Last month, there were celebrations of the 75th anniversary of India’s independence. August 1947 is indeed a month of celebration in India for liberation from British colonial rule (on 15th August) and in Pakistan for the birth of a new nation (14th August). However, for Punjab and Bengal, this memory of celebration is mixed with the one of pain caused by the partition of these two states
that led to deaths of about one million people and injuries to several millions. The psychological scars of bereaved and broken families are so deep that they run into many generations since then. The economic damage caused to Punjab by the partition further accentuated the social and emotional sufferings. The 1947 partition had such a colossal impact on the economy of Punjab that any account of that impact would be an underestimate. Some dislocations in the economy, such as those caused by a progressive technological change, can have positive impacts on improving human welfare while others, such as those involving violent conflicts, have negative impacts. The dislocation caused by the 1947 partition was a man-made tragedy that have had long lasting negative impacts on human and non-human lives, and the ecology of Punjab.
Before the British colonial rulers who divided Punjab in 1947 had annexed it in 1849, its economy was regulated by its internal logic that was dictated by the economic, political, social, and military strategies of its Punjabi sovereign ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh. After its annexation and its integration READ MORE
