Transference of power from the British Crown to an India Government was not as smooth as most of us had dreamed for decades. Most citizens made one major assumptions - India was a single geographical entity as ruled by the British Crown since 1757. Sure there were many religions, races, sects, creeds, languages, and colors. Most of our famous political leaders wanted India to remain as a single cultural and a political unit for the simple reason that all of its people came out of the same racial mix. The alternative would be to divide the subcontinent into hundreds of little countries based on religion, language and race. At least this was the platform for India's most successful Indian National Congress party, which had been fighting for full independence from Great Britain for many decades under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Maulana Abdul Kalam, Baldev Singh and Raja Gopalachari. They presented several historical examples such as Canada where two linguistic (English and French) and religious (Protestants and Catholic) groups had been living together as one nation, Switzerland where three (French, German and Italian) major linguistic and cultural groups have been united as one nation and of course the United States of America - the greatest melting pot for world's religions, languages, races and cultures under one nation.

However, the assumptions of the Indian National Congress party began to fall apart ever since the All India Muslim League party was founded in 1906 to preserve three principles 1. to maintain loyalty to the British rule, 2. to protect and advance the political rights of Musalmans of India and 3. to prevent the rise among the Musalmans of India of any ill feelings towards other communities. The real hidden objective was to oppose any form of social or political unity among Hindus and Musalmans (or Moslems) of India at all cost. The published and drummed up principals played into the hands of the British rulers who were afraid of the Hindu majority. Hindus (some of them quite violent) wanted the British rules to leave India immediately. Moslems being the second largest population segment became their loyal servants. The British rulers (both in London and New Delhi) began to drive the wedge between the two communities on a wider scale as time progressed. The third principle of Moslem League's manifesto was probably the cleverest of them all. It placated the Hindus and other non-Moslems into a slumber from which they never woke until only a few months before the creation of Pakistan. It is suffice to say that the Moslems of India began to enjoy many political and economic rights beyond what was naturally due.

The idea of Pakistan got an unexpected boost from a great poet, philosopher and political thinker. His name was Mohammed Iqbal (1873-1938) who presided over the annual session of Moslem League at Allahabad in 1930 and where he elucidated the concept of Pakistan as a geographical territory where Moslems were in majority then and where Moslems can create a social structure regulated by a Quranic legal system and animated by an Islamic ethical ideal. Although Iqbal admitted that Islam was non-territorial in character and that the idea of brotherhood applied only to the faithful Moslems, he insisted that Pakistan must be created to help the Moslems survive and prevent Hindu supremacy until the entire world is converted to Islam . In his mind, Hindus and Moslems were two separate nations within India. He dismissed the argument that creation of Pakistan would encourage other minority groups such as Sikhs, Christians, Unscheduled Class ( or Untouchables), and Jains to also demand separate national territories for the survival of their cultures from the powerful clutches of a Hindu majority. To him, Muslims of India represented the largest minority and a distinct culture totally different from that of the others. He lumped all other minorities of India as those ascribing to the principles of a non-Islamic idea of secular democracy. The brilliant minds of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru and other contemporary Congress Partyleaders never comprehended ideas and ideals of Iqbal. The history is replete with their contradictory statements; one day they would pledge to make any sacrifice to make the Moslems happy, another days they would state that they would ascribe only to a one nation theory and each time, they strengthened the hands of Moslem League party. For their ignorance, India and its people paid a terrible price during 1947.

Moslem League party was now under the leadership of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. He was not only a brilliant England-educated lawyer but also politically very astute. He had mastered the ideas and ideals of Iqbal and he used that knowledge with such a surgical precision that many call him the actual father of the "Two Nation" theory. He was also a realist. He knew of a Congress Party provincial government in North Western Frontier Province and a Congress-led party in Kashmir. The ruling parties were led by two popular Moslems leaders who admired Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru and also refuted the Two-Nation theory of Jinnah. Jinnah was also disappointed by the election of the Labor party just after WWII and by their recent sending of their last Viceroy in the person of Lord Mountbatton. He could no longer get the help of the old Conservative Party of Winston Churchill who had once declared that India would never be allowed to become independent and thus allow the sun to set on the British Empire. The Labor Party leaders had now come to realize that the ideas of Iqbal had become too entrenched with the Moslems of the North West territories and that Jinnah was too clever and stubborn to get any cooperation on the creation of one nation. The Labor party and the new Viceroy quickly reached a decision to partition the Indian Subcontinent into India and Pakistan but with some provisos; certain districts of Punjab, Bengal and Assam that are predominently non-Moslem would be allowed to join India and all princely states would have the freedom to accede to either Pakistan or India. Other provinces such as the NWFP where Congress party ruled will be allowed to have elections to decide whether to join Pakistan.

To demonstrate his disagreement with the new policies of subdividing the various provinces, Jinnah declared a Direct Action movement for all Moslems of India. Soon thereafter, riots engulfed all regions of India. Strikes, processions and fiery speeches became the order of the day. Schools and colleges were closed. Other provincial governments were unable to prevent widespread killings and injuries everywhere. The third principle of Moslem League that had promised goodwill to other communities was completely forgotten. The provincial government of NWFP fell. There was a complete chaos everywhere. Moslems of Jullundur were confident that Jullundur will go to Pakistan. Many Moslems believed that the entire province of Punjab will go to Pakistan. The Hindus of Punjab were scared stiff. After all they owned most of the businesses, real estate and wealth. The Sikhs were afraid of their very existence if the entire province of Punjab went to Pakistan. All of their holy places and shrines were located in Punjab. Although I was also scared, I did not show it since I was spending countless hours listening to all the radio stations for any clues and instant analyses.

The All India National Congress party finally caved in and accepted the idea of two nations to avoid wholesale bloodshed. Jinnah succeeded in convincing everyone of the Two Nation theory. Reality finally set in. These developments forced Lord Mountbatten to set the date of June 3, 1947 for a speech over All India Radio in which the exact boundaries of the two nations will be defined and how the resources of existing subcontinent would be divided. Since I was one of the few in kucha who owned a radio, scores of our Hindu neighbors converged to the vicinity of our home and its courtyards in much anticipation. It was rather strange to observe Hindus and Sikhs walking around with only superficial concern. It was almost tragic to see faint smiles on their faces. The gravity of the moment made me finally white with fear. I knew that if Jullunder went to Pakistan, the entire non-Moslem population (almost 60 percent) of the city might be massacred. I studied the faces of my neighbors. I found them soaked in fatalism. I constantly heard "Whatever God wants, God gets." Some told me that Hindus of Punjab had survived the onslaughts of Genghis Khan, terrible Huns, Moslem invaders from Middle East, seven hundred years of Moslem rules and two hundred years of British rule. They added, " We shall survive the future." That inborn resiliency was written all over their faces; their faces tried to says that human life is more powerful than all ideas combined.

I tried to be a good host to my neighbors. I turned up the volume of my radio so loud that even the veiled ladies and lazy people in close proximity could hear the electronic voice. The broadcast finally arrived. It was not long before that we found Jullundur, the holy city of Amritsar and my ancestral villages all went to India. There was some shock when we learned that Lahore went to Pakistan but second thoughts about justice towards Pakistan cured me of that violent feelings.

I had barely translated Lord Mountbatten's speech to non-speaking neighbors when fanatic Hindus and Sikhs began rounding up all able bodied men and weapons of all kinds. They even approached my father to lend them his young sons for a holy cause. He politely dismissed them. At about 10 P.M. scores of fires broke out in the Moslem sections of the city. The town seemed more brilliantly lit than on Dewali ( the Hindu festival of lights). An hour later gunfire was heard all around. I ran upstairs to the flat roof to survey the situation. I noticed an increasing amount of shooting from the adjacent kucha where about five thousand Moslems lived. Shortly afterwards, I heard the cries of women pleading for the lives of their children. After an hour there was complete silence. Not even cries of children. The innocent people of that kucha had all been put to death.

All through the night more fires and more killings went on. The Hindus were getting even with those Moslems who had participated in the Direct Action movement of Jinnah during prior months. Now the authorities were on the side of non-Moslems. Many fortunate Moslems were lucky enough to hastily leave their homes to take shelter in a well-protected park and avoid the Hindu mobs. When morning came, wholesale looting started. Even respectable and law-abiding citizens could not resist the temptation. Anarchy was the rule of the next few days until the local authorities were able to enforce law and order.

I spent the following days reflecting upon the radio news bulletins. Most of the news dealt with wholesale murders taking place on both sides of the border - in India and Pakistan. One day news of mass murder of Hindu caravans traveling by bus and train will be broadcast. The next day, similar atrocities would be committed on the Indian side in revenge. And the news would be broadcast on the radio. And this went on for several days and weeks with the full knowledge of local police and indifference of the military forces. The unruly citizens of both countries had their fill of madness, rape, killing and sadism. In one Pakistani town, scores of young Hindu girls had their breasts cut off, then got paraded in the town and finally placed in local brothels. When the madness was finally over, a million innocent people had lost their lives and millions more were maimed. And let us not also forget that twelve million souls lost their ancestral homes and had to cross the borders to get resettled. There is no event in human history that compares to such a combination of bloodshed and forcible migration. It is a shame that this event is still being ignored by all the historians of the world.

I sincerely felt that the Congress party and the British government had completely failed their lofty principles. They fell victim to expediency. Had they both stood fast for secular democracy, and central power, even Jinnah's threatened civil war could not have succeeded in causing the complete breakdown of law and order that followed the division. Had they not yielded their moral ground, some semblance of federal government would have survived and forced the sane elements of both religious communities to iron out their real differences, including the creation of Pakistan under a Federal Rule. I cannot blame Jinnah very much. He was just doing his duty protecting the interests of the largest minority whose needs were never understood by the majority and who were manipulated by the British rulers for extending their stay in the subcontinent. I also firmly believe that had British not encouraged Moslem League and had left India just after WWI, Hindus and Moslems would have lived together peacefully under one nation. Instead, the British created another Ulster in the subcontinent, followed by the one of the most vicious bloodbath and the biggest migration in human history, with no hope of widespread peace and prosperity for a long time to come.