2017 and History

Another year has passed, 2017 has come to a close, and we wait to see what 2018 holds. 2017, however, has seen the anniversaries of several important historical events, and many other events which can be explained through history. For 2017's final blog post I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at historical anniversaries and some of 2017's headlines to see how they fit in world history. Due to the amount of things which have happened over the last year I cannot talk about everything and I'll only talk of events which I feel that I can (somewhat) accurately explain. As my specialty are the nineteenth and twentieth centuries most of what I'll discuss will be from these two centuries.

The Reformation 500 Years On

Luther and the Reformation

The first event which we're going to look at is the Reformation. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther supposedly nailed his criticisms of the practices of the Catholic Church - his 95 theses - on the door of the Wittenberg Church - although it is far likelier that he sent them to prominent bishops and theologians. This started the split between the Western Christian church between Catholics and Protestants. A detailed look at the Reformation can be found in one of my recent blog posts here. Luther was not the only critic of the Church to emerge. In Switzerland Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin emerged, in England Henry VIII formed his own movement when the pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and across Europe people sided with either the pope or the reformers. Despite how long ago the Reformation was it still greatly shapes the world we live in. For example, several historians have argued that the Wars of Religion helped lay the groundwork for secularization. The many wars, (such as the Thirty Years War, 1618-48, and the French Wars of Religion, 1562-98), forced a compromise between the warring factions. Limited religious tolerance was offered in the peace treaties which ended the wars; although of course it was only tolerance for the religious sects which fought one another, some of the worst persecution of Jews until the Second World War in Western and Central Europe occurred during the Wars of Religion. In Britain the wars resulted in the strengthening of the parliament, first with Cromwell's rule and later with the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688/9. In many areas of Europe, and the world, the Catholic/Protestant divide is still very prevalent and shapes thought. For example, Northern Irish politics is extremely divided on sectarian lines with the DUP - who are currently in coalition with the Conservative party - running on a very strict Protestant platform. 

India's Two Anniversaries

India witnessed two traumatic anniversaries this year which greatly influenced the forming of today's India. The first was the 1857 Indian Rebellion - although you may also see it referred to as the First War of Indian Independence, Indian Mutiny, the Indian Uprising, or Great Rebellion. For years resentment towards British, and the East India Company which was ruling India. 1857 the resentment spilled over. The East India Company (and Britain) had been using Indians in the army and had introduced a new rifle, the Enfield, which required the user to bite a greased cartridge. A rumor abounded that beef and pork fat were being used which led to many Indian soldiers to refuse to use the rifle. As a result on May 9 the commanding officer of the Third Bengal Light Cavalry in Meerut sentenced 85 troopers to ten years' hard labor and publicly humiliated them. This caused a widespread rebellion from Indian soldiers in Northern India which spread to the Indian masses. Some soldiers around Delhi declared the aged Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah, emperor of all of India. Indian soldiers massacred British citizens when they took towns, cities, and barricades which enraged British troops who committed bloody atrocities against Indians in revenge. By November 1, 1858 the rebellion had been put down costing the lives of up to 806,000 through massacres, battles, disease and famine. Despite early victories the rebellion was defeated for several reasons. The East India Company had three armies - the Bombay, Madras and Bengal - and only the Bengal army mutinied. In fact, some parts of the Bombay and Madras armies were used to fight the rebels. As the Bengal army had helped conquer a Sikh princely state Sikhs were widely used to put down the rebellion in the Punjab. The 1857 Rebellion was only confined to northern India, but if it had happened across India there was a strong possibility that British rule could have ended in India. The rebels were also very divided. When soldiers declared that Bahadur Shah's power had been restored this deterred Hindus, Christians and Sikhs from supporting the rebellion, (the Mughals were a Muslim power). With a divided rebellion it prevented it from being a success. Following the Uprising Indian-British relations were changed. The brutal crushing of the rebellion greatly soured relations and it remained prevalent in imperial (and indigenous) records for the following century. The East India Company was dissolved, Victoria made Empress, the three armies were merged into one, and Indians were declared subjects. Declaring Indians subjects also raised questions for many Indians. Many asked, if we are subjects why do we lack the same rights as the British? Indian nationalism would grow exponentially after 1857.

Refugees after Partition

This brings us to the second anniversary: the Partition of India. Britain continued with the East India Company's policy of divide-and-rule which set different ethnicities, religions and castes against one another instead of creating a united force against the British. More can be found about on my post on Partition here so I shall try and give a brief summary. Thanks to divide-and-rule policies different religions formed their own nationalist, or reform, movements. Two which emerged were the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. Mohandas Gandhi became involved with Congress and turned it into a mass movement attracting millions of supporters. Slowly the movements managed to obtain limited constitutional reforms from the British. However, due to Hindu domination of Congress (something accidentally caused by Gandhi) many Muslims feared Hindu domination in a post-independence India, including Muhammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League. In 1933 nationalist Choudhry Rahmat Ali coined the name Pakistan and Muslim activists championed this idea. Until recently it had been believed that Jinnah drove a wedge between Muslims and Hindus leading to Partition, but recent historiography, such as by Ayesha Jalal, has argued that it was a desperate attempt to get compensation out of Congress. Following the Second World War British rule in India collapsed so Britain opted to haphazardly divide India using out of date maps and censuses in August 1947. This left millions of people trapped on the wrong side of the border. A refugee crises emerged as massacres and rapes took place in an attempt to ensure areas were part of India or Pakistan. Around 2% of India's population remained refugees in 1951. This division has drastically shaped the Indian subcontinent since 1947.

Israel/Palestine

On December 6 Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, something which has been vetoed by the UN, causing another wave of protests across Palestine and the world. This came a month after the centenary of the Balfour Declaration which was signed by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. This can largely be seen as the event which set the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into motion. During the late-nineteenth century nationalism was widespread across Europe and the Middle East. Discrimination of Jews was prevalent across Europe so Jewish intellectuals, primarily in Central and Eastern Europe, thought of an idea called Zionism. If Jews were to stop being persecution they needed their own homeland, and that they had a homeland before but had been expelled by the Romans. They wanted to reform Israel (as a republic not a kingdom) in Palestine. They also assumed that the Arabs would accept them being a fellow Semitic people, and that they would want 'civilizing' by Europeans (Social Darwinism was very prevalent in the 1800s). Especially thanks to the intense antisemitism of the Dreyfus Affair - where a blatantly innocent French Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully convicted of being a German spy - support for Zionism grew. At this early stage the proposed Israel was meant to be a state for Jews - the Balfour Declaration even uses the phrase 'national homeland for the Jews' - not a Jewish state. In 1917 Arthur Balfour declared that Britain would help form a Zionist state despite opposition from Palestinians, non-Zionist Jews, and the fact that Britain had already promised Palestine to Hussein bin Ali to be part of the pan-Arab state. Palestine was declared a British mandate and Britain implemented divide-and-rule policies in the region. Eventually, in 1948 two states were meant to be formed: Israel and Palestine. In the first Arab-Israeli War - sometimes called the Israeli War of Independence or the Nakba - saw Palestine divided between its neighbors. Following the 1967 Six Day War Israel annexed the West Bank and Jerusalem. For political reasons it was largely agreed to recognize Tel Aviv as Israel's capital and Ramallah as Palestine's, or West Jerusalem as Israel's and East Jerusalem as Palestine's, to respect both Israel and Palestine. By recognizing Jerusalem as being Israel's capital this ignores Palestine's claims.

You may be hearing on the news about talks of a Third Intifada. There were two intifadas - the first 1987 to 1991 and the second 2000-5 - which were periods of intense Palestinian uprisings against Israel. Some have argued that Trump's relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem and the IDF's brutal crackdown on Palestinian protesters may cause a Third Intifada.

Climate Change

This summer saw some of the most intense climate events in recent years which included Hurricane Harvey; Irma; floods in Niger, India, and Nepal; intense wildfires in California; and cold winters across the northern hemisphere. These intense bouts of intense weather have been attributed to climate change caused by global warming. Not too long ago I wrote about the Little Ice Age which brought intense climate change caused by a drop in global temperatures. Among these were hailstorms which wiped out crops, frozen lakes in June, and even the Thames freezing over. Understanding the Little Ice Age helps us understand how we can face climate change. Geoffrey Parker in particular has written about how adverse weather and climate affected societies worldwide in the 'Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.' In China the Ming were bloodily overthrown; religious wars ravaged Europe; succession wars hit the Mughals, Ottomans and the Kongo; and famines, floods, and droughts plagued all the world. Although bad weather did not cause these conflicts it made these conflicts worse. As humans continue contributing to climate change by looking at the Little Ice Age we can understand how to cope with global warming.

Centenary of Russian Revolutions

Lenin and the Masses

In 1917 Russia saw two revolutions: the February and the October. These two revolutions shook both Russia and the world. For over a century Russia had been trying to slowly reform itself. In 1905 a revolution caused by frustration over defeat in the Russo-Japanese War caused the creation of a parliament, the Duma, although it was extremely weak and gave the tsar large amounts of power. The First World War brought issues to a head. On International Women's Day Social Revolutionaries handed pamphlets to women in Petrograd (St Petersburg) waiting in line for bread. This escalated into a protest and strike, and eventually into a revolution which caused the overthrowing of the tsar. The new Russian republic began many widespread reforms - including emancipating Jews and women - but it soon became unpopular. Many in Russia, especially the peasantry, wanted a clean break with tsarist Russia, different nationalities wanted increased autonomy, and many wanted an end to the war. Then the Bolsheviks rose to prominence. Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin the Bolsheviks were originally a faction of the Social Revolutionaries deeply inspired by Marxist theory. The Bolsheviks and Lenin promising peace, bread, land and autonomy struck a chord with soldiers, urban workers, peasants and some minorities. Following the crushing of the Bolsheviks during the July Offensive and the arrest of certain leaders, including Leon Trotsky, sympathy for the Bolsheviks rose. Eventually by November (October in Russia which was still using the Julian calendar), the Bolsheviks under Lenin rose up and seized the Winter Palace in Petrograd. Lenin, walking into the Duma, declared 'We shall now proceed to construct the socialist order.' Thus the most influential revolution of the twentieth century took place inspiring millions around the world to do the same from Mexico to China. Many people today are influenced by Marxist theory - including myself, although I am more influenced by Rosa Luxemburg and Antonio Gramsci than Lenin and Trotsky - and the October Revolution helped contribute to this. Although clearly bias I would highly recommend Trotsky's own account, called The History of the Russian Revolution, which is a gripping read detailing the events of both revolutions.

Zimbabwe

Mugabe

In November long-term president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, was forced to resign after being in power since 1980. Earlier I wrote about Mugabe if you are interested so I'll do a brief summary here. The prime reason why Mugabe was forced to resign by the military was his replacement of Emmerson Mnangwa with his wife, Grace Mugabe. However, Mugabe remains popular in Zimbabwe, and the opposition leaders and military have stated that because of his legacy they chose to go through legal procedures to oust him. Mugabe was one of the key figures in the War of Independence against the minority, white-rule government with his party, ZANU-PF, being incredibly popular with many Zimbabweans. The first few years of Mugabe's premiership were very well received and if he had resigned in the mid-1980s he may even have been popular in the West; after all he was even knighted by the Queen. It is quite telling with the North Atlantic viewpoint that Mugabe was only criticized for his treatment of white farmers in Europe and the USA, and not his period of ethnic violence called the Gukurahundi. One thing to note about the recent resignation is something which has been prevalent in Zimbabwean politics since 1980: the treatment of veterans. Many critics of Mugabe have noted his abandonment of veterans of the independence war leaving many with no job prospects. Mnangwa is also a veteran so his replacement by Grace Mugabe was seen as an even greater affront.

Japan and Korea

Throughout 2017 North Korea has been in the news for testing nuclear missiles. Although this has partially been thanks to Trump's bellicose rhetoric, including this tweet which I thought was satire by The Onion when he was in Vietnam. You may have noticed that Pyongyang has been firing missiles over Hokkaido. We all know by now why Korea is divided so I thought it would be more interesting to look at why there is hostility between North Korea and Japan. When Japan started to get involved in international politics after 1868 they felt threatened by European and American imperialism so began a course of imperialism themselves. They soon turned on the small Kingdom of Korea to the north; first they muscled China out of the way and began influencing Korean politics to prevent Russian interference. Japanese thinkers believed that Asia had to unite, but only the Japanese were capable of uniting Asians. In 1910 they annexed Korea and began a process of 'Japanizing' Koreans. From 1910 to 1945 Japanese politicians started implementing policies to 'Japanify' Korea including banning Korean in Japan; banning Korean dress; attempting to replace Korean names with Japanese ones; and having Japanese landowners buy land in Korea. I would highly recommend watching the Korean romantic thriller The Handmaiden to see this in effect. During the Second World War Koreans were forcibly conscripted into the Japanese army, forced to work in factories producing arms, and Korean women were forced to be 'comfort women' for Japanese soldiers. Korea was split after 1945 between the communist DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) under Kim Il Sung, and the capitalist ROK (Republic of Korea) under Syngman Rhee. The legacies of Japanese rule, and a lack of apology for said rule, has meant that animosity continues to pervade not only DPRK-Japanese relations but also ROK-Japanese ones. 

Shinzo Abe

This year Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called a snap election, and unlike the UK's snap election which caused Theresa May to lose her majority, Abe's Liberal Democratic party swept the board. The DPRK helped with this victory. After Japan's defeat in the Second World War the Allied powers wanted to make sure that Japan could not threaten them again. On May 3, 1947 (another anniversary) Japan had a new constitution implemented where Article 9 dissolved the Japanese military and forbade Japan from declaring war. Instead Japan would have a Self-Defense Force in case a country declared war on it. This was largely accepted by everyone in Japan: the left as it made pacifism in the constitution itself while the right liked it as it let them focus on getting foreign investment to fuel capitalist growth. Abe ran on a platform of reversing Article 9 where in the light of North Korean missile tests made Japanese voters sympathetic to. Whether it will be passed we'll find out in 2018.

Something in the USA

Much has happened in the USA this year. We could compare Trump's travel bans to the Chinese Exclusion Act and anti-immigration acts; how the Confederate statues link to the South's dark past where millions were enslaved; or how Trump's banning of transgendered soldiers and talks at prominent homophobic events links to the LGBTQ+ community's struggle for rights. We could also compare the Democrats emphasis on Russian interference in the election and anti-Russian hysteria to that of Cold War hysteria (I've seen a few people suggest that Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein being Russian stooges), or how the USA has also interfered in elections (including the 1996 Russian election). However, I want to focus on this one giant mess which Trump caused.

Again, I thought this initially was a joke

In November at an event honoring the Navajo Code Breakers Trump made a Pocahontas joke about Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren in front of a painting of Andrew Jackson. I must admit part of me died hearing that, and there's lots to unpack here. First off Pocahontas. Pocahontas has been deeply involved with America's cultural heritage, but she has become a figure of myth. Pocahontas was the daughter of Wahunsenacawh (called Powhatan by Europeans), the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah. English settlers had arrived in Virginia and by 1607 conflicts over land had caused tension between the settlers and Powhatan. In American lore Pocahontas stopped her father from executing explorer John Smith by jumping over his body before the killing blow. Historians believe this to be fabricated, especially as in his diaries this happens several times. Pocahontas was captured by the settlers in 1613 where she converted to Christianity, we are not entirely sure though if she was forced to or not. In order to create peace Pocahontas, at the age of 17, was married off to tobacco planter John Rolfe in 1614. Rolfe seemed to genuinely love Pocahontas (who went by the name Rebecca) and her accounts seem to suggest that she respected but did not love him. Pocahontas was eventually taken to Britain where she was paraded around as a 'civilized savage' (a precursor to what would happen during later European empires in the nineteenth century). She would never again see Virginia; aged either 20 or 21 she would pass away to be buried at Gravesend.

We have to go to the nineteenth century to understand why it is vastly inappropriate to have a painting of Andrew Jackson when honoring the Navajo Code Breakers. Jackson was president from 1829 to 1837 and was very much like Trump: brash and racist. Other than supporting slavery Jackson loathed Native Americans; while fighting the British during the War of 1812 forced the Creek to give up 23 million acres of land to the United States. In 1816 he would also lead a campaign against the Seminole. Years later he brought his racial hatred with him to the White House. Throughout his presidency he had around 70 treaties made which forced Native Americans off of their land. Perhaps the most famous was the 1830 Indian Removal Land which allowed the president the ability to create treaties with the Five Civilized Tribes in the Southern US. This began the Trial of Tears where thousands of Native Americans were forced from their land to go to Oklahoma, mostly on foot. It is difficult to estimate but almost 20,000 died through famine, disease or exhaustion during the Trial of Tears. Just over 16,500 Cherokee were evicted from their land where between 2,000 and 6,000 died along the way. 

Star Wars

Star Wars fans in 1977

To finish this post I thought it would be best to talk about something on a lighter note. Recently The Last Jedi was released, the same year as the fortieth anniversary of Star Wars. This franchise perhaps the most influential film franchise of all time. Using groundbreaking effects mixing Westerns with samurai movies George Lucas brought us an epic which revolutionized sci-fi and the movie industry. Other than movies Star Wars has spawned toys, comics, TV shows, video games, and even a Christmas special. Star Wars is just as popular in 2017 as it was in 1977.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post. For future blog posts please check out our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. If you want to discuss any other of 2017's events please feel free to leave a comment. Have a Happy New Year!

History in Focus: The Partition of India

Muslim Refugees Fleeing India

As of writing this week has seen the 70th anniversary of the Partition of the British Raj forming the new states of India and Pakistan. The Partition is the single most important event in the modern history of the Indian subcontinent which still continues to greatly shape the lives of those living there. This divided subcontinent can be clearly seen in the extravagent closing of the border each evening at Wagah:

The Partition was an event of great trauma brought on about the incompetency of British rule and diverging Indian nationalist movements. To understand why the Indian subcontinent was divided into primarily Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India we have to go back to the 1800s.

British Rule and Early Nationalism

Raja Ram Mohan Roy

By the late-nineteenth century Britain had established its rule over the Indian subcontinent. Britain was the first state to establish formal or informal rule over the entire continent. In 1900 what parts of the subcontinent that weren't directly administered by the British were ruled by the so-called 'Princely States'. Princely States were ruled by princes but they had to answer to the British. Other European powers did control some of the subcontinent but they were largely confined to singular cities, like Goa for Portugal and Pondicherry for France. India was ruled from London. A secretary of state for India controlled affairs from the British cabinet, a governor-general ruled in India, and Indians were brought into the British army where they were used to govern the empire. There are photos of the British section of Shanghai where Sikh soldiers are patrolling the streets. Britain had also created a trade surplus in India. Through a mixture of Britain's industrial power and the destruction of large Indian industries, such as the Bengali cotton weaving, so Britain could dominate the Indian economy. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 the East Indian Company was dissolved and the British state formally took over. To aid in administration in 1861 they started bringing more Indians into the administration; Indians were increasingly ruling Indians for the British. It was in this context that the seeds of Indian nationalism took root.

To create administrators you needed education but the British looked down on India. As a result they built their own universities and institutions which taught European philosophies and politics, including liberalism. Slowly a European educated elite emerged. One thing to know about the subcontinent is how diverse it is. Today's India contains over 2000 languages not including those in Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is divided by caste and religion with Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Pagans, and Jains to name the largest religions in the subcontinent. Making matters worse was Britain's 'divide-and-rule' policy. This was done in all their colonies ranging from Cyprus to Palestine to Malaysia. On the surface this was done to prevent minorities from being dominated by larger populations, however it was a policy used to make the colonized view each other as the enemy so they could not form a united front. In India this was done over religious lines. Muslims were a minority and through farcical Social Darwinistic thinking the British viewed India's Muslims as being racially superior to Hindus so readily brought them administration, (although this is an oversimplification. British racial attitudes favored Muslims in some places and times and Hindus/Sikhs in other areas and times). As a result European educated high-caste Hindus formed reform movements which acted as early nationalist movements. One of the most famous was the Brahmo Savaj who was founded as early as 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, often called 'the Maker of Modern India'. Roy and the Brahmo Savaj wished to 'modernize' Hinduism, which meant making it more European, by abolishing certain practices like child marriage and sati (burning high-caste widows on their husband's funeral pyre). In 1875 the Arya Samaj was founded by Bengali Dayananda Saraswati to continue the work of the Brahmo Savaj but it went further rejecting idols. Muslims too made their own groups like the Deobandi Movement which tried to reject British colonial rule and the Khalifat . These separate movements focused solely on religion and were elitist. 

The Inspiration for the Nationalist Movement

The Swadeshi Movement

The two main organizations for Indian nationalism and independence were the Indian National Congress, (INC/Congress, formed 1885), and the All-India Muslim League, (formed 1906). These movements grew from elitist movements to mass movements thanks to the new viceroy, Lord Curzon. In the late 1890s and early 1900s Curzon had earned the ire of educated Indians by reducing the numbers of elected Indian officials to reduce radicalism. Then in 1905 for administrative purposes he divided Bengal. Bengal had been going through a 'Renaissance' where a largely nationalist movement based on Hindu revivalism had grown. As his division fell on religious lines Bengalis saw this as an attempt to divide their homeland. This even caused the creation of the Muslim League as they feared that this would lead to Hindu domination. The Swadeshi movement was soon born which was India's largest mass movement since the 1857 Rebellion. Swadeshi means 'of one's own country' which describes the aims of the movement: boycott British goods. It soon spread across India where leading politician in west India, Lokamanya Tilak, said:

We are not armed and there is no necessity for arms either. We have a stronger weapon, a political weapon, in boycott. We have perceived one fact that the whole of this administration...is carried on with our assistance. We are all subordinate servants...Self government is our goal, we want control over our administrative machinery...We shall not give them assistance to collect revenue and keep peace. We shall not assist them in fighting beyond the frontiers or outside India with Indian blood and money. We shall not assist them in carrying on the administration of justice. We shall have our own courts, and when the time comes, we shall not pay taxes. Can you do that by your united efforts? If you can you are free from tomorrow.

We see the rise of violence in the independence movement here as British repression created two very different armed groups: the right-wing, Hindu Anushilan and the smaller but left-wing and secular Jugantar. In Punjab the Arya Samajists took over turning Swadeshi into a Hindu movement alienating Muslims. Tilak himself was arrested for talking about terrorism which provoked riots which the British shot at. Through a mixture of repression, arresting Swadeshi leaders and the outbreak of the First World War the movement petered out but it had inspired many people. British repression during the First World War radicalized many and some even became inspired by Irish nationalists. After the 1916 Easter Dublin Rising a group named themselves the Indian Republican Army (IRA), in solidarity with the Irish. Around 1.2 million Indians fought in the British army during the war inspiring many to fight for Indian autonomy, if not independence. In 1919 the Government of India Act created a Council of State and an Imperial Legislative Assembly electing 1.5 million of the wealthiest Indians despite it having a population of 300 million. It also introduced special seats for Muslims and non-Brahmin categories. Acceptance of this was called the Lucknow Pact and was made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, later a prominent promoter of Pakistan. This limited reform still left millions disenfranchised but it took the steam out of nationalism. That is until a lawyer who had worked in South Africa and London returned to India: Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi, Popular Movement and Divisions

Gandhi

Gandhi had practiced non-violent protest in South Africa. Focusing on just one issue he had managed to improve rights for Indians in South Africa, although at the expense of discriminating against Africans. While in South Africa the racism he had seen made him come to the conclusion that Indians were subjects and not citizens of the British Empire. In his 1909 publication Hind Swaraj he condemned all things modern and Western in favor of a communalistic 'Golden Age' of a self-reliant, Indian past. He also coined the word satyagraha to describe his non-violent protests which focused on one issue at a time. Styling himself as a Hindu holy man and a peasant Gandhi returned to India where he started agitating with his fellow Gujaratis in Kheda where they boycotted British goods, (he was heavily inspired by the Swadeshi movement), in protest of a revision of raising land taxes to cover wartime, and post-war, expenditure. This and more satyagraha protests started to increase Gandhi's profile but he became widely prominent thanks to his condemnation of Britain's whitewashing of the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre which had left 379 dead. In 1921 Gandhi became head of the INC. Gandhi wished the INC to welcome all Indians regardless of caste, class or religion. He supported the Muslim Khilafat movement where Indian Muslims tried to campaign to preserve the Ottoman Caliph, called for Muslims to give up eating beef and Hindus pork to respect one another, and created an alliance with the Sikh Akali Dal. During the 1920s and 1930s the INC led a mass movement bringing together 70 million peoples to peacefully fight British imperialism.

However, things were never united. Muhammad Ali Jinnah split from the INC shortly after Gandhi advocated supporting Khalifat despite being a Muslim himself. Jinnah opposed Gandhi's emphasis on religion and viewed the Khalifat movement as being religious zealotry, (as well as seeing Gandhi himself as being overly pro-Hindu). Others opposed non-violence. Subhas Chandra Bose believed that violence should have been used much to Gandhi's ire, and that of future INC leader Jawaharlal Nehru. By the Second World War he had become radicalized and formed an alliance with the Axis where he formed the Free India Legion from 3,000 Indian POWs from North Africa, and later Japan got him the 40,000 strong Indian National Army made out of recruited Indian POWs captured when Japan took control of South East Asia. Caste was also an issue. Gandhi supported the emancipation of the 'untouchables' or Dalits but he clashed with INC member B.R. Ambedkar on how to do this. Ambedkar was a Dalit and believed that to emancipate them they had to have certain privileges until they reached equality such as separate electorates and reservations in government positions. Gandhi disagreed believing that this would make higher castes actively discriminate against lower castes. Instead he argued that treating everyone the same and giving Dalits the name harijan, (person of Vishnu). Ambedkar saw this as just papering over the issues and only relented when Gandhi threatened another hunger strike. Finally the main division was religion. Although the INC had many non-Hindu members it was overwhelmingly Hindu, and Gandhi's persona of a Hindu holy man disgruntled many Muslims. Furthermore, Ambedkar saw Hinduism as the religion of Dalit oppression, (he later converted to Buddhism), so this didn't help him much. This religious division set the stage for Partition.

An Idea of Pakistan

Muhammad Iqbal

In 1928 the INC had become so powerful and organized that Jawaharlal Nehru declared that in a report that the INC could form a government in waiting based on a strong central government with a command economy. Five years later a Cambridge educated Punjabi called Choudhry Rahmat Ali released a pamphlet advocating a new state called 'Pakistan'. This new state was designed to be a separate state from a Hindu dominated India comprising of India's Muslims provinces. Even the name amalgamated the names of the provinces with an 'i' added to ease pronunciation: Punjab, Afghan Province, Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan. This was seen by poet and politician Muhammad Iqbal who took it as his personal goal and is sometimes referred to as the 'Spiritual Founder of Pakistan'. Iqbal knew Jinnah and some believe that Jinnah's permanent split with the INC to promote Pakistan was through Iqbal's influence. Until his death in 1938 Iqbal tried to strengthen Jinnah and the Muslim League saying: 

There is only one way out. Muslims should strengthen Jinnah's hands. They should join the Muslim League. Indian question, as is now being solved, can be countered by our united front against both the Hindus and the English. Without it, our demands are not going to be accepted. People say our demands smack of communalism. This is sheer propaganda. These demands relate to the defense of our national existence.... The united front can be formed under the leadership of the Muslim League. And the Muslim League can succeed only on account of Jinnah. Now none but Jinnah is capable of leading the Muslims.

Jinnah's devotion to Pakistan is heavily debated. It took the Lahore Resolution of 1940 for Jinnah to vocally call for Muslim provinces to be 'autonomous and sovereign'. Ayesha Jalal has argued that Jinnah only threatened Partition as a bargaining chip with Congress which backfired whereas Faisal Deviji has argued that Partition would only be temporary, Pakistan and India would be formed and then come together again. It is important to note that Pakistan and the Muslim League remained an elite movement compared to Congress which cut across all of society. This is shown with the 1937 elections. In 1935 the Government of India Act gave India more independence than the 1919 act but the British still kept a grip on India. It did allow elections which were held in 1937 where Congress won eight out of eleven provinces, and the League won no provinces. Punjab was even outright hostile to the League! Nehru went ahead with his plans but he was both secular and a socialist which meant no distinctions for religion and a centralized government. In a position of overwhelming power he ignored the League's demands for Muslim electorates. When the Second World War broke out the Congress government resigned in protest of the viceroy declaring war despite not consulting them. In 1942 Gandhi organized the 'Quit India Campaign' where it got particular support in the countryside. When it became violent Gandhi said that the British should either 'leave India to God or leave India to anarchy'. Three groups refused to take part: Communists, (as they feared it would distract from the fight against fascism), the borderline far-right Hindu Mahasabha under V.D. Savarkar and B.S. Munje (as subalterns, women and Congress were organizing it), and the Muslim League. Not being in government and not taking part in Quite India let the League gain prominence and with it Partition.

Partition

Buildings destroyed during Partition

Partition can be described as a tragedy that no-one wanted but everyone was to blame. British incompetence and shirking of responsibility, Jinnah's gamble backfiring, and Nehru's intransigence can all be argued to have played roles in causing Partition. Following the defeat of European fascism and Japanese ultra-nationalism Indian soldiers returned home politicized by Franklin Roosevelt's Atlantic Charter promising self-determination for all peoples. Although Jinnah remained unpopular with many educated Muslims (in modern North-West Frontier Province, then Afghan Province, around 50% disliked him), many Muslims viewed him positively. An attempt during the war by Labour called the Cripps Mission to work for a post-war, independent united India was sabotaged by Winston Churchill who virulently opposed any notion of independence. Churchill soon lost the post-war election bringing in the reformist Labour party of Clement Attlee. Attlee wanted Indian independence, mostly as it was a drain on the British economy by now, Nehru wanted independence, and Jinnah wanted independence but none wanted Partition. The long standing religious based nationalist movements exacerbated recently by the Great Depression, (which forced communities to look inward), and the actions of recent nationalists created a tense situation. In 1946 when Indian soldiers were ordered to go to Vietnam to restore French rule they mutinied and the Communist Party ordered strikes. When members Bose's Indian National Army, (a Hindu, Sikh and Muslim), were tried for 'waging war against the king' leading Congressmen, including Nehru offered to represent them. Slowly communalistic violence and communist agitation lead to a breakdown of the state with the newly appointed Lord Mountbatten proving to be utterly useless and aloof to the violence. Despite Gandhi threatening a hunger strike it was decided that the only way to stop it was Partition and soon.

Wishing to cut its losses Britain sped up the date for the Partition to August 14 1947 for Pakistan and August 15 for India. Jinnah tried to protest against Britain creating a 'truncated or mutilated moth-eaten Pakistan' where India would inherit all of the British Raj's wealth and resources. The Princely States were informed that they would have to join either one of the two states; primarily Muslim states to Pakistan and primarily Hindu states to India. Britain had allotted Sir Cyril Radcliffe to draw a border between the two new states. However there were three issues with this: he had never been to India, he was given out of date maps and censuses to see which communities were which religion, and he finished drawing the border the day after Indian independence. The general masses went into panic. Primary sources tell a harrowing story of how communities fearing that they would be dominated in the opposite state resorted to massacring their neighbors in a form of ethnic cleansing to ensure that they would end up in the correct state. People have recounted how the people who they regarded as auntie, grandmother or grandfather were suddenly set upon because they were the wrong religion. Muslims massacred Hindus and Sikhs while Hindus and Sikhs massacred Muslims. To avoid murder, and for women rape, millions fled their homes becoming refugees. Only in Bengal was this less of a case, (although many thousands were either murdered or fled). It was particularly bad in the Punjab which was split directly in the middle. It is estimated that 6 million Muslims fled to Pakistan and 4.5 million Hindus and Sikhs fled. As late as 1958 over 800,000 refugees remained in camps in Indian Bengal. Most tragically we do not know how many women were raped during Partition. Post-Partition narratives of this kind have been silenced by the states. Although heavily affected Dalits managed to survive. Particularly in the Punjab after being treated horrifically by communities for years they managed to hide out as communities massacred one another which then allowed them to move in and basically loot what remained. 

The only figure who could have stopped the spontaneous violence was Gandhi. After fasting had failed to stop Partition he devoted himself to traveling across India to call for peace. In Delhi and Calcutta he succeeded by fasting until he almost died. He was also planning to go to Pakistan and had accepted to speak at a Muslim shrine in Delhi in hope that it could bring peace. Soon Partition consumed the person who many regard as the 'Father of India'. On January 13 1948 Gandhi was assassinated by a member of the Hindu Mahasabha called Nathuram Godse. Historian Crispin Bates has described the consequence of Gandhi's assassination best: Since it was a Hindu, not a Muslim, who ended his [Gandhi's] life, in the horrified hush that followed the fans of communalism were suddenly stilled.

Legacy

Image from the 2002 Gujarat Riots

Jinnah didn't want a truncated Pakistan but that is what he got. More Muslims lived in the new India than Pakistan and the Muslim areas of northern India which were meant to connect Pakistan to Pakistani Bengal were given to India. The Princely State of Kashmir went to India despite being largely Muslim as the prince not only was a Hindu but a personal friend of Nehru. Almost immediately a small war broke out over Kashmir and there have been two wars since. Another war won Bengal's independence, modern Bangladesh, where the Muslim Bengalis had more in common with their Hindu neighbors than their fellow Muslims. India also inherited most of the Raj's wealth, 90% of the Raj's industry and taxable income went to India, as well as 70% of the defense force. Indian democracy has succeeded, other than a small blip of authoritarian rule under Indira Gandhi (no relation to Mahatma) in the late 1970s, while Pakistan has gone from military rule to even more military rule. This is because Congress was a mass party and the League was an elite party. Wealthy Punjabi land owners fled to Pakistan and dominated politics preventing a democracy from emerging like India. Jinnah could have saved Pakistani democracy but he died in 1948 through tuberculosis. Prior to Partition there was some excitement over Pakistan and India. These two states were imagined to be the two new power states. Pakistan in particular excited the left with it being a state made for a minority. Early Zionism had Israel being a state for Jews and not a Jewish state, and Pakistan was seen similarly; it was to be a state for Muslims and not a Muslim state. There were talks that it could be a pioneer of socialism with the USSR and could emancipate women and lower castes. With a weak democratic footing these dreams were soon shattered.

Partition has left a scar on the subcontinent which has been brushed over until recently. Decades after Partition the two states came together to repatriate women who had been kidnapped and forced to marry their kidnappers. However, the women weren't consulted and quite a few didn't want to be repatriated as it meant abandoning their children. The video at the start of the article is the more pleasant side to the Indo-Pakistan rivalry. Bollywood has produced many films over the most recent conflict with Pakistan. Currently the Bharatriya Janata Party (BJP) ruling India is a descendant from the Hindu Mahasabha which took Gandhi's life. Their ideology, Hindutva, has become particularly large since the 1990s when the destruction of a large mosque called the Babri Masjid happened, and even then it was popularized by the Hindutva groups. At the start of this section I showed a photo from the 2002 Gujarat Riots. These riots were communal causing clashes between Hindus and Muslims. In Muslim areas of Gujarat 'Pakistan' and 'Return to Pakistan' were graffitied on Muslim homes and businesses. Finally, Britain has whitewashed its abandoning and role in Partition. Only recently with newer generations have the British public become aware of their role in scarring the Indian subcontinent and it may be generations more before Britain accepts its responsibility for it. For India and Pakistan millions are still living with the consequences of Partition.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Subalterns and the Raj: South Asia since 1600 by Crispin Bates

-Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal

-The Origins of the Partition of India, 1936-1947 by Anita Inder Singh

-Asim Roy, 'The High Politics of India's Partition: The Revisionist Perspective', Modern Asia Studies, 1990, 24:2

-The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories by Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar

-The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan

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