Daily Times

LAHORE: Speakers at a panel discussion on Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed’s book The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed on Friday said that the history of partition of Indian subcontinent had been distorted in both countries to serve nationalist ends. Resultantly, religious intolerance increased in both societies.

The session was organised by the Quaid-e-Azam Political Science Society of Government College University (GCU) Lahore. The book written by Dr Ahmed, an emeritus professor at Stockholm University, sheds light on partition based on an extensive study of secret reports of British officials as well as oral history.

The second edition of the book has been published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of partition. It expands on the first edition based on accounts by eyewitnesses, survivors, and even those who participated in violent clashes.

In his remarks, Dr Yaqoob Bangash, an assistant professor of South Asian History at Information Technology University (ITU) Lahore, said a bloodied movement or process of cleansing the society from minorities had started at the time of partition, and there was no stopping to that violence. With the passage of time, it took the shape of a sectarian movement. He also highlighted contradictions between oral history and archival history of Indian partition.

GCU Political Science Department chairperson Dr Khalid Manzoor Butt said that use of religion in politics had always led to intolerance in society. “Whenever religion is brought into politics, it ends with violence and bloodshed,” he said.

Prof Butt said that religious and sectarianism intolerance was the biggest threat to Pakistan as well as to other Muslim countries. He said the history taught in schools, colleges and universities since independence was based on the state’s version of events.

Dr Ali Usman Qasmi of LUMS said that partition of India had resulted in the biggest forced migration in history as some 14 million people – of which 10 million were from Punjab were left displaced. “It also resulted in the killing of one million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, of which 500,000 to 800,000 were in Punjab,” he added.

Dr Qasmi also talked about violence suffered by women and how that affected the women later on. “Though historians have failed to narrate this violence, some masterpieces of Urdu literature do a great job in highlighting those experiences,” he concluded

Urdu fiction writer Dr. Saima Iram and Punjabi literature critic Dr Muhammad Saeed Khawar, and witnesses of partition violence, Rana Muhammad Azhar Khan and Sheikh Hameed Ali Tanveer, also spoke on the occasion.

GCU Vice Chancellor Dr Hassan Amir Shah chaired the panel. The author was also present on the occasion. At the end of the discussion, the session was opened to questions from the audience. Dr Ahmed responded to the questions.

Published in Daily Times, February 3^rd 2018.