Introduction

The 1947 Partition of India was accompanied by an unprecedented eruption of communal violence, with the provinces of Punjab and Bengal emerging as its bloodiest epicentres. When British colonial rule abruptly ended in August 1947, these two sprawling provinces – each religiously mixed and slated for division – descended into chaos. Across Punjab and Bengal, an estimated 12–14 million people fled their homes amid carnage and terror, producing the largest forced migration in modern history . Contemporary observers and historians have described the violence in these regions as ethnic cleansing in nature rather than “traditional” rioting . In Punjab alone, perhaps half a million to one million people were killed in a matter of months , and both sides of the new border were almost entirely “cleansed” of their religious minorities by early 1948. Bengal saw thousands killed as well – though the killing there was on a relatively smaller scale and peaked earlier (in 1946) – and a more prolonged exodus of its minority populations ensued .

Why were Punjab and Bengal – one in the northwest and one in the east – the primary theatres of such extreme violence, while much of the rest of the subcontinent experienced Partition more peacefully? This article examines the question through a provincial lens, comparing the political, administrative, and communal dynamics in Punjab and Bengal that led to their tragic distinction. It will analyze several interlocking factors: the demographic distribution and communal geography of each province; the mobilization of communities through political and paramilitary channels; the collapse of provincial governance and law and order as colonial administration withdrew; the role of local leaders and armed bands in fomenting violence; and the impact of the Radcliffe Boundary Commission’s hurried border-drawing. Throughout, a balanced regional approach is taken – exploring similarities and contrasts between Punjab and Bengal – and the emphasis remains on structural and political explanations rather than memory or anecdotal testimony. The goal is to combine academic rigor with accessible analysis, shedding light on why these two provinces became the crucibles of Partition’s worst horrors.

Demographic Fault Lines in Punjab and Bengal

Both Punjab and Bengal were huge provinces with highly mixed populations, which created combustible demographic fault lines when it became clear the provinces would be split on religious lines. According to the last pre-Partition census (1941), Punjab’s population of ~34 million was roughly 53% Muslim, 30% Hindu, and 15% Sikh, with Muslims predominant in the western districts, Hindus heavily in the eastern cities and some districts, and Sikhs concentrated in central Punjab without an absolute majority in any large area . Bengal’s population was even larger – about 60 million – and roughly 70% Muslim in the eastern districts and 70% Hindu in the western parts, meaning each side contained a very large minority from the “other” community . In fact, on the eve of Partition about 5.7 million Muslims (30% of West Bengal) lived in the Hindu-majority western zone, and 11.4 million Hindus (33% of East Bengal) lived in the Muslim-majority eastern zone . Thus, if the provinces were partitioned, millions of people would suddenly become religious minorities in the new nation-states of India or Pakistan.

This demographic intermixing led to a pervasive sense of fear and insecurity among communities in both provinces once the Partition plan was announced. As one analysis notes, “both Hindus in East Bengal and Muslims in West Bengal felt unsafe and had to decide whether to leave for an uncertain future in another country or stay in subjugation under the other community” . In Punjab, the uncertainty was just as acute: ordinary people did not know which villages or cities would fall on which side of the border, nor whether they would be “allowed” to stay. In the weeks before Partition, Punjabis ceased to identify as Punjabis and instead saw each other only as Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs, uncertain if they would soon be at the mercy of an unfriendly majority or even forced to flee or convert . Rumors abounded and “people were completely unaware of their fate. Would they be forced to convert? Would they lose their homes?” . This demographic anxiety set the stage for pre-emptive strikes and panic-driven violence: each community feared finding itself a trapped minority and, in many areas, extremists resolved to either dominate or drive out the other groups before that could happen. In short, the demographic reality of Punjab and Bengal – large, intermixed populations with no neat dividing line – made them prime candidates for communal violence once the principle of partitioning on religious majority lines was accepted. Other provinces (like Uttar Pradesh or Bihar) certainly saw communal riots, but because they were not being physically split between India and Pakistan, the “fight for turf” was nowhere as direct or as desperate as in Punjab and Bengal.

Communal Politics and Mobilization before Partition

Another critical factor was the communalization of politics in these provinces in the years leading up to 1947, which mobilized populations along religious lines and primed them for confrontation. Punjab and Bengal had been showcases of “competitive religious landscape” politics under late colonial rule . British policies of representative government – such as separate electorates and power-sharing along religious categories – had, over decades, encouraged politicians to mobilize support by appealing to religious community interests . In Punjab, the colonial practice of categorizing people by religious community in censuses and politics fostered what historian Sugata Bose calls “acrid communitarian discourses”, as Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh leaders vied for government favor and dominance . Each community’s leaders propagated their own vision of “nationhood” (including, for Sikhs, a distinct Sikh identity) and underscored differences with the others . By the 1940s, these tendencies had given rise to hardened communal blocs: the All-India Muslim LeagueAll-India Muslim League Full Description:A political party established in 1906 to advocate for the rights of Muslims in British India. Under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, it evolved from a pressure group seeking safeguards into the primary force demanding a separate homeland, Pakistan. The All-India Muslim League was formed to counter the perceived dominance of the Hindu-majority Indian National Congress. Initially, it sought separate electorates and reserved seats to protect Muslim interests within a united India. However, after the 1937 elections and the growing alienation of the Muslim elite, the party radically shifted its platform to demand full sovereignty, arguing that Muslims could not expect justice in a Hindu-dominated democracy. Critical Perspective:Critically, the League claimed to be the “sole spokesman” for Indian Muslims, a claim that was contested by many Muslim groups and leaders who supported a united India. The League’s rise illustrates how political identity was consolidated; by framing the political struggle as an existential battle for Muslim survival, it successfully marginalized alternative Muslim voices and simplified the complex political landscape into a binary conflict.
Read more presented itself as sole spokesman for Muslims, the Congress for Hindus (with Sikh allies in Punjab, and Hindu Mahasabha further on the right), each cultivating distrust of the other.

In Bengal, the Muslim League had swept the Muslim-reserved seats and formed the provincial government under Premier Huseyn Suhrawardy after 1946, while Hindu communalists like Syama Prasad Mookerjee of the Hindu Mahasabha agitated for Hindu rights and even for dividing Bengal. Tensions climaxed with the League’s call for “Direct Action Day” on 16 August 1946 to demand Pakistan – a call that led to the infamous Great Calcutta Killings. What began as a political protest in Calcutta spiraled into a bloodbath of Hindus and Muslims slaughtering each other in the city streets. Officially about 4,000 people were killed in Calcutta within a few days , and more than 100,000 were left homeless . A British official noted that this communal rampage in Calcutta was “a new order of communal rioting” – qualitatively more deadly and eliminatory than earlier Hindu-Muslim riots – effectively an omen of ethnic cleansing to come . The violence radiated outward: within weeks, retaliatory killings of Muslims occurred in Bihar, and communal clashes spread to rural East Bengal (Noakhali and Tippera districts in October 1946) where Muslim mobs attacked Hindu villages . In Noakhali, observers reported a “determined and organised” effort by local Muslim leaders to drive out all Hindus, who comprised about one-fifth of that area’s population . These 1946 episodes in Bengal revealed how deeply polarized the communities had become and served as a grim prelude to Partition.

In Punjab, communal political rivalry also peaked in 1946–47 but took a slightly different course. Until early 1947, Punjab was governed by a cross-communal coalition (the Unionist Party led by Khizr Hayat Tiwana, with Sikh and Congress participation) that had kept a relative peace. But after the Muslim League’s strong showing in the 1946 elections (it won all Muslim seats in Punjab, though not a majority overall), League leaders agitated to unseat the Unionist ministry, denouncing it as “non-representative” of Punjab’s Muslim majority . Under intense pressure including civil disobedienceCivil Disobedience Full Description:The active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government or occupying international power. It is a strategic tactic of nonviolent resistance intended to provoke a response from the state and expose the brutality of the enforcers. Civil Disobedience goes beyond mere protest; it is the deliberate breaking of unjust laws to jam the gears of the system. Tactics included sit-ins, freedom rides, and unauthorized marches. The goal was to create a crisis so severe that the power structure could no longer ignore the issue, forcing a negotiation. Critical Perspective:While often romanticized today as peaceful and passive, civil disobedience was a radical, disruptive, and physically dangerous strategy. It functioned by using the bodies of protesters as leverage against the state’s monopoly on violence. It relied on the calculated provocation of police brutality to shatter the moral legitimacy of the segregationist order in the eyes of the world.
Read more, Tiwana resigned as Premier in March 1947 – and the fall of that coalition essentially “removed the barrier to communal violence overwhelming the Punjab” . Within days of Tiwana’s resignation (and with no stable government in place), vicious riots erupted. On 4–5 March 1947, Hindu-Sikh and Muslim mobs clashed in Lahore, Amritsar, Multan and beyond, and soon the violence engulfed the Rawalpindi division, where Muslim mobs massacred Sikhs and Hindus in dozens of villages . This March 1947 Rawalpindi Massacre – hundreds of non-Muslims killed, entire villages torched, and around 40,000 Sikhs rendered homeless – was a turning point. It not only inflamed Sikh hatred and desire for revenge, but also demonstrated how effectively a determined majority could wipe out a minority community once law and order broke down . As the last British governor of Punjab, Sir Evan Jenkins, observed, what was unfolding was essentially an “ongoing power struggle” between communities for the future of Punjab . From March onward, armed bands associated with each community began forming and attacking targets in a tit-for-tat cycle. The League and Muslim local leaders were accused of abetting the early violence to secure a Muslim-majority Pakistan in all of Punjab, while Sikh leaders – notably Master Tara Singh and others – openly spoke of taking up the sword to claim parts of Punjab for the Sikhs/Hindus if India was to be partitioned. Indeed, the Akali (Sikh) leadership devised what came to be known as the “Sikh Plan”: a strategy to ethnically cleanse Muslims from eastern Punjab districts to create a contiguous Sikh-dominated area (sometimes with the dream of a future autonomous Sikh state) . All these developments indicated a profound communal mobilization: by mid-1947, large segments of the populace in both provinces had been organized or incited along communal lines, psychologically primed to view their neighbors as enemies.

Provincial Governance Breakdown and Administrative Collapse

Compounding the volatile mix of demography and communal mobilization was the collapse of provincial governance and law enforcement, especially in Punjab, as the Partition approached. Once Governor’s Rule was imposed in Punjab (after March 1947), effective local governance virtually disintegrated. The colonial administration in Punjab – headed by Governor Jenkins – found itself overstretched, understaffed, and increasingly impotent in the face of spreading violence. By the summer of 1947, district officers and police in many parts of Punjab were either overwhelmed or blatantly partisan. Communal loyalties infiltrated the police and civil services: as independence neared, “the civil and police administration was openly divided along religious lines” in Punjab . Many Muslim officers in West Punjab had little will to protect Sikh/Hindu lives (and in some cases even aided attackers), while in East Punjab the Hindu and Sikh officials were similarly biased against Muslim residents . The net result was that minorities found themselves largely unprotected by the state at the very moment they most needed protection.

British authorities, for their part, made only half-hearted attempts to stem the bloodshed. In Punjab, a special Punjab Boundary Force (PBF) of about 50,000 troops was constituted in early August 1947, under Maj. Gen. T.W. Rees, to police the dividing province . But this force was far too small and was itself plagued by communal fissures. It included Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim companies – and as violence escalated, even the PBF became communalized, with some Muslim soldiers and Sikh/Dogra soldiers actively siding with their co-religionists or even participating in attacks . Instead of curbing atrocities, certain units of the supposed peacekeepingPeacekeeping Full Description:A mechanism not originally explicitly defined in the Charter, involving the deployment of international military and civilian personnel to conflict zones. Known as the “Blue Helmets,” they monitor ceasefires and create buffer zones to allow for diplomatic negotiations. Peacekeeping was an improvisation developed to manage Cold War conflicts that the Great Powers could not agree to solve forcibly. It operates on the principles of consent (the host country must agree), impartiality, and the non-use of force except in self-defense. Critical Perspective:While often celebrated, peacekeeping is often criticized for “freezing” conflicts rather than solving them. By stabilizing the status quo, it can inadvertently remove the pressure for political solutions, leading to “forever wars” where the UN presence becomes a permanent feature of the landscape. Furthermore, peacekeepers have faced severe criticism for failures to protect civilians and for sexual exploitation and abuse in host communities.
Read more force “got actively involved in the killings and looting” . British officers ultimately could neither trust their troops nor manage the scale of unrest. In mid-August, as independence arrived, “British soldiers [in Punjab] were confined to their barracks, ordered by Mountbatten to save only British lives”, while outside “trains carrying nothing but corpses” crisscrossed the Punjab countryside as a ghastly symbol of Partition’s savagery . This abdication of responsibility by the departing colonial power – described by one commentator as “an act of moral dereliction” – meant that for crucial weeks the onus of security fell on the fledgling (and communalized) provincial forces and on armed mobs who ruled the streets.

Bengal’s administrative situation, while tense, did not degenerate to the same absolute vacuum at Partition. The Bengal province had a functioning (Muslim League-led) government up to the date of independence, and after the decision to partition Bengal was made in June 1947, preparations were underway to transfer authority to two successor provincial governments (one in Hindu-majority West Bengal, one in Muslim-majority East Bengal). Calcutta, which had been the epicenter of the 1946 riots, was comparatively calm during the actual handover of power in August 1947 – thanks in part to a combination of administrative vigilance and Mahatma Gandhi’s personal peace mission in the city. Gandhi famously stationed himself in Calcutta during August 1947, pleading for harmony; by threatening a fast unto death if violence continued, he managed to keep mobs in check in Calcutta at the moment of independence . Meanwhile, British and Indian army units patrolled Calcutta’s streets to prevent any recurrence of the 1946 massacre. Thus, at the time of Partition, Bengal did not see an anarchic collapse of order on the scale of Punjab, and no equivalent of the province-wide “civil war” that raged in Punjab in August–September 1947. However, this is not to say Bengal was tranquil – serious Hindu-Muslim riots did erupt in parts of East Bengal (notably in and around Dhaka) in September–October 1947, once the province was under Pakistani administration, prompting flight of Hindus. But overall, the immediate Partition bloodletting in Bengal was geographically limited (largely to urban centers like Calcutta), whereas in Punjab it was generalized and engulfed town and countryside alike .

In sum, the administrative breakdown was far more severe in Punjab, which goes a long way to explaining the unparalleled violence there. As one historian observed, “the level of violence in August 1947 [Punjab] can be directly attributed to the collapse or unreliability of the police and local administration” . Once law enforcement faltered, the worst instincts of fear and vengeance were let loose. Bengal’s administration, while strained and certainly communally biased at times, at least maintained pockets of control that prevented absolute free-for-all in the critical initial days of Partition. This difference in provincial governance capacity meant that in Punjab the violence became a self-perpetuating spiral unchecked by authority, whereas in Bengal there remained some constraints on violence at the outset (though massive population transfers followed later in a slower fashion).

Local Leaders, Militias and the Orchestration of Violence

Another key element was the direct role of local leaders and paramilitary groups in orchestrating violence in both provinces. The partition violence was far from purely “spontaneous”; to a significant degree it was organized violence – coordinated by political or religious leaders, carried out by militias and gangs often armed with modern weapons or wartime experience. In Punjab, these armed bands were notoriously active on all sides. The Muslim League’s militant wing, the Muslim League National Guard, had been preparing volunteers for direct action, and several Muslim princely statesPrincely States Full Description:Princely States were relics of a feudal order preserved by the British Empire to secure loyalty and stability across the subcontinent. Numbering in the hundreds, they ranged from vast kingdoms to tiny estates. As the British departed, the “doctrine of paramountcy” lapsed, theoretically returning sovereignty to these rulers. Critical Perspective:The integration of these states was far from peaceful. It involved intense diplomatic coercion and military intervention. The existence of these states complicated the map of the new nations, and the contested accession of specific states (most notably Kashmir) created geopolitical flashpoints that remain unresolved, illustrating how colonial structures continued to haunt the region long after the colonizers left. neighboring Punjab (like Bahawalpur) were suspected of supplying arms or safe havens to irregulars. On the Sikh and Hindu side, the Akali Dal and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), among others, formed squads (often called jathas in the case of Sikh groups) to carry out reprisal attacks. These groups included ex-soldiers (Punjab having contributed heavily to the British Indian Army in WWII), discharged policemen, and local toughs – giving them a level of training and ruthlessness that made the carnage shockingly efficient . One contemporary report cited by The Wire describes how each community “readily played their card of communitarian nationalism while forming their own armed bands and unleashing violence on the minority community that they were ranged against, to force them to flee targeted areas” . These militias engaged in “organised savagery”: coordinated attacks involving killing, arson, loot, and the abduction of women on a mass scale .

Notably, the violence often had a tit-for-tat character. Early Muslim-led massacres (like Rawalpindi in March 1947) were answered by equally brutal Sikh-Hindu led massacres a few months later. The Governor Jenkins in Punjab characterized what he saw not as mere rioting but as a power struggle for physical control . Indeed, between the announcement of Partition (June 3, 1947) and the actual transfer of power (mid-August 1947), both sides competed to “establish control over as many of [Punjab’s] 29 districts as possible”, sometimes by violently “cleansing” villages of the other community . This was essentially a paramilitary campaign to create facts on the ground. For example, there is evidence that in east Punjab, Sikh leaders convened high-level meetings (involving figures like the Maharaja of Patiala’s officials and military officers) to plan the expulsion of Muslims from areas earmarked for India . The Maharaja of Patiala and other Sikh princes officially denied involvement, but historians have unearthed that “troops from the princely states [Patiala, Kapurthala, Faridkot, etc.] not only attacked Muslims in their states and passing refugee trains, but joined assaults on neighboring districts” of what would become Indian Punjab . Similarly, on the western side, there were instances of local Muslim officials and panchayats in districts of West Punjab coordinating attacks on Hindu and Sikh localities (with tacit support of League politicians).

In Bengal, organized militant activity was also present, though on a different scale. During the Calcutta killings of 1946, both Muslim and Hindu gangs were active – Suhrawardy’s administration was accused of initially letting Muslim League volunteers run amok in the city, while Hindus later organized groups (famously, Gopal “Patha” Mukherjee led a defense squad that retaliated against Muslim neighborhoods) . The Muslim League had its National Guards in Bengal too, and the Hindu Mahasabha and Congress had youth squads. However, after that spasm in 1946, Bengal did not see the same sustained militia warfare in 1947 as Punjab did. One reason may be that by the time of Partition, many key communal leaders in Bengal had either moderated or were separated geographically: Suhrawardy, for instance, had lost authority once Bengal’s partition was agreed (he was left without a province to lead), and he actually cooperated with Gandhi in August 1947 to dampen violence in Calcutta. Meanwhile, Hindu nationalist leaders in West Bengal focused on absorbing refugees rather than organizing pogroms, at least initially. The Noakhali riots of late 1946 in East Bengal – which were clearly a case of organized violence by Muslim locals against Hindu villagers – had been eventually suppressed by British troops and by early 1947 Gandhi’s presence in those villages. Thus, by mid-1947, East Bengal was relatively quiet; many Hindu families were considering emigration but had not yet fled en masse, and there were hopes (soon dashed) that they might be treated as a protected minority in Pakistan. When violence did break out in East Pakistan (Bengal) in 1950 – a large-scale anti-Hindu pogrom – it led to a second wave of organized flight, but that was after the initial partition moment. In short, Bengal’s Partition violence lacked the sustained paramilitary planning that characterized Punjab’s: Bengal’s worst organized bloodletting (Calcutta, Noakhali) occurred before Partition, whereas Punjab’s occurred during and immediately after Partition as a concerted effort by local actors to partition the province by sword.

Nonetheless, a comparative point stands out: in both provinces, the violence was not merely a spontaneous frenzy of neighbors killing neighbors; it was stoked and steered by leadership to a significant extent. Whether it was politicians using incendiary rhetoric, or local bosses arming mobs, or religious authorities endorsing violence as a legitimate means – the societal norms had been eroded to the point that mass violence could be mobilized for political ends. This orchestration also explains the ferocity of the violence: attackers were often not random villagers but semi-trained militants or fanatical volunteers. That contributed to the horrific nature of attacks – for instance, the targeted derailing and ambushing of refugee trains full of women and children, or the coordinated torching of entire neighborhoods. Such acts suggest planning (e.g. knowing train timetables, procuring petrol and weapons) and an intent to eliminate communities, not just riot. All of this underscores how local power structures and militia networks in Punjab and Bengal transformed what might have been localized riots into something closer to a civil war or genocide in these regions .

The Radcliffe LineRadcliffe Line Full Description:The Radcliffe Line represents the ultimate act of colonial negligence. Tasked with dividing a subcontinent, the boundary commission, led by Cyril Radcliffe, finalized the borders in isolation, often cutting through villages, agricultural systems, and communities without regard for ground realities. Consequences: Arbitrary Division: The line was kept secret until after independence was declared, leading to panic and uncertainty. Mass Migration: Millions found themselves on the “wrong” side of the border, triggering one of the largest and bloodiest forced migrations in history. Legacy of Conflict: The ambiguous and insensitive drawing of the line planted the seeds for perpetual border disputes and regional instability. : Boundary Drawing and its Impact

Finally, the very manner in which Punjab and Bengal were partitioned – the work of the Radcliffe Boundary Commission – played a critical role in exacerbating violence. Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a British lawyer with no prior Indian experience, was given the herculean task of drawing new borders through Punjab and Bengal in just five weeks. The Boundary Commission’s mandate was to divide each province into two, “based on contiguous majority areas” of Hindus and Muslims as far as practicable, while also considering “other factors” like economic resources and communications. Inevitably, this was a zero-sum game with high stakes for each community. It was well known that Radcliffe’s award would determine which new nation got vital assets – for example, in Punjab, the canal colony areas and rich agricultural lands, and in Bengal, the great city and port of Calcutta. Because the time was so short and the situation so charged, the Radcliffe Commission’s proceedings were opaque and fraught with lobbying behind the scenes. Mountbatten decided that the final boundary awards would **not be announced until ** after independence (they were revealed on 17 August 1947, two days post-independence) . This secrecy meant that as of 14–15 August, nobody on the ground in Punjab or Bengal knew exactly where the line was drawn – adding to the confusion and paranoia. It also meant there was no time for an orderly transfer of populations or administration in contested border zones; the Partition came literally overnight.

In Punjab, the Radcliffe Line ended up bisecting the province roughly in half, but it made some contentious decisions. For instance, the Muslim-majority district of Gurdaspur (critical for access to Kashmir) was mostly awarded to India, and the boundary around Lahore–Amritsar was drawn so that Lahore went to Pakistan while Amritsar (just 30 miles away) went to India. The uncertainty about these outcomes in the lead-up to August 15 drove each side to attempt to “claim” areas physically. As noted, communities tried to present a fait accompli by purging areas of the other side’s populace, hoping that would sway the boundary or at least secure their area post-boundary . The violence around Lahore in August (where large Hindu/Sikh neighborhoods were razed) and around Amritsar (where Muslim villages were decimated) was in part a desperate attempt to redefine the map with blood. Even after the boundary was published, it left many minorities stranded on the ‘wrong’ side, fueling further violence as mobs sought to “finish the job” of ethnic cleansing. The Radcliffe award in Punjab was thus both a product of violence and a cause of new violence: it ratified a division that heavily reflected where each community had managed to establish dominance by force, and it triggered immediate riots in places that were surprises or disappointments. For example, when the mostly Sikh princely state of Patiala learned that nearby Muslim-majority regions had gone to India, Patiala’s forces allegedly intensified their expulsions of local Muslims (since those Muslims were now within Indian territory) . Likewise, in West Punjab, once it was confirmed to be in Pakistan, there was a concerted push to drive out all remaining Sikhs and Hindus – a process tragically completed by early September.

In Bengal, Radcliffe’s task was to split the province in such a way that Calcutta (the premier city) could be in India, since Congress insisted on retaining it. The line that Radcliffe drew gave Calcutta and most of western Bengal to India, and East Bengal (which became East Pakistan) got the eastern, largely rural and Muslim-majority districts. Here too there were surprises: the border zig-zagged to keep certain Hindu-majority pockets (like the Khulna region) with Pakistan or to keep certain Muslim-majority areas (like Murshidabad) with India for pragmatic reasons (e.g. preserving Calcutta’s water supply). These quirks caused anger and panic on a local level but, unlike Punjab, Bengal did not erupt into immediate large-scale massacres upon the announcement. One reason is that much of the ethnic violence in Bengal had already occurred in 1946-47 – by August 1947, Hindus in many eastern districts were already considering migration, and a significant number of urban Muslims in West Bengal had fled earlier riots. The Radcliffe award in Bengal did still prompt localized violence – e.g. riots in Khulna and Barisal when those areas’ residents discovered their district’s fate. But what it set in motion more gradually was the mass migration: over the next few years, millions of Bengali Hindus and Muslims exchanged territories. It was noted that, “in Bengal, violence was limited to Kolkata and Noakhali [in 1946]. Hence in Bengal, the migration occurred much more gradually and continued over three decades after Partition” . The Radcliffe Line’s long shadow in Bengal was the protracted insecurity it created for minorities, leading to episodic bursts of violence (such as the 1950 Dacca riots) and continuing outflow of Hindus from East Pakistan and Muslims from West Bengal. While not producing the same immediate carnage as in Punjab, the drawing of the boundary in Bengal institutionalized communal division and led to what one scholar calls a “Long Partition” – a drawn-out process of demographic unmixing that, while slower, was traumatic in its own way.

Crucially, both Punjab and Bengal illustrate how the rushed and secretive boundary-making process aggravated violence. The fact that Radcliffe had never visited India before and was racing against a mid-August deadline meant that local complexities (like village-by-village compositions, sacred sites, property ownership patterns) got little attention . Both new borders cut through roads, railways, farmlands, even towns – disrupting lifelines and turning neighbors into aliens overnight. And the delay in announcing the boundary until after independence meant that when the line was finally revealed, there was no imperial authority left to enforce it or manage its consequences. As Sir Cyril Radcliffe sailed back to England immediately after finishing his report (burning his papers behind him) , Punjab and Bengal were left to sort out the human consequences themselves – largely through violence, since administrative channels had broken down. In effect, the Radcliffe Line not only demarcated the theatre of violence (literally drawing the zones where “cleansing” would occur) but also arrived in such a way as to throw a match into an already gas-filled room.

Comparative Analysis: Punjab vs. Bengal

By examining the above factors side by side, we can appreciate both similarities and differences in why Punjab and Bengal were so badly scarred by Partition violence. Both provinces shared some fundamental conditions: an intense communal polarization driven by years of political rhetoric and competition; a high-stakes territorial division that made large populations fear for their future; and the exit of the British colonial authority, creating a security vacuum at the worst possible time. In both Punjab and Bengal, ordinary people’s decision to stay or flee often hinged on very practical judgments about safety (e.g. whether local police or militia would protect or target them) . And in both, one observes the phenomenon of the “security dilemma”: communities launched pre-emptive strikes out of fear that if they did not, they would themselves become victims.

However, the scale and immediacy of violence differed greatly. Punjab saw a near-total exchange of population in a matter of weeks in 1947–48: roughly 14 million Punjabis crossed the new border (Muslims moving west, Hindus/Sikhs east) amid an orgy of killing and atrocity . In Bengal, the exchange was slower and never complete – millions migrated over years, and significant minorities remained on each side for decades. Why this difference? Several reasons emerge:

Role of a Third Community (Sikhs): Punjab’s violence was triangular (Muslims vs. Hindus vs. Sikhs, each at times both victims and aggressors), which gave it a particularly escalatory dynamic. Sikhs in particular, with their history of martial tradition and concentration in Punjab, acted as a catalyzing force. Their militarization – Punjab was called the “sword-arm of India” for producing many soldiers – meant that once Sikhs turned to organized violence (after March 1947), the brutality and militancy of the conflict shot up. In Bengal, by contrast, the conflict was essentially binary (Muslim vs. Hindu), and there was no equivalent third force adding fuel or seeking its own sovereign slice. The presence of the Sikhs in Punjab also meant the stakes were not just Pakistan vs India, but also Sikh aspirations (some extremists hoping for a Sikh autonomous zone). This made compromise harder and violence more unrestrained, as the Sikhs felt existentially threatened by a Muslim-dominated Punjab and chose to fight rather than accept minority status . Timing of Communal Clashes: Bengal’s worst riots occurred before Partition (1946-early ’47), whereas Punjab’s peak came during/after Partition (mid-late ’47). This meant that by August 1947, Bengal’s communities were somewhat chastened – for instance, Calcutta’s 1946 bloodletting was so horrific that by 1947 a kind of stalemate and war-weariness had set in. Punjab, on the other hand, entered August 1947 with the momentum of violence still building, not spent. The Rawalpindi carnage in March had set off a cycle of retributive genocide that only accelerated into August . The direct linkage of violence to the actual partition announcement (June 3 Plan) was stronger in Punjab: essentially a multi-sided “Partition war” broke out there in the interim before borders were drawn . In Bengal, the Direct Action Day and subsequent riots were certainly related to the struggle for Pakistan, but by the time Partition was confirmed, some of those scores had been settled (grimly so) or at least temporarily paused. Administrative Intervention: As discussed, Punjab’s administration failed catastrophically, while Bengal’s held on just enough to mitigate the worst at transfer of power. The Punjab Boundary Force experiment failed and was dissolved by early September 1947 as both new dominion governments (India and Pakistan) instead took charge of “exchange of populations” militarily. In Bengal, there was no boundary force needed; communal peace in Calcutta was maintained at Independence (often credited to Gandhi’s presence) and the large-scale migrations were managed over time via refugee trains and camps, rather than anarchic flight in the midst of pogroms (though those also occurred sporadically). The presence of Calcutta as a strong urban center in West Bengal perhaps helped anchor that side, whereas in Punjab both Lahore and Amritsar were engulfed in flames and largely emptied of minorities by September 1947 , leaving no comparable safe urban hub for refugees initially. Geopolitical and Geographic Factors: Punjab directly bordered the other new state across a long, continuous frontier, making two-way migrations and clashes almost unavoidable and immediate. Every district of West Punjab had an adjacent district in East Punjab; the violence thus spread in a contiguous wildfire. Bengal’s geography was a bit different – while West and East Bengal shared a border, East Bengal’s other borders were with Assam or the sea, and West Bengal was hemmed in on one side by Bihar (which, despite riots, remained under strong Congress government control). This perhaps limited the theatre of war; violence in East Bengal did not easily spill into all of West Bengal and vice versa (except via Calcutta). Additionally, Punjab’s flat plains allowed large refugee caravans and armed bands to traverse easily, whereas Bengal’s riverine delta terrain made population movement a slower process by boat or train. In essence, Punjab’s geography abetted rapid mass migration and confrontation, whereas Bengal’s acted as something of a drag (though not a barrier) on all-out conflict. Differences in Political Calculus: In the final negotiations, Congress (Patel/Nehru) was far more willing to concede Punjab to Muslim League domination (except East Punjab) than to concede Bengal. Congress strongly desired Calcutta and the industrial west of Bengal, so they supported partitioning Bengal. In Punjab, there was no equivalent dispute – it was accepted Punjab would be split and the Sikh/Hindu minority there was relatively smaller proportion than Hindus in Bengal. Some historians argue that because Congress and League both expected mass migration in Punjab (given the hard communal division and Sikh factor), they mentally wrote off Punjab to “riots and transfers,” focusing their attention elsewhere . In Bengal, there was initially some thought (e.g. by Gandhi, and by secular leaders) that maybe Hindus and Muslims could continue living together post-Partition, hence the migration, when it happened, took the form of a slower “push-and-pull” rather than an official exchange. This difference in approach – Punjab’s partition being treated as a partition of peoples and Bengal’s as more a partition of territory – meant the violence dynamics differed. In Punjab, “the two governments [India and Pakistan] determined on a virtual exchange of population” soon after seeing the bloodshed ; in Bengal, there was no formal population exchange plan in 1947, and the two governments even discouraged flight for a time, until later events forced it .

Ultimately, both provinces suffered terribly, but Punjab’s tragedy was more short-term cataclysmic, whereas Bengal’s was longer-term attritional. The comparative lens shows that extreme violence was not inevitable – it arose from specific conditions. Where those conditions (mixed demography, militant communal networks, state breakdown, contested borders) converged most intensely – i.e. in Punjab – the result was a cataclysm. Where one or more of those factors was less pronounced – e.g. Bengal’s lesser degree of militia organization at Partition time or somewhat better administrative control – the violence, while still horrific, did not reach the same fever pitch immediately.

Conclusion

The Partition of India was a subcontinental calamity, but its worst agonies were concentrated in Punjab and Bengal because of the unique provincial dynamics at play. In these two regions, the structural factors aligned in the most lethal way: an extraordinarily intertwined demographic setup was ripped apart by the logic of a religious partition; decades of communal political rhetoric had fractured society’s bonds; colonial authority abdicated precisely as law and order collapsed; local leaders and princely states seized the moment to settle scores and grab territory using private armies; and the hasty drawing of the Radcliffe Line injected further chaos and insecurity into an already volatile environment. Punjab and Bengal thus became the epicentres of what has been called “the mutual genocide of Partition” – zones where neighbor turned upon neighbor with state connivance or impotence, and where the human capacity for brutality seemed to know no bounds.

By focusing on political and structural explanations, we see that this violence was not a spontaneous outburst of primordial hatred; it was materially and deliberately enabled by those in power (or those who sought power). As one analysis put it, the massacres in Punjab were “the outcome of an ongoing power struggle” in which each side sought to establish dominance as the British left . In Bengal too, the carnage of 1946 had clear political roots in the battle for Pakistan. The lesson is that Partition’s violence was man-made and perhaps avoidable – a tragic function of decisions made (or not made) by political actors at multiple levels. The provincial lens helps us understand this by zooming in on how local conditions and leadership in Punjab and Bengal shaped the trajectory from political division to cataclysmic violence.

Seven decades on, the events in Punjab and Bengal in 1947 continue to haunt the subcontinent’s memory and historiography. They serve as stark reminders of how quickly inter-communal relations can unravel when political ambitions, administrative failures, and fear combine. Through a balanced comparison, we appreciate that while Punjab and Bengal’s experiences were not identical, both point to common underlying themes: the fragility of social peace under divide-and-rule politics, the dangers of abrupt decolonization without safeguards, and the deadly potential of ethnic nationalism unleashed. Understanding why these two provinces became the epicentres of Partition violence is not only of historical interest; it also provides cautionary insights into how similar dynamics might be prevented in the future whenever diverse regions undergo political division. In the end, the stories of Punjab and Bengal in 1947 stand as a somber illustration of how political structures and decisions (for better or worse) can profoundly shape the lived outcomes for millions – in this case, turning provinces of great communal diversity into killing fields, and neighbors into refugees. The hope remains that such an ordeal is never repeated, and that the hard lessons from the Partition’s provincial lens continue to inform our pursuit of communal harmony and prudent governance.

Sources:

Talbot, Ian. The 1947 Partition of India and Migration. In Removing Peoples: Forced Removal in the Modern World, Oxford University Press, 2009 – especially pp. 330–332 on comparative Punjab and Bengal experiences . The Wire (India). Punjab 1947: Bloodied and Partitioned by Competing Nationalisms – analysis of the role of communal militias, the Punjab Boundary Force, and estimates of deaths and migrations. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (2003). Sohal, Sukhdev Singh, “Pangs of Partition: Lahore in 1947” – cited for contemporary observations (e.g., “Punjabis ceased to be Punjabis and became Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs”) . Mass Violence & Resistance – Sciences Po. Lionel Baixas, Thematic Chronology of Mass Violence in Pakistan, 1947-2007 – for chronology of key events (Great Calcutta Killing, Rawalpindi massacre, etc.) . Communal Riots in Bengal, 1905–1947 by Suranjan Das (Delhi, 1991) – provides details on the Noakhali and Calcutta riots, quoted in Talbot (2009) . Modern Asian Studies (2002). Ian Copland, “The Master and the Maharajas: The Sikh Princes and the East Punjab Massacres of 1947” – evidence of princely states’ involvement in Partition violence . Partition Museum, Amritsar archives (online) – “The Unfolding Crisis in Punjab, March–August 1947” and National Army Museum (UK) summary of Independence and Partition – background on administrative decisions and military responses. Government of India, 1950 – Report of the Punjab Boundary Force (August–September 1947) – not cited above but provides official account of the force’s failure, confirming points referenced in secondary sources .

The Bengal Famine — Explores Bengal’s descent into communalismCommunalism Full Description:Communalism refers to the politicization of religious identity. In the context of the Raj, it was not an ancient hatred re-emerging, but a modern political phenomenon nurtured by the colonial state. By creating separate electorates and recognizing communities rather than individuals, the British administration institutionalized religious division. Critical Perspective:The rise of communalism distracted from the anti-colonial struggle against the British. It allowed political leaders to mobilize support through fear and exclusion, transforming religious difference into a zero-sum game for political power. This toxic dynamic culminated in the horrific inter-religious violence that accompanied Partition. amidst economic collapse.

Who Spoke for India’s Muslims? — Reveals how politics played out differently in provinces like Punjab.

Memory, Trauma, and Silence — Investigates the lasting psychological impact on survivors from these regions.