From the Second World War to the Post-Partition State(s)

The stalemate of 1939 continued till 1942, with sections of the British govern­ment in London and Delhi and the Congress left manoeuvring to find a formula that would make the Congress's cooperation in the war effort possible, given that this was seen as a war against a rising fascist coalition, which would be far more dangerous to India than a weakened British imperialism.

As the war came to an end, demobilised troops mixed with disenchanted workers as the wartime expansion of employment contracted. The aftermath of the Quit India Movement and the disruptions of the war years had left a legacy ofviolence. The call for a separate state of Pakistan had been raised in 1940 with British encouragement, as a bargain made with Muslim parties, now represented by the Muslim League, in return for loyalty during the war.

In November 1945 and February 1946 there were serious anti-European and anti-Eurasian riots in Calcutta. In February 1946, the Royal Indian Navy mutinied, protesting, among other things, against differential pay rates for its white and Indian members. This mutiny made it clear that the armed forces could no longer be relied upon to underpin British rule. By August 1946, violence had taken a different turn, the anti-colonial solidarities of February giving way to communal violence. Following an ambiguous Muslim League call to ‘Direct Action' and Bengal premier H. S. Suhrawardy's provocative remarks in his speech on 16 August in Calcutta, sporadic violence began with Muslims looting shops, only to discover that neighbourhoods had organised local ‘defence groups' and militia in anticipation of violence. Because vio­lence had been anticipated from Muslims, these defence groups were largely Hindu, although they were organised according to localities rather than in a massive collective communal organisation. Insecurity had bred violence, defence turned easily into offence, and many more Muslims than Hindus died in the three days of violence that followed in Calcutta. In October, violence spread to Noakhali, where the slogan ‘We Want Revenge for Calcutta' was heard, but violence was largely muted in comparison to Calcutta and to subsequent events, restricted to what amounted to a local act of revenge against a Hindu zamindar; the rioters were mostly content to humiliate Hindus ritually. Then the violence spread to the north and west of India, and any question of restraint was quickly lost.

Recent historiography of partition violence draws on oral testimonies that speak of collective madness, and the suddenness and incomprehensibility of violence; but in this case, memories lie.^[128] What was essentially a communal war of succession for the control of the state took place against the backdrop of an anticipated partition and the creation of Pakistan, whose impending boundaries were kept secret until 15 August 1947. This level of uncertainty was greatly destabilising, and in anticipation of partition many areas tried to cleanse themselves of their minorities. The western parts of the country were the worst affected - the Punjab was a region with ready access to arms due to its high levels of army recruitment - and organised massacres of Hindus and Sikhs by Muslims and of Muslims by Hindus and Sikhs, accompanied by gratuitous mutilations of bodies, by rapes, abductions, and communities killing their own women to protect their ‘honour' rather than have them ‘defiled' by the enemy, continued well past the date of actual transfer of power. A scramble for property, and for the displacement of persons from territories to render them Hindu- or Sikh-majority areas, was often organised by paramilitary groups like the Akalis and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh; similar dynamics can be discerned in western Punjab, with the support of the Muslim National Guards.^[129] Meanwhile, the emerging independent state, with Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister of an interim government from September 1946, accepted the use of colonial-style collective fines and firing upon crowds from the air as ways of restoring peace.^[130] Casualties from the period of partition and post-partition violence have been estimated at between 200,000 and 800,000.^[131]