The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First-Person Accounts 1st Edition

A very thorough description of what happened during India's partition in 1947. The author meets the highest standards of academia for having sought the truth and described it as such.

Ishtiaq Ahmed's book "The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed" is exceptional in many respects. It is the first book on Partition of Punjab where first-person eye-witness accounts of hundreds of events have been painstakingly collected from both sides of the border and from victims as well as victimizers, at times for the same event to reconcile any differences in the two versions. It is remarkable that the author was able to find so many eye-witnesses from both sides of the divide 55 to 60 years after the event, and was able to convince the victimizers to give their accounts. This may well be the first, and last, book to have done so.Although the author, born in Lahore a few months before the Partition, is from Pakistan side of Punjab and currently a Swedish national, the book is thoroughly objective and unbiased.Having studied a vast literature on the subject in preparation for my fiction book "Lost Generations" (2013) on the subject of deracination of Sikh refugees from Rawalpindi and their settlement in Delhi in 1947, I can categorically say no book since Urvashi Butalia's "The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India" exhilarated me as much.As a political scientist, Ishtiaq Ahmed has devoted early on a full chapter on the theory of Ethnic Cleansing.Compared to the first-person accounts which form the bulk of the book, and are its greatest strength, the short chapter on Analysis and Conclusions appears unnecessary and not as well-researched. The figure of casualties on both sides is understated between 500,000 and 750,000, which the author has basically taken from GD Khosla's estimate of 250,000 on each side in his disgraced and nonobjective book "Stern Reckoning", adding to that estimate the figure of up to 250,000 missing Mussulmans from the Sikh state of Patiala as reported by Mian Iftikharuddin, the West Punjab Minister for Refugees and Rehabilitation. GD Khosla's book was a particularly obsequious and anti-Muslim attempt produced at the behest of Indian Government to present Indian point of view, and the author picked the least figure he could get away with, to mitigate the feelings of guilt of Nehru and Mountbatten. All the later historians, both Indian and British, have kept increasing the figures of casualties over the years, some going as far as 2 million or more total deaths. The consensus, if any such thing exists, is a figure of at least one million more towards 1.5 million mark, with more deaths of Muslims in the East compared to non-Muslims in the West. However, that's a subject the historians are likely to keep revisiting in the future.All in all, "The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed" is one of the most important contribution to the subject of Punjab Partition.Manjit Sachdeva, Author of Lost Generations (2013)[...]

This is an Exceptional Book as it names the"Participants who did the Carnage in Lahore." ShahAalmi Fire in June,1947 was seen by many noted writers like Khushwant Singh but he did not name the names. I saw the SMOKE from the 4th floor of our house and read newspapers,but didNot know all the persons names and their ROLES--that killed 100 persons .It details how Fire Brigade was unable to extinguish the Fire.Later,it names the persons who burnt the Famous Gurudwara near Mozang and verifies the witnesses and interviews the Participants.Letter from Governor Mudie to Jinnah on Sept.4th,1947 spells out that SIKHS will be REMOVED in one month. On Sept.2nd,1947 Nehru signed an agreement with Liaquat Ali Khan-So those Prime Ministers signed a paper that proved to BOGUS agreement.Ethnic Cleansing was Churchill's idea to Jinnah in Dec.,1946. Churchill sent his people to ENSURE that PAKISTAN would be 100% Muslims people from Karachi to Kabul--to Prevent the possibility of USSR controlling Oil Flow .Churchill did NOT trust Nehru but He trusted JINNAH to Carry out his PLAN QUICKLY by getting Rid of Hindus and Sikhs in 4 months.If a reader wants great facts--the Stories in this book are all 100% verified. I highly recommend this book.

The print is impossibly small.