The Tragic Story of Partition

by H.V. Seshadri

This book is a comprehensive account of the events leading to the partition of Bharat. It begins from the Wahabi movement in the 18th century , touches upon the machinations of the British in the late 19th century and then moves on to the major developments that happened from late 19th and early 20th century where the British tried their ways to drive wedges into the society through partition of Bengal . It analysis how the Swadeshi and Vandemataram movement under Lal, Bal Pal forced the British to annul the partition of Bengal.

The book throws light on the founding principles of the Muslim League, the ‘ Lal Ishtehaar’ and the Khilafat movement. The tragedy of the murder of Swami Shradhananda and the virtual capitulation of the Congress leadership under MK Gandhi into Muslim appeasement is well documented. The cautions given by Lala Lajpat Rai, Ravindranath Tagore , CR Das, VD Savarkar are very important. The author also invests time on how the Gandhi – Jinnah talks went off, the ‘Direct Action’ call by Jinnah , the wide spread riots, the eventual partition of Bharat. It also touches upon the unprecedented holocaust & mass migration ever known in the history of mankind. This book ought to be mandatory reading.

Appreciation for the book by Sri Sitaram Goel :

The book by Shri H.V. Seshadri is like a breath of fresh breeze. The Tragic Story of Partition is the best study of this subject made so far. It gives us all the facts included in the earlier studies. It also takes into account many known but neglected facts. But what distinguishes it from all other studies, is its deeper probe and wider perspective in the interpretation of all facts and episodes. This remarkable book has many facets, rich in ideological implications of a far-reaching import.

The two behaviour patterns have remained intact and are still operative. That is why the Partition in 1947 cannot and should not be considered a closed chapter. Moreover, the two behaviour patterns provide the key not only to a correct understanding of the complexities of present-day politics in India, but also to an anticipation of political developments in days to come.

This book is available in Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada and English.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Ashish Iyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book on partition.

Real history cannot be summarized into a few bullet points. It is a lot more detailed, nuanced and complicated. Over simplification often doesn't give the complete picture. The fixation of historians to push the narrative that only Congress, Nehru and Gandhi gave us Independence needs to be end. And this book is for those keep coming up with the narrative of "British divided us". This book doesn't indulge in hero worshiping of any leader. It gives the insight into the different situations and scenarios that lead to the partition of India at the time of Independence. I am glad that this book doesn't only focus on Congress. It shows various point of view, be it Jinnah, Muslim league, Britishers and non congress leaders. It details about the lack of clear vision of then leaders of Indian National Congress about united India and the mistakes which lead to division of Indian population based on the religion. The seeds our leaders sowed before Independence will help you understand the complexities of present-day politics in India. I am not going to go in detail. Read it, you will understand what exactly i am talking about.

Nations weaken not because of their past but, rather, when they are prevented from remembering it. For seventy years we have been prevented from remembering our past. And now they want us to forget even the horrors of Partition. NEVER.

For lucid account on partition of Bharat, do read this book. Writer doesn't flinch from highlighting the faults of the players involved. Well referenced and yet not cluttered at all. Its a good book that chronicle events culminating in the partition of India in 1947. It is sad that the book has not been widely publicised and the general public continue to believe the half baked stories about partition which suppress more than they reveal. Unbiased and highly recommended. This book is also available in Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi and Malayalam.

So far I have read 3 books on Partition.
1. Pakistan Or Partition Of India by B.R. Ambedkar
2. The Tragic Story of Partition by H.V. Seshadri
3. Those fifteen days by Prashant Pole

Now I have eyes on Creating a New Medina by Venkat Dhulipala.

[Guruprasad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Partition has been one bloodiest and gruesome history of India where lakhs of people lost their lives, land, and loved ones due to decisions and agreements made by a handful of leaders who took the entire existence of people for granted. We need to read this book to know real faces and real values cared for by the national leaders and in a sense real history of the nation when it was a weaker state. reading certain parts of the book makes us numb and in meantime fills us with rage and anguish. Read, learn and prepare is all I can say.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book: The Tragic Story of Partition
Author: H.V. Seshadri
Publisher: ‎ Sahitya Sindhu Prakashan (1 January 2015)
Paperback: ‎ 280 pages
Item Weight: ‎ 300 g
Dimensions: ‎ 21.5 x 14 x 1.8 cm
Country of Origin: ‎ India
Price: 94/-

“Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries -- slave of prejudice … slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity and inhumanity.” ― Saadat Hasan Manto

Into twenty seven chapters, this 280 page book is divided. The chapters are:

1. Crucial Hour of Freedom Struggle,
2. Breaking up Hindu Morale,
3. Abetting Muslim Separation,
4. Partition of Bengal,
5. Sowing Seeds of `Two Nation Theory`,
6. A Nation Bestirred,
7. Congress: On The Slope Of Appeasement,
8. Khilafat Movement: `A Himalayan Error`,
9. Tragic Fruits of Khilafat,
10. Conversions, Riots Galore,
11. Soaring Muslim Demands,
12. Communal Award,
13. Gangster Style Rewards The League,
14. Compromises on Nation`s Symbols,
15. Plan for Balkanisation,
16. Boost to Jinnah By Congress,
17. India On Volcano, Britain On way out,
18. League`S `Direct Action`,
19. Deadlock Complete,
20. Leaders` Minds Prepared For Partition,
21. `Amen` To Partition,
22. Fraud Played On Bharat,
23. The Holocaust,
24. Challenge of States Integration,
25. Was Partition Unavoidable?
26. The Poisonous Seeds,
27. For The Dream To Come True

The standpoint of The Tragic Story of Partition by Seshadri is set by what the learned author has written in his petite but laconic Preface.

He says: “In the [past] one thousand years many parts of our country had been mled by the Muslims and then by the British, but the nation had never compromised, in principle, its sovereignty over any part of the motherland.

Consequently, our nation had never ceased to strive for throwing out the aggressors and liberate those parts.

And history tells us that eventually it did succeed in freeing the entire land from the clutches of foreign invaders.

However, for the first time, Partition conceded the moral and legal right to them over certain parts of the country and declared an embarrassing finale to the one thousand years old heroic struggle for freedom.

Thus it was an act of degrading surrender on the point of principle. The usual interpretation of Partition, however, does not utter a word about this aspect. Even while conceding Partition to be a tragedy, it is sought to be made out as the only practical way out then available - as the inevitable price for achieving freedom.”

This is a very noteworthy statement for two reasons:

1) It carries within it a perception of the territorial and historical traditions cherished by the people of Bharatavarsha since aeons.

2) It brings out the point that the surrender of a national principle by a people is more suicidal than the surrender of national territory under unfavourable circumstances.

Let us shed some light on the territorial tradition.

The visualization of Bharatavarsha which had inspired our struggle against British imperialism has been described by Seshadri in the very first chapter.

He uses the following heartrending words:

“Indeed how many were the seers and sages, poets and prophets - right from the Vedic age upto the modern times - who had fostered in the nation’s breast the integrated and whole picture of Bharat as the Divine Mother. Bharat, in their eyes, was not a mere clod of clay.

It was verily the Matrubhoomi, the Punyabhoomi, the Dharmabhoomi, the Devabhoomi, the Karmabhoomi - all sublimated into one single majestic figure of Bharat Mata.

To Bankimchandra, she appeared as the triple manifestation of Saraswati, Lakshmi and Durga. Rabindranath Tagore visualised Her as Devi bhuvana-mana-mohini - the divine enchantress of the world.

To Swami Vivekananda, She was the Mother of all the thirty-three crores of gods and goddesses - whose worship would gratify all those myriad deities.

Guruji Golwalkar visualised Her as Trinity of Mata the loving mother, Pita - the protecting father, and Guru - the elevating spiritual guide. The unity of Bharat is so basic to its nature, so sublime in its depths - in fact, an inseparable aspect of its national soul.”

Seshadri has given, at the very launch of the book, a delineation of the eminent national historical tradition. He marks the following aspects:

1) How the Hindus drove out the Macedonian prowlers under Alexander after a short and swift struggle;

2) How they first fought and defeated the Saka, Kushana and Huna hordes and lastly absorbed these foreigners in the enormous framework of Hindu society and culture;

3) How they resisted the Islamic invaders at every step for more than a few centuries and then rolled back the barbarians by means of a multipronged counter-offensive; and

4) How they wrested freedom from British imperialism by a century-long struggle which was cultural or constitutional, revolutionary or non-violent in keeping with the need of the hour.

It is in the milieu of this national historical tradition that he comments of Nehru’s celebrated speech on the midnight of 15 August 1947.

He asks in torment: “Did the tryst with destiny which our leaders had made long years ago include this crucial twist of history also? Was it a picture of a divided Bharat which had been the cherished vision of our freedom fighters including Pandit Nehru?”

Seshadri has not laboured morbidly over British machinations to divide the two communities.

Out of as many as 27 chapters in The Tragic Story of Partition he has devoted only one chapter to this sophomoric and lackluster theme.

In another chapter, ‘Abetting Muslim Separatism’, he has made the point fairly obvious that separatism was the stock-in-trade of Muslim leadership, and that the British only made use of it for their own purposes.

The obvious impression that is left on one’s mind, after one has finished the book, is that it was not the British but the misconceived though well-intentioned policies of the national leadership which cleared the way for a re-consolidation of Islamic imperialism in the Eastern and Western wings of India.

To an adult mind this whole business of blaming the British for Muslim separatism, which was and is in fact inspired by Islam, must look like an infantile attempt at refusing to accept our own responsibility for our own failures on a strategic front.

It is high time for Hindu society to start facing disagreeable realities rather than wish them away by taking resort to reasonable explanations.

In this meticulous instance, the explanation is not even plausible. It falls to the ground as soon as we go beyond the realm of Hindu-Muslim relations, and reflect upon eventual results of the same British policy elsewhere.

Seshadri has given a brief outline of the long war of liberation which Hindu society had fought and won against Islamic imperialism.

He writes:

“For 800 years Hindusthan waged an insistent freedom struggle - perhaps the most stirring saga of crusade for national freedom witnessed anywhere on the face of this earth.

From Maharana Kumbha to Maharana Pratap Simha and Rajasimha in Rajasthan, from Hakka and Bukka to Krishnadevaraya in the South, from Chhatrapati Shivaji to the Peshwas in Maharashtra, from the various martyr Gurus of the Sikhs including Guru Govind Singh to Banda Bairagi and Ranjit Singh in the Punjab, from Chhatrasal in Bundelkhand to Lachit Barphukan in Assam, countless captains of the war of independence piloted the ship of freedom and steered her through hazardous tides and tempests.

As a result of their perpetual and crushing blows, the conquering, sword of Islam lay in dust, shattered to pieces.”

Seshadri has taken ‘The Tragic Story of Partition’ to its fatal finale in 1947.

*What I personally loved about this book ---

#Seshadri that he steers clear of the vacant phrase ‘Muslim Revivalism’ in his book. He states in his chapter on ‘Muslim Separatism’ that Waliullah was only continuing, under changed circumstances, an old Islamic campaign against the Hindus.

#Seshadri does something more which is uniformly noteworthy. He links up Waliullah and his latter-day followers - Syed Ahmad Barelvi and Shariatullah, etc. - with Sir Syed Ahmad Khan of the Aligarh Movement, under whom the remains of Islamic imperialism started revising their stratagem after years of tilting their blunted swords against the windmills of British imperialism.

#Seshadri harps on the fact that the British had heaved a sigh of relief, even though the jihad of Dudhu Mian (1819-1860) and Titu Mian (1782-1831) etc. had never been more than a trivial annoyance for them. Henceforth, the residues of Islamic imperialism were to be an annoyance for Indian nationalism, till they succeeded in securing their first pound of flesh in the shape of Pakistan.

#Seshadri has not given a comprehensive account of the earlier Islamic crusade which Waliullah had merely continued. Instead, he has chosen to give glimpses of the national fight for freedom which had to conclude defeated the foe. That is as it should be. The less we brood over black evils of the past, the lighter we feel and the better we become for facing tasks in the present.

#There is one chapter in the history of our freedom movement against British imperialism which has caused considerable confusion. This chapter opened with the signing of the Lucknow Pact in December 1916, and closed with the withdrawal of the first Non-Cooperation Movement by Gandhi in February 1922.

Many politicians and historians have looked back wistfully to those wonderful days of Hindu-Muslim unity when the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League held their annual sessions in the same city and at the same time, passed similar antiimperialist resolutions, and raised similar slogans.

Few political scientists have cared to interpret correcdy and consistendy the detailed documentation which has been available for quite some time regarding the motives of the Muslim League and, later on, of the Mullahs in making a common cause with the Congress. It looks like a wilful refusal to face facts which sound unsavoury.

Seshadri also seems to share this confusion when he refers to ‘A New Breeze Among Muslims’. He disapproves of the Lucknow Pact which he very aptly describes as a Sanction to Separatism. He also rejects the Khilafat agitation as A Himalayan Error; which is a very sound summing up of a desperate step which was taken by the national movement under the leadership of Gandhi.

Yet he seems to welcome the New Breeze which brought the Muslim League and the Mullas close to the Congress and led to an ignominious surrender of cherished principles on the part of the latter. It is obvious that there is some contradiction somewhere.

#Finally, it is only because Muslim separatism is still a festering sore in our body politic that one has to go back to its sources in an earlier age when the first Muslim army had stepped forward on the soil of India.

It is unquestionable that India was an astounding novelty at the end of the 10th century.

The sack of Somnath and the destruction of its temple came to be considered an especially pious exploit because of its analogy in the past with the destruction of the idols of the pagan Arabs by the Prophet.

This led to invention of popular legends giving Mahmud’s invasion a status of sanctity; and it explains the idealisation of Mahmud by Nizam al-Mulk Tusi and the ideal treatment he has received from earlier Sufi poets like Sanai and Attar, not to mention such collectors of anecdotes as Awfi.

*What I disliked about this book ���

#Though each of his chapter is packed with facts, insights, and interpretations such as make his book a considerable contribution to the large literature on this contentious subject, the solitary drawback in this otherwise well-documented study is the recurrent absence of dates on which the books from which he has quoted were published, and the statements of leaders he has cited were made.

#Some of the statements credited to some national leaders leave the impression as if these leaders were able to see the abyss towards which Indians were being pushed. Absence of dates on which these statements were made, helps in hiding the habit of our leaders to feel wise by hindsight.

A final observation – was our Partition inevitable?

Sheshadri assumes that it was.

The Indian movement could not have gone onward without the mass struggle advocated by Gandhi and also its frequent intrinsic flaws. This was against Jinnah's sense of ego - who was ever more sidelined. Jinnah went to London, and returned an altered man. His meeting with Linlithgow on 3rd Sept 1939 obviously shows his reluctance to accept anything less than partition; it also obviously documents the British attitude and strategy of Partition.

All in all, this book is a must, must read for all students of Indian history.

[Nishu Thakur · Rating 5 out of 5]

भारत विभाजन पर एक शानदार पुस्तक. पूरी पुस्तक जानकारी से भरपूर है| पुस्तक में कुछ गंभीर चिंताओं, मुद्दों और ऐतिहासिक भूलों पर प्रकाश डाला गया है, जिसके कारण भारत के विभाजन की दुखद कहानी सामने आई है।

[Devanshu Vashishtha · Rating 5 out of 5]

by HV Sheshadri was a journey to the time of partition in 1947 .HarshIt discussed what were the consequences which led to partition of united India into Muslim majority province as Pakistan and Hindu majority province as secular India. And what are the adverse effect of those decisions taken in hustle of independence and forming government we face till now.

[Lasic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on Partition.

[Utkrisht Fella · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most comprehensive and honest accounts of the Partition of India. Sri H.V. Seshadri presents not just a chronological history of events but a layered narrative that explores the deep political, cultural and ideological fault lines that led to one of the most traumatic chapters in Indian history.

What sets this book apart is its rigorous research. The author backs every assertion with references from reliable and varied sources, lending the book a level of credibility that many popular histories lack. It doesn’t rely on emotional rhetoric or revisionist narratives, instead, it presents facts, debates, and consequences with remarkable clarity and restraint.

Seshadri offers a nuanced look at the roles played by the British administration, the Congress leadership, the Muslim League, and key individuals during the run-up to August 15, 1947. The book goes beyond the event of Partition to examine its far-reaching aftermath - demographic shifts, refugee crises, communal violence, and the shaping of political discourse in post-independence Bharat.

This is essential reading for anyone who wants to move past textbook history and understand the real political and civilizational cost of Partition. It is especially valuable in today's context, where historical clarity is often clouded by ideological convenience.

Highly recommended for students of history, policy thinkers, and anyone committed to understanding India’s national journey from truth, not narrative.

[Hemant · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author succeeds in capturing the overall picture of actions of congress, Gandhiji, British government and Muslim League. Although there are some misquotes and some out-of-context excerpts but the book is a good read in spite of them. It certainly helps to answer some questions like "was partition unavoidable", "did the League really had so much public support to warrant parity with the Congress". It also contains some excerpts on heroic deeds of often critisized RSS swayamsevaks (volunteers) also.
One should read historical events from multiple points of view. It has so oftened that V. P. Menon painted Mountbatten as angel for independent India (in Story of Integration of Indian States) while H. V. Sheshadri also draws or attention to misdeeds of Mountbatten which proved deleterious to Indian and Hindu interests.

[Vijay Dhuri]

The book is an excellent reference for those who want to study the complete history of Indian Independence struggle starting from 1857 national revolt leading up to the Partition of Bharat. Author gives various relevant references to show how the events unfolded and who were the actors behind those events.

[Ajay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read if you want to understand the partition.

[Ajay Thakur · Rating 5 out of 5]

परिचय और पहला अध्याय ही आपकी बंद आंखें खोल देगा। आपको पता चल जाएगा कि भारत के साथ क्या किया गया है। अधर्म के खिलाफ जागने और एकजुट होने का समय।