Genocide: - DIIS

Anders Bjørn Hansen
districts which were to be divided. In a fi nal telegram on August 14,
Jenkins further elaborated on a situation – which could be best described
as being out of control – and stated that the situation now would be for the
new Governments to deal with. 132 A statement which clearly emphasises
that the British were more concerned with their own safety and exit than
with securing a peaceful transfer of power.
Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide
On August 15 – the day of independence – millions were on the move. The
announcement of the Boundary Award on August 16 further fuelled the
communal frenzy as each community felt denied of the right to its homeland.
The general situation was described by the newly appointed Governor
of West Punjab now in Pakistan, Sir Francis Mudie, 133 as “festered with
tension” and the Governor mentioned one incident from the Gurdaspur
– Sialkot border where Muslims had attacked a train and killed about 100
Hindus and Sikhs. 134 The level of organisation and the military conduct in
the attacks is not particularly surprising, if the military tradition of Punjab
is taken into account. During colonial rule Punjabi men was the backbone
in the British Indian Army. At the outbreak of the Second World War
Punjabi men constituted roughly 48% of the manpower. For the Punjab it
meant that one out of three men between the ages of 17 and 30 had served
in the army during the war. 135 Following their demobilisation in 1945 many
ex-soldiers had joined the various private armies in the province.
Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck, the British Supreme Commander in
India and Pakistan held Sikhs responsible for the violence in Amritsar and
the surrounding areas. At a meeting of the Joint Defence Council he argued
that Sikhs “were operating in armed bands of considerable strength and
carrying out raids against Muslim villages, or the Muslim parts of larger
villages – three or four raids nightly. These bands were well organised and
often included mounted men for reconnaissance purposes. One band was
132 Jenkins to Mountbatten, telegram August 14, 1947, TOP vol. 12, p. 732.
133 Sir Francis Mudie was British. He and many other British civil servants stayed on after
Partition and served in the two new states.
134 Mudie to Jinnah, August 15, 1947, in Singh (1991), p. 488-89.
135 Swarna Aiyar (1998), p. 24-25.
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