Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History: In Search of a Narrative

1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 1068-1095 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gilmartin
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
British India ◽  
South Asian History ◽  
Indian Nationalism ◽  
Historical Reconstructions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Asian History

Few events have been more important to the history of modern South Asia than the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947. The coming of partition has cast a powerful shadow on historical reconstructions of the decades before 1947, while the ramifications of partition have continued to leave their mark on subcontinental politics fifty years after the event.Yet, neither scholars of British India nor scholars of Indian nationalism have been able to find a compelling place for partition within their larger historical narratives (Pandey 1994, 204–5). For many British empire historians, partition has been treated as an illustration of the failure of the “modernizing” impact of colonial rule, an unpleasant blip on the transition from the colonial to the postcolonial worlds. For many nationalist Indian historians, it resulted from the distorting impact of colonialism itself on the transition to nationalism and modernity, “the unfortunate outcome of sectarian and separatist politics,” and “a tragic accompaniment to the exhilaration and promise of a freedom fought for with courage and valour” (Menon and Bhasin 1998, 3).

The Indian Princely States and Their Rulers

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angma D. Jhala
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
British Empire ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Heritage Tourism ◽  
British India ◽  
South Asian History ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Company Directors ◽  
Asian History ◽  
Trade Education

Colonial South Asian history has focused on British India and the nationalists who later resisted and supplanted it. However, long before India’s independence from Britain, there were regions where neither the British nor the nationalists were primarily positioned. These were the approximately six hundred semi-autonomous kingdoms, or “princely states” (often referred to as “Indian India”), which spanned the breadth and length of the subcontinent. They comprised two-fifths of the landmass and one-third of the population, excluding Burma. Though their rulers were long marginalized in modern South Asian and imperial history as antiquated relics of the medieval era, oriental despots, or puppet princes, they were real forces in the governing of the subcontinent, not only during the precolonial era but also at the heyday of the British Empire and continue to play a part in modern South Asia. Native rulers introduced new systems of administration, taxation, law, religious and social reform, trade, education, public health, and technology, including railways, ginning factories, and telegraphs, to their states; served as patrons of architecture, the arts, culinary innovation, and sport; encouraged the introduction of representative forms of government; and, in certain cases, supported popular anticolonial movements. In some principalities, where ruling families practiced different faiths from the majority of their citizens, their policies would influence the political trajectories of their erstwhile states long after the end of colonialism. With India’s independence and Partition in 1947, the princely states merged with the new nations of South Asia, and in the 1970s former princes lost their economic entitlement of the Privy Purse. However, they continued to play a part in postcolonial South Asia, serving as diplomats, governors, patrons of educational and charitable institutions, local magnates, company directors, cabinet ministers and, perhaps most prominently, as elected politicians and leaders of heritage tourism.

Communalism in the Punjab: The Arya Samaj Contribution

1968 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth W. Jones
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
South Asian History ◽  
Indian Nationalism ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Asian History ◽  
Divide And Rule ◽  
Arya Samaj

Few features of modern South Asian history have received more comment than communalism, its impact on the development of nationalism and its threat to the continued existence of a secular Indian state. For many supporters of Indian nationalism, communalism was the result of British machinations, of a “divide and rule” policy used to impede and, finally, to frustrate the ambitions of those who desired a free, united India. For the proponents of Pakistan, communalism was not an issue, since they premised their actions on the concept of “two nations,” one Hindu and one Islamic, which both sought to establish themselves as political entities. Their world was defined by religion and what others called communalism was nationalism in such a world. Communalism exists as a historic reality and a common though ambiguous and increasingly pejorative analytic concept.

‘From Purdah to Parliament’

Hawwa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-309
Author(s):  
M. Reza Pirbhai
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Modernization Theory ◽  
Social Activist ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
South Asian History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Asian History

Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah was a Pakistani author, politician, diplomat and social-activist whose life bridges the late colonial and post-colonial phases of South Asian history. Her biography illustrates the discursive pressures shaping the lives of upper and intermediate class men and women of her generation, particularly as manifested in the unquestioned tropes of modernization theory. However, the same life reveals that her notion of the tradition-modernity dichotomy does not extend to the equation of Islam with tradition. The secular-religious divide, in fact, does not feature in her thought or activism at all. The latter activism also problematizes the assumption that Muslim women, any more of less than non-Muslims, are marginal or peripheral players in the history of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Contextual interpretation of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s Concept of Islam

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-111
Author(s):  
Hajra Salim ◽  
Abdul Rashid Khan
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
South Asian History ◽  
Great Leader ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Concept ◽  
Asian History ◽  
Freedom Movement

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the most controversial, misinterpreted and misunderstood personality in the South Asian history of Freedom Movement. Not only Indian and British historians but also Pakistanis historians are confused about his sect and beliefs. Jinnah’s figure was buried under the layers of propaganda. This is the most contentious discussed issue in Pakistan among the different scholars. Both right and left wing intellectuals sought legitimacy of their views with the vision of Jinnah, either the Jinnah was secular or Islamist. The object of the purposed research paper is to analyze and understand the Religious Concept of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and also explore his concept of Islam to resolve the problematic condition of the nature of Pakistani state. Contextual interpretation of Struggle Movement has great importance for analyzing the character and active participation of our great leader and also necessary for removing the misunderstandings about his personality. Different historians, intellectuals, scholars and thinkers are doing their best to prove him a secular or Islamist leader according to their own point of view and perception with the references of his speeches, statements, different events of his life and from his works. His personality was interpreted by the historians from different angles and aspects to clear the questions that were raised in their minds about his secularism.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Partition of India on the Study of Hinduism in the Urdu Language

ĪQĀN ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (04) ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Dr. Muhammad Akram ◽  
Dr. Ayesha Qurrat ul Ain
Keyword(s):  
South Asian ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
British India ◽  
South Asian History ◽  
Everyday Interaction ◽  
Asian History ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Partition Of India ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Realities

Religion, language, and race have been among the most crucial factors behind the formation of various national and communal identities in modern South Asian history. Just like the political division of British India, the complex interplay of these factors also culminated in a bifurcation of linguistic boundaries along the religious lines according to which Urdu became associated with Islam and Muslims. In contrast, Hindi became increasingly connected to the Hindu culture. These historical developments also affected the extent and nature of the academic materials on Hinduism in the Urdu language, which the present paper examines. The paper takes stock of different relevant materials. Then, it discusses how the changed socio-political realities quantitatively and qualitatively affected the works on Hinduism in the Urdu language as the majority of the Hindu scholars lost enthusiasm to write on their religion in Urdu considering its increased perception of being a Muslim language. Muslims in Pakistan, on the other hand, lost opportunities of everyday interaction with Hindus and easy access to the original Hindi and Sanskrit sources resulting in a considerable decline in Hindu studies on their part. Thus, the overall production of literature on Hinduism in the Urdu language declined sharply. By implication, the paper hints at how decisively socio-political and historical contexts bear on the pursuit of the academic study of religion.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-294
Author(s):  
Razak Khan
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
British Empire ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Global History ◽  
Global Context ◽  
South Asian History ◽  
Global Connections ◽  
Asian History ◽  
History Approach

Abstract The current turn in the histories of modern India and Germany is a movement away from their respective national and linguistic boundaries toward exploration of global connections and resultant entanglements. It has been facilitated by new interventions made by transnational and transregional histories, which have become more prominent, both intellectually and institutionally, in Germany with the rise of the Global History approach in recent years. Modern South Asian history, too, has successfully moved beyond the colonial and nationalist framework to explore the larger terrain of Indian Ocean history as well as the wider connections both within and beyond the British Empire. These developments have given rise to an exciting meeting point that brings modern Indian and German histories together. The essays in this special section are focused on connections forged in Germany and, specifically, in Berlin, while also tracing the prehistory and afterlives in the colony and newly independent nations in South Asia. At the same time, our articles locate Indo-German histories within a wider global context as well.

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