ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to demonstrate how and why the partition of Punjab in 1947 bore the brunt of violence which claimed 70–80 per cent of all fatalities and the same number of people who were forced to flee for their lives across the border laid down by the Radcliffe Award of 13–17 August 1947. While the communal violence started in early March 1947 in Muslim majority Lahore, it claimed most victims in the rural areas of Rawalpindi district and adjoining Attock and Jhelum districts. Most victims were Sikhs. However, at the end of December 1947 more Muslims had been killed in Hindu-Sikh majority eastern Punjab than Hindus and Sikhs counted together had been killed in the Muslim majority western districts. At the end of the day, virtually no Muslim survived in the Indian East Punjab, and no Hindu and Sikh had survived in the Pakistani West Punjab. The ethnic cleansing it entailed is a unique feature of the partition of the Punjab. It is explained in theoretical terms as well.
