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136-544: The border crossing draws its name from Wahga village, near which the Radcliffe Line , the boundary demarcation line dividing India and Pakistan upon the Partition of British India , was drawn. At the time of the independence in 1947, migrants from India entered Pakistan through this border crossing and vice versa. The Wagah railway station is 400 metres (1,300 ft) to the south and 100 metres (330 ft) from

272-598: A 400 ft (122m) Pakistani flag was installed on the Wagah side. There is no stadium on the Pakistani side like that of India's. The pole in pattadei is the largest in India. [REDACTED] Flag-lowering ceremony at Wagah border becomes more peaceful at Wikinews Radcliffe Line The Radcliffe Line was the boundary demarcated by the two boundary commissions for the provinces of Punjab and Bengal during

408-698: A Boundary Commission be set up consisting of two Muslim and two non-Muslim members recommended by the Punjab Legislative Assembly. He also proposed that a British judge of the High Court be appointed as the chairman of the commission. Jinnah and the Muslim League continued to oppose the idea of partitioning the provinces, and the Sikhs were disturbed about the possibility of getting only 12 districts (without Gurdaspur). In this context,

544-489: A Hindu religious identity". Scholars state that Hindu, Buddhist and Jain identities are retrospectively-introduced modern constructions. Inscriptional evidence from the 8th century onwards, in regions such as South India, suggests that medieval era India, at both elite and folk religious practices level, likely had a "shared religious culture", and their collective identities were "multiple, layered and fuzzy". Even among Hinduism denominations such as Shaivism and Vaishnavism,

680-808: A Muslim majority. It would also give Pakistan the Shakargarh, Batala and Gurdaspur tehsils of the Gurdaspur district. If the boundary went by Doabs, Pakistan could get not only the 16 districts which had already under the notional partition been put into West Punjab, including the Gurdaspur District, but also get the Kangra District in the mountains, which was about 93% Hindu and was located to the north and east of Gurdaspur. Or one could go by commissioners' divisions. Any of these units being adopted would have been more favourable to Pakistan than

816-526: A North western Indian region of seven rivers and as an India whole). The Greek cognates of the same terms are " Indus " (for the river) and " India " (for the land of the river). Likewise Hebrew cognate hōd-dū refers to India mentioned in Hebrew Bible ( Esther 1:1 ). The term " Hindu " also implied a geographic, ethnic or cultural identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent around or beyond

952-775: A Sikh state with Ambala , Jalandher , Lahore Divisions with some districts from the Multan Division , which, however, did not meet the Cabinet delegates' agreement. In discussions with Jinnah, the Cabinet Mission offered either a 'smaller Pakistan' with all the Muslim-majority districts except Gurdaspur or a 'larger Pakistan' under the sovereignty of the Indian Union. The Cabinet Mission came close to success with its proposal for an Indian Union under

1088-615: A common name for the country. Al-Biruni 's 11th-century text Tarikh Al-Hind , and the texts of the Delhi Sultanate period use the term 'Hindu', where it includes all non-Islamic people such as Buddhists, and retains the ambiguity of being "a region or a religion". The 'Hindu' community occurs as the amorphous 'Other' of the Muslim community in the court chronicles, according to the Indian historian Romila Thapar . The comparative religion scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith notes that

1224-534: A consequence, religious groups have an interest in being recognised as distinct from the Hindu majority in order to qualify as a "religious minority". Thus, the Supreme Court was forced to consider the question whether Jainism is part of Hinduism in 2005 and 2006. Starting after the 10th century and particularly after the 12th century Islamic invasion, states Sheldon Pollock , the political response fused with

1360-582: A diversity of beliefs, and seems to oscillate between Hindus holding a centralist and pluralist religious views. In the texts of Delhi Sultanate era, states Sharma, the term Hindu remains ambiguous on whether it means people of a region or religion, giving the example of Ibn Battuta's explanation of the name "Hindu Kush" for a mountain range in Afghanistan. It was so called, wrote Ibn Battuta, because many Indian slaves died there of snow cold, as they were marched across that mountain range. The term Hindu there

1496-520: A federal scheme, but it fell apart in the end because of Nehru's opposition to a heavily decentralised India. In March 1947, Lord Mountbatten arrived in India as the next viceroy, with an explicit mandate to achieve the transfer of power before June 1948. Over ten days, Mountbatten obtained the agreement of Congress to the Pakistan demand except for the 13 eastern districts of Punjab (including Amritsar and Gurdaspur). However, Jinnah held out. Through

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1632-571: A fixed set of religious beliefs within Hinduism. One need not be religious in the minimal sense, states Julius Lipner , to be accepted as Hindu by Hindus, or to describe oneself as Hindu. Hindus subscribe to a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but have no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, nor a single founding prophet; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist. Because of

1768-542: A part of UNESCO 's Histories flagship project, recently disclosed documents of the history of the partition reveal British complicity with the top Indian leadership to wrest Kashmir from Pakistan. Alastair Lamb, based on the study of recently declassified documents, has convincingly proven that Mountbatten, in league with Nehru, was instrumental in pressurizing Radcliffe to award the Muslim-majority district of Gurdaspur in East Punjab to India which could provide India with

1904-663: A quick and dignified British withdrawal". "Many of the seeds of postcolonial disorder in South Asia were sown much earlier, in a century and half of direct and indirect British control of large part of the region, but, as book after book has demonstrated, nothing in the complex tragedy of partition was inevitable." Radcliffe justified the casual division with the truism that no matter what he did, people would suffer. The thinking behind this justification may never be known since Radcliffe "destroyed all his papers before he left India". He departed on Independence Day itself, before even

2040-401: A reasonable construction of history. However, the existence of non-textual evidence such as cave temples separated by thousands of kilometers, as well as lists of medieval era pilgrimage sites, is evidence of a shared sacred geography and existence of a community that was self-aware of shared religious premises and landscape. Further, it is a norm in evolving cultures that there is a gap between

2176-430: A result of Western influence during its colonial history. Scholars such as Fleming and Eck state that the post-Epic era literature from the 1st millennium CE amply demonstrate that there was a historic concept of the Indian subcontinent as a sacred geography, where the sacredness was a shared set of religious ideas. For example, the twelve Jyotirlingas of Shaivism and fifty-one Shaktipithas of Shaktism are described in

2312-485: A road link to Jammu and Kashmir." As per the 'notional' award that had already been put into effect for purposes of administration ad interim, all of Gurdaspur district, owing to its Muslim majority, was assigned to Pakistan. From 14 to 17 August, Mushtaq Ahmed Cheema acted as the Deputy Commissioner of the Gurdaspur District, but when, after a delay of two days, it was announced that the major portion of

2448-646: A sacred pilgrimage site is documented in the Varanasimahatmya text embedded inside the Skanda Purana , and the oldest versions of this text are dated to 6th to 8th-century CE. The idea of twelve sacred sites in Shiva Hindu tradition spread across the Indian subcontinent appears not only in the medieval era temples but also in copper plate inscriptions and temple seals discovered in different sites. According to Bhardwaj, non-Hindu texts such as

2584-756: A saint. [...] When Khusraw stopped at his residence, [Arjan] came out and had an interview with [Khusraw]. Giving him some elementary spiritual precepts picked up here and there, he made a mark with saffron on his forehead, which is called qashqa in the idiom of the Hindus and which they consider lucky. When this was reported to me, I realized how perfectly false he was and ordered him brought to me. I awarded his houses and dwellings and those of his children to Murtaza Khan, and I ordered his possessions and goods confiscated and him executed. Sikh scholar Pashaura Singh states, "in Persian writings, Sikhs were regarded as Hindu in

2720-566: A series of six meetings with Mountbatten, he continued to maintain that his demand was for six full provinces. He "bitterly complained" that the Viceroy was ruining his Pakistan by cutting Punjab and Bengal in half as this would mean a 'moth-eaten Pakistan'. The Gurdaspur district remained a key contentious issue for the non-Muslims. Their members of the Punjab legislature made representations to Mountbatten's chief of staff Lord Ismay as well as

2856-533: A uniform civil code, where all citizens are subject to the same laws, everyone has equal civil rights, and individual rights do not depend on the individual's religion. In contrast, opponents of Hindu nationalists remark that eliminating religious law from India poses a threat to the cultural identity and religious rights of Muslims, and people of Islamic faith have a constitutional right to Islamic shariah -based personal laws. A specific law, contentious between Hindu nationalists and their opponents in India, relates to

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2992-604: A wedding or when a baby is born or cremation rituals. Some Hindus go on pilgrimage to shared sites they consider spiritually significant, practice one or more forms of bhakti or puja , celebrate mythology and epics, major festivals, love and respect for guru and family, and other cultural traditions. A Hindu could: In the Constitution of India , the word "Hindu" has been used in some places to denote persons professing any of these religions: Hinduism , Jainism , Buddhism or Sikhism . This however has been challenged by

3128-473: Is a controversial political subject, with no consensus about what it means or implies in terms of the form of government and religious rights of the minorities. There are 1.2 billion Hindus worldwide (15% of world's population), with about 95% of them being concentrated in India alone. Along with Christians (31.5%), Muslims (23.2%) and Buddhists (7.1%), Hindus are one of the four major religious groups of

3264-471: Is a term used to describe the culture and identity of Hindus and Hinduism , including the historic Vedic people . Hindu culture can be intensively seen in the form of art , architecture , history , diet , clothing , astrology and other forms. The culture of India and Hinduism is deeply influenced and assimilated with each other. With the Indianisation of southeast Asia and Greater India ,

3400-676: Is ambivalent and could mean geographical region or religion. The term Hindu appears in the texts from the Mughal Empire era. Jahangir , for example, called the Sikh Guru Arjan a Hindu: There was a Hindu named Arjan in Gobindwal on the banks of the Beas River. Pretending to be a spiritual guide, he had won over as devotees many simple-minded Indians and even some ignorant, stupid Muslims by broadcasting his claims to be

3536-478: Is an organic relation of Sikhs to Hindus, states Zaehner, both in religious thought and their communities, and virtually all Sikhs' ancestors were Hindus. Marriages between Sikhs and Hindus, particularly among Khatris , were frequent. Some Hindu families brought up a son as a Sikh, and some Hindus view Sikhism as a tradition within Hinduism, even though the Sikh faith is a distinct religion. Julius Lipner states that

3672-504: Is conducted each evening along with the flag ceremony. The ceremony started in 1986 as an agreement of peace, although there was not a conflict at that time. Following India 's erection of a 360 ft (110m) flagpole on their side of the border in Attari and a stadium with Balcony Gallery overarching the Pakistani side of 25000 seating capacity for Indians and visitors, in August 2017,

3808-643: Is documented in Islamic literature such as those relating to 8th century Muhammad bin-Qasim , 11th century Mahmud of Ghazni , the Persian traveler Al Biruni, the 14th century Islamic army invasion led by Timur, and various Sunni Islamic rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire. There were occasional exceptions such as Akbar who stopped the persecution of Hindus, and occasional severe persecution such as under Aurangzeb , who destroyed temples, forcibly converted non-Muslims to Islam and banned

3944-404: Is likely to be found". The Sikh leader Master Tara Singh could see that any division of Punjab would leave the Sikhs divided between Pakistan and Hindustan. He espoused the doctrine of self-reliance, opposed the partition of India and called for independence on the grounds that no single religious community should control Punjab. Other Sikhs argued that just as Muslims feared Hindu domination

4080-712: Is made of existing provincial boundaries and had nothing to do with the Radcliffe commissions. The demarcation line was published on 17 August 1947, two days after the independence of Pakistan and India. Today, the Punjab part of the line is part of the India–Pakistan border while the Bengal part of the line serves as the Bangladesh–India border . On 18 July 1947, the Indian Independence Act 1947 of

4216-567: Is this Rama to be described.. who freed Varanasi from the mleccha (barbarian, Turk Muslim) horde, and built there a golden temple of Sarngadhara". Pollock notes that the Yadava king Ramacandra is described as a devotee of deity Shiva (Shaivism), yet his political achievements and temple construction sponsorship in Varanasi, far from his kingdom's location in the Deccan region, is described in

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4352-614: The Bikaner State , sent a memorandum to the viceroy titled "Next Step in India", wherein he recommended that the principle of 'Muslim homeland' be conceded but territorial adjustments made to the two provinces to meet the claims of the Hindus and Sikhs. Based on these discussions, the viceroy sent a note on the "Pakistan theory" to the Secretary of State for India . The viceroy informed the Secretary of State that Jinnah envisaged

4488-493: The Hindu Sabhas (Hindu associations), and ultimately a Hindu-identity driven nationalism in the 1920s. The colonial era Hindu revivalism and mobilisation, along with Hindu nationalism, states Peter van der Veer, was primarily a reaction to and competition with Muslim separatism and Muslim nationalism. The successes of each side fed the fears of the other, leading to the growth of Hindu nationalism and Muslim nationalism in

4624-593: The Indian National Congress and two from the Muslim League . Given the deadlock between the interests of the two sides and their rancorous relationship, the final decision was essentially Radcliffe's. After arriving in India on 8 July 1947, Radcliffe was given just five weeks to decide on a border. He soon met with his fellow college alumnus Mountbatten and travelled to Lahore and Calcutta to meet with commission members, chiefly Nehru from

4760-929: The Kargil conflict of 1999 . There were disputes regarding the Radcliffe Line's award of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Gurdaspur district . Disputes also evolved around the districts of Malda , Khulna , and Murshidabad in Bengal and the sub-division of Karimganj of Assam. In addition to Gurdaspur's Muslim majority tehsils, Radcliffe also gave the Muslim majority tehsils of Ajnala ( Amritsar District ), Zira, Firozpur (in Firozpur District), Nakodar and Jullandur (in Jullandur District) to India instead of Pakistan. On

4896-407: The Partition of India . It is named after Cyril Radcliffe , who, as the joint chairman of the two boundary commissions, had the ultimate responsibility to equitably divide 175,000 square miles (450,000 km ) of territory with 88 million people. The term "Radcliffe Line" is also sometimes used for the entire boundary between India and Pakistan. However, outside of Punjab and Bengal, the boundary

5032-770: The Sindhu (Indus) River . By the 16th century CE, the term began to refer to residents of the subcontinent who were not Turkic or Muslims . Since ancient times, Hindu has been used to refer to people inhibiting region beyond the Sindhu river, therefore some assumptions that medieval Persian authors considered Hindu as derogatory is not accepted by practicing Hindus themselves as those references are much later to references used in pre-Islamic Persian sources, early Arab and Indian sources, all of them had positive connotation only as they either referred to region or followers of Hinduism. The historical development of Hindu self-identity within

5168-600: The United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom . These together accounted for 99% of the world's Hindu population, and the remaining nations of the world combined had about 6 million Hindus as of 2010 . The word Hindu is an exonym . This word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit word Sindhu , which means "a large body of water", covering "river, ocean". It was used as

5304-830: The Upanishads . The Puranas and the Itihasa (mainly Ramayana and the Mahabharata ) are enduring traditions among Indonesian Hindus, expressed in community dances and shadow puppet ( wayang ) performances. As in India, Indonesian Hindus recognise four paths of spirituality, calling it Catur Marga . Similarly, like Hindus in India, Balinese Hindus believe that there are four proper goals of human life, calling it Catur Purusartha – dharma (pursuit of moral and ethical living), artha (pursuit of wealth and creative activity), kama (pursuit of joy and love) and moksha (pursuit of self-knowledge and liberation). Hindu culture

5440-512: The full provinces of Bengal and Punjab going to Pakistan with only minor adjustments, whereas Congress was expecting almost half of these provinces to remain in India. This essentially framed the problem of partition. The Secretary of State responded by directing Lord Wavell to send 'actual proposals for defining genuine Muslim areas'. The task fell on V. P. Menon , the Reforms Commissioner, and his colleague Sir B. N. Rau in

5576-399: The "lived and historical realities" of a religious tradition and the emergence of related "textual authorities". The tradition and temples likely existed well before the medieval era Hindu manuscripts appeared that describe them and the sacred geography. This, states Fleming, is apparent given the sophistication of the architecture and the sacred sites along with the variance in the versions of

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5712-587: The 17th-century Bhakta Mala text using the phrase "Hindu dharma ". Scholar Arvind Sharma notes that the term "Hindus" was used in the 'Brahmanabad settlement' which Muhammad ibn Qasim made with non-Muslims after the Arab invasion of northwestern Sindh region of India, in 712 CE. The term 'Hindu' meant people who were non-Muslims, and it included Buddhists of the region. In the 11th-century text of Al Biruni, Hindus are referred to as "religious antagonists" to Islam, as those who believe in rebirth, presents them to hold

5848-801: The 1920s, as a reaction to the Islamic Khilafat Movement wherein Indian Muslims championed and took the cause of the Turkish Ottoman sultan as the Caliph of all Muslims, at the end of the World War I . Hindus viewed this development as one of divided loyalties of Indian Muslim population, of pan-Islamic hegemony, and questioned whether Indian Muslims were a part of an inclusive anti-colonial Indian nationalism. The Hindu nationalism ideology that emerged, states Jeffrelot,

5984-579: The 19th century as a response to British colonialism by Indian nationalists and neo-Hinduism gurus. Jaffrelot states that the efforts of Christian missionaries and Islamic proselytizers, during the British colonial era, each of whom tried to gain new converts to their own religion, by stereotyping and stigmatising Hindus to an identity of being inferior and superstitious, contributed to Hindus re-asserting their spiritual heritage and counter cross examining Islam and Christianity, forming organisations such as

6120-521: The 7th-century CE Chinese text Records on the Western Regions by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang . Xuanzang uses the transliterated term In-tu whose "connotation overflows in the religious" according to Arvind Sharma . While Xuanzang suggested that the term refers to the country named after the moon, another Buddhist scholar I-tsing contradicted the conclusion saying that In-tu was not

6256-500: The Congress and Jinnah, president of the Muslim League. He objected to the short time frame, but all parties were insistent that the line be finished by the 15 August British withdrawal from India. Mountbatten had accepted the post as Viceroy on the condition of an early deadline. The decision was completed just a couple of days before the withdrawal, but due to political considerations, not published until 17 August 1947, two days after

6392-476: The European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus. Other prominent mentions of 'Hindu' include the epigraphical inscriptions from Andhra Pradesh kingdoms who battled military expansion of Muslim dynasties in the 14th century, where the word 'Hindu' partly implies a religious identity in contrast to 'Turks' or Islamic religious identity. The term Hindu

6528-527: The Governor telling them that Gurdaspur was a "non-Muslim district". They contended that even if it had a marginal Muslim majority of 51%, which they believed to be erroneous, the Muslims paid only 35% of the land revenue in the district. In April, the Governor of Punjab Evan Jenkins wrote a note to Mountbatten proposing that Punjab be divided along Muslim and non-Muslim majority districts and proposed that

6664-737: The Hindu identities, states Leslie Orr, lacked "firm definitions and clear boundaries". Overlaps in Jain-Hindu identities have included Jains worshipping Hindu deities, intermarriages between Jains and Hindus, and medieval era Jain temples featuring Hindu religious icons and sculpture. Beyond India, on Java island of Indonesia , historical records attest to marriages between Hindus and Buddhists, medieval era temple architecture and sculptures that simultaneously incorporate Hindu and Buddhist themes, where Hinduism and Buddhism merged and functioned as "two separate paths within one overall system", according to Ann Kenney and other scholars. Similarly, there

6800-642: The Hindu identity and religious response to Islamic invasion and wars developed in different kingdoms, such as wars between Islamic Sultanates and the Vijayanagara kingdom, and Islamic raids on the kingdoms in Tamil Nadu . These wars were described not just using the mythical story of Rama from Ramayana, states Chattopadhyaya, the medieval records used a wide range of religious symbolism and myths that are now considered as part of Hindu literature. This emergence of religious with political terminology began with

6936-477: The Hindu-majority post-British India. After the separation of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Hindu nationalism movement developed the concept of Hindutva in second half of the 20th century. The Hindu nationalism movement has sought to reform Indian laws, that critics say attempts to impose Hindu values on India's Islamic minority. Gerald Larson states, for example, that Hindu nationalists have sought

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7072-701: The Hindus and intensely scrutinized them, but did not interrogate and avoided reporting the practices and religion of Mughal and Arabs in South Asia", and often relied on Muslim scholars to characterise Hindus. In contemporary era, the term Hindus are individuals who identify with one or more aspects of Hinduism , whether they are practising or non-practicing or Laissez-faire . The term does not include those who identify with other Indian religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism or various animist tribal religions found in India such as Sarnaism . The term Hindu, in contemporary parlance, includes people who accept themselves as culturally or ethnically Hindu rather than with

7208-590: The Hoshiarpur district, it would have taken quite long time to construct the roads, bridges and communications that would have been necessary for military movements. Stanley Wolpert writes that Radcliffe in his initial maps awarded Gurdaspur district to Pakistan but one of Nehru's and Mountbatten's greatest concerns over the new Punjab border was to make sure that Gurdaspur would not go to Pakistan, since that would have deprived India of direct road access to Kashmir. As per "The Different Aspects of Islamic Culture",

7344-501: The Indian subcontinent. In the 20th century, the sense of religious nationalism grew in India, states van der Veer, but only Muslim nationalism succeeded with the formation of the West and East Pakistan (later split into Pakistan and Bangladesh), as "an Islamic state" upon independence. Religious riots and social trauma followed as millions of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs moved out of the newly created Islamic states and resettled into

7480-455: The Indic religious culture and doctrines. Temples dedicated to deity Rama were built from north to south India, and textual records as well as hagiographic inscriptions began comparing the Hindu epic of Ramayana to regional kings and their response to Islamic attacks. The Yadava king of Devagiri named Ramacandra , for example states Pollock, is described in a 13th-century record as, "How

7616-589: The Lahore Division from Pakistan would put a majority of Sikhs in India. (Amritsar had a non-Muslim majority and Gurdaspur a marginal Muslim majority.) To compensate for the exclusion of the Gurdaspur district, they included the entire Dinajpur district in the eastern zone of Pakistan, which similarly had a marginal Muslim majority. After receiving comments from John Thorne, member of the Executive Council in charge of Home affairs, Wavell forwarded

7752-410: The Muslim League in July 1947 before the Radcliffe Boundary Commission, stated that the boundary commission was a farce. A secret deal between Mountbatten and Congress leaders had already been struck. Mehr Chand Mahajan , one of the two non-Muslim members of the boundary commission, in his autobiography, has acknowledged that when he was selected for the boundary commission, he was not inclined to accept

7888-427: The Parliament of the United Kingdom stipulated that British rule in India would come to an end just one month later, on 15 August 1947. The Act also stipulated the partition of the Presidencies and provinces of British India into two new sovereign dominions : India and Pakistan. Pakistan was intended as a Muslim homeland, while India remained secular . Muslim-majority British provinces in the northwest were to become

8024-670: The Partition Plan of 3 June was announced with a notional partition showing 17 districts of Punjab in Pakistan and 12 districts in India, along with the establishment of a Boundary Commission to decide the final boundary. In Sialkoti's view, this was done mainly to placate the Sikhs. A crude border had already been drawn up by Lord Wavell , the Viceroy of India prior to his replacement as Viceroy, in February 1947, by Lord Louis Mountbatten. In order to determine exactly which territories to assign to each country, in June 1947, Britain appointed Sir Cyril Radcliffe to chair two boundary commissions—one for Bengal and one for Punjab. The commission

8160-515: The Puranic literature. According to Diana L. Eck and other Indologists such as André Wink, Muslim invaders were aware of Hindu sacred geography such as Mathura, Ujjain, and Varanasi by the 11th century. These sites became a target of their serial attacks in the centuries that followed. The Hindus have been persecuted during the medieval and modern era. The medieval persecution included waves of plunder, killing, destruction of temples and enslavement by Turk-Mongol Muslim armies from central Asia. This

8296-437: The Reforms Office. They prepared a note called "Demarcation of Pakistan Areas", where they included the three western divisions of Punjab ( Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore ) in Pakistan, leaving two eastern divisions of Punjab in India ( Jullundur and Delhi ). However, they noted that this allocation would leave 2.2 million Sikhs in the Pakistan area and about 1.5 million in India. Excluding the Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts of

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8432-481: The Sikh community. Lord Islay was rueful for the British not to give more consideration to the community who, in his words, had "provided many thousands of splendid recruits for the Indian Army" in its service for the crown in World War I. However, the Sikhs were militant in their opposition to any solution which would put their community in a Muslim ruled state. Moreover, many insisted on their own sovereign state, something no one else would agree to. Last of all, were

8568-470: The Sikh leaders accepted both the long term and interim proposals despite their earlier rejection. The Sikhs attached themselves to the Indian state with the promise of religious and cultural autonomy. In March 1946, the British government sent a Cabinet Mission to India to find a solution to resolve the conflicting demands of Congress and the Muslim League. Congress agreed to allow Pakistan to be formed with 'genuine Muslim areas'. The Sikh leaders asked for

8704-611: The Sikhs and by neo-Buddhists who were formerly Hindus. According to Sheen and Boyle, Jains have not objected to being covered by personal laws termed under 'Hindu', but Indian courts have acknowledged that Jainism is a distinct religion. The Republic of India is in the peculiar situation that the Supreme Court of India has repeatedly been called upon to define "Hinduism" because the Constitution of India , while it prohibits "discrimination of any citizen" on grounds of religion in article 15, article 30 foresees special rights for "All minorities, whether based on religion or language". As

8840-416: The Sikhs also feared Muslim domination. Sikhs warned the British government that the morale of Sikh troops in the British Army would be affected if Pakistan was forced on them. Giani Kartar Singh drafted a scheme of a separate Sikh state if India was to be divided. During the Partition developments, Jinnah offered Sikhs to live in Pakistan with safeguards for their rights. Sikhs refused because they opposed

8976-449: The United Nations—also satisfied the British Government's urgent desire to save face by avoiding the appearance that it required outside help to govern—or stop governing—its own empire." The equal representation given to politicians from Indian National Congress and the Muslim League appeared to provide balance, but instead created deadlock. The relationships were so tendentious that the judges "could hardly bear to speak to each other", and

9112-434: The Yavanas [Muslims], The Kali age now deserves deepest congratulations for being at the zenith of its power, gone is the sacred learning, hidden is refinement, hushed is the voice of Dharma . The historiographic writings in Telugu language from the 13th- and 14th-century Kakatiya dynasty period presents a similar "alien other (Turk)" and "self-identity (Hindu)" contrast. Chattopadhyaya, and other scholars, state that

9248-411: The agendas so at odds that there seemed to be little point anyway. Even worse, "the wife and two children of the Sikh judge in Lahore had been murdered by Muslims in Rawalpindi a few weeks earlier." In fact, minimizing the numbers of Hindus and Muslims on the wrong side of the line was not the only concern to balance. The Punjab Border Commission was to draw a border through the middle of an area home to

9384-452: The award was changed to put a salient portion of the non-Muslim majority Firozpur district (consisting of the two Muslim-majority tehsils of Firozpur and Zira ) east of the Sutlej canal within India's domain instead of Pakistan's. There were two apparent reasons for the switch: the area housed an army arms depot, and contained the headwaters of a canal which irrigated the princely state of Bikaner, which would accede to India. After

9520-420: The border. The Wagah-Attari border ceremony happens at the border gate, two hours before sunset each day. The flag ceremony is conducted by the Pakistan Rangers and Indian Border Security Force (BSF), similar to the retreat ceremonies at Ganda Singh Wala / Hussainiwala border crossing and Mahavir/Sadqi International Parade Ground border crossing. A marching ceremony, known as the "Silly Walk ceremony",

9656-450: The boundary awards were distributed. By his own admission, Radcliffe was heavily influenced by his lack of fitness for the Indian climate and his eagerness to depart India. The implementation was no less hasty than the process of drawing the border. On 16 August 1947 at 5:00 pm, the Indian and Pakistani representatives were given two hours to study copies, before the Radcliffe award was published on 17 August. To avoid disputes and delays,

9792-635: The boundary line was drawn much to the prejudice of Pakistan. However, while Muslims formed about 53% of the total population of Punjab in 1941, Pakistan received around 58% of the total area of the Punjab, including more of the most fertile parts. According to Zafrullah Khan, the assertion that the award of the Batala and Gurdaspur tehsils to India did not 'affect' Kashmir is far-fetched. If Batala and Gurdaspur had gone to Pakistan, Pathankot tehsil would have been isolated and blocked. Even though it would have been possible for India to get access to Pathankot through

9928-537: The celebration of Hindu festivals such as Holi and Diwali . Other recorded persecution of Hindus include those under the reign of 18th century Tipu Sultan in south India, and during the colonial era. In the modern era, religious persecution of Hindus have been reported outside India in Pakistan and Bangladesh . Christophe Jaffrelot states that modern Hindu nationalism was born in Maharashtra , in

10064-443: The communities without any representation. The Bengal Border Commission representatives were chiefly concerned with the question of who would get Calcutta. The Buddhist tribes in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bengal had no official representation and were left totally without information to prepare for their situation until two days after the partition. Perceiving the situation as intractable and urgent, Radcliffe went on to make all

10200-440: The concept of Pakistan and also because they did not want to become a small minority within a Muslim majority. Vir Singh Bhatti distributed pamphlets for the creation of a separate Sikh state "Khalistan". Master Tara Singh wanted the right for an independent Khalistan to federate with either Hindustan or Pakistan. However, the Sikh state being proposed was for an area where neither religion was in absolute majority. Negotiations for

10336-431: The custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs is a modern phenomena, but one that is a convenient abstraction. Distinguishing Indian traditions is a fairly recent practice, states Lipner, and is the result of "not only Western preconceptions about the nature of religion in general and of religion in India in particular, but also with the political awareness that has arisen in India" in its people and

10472-420: The difficult decisions himself. This was impossible from inception, but Radcliffe seems to have had no doubt in himself and raised no official complaint or proposal to change the circumstances. Before his appointment, Radcliffe had never visited India and knew no one there. To the British and the feuding politicians alike, this neutrality was looked upon as an asset; he was considered to be unbiased toward any of

10608-448: The district had been awarded to India instead of Pakistan, Cheema left for Pakistan. The major part of Gurdaspur district, i.e. three of the four sub-districts had been handed over to India giving India practical land access to Kashmir. It came as a great blow to Pakistan. Jinnah and other leaders of Pakistan, and particularly its officials, criticized the award as 'extremely unjust and unfair'. Muhammad Zafarullah Khan , who represented

10744-505: The district was followed by a population transfer between the two nations, with Muslims leaving for Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs arriving from there. The entire district of Gurdaspur had a bare majority of 50.2% Muslims. (In the `notional' award attached to the Indian Independence Act, all of Gurdaspur district was marked as Pakistan with a 51.14% Muslim majority. In the 1901 census, the population of Gurdaspur district

10880-463: The division was done in secret. The final Awards were ready on 9 and 12 August, but not published until two days after the partition. According to Read and Fisher, there is some circumstantial evidence that Nehru and Patel were secretly informed of the Punjab Award's contents on 9 or 10 August, either through Mountbatten or Radcliffe's Indian assistant secretary. Regardless of how it transpired,

11016-477: The early medieval era Puranas as pilgrimage sites around a theme. This sacred geography and Shaiva temples with same iconography, shared themes, motifs and embedded legends are found across India, from the Himalayas to hills of South India, from Ellora Caves to Varanasi by about the middle of 1st millennium. Shakti temples, dated to a few centuries later, are verifiable across the subcontinent. Varanasi as

11152-452: The exclusion of the Gurdaspur district, they included the entire Dinajpur district in the eastern zone of Pakistan, which similarly had a marginal Muslim majority. Pakistanis have alleged that the award of the three tehsils to India was a manipulation of the Award by Lord Mountbatten in an effort to provide a land route for India to Jammu and Kashmir . However, Shereen Ilahi points out that

11288-539: The first Muslim invasion of Sindh in the 8th century CE, and intensified 13th century onwards. The 14th-century Sanskrit text, Madhuravijayam , a memoir written by Gangadevi , the wife of Vijayanagara prince, for example describes the consequences of war using religious terms, I very much lament for what happened to the groves in Madhura , The coconut trees have all been cut and in their place are to be seen,   rows of iron spikes with human skulls dangling at

11424-482: The foundation of Pakistan. The provinces of Baluchistan (91.8% Muslim before partition) and Sindh (72.7%) and North-West Frontier Province became entirely Pakistani territory. However, two provinces did not have an overwhelming Muslim majority— Punjab in the northwest (55.7% Muslim) and Bengal in the northeast (54.4% Muslim). After elaborate discussions, these two provinces ended up being partitioned between India and Pakistan. The Punjab's population distribution

11560-656: The grant of independence to India and Pakistan. Each boundary commission consisted of five people – a chairman ( Radcliffe ), two members nominated by the Indian National Congress and two members nominated by the Muslim League . The Bengal Boundary Commission consisted of justices C. C. Biswas, B. K. Mukherji , Abu Saleh Mohamed Akram and S.A.Rahman . The members of the Punjab Commission were justices Mehr Chand Mahajan , Teja Singh, Din Mohamed and Muhammad Munir . All lawyers by profession, Radcliffe and

11696-486: The highest percentage of Hindus (in decreasing order) are Nepal , India , Mauritius , Fiji , Guyana , Bhutan , Suriname , Trinidad and Tobago , Qatar , Sri Lanka , Kuwait , Bangladesh , Réunion , Malaysia , and Singapore . The fertility rate, that is children per woman, for Hindus is 2.4, which is less than the world average of 2.5. Pew Research projects that there will be 1.4 billion Hindus by 2050. In more ancient times, Hindu kingdoms arose and spread

11832-609: The historical records in Vaishnavism terms of Rama, a deity Vishnu avatar. Pollock presents many such examples and suggests an emerging Hindu political identity that was grounded in the Hindu religious text of Ramayana, one that has continued into the modern times, and suggests that this historic process began with the arrival of Islam in India. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya has questioned the Pollock theory and presented textual and inscriptional evidence. According to Chattopadhyaya,

11968-558: The independent Sikh state had commenced at the end of World War II and the British initially agreed but the Sikhs withdrew this demand after pressure from Indian nationalists. The proposals of the Cabinet Mission Plan had seriously jolted the Sikhs because while both the Congress and League could be satisfied the Sikhs saw nothing in it for themselves. as they would be subjected to a Muslim majority. Master Tara Singh protested this to Pethic-Lawrence on 5 May. By early September

12104-476: The influential Asiatick Researches founded in the 18th century, later called The Asiatic Society , initially identified just two religions in India – Islam, and Hinduism. These orientalists included all Indian religions such as Buddhism as a subgroup of Hinduism in the 18th century. These texts called followers of Islam as Mohamedans , and all others as Hindus . The text, by the early 19th century, began dividing Hindus into separate groups, for chronology studies of

12240-568: The invitation as he believed that the commission was just a farce and that decisions were actually to be taken by Mountbatten himself. It was only under British pressure that the charges against Mountbatten of last minute alterations in the Radcliffe Award were not officially brought forward by Pakistani Government in the UN Security Council while presenting its case on Kashmir. Zafrullah Khan states that, in fact, adopting

12376-626: The land route to Kashmir was entirely within the Hindu-majority Pathankot tehsil. The award of the Batala and Gurdaspur tehsils to India did not affect the Kashmir land route. Pakistan maintains that the Radcliffe Award was altered by Mountbatten ; Gurdaspur was handed over to India and thus was manipulated the accession of Kashmir to India. In support of this view, some scholars claim the award to India "had little to do with Sikh demands but had much more to do with providing India

12512-486: The legal age of marriage for girls. Hindu nationalists seek that the legal age for marriage be eighteen that is universally applied to all girls regardless of their religion and that marriages be registered with local government to verify the age of marriage. Muslim clerics consider this proposal as unacceptable because under the shariah-derived personal law, a Muslim girl can be married at any age after she reaches puberty. Hindu nationalism in India, states Katharine Adeney,

12648-678: The local Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear. Competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era , or that it may have developed post-8th century CE after the Muslim invasions and medieval Hindu–Muslim wars . A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in some texts dated between the 13th and 18th century in Sanskrit and Bengali . The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati , Kabir , Tulsidas and Eknath used

12784-509: The memoirs of Chinese Buddhist and Persian Muslim travellers attest to the existence and significance of the pilgrimage to sacred geography among Hindus by later 1st millennium CE. According to Fleming, those who question whether the term Hindu and Hinduism are a modern construction in a religious context present their arguments based on some texts that have survived into the modern era, either of Islamic courts or of literature published by Western missionaries or colonial-era Indologists aiming for

12920-415: The mid-19th century, colonial orientalist texts further distinguished Hindus from Buddhists , Sikhs and Jains , but the colonial laws continued to consider all of them to be within the scope of the term Hindu until about mid-20th century. Scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon. At approximately 1.2 billion, Hindus are

13056-399: The military and political campaign during the medieval era wars in Deccan peninsula of India, and in the north India, were no longer a quest for sovereignty, they embodied a political and religious animosity against the "otherness of Islam", and this began the historical process of Hindu identity formation. Andrew Nicholson, in his review of scholarship on Hindu identity history, states that

13192-679: The name of the Indus River and also referred to its tributaries. The actual term 'hindu' first occurs, states Gavin Flood, as "a Persian geographical term for the people who lived beyond the river Indus (Sanskrit: Sindhu )", more specifically in the 5th-century BCE, DNa inscription of Darius I . The Punjab region , called Sapta Sindhu in the Vedas, is called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta . The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions

13328-420: The nature of their own demand". After the breakdown of the 1945 Simla Conference of viceroy Lord Wavell , the idea of Pakistan began to be contemplated seriously. Sir Evan Jenkins , the private secretary of the viceroy (later the governor of Punjab), wrote a memorandum titled "Pakistan and the Punjab", where he discussed the issues surrounding the partition of Punjab. K. M. Panikkar , then prime minister of

13464-522: The only possible access to Kashmir. Andrew Roberts believes that Mountbatten cheated over India-Pak frontier and states that if gerrymandering took place in the case of Firozepur, it is not too hard to believe that Mountbatten also pressurized Radcliffe to ensure that Gurdaspur wound up in India to give India road access to Kashmir. Perry Anderson states that Mountbatten, who was officially supposed to neither exercise any influence on Radcliffe nor to have any knowledge of his findings, intervened behind

13600-634: The other commissioners had all of the polish and none of the specialized knowledge needed for the task. They had no advisers to inform them of the well-established procedures and information needed to draw a boundary. Nor was there time to gather the survey and regional information. The absence of some experts and advisers, such as the United Nations, was deliberate, to avoid delay. Britain's new Labour government "deep in wartime debt, simply couldn't afford to hold on to its increasingly unstable empire." "The absence of outside participants—for example, from

13736-547: The other hand, Chittagong Hill Tracts and Khulna , with non-Muslim population of 97% and 51% respectively, were awarded to Pakistan. Indian historians now accept that Mountbatten probably did influence the Firozpur award in India's favour. The headworks of River Beas, which later joins River Sutlej flowing into Pakistan, were located in Firozpur. Congress leader Nehru and Viceroy Mountbatten had lobbied Radcliffe that headworks should not go to Pakistan. The Gurdaspur district

13872-408: The parties, except of course Britain. Only his private secretary, Christopher Beaumont, was familiar with the administration and life in Punjab. Wanting to preserve the appearance of impartiality, Radcliffe also kept his distance from Viceroy Mountbatten . No amount of knowledge could produce a line that would completely avoid conflict; already, "sectarian riots in Punjab and Bengal dimmed hopes for

14008-451: The partition, the fledgling governments of India and Pakistan were left with all responsibility to implement the border. After visiting Lahore in August, Viceroy Mountbatten hastily arranged a Punjab Boundary Force to keep the peace around Lahore, but 50,000 men was not enough to prevent thousands of killings, 77% of which were in the rural areas. Given the size of the territory, the force amounted to less than one soldier per square mile. This

14144-431: The phrase Hindu dharma (Hinduism) and contrasted it with Turaka dharma ( Islam ). The Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term 'Hindu' in a religious context in 1649. In the 18th century, European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus , in contrast to Mohamedans for groups such as Turks, Mughals and Arabs , who were adherents of Islam. By

14280-511: The points, In the highways which were once charming with anklets sound of beautiful women,   are now heard ear-piercing noises of Brahmins being dragged, bound in iron-fetters, The waters of Tambraparni , which were once white with sandal paste,   are now flowing red with the blood of cows slaughtered by miscreants, Earth is no longer the producer of wealth, nor does Indra give timely rains, The God of death takes his undue toll of what are left lives if undestroyed by

14416-399: The present boundary line. The tehsil was the most favourable unit. But all of the aforementioned Muslim majority tehsils, with the exception of Shakargarh, were handed over to India while Pakistan didn't receive any Non-Muslim majority district or tehsil in Punjab. Zafruallh Khan states that Radcliffe used district, tehsil, thana, and even village boundaries to divide Punjab in such a way that

14552-464: The proposal to the Secretary of State. He justified the exclusion of the Amritsar district because of its sacredness to the Sikhs and that of Gurdaspur district because it had to go with Amritsar for 'geographical reasons'. The Secretary of State commended the proposal and forwarded it to the India and Burma Committee, saying, "I do not think that any better division than the one the Viceroy proposes

14688-433: The province of Hi[n]dush , referring to northwestern India. The people of India were referred to as Hinduvān and hindavī was used as the adjective for Indian language in the 8th century text Chachnama . According to D. N. Jha , the term 'Hindu' in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term and did not refer to a religion. Among the earliest known records of 'Hindu' with connotations of religion may be in

14824-429: The provinces of Bengal and Punjab had been present since the beginning of the 20th century. Bengal had in fact been partitioned by the then viceroy Lord Curzon in 1905, along with its adjoining regions. The resulting 'Eastern Bengal and Assam' province, with its capital at Dhaka , had a Muslim majority and the 'West Bengal' province, with its capital at Calcutta , had a Hindu majority. However, this partition of Bengal

14960-522: The religion and traditions across Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand , Nepal , Burma , Malaysia , Indonesia , Cambodia , Laos , Philippines , and what is now central Vietnam . Over 3 million Hindus are found in Bali Indonesia, a culture whose origins trace back to ideas brought by Hindu traders to Indonesian islands in the 1st millennium CE. Their sacred texts are also the Vedas and

15096-453: The religions have drawn their curved swords;" however, the date of this text is unclear and considered by most scholars to be more recent. In Islamic literature, 'Abd al-Malik Isami 's Persian work, Futuhu's-salatin , composed in the Deccan under Bahmani rule in 1350, uses the word ' hindi' to mean Indian in the ethno-geographical sense and the word ' hindu' to mean 'Hindu' in

15232-539: The scenes – probably at Nehru's behest – to alter the award. He had little difficulty in getting Radcliffe to change his boundaries to allot the Muslim-majority district of Gurdaspur to India instead of Pakistan, thus giving India the only road access from Delhi to Kashmir. Hindus Traditional Hindus ( Hindustani: [ˈɦɪndu] ; / ˈ h ɪ n d uː z / ; also known as Sanātanīs ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism , also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma . Historically,

15368-477: The sense of a follower of the Hindu religion". The poet Vidyapati 's Kirtilata (1380) uses the term Hindu in the sense of a religion, it contrasts the cultures of Hindus and Turks (Muslims) in a city and concludes "The Hindus and the Turks live close together; Each makes fun of the other's religion ( dhamme )." One of the earliest uses of word 'Hindu' in a religious context, in a European language (Spanish),

15504-443: The sense of non-Muslim Indians". However, scholars like Robert Fraser and Mary Hammond opine that Sikhism began initially as a militant sect of Hinduism and it got formally separated from Hinduism only in the 20th century. During the colonial era, the term Hindu had connotations of native religions of India, that is religions other than Christianity and Islam. In early colonial era Anglo-Hindu laws and British India court system,

15640-658: The tehsil as a unit would have given Pakistan the Firozepur and Zira tehsils of the Firozpur District, the Jullundur and Nakodar tehsils of Jullundur district and the Dasuya tehsil of the Hoshiarpur district. The line so drawn would also give Pakistan the princely state of Kapurthala (which had a Muslim majority) and would enclose within Pakistan the whole of the Amritsar district of which only one tehsil, Ajnala, had

15776-470: The term 'Hindu' retained its geographical reference initially: 'Indian', 'indigenous, local', virtually 'native'. Slowly, the Indian groups themselves started using the term, differentiating themselves and their "traditional ways" from those of the invaders. The text Prithviraj Raso , by Chand Bardai , about the 1192 CE defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Muhammad Ghori , is full of references to "Hindus" and "Turks", and at one stage, says "both

15912-408: The term Hindu referred to people of all Indian religions as well as two non-Indian religions: Judaism and Zoroastrianism. In the 20th century, personal laws were formulated for Hindus, and the term 'Hindu' in these colonial 'Hindu laws' applied to Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in addition to denominational Hindus. Beyond the stipulations of British colonial law, European orientalists and particularly

16048-509: The term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for people living in the Indian subcontinent . It is assumed that the term "Hindu" traces back to Avestan scripture Vendidad which refers to land of seven rivers as Hapta Hendu which itself is a cognate to Sanskrit term Sapta Sindhuḥ (This term Sapta Sindhuḥ is mentioned in RigVeda that refers to

16184-399: The tract, he discussed the boundaries of Muslim and non-Muslim regions of Punjab and Bengal. His calculations showed a Muslim majority in 16 western districts of Punjab and non-Muslim majority in 13 eastern districts. In Bengal, he showed non-Muslim majority in 15 districts. He thought the Muslims could have no objection to redrawing provincial boundaries. If they did, "they [did] not understand

16320-505: The various beliefs. Among the earliest terms to emerge were Seeks and their College (later spelled Sikhs by Charles Wilkins), Boudhism (later spelled Buddhism), and in the 9th volume of Asiatick Researches report on religions in India, the term Jainism received notice. According to Pennington, the terms Hindu and Hinduism were thus constructed for colonial studies of India. The various sub-divisions and separation of subgroup terms were assumed to be result of "communal conflict", and Hindu

16456-401: The vernacular literature of Bhakti movement sants from 15th to 17th century, such as Kabir , Anantadas, Eknath, Vidyapati, suggests that distinct religious identities, between Hindus and Turks (Muslims), had formed during these centuries. The poetry of this period contrasts Hindu and Islamic identities, states Nicholson, and the literature vilifies the Muslims coupled with a "distinct sense of

16592-424: The wide range of traditions and ideas covered by the term Hinduism, arriving at a comprehensive definition is difficult. The religion "defies our desire to define and categorize it". A Hindu may, by his or her choice, draw upon ideas of other Indian or non-Indian religious thought as a resource, follow or evolve his or her personal beliefs, and still identify as a Hindu. In 1995, Chief Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar

16728-479: The world's third-largest religious group after Christians and Muslims. The vast majority of Hindus, approximately 966 million (94.3% of the global Hindu population), live in India , according to the 2011 Indian census. After India, the next nine countries with the largest Hindu populations are, in decreasing order: Nepal , Bangladesh , Indonesia , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , the United States , Malaysia ,

16864-564: The world. Most Hindus are found in Asian countries. The top twenty-five countries with the most Hindu residents and citizens (in decreasing order) are India , Nepal , Bangladesh , Indonesia , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , United States , Malaysia , Myanmar , United Kingdom , Mauritius , South Africa , United Arab Emirates , Canada , Australia , Saudi Arabia , Trinidad and Tobago , Singapore , Fiji , Qatar , Kuwait , Guyana , Bhutan , Oman and Yemen . The top fifteen countries with

17000-412: Was 49% Muslim, 40% Hindu, and 10% Sikh. ) The Pathankot tehsil was predominantly Hindu while the other three tehsils were Muslim majority. In the event, only Shakargarh was awarded to Pakistan. Radcliffe explained that the reason for deviating from the notional award in the case of Gurdaspur was that the headwaters of the canals that irrigated the Amritsar district lay in the Gurdaspur district and it

17136-635: Was codified by Savarkar while he was a political prisoner of the British colonial authorities. Chris Bayly traces the roots of Hindu nationalism to the Hindu identity and political independence achieved by the Maratha confederacy , that overthrew the Islamic Mughal empire in large parts of India, allowing Hindus the freedom to pursue any of their diverse religious beliefs and restored Hindu holy places such as Varanasi. A few scholars view Hindu mobilisation and consequent nationalism to have emerged in

17272-664: Was constructed by these orientalists to imply people who adhered to "ancient default oppressive religious substratum of India", states Pennington. Followers of other Indian religions so identified were later referred Buddhists, Sikhs or Jains and distinguished from Hindus, in an antagonistic two-dimensional manner, with Hindus and Hinduism stereotyped as irrational traditional and others as rational reform religions. However, these mid-19th-century reports offered no indication of doctrinal or ritual differences between Hindu and Buddhist, or other newly constructed religious identities. These colonial studies, states Pennigton, "puzzled endlessly about

17408-669: Was divided geographically by the Ravi River , with the Shakargarh tehsil on its west bank, and Pathankot , Gurdaspur and Batala tehsils on its east bank. The Shakargarh tehsil, the biggest in size, was awarded to Pakistan. (It was subsequently merged into the Narowal district of West Punjab . ) The three eastern tehsils were awarded to India. (Pathankot was eventually made a separate district in East Punjab .) The division of

17544-407: Was important to keep them under one administration. Radcliffe might have sided with Lord Wavell's reasoning from February 1946 that Gurdaspur had to go with the Amritsar district, and the latter could not be in Pakistan due to its Sikh religious shrines. In addition, the railway line from Amritsar to Pathankot passed through the Batala and Gurdaspur tehsils. He further claimed that to compensate for

17680-483: Was instructed to "demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of the Punjab on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will also take into account other factors." Other factors were undefined, giving Radcliffe leeway, but included decisions regarding "natural boundaries, communications, watercourses and irrigation systems", as well as socio-political consideration. Each commission also had four representatives—two from

17816-435: Was later used occasionally in some Sanskrit texts such as the later Rajataranginis of Kashmir (Hinduka, c.  1450 ) and some 16th- to 18th-century Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts, including Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagavata . These texts used it to contrast Hindus from Muslims who are called Yavanas (foreigners) or Mlecchas (barbarians), with the 16th-century Chaitanya Charitamrita text and

17952-533: Was not enough to protect the cities much less the caravans of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who were fleeing their homes in what would become Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan were loath to violate the agreement by supporting the rebellions of villages drawn on the wrong side of the border, as this could prompt a loss of face on the international stage and require the British or the UN to intervene. Border conflicts led to three wars, in 1947 , 1965 , and 1971 , and

18088-442: Was quoted in an Indian Supreme Court ruling: Although Hinduism contains a broad range of philosophies, Hindus share philosophical concepts, such as but not limiting to dharma , karma , kama , artha , moksha and samsara , even if each subscribes to a diversity of views. Hindus also have shared texts such as the Vedas with embedded Upanishads , and common ritual grammar ( Sanskara (rite of passage) ) such as rituals during

18224-436: Was reversed in 1911 in an effort to mollify Bengali nationalism . Proposals for partitioning Punjab had been made starting in 1908. Its proponents included the Hindu leader Bhai Parmanand , Congress leader Lala Lajpat Rai , industrialist G. D. Birla , and various Sikh leaders. After the 1940 Lahore resolution of the Muslim League demanding Pakistan, B. R. Ambedkar wrote a 400-page tract titled Thoughts on Pakistan. In

18360-576: Was such that there was no line that could neatly divide the Hindus , Muslims , and Sikhs . Likewise, no line could appease both the Muslim League , headed by Jinnah , and the Congress led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel . Moreover, any division based on religious communities was sure to entail "cutting through road and rail communications, irrigation schemes, electric power systems and even individual landholdings." The idea of partitioning

18496-407: Was the publication in 1649 by Sebastio Manrique . In the Indian historian DN Jha 's essay "Looking for a Hindu identity" , he writes: "No Indians described themselves as Hindus before the fourteenth century" and that "The British borrowed the word 'Hindu' from India, gave it a new meaning and significance, [and] reimported it into India as a reified phenomenon called Hinduism." In the 18th century,

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