Why Was There No Tranfer Of Population?

[G.Subramaniam]

Ill
QUESTION OF ARMED FORCES
The defence of a country does not depend so much upon its scientific frontier as it does upon its resources. But more than resources does it depend upon the fighting forces available to it. What are the fighting forces available to Pakistan and to Hindustan ? The Simon Commission pointed out, as a special feature of the Indian Defence Problem, that there were special areas which alone offered recruits to the Indian Army and that there were other areas which offered none or if at all, very few. The facts revealed in the following table, taken from the Report of the Commission, undoubtedly will come as a most disagreeable surprise to many Indians, who think and care about the defence of India :
Areas of Recruitment Number of Recruits drawn
1 N.-W. Frontier Province 5,600
2 Kashmir 6,500
3 Punjab 86,000
4 Baluchistan 300
5 Nepal 19,000
6 United Provinces 16,500
7 Rajputana 7,000
8 Central India 200
9 Bombay 7,000
10 Central Provinces 100
11 Bihar & Orissa 300
12 Bengal Nil
13 Assam Nil
14 Burma 3,000
15 Hyderabad 700
16 Mysore 100
17 Madras 4,000
18 Miscellaneous 1,900
TOTAL 158,200
The Simon Commission found that this state of affairs was natural to India, and in support of it, cited the following figures of recruitment from the different Provinces of India during the Great War especially because " it cannot be suggested that any discouragement was offered to recruitment in any area ":
Province
Combatants Recruits
Enlisted
Non-combatants
Recruits Enlisted
Total
Madras Bombay 51,223 41,117 92,340
Bengal 41,272 30,211 71,483
United Provinces 7,117 51,935 59,052
Punjab 163,578 117,565 281,148
North-West 349,688 97,288 446,976
Frontier 32,181 13,050 45,231
Baluchistan 1,761 327 2,088
Burma 14,094 4,579 18,673
Bihar and Orissa 8,576 32,976 41,552
Central Provinces 5,376 9,631 15,007
Assam 942 14,182 15,124
Ajmer-Marwar 7,341 1,632 8,973
Nepal 58,904 - 58,904
Total 742,053 414,493 1,156,546