Bharat's ‘Original Sin': Partition Was Not Freedom, But Civilisational Betrayal

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3 days ago

The cruel irony of partition is that it was agreed to by a generation that had produced some of India's greatest sons.
August 14, 1947 – the day when Bharat was amputated. The partition of India marked the beginning of humanity's most brutal exercise in forced migration and ethnic cleansing.
For thousands of years, Bharat had stood as an unbroken testament to civilisational resistance. This was the land where Prithviraj Chauhan fought seventeen battles against Muhammad Ghori, capturing and releasing him repeatedly rather than executing an unarmed enemy – only to pay the ultimate price for his adherence to dharmic principles. This was the soil where Maharana Pratap chose a lifetime of guerrilla warfare in the Aravalli hills rather than bow before Akbar, declaring through his very defiance that 'Mewar would rather die than submit". This was the land where Guru Gobind Singh and his 40 Sikhs put up their last stand against lakhs of Mughal marauders at Chamkaur Sahib.
It was also here that Chhatrapati Shivaji carved out Hindu Swarajya from the heart of Mughal-dominated Deccan – showing that indigenous dharmic rule was not just possible but essential. These warriors understood what their descendants forgot in 1947: that Bharat was not merely a piece of real estate to be divided among competing claims, but a sacred geography consecrated by the blood of countless martyrs who chose death over dishonour.
The heroes of Bharat's past would have been bewildered by the events of 1947. For centuries, they had held a simple truth: the motherland was indivisible, not because of political convenience but because of spiritual principle. When Rani Padmini chose jauhar over surrender at Chittorgarh, when fifty thousand defenders died at Somnath rather than abandon their sacred duty, when Bhagat Singh walked to the gallows declaring 'Inquilab Zindabad," they were asserting a fundamental belief that some things are worth more than life itself – and the unity of Bharat was foremost among them.
When Giants Bowed to Pygmies
The cruel irony of partition is that it was agreed to by a generation that had produced some of India's greatest sons. Gandhi, who had inspired millions around the world with his principle of ahimsa and satyagraha, ultimately acquiesced to a solution that guaranteed unprecedented violence. Nehru, the 'architect" of modern India, accepted the vivisection of the very nation he claimed to love. The Congress leadership, which had spent decades demanding 'Purna Swaraj," settled for a truncated independence that mocked their own ideals.
These leaders forgot the lessons written in blood across Indian history. They forgot that Bharat's civilisational strength lay not in accommodation with those who sought to divide her, but in the unwavering resolve of those who understood that some compromises are tantamount to suicide. When Subuktigin's forces faced Jayapala's confederation, the Hindu king sent this message: 'You have heard and know the nobleness of Indians—they fear not death or destruction. In affairs of honour and renown we would place ourselves upon the fire like roast meat, and upon the dagger like the sunrays".
This was the spirit that had sustained Bharat through centuries of invasion and upheaval. The Sikhs who lived as sovereign people in open defiance of Mughal rule, the Rajputs who fought at Haldighati, the Marathas who challenged Mughal supremacy for over a century, the countless unnamed warriors who chose martyrdom over submission—they would have been stunned to see their descendants voluntarily handing over vast swathes of their homeland to those who demanded it.
The Numbers Tell the Story of Betrayal
The numbers alone reveal the magnitude of this tragedy. Between 14.5 and 18 million people were displaced in what historians now recognise as the largest forced migration in modern history. Conservative estimates place the death toll at one million, though scholars like those at Harvard suggest the true figure could be as high as 3.5 million. In Punjab alone, virtually no Hindus or Sikhs survived in the western region. The violence was organised, systematic, and genocidal in its intent.
Women bore the brunt of partition's savagery. Thousands were raped, with many facing mutilation or death. Pregnant women were disemboweled, infants killed by smashing their heads against walls, and entire train cars became mobile slaughterhouses. This was butchery on an industrial scale.
The economic devastation was equally catastrophic. India lost 75% of its jute production and 40% of its cotton supply to Pakistan, while being deprived of vital wheat-growing regions. The railway system, built over nearly a century, was brutally severed. By 1951, India's railway network had shrunk from 65,217 kilometers to just 53,168 kilometers. The refugee rehabilitation costs alone consumed over a million rupees daily, resources that could have been devoted to development.
The British Escape: Washing Hands of Responsibility
Lord Mountbatten's role in this disaster cannot be understated. Tasked with transferring power by June 1948, he inexplicably moved the date forward to August 1947, giving himself just five weeks to divide 400 million people. He brought in Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a lawyer who had never set foot in India, to draw borders that would determine the fate of millions. Radcliffe himself later admitted he had no knowledge of Indian geography, culture, or demographics, and yet his lines condemned millions to death and displacement.
Britain, exhausted by World War II and facing potential civil war in India, chose to cut and run rather than manage an orderly transition. The British demobilised troops who might have maintained order while leaving behind armed ex-soldiers who became the core of the communal militias that perpetrated the worst violence. They created the conditions for catastrophe and then fled, leaving Indians to deal with the consequences
Modi's Recognition: Confronting the 'Original Sin"
By declaring August 14 as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, Prime Minister Modi has forced the nation to confront a truth that post-independence India had preferred to ignore. What could have been a heroic culmination of a freedom struggle, by August 1947 became a civilisational failure that contradicted everything Bharat had stood for across centuries of resistance.
The remembrance serves a crucial purpose beyond honouring the dead and displaced. It reminds us that the forces that made partition possible—the willingness to sacrifice principles for political gains, the acceptance of foreign-imposed solutions to indigenous problems, the abandonment of civilisational wisdom in favour of 'modern" political convenience—remain active today.
Modi's decision acknowledges what Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, and countless other martyrs would have immediately understood: that partition represented the first time in Bharat's long history when its own children agreed to dismember their mother. For a civilisation that had produced the concept of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" – the world as one family – the acceptance of permanent division based on religious identity was not just political failure but spiritual bankruptcy.
The Ghosts That Still Walk Among Us
Seventy-seven years later, partition continues to extract its price. Every border skirmish, every communal riot, every missed opportunity for regional cooperation can trace its roots back to August 1947. The billions spent on defense, the resources devoted to maintaining hostile borders, the human potential wasted in cycles of suspicion and conflict – all are glowing tributes to partition's destructive and bloody legacy.
But the deepest wound is not economic or political, but civilisational. Partition represented the moment when Bharat abandoned the dharmic principle that had sustained her through millennia of trials. The ancient understanding that the motherland was sacred and indivisible, that some principles were worth more than political convenience, that resistance to civilisational destruction was a sacred duty – all were sacrificed on the altar of modern political 'pragmatism'.
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The tragedy is not just what happened, but what might have been. A united subcontinent would today stand as a civilisational superpower, combining the world's largest population with ancient wisdom and modern capabilities. Instead, we remain prisoners of a decision made in haste and regretted at leisure, our potential constrained by borders drawn by those who understood neither our history nor our soul.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
About the Author
Sanbeer Singh Ranhotra
Sanbeer Singh Ranhotra is a producer and video journalist at Network18. He is enthusiastic about and writes on both national affairs as well as geopolitics.
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freedom independence day Partition 1947
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New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
August 13, 2025, 15:29 IST
News opinion Straight Talk | Bharat's 'Original Sin': Partition Was Not Freedom, But Civilisational Betrayal
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