Looting in the NWFP and Punjab: Property and Violence in the Partition of 1947

Abstract

According to Police Special Branch intelligence reports, amidst the chaos of Partition, over 60,000 ounces of gold were stolen from fleeing Hindus and Sikhs in 1947. Alongside political identity and religious organisation and territorialisation, desire for wealth or property was a key trigger for the continuation of the Partition violence. This article documents organised communal violence which erupted in the NWFP and Punjab during 1946–47 using largely underutilised police and intelligence reports from the period. The empirical focus of the article is two-fold. First, to show that the intercommunity violence triggered in these provinces was organised and funded by the Muslim League through its volunteer wings, even if specific perpetrators were locals. Second, that looting was a feature of locally-rooted violence to acquire property owned by non-Muslim minorities. As well, individual motives for revenge or a desire to best one’s business rival fuelled the violence alongside ideological imperatives such as the commitment to the idea of Pakistan.

Keywords:

• Hindus
• looting
• Muslim League
• Muslims
• NWFP
• Pakistan
• Partition violence
• Pathans
• property
• Punjab
• Sikhs

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Ian Talbot, Swarna Aiyar, Ali Usman Qasmi and the two anonymous South Asia readers for their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For a discussion on mass violence and migration, see I. Talbot and G. Singh, The Partition of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

2. I. Talbot, ‘The August 1947 Violence in Sheikhupura City’, in I. Talbot (ed.), The Independence of India and Pakistan: New Approaches and Reflections (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 90–120; I. Copland, ‘The Master and the Maharajas: The Sikh Princes and the East Punjab Massacres of 1947’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 36, no. 3 (2002), pp. 657–703; P. Brass, ‘The Partition of India and Redistributive Genocide in the Punjab, 1946–47: Means, Methods, and Purposes 1’, in Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 5, no. 1 (2003), pp. 71–101; and S. Jha and S. Wilkinson, ‘Does Combat Experience Foster Organizational Skill? Evidence from Ethnic Cleansing during the Partition of South Asia’, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 106, no. 4 (2012), pp. 883–907.

3. For the theme of abduction of women during Partition, see U. Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998); and R. Menon and K. Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition (New Delhi: Kali Press for Women, 1998).

4. A. Jalal, ‘Nation, Reason and Religion: The Punjab’s Role in the Partition of India’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 33, no. 32 (8–14 Aug. 1998), pp. 2183–90; and I. Talbot, ‘The 1947 Partition Violence’, in R. Mohanram and A. Raychaudhuri (eds.), Partitions and Their Afterlives: Violence, Memories, Living (London: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019), pp. 1–23.

5. S.N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 22–3.

6. ‘Charge no 9: The Mamdot Inquiry’, File EI56/2, Case no. 445, Eyewitness no. 4, 2 Oct. 1947, pp. 1–7, Lahore High Court Archives (henceforth, LHCA), Lahore, Pakistan.

7. Brass, ‘The Partition of India and Redistributive Genocide in the Punjab, 1946–47’, p. 76.

8. S. Das, Communal Riots in Bengal, 1905–1947 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 171.

9. For the 1946 violence in Bihar, see P. Ghose, ‘Partition’s Biharis’, in M. Hasan (ed.), Islam, Communities and the Nation: Muslim Identities in South Asia and Beyond (New Delhi: Manohar, 1988), pp. 229–64.

10. Y. Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (London: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 141.

11. J. Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and V. Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2008).

12. On the themes of transition from ‘traditional’ communal violence to Partition violence, see Talbot and Singh, The Partition of India, p. 65 & ff.

13. For a background of the NWFP politics during this period, see A. Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and S.W.A. Shah, Muslim League in NWFP (Karachi: Royal Book Co., 1992).

14. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 2 Jan. 1947, para. 34, p. 156, Roberts Club Archives, Lahore, Pakistan (henceforth, RCA).

15. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 24 Dec. 1946, para. 33, p. 130, RCA.

16. Ibid.

17. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 28 Dec. 1946, para. 12, p. 43, RCA.

18. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars, p. 23; also see S. Kalyvas, ‘“New” and “Old” Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction?’, in World Politics, Vol. 54, no. 1 (2001), pp. 99–118.

19. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 28 Dec. 1946, para. 15, p. 47, RCA.

20. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, p. 57.

21. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, ‘Mansehra Incident’, Nehru’s statement, 4 Feb. 1947, para. 12, p. 33, RCA.

22. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 4 Feb. 1947, para. 13, p. 33, RCA.

23. R. Nichols, Settling the Frontier: Land, Law and Society in the Peshawar Valley, 1500–1900 (Karachi: Oxford University Press Pakistan, 2001); R. Nichols (ed.), Colonial Reports on Pakistan’s Frontier Tribal Areas (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2005); B. Hopkins, ‘The Frontier Crimes Regulation and Frontier Governmentality’, in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 74, no. 2 (2015), pp. 369–89; and S. Haroon, Frontier of Faith: A History of Religious Mobilisation in the Pakistan Tribal Areas c. 1890–1950 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011).

24. Cabinet Meetings, C.M. 23 May 1947, File 521, p. 967, Mountbatten Papers, Southampton, UK.

25. P. Brass, The Production of Hindu–Muslim Violence in Contemporary India (Seattle: Washington University Press, 2003).

26. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 22 Jan. 1947, para. 10, p. 44, RCA.

27. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 30 April 1947, para. 22, p. 110, RCA.

28. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 10 May 1947, para. 322, p. 239, RCA.

29. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 8 Mar. 1947, para. 24, p. 230, RCA.

30. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 8 Mar. 1947, para. 46, p. 104, RCA.

31. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 30 April 1947, para. 23, p. 112, RCA.

32. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 16 Mar. 1947, para. 34, p. 122, RCA.

33. Ibid.

34. N. Nair, Changing Homeland: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 194–5.

35. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 15 Mar. 1947, para. 164, p. 117, RCA.

36. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 8 Mar. 1947, para. 56, p. 123, RCA.

37. Ibid.

38. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 10 May 1947, para. 320, p. 236, RCA.

39. Ibid.

40. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 7 April 1947, para. 21, p. 89, RCA.

41. Ibid.

42. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 23 April, para. 285, p. 207, RCA.

43. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 13 Mar. 1947, para. 13, p. 55, RCA.

44. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 7 June 1947, para. 405, p. 292, RCA.

45. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 3 May 1947, para. 306, p. 220, RCA.

46. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 5 July 1947, para. 470, p. 355, RCA. For the 1947 forced migration of Meos from India to Pakistan, see S. Mayaram, Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).

47. FIR no. 150/2, Notebook no. 66, 10 Aug. 1947, District Police Record Office (DPRO), Gujranwala, Gujranwala City, Punjab, Pakistan.

48. The Punjab Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 22 Aug. 1946, para. 3, p. 22, RCA.

49. FIR no. 418, Notebook no. 18/141, 15 Aug. 1947, DPRO, Thana Civil Lines, Lahore.

50. FIR no. 231, Notebook no. 38/1, 1 Aug. 1947, DPRO, Lahore.

51. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 13 Sept. 1947, para. 67, p. 375, RCA.

52. I. Talbot, Divided Cities: Partition and Its Aftermath in Lahore and Amritsar (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 56.

53. S. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

54. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 17 May 1947, para. 70, p. 255, RCA.

55. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 14 June 1947, para. 412, p. 309, RCA.

56. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 21 June 1947, para. 438, p. 330, RCA.

57. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, p. 27.

58. S. Aiyar, ‘August Anarchy: The Partition Massacres in Punjab, 1947’, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. XVIII, special issue (1995), pp. 13–36.

59. FIR no. 377, Notebook no. 2/147, 12 Aug. 1947, DPRO, Thana Mughal Pura, Lahore.

60. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 31 May 1947, para. 55, p. 277, RCA.

61. I. Chattha, ‘The Impact of the Redistribution of Partition’s Evacuee Property on the Patterns of Land Ownership and Power in Pakistani Punjab in the 1950s’, in R. Long et al. (eds), State and Nation-Building in Pakistan: Beyond Islam and Security (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 13–34.

62. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 22 April 1947, para. 44, p. 223, RCA.

63. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 5 June 1947, para. 476, p. 357, RCA.

64. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 17 June 1947, para. 405, p. 292, RCA.

65. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 7 July 1947, para. 394, p. 285, RCA.

66. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 25 July 1947, para. 34, p. 120, RCA.

67. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 3 Sept. 1947, para. 615, p. 443, RCA.

68. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 12 July 1947, para. 502, p. 377, RCA.

69. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 2 Aug. 1947, para. 534, p. 398, RCA.

70. The NWFP Special Branch Secret Intelligence Police Abstracts, 23 Aug. 1947, para. 589, p. 427, RCA.

71. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, p. 57.

Additional information

Funding

Part of the research for this article was funded by the Faculty Initiative Fund (FIF) of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).