Review of ‘Broken Threads’ by Mishal Husain: A Story of Partition

Journalist icon, Mishal Husain’s book ‘Broken Threads: My Family from Empire to Independence’ revisits the story of Partition, through the lens of both sets of grandparents, who lived through and who were affected by it in different ways.

She begins by stating that her history spans three countries – India, Pakistan and England. And how her origin story begins in India where three of her grandparents were born.

“At boarding school in the UK I became conscious of the deep roots all my English friends seemed to have, embedded into a network of similar families and closely attached to places and homes that went back generations. I had no such connection to the fabric of the land… Almost as if I had no history of my own,” says Mishal. One of the saddest legacies of Partition is being lifted away from your roots.

Mishal’s grandparents were witnesses to a huge global shift – the end of the age of empires and the dawn of a new states. Such stories are not often documented and shared when the protagonist is living; because the trauma can be too deep to process in real time. It often comes out after they have passed. Mishal meticulously went through memoirs, searched through letters, and spoke to relatives who were still alive. She also went through primary sources from the time.

The stories recounted are emotional and heart-breaking. It inevitably leads me to imagine what my grandparents and their parents went through. My parents also were directly impacted. It feels so real to me as I empathise with their experiences. Sadly, these realities are still playing out in the lives of migrants and refugees who have borne the brunt of the colonialism that still lives on, and are escaping a life that has been made unliveable through its legacy.

Tahira, Mishal’s maternal grandmother recorded some reflections of her life on cassette tapes including the Partition. “I feel that before Pakistan came into being, we had a complete life.”

In the book, Mishal brings to life the political history of that time by exploring the social impact on her family. She documents the history in the context of her grandparents’ stories.

Her grandfathers on both sides were part of the Indian army and then both moved to the Pakistani army post- Partition. Their insights are invaluable. They were close to the politics of the time, and had become convinced of the idea of Pakistan and the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

She mentions how the Muslim community were perceived as more of a threat after the first Indian War of Independence in 1857. The retribution from the British was fierce. The Empire had a history of rivalry with the Muslims in India as they had been the power that had to be defeated. After 1857, the British wanted to suppress Muslims even more and ensure that they became weak and powerless. 

Ironically, some of the biggest British recruitment areas for the army were in Muslim majority provinces in India. This meant that there were many Muslims serving in the British army at that time but they are yet to be acknowledged and incorporated into the mainstream narratives around the war alongside others from the commonwealth. 

Mishal’s maternal grandfather, Shahid worked for Claude Auchinleck, the Chief of the Indian army. Shahid was his private secretary. Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, wanted Auchinlek to sack Shahid - stating that he should not have a Muslim as his private secretary. Even though Mountbatten had Hindu aides, but the Muslim one was the problem. 

Auchinlek prepared memos to the British government on the challenges that the new country of Pakistan would face. That included being separated by a 15,000 mile wide expanse of India and lack of resources. They ignored his advice.

Mountbatten showed Nehru the Partition Plan when Nehru was staying with him in Simla. Nehru was unhappy with it, and demanded changes of which Mountbatten complied. Nehru didn’t like that the princely states could opt to be independent and not part of either India or Pakistan. With the new reworked Partition Plan – the princely states had to choose one of the countries

The Boundary Commission and Sir Cyril Radcliffe arrived in India in July 1947 to work out where the borders will be. A new account emerged in 1990s from Christopher Beaumont, who had assisted Cyril Radcliffe in the drawing of borders, saying that Mountbatten had pressured Radcliffe to alter the Punjab borderline in India’s favour.

Mishal says: “The secret that Beaumont kept for decades was over a change Radcliffe made on two Muslim-majority districts south-east of Lahore, originally assigned to Pakistan but moved into India in the final days before the border announcement in August.”

After Partition, Lord Mountbatten wanted and pressured Auchinlek to resign. Mountbatten was part of the cause and inevitable problems of Indian Partition. After Partition he was now Governor General of India, and with Congress they didn’t want to divide assets fairly between the two new lands.

Auchinlek wrote to Prime Minster Atlee himself. ““I have no hesitation whatsoever in affirming that the present Indian Cabinet are implacably determined to do all in their power to prevent the establishment of the Dominion of Pakistan on a firm basis,” he said. “I and my officers have been continuously and virulently accused of being pro-Pakistan and partial, whereas the truth is we have merely tried to do our duty impartially and without fear, favour, or affection.” 

Jammu and Kashmir is another tragic ongoing legacy of Partition. The way the British handled this situation is the reason that there is unrest in this area until now. The ruler of this princely state was Hindu. But in the Kashmir valley 92% people were Muslim. And the state as a whole had three quarters of the population who were Muslim. Where state transfer was  supposed to be based on majority populations, this was not the case with Jammu and Kashmir.

Journalist, Ian Stephens at the time was in Delhi and dined with the Mountbattens. He was amazed by the way the Mountbattens talked about Kashmir. He felt they were “wholly pro-Hindu“. “”I was flabbergasted” Stevens wrote…At a Hindu Maharaja‘s choice, but with a British Governor General’s backing, three million Muslims, in a region always considered to be vital to Pakistan if she were created, were legally to be made Indian citizens.”

Mishal’s own evaluation of the subject was based on all the evidence she uncovered. “And as I looked through the official papers from the time – and what the key players said later – it was hard not to conclude that decision-making was coloured by personal impressions in a way that was not fitting for a colonial power in the midst of a task with historic and generational implications. Atlee had a low opinion of Jinnah, failing to even reply to one letter he wrote, asking for more action to curb communal violence. Once he had appointed Mountbatten he largely left him to it, and the implications of the former Viceroy being Governor-General of one country and not the other – the reality through the Kashmir crisis – seem not to have been thought through.”  

Husain reflects on what would continue to cause her grandparents pain if they were alive today. She mentions the continuous involvement of the Pakistani army in politics; the battle of minority communities on both sides of the border; and the lost potential in trade and contact between these two countries.

She speaks about the ongoing legacy of Partition on the people living in the subcontinent, but also the diaspora communities. One of the most disastrous impacts was the difficulty and sometimes impossibility to try and visit India or Pakistan if having the opposite country connections. 

After Partition, her grandparents were continuously worried about family, parents and friends left in India. They said they felt incomplete for a long time. 

The trauma of partition was not only on those who went through it – but will impact every generation that comes after. The sense of belonging that we may have felt in our ancestral lands is a thing of the past. Colonialism has insured that we will carry trauma from generation to generation. 

When we try to put ourselves in the shoes of our families that went through the direct impact of Partition- it’s very traumatic. They left everything they knew behind, as well as much of their possessions. They left behind their culture, language, friends, and family. And knowing that they may never see any of them again. This trauma has not just been reserved for the children of Partition – but we see it across the world in all lands that were colonised. Worse still, these people’s tragedies are looked at with disgust as some try to escape countries that have been destroyed by colonialism and imposed wars. There’s many who don’t want to see people of non-white backgrounds in these ‘precious’ western lands.

Partition has had a lasting impact on our identity. The theme for this month’s South Asian Heritage Month is ‘free to be me’. We lost the chance to be who we are. We now have identities, labels and nationalism imposed on us, despite having multiple identities. We are also left powerless to change the structures and institutions that maintain inequalities.

Mishal ends with a message of hope: “Perhaps, then, the threads are more frayed than broken, because stories have been handed down in countless families, creating an oral link with the past. Today those tales connect people like me with those who went to before, but taken together they also revealed bonds across borders, which one day might be more than memories.”