Question

Describe any three problems that were faced during the process of partition of British India.

Answer 1

1. British India split into two independent states, India and Pakistan, on August 14-15, 1947, as a 'last-minute' strategy to secure an agreement on how to achieve independence. Muslims were the largest religious minority in British India, accounting for over 25% of the population. They had become accustomed to having their minority status preserved by a system of reserved parliamentary seats and separate electorates while under imperial authority.
2. Following World War II, Attlee's Labour government in London recognized that Britain's wrecked economy could not bear the burden of an overextended empire.  In March 1947, a new viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, arrived in Delhi with the task to find a quick means to end the British Raj. Partition resulted in rioting, mass casualties, and a massive wave of migration. Millions of people fled to what they felt was safer territory, with Muslims traveling to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs heading to India.
3. Estimates of post-partition mortality tolls range from 200,000 to two million. People frequently targeted women as symbols of community honor, resulting in up to 1,000,000 rapes or abductions. Both nations thus faced considerable obstacles in housing and rehabilitating post-Partition refugees, a problem that worsened when the two states went to war over the disputed area of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947-48. Later periods of communal friction sparked more movement, with a trickle of people migrating as late as the 1960s.