A Bend in the River of Life Read Free Page A

punishment they wanted to inflict on their subjects for what they perceived as the audacity to clamor for freedom!
    At the beginning of the Independence Movement, Indian National Congress was the only organization leading the masses of all faiths and negotiating with the British Raj. However, allured by the bait dangled by the British Raj, some Muslim leaders began breaking away from the Congress Party one by one. The Muslim League was formed. By the end of the 1920’s the dissension between the Hindus and Muslims started penetrating the grassroot level through the political leadership at the top. The division of the country on the communal lines was thus a foregone conclusion. The Second World War merely prolonged the inevitable. None the less, the Quit India Movement of 1942 made governance difficult for the British Raj. But British Home Government reached an agreement with the leaders of the Independence Movement to post pone their campaign till the end of the war in return for the declaration of independence soon after the war. Meanwhile, unbeknown to the ordinary masses of India and true to United States of America’s ideal of spreading the flame of freedom everywhere on this earth, successive US Administrations after the First World War also kepttheir intense pressure on the British Government to grant freedom to the Indian sub-continent at the earliest. The announcement of the Indian Independence was, therefore, one of the priorities of the first elected British Government after the war. What remained to be done was to set up the date and the logistics of the transfer of power. And that was the most difficult part.
    The feverish talks on the partition of British India simultaneously with the imminent independence sparked off the irrational passion and communal frenzy among both the Hindus and Muslims. At an instant, centuries of friendship gave way to hostility. Friends suddenly turned into foes. Religious tolerance degenerated into bigotry. Beastliness of man got the better of godliness. India was in turmoil of catastrophic proportions.
    In broad geographical terms the Muslim majority areas of the country were the Northwestern provinces and East Bengal, which was where Rana’s family was ensconced for centuries. It was reasonably certain that by and large these provinces would form the core of the new Islamic State. The net result of this division on the basis of faith was the exodus of tens of millions of people from both sides of the border unprecedented in human history. Mostly Hindus and Sikhs from the Muslim majority areas and Muslims from the Hindu majority areas of the undivided India began crossing the imaginary border even before the real border was drawn. The date of the transfer of power was set at midnight between August 14 and 15, 1947. Pakistan chose August 14 as their Date of Independence and India opted for August 15.
    Be that as it may, many well-meaning people like Amit Roy were of the opinion that the partition would not take effect after all. They were naïve enough to suggest that even if it did, it would be temporary; the two nations would decide to come together again after the departure of the British. So some people planned for temporary migration. They thought once the dust of the turmoil settled down, they would return to their erstwhile hearth and homes. They justlocked up their properties and arranged for temporary relocations. But events belied their hopes. Since the dawn of civilization history taught us time and time again that in a fluid situation like this all evil forces tend to combine together to give the civilization a sinister name. When greed and lust join the religious passion, degradation of human mind attains the beastliest worst.
    At the ignition of exodus, the miscreants began infiltrating the empty properties and grabbing them by force. Soon that misdeed also was not enough because it did not involve inhuman torture and violence over fellow human beings. So