Today’s film, Division of Hearts, gave me a behind-the-scenes peek into what the partition was really like. In the beginning of the documentary, people were saying that they were confused about the concept of partition, in general. They were confused about where India ended and where Pakistan began. Punjab was split in half and the Punjabis were unsure of where they belonged, since most of them were neither Hindu nor Muslim; they were Sikh. Punjabis were afraid to go into rooms in their own homes because they thought Muslims would be hiding, waiting to murder them. Lahore and Amritsar are two large cities in Punjab but presently, Lahore is in Pakistan and Amritsar is in India. A few women in Lahore expressed that they did not want to leave their homes just because they did not practice the religion of their new home country.
The reason for the partition was different depending on who was asked in the documentary. A few Sikh villagers in Punjab stated that everything was always fine before this talk of partition began. Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs all lived in peace and harmony in a single village. Although they did not practice the same religion, they had respect for one another. They did not distinguish each other by religion; they all considered themselves to just be Indian. They felt the real religious conflicts were between the upper class and politicians, and these conflicts seemed to be instigated by the British. It was the issues of the politicians that caused the partition, and Hindus and Muslims to turn against each other, even in the villages. On the other hand, a few Muslim men in Dhaka, Bangladesh, felt that Hinduism and its multiple gods were not worthy of worship. They did not think such a religion was valuable or could even compare to ...