Book Review: Pakistan or the Partition of India by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, the father of India’s Constitution, a lawyer, an anti-caste leader and an intellectual, wrote several books. However, it is one of his never-made speeches to the Jat Pat Todak Mandal that is probably the best known of all his work. The full text of the speech has been put out in a book called the Annihilation of Caste, now with a foreword by Arundhati Roy that constitutes about half the book’s length.
Ambedkar’s unsaid speech is one of his strongest attacks on Hinduism, and as such is celebrated among the Left in India to this day — as is his whole (and significantly impressive) argument against Hinduism. But it is this other book, Pakistan or the Partition of India, that nobody wants to talk about.
It is in this work, first published in 1940, that Ambedkar analyses the possible reasons in favour of and against partition. He published a lengthened edition in 1945. While Ambedkar claims that he is neither making a stand for or against partition, but simply placing facts on record, it is clear from reading the work that he stood in favour of partition.
However, as with much of Ambedkar’s other work, he relies not on appeals to emotion and polemics but on statistics and reason. Ambedkar dissects the Muslim case for Pakistan, the Hindu case against Pakistan, the possible Muslim and Hindu alternatives to Pakistan, and then proceeds to provide a condensation of his beliefs.
Ambedkar’s main arguments in favour of partition are thus — 1) That Mahatma Gandhi’s attempts to appease the Muslim League and other Muslim rights organisations in the country have failed miserably, as the catalogue of Muslim demands never seems to end 2) That Hinduism and Islam constitute not two different castes or sects within India but two different nations, such that their ultimate destiny appears irreconcilable. 3) About 50% of the pre-partition armed forces of British India constitute Muslims, and they cannot be trusted to defend a Hindu-majority India from aggression by Muslim countries post Independence. 4) That there is no guarantee of safety, security and progress in an Independent India where the British, as a disinterested third party, no longer rule over Hindus and Muslims alike.
There are some other, more minor arguments.
Ambedkar contends that Gandhi’s attempts to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity for 25 years have failed. It has only led to ever-increasing Muslim demands for separate representation in legislatures, special consideration for Muslim-dominated areas etc. He also publishes statistics from the Government of India to show that the 1920s and 1930s constituted the worst decades for Hindu-Muslim communal violence in the country. These were the very decades when Gandhi made fervent attempts to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity by appeasing Muslim organisations.
Second, and most controversially for anyone who clings to the Left’s cherished image of Ambedkar, the father of our Constitution compares Islam to a “closed corporation” which is a brotherhood not of all humanity but of Muslims only. He alleges that Islam is a system of social self-government incompatible with local self-government, and that a Muslim’s allegiance is not to the country of his birth but to his faith. In this scenario, it is not possible to find among Muslims the same level of patriotism and fervour for a united India as among Hindus. The Muslims are a nation within India. This also leads us to Ambedkar’s other claim that an Army with a Muslim majority could not be trusted against Muslim invasion.
Ambedkar also discusses the examples of Czechoslovakia, Turkey and other countries to show that different nations cannot co-exist in one.
The fourth point above is self-evident and has come true despite partition. There have been many communal riots in India since 1947, when the British left. There have been many murders inspired by religious hatred. In many such cases, the police and law enforcement agencies have taken the side of whichever community they belonged to majorly, or the community which was in a majority in that state or district, or, serviced the biases of whichever government was in power at the state and Centre.
Which leads me to a particular criticism of this book. Ambedkar claimed that India would progress only if Mohammad Ali Jinnah got his Pakistan, because it would leave India as an almost entirely Hindu country. According to the 1941 census, Hindus constituted roughly 66% of India’s population, and Muslims 27%. However, the 1951 census (the first after partition) showed that India’s population was still almost 10% Muslim (partly because not all Muslims from India’s northwest and East emigrated to Pakistan, and partly because many Muslims lived in India’s interiors). This translated to about 34 million Muslims.
With 34 million Muslims in 1951, and 172 million in 2011 (the second largest number for any country in the world), Ambedkar’s hope that partition would lead to a mostly Hindu India has not come to fruition. Consequently, communal riots, anti-minority violence, minority appeasement have all continued. Further, it has led to the rise of the Hindu Right, which claims, rather ridiculously but very effectively, that Hindus will soon be in a minority in India, and therefore indulges in majority appeasement and encourages anti-Muslim bigotry.
Also, I do not think that the religion of the majority in the armed forces would significantly affect their motivation to fight for India. But if it were not Ambedkar’s, the Indian Left would immediately dismiss this as a horribly bigoted argument.
But Ambedkar does not pull punches when it comes to the Hindu Right. His support for partition may seem to stem from similar fears about Muslim dominance of India as the Hindu Right’s historic opposition to partition. This paradox has to be explained.
While Ambedkar and the Hindu Right appear to agree about the threat of Muslim dominance of India after Britain departs, Ambedkar finds a solution in partition. The Hindu Right’s view that Hinduism constitutes a nation and that Islam is an alien (nation), is used by Ambedkar to reach the conclusion that partition is necessary. The Hindu Right held the view that a united India would enable Hindus to rise back to dominance and prominence. Ambedkar exposes this view as being both foolish and evil. First, it would prove impossible to assuage Muslim concerns in an independent India. Second, the default solution of the Hindu Right — to turn India into a Hindutva-dominant, culturally monolithic entity where Muslims are effectively (if not legally) second class citizens strikes a person of good nature as being evil and fascistic.
One last criticism of this book is necessary. It seems that Ambedkar grossly underestimated the bloodshed that would be caused during the migrations of Hindus and Muslims during/after partition. He also overestimated the capability of the new Indian and Pakistani administrations to provide for migration in a safe, organised way, and to stop massacre and bloodshed.
But we have the benefit of hindsight.
Overall, I would give the book a 8.5/10, and request those who primarily identify with the Indian Left to read it. As with Annihilation of Caste, so with Pakistan or the Partition of India — trust Ambedkar to say something that lesser mortals dare not say.
