Gyanendra Pandey records , non-Muslim (Hindus and Sikhs) refugees flowing into the Punjab and Delhi in - . Pandey also records that several thousand Muslims were forced out of their homes in Delhi and nearby places by violent mobs to seek asylum in camps set up around the Red Fort and the Purana Quila. Refugee camps were set up but they had hardly any sanitation and water supply. In both countries property left behind by the fleeing families were up for grabs.
The long line of refugees walking crossing the borders was called ‘kafila’. The refugees on the march were targets for gangs belonging to the ‘other’ community to wreak vengeance. Trains from either side of the new border in the Punjab were targeted by killer mobs and many of those reached their destination with piles of dead bodies. The violence was of such a scale that those killed the numbers of remains mere estimates.
The number ranges between , to , people dead and million people displaced. Movement of Refugees — A poem by W.H. Auden Reconstruction of Post-colonial India those who owned property – the principle of universal adult franchise was still a far cry. The results revealed the Muslim League’s command in Muslim majority constituencies while the Indian National Congress swept the elections elsewhere.
The League decided to stay away from the Constitution making process and pressed hard for a separate nation. The Congress went for the Constituent assembly. The elected members of the various Provincial assemblies voted nominees of the Congress to the Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly ( seats) that came into being, though dominated by the Congress, also included smaller outfits such as the communists, socialists and others.
The Congress ensured the election of Dr B.R. Ambedkar from a seat in Bombay and subsequently elected him chairman of the drafting committee. Apart from electing its own stalwarts to the Assembly, the Congress leadership made it a point to send leading constitutional lawyers. This was to make a constitution that contained the