Partition by W.H.

Auden

Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,

Having never set eyes on this land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
'Time,' they had briefed him in London, 'is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.'

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day

Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.

The next day he sailed for England, where he quickly forgot

The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.

I do not know who can write such a poem as he has, if there is a poem like this?
Is there a historian who has in this way? How was India partitioned? Who
divided it and for what? How could it be? Can land be divided or it is settled?
Who is here to answer? All are but silent about with the lips held tight and
answerless. All these lie inherent in unmindful of what the politicians,
constitution-makers, historians, nationalists, freedom fighters and so on say it or
put it otherwise. Had they at least the land department fellows they could have
at least resolved the issues lying pending and unsettled? But the politicians
cannot be believed, in no way at all. The selfish men and liars can never be.
Who the guilty men of the Partition and how would India be in a haste? Whose
vested interests were what? Who wanted what? The intentions are clear and if
not, we may sense. How is this transition for power, the transfer of power? Can
things be shipped so easily? It takes time. Can the things be partitioned as it
was? With the Bench of the Five in which we can feel the echo of the Panch-
parameshwara, wherein God is, can settle the things is our old perception, but
can judgement be made in its negation, from the Indian perspective? Who really
a fanatic, who really a patriot, who is who of, God knows, time will say it.
Those whom we think of fanatics may not be and those whom we nationalists
may not be. Who is what, it is very difficult to say it, it is very difficult to judge.
Without consulting the peoples, the lands were partitioned at the behest of
communal and divisive forces, politicians with vested political interests. Auden
though he had not been during the Partition time catches the true spirit and
frenzy, the fever and fret of the moments hanging so heavy upon with ill-will,
brutality and irresponsible handling of the sensitive situation. Could the leaders
not feel it then? Could the administrators not? Could the politicians not? How
the chroniclers of history as Auden fails them through his sense of law and
justice? Here he is no doubt John Galsworthian in his disposition of law and
justice.
Had Sir Cyril Radcliffe been to India, he could have taken time, doing it not in
haste, but he was called, reined in to demarcate the boundaries. The answer is
not, he had not been before. If this could be the thing, how would he in a huff
the vehemently opposed parties, the things of those peoples who are fanatically
at odds with their different diets and incompatible gods?
Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on this land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.

With the time briefed in London, schedules given, it was too late for a rational
debate or conciliation and he thought of drawing the line as the contesting
parties could not come to the table and the Partition appeared to be
indispensable which but needed to be dealt with tougher iron hands, giving a
deadly blow to the frenzied communal forces, given the vast mass of varying
customs, sects, creeds, religions so differing from each other but aligning in the
end to a synthesis. The British too lacked that spirit and sense of dedication as
they could not take it to be own failing to understand it properly and India too
had been so ismic. The problem is none administered it well keeping the spirit
of it and taking time to modernize.
The separation is the last solution. But the real story we do not know it. The
problem lay it in illiteracy, black art, superstition, fatalism, inaction,
backwardness, caste system, poverty, maladministration, mismanagement,
backwardness, underdevelopment, ignorance, medievalism, conservatism,
narrow nationalism, regionalism, parochial thinking, religious bigotry,
fanaticism, ritualism and so on.

'Time,' they had briefed him in London, 'is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
But the Viceroy had the company and band of own. So keeping it in view he
maintained distance from and avoiding him tried his utmost to dispense with
which but needed rough works done before. As for to reach at, he was offered
the Hindu and Muslim judges, but we wonder that the judges too could not be of
any use in bailing out of the political crisis. He too was at wit’s end as for how
to begin and where to end, how the lot of his to dispense with.

The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,

That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.'

Shut up in a lonely mansion with the police patrolling the house to drive the
suspected assassins away, he got down to work, demarcate and oversee the
Partition plan which was not at all timely and up-to-date as he had been just
with the old maps:

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day

Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.
A barrister he sailed for after his hectic activity and wrangling but so fraught
with mistakes and miscomprehension, with so much misconception and
misdemeanour. He went to and forgot just as a good lawyer does it for his
profession sake as he misapprehended his presence could his life in trouble as
for the trouble brewing and taking a drastic change with bloodshed, murder,
loot, seize which K.A.Abbas’ The Refugee explains it best.

The next day he sailed for England, where he quickly forgot

The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.

But without knowing the history unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his
mission, critical context one may not do justice with the poem. Who is the man
whose arrival is awaited? One needs to know it. And Radcliff is the person here
partitioning. As for the judges, Hindu and Muslim, we are not sure of which
Auden knows it best. Or, if we go through the minutes of the Partition, we shall
know it by the way, but what pains us most is this that they divided it in a haste
and with so much brutality doing justice to a serious life matter in a childish
way. The British too had not been serious in any way and their purpose too was
to use and extract economically from rather than doing any good to. Can the
lands be settled in such a way? Are the lands divided or settled? May I know it?

What the historians could not W.H.Auden has in his one small poem, has said it
all what it happened, what they did and what our leaders and politicians. Could
lands have been divided and settled in such a way? Is this the method of
demarcation, drawing the line? Could Partition be done in such a way? Was it
pre-planned, well-conceived, well thought-about? The answer is clearly, no.
The reasonable men do not do as such, those who are logical at least. And I
know it that they will not prescribe it into the courses of study as it open our
eyes and the hidden truths will come out, if asked out of curiosity and logic is
given to unravel the formulae of the Partition.
When we read the poem, Partition, we could not make a way, as for if Auden
would take up Indian Partition and what interest will he get from. But
understood it through his indications that he was going to deal and grapple with
a more sensitive and psychological matter which needed a sense of historicity
and judgement which but a leftist like Auden and a socialist like George
Bernard Shaw could have. Neither the Indians nor the so-called Pakistanis could
think of the drastic consequences, the horror and terror of the Partition. It was
not a partition of a nation, but of a sub-continent.
The Partition was a lapse on the part of judgement and the then time high court
judges inducted in as the members too could opine in such a way is strange to
think of toeing the religious lines as for the division of Mother India which is
but a fallibility of human judgement as man is not above all those vested petty
considerations, is the truth never to be put aside. What the people have got from
is true from the prediction of Auden, better or worse the people of India and
Pakistan can say it well. The times too had been awkward as such were the
fellow people. Nehru and Jinnah too could not feel about the complications in
their lust for sitting on chair. How can man be so cruel, we feel it on seeing the
politicians, colonists and the colonized; the fundamentalists, fanatics and
conservatives!
It was really a blunder to partition the sub-continent, a sin which Gods will
never pardon it. Had there been no philanthropists and charitable people? Were
there only the fundamentalists and communal forces involved in loot, plunder,
murder, capture, violence and bloodshed? The fangs of the communal, divisive
forces needed to be broken the moments it grew or appeared to be lethal and
venomous. The census reports too were not up-to-date. The Governor-General
too saw it tearlessly standing in the no-man’s land which could have been
averted somehow, but in the absence of some wise judgement the mistake was
committed in which the all as the parties were involved in practically more or
less. Whose agendum was the Partition? How the resolutions taken? Was it
done just to slaughter the innocent lives, to wipe out the common families
mercilessly, to uproot them from their nativity? But something twitched him
when he found the Partition taking a bad turn and people losing lives, getting
displaced and dislocated and driven out of their homes and for that reason he
refused to take the fee for his plan, burnt the papers and left in a huff. He really
felt guilty of conscience, but what could he have if the times were so heavy
upon and the situations so adverse? How strange is it that the judges too could
not counsel him in the right way upholding judicature and jurisprudence, the
Divine Justice, invoking the Goddess of Law from the human lapses, errors and
trials of judgement?