Word: hindus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...child, to start a fight that would engulf the city. Last week Calcutta was still divided into "Pakistan" and "Hindustan" quarters, with strong points bristling with .barbed wire and machine guns. A Hindu driver dared not cross into a Moslem quarter, nor a Moslem into "Hindustan." In Bombay, where Hindus and Moslems had formerly lived mixed in together, streetcar signs now said "Pakistan Bombay," meaning the Moslem quarter...
...There, for the first time in communal riots, firearms were used on a big scale by each side. The embattled tribes had been turning out homemade wooden rifles, six feet long. In a divided India, where 38 million Moslems are still within the borders of Hindu India, 18 million Hindus and two million Sikhs within Pakistan, few supposed that political deals in Delhi could really repair the breach between religious communities...
...Hindu, Mohandas Gandhi, still hoped to bring Hindus and Moslems together in a united India. If, in spite of divisive forces, India's 400 million really form themselves into a nation in the modern sense, Gandhi will have brought off (almost as a by-product of his larger purpose) a revolution greater than...
...Gets the Army? Not one British Cabinet member liked this melancholy geometry. Even if it had to be accepted, the British hoped there would be one strong mold to bind the pieces-the Indian Army (present strength: 400,000, with 9,000 Indian officers, 4,000 British officers). The Hindus (56%), Moslems (34%), Sikhs and Christians in its ranks have worked together with minimum friction. In recent communal riots local police proved ineffective, while the Army's Hindu and Moslem troops obeyed orders, often succeeded in checking disturbances. But a purely Moslem army could not be expected to protect...
Typically, Jinnah wanted to eat the cake of Moslem separatism, and have the cake of Hindu manpower. Pakistan, said his mouthpiece Dawn, should have all troops now stationed in the northern and eastern commands (most of the troops, including Hindus and Sikhs, are in those areas). Even a division along communal lines, which Jinnah might consistently have asked for, would wreck the Army at a crucial time when Britons are pulling out, leaving many half-trained reserves in lower echelons, a drastic shortage of officers...