Introduction
My World, Your World, India in a New World is my first paper about India. In it, I examine India when the British colonize it, Prime Minister Nehru’s plans for India after partition, and the novel Clear Light of Day; about a family living through Indian Partition. The essay follows along with Devutt Pattanaik’s Ted Talk about India.
My World, Your World, India in a New World
HR: Sources Cited, Group Critique with Cadet Womack and Rat Cyr, Bibme.org
Section 1: The World
In 1497, a young Portuguese captain, Vasco de Gama, lead three ships on the first journey from Europe to India. When they saw land in India in 1498, the sub-continent changed forever. While most European countries had holds in India, trading for the highly valued teas, spices, and cotton grown there, none was more influential than the British. From 1757 until 1947, India was the “Jewel of the British Empire”.
By 1947, Britain could no longer hold onto India, and granted her independence. Europe had been ravaged by the second world war, and was broke. Large protests lead by Mahatmas Gandhi had diminished the economic value of India. Indian independence came about the same year, but it didn’t end there. India has a sizable Muslim population who were concerned that they would be underrepresented in parliament. After much debate, India was split, and Pakistan emerged separate. Partition was what it was called.
Not only did partition divide a nation, it was the largest mass migration in human history. It resulted in sixteen million refugees, and left and left over two million people dead. Sir Cyril Radcliffe established the Radcliffe line, the new border. Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh were moved across the line into India, and Muslims in India were sent across to Pakistan and Bangladesh. “The violence of Partition seemed to him like a “virus” which infected people at that time” said Ajit Singh, recounting partition. Ethnic violence had consumed the sub-continent. As people moved by train, they were attacked. Trains arriving at stations full of dead bodies was not an uncommon sight to witnesses of partition. Through the confusion, many families could not find each other. Brigadier Dewan Chand Duggal was stationed with the Army in Hong Kong when violence erupted. His family had fled Pakistan into India. He spent days trying to find his family, who were well liked in Pakistan before partition. Many of the witnesses of partition remember the time with shock of the scale of the violence, and question how it could ever have happened.
Part 2: My World
On August 14, 1947, the eve of Indian Independence, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave as speech about the future of their country. Dubbed A Tryst with Destiny, it was an outline for India moving into a new age, using the past as a prologue. Using metaphors and creating images, Nehru’s speech was an instant success.
One of the first great metaphors in a Tryst with Destiny is “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to a life of
freedom”. When Nehru says, “At the stroke of the midnight hour”, he is creating an image for his audience, for me, I picture a clock, and as the hands strike midnight, I can see the rest of his metaphor coming to fruition. The second part is about the world sleeping, and in 1947 it was. London had been destroyed after the most deviating war to rock the world. The massive Japanese empire was gone, and Europe laid in ruins. In the few years following World War 2, the world was focused on rebui
lding what it had had before the war. India was not. India was rebuilding itself from hundreds of years of occupation. And at that midnight hour, August 15, 1947, India would be independent, no longer having foreign powers controlling her. When the people of India wake up on August 15, they would be free.
“We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell”, said Nehru. In India there is more to divide people than to bring them together. The disputes of Hinduism and Islam had literally divided India earlier that year. there was still a huge divide in the population between the rich and poor, who spoke what language, and people’s castes. Nehru believed if India were to prosper, people would have to compromise and get past their petty differences. He could have said that India was to be people’s home, but he didn’t. He said mansion, the biggest of houses, the dwellings of those with wealth and success. He could have told his people that they are free and they would be just another country, but he said they would become the wealthiest and most successful country with their new-found self-determination. That last sentence of his speech was his plan for India.
Nehru, in giving a speech to parliament, created a picture of the new India. Through metaphors and imagery made people picture the future- their future. Even in two sentences could show people that India was on a path of success, and while the world rebuilds from the Second World War, India would create a new free land for everyone to succeed.
Part 3: Clear Light of Day
The novel Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai is one about a family around the time of partition, sit in Old Delhi. While it is about the struggles of an Indian family facing turmoil in their country, and turmoil in their country, it is too a metaphor for India and partition. Stories of characters Raja, Hyder Ali, and Tara are much like those of average people during the partition of India. Even quotes from the characters relate to the ideas of Nehru for the future of India.
Partition in India was caused in part by massive ethnic conflict. Like the Civil War in the United States, neighbor turned on neighbor. But unlike India, the United Stated healed. Recent fighting in the Kashmir shows the divide between Hindus and Muslims is still there. In the novel Clear Light of Day, neighbors who were on good terms witnessed what Partition had done to them. The character Raja was good friends with his neighbor Hyder Ali, and Raja was interested in Islamic culture. He wen as far as to apply to an Islamic university, to dismay of his father. “’Who will do that to you? Muslims, for trying to join them when they don’t want you and don’t trust you, and Hindus, for deserting them and going over to the enemy. Hindus and Muslims alike will be out for your blood. It isn’t safe, Raja, it isn’t safe, son'”, said his father. Back then, the mob mentality ran what was once rational decision making by individuals. People believed in an “us versus them” attitude towards partition. Many Muslims, led by Muhammed Ali Jinnah believed that if they didn’t have equal representation, they would face discrimination. Conversely, many Hindus were afraid of minority rule, as Muslims constituted less than twenty percent of the Indian population. The partition archives even show stories like Hyder Ali’s, families who were close to their neighbors but were forced to flee violence. Santosh Bhagotra lived in Kashmir. Though she was a Hindu living in a predominantly Muslim area, she was close with the community. When partition happened, “It feels like I am making all this up, it seems so unreal,” she said. Her family, who celebrated festivals with their neighbors and donated to the poor were uprooted in the face of violence. On the eve of independence, Nehru said that “Before the birth of freedom we have endured all of the pains of labor and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow.”
In Clear Light of Day, “She wanted to ask for forgiveness and understanding, not simply forgetfulness and incomprehension”. This quote is the belief of many Indians, Pakistanis, and Bengalis. Though the quote is about Tara running from her sister instead helping her fend off a swarm of bees, many people during partition did nothing when their neighbors were fearing for their lives. Some did help others, like Ms. Bhagotra, whose neighbors warned her of impending mobs and helped her family flee to safety. Edmund Burke famously said “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. Tara believes that if she did something to help her sister, she would not have been stung, though Tara might have. The same could have been said for partition. Maybe if more people were like Ms. Bhagotra’s neighbors, the widespread violence would have been prevented. Had people done something to protect those fleeing their homes, trains full of dead bodies arriving at stations across India would not have. When Nehru gave the Tryst with Destiny speech, he said that “This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill will or blaming others”. Moving forward, people would have to be like Tara and her sister, they would need forgiveness and understanding. If Hindus and Muslims were to continue how they were, things would be the same, widespread killings. Not just the conflict in Kashmir. There, both sides were never given the chance to reconcile, and violence continues.
During Partition, neighbor was pit against neighbor in an “us versus them” conflict. Raja, who wanted to study Islamic Culture could have been killed by both Hindus and Muslims for being against both sides. But there are people like Tara, who in hindsight wishes she did more to protect her sister from a swarm of bees, like how some Muslims protected their Hindu neighbors from mobs. India is still healing seventy years later. Some people wish for peace and understanding, while others don’t. “One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments”, said Nehru.
Sources Cited:
“Colonial Map of India.” WikiMedia, Wikipedia, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_settlements_in_India_1501-1739.png.
Desai, Anita. Clear light of day. Vintage Books, 2007.
“Give voice to untold stories.” Www.1947partitionarchive.Org |, 1947 Partition Archives, www.1947partitionarchive.org/.
“History of India.” History Of India – Indian History – India History – Brief History Of India, www.culturalindia.net/indian-history/.
“Indian independence movement.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Oct. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_independence_movement.
“Jawaharlal Nehru.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Oct. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru.
Nehru, Jawaharalal. “Tryst with Destiny.” Indian Parliament. 14 Aug. 1947, New Delhi.
“Partition of India.” Syskool, syskool.com/partition-of-india-1947-a-tale-of-turmoil/.
“Statues of Jawaharlal Nehru.” Jagran, Jagran.com, post.jagran.com/search/statues-of-jawaharlal-nehru.
Modern Language Association 8th edition formatting by BibMe.org.