In 1967, when I became one of his students, he was identified as the dean of Economic History. He had earned that distinction because of his work on Russia in which he concluded that the rates of economic growth suggested by the Russian government were based on wrong assumptions. He came up with a different formula that suggested a much lower rate in the period after the assumption of power by the Communist Party in what was then known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, the USSR.
In a one-on-one meeting with me, he told me that he knew very little about the South Asian sub-continent and would look to me to get him acquainted with that part of the world. Every year, he chose a group of half a dozen students who met at his house for dinner and discussed their special interests. Mine, I said, was the movement of people since the country to which I belonged – Pakistan – was inundated by millions of migrants who had left India for Pakistan in the summer of 1947, the time when the British colonial hold over their South Asian colony ended. Their arrival in Pakistan was to profoundly influence the history of the new country. The way the newcomers to the country chose to settle – or were made to settle – still influences several aspects of life in the country. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that Pakistan’s future – possibly its survival – depends on how well the different segments of the population can coexist.
The British had governed the South Asian subcontinent for two centuries. In withdrawing, they accepted the demand of the All-India Muslim League, then headed by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, to create a separate state for the Muslim population of British India. An Indian Muslim student attending Cambridge University suggested the name Pakistan, using the first letters in the names of the areas the Muslim leaders wanted to include in the country they wished to create.
Even before the colonial power withdrew, the movement of people had begun with Muslims who found themselves on the wrong side of the coming divide heading for the Muslim areas. They left their homes and moved to the newly founded state of Pakistan. The Hindus and Sikhs moved in the opposite direction. Historians have called this the largest movement of people in human history. People were prepared to leave their homes since, for several decades, British India had witnessed large-scale communal riots in which tens of thousands of people perished with Muslims attacking Hindus and Hindus falling upon Muslims.
“How many people were involved if this indeed was the largest movement of people in human history,” Gershenkron asked me. I said I didn’t know; no one did. “Well, that is a good research idea, and I would be happy to guide you through this assignment.” Harvard University had a rich collection of books and documents in its Widener Library, and the professor asked me to start looking at the material that was available there. The library had 1941 and 1951 Census reports as well as reports written by the British colonial administrators who had worked in various parts of their Indian colony.
Using these documents and census numbers and guided by Gershenkron, I was able to come up with the needed estimates. I concluded that 14 million people were involved in this movement, with eight million Muslims leaving what would become a Hindu-dominated India and six million Hindus and Sikhs going in the opposite direction. These estimates have not been contested by those who have written about the subject. The dynamics behind these moves were captured brilliantly by the Sikh novelist Khushwant Singh in his novel Train to Pakistan.
Those who moved in the caravans that went mostly on foot headed in two different directions. Those whose mother tongue was Urdu headed for Karachi, the birthplace of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father. American social scientist Steve Innskeep has called Karachi the Instant City in his book by the same name. This small port town became within months a bustling metropolis. There was an inevitable clash between the old inhabitants of the city and the newcomers. As will be discussed in later articles, that was not the only movement of people that was to disrupt all aspects of life in Karachi.
Those whose language was Punjabi went to Punjab. The choice of Punjab as the destination was dictated by an earlier movement of people – in the 1930s. This was when the British Colonial Administration in India accepted the recommendation of the Famine Commissions established in London. The Commissioners had suggested that the best way of tackling the circumstances that had caused the devastating famines in eastern India was to find ways of growing food crops in the country rather than import food from abroad.
The colonial administration operating out of New Delhi chose the virgin lands of Punjab and Sindh in what is now Pakistan to become the granary of food-starved East India. The waters of the Indus River system were tapped to provide irrigation to the areas. However, to make the virgin lands productive, they needed farmers who were encouraged to move from the eastern parts of Punjab to the lower parts of the province. This community was called the “settlers” who came in because they were given the ownership of land given by the state.
However, the water in the lands from which they came would be brought to the surface by animal-powered pumps. The animals went round and round at the well-head. Canal irrigated agriculture was very different from the one the settlers had left behind. Migrants from east Punjab added to the manpower that was brought in to settle the irrigated lands. This is one reason why this movement of people has kept productivity low in agriculture.