07/03/2026
Will America or China Have to Unite and Strengthen the “Punjabi Nation”?
By: Dr. Masood Tariq
In the Indian subcontinent, the British were the last to succeed in occupying Punjab — and that too only because it was ruled by a 10-year-old child, Maharaja Duleep Singh. Even after the British occupation of Punjab, the Punjabis continued fierce resistance against them. Therefore, to weaken the Punjabi nation by dividing it along regional and linguistic dialect lines, the British took the following steps:
1. In 1846, they separated the northern areas of Punjab from Punjab and created the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
2. In 1901, they separated the western areas of Punjab from Punjab and created the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), now called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
By the time of the Second World War, however, Germany and Japan had been defeated. Britain had become weak. America and the Soviet Union had emerged as global superpowers. The world was beginning to split into the capitalist bloc and the communist bloc. On the instructions of America and the Soviet Union, Britain, France, Spain and Portugal began freeing their colonies. Germany was divided. When British India was being partitioned to create Pakistan, dividing Punjab as well was part of the American plan.
At the time of granting independence to the subcontinent, America and Britain were afraid because Punjab would border the Soviet Union. They feared that the Punjabi nation — which possessed the subcontinent’s largest military force and most fertile lands — might ally with the Soviet Union after independence, help it reach the Indian Ocean region, and thereby end the Anglo-American monopoly over the Indian Ocean.
Winston Churchill was a Conservative and remained Britain’s Prime Minister until 1947. When power was transferred in 1947, Clement Attlee of the Labour Party took his place. Yet Winston Churchill is regarded as the architect of the 1945 plan to partition British India, which Clement Attlee later approved. Churchill believed that a Pakistan created on the basis of Islam would remain a loyal friend of the West and would act as a bulwark against communist Soviet Union and socialist India on the basis of “Islam versus Communism”.
On Churchill’s instructions, Lord Archibald Wavell prepared a secret plan to divide India. During the Second World War, Churchill had fiercely opposed granting independence to British India without partition. His analysis was that Jawaharlal Nehru was a Soviet sympathiser and might allow the Soviets access to the warm-water port of Karachi, giving them an easy route to the Indian Ocean and the Middle East. In contrast, the Muslim leadership demanding Pakistan was pro-Western. Therefore, a Pakistan created on the basis of Islam would resist Moscow on the ideological front of Communism versus Islamism.
The old “Great Game” of influence between Britain and the Soviet Union had, after the world war, turned into the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union. To contain its rival, Winston Churchill was making plans — but the people of British India, especially the Punjabis, had to pay a terrible price. Along with freeing British India and creating the two new countries of India and Pakistan, there was also a deliberate plan to destroy the Punjabi nation. The British strategy was to grant independence by forming India and Pakistan while simultaneously ruining the Punjabi nation. To implement this plan, the Muslim leadership demanding Pakistan was patronised, facilitated and encouraged. Hence:
01. In the general elections of December 1945 held to elect members of the Central Legislative Assembly and Council in British India, the All-India Muslim League won in the Muslim constituencies. In particular, to defeat the secular Unionist Party — which had ruled Punjab since 1937 and represented Punjabis — religious extremism was deliberately promoted in Punjab. These elections proved a strategic victory for Jinnah and the partitionists. Although Congress had won overall, the Muslim League had consolidated the Muslim vote and thus gained the strength to negotiate for a separate Muslim homeland. It had become clear that a united British India would be extremely unstable. The elected members later formed the Constituent Assembly of British India.
02. On 16 August 1946, the All-India Muslim League decided to observe “Direct Action Day” in Calcutta to press the demand for a separate Muslim homeland in the north-western and eastern provinces of colonial British India. Muhammad Ali Jinnah declared that the League wanted “either a divided British India or a destroyed British India”. The resulting religious tension turned the protests into massive riots in Calcutta. Within 72 hours, more than 4,000 people were killed and 100,000 were rendered homeless. This violence triggered further religious riots in Noakhali, Bihar, the United Provinces (modern Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh), Punjab and the surrounding areas of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). These events sowed the seeds of the partition of British India. Thousands of innocent women and children were killed or injured by mobs patronised by the All-India Muslim League. Bonds of friendship, respect for neighbourhood, sense of community and religious harmony became the first casualties of this horrific war.
03. On 2 March 1947, the Unionist Party government in Punjab was dismissed. The All-India Muslim League failed to secure a parliamentary majority, and Governor’s Rule was imposed.
04. On 4 and 5 March 1947, the first organised attacks against Hindu Punjabis and Sikh Punjabis took place in Lahore and Amritsar.
05. On the same dates (4–5 March 1947), Muslim League-led mobs launched well-planned and heavily armed attacks on helpless Hindu Punjabi and Sikh Punjabi villagers in Multan, Rawalpindi, Campbellpur (Attock), Jhelum and Sargodha.
06. The attacking mobs were supplied with weapons such as daggers, swords, spears and fi****ms. A former government servant later wrote in his autobiography that the weapons were dispatched from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the money was provided by politicians in Delhi.
07. The mobs carried large quantities of knives and axes. They ambushed victims and, when necessary, disposed of the bodies. The Muslim League provided financial support to these attackers, and individual killers were paid in cash according to the number of Hindu and Sikh Punjabis they murdered.
08. There were also organised jeep patrols whose sole purpose was to hunt down, kill or abduct any isolated Hindu Punjabi or Sikh Punjabi.
09. On 5 March, Hindu Punjabi and Sikh Punjabi students in Rawalpindi brought out a peaceful procession against the police firing on student protests and against the attempt to form a Muslim League ministry on religious lines. Muslim Leaguers attacked the procession, leading to hand-to-hand fighting. The Muslims suffered a severe defeat.
10. Then, through a Muslim religious leader and local figure — the Pir of Golra — a massive crowd of Muslims was incited from the rural areas to attack Hindu Punjabis and Sikh Punjabis.
11. On 7 March 1947, after tribal Pathans arrived for “jihad” in the villages of Rawalpindi, the attacks began in earnest. Wherever Hindu Punjabis and Sikh Punjabis were found, the killing spree continued village after village for weeks without pause. Once an area was cleared of its Hindu and Sikh Punjabi population, the violence moved to the next area. By the end of March, the surviving Hindu Punjabi and Sikh Punjabi population of Rawalpindi, Campbellpur (Attock) and Jhelum districts had been moved to refugee camps set up in the Sikh states of Punjab.
12. In July and August 1947, the massacre of Muslim Punjabis in eastern Punjab began as a reaction to the ongoing jihad-led massacres by tribal Pathans in western Punjab.
13. This entire plan was the intellectual conspiracy and political hypocrisy of Urdu-speaking Muslims from Uttar Pradesh, who were the leaders and masterminds of the All-India Muslim League. The Pathans of western Punjab, Arab-origin settlers and tribal Pathans of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) carried out the actual implementation.
14. In the context of the Radcliffe Line, a rough border had already been prepared under Viceroy Archibald Wavell before the new Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, assumed office in February 1947.
The partition of British India was not carried out in the interest of its people but to complete a long-term strategic plan serving American and British interests. Britain wanted to divide British India by engineering religious riots so that Anglo-American long-term goals could be achieved. Therefore, as the British were leaving the subcontinent, they:
1. Divided Punjab on religious lines, merging Muslim-majority Punjabi areas into Pakistan and Sikh- and Hindu-majority Punjabi areas into India.
2. By pitting Punjabis against each other on religious grounds, they caused the deaths of 2 million Punjabis and displaced 20 million more. Sikh Punjabis and Hindu Punjabis were moved to India, and Muslim Punjabis to Pakistan — thereby permanently dividing the Punjabi nation.
After the “destruction” of the Punjabi nation through this partition, further steps were taken to prevent it from ever reuniting. The Punjabis were deliberately kept divided along religious, regional, caste and linguistic dialect lines and were continuously humiliated and degraded. However:
1. In accordance with Winston Churchill’s plan, the Muslim leadership of the newly created Pakistan proved through practical action that it would strongly resist Moscow on the basis of “Communism versus Islam”. Consequently, the Soviet Union could never reach the Indian Ocean. In 1979, while giving an interview in Afghanistan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — a great admirer of Winston Churchill — stated that Pakistan’s dictator General Zia-ul-Haq was playing the best possible role in stopping the Soviet Union from reaching the Indian Ocean.
2. Not only did Muslim Punjabis help America prevent the Soviet Union from reaching the Indian Ocean; the Soviet Union itself collapsed, and even Russia lost any possibility of accessing the Indian Ocean. Communism itself ended. But through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) route, China has already reached Gwadar and entered the Indian Ocean region.
3. The British-loyal Pathans, Baloch and Indian Muhajirs could not stop China on America’s behalf, nor will they be able to do so in future. Muslim Punjabis, on the other hand, are not creating any obstacle to China’s access to the Indian Ocean.
4. The Punjabi nation has now begun to free itself from the divisions of religion, region, caste and linguistic dialects.
5. After China’s arrival at Gwadar via the CPEC route, the Punjabi nation now possesses the capability, in the second phase, to help end America’s monopoly over the Indian Ocean and assist China in establishing its presence there.
6. After China’s arrival at Gwadar via CPEC, America can no longer keep the Punjabi nation divided along religious, regional, caste and linguistic lines in order to stop China from occupying the Indian Ocean.
7. Winston Churchill’s plan succeeded in preventing the Soviet Union from gaining access to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan. But if the real objective of that plan was to maintain Anglo-American dominance over the Indian Ocean, then instead of the Soviet Union, China has now reached Gwadar via CPEC. Therefore, to stop China’s occupation of the Indian Ocean and its growing dominance over the Middle East, America will now need a united and strong Punjab.
8. After China’s arrival at Gwadar via CPEC, in the second phase, China too will need a united and strong Punjab to end America’s monopoly over the Indian Ocean and to establish its own control there.
In the coming contest between America and China for control of the Indian Ocean, whose side will the Punjabi nation take — America’s or China’s?
It is obvious: whichever of the two — America or China — makes a sincere and genuine effort to unite and strengthen the Punjabi nation will be the one the Punjabi nation will support.
God willing, by 2028 the Punjabi nation will succeed in freeing itself from the divisions of religion, region, caste and linguistic dialects and will once again begin to stand on its own feet.
