The Tragic Story of Partition

Certain interpretations of historical events are often taken as gospel truths. History thus becomes tailored to suit that inter pretation, which in turn becomes an authentic chronicle of historical developments for future generations. Especially when the events are of the recent past and leading political figures have taken part in them, this tendency is sure to be all the more pronounced. Naturally, in the process, history gets distorted. A distorted and garbled version of hisotry can serve neither as a point of inspiration nor as a warning to the nation in its future march.
Something like this appears to have happened in the case of the Partition of our country also. The Partition has been undoubtedly the most crucial and tragic event in the entire chequered course of our nation's history over the millennia. In the past one thousand years, many parts of our country had been ruled first by Muslims and then by the British, but the nation had never compromised, in principle, their sovereignty over any part of the motherland. As a result, our nation never ceased to strive for throwing out the aggressors and liberate those parts. And history tells us that ultimately it did succeed in freeing the entire land from the clutches of foreign invaders. However, for the first time, Partition conceded a moral and legal right to them over certain parts of the country and declared an ignominious finale to the one thousand year old heroic struggle of freedom.
Thus, it was an act of humiliating surrender on the point of principle. The usual present-day 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 Independence.