The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

by Declan Walsh

The British anticipated trouble. An eruption of citywide violence between Hindus and Muslims in Calcutta a year earlier left 4,000 people dead and presented an ominous portent. ‘Grave communal disorder,’ wrote Norman Smith, the director of the Intelligence Bureau, in January 1947, ‘is a natural, if ghastly process tending in its own way to the solution of the Indian problem.’ The partition plan of 3 June allowed just seventy-two days for the transition to independence, during which time three provinces had to be divided, civil and armed services bifurcated, assets shared out. Intelligence reports warned that entire communities were arming themselves. Whatever happened, the British were determined to stay out of it. Thousands of British troops stationed in India were packed onto steamships headed for Europe; those left behind were ordered to avoid any trouble unless British lives were at risk.