyranny even where there is none, will be a complication which will make relations between the two Dominions [45] extremely delicate.”126 Indeed, the mood of the minorities is increasingly bitter and frustrated. If the individual feels relatively secure, it is because he belongs to a community of his own, not because he is a citizen of India or Pakistan. Partition and the tragic events of August-December 1947 have left a deadly legacy of poisoned memories. The minority communities are apprehensive, and the majorities distrustful. Should further large-scale population transfers be considered impracticable, each Dominion will have to create among its population a still non-existing feeling of common statehood. The prevalent feeling that safety for the minority lies exclusively within its own group's horizon, must be overcome.
1. James C. De Wilde, The Shadow of the Sword, New York 1946, p. 142. In a presidential address delivered at the Allahabad session of the All-India Moslem League in December 1930, Dr. Sir Muhammed Iqbal said: “The units of Indian society are not territories as in European countries. India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages and professing different religions. Their behavior is not at all determined by a common race consciousness.” Quoted in K. L. Guaba, The Consequences of Pakistan, Lahore, 1946, p. 35. 2. S. K. Shastri, Deputy Director of the Indian Government's Information Services in Washington, claims that “90 per cent of the Moslems of India are converts from Hinduism” (letter to this author, dated March 6, 1948). 3. Robert Aura Smith, “Why India Fights India,” in Saturday Evening Post, December 6, 1947. 4. Quoted in William B. Ziff, The Gentlemen Talk of Peace, New York, 1944, p. 224. 5. See also: K. B. Krishna, The Problem of Minorities or Communal Representation in India, London 1939, Part I, Chapter 15: The Growth of the Moslem Professional Class (pp. 94-97). 7. Choudharry Rahmat Ali, The Millat and Its Mission, quoted in De Wilde, The Shadow of the Sword, p. 156. 8. New York Times, September 14, 1947. [46] 9. O. H. K. Spate, “The Partition of India and the Prospects of Pakistan” in The Geographical Review, January 1948, p. 10; O. H. K. Spate, “The Boundary Award in the Punjab” in The Asiatic Review. January 1948, p. 6. 10. For the full text of Sir Cyril Radcliffe's Report see Indian Information, Sept. 15, 1947. 11. Edmund Taylor, “India's Black Morning,” The New Republic, October 13, 1947. 12. Andrew Roth, “On the Sikh-Moslem Frontier,” The Nation, September 20, 1947. 13. New York Times, February 28, 1947. 14. Andrew Roth, op. cit. 15. New York Times, June 23, 24, 26, 1947. 16. Ibid., September 19, 1947. 17. Ibid., September 24, 1947. 18. Ibid., September 21, 1947. 19. Ibid., September 14, 1947. 20. Ibid., September 7, 1947. 21. Times, London, September 18, 1947. 22. Government of India Information Services, October 31, 1947. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Indian Minister of Health, however, stressed in a broadcast talk on October 18, 1947 that “even in all this horrid turmoil and time of tribulation that we have passed through and are still passing, there have been many instances where Hindus and Sikhs have sheltered Moslems and Moslems have saved Hindu and Sikh lives,” (Indian Information, November 15, 1947). 23. New York Times, October 10, 1947. 24. Ibid., October 12, 1947. 25. New York Herald Tribune, January 9, 1948. 26. Andrew Roth, op. cit. 27. New York Times, October 15, 1947. 28. Ibid., September 25, 30, 1947 29. Andrew Roth, op. cit. 30. New York Times, August 26, 1947 31. Ibid., September 4; October 8, 1947 32. Ibid., September 2, October 4, 1947 33. Ibid., October 17, 1947 34. Ibid., November 16, 1947 35. Ibid., December 7, 1947 [47] 36. Habib Ibrahim Rahmitoola, “The Ideals and Prospects of Pakistan” in The Asiatic Review, January 1948, p. 31 37. New York Herald Tribune, European edition, September 7, 1947 38. New York Times, October 26, 1947 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., September 17, 1947 41. Ibid., October 15, 1947 42. Statement of N. Gopalswami Ayyangar, Minister without Portfolio, in the Indian Constituent Assembly, November 29, 1947. Indian Information, January 1, 1948 43. The Asiatic Review, January 1948, pp. 28-30 44. New York Times, October 26, 1947 45. Ibid., December 4 and 7, 1947 46. The Asiatic Review, January 1948, pp. 28-30 47. New York Times, December 27, 1947 48. Government of India Information Services, February 5, 1948 49. Dawn (Karachi), March 1, 1948 50. Government of India Information Services, March 1, 1948 51. Ibid., August 18, 1948 52. New York Times, September 9, 1947 53. Some European observers took a very dark view of the health prospects of the migrating millions and predicted that many would not survive the winter. These predictions fortunately did not materialize. “It is my proud claim today,” Mr. Neogi, Indian Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation, stated on March 12, 1948, “that the mortality that has prevailed among the refugee population is not in some cases even as high as the normal mortality in cities and towns and rural areas having comparable population.” Indian Information, April 15, 1948. 54. Ibid., October 21, 1947--Earl Mountbatten, Governor General of the Dominion of India, took, it is true, a considerably more optimistic stand as regards the number of people killed in the course of the communal strife. According to his estimates, deaths resulting from massacre in India and Pakistan will be shown to amount to only a “fraction” of the figures thus far quoted. He did not, however, give any precise data to substantiate this statement. New York Times, November 15, 1947. 55. D. Ghosh, Pressure of Population and Economic Efficiency in India. p. 65. See also Gyan Chand, India's Teeming Millions. London 1938 56. New York Times, August 21, 1947 57. Ibid., September 9, 1947 58. Ibid. [48] 59. New York Herald Tribune, European Edition, August 24, 1947 60. New York Times, August 27, 1947 61. The author owes this information to Sidney Jackobson who authorised him to publish it. 62. New York Times, September 16, 1947 63. Ibid., September 19, 1947 64. Indian Information, November 1, 1947 65. New York Times, October 16, 1947. 66. India Today, May 19, 1947. 67. New York Times, October 6, 1947. 68. Ibid., December 4, 1947. 69. Ibid., September 14, 1947. 70. Times, London, August 28, 1947. ERROR IN TEXT: FOOTNOTE 71 SKIPPED 72. Indian Information, November 1, 1947. 73. New York Herald Tribune, European edition, September 4, 1947. 74. The Asiatic Review, April 1948, p. 124. 75. Indian Information, January 1, 1948. 76. Ibid., April 15, 1948. 77. Government of India Information Services, June 2, 1948. 78. Indian Information, September 1, 1947. 79. Ibid., January 1, 1948. 80. Millions on the Move, published by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, Delhi, 1948, p. 46. 81. Indian Information, October 15, 1947. 82. Ibid., December 1, 1947. 83. Bismal Chandra Sinha, “Economic Relationship between India and Pakistan,” in The Modern Review, February 1948, p. 108. 84. Indian Information, February 1, 1948. 85. Ibid., March 15, 1948. 86. Government of India Information Services, August 31, 1948. 87. Indian Information, January 1, 1948. 88. Ibid., February 1, 1948. 89. Ibid., January 1, 1948. 90. Ibid., April 15, 1948. 91. Millions on the Move, p. 25. 92. Ibid., pp. 26-27 93. Ibid., pp. 25-28 [49] 94. Mr. Neogi's statement in the Indian Constituent Assembly on Nov. 29, 1947. Indian Information, January 1, 1948 95. Ibid., January 15, 1948. 96. Ibid., April 15, 1948 97. Ibid., January 1, 1948. 98. Government of India Information Services, March 1, 1948 99. India Today, April 1948 100. Millions on the Move, pp. 73-74 101. Government of India Information Services, August 18, 1948 102. Margaret Parton, “India's Great Migration” in New York Herald Tribune. December 13, 1947 103. New York Times, August 8, 1948 104. This, of course, is incorrect. The Refugee Settlement Commission set up by the League of Nations functioned from November 1923 to January 1931. See Joseph B. Schechtman, European Population Transfers 1939-1945, New York, 1946, pp. 19-20 105. Indian Information, April 15, 1948. 106. The following advertisement, placed by a well-known Punjab bank, appeared in a Lahore paper: “The management of the . . . bank regrets the inconvenience caused to their patrons on account of the non-functioning of the branches in West Punjab for reasons beyond their control. The bank is making every endeavor to resume functioning as soon as possible. The Hindu and Sikh staff of the bank being afraid to serve in Pakistan, resumption of service can only begin after Moslem staff has been recruited and properly trained. For this purpose a few of our Hindu officers are staying on in Pakistan during the training period of the new staff. Such officers should receive the full and sympathetic cooperation of the public to enable them to train Moslem personnel. In case of any hardship or rough handling of such Hindu officers of the bank, it may become difficult for the bank to re-start functioning in Pakistan.”--Quoted in The Modern Review, January, 1948 107. New York Times, October 13, 1948 108. Ibid. 109. Bismal Chandra Sinha, “Economic Relationship between India and Pakistan,” in The Modern Review, February, 1948, p. 108 110. Dawn, March 1, 1948 111. In striking contradiction to this encouraging statement, the Pakistan Government announced six months later that about 2,500,000 refugees were still not settled. New York Times, August 28, 1948 [50] 112. New York Times, February 27, 1948; Dawn, March 1948 113. Millions on the Move, pp. 68-70; Indian Information, December 15, 1947. Government of India Information Services, August 18, 1948 114. Indian Information, December 1, 1947 115 Government of India Information Services, August 23, 1948 116 India Today, September 1948; New York Times, September 24, 1948 117. New York Times, September 24, 1947 118. Pakistan News (published by the Information Department, Government of Pakistan), No. 13 (period 24-30 March, 1948) 119. New York Times, April 20, 1948 120. Government of India Information Services, November 17, 1947 121. Ibid., September 24, 1947 122. Ibid., October 28, 1947 123. Ibid., November 17, 1947 124. New York Times, January 17 and 24, 1948; Indian Information, February 15, 1948 125. New York Times, April 15, 1948 126. Sir Percival Griffiths, “India Revisited: The First Winter of Partition,” in The Asiatic Review, April, 1948, p. 142. 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