Why was large amount of muslim majority areas given to india when the Partition of Punjab happened?

[third eye]

No leader can do everything themselves. In fact true leadershipm is not about doing things yourself. It is about gathering good team, then optimizing or getting the best out of the talent pool you have around you. You act as the focal point that enables things to happen. By that measure Nehru did was good leader. India bagged Kashmir under his watch. Every nation has talent. it's all about aligning that talent in furtherance of your goals.

On the Pakistani side read the frustration of Gen. Akbar Khan later of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case.

I see your point. Please factor in the fact that the Congress party was way better organised than the Muslim league. Well before independence core committees were in place to handle subjects considered critical. It paid off.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

And the reason why Pakistan Army was gift of the British is very simple. They (British) had chosen to recruit from certain "races". In Pakistan Northern Punjabi and Pashtun were preferred. This gifted the new state of Pakistan with huge army of veterans from WW2 which provided the country with large military that a country of Pakistan's size of development would never have had otherwise.

PA took over under Ayub Khan and essentially shifted the capital to Islamabad/Rawalpindi into middle of where most of it's manpower came from - Peshawar-Jhelum-Chakwal triangle.

 

[Mamluk]

Perhaps because without Malda and Murshidabad, WB would've been cut into two seperate parts, and contiguity was an important criteria for the Radcliffe line. But what couldve been the reasons for giving CHT to Pakistan, when it would've made much more sense to give it to India, so that the north-east can be connected to bay of bengal..

Remember that CHT would give you access to the sea.. Ask Afghanistan how important that is.

CHT is land locked. The areas connected to bay were/are Muslim majority.

I don't think the Indian leadership cared much about a remote little strip of forest. In exchange they might have received Muslim districts that were more strategically placed and economically better off.

Edit..

Found this map - it seems East Pakistan was on the losing side:

 

[Kabira]

Because Jinnah fucked up there.

Very well laid argument. Of course you are 100% correct but who was "steering the ship"? Nehru. I am sure you have heard the saying "the buck stops here". A team a man gathers around him is reflection of himself. If things had gone wrong Nehru would have been blamed.

As I said Jinnah failed at the critical points in the process. Jinnah lacked strength of character and stamina. Maybe his health might have had something to do with this. But for example when General Gracey refused Jinnah's orders to move PA into Kashmir (like Polo in Hyderabad) he should have sacked him. This was the first example of PA C in C refusing political head and looks like that set a trend.

One brigade, just one brigade dispatched from Rawalpindi, which was the HQ of British Indian Army Northern Command would have grabbed Srinagar within 30 hours. Since the only road (paved all weather) to Srinagar in those days was from Rawalpindi. Jinnah prevaricated and we know what happened. 70 years of trouble and still going strong.

Pak army was useless back then. I was reading that tradition of foujis going to help liberate Kashmir in shalwar kameez goes back to 1948 when some foujis from Jhelum, Gujrat and Sialkot went there and fought as civilians in Poonch rising. While Indian army on order from Nehru was busy occupying all India. Its a miracle that AJK and Gilget is under Pakistan. Not because of army but people uprising.

 

[punit]

I don't want to look ignorant but which region is "CHT"? And I regard Nehru the greatest South Asian leader of the last 200 years, if not longer. You in India have much to thank him. He towers over Jinnah like giant toward a dwarf. Nehru outdid Jinnah almost on every score. You have him to thank for:-

* Kashmir
* Hyderabad
* Junagadh
* Secular identity that by the year is cementing your country.
* Laid instititions which nourish your country
* This can be seen how India, despite being far more diverse, far more disparate, far more complex then Pakistan is at ease and forward looking.

Chittagao ( Part of East Pak now Bangladesh).

Wasn't Amritsar also a Muslim majority back then?

Lahore was Hindu and sikh Majority for sure!

 

[Cherokee]

Because Muslims are not homogenized group of people and even among Muslims the opinion of partition varied but there were two major groups.. One wanting to live in India and one wanting separation. The key differentiation was economic mentality and most of the landlord and capitalist minded wanted Pakistan and the others wanted India..for some People like Jinnah the opinion changed over time from unity to separation..If you roll back 1930's the difference of opinion between Jinnah and Nehru was purely economic and gradually it transformed into communal and their religious..

Many people of our generation tend to forget that Including our right wingers .

 

[T90TankGuy]

Sir I disagree on many of the points here.. I might be wrong, and I'd like to be corrected in such a scenario...

★ Kashmir --- No, Nehru didn't give us Kashmir.. I'd rather thank Jinnah for that.. Sardar Patel had offered him J&K on a silver plate in exchange for withdrawing his claims on Hyderabad. Mr Jinnah rejected. He was confident that both Kashmir and Hyderabad were coming Pakistan's way. Of course, as fate would have it, he lost both..

★ Hyderabad -- Again, it wasn't Nehru, but Sardar Patel who played the dominant role in Hyderabad's annexation.. Remember operation Polo?

★ Secular Identity -- Nehru was secular.. yes! But he didn't instill secularism in other Indians.. that job was done by many other great personalities of that time, particularly Mahatma Gandhi..

★ Laid Institutions --- Yes. here I completely agree.. Nehru has a grand vision for India and he did lay the framework for India's future.. from IITs to dams. He tried to instill the scientific temper in a highly backward, rural and superstitious society.

★ What I actually feel as his biggest contribution to India, was that he cemented democracy and democratic institutions in India. He had no worthwhile political rivals in all the elections that he fought.. he had so much popular support that he could've easily declared himself a “Prime-minister for life" and hardly anyone would've batted an eyelid.. But he didn't. He stuck to democracy.. And that's why, despite his thousand blunders, I respect him..



Perhaps because without Malda and Murshidabad, WB would've been cut into two seperate parts, and contiguity was an important criteria for the Radcliffe line. But what couldve been the reasons for giving CHT to Pakistan, when it would've made much more sense to give it to India, so that the north-east can be connected to bay of bengal..

Very rarely am i impressed by newbies replies. Kudos to you , you answered well using facts .

 

[PakistaniNawab]

Frankly who the hell cares about that sliver of land. Gurdaspur, Kashmir were the real deal. You think either India or Pak would have kept up 70 year hostility over that sliver of land? Gurdaspur was vital - it gave India access to Kashmir. And you know rest of the story.

Jalander

Chittagao ( Part of East Pak now Bangladesh).

Lahore was Hindu and sikh Majority for sure!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aR6f4s7SO.../MIip3TbY10k/s1600/Punjab+1947+-+Main+Map.PNG
Look at the map.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Jalander

Nicely drafted map. Could do with his services. And that map makes it crystal clear why ML failed at the critical point in 1947. Pak lost land two ways.

1. In the population swop more moved here and then there. For example how many moved out of Sindh but how many moved to Sindh? Was land adjusted for that net gain in population?
2. Some tracts were outright unfairly given away by Mountbatten.

 

[PakistaniNawab]

Nicely drafted map. Could do with his services. And that map makes it crystal clear why ML failed at the critical point in 1947. Pak lost land two ways.

1. In the population swop more moved here and then there. For example how many moved out of Sindh but how many moved to Sindh? Was land adjusted for that net gain in population?
2. Some tracts were outright unfairly given away by Mountbatten.

Thank tariq amir for making it .
http://pakgeotagging.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/partition-of-punjab-in-1947.html

 

[Gandhi G in da house]

Didn't Pakistan get the complete Sindh despite some border districts being Hindu majority ?

 

[third eye]

This map is from the blog quoted in post No 1

 

[Mamluk]

Chittagao ( Part of East Pak now Bangladesh).

You guys are confusing Chittagong with CHT. CHT is Chittagong Hill Tracts. Look at the map I posted above. Chittagong was Muslim majority by a big margin.

 

[Kambojaric]

Why did india get them?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aR6f4s7SOFk/VEYrCC2lclI/AAAAAAAADio/MIip3TbY10k/s1600/Punjab+1947+-+Main+Map.PNG

The central theme ever present in Beaumont's (Radcliffe's private secretary) historic paperwork is that Mountbatten not only bent the rules when it came to partition - he also bent the border in India's favour.

The documents repeatedly allege that Mountbatten put pressure on Radcliffe to alter the boundary in India's favour.

On one occasion, he complains that he was "deftly excluded" from a lunch between the pair in which a substantial tract of Muslim-majority territory - which should have gone to Pakistan - was instead ceded to India.

Beaumont's papers say that the incident brought "grave discredit on both men".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6926464.stm

_________________

Essentially it comes down to this. Mountbatten wanted to be the first governor general of both India and Pakistan. Whilst Nehru, a personal friend of Mountbatten complied, Jinnah wanting to disassociate Pakistan from Britain and India disagreed and said that a white man should not be the first governor general. Stanley Wolpert in "Shameful Flight" repeatedly mentions how when he was interviewing Mountbatten the man seemed to hold a serious grudge against Jinnah. So the personal likes and dislikes of Mountbatten played a big role in which country got what. Mountbatten gave some useless non-Muslim majority regions to Pakistan so that in the future nobody could argue that he had favoured one country over the other (Chittagong Hill Tracts and poverty ridden desert Hindu majority districts in rural Sindh like Tharparkar in return for extremely rich fertile soil of Muslim majority of Gurdaspur, Ferozepur). These regions also gave India greater de facto territorial contiguity with Kashmir.