Excerpt:
Years of cohabitation degenerated into distrust and fear as news and propaganda of horrific violence debased the foundations of friendships. Furthermore, those who had experienced violence first-hand were influential in demanding and executing reprisals.
The colonial regime was designed to limit the capacity of the Indian population to influence its politics. This structural disconnect allowed the Indian elites to take decisions in 1947 with minimal concern for those they were supposedly representing.
- Amabel Crowe
Read full thesis here: http://www.academia.edu/7801480/The_Sikhs_and_the_Partition_of_the_Punjab