(book review) Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India

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http://www.rpi.edu/~diwanr/i_econ/khizr.htm

Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India by

Ian Talbot. Surrey (England) Curzon Press. 1996. 181 pp. + Glossary,

Select Bibliography and Index.

 

Review by Romesh Diwan

 

This book, though biographical, is a study of British colonial history

in a northern part of India just around the period of partition. The

author places Khizr Hyat Tiwana, born on August 7, 1900, the last

premier of united Punjab, as a central piece in this study. Through the

life of Khizr Tiwana, this study provides answer to three important

questions: (i) How did British rule India? (ii) Was Partition necessary

and who is responsible for it? and, (iii) Could the British be trusted?

 

The book is divided into three parts. Part I discusses the issue of

Khizr Hyat Tiwana’s "Inheritance"; both in terms of the family lineage

and the historical environment affected by British rule. Chapter 1: The

Tiwanas of Shahpur, traces back their ancestry to tenth century Hindu

Rajputs in Madhya Pradesh. This Tiwana family has Hindu, Sikh and Muslim

branches; not an uncommon phenomena. The immediate family supplied men

to the British Colonial government in fighting back India’s First War of

Independence in 1857 and was rewarded by a large land estate for such

anti national service. Khizr was born to a loyalists rich landlord

family. Chapter 2: Father and Son, gives the relationship between him

and his father who had acquired a great trust among the ruling British.

Khizr followed in his father’s steps in his loyalty to British and went

to the point of stating that the political leaders in late 1930 did not

represent interests of ‘real’ India while he and loyalists like him did;

he even "linked the loyalist endeavors of 1939 - 45 with those of

1857."Chapter 3: The Unionist Party, explains how the loyalist landlords

formed this party and were granted the rule of the province. Khizr,

perhaps the most distinguished member of this group, entered the

Unionist Government as a Minister in 1937 as the youngest member.

 

Part II is the story of how Khizr reached "The Pinnacle of Power."

Chapter 4: Apprentice to Power, provides the story about Khizr’s success

as a Minister so that he was ready to move to the Premier’s position.

Chapter 5: Inheriting the Crown, details that this opportunity arrived

in December 1942 when the then Premier died suddenly and Khizr became

the youngest, and as history records, also the last, Premier of Punjab.

These were however tumultuous times. British Colonial government’s own

existence was at stake; in addition to the 2nd World War, the freedom

struggle to gain independence was gaining strength. Chapter 6: Leader in

War and Peace, describes the difficult situation that the Premier was

facing. Being a loyalist he wanted to help the war effort but the

freedom struggle was placing a serious burden of the lack of support by

the people. British Colonial divide and rule policy had, by now,

empowered the Muslim League sufficiently which was more concerned in

creating Pakistan then helping the process of governing. It was making

it impossible for the Unionist party to survive.

 

As Part III titles it, he was experiencing "The Passing of a World" that

the Unionist had become accustomed to. Chapter 7: Sailing in Two Boats,

finds Khizr in the most difficult situation of a loyalist for a Colonial

government slowly withering away and a Muslim leader not accepted by the

Muslim League speaking for Muslims. The British Colonial policy to prop

up Muslim League as a counter to the national freedom struggle had by

now misfired. Muslim League had gained legitimacy and public support

from the religious Muslims to go for the spoils is explained in Chapter

8: Pakistan Zindabad. Chapter 9: General Without an Army, describes how

he was able to save the Punjab from the blood letting frenzy Muslim

League had created in Bengal. There was however the end of the line.

Khizr resigned his Premiership on March 2, 1947. After his resignation,

Punjab was partitioned and caused a large massacre of non Muslims.

Betrayed by the English with whom he and his ancestors had stood loyally

by against their own countrymen, and denied any role in his own state by

the Muslim League government whom he had fought to preserve the unity of

Panjab, he lost every thing so much so that he had to leave the country

and his large landed estates. The Epilogue briefly describes the rest of

his somewhat unsatisfactory life spent in England and US where he died

on January 19, 1975 leaving his only son, privy to his thoughts, settled

in the US, who recognized the betrayal, and has made amends with the

country and his old Rajput Teo ancestors by giving up Islam and become a

Buddhist using the new name; Nazram Palden Teo aka Nazar Tiwana. In

Conclusion, the author makes a case, albeit a weak one, for

consociational approach to politics.

 

There is a Forward by Dr. L. M. Singhvi, Indian High Commissioner in the

UK It summarizes the book, is very well written and also shows how the

British rule has affected Indian intellectuals because it is full of

references to the Western Classics and bereft of the teachings from the

old and rich Indian heritage and literature.

 

Coming back to the three main themes, the story tells clearly that the

British Colonial rule in India was maintained by mercenaries in the form

of landlords whom British had rewarded handsomely for fighting with

their own countrymen. The British propaganda developed sophisticated

language for them; such as "martial castes," whose qualifying condition

was a willingness and capacity to kill their own countrymen. When I was

growing up we used to hear in early 1940s that a Muslim was equal to 2

Sikhs and 5 Hindus. This disparity evaporated with the disappearance of

the British.

 

Was Partition necessary and who is responsible for the massacres in

Punjab? It becomes quite clear from this study that Khizr was against

the idea of partition. "He played a key role in limiting the Muslim

League’s influence in Punjab from 1942-47 and countered the Pakistan

demand with his own vision of a United Punjab within a decentralized

federal India." His son, Nazram tells me that as late as 1974, before

his death, he believed that partition will be undone. He warned the

British government that their policies to divide Punjab will lead to

holocaust. He was successful, though at high personal cost, to avoid any

clash among the two major communities. If Khizr could avoid these

massacres, why couldn’t the more powerful British government? From this

it follows that the British must be held fully responsible for the

holocaust that took place after his leaving office. It is the British

who were responsible for India’s partition and the resultant massacres

of millions of innocent people. This thesis is consistent with other

recent studies. [see,The Rediscovery of India: A New Subcontinent by

Ansar Hussain Khan. Hyderabad. Orient Longman Ltd. 1995. and also Diwan,

Romesh, 1997, Review of Ansar Hussain Khan’s The Rediscovery of India: A

New Subcontinent. Asian Thought and Society. pp.]Not surprisingly,

Mountbatten, the man in charge at the time, denied it vehemently.

[Mountbatten and Independent India by Larry Collins and Dominque

LaPierre, 1985 New Delhi. Vikas. Mountbatten does acknoweldge Khizr,

p.34.].

 

Could the British Colonial rulers be trusted by its loyalists? The life

story of Khizr gives a resounding No. His experience is no different

from others as well; for example of Mahatma Gandhi. In Gandhiji’s own

words in 1920 "To Every Englishman,: Let me introduce myself to you.

In my humble opinion no Indian has co-operated with the British

Government more than I have for an unbroken period of twenty-nine years

of public life in the face of circumstances that might well have turned

any other man into a rebel. I ask you to believe me when I tell you that

my co-operation was not based on the fear of the punishment provided by

your laws or any other selfish motive. It was free and voluntary

co-operation, based on the belief that the sum total of the British

Government was fore the benefit of India. I put my life in peril four

times for the sake of the Empire....But the treachery of Mr. Lloyd

George and its appreciation by you, and the condonation of the Punjab

atrocities, have completely shattered my faith in the good intentions of

Government and the nation which is supporting it." [Andrews, C. F, 1930,

Mahatma Gandhi - His Own Story, New York Macmillan. pp. 239-40]. Khizr’s

learnt it after it was too late and paid a very heavy personal price.

 

Even though it deals with a small part of history of a major era and

small part of India, it is a study based on a large number of original

resouces, not easily available, and painstakingly done. The scholarship

is of the highest quality. It develops not only a portrait of a caring,

generous, intelligent, likable and unselfish, though misguided by his

loyalty, Khizr but also of the times he was living. There are, however,

the usual prejudices contained in phrases such as "modernizing

influences of colonial rule," traditional factional rivlaries rather

than modern party appeals,romance of a freedom struggle," which have

become the hallmark of "modernist’ scholarship though Jaques Ellul calls

it part of "propaganda."[Ellul, Jaques, 1965,Propaganda: The Formation

of Men's Attitudes. New York. Alferd A Knopf. Inc. Vintage Books

Edition, 1973.] But these are its minor faults. A reader will benefit a

great deal and it is a must for any library.