Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First-Person Accounts
Second Edition
Ishtiaq Ahmed
The Partition of India in 1947 resulted in the biggest forced migration in history. With interviewees from both India and Pakistan, the book gives a balanced account of Partition and shows how religious differences are no bar to peaceful coexistence unless highlighted by divisive forces. The new edition of this award-winning book includes more oral histories, each uniquely reflecting the tragedy of Partition. The expulsion of unwanted minorities by complicit administrations in the Indian East Punjab and Pakistani West Punjab is brought out into sharper relief in the light of refined Theory of Ethnic Cleansing.
Punjab and the War of Independence 1857-1858
From Collaboration to Resistance
Turabul Hassan Sargana
The central argument of this study is that resistance to the British in the Punjab during 1857-8 has been under-emphasised in historical works and the role of the common people or the masses in the Punjab, who resisted the Raj, has not been adequately highlighted in the historiography of the colonial era. Therefore, the present study is an attempt to bring the role of the Punjabi masses to the forefront, along with that of the elite, in order to present a complete picture of the role of the Punjab in War of Independence. This book also helps in understanding the role of the landed elite in contemporary politics of Pakistan, especially in the Punjab and NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as it was a part of the Punjab in 1857) because the families who collaborated with the British during the war, are still playing an important role in the politics of Pakistan.
The Punjab under Imperialism
1885-1947
Imran Ali
This comprehensive survey of British rule in the Punjab demonstrates that colonial policy-making led to many of the socio-economic and political problems currently plaguing Pakistan and Indian Punjab. Subordinating development goals to its political and military imperatives, the colonial state co-operated with the dominant social classes, the members of which became the major beneficiaries of agricultural colonization. Even while the rulers tried to use the vast resources of the Punjab to advance imperial purposes, they were themselves being used by their collaborators to advance implacable private interests. Such processes effectively retarded both nationalism and social change and resulted in the continued backwardness of the region even after the departure of the British.
Settling the Frontier
Land, Law & Society in the Peshawar Valley, 1500-1900
Second Edition
Robert Nichols
This work explores the question of social transformation within the Peshawar valley from the 16th through the nineteenth century, an extended period when regional villagers and pastoralists experienced and interacted with the demands of evolving imperial and cultural ideas and institutions. For its Mughal rulers the valley was a political frontier to tame for stability and revenue extraction. Islamic scholars and proselytisers regarded the valley as a spiritual frontier of flawed tribal believers in need of guidance. Later, the British presented the area as one on the frontier of modernity and so requiring new systems and technologies. Through this history, outside perceptions treated the region as a cultural frontier in need of the values and resources of neighbouring civilisations.
Kashmir
A Disputed Legacy 1846-1990
Alastair Lamb
Alastair Lamb examines the history of the Kashmir dispute from its remote origins in the first half of the nineteenth century until the spring of 1990, when India and Pakistan appeared to be on the verge of a fourth armed conflict over this contested inheritance from the British Raj. Lamb provides a detailed account of the history of the Northern Frontier in the final years of the British Raj and he shows how this may well have set the scene for British policy towards Jammu and Kashmir in 1947. The book also deals with Jammu and Kashmir since October 1947 and includes a detailed history of UN participation, Indo-Pakistani negotiations, Chinese involvement, the State’s internal politics and the origins of the insurgency.