Post Partitioned India – An opinion
As we aware that , the partition of India was cut through the living body of whole communities, leading to untold death and misery and behind it was the interests of country’s most privileged elite especially Jawahar lal Nehru, Jinnah and Mohan Dass Karamchand Gandhi, which had least respect for the life and property of a common man. The selfish ambitions of these leaders to earn international recognition, led to denial of justice to a common man.
During 1942, Mr Gandhi had even gone to the extent saying that “Leave India to God. If that is too much, then leave her to anarchy.” Probably many politicians of post partitioned India, have also tried to follow the same principle of anarchism and have gained political mileage with this infamous Gandhi mantra.
I understand recently Mr Pulitzer Prize wrote a book namely Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India’ and the book was banned as this book, based on somel evidences, had highlighted a homosexual relationship between Mahatma Gandhi and his close friend Hermann Kallenbach. As our political leadership felt that it had hurt the sentiments of those with capacity for sane and logical thinking. While most of the members of Authors fraternity had rightly termed this decision of GOI, as ‘shameful. There was another article in Britains daily mail with a headline: “Gandhi left his wife to live with a male lover’ – A new book claims”. The Mumbai Mirror also ran a story on this subject. The irony is that during the same period when congress leadership supported gay rights under section 377 of constitution of India. Presumably they wanted to convey a message to international community that our political leadership justified all right or wrong actions of Mr Mohan das Karamchand Gandhi.
There are two ways to look at this situation
1. Mr Pulitzer Prize was right in his statement – And if he was right then the book should not have been banned. People of India had the right to know that the Father of their nation was not a complete Man or a Woman. This case People should be given a right to select a taller personality as Father of their Nation for example Subhash Chander Bose, Bhagat Singh, Lajpatrai etc
2. Mr Pulitzer Prize was wrong – Government of India must take him to international court of justice and provide sufficient evidences to prove their claims.
Mr Narender Modi said Lelyveld should apologise publicly for “hurting the sentiments of millions of people. It is pertinent to mention here that Gandhi’s correspondence with Kallenbach was available in a library for several decades and this was no secret. If all these years if there was no word of protest then how could a simple book hurt the sentiments of millions of people for a political leader, who was not only instrumental in partition of india but had also became a reason for cold blooded massacre of millions of hindus due his stubbornness.
Second world war had led to massive losses of life and resources and the colonial powers had become very weak, consequent to the war. The British imperialists were in a hurry to leave India as this was not economically viable to them to continue holding power & occupying aliens territories.
The Partition of British India in 1947, which created the two independent states of India and Pakistan, was followed by one of the cruelest and bloodiest migrations/ethnic cleansings in the history of India. The religious fury and violence that it unleashed caused the deaths of some two million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. An estimated 12 to 15 million people were forcibly transferred, between the two countries. At least 75,000 women were raped.
Who was morally responsible for this massive blood shed. Of course none of these leaders came forward to take this responsibility and heal wounds of millions of partition survivors, who were brought to the streets by the then political leadership of India. Though the British imperialists separated the continent into a Hindu and a Muslim state. This was done with the aid of the political competition between the two main political parties-The Indian Congress and The Muslim League, but the grievance of a common man was that why the political leadership of these political parties was insensitive to the safety of people and let the anarchism become order of the day after British transferred power to them.
It is pertinent to mention here that the uprooted people from their respective nations, witnessed injudicious & inhuman treatment at their new places Be it job opportunities, promotions or any other business opportunity. I understand there were some north indian states, which who had even thrown out the so called refugees ie migrated people, who were already in government jobs by some or other reasons. The political leadership of these states ie blue eyed boys of jinnahs and nehrus, were diseased with the infection of castism and regionalism and had no soft corner for these uprooted people. Instead of resettling these communities, they further partitioned states based on language, based on ethnicity etc etc during thee post partitioned period. The corrupt leadership of post partitioned india, adopted several means to gain political mileage and had even gone to the extent in designing a constitution accordingly for the country to gain political mileage and reserved several opportunities for particular cast and creed.
Post partition India witnessed government jobs being reserved growth of some communities restricted. What could an average refugee expect from such a system. This system made several billionaires and powerful people having no educational or any standings. Billionairs were made by allocating lands, excusing state taxation, disbursing tax payers money to some people, allocating mineral resources, allowing imports without taxation to some people, Giving loans without interest etc etc etc. In short free hand was given to some people, some communities. The clever leadership created a complex justice system so that any individual, who knocks the doors of courts for seeking justice may have to spend half of his life for only this purpose. This system subjected a common man to extensive miseries. The social injustices led to deterioration of once highly civilized society of india. Rape, Murders, Dacoity, thefts etc had become order of the day.
As far as defending borders of the nation was concerned the corrupt leadership was never ready to learn lessons from Gandhis doctrine of Ahinsa and designed its foreign policy based on infamous punch sheel given by Mr Nehru.
Neighboring nations took full advantage of the passive resistance due our Punch sheel policy ie a knee jerk foreign policy which only a weak nation could offer. India was unable & was unwilling to offer any armed resistance to a neighboring nation, during early sixties as its back bone was already damaged.
Under the stewardship of most corrupt leadership of the times, a nexus between criminal and politician was made. There were several incidents of crimes every day, but no criminals could be booked, due their political connections. Crime like any other disease was nourished by prevalent socio political system of the post partitioned india. All crimes like Murder Rape etc some forms of this disease became part of the system . Spread of this contiguous disease spread to our society and a common man was a silent witnesses. Major cause of spread of this disease was lack of concern by the the political leadership, which was dependant on money and muscle power for winning elections. Subsequently a system developed wherein those candidates who combined the cocktail of politics, criminality and crores had a higher chance of re-contesting, they also had a better record of winning elections than honest candidates with clean records. .
As a result last several decades, we witnessed highest number of politicians with criminal records being elected to the Indian parliament. I understand, As per some survey of records, every third newly elected MP in the Indian parliament had a criminal record. The attitudes displayed in film India’s Daughter by the rapist, the lawyer and some other people is the reflection of the existing socio political system, which we have inherited from post partitioned indian leadership. Recent incident of Naga land mob fury reflects people’s anger towards the crimes against women. The socio political system and abuse of power by the mighty during last few decades has created such unsafe conditions for women all over India. The political system was least bothered about the welfare of working class like farmers, laboureres industrial workers etc and every day there. We could hear news of some people from this class dying due suicide, starvation etc etc. and our legal system was handicaph situations ~ Cdr (Retired) Alok Mohan
