Why did hindu muslim massacres take place during partition?
Answers
There were various reasons behind the riots. The main one being people of Punjab were not sure which country their land would be in even 60 days before partition. They knew government will come for census soon. This forced riots in Punjab area they attacked the people of other community so that their land don’t go other country just for small percentage(almost every district had equal proportions of Muslims and non-Muslims).
This explains the reason why there were not much riots in Bengal. Bengalis be it Hindu or Muslim were more racist before partition but they had slight idea where their land will go after partition because Bengal was already partitioned once during 1909 but later united.
Again there were rumors spread everywhere. A small lie of a Hindu killing or raping a Muslim spread like fire among Muslims and they would attack Hindus and this would continue till it turned into massacres.
When riots became too common, selfish people attacked peoples houses to take golds and other valuable items from their houses. People captured the other community’s lands and other personal belonging. In contrast Bengal saw many house swapping. Muslims and Hindus of West and East Bengal respectively swapped their houses happily to go the country of their choice. But every Muslim of West Bengal was not ready to go Pakistan because the slogans of unity were equally popular in Bengal. But 20 years of Pakistani rule in East Bengal Islamicized the country up to an extend thus some attacks on the Hindu community there made them enter India. Now it is a slow ongoing process of entering Bangladeshi Hindus into Indian Bengal.