Opposition to the Partition of India

Opposition to the Partition of India was widespread in British India in the 20th century and it continues to remain a talking point in South Asian politics. Those who opposed it often adhered to the doctrine of composite nationalism in the Indian subcontinent.[3] The Hindu, Christian, Anglo-Indian, Parsi and Sikh communities were largely opposed to the Partition of India (and its underlying two-nation theory),[4][5][6][7] as were many Muslims (these were represented by the All India Azad Muslim Conference).[8][9][10]

Map of colonial India (1911)
Khudai Khidmatgar leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Mahatma Gandhi, both belonging to the Indian National Congress, strongly opposed the partition of India, citing the fact that both Muslims and Hindus lived together peacefully for centuries and shared a common history in the country.[1][2]

Pashtun politician and Indian independence activist Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan of the Khudai Khidmatgar viewed the proposal to partition India as un-Islamic and contradicting a common history in which Muslims considered India as their homeland for over a millennium.[1] Mahatma Gandhi opined that "Hindus and Muslims were sons of the same soil of India; they were brothers who therefore must strive to keep India free and united."[2]

Sunni Muslims of the Deobandi school of thought regarded the proposed partition and formation of a separate, majority Muslim nation state (i.e. the future Pakistan) as a "conspiracy of the colonial government to prevent the emergence of a strong united India". Deobandis therefore helped to organize the Azad Muslim Conference, to condemn the partition of India.[11] They also argued that the economic development of Muslims would be hurt if India was partitioned,[11] seeing the idea of partition as one that was designed to keep Muslims backward.[12] They also expected "Muslim-majority provinces in united India to be more effective than the rulers of independent Pakistan in helping the Muslim minorities living in Hindu-majority areas."[11] Deobandis pointed to the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, which was made between the Muslims and Qureysh of Mecca, that "promoted mutual interaction between the two communities thus allowing more opportunities for Muslims to preach their religion to Qureysh through peaceful tabligh."[11] Deobandi Sunni scholar Sayyid Husain Ahmad Madani argued for a united India in his book Muttahida Qaumiyat Aur Islam (Composite Nationalism and Islam), promulgating the idea that different religions do not constitute different nationalities and that the proposition for a partition of India was not justifiable, religiously.[13]

Khaksar Movement leader Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition of India because he felt that if Muslims and Hindus had largely lived peacefully together in India for centuries, they could also do so in a free and united India.[14] He reasoned that a division of India along religious lines would breed fundamentalism and extremism on both sides of the border.[14] Mashriqi thought that "Muslim majority areas were already under Muslim rule, so if any Muslims wanted to move to these areas, they were free to do so without having to divide the country."[14] To him, separatist leaders "were power hungry and misleading Muslims in order to bolster their own power by serving the British agenda."[14] All of Hindustan, according to Mashriqi, belonged to Indian Muslims.[15]

In 1941, a CID report states that thousands of Muslim weavers under the banner of Momin Conference and coming from Bihar and Eastern U.P. descended in Delhi demonstrating against the proposed two-nation theory. A gathering of more than fifty thousand people from an unorganized sector was not usual at that time, so its importance should be duly recognized. The non-ashraf Muslims constituting a majority of Indian Muslims were opposed to partition but sadly they were not heard. They were firm believers of Islam yet they were opposed to Pakistan.[16]

In the 1946 Indian provincial elections, only 16% of Indian Muslims, mainly those from upper class, were able to vote.[17] Many lower class Indian Muslims opposed the partition of India, believing that "a Muslim state would benefit only upper-class Muslims."[18]

The All India Conference of Indian Christians, representing the Christians of colonial India, along with Sikh political parties such as the Chief Khalsa Diwan and Shiromani Akali Dal led by Master Tara Singh condemned the call by separatists to create Pakistan, viewing it as a movement that would possibly persecute them.[5][6] Frank Anthony, a Christian leader who served as the president of the All India Anglo-Indian Association cited several reasons for opposing the partition of India.[19] If India were to be divided, the regions proposed to become Pakistan would still contain a “considerable number of non-Muslims, and a large number of Muslims would also remain in [independent] India" thus rendering the partition to be useless.[19] Furthermore, the partition of India would jeopardise the interests of the minority communities.[20] He held that the plan proposed by the All India Muslim League would cause the balkanization of India that would lead to "potentially ‘emasculating’ India" as a global leader. [19] Anthony stated that India was unlike Europe in that “India had achieved a basic ethnic and cultural unity.”[19] Lastly, Anthony held that “the division of India would lead to war between the two countries” and give rise to the spread of extremist ideologies.[19]

Critics of the partition of India argue that an undivided India would have boasted one of the strongest armies in the world, had more competitive sports teams, fostered an increased protection of minorities with religious harmony, championed greater women's rights, possessed extended maritime borders, projected elevated soft power, and offered a "focus on education and health instead of the defence sector".[21]

Pakistan was created through the partition of India on the basis of religious segregation;[22] the very concept of dividing the country of India has criticized for its implication "that people with different backgrounds" cannot live together.[23] After it occurred, critics of the partition of India point to the displacement of fifteen million people, the murder of more than one million people, and the rape of 75,000 women to demonstrate the view that it was a mistake.[24]

Organisations and prominent individuals opposing the partition of India

Political parties
First Session of All-India Jamhur Muslim League, which was established by Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi to support a united India (1940).[25]
  • All India Anglo-Indian Association led by its president Frank Anthony "vociferously opposed Partition".[7][20]
  • All India Azad Muslim Conference was an organisation headed by the Premier of Sind Allah Bakhsh Soomro, which represented the religiously observant Muslim working class; in one of the largest gatherings of Muslims in colonial India, it rallied in Delhi to oppose the partition of India.[9][26]
  • All India Conference of Indian Christians opposed the partition of India, as well as the creation of separate electorates based on religion; it supported swaraj and helped to secure to rights of minorities in the Constitution of India.[5][27]
  • All-India Jamhur Muslim League was erected "in 1940, to oppose Jinnah's scheme of Pakistan".[25]
  • All India Momin Conference saw itself as articulating the interests of common, rather than upper-class Muslims and passed a resolution against the partition of India in 1940.[26][28] It said: “the Partition scheme was not only impracticable and unpatriotic but altogether un-Islamic and unnatural, because the geographical position of the different provinces of India and the intermingled population of the Hindus and Muslims are against the proposal and because the two communities have been living together for centuries, and they have many things in common between them.”[29]
  • All India Muslim Majlis opposed the partition of India "as impracticable".[30]
  • All India Shia Political Conference protested the idea of creating a Pakistan, being against the partition of colonial India.[31][26] It also supported common electorates.[32]
  • Anjuman-i-Watan Baluchistan allied itself with the Indian National Congress and opposed the partition of India.[33][26]
  • Central Khalsa Young Men Union declared its "unequivocal opposition" to the creation of a separate Muslim state in northwestern India, as with other Sikh organisations.[6]
  • Chief Khalsa Diwan declared its "unequivocal opposition" to the creation of a separate Muslim state in northwestern India, as with other Sikh organisations.[6]
  • Communist Party of India opposed the partition of India and did not participate in the Independence Day celebrations of 15 August 1947 in protest of the division of the country.[34]
  • Indian National Congress firmly opposed the partition of India, though it later reluctantly accepted it after the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan. According to Congress it was unavoidable from India's side.[35]
  • Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadis was a member party of the All India Azad Muslim Conference, which opposed the partition of India.[26]
  • Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind was "uncompromisingly against the formation of Pakistan", rejecting the idea of the partition and instead advocating for composite nationalism in a united India (cf. Muttahida Qaumiyat Aur Islam).[36]
  • Khaksar Movement opposed the partition of India and were "outspoken critics of the Pakistan scheme".[37][38]
  • Khudai Khidmatgar stood out against the partition of India, using nonviolent principles to resist British rule in the country.[39]
  • Krishak Praja Party condemned idea of a partition plan as "absurd and meaningless".[40][26]
  • Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam passed a resolution in 1943 declaring itself to be against the partition and "introduced a sectarian element into its objections by portraying Jinnah as an infidel in an attempt to discredit his reputation."[41]
  • Sind United Party held that "Whatever our faiths we must live together in our country in an atmosphere of perfect amity and our relations should be the relations of the several brothers of a joint family, various members of which are free to profess their faith as they like without any let or hindrance and of whom enjoy equal benefits of their joint property."[9]
  • Shiromani Akali Dal led by Master Tara Singh saw the idea of the creation of a Muslim state as inviting possible persecution of Sikhs, who thus "launched a virulent campaign against the Lahore Resolution".[6]
  • Unionist Party (Punjab), which had a base of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, opposed the partition of India from the perspective of seeing the Punjabi identity as more important than one's religious identity.[42][43]

Politicians
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a key player in the Indian independence movement, stated in India Wins Freedom that "as a Muslim, I for one am not prepared for a moment to give up my right to treat the whole of India as my domain and share in the shaping of its political and economic life. To me it seems a sure sign of cowardice to give up what is my patrimony and content myself with a mere fragment of it."[44] He argued that if India were divided into two states, "there would remain three and half crores of Muslims scattered in small minorities all over the land. With 17 per cent in UP, 12 per cent in Bihar and 9 per cent in Madras, they will be weaker than they are today in the Hindu majority provinces. They have had their homelands in these regions for almost a thousand years and built up well known centres of Muslim culture and civilisation there."[44]
Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, the Premier of Punjab and leader of the Unionist Party, opposed the partition of India, referencing the pain that it would cause if the Punjab Province were divided.[45] He felt that Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus of the Punjab all had a common culture and was against dividing India to create a religious segregation between the same people.[46] Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, himself a Muslim, remarked to the separatist leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah: "There are Hindu and Sikh Tiwanas who are my relatives. I go to their weddings and other ceremonies. How can I possibly regard them as coming from another nation?"[46] Tiwana advocated for amity between the religious communities of undivided India, proclaiming March 1st as Communal Harmony Day and aiding in the establishment of a Communal Harmony Committee in Lahore presided over by Raja Narendra Nath with its secretary being Maulvi Mahomed Ilyas of Bahawalpur.[46]
  • Abul Kalam Azad stated that the creation of a Pakistan would only benefit upper class Muslims who would come to monopolize the economy of the separate state; he warned that if it would be created, it would be controlled by international powers, "and with the passage of time this control will become tight".[47][48]
  • Abdul Matlib Mazumdar supported Hindu-Muslim unity and opposed the partition of India, being a prominent Muslim leader in eastern Hindustan.[32]
  • Abdul Qayyum Khan, a barrister from the North-West Frontier Province of colonial India, declared that he would resist the partition of India with his own blood; he reversed his position in 1945 and joined the All India Muslim League[49]
  • Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai argued against the two-nation theory, favouring a united India.[30]
  • A. K. Fazlul Huq opposed two-nation theory after 1942 and made and attempts to mobilise non-Muslim League leaders against the partition.[50]
  • Allah Bakhsh Soomro, the Chief Minister of Sind, was vehemently opposed to partitioning India on the basis of religious lines; he chaired the All India Azad Muslim Conference to advocate for a united and independent India.[9] Allah Bakhsh Soomro proclaimed that the very concept of "The Muslims as a separate nation in India on the basis of their religion, is un-Islamic."[51]
  • Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition.[52]
  • Ansar Harvani, a nationalist Muslim, voted against the resolution to partition India.[53]
  • Altaf Hussain, a Pakistani politician and founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement political party, called the partition of India the "greatest blunder" that resulted in "the division of blood, culture, brotherhood, relationships".[54][55]
  • Arshad Madani has criticized the partition of India, stating that it "has become a cause of destruction and ruin, not just for a particular community, but for both Hindus and Muslims."[56]
  • Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed supported Mahatma Gandhi's vision of a united India.[57]
  • Fazl-i-Hussain was opposed to the separatist campaign to create a Muslim state through the division of India.[58][59]
  • Frank Anthony, president of the All India Anglo-Indian Association, "vociferously opposed Partition".[20] If India were to be divided, the regions that separatists wished to become Pakistan would contain a “considerable number of non-Muslims, and a large number of Muslims would also remain in [independent] India.”[19] Furthermore, the partition of India would jeopardise the interests of the minority communities.[20] He held that the plan proposed by the All India Muslim League would cause the balkanization of India that would lead to “potentially ‘emasculating’ India” as a global leader.[19] Anthony stated that India was unlike Europe in that “India had achieved a basic ethnic and cultural unity.”[19] Lastly, Anthony held that “the division of India would lead to war between the two countries” and give rise to the spread of extremist ideologies.[19] Anthony criticized the pro-separatist All India Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, holding them to be responsible for the murders that occurred during Direct Action Day and for spreading communal strife: “the hatred was really started by Jinnah, there's no doubt about it.”[60] To this end, Frank Anthony charged the pro-separatist All India Muslim League with being "born in hatred" and being "responsible for an inevitable cycle of violence."[60]
  • Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, who was elected as the Chief Minister of Sind from 1937–1938 and also 1942–1947, rejected the idea to partition India.[49]
  • Hridya Nath Kunzru lauded the All India Indian Christian Association's commitment to interfaith solidarity against imperialism, as well as their opposition to the partition of India.[27]
  • Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi advocated a joint Hindu-Muslim revolution and called everyone to "all rise against" the "conspiracy" of a partition plan.[61][37] Mashriqi saw the two-nation theory as a plot of the British to maintain control of the region more easily, if India was divided into two countries that were pitted against one another.[14] Mashriqi, however, said that since the Muslims had ruled India for a long time, abandoning the land where many Muslims continued to live and allowing solely Hindus to rule a major part of the land, should be opposed.[15] Nevertheless, once the partition plan had been formalized, Mashriqi felt that at least Delhi, the old seat of Muslim power, should be part of Pakistan, and opposed Punjab's partition plan.[62]
  • Jawaharlal Nehru opposed partition and believed it couldn't bring communal peace.[63][64][65]
  • Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi saw the idea of the partition of India as one that catered to the policies of divide and rule by the British government and he thus strongly opposed it, calling for an Akhand Hindustan (Hindi-Urdu for "united India").[66]
  • Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan opposed the partition of India and campaigned against British rule in the country through nonviolence.[39]
  • Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan favoured a united India and was an ally of the Indian National Congress.[67] He stood against communalism and battled the Muslim League after it became apparent that a Pakistan would be created out of the provinces of northwest colonial India.[68]
  • Khwaja Abdul Majid was a social reformer and lawyer "who supported Gandhi in his opposition to the partition of India."[69]
  • Khwaja Abdul Hamied, a pharmaceutical chemist, opposed the partition of India and suggested "an armed struggle against the Muslim League to keep India united".[70] He felt that Muhammad Ali Jinnah's views were held only by a minority of Muslims in India.[70] Khwaja Abdul Hamied was against the idea of separate electorates based on the religious faith of an individual, declaring that they were a manifestation of divisive communalism.[70] He taught that "if people were told that those who vote for Pakistan had to go to that country then nobody would vote for the partition."[70]
  • Khwaja Atiqullah, the brother of the Nawab of Dhaka, "collected 25,000 signatures and submitted a memorandum opposing the partition".[71]
  • Lal Khan, a Pakistani politician and founder of The Struggle Pakistan, criticized the partition of India and advocated for Indian reunification, which he stated would heal continuing wounds and solve the Kashmir conflict.[72] Advocating for a common revolution, Khan declared that "Five thousand years of common history, culture and society is too strong to be cleavaged by this partition."[73]
  • Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi opposed the partition of India and founded the All-India Jamhur Muslim League to advocate for a united India.[25]
  • Mahatma Gandhi opposed the partition of India, seeing it as contradicting his vision of unity among Indians of all religions.[74]
  • Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, the Premier of Punjab, opposed the partition of India, seeing it as a ploy to divide the Punjab Province and Punjabi people.[45][75] He felt that Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus of the Punjab all had a common culture and was against dividing India on the basis of religious segregation.[46] Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, himself a Muslim, remarked to the separatist leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah: "There are Hindu and Sikh Tiwanas who are my relatives. I go to their weddings and other ceremonies. How can I possibly regard them as coming from another nation?"[46] March 1 was proclaimed by Tiwana as Communal Harmony Day, with the Communal Harmony Committee being established by him in Lahore, with Raja Narendra Nath as its president and Maulvi Mahomed Ilyas as its secretary.[46]
  • Maulana Hifzur Rahman, a nationalist Muslim, voted against the resolution to partition India.[53]
  • Maulana Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari was the creator of the Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam, which passed a resolution in 1943 declaring itself to be against the partition and "introduced a sectarian element into its objections by portraying Jinnah as an infidel in an attempt to discredit his reputation."[41]
  • Markandey Katju views the British as bearing responsibility for the partition of India; he regards Jinnah as a British agent who advocated for the creation of Pakistan in order "to satisfy his ambition to become the ‘Quaid-e-Azam’, regardless of the suffering his actions caused to both Hindus and Muslims."[76] Katju claimed that after witnessing Hindus and Muslims joining hands in the First War of Indian Independence in 1857, the British government implemented a divide and rule policy to cause them to fight one another rather than rise up to fight against colonial rule.[76] He also claims that the British government orchestrated the partition of India in order to prevent a united India from emerging as an industrial power that would rival the economy of any western state.[76]
  • Master Tara Singh declared that his party, the Shiromani Akali Dal would fight "tooth and nail" against the partition of India and creation of Pakistan.[6]
  • Maulana Mazhar Ali Azhar referred to Jinnah as Kafir-e-Azam ("The Great Kafir").[77] He, as with other Ahrar leaders, opposed the partition of India.[78]
  • Maulana Sayyid Husain Ahmad Madani strongly opposed the campaign for a separate Muslim state, instead advocating for composite nationalism in a united India (cf. Muttahida Qaumiyat aur Islam).[79] Five decades earlier, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani Asadabadi advocated for the same; he held that Hindu-Muslim unity in India as opposed to unity between Indian Muslims and foreign Muslims, would effectively combat British colonial rule, leading to an independent India.[80][81]
  • Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, actively worked to prevent the partition of India, arguing that concept violated the Islamic doctrine of the ummah.[82][83] Maulana Maududi saw the partition as creating a temporal border that would divide Muslims from one another.[82] He advocated for the whole of India to be reclaimed for Islam.[84]
  • M. C. Davar opposed the partition of India, creating the "United Party of India (UPI) with the aim of removing the chasm between the Congress and the Muslim League."[85]
  • Mohan Bhagwat, the 6th Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, declared in November 2021 that "The only solution to the pain of Partition lies in undoing it."[86]
  • Muhammad Tayyab Danapuri was a Barelwi scholar who wrote against Jinnah in his books.[87]
  • Mohammed Abdur Rahiman, a peace activist, "mobilised the Muslim masses against the two-nation theory of Muslim League."[49]
  • Mufti Mahmud, associated with the Darul Uloom Deoband, opposed the partition of India.[88]
  • Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari argued against Jinnah's two-nation theory.[30]
  • Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, coming from the background with ties to the Indian National Congress and Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam, opposed the Muslim League.[89]
  • Purushottam Das Tandon opposed the partition of India, advocating unity, stating that "Acceptance of the resolution will be an abject surrender to the British and the Muslim League. The admission of the Working Committee was an admission of weakness and the result of a sense of despair. The Partition would not benefit either community – the Hindus in Pakistan and the Muslims in India would both live in fear."[90]
  • Rafi Ahmed Kidwai supported Mahatma Gandhi's vision of a united India.[57]
  • Ram Manohar Lohia opposed partition in line with Mahatma Gandhi's path of Hindu-Muslim unity.[91]
  • Rezaul Karim was a champion of Hindu-Muslim unity and a united India. He "argued that the idea that Hindus and Muslims are two distinct nations was ahistorical" and held that outside of the subcontinent, Indian Muslims faced discrimination. With respect to Indian civilization, Rezaul Karim declared that "Its Vedas, its Upanishads, its Rama, Sita, its Ramayana, and Mahabharat, its Krishna and Gita, its Asoka and Akbar, its Kalidas and Amir Khusru, its Aurangzeb and Dara, its Rana Pratap and Sitaram—all are our own inheritance." In 1941, Rezaul Karim published a book Pakisthan Examined with the Partition Schemes that firmly rejected the two-nation theory and opposed the division of India.[92]
  • Saifuddin Kitchlew, a Kashmiri Muslim leader and President of the Punjab Provincial Congress Committee, was strongly opposed to the partition of India, calling it "a surrender of nationalism in favour of communalism".[93][94] Kitchlew was an Indian nationalist who opposed British colonial rule and held "that a divided India would only debilitate the Muslim cause, in terms of its political emancipation and economic prosperity."[95]
  • Salman Khurshid criticized the partition of India, opining that a united India with a liberal democracy and proportional representation would have been better for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent.[96] Khurshid praised Nelson Mandela for refusing to accept a partition of South Africa.[96]
  • Shaukatullah Shah Ansari argued against Jinnah's two-nation theory.[30]
  • Sheikh Abdullah supported Mahatma Gandhi's vision of a united India.[57]
  • Shibli Nomani argued against Jinnah's two-nation theory.[30]
  • Sikandar Hayat Khan, the Prime Minister of Punjab, was opposed to the partition of India as he saw the consequence of dividing the Punjab as painful.[45]
  • Syed Sultan Ahmed backed M. C. Davar in his opposition to the partition of India.[85]
  • Syed Mohammad Sharfuddin Quadri, a leader who joined the Indian independence movement at the time of the Salt March, opposed the two-nation theory and was imprisoned in the same jail cell as Mahatma Gandhi[49]
  • Syed Habib-ul-Rahman of the Krishak Praja Party said that partitioning India was "absurd" and "chimerical". Criticising the partition of the province of Bengal and India as a whole, Syed Habib-ul-Rahman said that "the Indian, both Hindus and Muslims, live in a common motherland, use the offshoots of a common language and literature, and are proud of the noble heritage of a common Hindu and Muslim culture, developed through centuries of residence in a common land".[97]
  • Tarun Vijay, a member of the Rajya Sabha aligned with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is critical of the partition of India, faulting the British for it, and advocates for Indian reunification due to the “same cultural thread” that he states runs throughout the subcontinent.[96] Vijay believes that nature has established one contiguous entity known as Hindustan or Bharat has exited throughout history and that in his travels to Pakistan and Bangladesh, the people there expressed a “close affinity with Indians”.[96] Vijay praised Abraham Lincoln for refusing to accept separatist tendencies in the United States during the time of the American Civil War.[96]
  • Ted Grant, founder of the International Marxist Tendency, heavily criticized the partition of India, calling it "a crime carried out by British Imperialism" that was done in order "to divide the subcontinent to make it easier to control from outside once they had been forced to abandon a military presence."[98]
  • Tikka Raja Shatrujit Singh of Kapurthala stated his opposition to the partition of India and advocates for Indian reunification, citing the communal harmony that existed in the Kapurthala State of colonial India, which contained Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus who lived peacefully.[96] According to him, a secular and united India would have been a global superpower.[96]
  • Ubaidullah Sindhi organised a conference in 1940 in Kumbakonam to stand against the separatist campaign to create Pakistan, stating "if such schemes were considered realistically, it would be apparent at once how damaging they would be not only for Indian Muslims but for the whole Islamic world."[29]
  • Zahid Ali Khan opposed the partition of India, believing that it would divide the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent.[99]
  • Zakir Hussain supported Mahatma Gandhi's vision of a united India.[57]

Military officers
  • Nathu Singh, an officer of the British Indian Army who opposed the partition of India, felt that the British decided to deliberately divide India in order to weaken it in hopes that Indians would ask the British to lengthen their rule in India.[100] Singh said that the armed forces of undivided India were not affected by the "virus of communalism" and "were capable of holding the country together and thereby avoiding Partition."[100] Singh was unable to forgive the politicians for failing to consult with the Indian Army before accepting the partition of India.[100]
  • Louis Mountbatten opposed partition. He later admitted that he would have "most probably" sabotaged the proposal to create Pakistan if he had been aware that Jinnah was dying of tuberculosis.[101][102]

Historians and other academics
"To welcome Partition is to imply that people with different backgrounds and different blood-lines cannot live together in one nation, a regressive suggestion."
—Rajmohan Gandhi, Professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
  • Alain Daniélou, a French historian, saw the partition of India as a "great mistake" both "on the human level as well as on the political one".[103] Daniélou stated that it "burdened India" and added to the region Pakistan, which he called an "unstable state".[103] He said that as a result of the division of India, "India whose ancient borders stretched until Afghanistan, lost with the country of seven rivers (the Indus Valley), the historical centre of her civilisation."[103]
  • Rajmohan Gandhi, at the Oxford Union, stated in 2018 that “To welcome Partition is to imply that people with different backgrounds and different blood-lines cannot live together in one nation. A regressive suggestion.”[23] Gandhi opined that "The corollary that those possessing a common religion or common race enjoy blissful companionship in their homes, nations or regions is, well, hilarious."[104] He holds that "tyranny was multiplied by partition".[23]
  • Maulvi Syed Tufail Ahmad Manglori, Indian educationalist and historian, opposed the partition of India and campaigned against the idea of separate electorates based on religion.[105] He authored Rooh-e-Raushan Mustaqbil (روح روشن مستقبل), which argued against the Pakistan separatist movement.[105]
  • Arvind Sharma, Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University, along with Harvey Cox (Professor of Divinity at Harvard University), Manzoor Ahmad (Professor at Concordia University) and Rajendra Singh (Professor of Linguistics at the Université de Montréal), has stated that the malaise and sectarian violence within South Asia is a consequence of the partition of India, which took place without a referendum in pre-1947 colonial India; these professors have stated that "Inhabitants of the subcontinent of India are poignantly reminded at this moment of the grave injustice that was done to them in 1947, when British India was partitioned without taking the wishes of its inhabitants into account."[106] Sharma, Cox, Ahmad and Singh further wrote that "We regret that the fate of a quarter of the population of the globe was decided arbitrarily by the representative of an imperial power and by those who were not even duly elected by adult franchise."[106] As such, Sharma, Cox, Ahmad and Singh in The New York Times in 1992 demanded that "a plebiscite be held over the entire territory that comprised British India on the question of its partition into India and Pakistan."[106]

Scientists
  • Pervez Hoodbhoy criticized the partition of India, calling it an "unspeakable tragedy" that "separated people who at one time could live together in peace".[107]

Writers
  • Ashis Ray, president of the Indian Journalists' Association, criticized the partition of India at a debate organized by the Oxford Union in 2018, holding that Hindus and Muslims could have lived together peacefully in a united India.[104]
  • Hasrat Mohani, an Urdu poet who coined the Hindustani language phrase Inquilab Zindabad (translation: "Long live the revolution!") was against the two-nation theory and chose to remain in independent India after the partition occurred.[49]
  • Jaun Elia opposed the partition of India due to his Communist ideology, remembering his birth city Amroha with nostalgia after he moved to Karachi.[108][109] Elia said that the formation of Pakistan was a prank played on the people by elites from Aligarh.[110][111]
  • M. Alexeyev, writing in the Bolshevik less than one year after the partition of India occurred, stated:[112]

Because of the fear of the peasant revolution, the leaders of the Muslim League in full agreement with British imperialism favoured the partition of India and maintenance of British domination. They demanded formation of the Muslim State, by kindling religious animosity between the Hindus and the Muslims. ... The partition of India could not solve and did not solve a single problem including the Hindu-Muslim problem. On the contrary it intensified the religious differences, especially in connection with the partition of the province of the Punjab, and facilitated the incitement of bloody conflicts between the Hindus, Sikhs and Musulmans. Millions of refugees rushed from one dominion to another. Hindus and Sikhs fled to Hindustan and Muslims to Pakistan. Whole villages were depopulated, harvests were not gathered, fields were not sown. ... armed bands organised on fascist lines, flooded with agents of the British secret police, organised massacre of Musulmans in Hindustan, and of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. Fratricidal clashes in Hindustan and Pakistan were handy to British imperialism and its agents. The partition of India was effected with a view to maintain political and economic domination of British imperialism in the country divided into parts. ... The partition of India was accomplished by the Labour Government which is more supple and more capable of making use of social and national demagogy, than the previous Conservative Government. It was easier for the Labour Party to accomplish this manoeuvre because the leaders of the Indian National Congress had always been maintaining with them a certain contract and more willingly came to a compromise with the Labour Cabinet. It is characteristic that the Conservative Party supported the plan of partitioning India, proposed by the Labour Government. This testifies to the fact that the whole of this plan is a British imperialist plan and corresponds with its interests and its calculations. It is not without reasons that during the debate on the Bill in the British House of Commons and the House of Lords, the leaders of the Conservative Party greeted the Government's plan as one which came to the rescue of the British imperialism, and the Labour Government as the loyal defender of the interests of the British Empire. Having divided India and conferred on Hindustan and Pakistan “the title of dominion”, British imperialism there by maintained its colonial domination over India. British capital fully and completely as in the past occupies a commanding position in the economy of Hindustan and Pakistan. A powerful lever of the colonial exploitation of India is the banking system. All the big banks in India, with the exception of two, are managed by British monopolists. Thus they are holding in their hands the largest amount of capital which they can invest in industries, Railways, Ports etc. Indian industry is fully dependent on the British bankers. More than half of jute and tea industry of Hindustan, 1/3rd of iron and steel industry, the whole mineral output, rubber plantations etc. belong to British capital.[112]

  • Saadat Hasan Manto strongly opposed the partition of India, which he saw as an "overwhelming tragedy" and "maddeningly senseless".[113][114] The literature he is remembered for is largely about the partition of India.[113]
  • Sri Aurobindo, a poet, saw the partition of India as a "monstrosity" and on 15 August 1947, stated that he hoped "the Nation will not accept the settled fact as for ever settled, or as anything more than a temporary expedient."[103] He further said that "if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled; civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. The partition of the country must go...For without it the destiny of India might be seriously impaired and frustrated. That must not be."[103] Aurobindo saw the two-nation theory as "new-fanged", "contrary to the facts" and being "invented by Jinnah for his purposes"; Aurobindo wrote that "More than 90% of the Indian Muslims are descendants of converted Hindus and belong as much to the Indian nation as the Hindu themselves. Jinnah is himself a descendant of a Hindu named Jinnahbhai" (cf. Jinnah family.[103]
  • Tarek Fatah, a Pakistani Canadian author and journalist, has criticized the partition of India, calling the division of the country "tragic" and lamenting that his homeland of Punjab "was sliced in two by the departing British to create the new state of Pakistan."[115] He states that the British government partitioned India so that they would be able to combat Soviet influence through the establishment of British military installations in what was then northwestern colonial India (now Pakistan).[115]

Religious leaders and organizations

Indian Reunification proposals
Map of India produced by the British Information Services (1944)
Main article: Indian reunification
Further information: Indo-Pakistani Confederation

The subject of undoing the partition and reunifying India has been discussed by both Indians and Pakistanis.[118] In The Nation, Kashmiri Indian politician Markandey Katju has advocated the reunification of India with Pakistan under a secular government.[119] He stated that the cause of the partition was the divide and rule policy of Britain, which was implemented to spread communal hatred after Britain saw that Hindus and Muslims worked together to agitate against their colonial rule in India.[119] Katju serves as the chairman of the Indian Reunification Association (IRA), which seeks to campaign for this cause.[120][121]

Pakistani historian Nasim Yousaf, the grandson of Allama Mashriqi, has also championed Indian Reunification and presented the idea at the New York Conference on Asian Studies on 9 October 2009 at Cornell University; Yousaf stated that the partition of India itself was a result of the divide and rule policies of the British government that sought to create another buffer state between the Soviet Union and India to prevent the spread of Communism, as well the fact that a "division of the people and territory would prevent a united India from emerging as a world power and keep the two nations dependent on pivotal powers."[122] Yousaf cited former Indian National Congress president Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who wrote in the same vein:[122]

If a united India had become free...there was little chance that Britain could retain her position in the economic and industrial life of India. The partition of India, in which the Muslim majority provinces formed a separate and independent state, would, on the other hand, give Britain a foothold in India. A state dominated by the Muslim League would offer a permanent sphere of influence to the British. This was also bound to influence the attitude of India. With a British base in Pakistan, India would have to pay far greater attention to British interests than she might otherwise do. ... The partition of India would materially alter the situation in favour of the British.[122]

Yousaf holds that "Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the President of the All-India Muslim League and later founder of Pakistan, had been misleading the Muslim community in order to go down in history as the saviour of the Muslim cause and to become founder and first Governor General of Pakistan."[122] Allama Mashriqi, a nationalist Muslim, thus saw Jinnah as "becoming a tool in British hands for his political career."[122] Besides the pro-separatist Muslim League, Islamic leadership in British India rejected the notion of partitioning the country, exemplified by the fact that most Muslims in the heartland of the subcontinent remained where they were, rather than migrating to newly created state of Pakistan.[122] India and Pakistan are currently allocating a significant amount of their budget into military spending—money that could be spent in economic and social development.[122] Poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, terrorism and a lack of medical facilities, in Yousaf's eyes, would not be plaguing an undivided India as it would be more advantaged "economically, politically, and socially."[122] Yousaf has stated that Indians and Pakistanis speak a common lingua franca, Hindustani, "wear the same dress, eat the same food, enjoy the same music and movies, and communicate in the same style and on a similar wavelength".[122] He argues that uniting would be a challenge, though not impossible, citing the fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequent German Reunification as an example.[122]

French journalist François Gautier and Pakistani politician Lal Khan have expressed the view that Indian reunification would solve the conflict in the region of Jammu & Kashmir.[123][72]

See also

References
  1. Samuel Totten (2018). Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds: The US Government's Complicity in Crimes against Humanity and Genocide. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442635272. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (a Pathan or Pashtun leader from India's northwest frontier), opposed Jinnah's demand to partition India as un-Islamic and contrary to the history of Muslims in the subcontinent, who had for over a millennium considered India their homeland.
  2. Majmudar, Uma (2012). Gandhi's Pilgrimage of Faith: From Darkness to Light. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791483510.
  3. Na, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im; Naʻīm, ʻAbd Allāh Aḥmad (2009). Islam and the Secular State. Harvard University Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-674-03376-4. The Jamiya-i-ulama-Hind founded in 1919, strongly opposed partition in the 1940s and was committed to composite nationalism.
  4. Shaw, Jeffrey M.; Demy, Timothy J. (2017). War and Religion: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict [3 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 371. ISBN 9781610695176. Upon the assurances of the Congress Party that Sikh interests would be respected as an independent India, Sikh leadership agreed to support the Congress Party and its vision of a united India rather than seeking a separate state. When Partition was announced by the British in 1946, Sikhs were considered a Hindu sect for Partition purposes. They violently opposed the creation of Pakistan since historically Sikh territories and cities were included in the new Muslim homeland.
  5. Thomas, Abraham Vazhayil (1974). Christians in Secular India. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. pp. 106–110. ISBN 978-0-8386-1021-3.
  6. Kudaisya, Gyanesh; Yong, Tan Tai (2004). The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia. Routledge. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-134-44048-1. No sooner was it made public than the Sikhs launched a virulent campaign against the Lahore Resolution.
  7. Frank Anthony (1969). Britain's Betrayal in India: The Story of the Anglo-Indian Community. Allied Publishers. p. 157.
  8. Ashraf, Ajaz (17 August 2017). "India's Muslims and the Price of Partition". The New York Times. Many Indian Muslims, including religious scholars, ferociously opposed the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan.
  9. Ahmed, Ishtiaq (27 May 2016). "The dissenters". The Friday Times.
  10. "Asia and the Americas". Asia and the Americas. Asia Press. 46: 212. 1946.
  11. Moj, Muhammad (2015). The Deoband Madrassah Movement: Countercultural Trends and Tendencies. Anthem Press. p. 84. ISBN 9781783084463.
  12. Faruqi, Ziya-ul-Hasan (1963). The Deoband School and the Demand for Pakistan. Asia Publishing House. pp. 106–108.
  13. Ali, Asghar (2007). Islam in Contemporary World. Sterling Publishers. p. 61. ISBN 9781932705690.
  14. Yousaf, Nasim (31 August 2018). "Why Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition of India?". Global Village Space. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  15. Nasim Yousaf (2004). Pakistans Freedom & Allama Mashriqi. AMZ Publications. p. 35. ISBN 9780976033301. In fact, he had wanted the entire India to be Pakistan. The Muslims had ruled India for a long time; it was not easy to abandon this and let the Hndus rule a major part of the land and the Muslims living there. He firmly believed that India should be returned to the Muslims because it belonged to the Muslims. He further believed that Muslims and Hindus could continue to live together as they had been living. Mashriqi being a visionary was aware that there were far more negatives than this in the partition plan.
  16. Fazal, Tanweer (2014). Nation-state and Minority Rights in India: Comparative Perspectives on Muslim and Sikh Identities. Routledge. p. 162. ISBN 978-1-317-75179-3.
  17. Orissa Review - Volume 22. Home Department, Government of Orissa. 1965. p. 16.
  18. Rabasa, Angel; Waxman, Matthew; Larson, Eric V.; Marcum, Cheryl Y. (2004). The Muslim World After 9/11. Rand Corporation. ISBN 978-0-8330-3755-8. However, many Indian Muslims regarded India as their permanent home and supported the concept of a secular, unified state that would include both Hindus and Muslims.
  19. Bangash, Yaqoob Khan (4 July 2022). "Anglo-Indians and the Punjab Partition: Identity, Politics, and the Creation of Pakistan". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 51 (1): 124–155.
  20. Mansingh, Surjit (2006). Historical Dictionary of India. Scarecrow Press. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-8108-6502-0. Anthony was vocally critical of the British Raj in India for its racial discrimination in matters of pay and allowances, and for failing to acknowledge the sterling military and civil contributions made by Anglo-Indians to the Raj. Anthony vociferously opposed Partition and fought for the best interests of his community as Indians, not Britishers.
  21. Tiwari, Anuj (August 14, 2021). "How India Would Have Looked Like Today If The Partition Had Never Happened?". IndiaTimes. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
  22. Sinha, Jai B. P. (2014). Psycho-Social Analysis of the Indian Mindset. Springer. p. 190. ISBN 978-81-322-1804-3. The partition of the Indian subcontinent was based on the formula of religious segregation. Many Muslims migrated to Pakistan, but many more also decided to stay back. The country had an obligation to protect Islamic interests as Muslims in India tied their destiny with the rest. There were also Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and other communities which were living mostly in peace for centuries.
  23. "Oxford Union debate: House regrets the partition of India". National Herald. 23 March 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2020. He went on to say, "To welcome Partition is to imply that people with different backgrounds and different blood-lines cannot live together in one nation. A regressive suggestion." He lamented that the "Muslim majorities who got Pakistan did not need it; Muslim minorities remaining in India who needed security became more insecure." "If tyranny had ended with partition, I would have welcomed division. In fact, however, tyranny was multiplied by partition."
  24. Dalrymple, William (29 June 2015). "The Great Divide: The Violent Legacy of Indian Partition". The New Yorker.
  25. Sajjad, Mohammad (January 2011). "Muslim resistance to communal separatism and colonialism in Bihar: nationalist politics of the Bihar Muslims". South Asian History and Culture. 2 (1): 16–36. doi:10.1080/19472498.2011.531601. S2CID 143529965. Maghfoor Aijazi had set up the All India Jamhoor Muslim League, in 1940, to oppose Jinnah's scheme of Pakistan.
  26. Qasmi, Ali Usman; Robb, Megan Eaton (2017). Muslims against the Muslim League: Critiques of the Idea of Pakistan. Cambridge University Press. p. 2. ISBN 9781108621236.
  27. Doss, M. Christhu (23 November 2022). India after the 1857 Revolt: Decolonizing the Mind. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-78511-1. Similarly, congratulating Gandhi on the successful termination of his fast in 1943, Raja Sir Maharaja Singh, the president of the New Delhi session of the Indian national Christian conference, appealed to the British that it should make every effort to release all the political prisoners immediately. Christians' opposition to the arrests of Congress leaders, dedication for swaraj, commitment for an indivisible and strong India, and their continued support for Gandhi, barring his noncooperation movement, attracted a great deal of attention and appreciation from Congress leaders like H.N. Kunzru. Addressing the 1943 session of the All-India Christian Conference in New Delhi, Kunzru applauded that: 'it was heartening to find that the Christians are struggling for unity, when threats of division are overwhelming.' Expressing his gratitude to the community for its anti-communal approach throughout the freedom struggle, Kunzru expressed that he was glad that Christians willingly took part in the national movement for securing a self-ruled and self-reliant India by placing the national interests above communal considerations. At the 1943 conference, Christians held a range of discussions on the political situation in the country and strongly opposed Muslim League's call for partition. It condemned communal violence in August 1942 in Bengal. The conference urged the British to publicly declare that India would be given full freedom (without partition) within two years. It also appealed to the principal political parties and communities to come to an agreement on the communal problem. Christian nationalists continued to demand that the constitution of independent India should have the provisions of right to profess, propagate and practise one's religion and that change of religion should not involve any civil or political disability. The political objectives of Christians in 1945 included immediate grant of swaraj, unconditional release of Congress leaders, opposition to partition and making of freedom. In the 1945 national conference held in Hyderabad, under the presidentship of S. Balasingam Satya Nadar, Christians discussed a series of resolutions on the country and called for the making of a unified political body representing all religions. The conference resolved that all regions of India should be united into one unified political body so that people would be able to have self-rule. The leaders urged that the Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others should have a common bond of brotherhood and fellowship. Articulating Christians' commitment to the idea of self-rule, Balasingam appealed to the community to intensify their nonviolent struggles for the immediate grant of swaraj. The Indian Christian Association and the Catholic Indian Association made it clear in Madras on 5 December 1946 that they would strive to bring about communal harmony across the nation. They indicated that the community would never cast a shadow between the country and its freedom. They underlined that Christians were completely against the idea of separate (communal) electorate. As a result of their 'selfless commitment' for national cause, the members of constituent assembly decided to fulfill the demands made by the Christians with regard to right to propagation in January 1947.
  28. The Partition Motif in Contemporary Conflicts. SAGE. 2007. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-7619-3547-6.
  29. Ali, Afsar (17 July 2017). "Partition of India and Patriotism of Indian Muslims". The Milli Gazette.
  30. Chhibber, Pradeep K.; Verma, Rahul (2018). Ideology and Identity: The Changing Party Systems of India. Oxford University Press. p. 81. ISBN 9780190623890.
  31. Sarila, Narendra Singh (2017). The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India's Partition. Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 978-1-4721-2822-5. Consequently, the Shia Political Conference also participated in the Muslims' protest against Jinnah's scheme.
  32. Mainyu, Eldon A. (2011). Abdul Matlib Mazumdar. Aud Publishing. ISBN 9786137449219.
  33. Kashikar, S. G. (2004). Dialogue With Pakistan. India First Foundation. p. 29. ISBN 978-81-89072-02-5. Momins' Conference, Anjuman-I-Watan (Baluchistan) and All-India Shia Conference also expressed their opposition. The Deobandi School of Islam was against the Two-Nation Theory and "played a glorious role in the freedom struggle.
  34. Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2009). Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-independence West Bengal, 1947–52. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-01823-9. As a protest against Partition, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Communist Party of India (CPI) did not participate in the celebrations of 15 August.
  35. Raja Ram Mohun Roy; Keshab Chandra Sen; Surendranath Banerjea; V.O. Chidambaram Pillai; Srinivasa Ramanujan; Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan; Rajkumari Amrit Kaur; Jayaprakash Narayan (1990). Remembering Our Leaders, Volume 3. Children's Book Trust. ISBN 9788170114871. The Indian National Congress and the nationalists of Bengal firmly opposed the partition.
  36. Chakravartty, N. (2003). Mainstream, Volume 42, Issues 1-10. p. 21. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind was uncompromisingly against the formation of Pakistan and remained in India after the partition, while the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam came to be in Pakistan.
  37. Malik, Muhammad Aslam (2000). Allama Inayatullah Mashraqi: A Political Biography. Oxford University Press. p. 131. ISBN 9780195791587. The resolution was a bad omen to all those parties, including the Khaksars, which were, in one way or the other, opposing the partition of the subcontinent.
  38. Talbot, p. 147
  39. Tharoor, Shashi (2003). Nehru: The Invention of India. Arcade Publishing. ISBN 9781559706971. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1891–1991): the "Frontier Gandhi"; Congress leader of the North-West Frontier Province, organized nonviolent resistance group called the Khudai Khidmatgars; opposed partition and was repeatedly jailed for long periods by the government of Pakistan.
  40. Islam, Shamsul (4 December 2015). "Saying No to Partition: Muslim leaders from 1940-1947". Sabrang. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  41. Khan, Adil Hussain (2015). From Sufism to Ahmadiyya: A Muslim Minority Movement in South Asia. Indiana University Press. p. 148. ISBN 9780253015297. Soon thereafter, in 1943, the Ahrar passed a resolution officially declaring itself against partition, which posed a problem in that it put the Ahrar in direct opposition to the Muslim League. The Ahrar introduced a sectarian element into its objections by portraying Jinnah as an infidel in an attempt to discredit his reputation.
  42. Talbot, p. 486
  43. Ahmed, Ishtiaq (27 May 2016). "The dissenters". The Friday Times. Here, not only anti-colonial Muslims were opposed to the Partition – and there were many all over Punjab – but also those who considered the continuation of British rule good for the country – Sir Fazl-e-Hussain, Sir Sikander Hyat and Sir Khizr Hayat Tiwana for instance – were opposed to the Partition. The campaign against Sir Khizr during the Muslim League agitation was most intimidating and the worst type of abuse was hurled at him.
  44. Ali, Asghar Ali (15 August 2010). "Maulana Azad and partition". Dawn. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  45. Mansingh, Surjit (2006). Historical Dictionary of India. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810865020. Both Sikander Hayat Khan and his successor, Khizr Hayat Khan Tiwana, vehemently opposed the idea Partition when it was mooted in the early 1940s, partly because as Punjabi Muslims they did not agree with Jinnah on the need for a Pakistan and largely because the thought of partitioning Punjab, as an inevitable consequence, was so painful.
  46. Talbot, pp. 77, 303
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  51. Malkani, K. R. (1984). The Sindh Story. Allied Publishers. p. 121.
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  53. Raghavan, G. N. S. (1999). Aruna Asaf Ali: A Compassionate Radical. National Book Trust, India. p. 91. ISBN 978-81-237-2762-2. Three nationalist Muslims were among those who opposed the resolution: Ansar Harwani, Maulana Hifzur Rahman and Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew. "This is a surrender", Kitchlew said.
  54. Baruah, Amit (2004-11-07). "Accept Line of Control temporarily: Altaf Hussain". The Hindu. Retrieved 16 March 2019. "The division of the sub-continent was the greatest blunder," he thundered to cheers from the audience. "It was the division of blood, culture, brotherhood, relationships," he said, switching from English to Urdu.
  55. "'Two-Nation Theory' a complete fraud: MQM leader Altaf Hussain". Asian News International. 24 February 2019. Retrieved 16 March 2019. "The said theory was invented by the British Empire to deceive and divide the people of the Indian Sub-Continent," he added.
  56. "Partition was a loss for both Hindus and Muslims: Madani". Awaz. 18 August 2022. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
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  58. Malhotra, Aanchal (2019). Remnants of Partition: 21 Objects from a Continent Divided. Oxford University Press. p. 292. ISBN 978-1-78738-120-9. My father's half-brother, Sir Fazl-i-Hussain, was a found member, along with Sir Sikander Hyat Khan and others who were opposed to the Quaid-e-Azam's vision of Pakistan as an independent nation of Muslims.
  59. Ahmed, Ishtiaq (27 May 2016). "The dissenters". The Friday Times. Here, not only anti-colonial Muslims were opposed to the Partition – and there were many all over Punjab – but also those who considered the continuation of British rule good for the country – Sir Fazl-e-Hussain, Sir Sikander Hyat and Sir Khizr Hayat Tiwana for instance – were opposed to the Partition.
  60. Charlton-Stevens, Uther (1 December 2022). Anglo-India and the End of Empire. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-767651-6.
  61. Yousaf, Nasim (26 June 2012). "Justification of Partition in Books & Educational Syllabi Breeds Hatred and Terrorism". The Milli Gazette.
  62. M. Zahir (18 July 2017). 1947. A Memoir of Indian Independence. FriesenPress. p. 89. ISBN 9781525502347.
  63. "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Asia and the Pacific, Volume VI, Part 2". Office of the Historian. 1951-09-14. most of India, including Nehru, opposed partition and would welcome an opportunity to reintegrate Pakistan.
  64. Patil, V.T. (1977). Nehru and the Freedom Movement. Sterling Publishers. p. 213. Nehru opposed the partition scheme as it was not calculated to bring about communal peace.
  65. Manikonda Chalapathi Rau (1966). Jawaharlal Nehru: Life and Work. National Book Club. p. 22. Jawaharlal Nehru was opposed to partition of the country and opposed it with passion.
  66. Ghose, Sankar (1 January 1991). Mahatma Gandhi. Allied Publishers. p. 315. ISBN 9788170232056. Later, K.M. Munishi, with Gandhi's blessing, also resigned from the Congress to plead for Akhand Hindustan as a counter blast to Pakistan. Gandhi, who previously thought that swaraj was impossible without Hindu-Muslim unity, subsequently came to the conclusion that as Britain wanted to retain her empire by pursuing a policy of divide and rule, Hindu-Muslim unity could not be achieved as long as the British were there.
  67. Hamdani, Yasser Latif (21 December 2013). "Mr Jinnah's Muslim opponents". Pakistan Today. Retrieved 10 June 2020. Dr. Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan and his brother Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan were also opponents of Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League. The Khan Brothers were close to the Congress and thought that in an independent United India their interests were more secure.
  68. Ashraf, Ajaz (20 January 2018). "On Frontier Gandhi's death anniversary, a reminder of how the Indian subcontinent has lost its way". Scroll.in.
  69. McDermott, Rachel Fell; Gordon, Leonard A.; Embree, Ainslie T.; Pritchett, Frances W.; Dalton, Dennis (2014). Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Columbia University Press. p. 906. ISBN 9780231510929. Khwaja Abdul Majid (1875–1962) was a lawyer, educationalist, and social reformer who supported Gandhi in his opposition to the partition of India.
  70. Khosa, Aasha; Salim, Saquib (2022). "CIPLA founder Hamied wanted to take up arms to stop Partition". Awaz The Voice.
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  75. Singh, Pashaura; Fenech, Louis E. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191004124. Khizr Hayat Khan Tiwana, a Unionist, who was the last Premier of the unified Punjab opposed Jinnah and the 1947 partition of India from a Punjabi nationalist perspective.
  76. Markandey Katju (8 July 2014). "The truth about partition". The Times of India.
  77. Hussain, Syed Taffazull (2019). Sheikh Abdullah-A Biography: The Crucial Period 1905-1939. 2019 Edition. Syed Taffazull Hussain. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-60481-603-7.
  78. "Impact: International Fortnightly". Impact: International Fortnightly. News & Media. 4–6: 5. 1974. Maulana Mazhar Ali Azhar, 81, a leader in the Ahrar party, opposed to the partition of India.
  79. Ahmad, Ishtiaq (27 May 2016). "The dissenters". The Friday Times. We are indeed informed about the strong opposition by Congress stalwart Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and the leader of the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam, Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madni, to the demand for a separate Muslim state made by the All-India Muslim League, but the general impression in both India and Pakistan is that Indian Muslims as a whole supported the Partition.
  80. "AFḠĀNĪ, JAMĀL-AL-DĪN". Encyclopaedia Iranica. 22 July 2011.
  81. Aslam, Arshad (28 July 2011). "The Politics Of Deoband". Outlook. Much before Madani, Jamaluddin Afghani argued that Hindus and Muslims must come together to overthrow the British. Husain Ahmad would argue the same thing after five decades.
  82. Oh, Irene (2007). The Rights of God: Islam, Human Rights, and Comparative Ethics. Georgetown University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-58901-463-3.
  83. Gupta, Shekhar (18 July 2016). "Why Zakir Naik is dangerous". Rediff. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
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  85. Goyal, Purshottam (25 April 2013). "Passionate advocate of subcontinental amity". The Hindu. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
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  111. Hoda, Najmul (December 21, 2020). "Despite Its Characteristic Boast, Aligarh Muslim University Could Not Chart a Path for Modernity and Progress of Indian Muslims". New Age Islam. The politics of Muslim separatism was institutionalised in Aligarh, which, by the 1940s, had become, in Jinnah's words, "the arsenal of Muslim India". Later, poet Jaun Elia would quip that Pakistan was a prank played by the juveniles of Aligarh ("Pakistan — ye sab Aligarh ke laundon ki shararat thi"). That this practical joke, by its sheer thoughtless adventurism, turned out to be a monumental tragedy, which sundered the country into two and the Muslim community into three, is yet to be confronted by Aligarh.
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  113. Manzoor, Sarfraz (11 June 2016). "Saadat Hasan Manto: 'He anticipated where Pakistan would go'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 March 2019. The partition was brutal and bloody, and to Saadat Hasan Manto, a Muslim journalist, short-story author and Indian film screenwriter living in Bombay, it appeared maddeningly senseless. Manto was already an established writer before August 1947, but the stories he would go on to write about partition would come to cement his reputation. ... But it is for his stories of partition that he is best remembered: as the greatest chronicler of this most savage episode in the region's history.
  114. Bhalla, Alok; Study, Indian Institute of Advanced (1997). Life and works of Saadat Hasan Manto. Indian Institute of Advanced Study. p. 113. One can, however, assert that the finest short/ stories about the period were written by Saadat Hasan Manto. For him the partition was an overwhelming tragedy.
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  116. Lindsay, David (2012). Confessions of an Old Labour High Tory. ISBN 9781471606175. Even the Darul Uloom Deoband, although it supported Indian independence, opposed and opposes the Muslim League's theory of two nations, and therefore opposed and opposes partition.
  117. Ashraf, Ajaz (6 September 2016). "The forgotten story of two Maulanas who mocked Jinnah's idea of Pakistan". Scroll.in. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
  118. O'Mahony, Anthony; Siddiqui, Ataullah (2001). Christians and Muslims in the Commonwealth: A Dynamic Role in the Future. The Altajir Trust. ISBN 978-1-901435-08-5. In South Asia, recent years have seen the subject of reunification being considered by people in both India and Pakistan. Inevitably, there is a diversity of views on such a subject. Among Indians and Pakistanis who generally agree on the merits of reunification, some regard it as feasible only when national prejudices of one country against the other are overcome.
  119. Markandey Katju. "The truth about Pakistan". The Nation. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  120. "Mission Statement of the Indian Reunification Association". Indica News. 7 February 2019.
  121. Markandey Katju (10 April 2017). "India And Pakistan Must Reunite For Their Mutual Good". The Huffington Post.
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Cited sources
  • Talbot, Ian (2013). Khizr Tiwana, the Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India. Routledge. ISBN 9781136790294.
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