freinds, the documentary on the last days of britsh raj was indeed fine. jinnah is given his due importance. in fact he is a secular western gentleman who fought for muslims like a lawyer. his aspects were new to us. indeed he was correct in partition idea. the mistake was with the british. how indifferent they were to the indians and how deliberately they refused to impose martial law in punjab, were nicely shown by this american production. the cast and script was excellent and so was the narratives of live persons and the old real pictures.
we were not told the partition story correctly in the past. india is a home to 40-50 nationalities and cultures. but we were artificially divided as 8 south asian nations. from kashmir to srilanka, from manipur to afgansthan the problems are all there for us to see this european mess even to day.
Partition was a decent plan, any which way you see it. Jinnah did what was best for India and Pakistan, its a shame that things did not happen as planned. We could have parted as friends and been friends! Unfortunately - some things did not happen as planned. Land and property are difficult for people to leave. - R
Hi, This was a good documentary. There where just questions at the end of the episode, apart from the education it gave, to list a few. a. Why did Lord Mountbatten go on a aggressive schedule and conclude the partition ahead of time? b. Why was Sir Cyril Radcliff given just 36 days to draw the dividing line? c. Was division of Punjab the costliest human error? d. Why did the Mahatma not go on an appeal with to the people, rather than with politicians on the division? e. Did the congress have enough presence in North West Frontier? Where the people from the well represented? f. Similarly the territories of the Eastern India? g. The borders with Burma, Afghanistan (Tibet, bhutan, Nepal still had their line of control), how where they concluded? h. The Provincial rulers did form part of the process of creation of India, where they all represented? Certainly not, we had Heydrabad for example, which did want a separate state. What was their buy-in (not Hyderabad, but in general) ? i. Why was the grass root aspirations never collected by any parties including congress or muslim league? Did they ever want Democracy? Did they want a different form it? j. The hunger to call the largest democracy (not socialist ), how much of this sentiment play a role in this fracture? k. First Muslim Fundamentalist nation was born on a aspiration of a secular lawyer. Did he want it so, what pressures he had to give in to get in the support from the Muslim League?
The reason for listing this is that some could answer a few or at the least add few more questions. These questions would have resonated in the early years of independence, before they where taken for granted, do we understand the answers - or we just accept. The acceptance of any irrational view is fine(one can state both secular and non-secular examples for this) , but non-acceptance of bestowed rationality leads to much dearer emotional war. What we see across the fences is the later.
How do we let the wounds heal, every dressing we have done so far, have been short lived. Hopefully the next generation remedies the current situation and also more willing to give away what we claim as our territory (and vice-versa) and end enmity across all borders and internals. This is not to advocate cessation of land but understanding the need. When can the lands of Bharat look beyond politics, bureaucracy and
There are 2 intresting observations on the issue: 1. Jinnah had a problem for every solution 2. Every country has an army but in Pakisthan, thearmy has a country
I didn't watch the History channel documentary (partly because I've become annoyed by their way of over-simplifying everything), but I'd suggest that anyone who's interested in the subject read Jaswant Singh's (much-maligned) book, Jinnah. He's definitely done his research, and analyzes the whole thing from start to finish, without really blaming any one person.
Talking about Partition and Jinnah..I just remember something which I read a month or so back in 'kanayazhiyin kadaisi pakkangal' by Late Sujatha.
Heard about th is book from this group for a long time and finally laid my hands on this a month ago. It was a thrilling experience to read about the 70's and the 80's. Sujatha indeed has touched many things.
Coming to the point - in one of the episodes, sujatha gives this information.
'Larry Collins and Dominque Lapierre, while researching for their book Freedom at Midnight, did a lot of research in India. In one instance, they came across a x-ray of Jinnah in a Bombay hospital, which was taken just a few months or days before Jinnah's death. When they showed the xray to the doctors and asked for an opinion, the doctors said that, whoever the person to whom this xray belongs to, has a chronic disease and will die soon.
When they told Mountbatten about this find, he fell silent for a few minutes. Then he said, had I known this earlier, I would have delayed the independence and the partition.'