India and Pakistan are now 60 years old, as is the bloody partition that created them. My father’s family was caught up in what became arguably the largest mass migration in history: 14.5 million people were moved, roughly the same number in each direction, and somewhere between 500,000 and one million of them died in the process. 
Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new state line. It was an impossible task, at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order [Link]
The management of partition was badly botched; if you think Brownie did a heck of a job, Mounty makes him look like a paragon of engagement and sensitivity. Mountbatten insisted that the partition line be drawn in only six weeks! Think of how slowly the US government moves today, and that will give you a sense of how ridiculous and uncaring that deadline was. The line was drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe; this is what his private secretary, Christopher Beaumont, had to say about the process:
“The viceroy, Mountbatten, must take the blame – though not the sole blame – for the massacres in the Punjab in which between 500,000 to a million men, women and children perished,” he writes. “The handover of power was done too quickly…”… it was “irresponsible” of Lord Mountbatten to insist that Beaumont complete the boundary within a six-week deadline – despite his protests. [Link]
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p>Mountbatten was a pretty boy from a royal family whose track record during WWII led him to be “known in the British Admiralty as the Master of Disaster.” [Link] His track record in India seems similar – he was charming and glib, but unconcerned about the feasibility of plans or the lives which would be lost.
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p>As Viceroy of India, he advanced the date of independence by nine months (no reason was ever given), making the problems associated with partition worse. Critics argue that he foresaw bloodshed and didn’t want it to happen on British watch; he was willing to make things worse as a form of CYA rather than take responsibility for the situation.
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p>So how did the Last Viceroy spend the evening of August 14th, having put calamity into motion? Was he apprehensive? Concerned about the lives he had condemned? Not at all:
… on the evening of August 14, 1947, a few hours before Britain’s Indian Empire was formally divided into the nation-states of India and Pakistan, Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, sat down in the viceregal mansion in New Delhi to watch the latest Bob Hope movie, “My Favorite Brunette…” [Link]
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p>In the end he was killed by the IRA rather than O’Dwyered by one of his victims from India. Mountbatten had a very difficult job to perform, but from what little I have read, he did not do it well.
Related links: Exit Wounds, the New Yorker book review of Indian Summer by Pankaj Mishra
kush, thanks for the explanation.
“He loved his house (in his words, that every single brick was an act of love and sweat), and wanted to die in Mumbai after his dream was realized.”
i can sympathize with that.
louiecypher
If we can’t even get over a 500 year old invasion, how can we ever expect to get over a 60 year old partition?
Ayesha Jalal is at Tufts now – she’s been there since she was denied tenure by Columbia in 95, which she alleges was the result of the Hinduja group giving a grant to create an Indic studies department. I met a couple of years ago when we did an India-Pakistan Conference at McGill – she’s very down to earth, but opinionated at the same time.
chachaji, as a Pakistani, even I think you are asking way too much from India in your vision for a united confederate of South Asia – Pakistan really needs to clean up its act before getting anywhere close to even imagining something like that.
I don’t get though why a common South Asian identity is so laughable, to both Indians and Pakistanis. As a Gujju muslim from Pakistan, I don’t know why I’m supposed to have more in common with a Pakistani Punjabi, simply because my ancestors had to make a decision to cross an arbitrary line 60 years ago, simply out of safety concerns.
No one I talked to, save one sentimental grand-uncle who was fond of his residence in Lahore, considered Partition “bittersweet”. My grandfather was happy as all heck to get the hell out of there, which in an instant wasn’t “home” anymore, and if you didn’t understand that you died. For him, India meant freedom, refuge, new beginnings.
It’s hard to when Pakistanis revisit the Two Nation theory continuously in Kashmir. You have to stop picking at scabs for them to heal. Perhaps you and Moshin Ahmid as a sign of good faith can push the idea that Kashmiris have a right to independence but only under a secular constitution? Otherwise, don’t be upset when reasonable people abroad wonder out loud if their rights will be respected if they find themselves outnumbered by Muslims who only endorse democracy as a stepping stone to Islamic rule. I don’t give a damn about what happened 500 years ago….I am happy to see Kashmir go but only as a secular nation that respects the rights of Pandits.
Alybaba: My apologies for the personal tone of my comment above. I see from your other comments & blog that you didn’t deserve that
Also, it was very clear during the Bhinderawale phase of Punjab, Operation Blue Star, and the killing of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, how state-sponsored oppression and discrimmination can be unleashed and positively encouraged in the general population on a minority community. (In my opinion, a large part of it was brought upon the Sikhs by themselves…fighting words I know but I will stand by them to the bitter end.)
What an obscene statement. So an innocent Sikh family living in Delhi brought it upon itself to have its property destroyed and lives taken by marauding mobs? This is too vile an assertion to debate.
Alybaba, this is a intriguing sentiment. Most Pakistanis I met during a visit to your country (2004 @Lahore) seem to want to embrace an Arab identity. Not a South Asian one.
partition has had a great effect on the elders in my family. my nani would tell me stories of when she lived in sindh, how her father was a prominent businessman. they had several buildings and schools named after them, and they gave back a lot to their community. after partition, she went from having everything to having nothing. she had to sneak out of her house at night to cross the border with her family, only to enter a new country as a refugee. every time i ask her about sindh, she looks as if she’s going to be in tears. it is really quite sad.
it has also taken a toll on the sindhi community. because we’re so scattered, there’s not enough of us anywhere to create a true ‘community’. people have been terrified that future generations are going to lose touch with their roots. for instance, there are barely any sindhi language schools around (i don’t even know of one near where i live), so people don’t even know how to read/write/speak in sindhi anymore. i consider it as my mother tongue, but i suck at it. things like this make it difficult to cope.
i have nothing against pakistan though. i think my grandparents do somewhat, but they never really discuss it with us.
i was planning to visit sindh, just out of curiosity. nobody wanted to go with me though, because they were all terrified of going back to the place where they were originally forced to leave. even though that was many many years ago.
UK and US can be easily blamed for anything wrong with this world, be it Iraq, Al Qaida, slavery, exploiting the poor. All this was done by them and now they go preaching the world! Talk about Hypocrisy!
Amitabh, I can’t agree with you on this one (re: it is “mostly the fault of Muslim leaders”). Many of these decisions were made above the heads of “common folk” in India , and I don’t fault Muslim leadership for wanting its own “safe haven” or state.
Lets not absolve the Muslim masses of their role in clamoring for partition. Of course not all Muslims were equally excited about the partition. The NWFP had to rig election to go with Pakistan. The Unionist Party in Punjab wasnt that gung ho on partition either and in fact shared a coalition goverment with Congress right before the partition. However in some areas like UP and Bengal, the Muslims masses were almost unanimous in their desire for a Muslim majority state.
At some level, Pakistan was created by the Muslim elite of UP/Delhi and a lot of the leadership was trained at the Aligarh Muslim University. My own grandmother was in leadership position for the Muslim League in UP and talking to old family relatives it seems to me that even those who did not move to Pakistan were still supportive of the idea anyway, atleast in 1947, Maulana Azad’s pleadings nothwithstanding. My own grandparents eventually chose to stay in India even though they were very supportive of the creation of Pakistan.
Alybaba, first of all thanks for your comment, and hope to hear from you more. If you have time, please do elaborate on what you just said. As an Indian, and moreover, a DBD, I can talk about what India should do much more freely, and with some level of insidership. I was merely outlining some necessary conditions, not saying it’s sufficient by any means. Of course, there will be Indians that will disagree with me, that is their right, just as it’s mine to spell out my vision. And some of the reasoned disagreements can certainly help me modify that overall vision, both in its idealism and its realism.
While Pakistan is not a small country by any means, India is a colossus, and can afford to take the first, and the second, and the third steps, and be more forward-looking, magnanimous and conciliatory; as well as address the real contradictions within its own conception of democracy and nationhood; and then, in the new atmosphere that creates, other countries can also take the steps they need to take, to help realize that vision.
Since a multi-level Confederation was considered, seriously, both by the departing Power and by politicians of all hues – as the future for South Asia as recently as 1946, I see no reason why a suitably modified version of that cannot be the animating vision for the future of South Asia as we see it now. How we get there and realize it, is the interesting question.
163 · Sonia UK and US can be easily blamed for anything wrong with this worl, be it Iraq, Al Qaida, slavery, exploiting the poor.
is this satire, or serious
Kush: I was asking Amitabh for evidence which would show that the violence during the partition mass movement of people was started by Muslims. I have read a lot about the partition but have not come across evidence which would give credence to Amitabh’s assertion. Maybe its true, I just havnt seen it.
As far as Direct Action Day goes, you are right that it was initiated by Jinnah/Muslim League and was thuggery at its worst. However that happened in 1946 before the creation of Pakistan and the mass transfer of population. The violence from Direct Action Day including retaliation had subsided before the violence erupted again in 1947.
Camille, before I sign off, many thanks for your comments. One of the other persons who deserves mention is V. P. Menon. He was responsible as no other, except Vallabbhai Patel, in operationalizing the other major phase of the operations, namely, the integration of the princely states. Mallus rock!
chachaji, as a felow DBD, let’s not have too grand a dream. 6 years back the two countries were close too a nuclear war. Talks about confederation at this stage sounds a bit far-fetched. What most Indians would want/dream with regards Indo-Pak relations
a) no-terrorist attacks from Pakistan b) Pakistan stop being so anti-India in each and every respect, at every international forum. c) lesser border tensions d) Kashmir maintain status-quo without the huge Indian army presence, Pandits back in valley, no terrorist activity, Kashmir being part of India albeit with more autonomy.
Let’s have above four for 30-40 years continuously, then we can talk about a South Asian form of EU. Let me know your reactions
c) lesser border tensions In the spirit of lessening the cross-border tension, may I point out that the book only has India in the title? I love that. I actually kind of liked the cover photo too. And one thing that always struck me – whenever you see Mountbatten, it seems like he is in these tennis shoes. You wanna go, “Dude, I bet you have a sweet backhand.”
At some level, Pakistan was created by the Muslim elite of UP/Delhi and a lot of the leadership was trained at the Aligarh Muslim University. My own grandmother was in leadership position for the Muslim League in UP and talking to old family relatives it seems to me that even those who did not move to Pakistan were still supportive of the idea anyway, atleast in 1947, Maulana Azad’s pleadings nothwithstanding. My own grandparents eventually chose to stay in India even though they were very supportive of the creation of Pakistan.
ACM, Didn’t half (or more than) of the Muslims stayed in independent India. Correct me, I read the numbers long time ago, and so the fuzzy memory. Upthread, somebody, mentioned about large % of west Bengal muslims staying put, and same with South Indian muslims.
You yourself pointed out Maulana Azad and his role. Yes, Aligarh Muslim University played a key role in the formation of Pakistan, and the whole concept. I found some people being revisionist or just too creative (or plainly blissfully ignorant) when they distorted the facts. Pakistan was more a platonic concept by Iqbal than some survival deal, and there is nothing wrong with that. It later in 1946, Muslim League movement became quite violent (and thuggish, as you rightfully pointed out – in Bengal where women in thousand had to choose between conversion and rape in 1946, a year before partition) in its expression. Here are some excerpts from wikipedia:
Notice: They have no mention for northeastern Muslims. Also, notice, they do not call for a separate country in 1930. By 1940, it had changed.
I also think some of the very poor muslims did not had the means to move, and some of the very rich muslims were too much vested in India (property, etc.) to move in 1947.
As of today, there are more muslims in India than in Pakistan in absolute numbers.
I do not whether you caught on above in my comments re: Jinnah. I do not think he was interested in “safe haven”. He had a grand dream, some argue, that was just a bargaining chip. He did complain that the Pakistan he got from Radcliffe was “moth eaten”, and was not pleased.
What happened in 1971 in East Pakistan, makes people think, that two nation theory was a failed experiment. I personally accept it as a fact of life.
What happened in 1971 in East Pakistan, makes people think, that two nation theory was a failed experiment. I personally accept it as a fact of life.
Exactly. The nation theory failed. The Punjabi generals who considered one of them to be worth five “black” Bengalis gave the lie to the idea that “South Asian” Islam could unify all people claiming allegiance to Allah.
Shankar, my pleasure 🙂 Thanks to everyone for being patient with me — I know I can sometimes sound more provactive than I intend, but I do appreciate the patience and respect in the conversation, in general.
chachaji, ok 🙂 I rarely say “the Punjab” unless I’m referring to the whole thing (i.e. pre-Partition Punjab), myself, but like I said, there are no “the”s in Punjabi anyway. Who needs ’em? 😉
Anu, I’m not going to entertain an argument over Operation Bluestar as it is entirely off topic and generally only results in people, self included, taking offense. I find it sad that any decent human being would support the state-sponsored destruction and devastation of hundreds of innocents. An eye for an eye — what kind of justice is that?
I find it alarming that you think that I actively try to avoid acknowledging Hindu Punjabis — I hadn’t realized that my comments seemed so slanted. I just wanted to state, for the record, that this is not the case. That said, I don’t really think anything justifies 1984. I often speak to the Sikh Punjabi experience, but one of the things I love about Punjab, particularly the historic concept of Punjab, is its religious and ethnic diversity.
Here is a wikpedia on Muhammed Ali Jinnah – It is very well written, and interesting read.
Here is the always incisive, often brilliant Ambedkar on the issue of Partition. A thoroughly observed reading of the problem :
No one can say that to have the problems of social reform put aside is a desirable state of things. Wherever there are social evils, the health of the body politic requires that they shall be removed before they become the symbols of suffering and injustice. For it is the social and economic evils which everywhere are the parent of revolution or decay. Whether social reform should precede political reform or political reform should precede social reform may be a matter of controversy. But there can be no two opinions on the question that the sole object of political power is the use to which it can be put in the cause of social and economic reform. The whole struggle for political power would be a barren and bootless effort if it was not justified by the feeling that, because of the want of political power, urgent and crying social evils are eating into the vitals of society and are destroying it. But suppose the Hindus and the Muslims somehow come into possession of political power, what hope is there that they will use it for purposes of social reform? There is hardly any hope in that behalf. So long as the Hindus and the Muslims regard each other as a menace, their attention will be engrossed in preparations for meeting the menace. The exigencies of a common front by Musalmans against Hindus and by Hindus against Musalmans generate—and is bound to generate—a conspiracy of silence over social evils. Neither the Muslims nor the Hindus will attend to them even though the evils may be running sores and requiring immediate attention, for the simple reason that they regard every measure of social reform as bound to create dissension and division and thereby weaken the ranks when they ought to be closed to meet the menace of the other community. It is obvious that so long as one community looks upon the other as a menace, there will be no social progress, and the spirit of conservatism will continue to dominate the thoughts and actions of both.
Unless there is unification of the Muslims who wish to separate from the Hindus, and unless there is liberation of each from the fear of domination by the other, there can be no doubt that this malaise of social stagnation will not be set right.
I read this comment from “chowk”. People who own Wolpert’s book can confirm if this is true..
He is a clever lawyer like Gandhi/Nehru etc.. who used religion to attain his goal. I have read his speech to the Muslim league members after the acceptance of the Cabinet Mission plan. This is the link..
TIME has online archives. It is a treasure trove. I think one can safely assume that it is without any bias on the Hindu / Muslim perspective. It would probably carry the perspective of the “white man’s burden”.. But I found the archives interesting..
Pardon me for the long post..
link
I won’t believe Jinnah is a “secular” man in the “sense” we think of now..
Shankar:
Thanks for posting the comment from Ambedkar. As usual Ambedkar is brilliant in his analysis and is proved right. Without partition and getting rid of troublesome Muslims there would have been no reforms in Hindu personal laws giving equal rights to women, no reservations, no land reforms.. It would be like going back a few centuries to fight the modern version of Hindu Muslim crusades.. If you have any doubts, just read the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946.
That’s one reason why I said partition is the best thing to have happened to India.
Very interesting, PonniyinSelvan. Can you let me know your contact info? Or can you send me an email? Thanks a lot!
The style of the picture is so unmistakably Cartier-Bresson’s. Hey, maybe the guy was being obsequious, though I don’t see the same thing you do. Nehru’s pose is so typically the “hey-how-about-that-hahahahaha” pose that I have a hard time reacting the way you do. It’s a rare picture that totally captures the relationship between the three of them. Talk of depicting a budding romance visually-this is one emotionally brilliant picture.
ACM, Didn’t half (or more than) of the Muslims stayed in independent India. Correct me, I read the numbers long time ago, and so the fuzzy memory.
Yes, the majority stayed behind in India.
Pakistan was more a platonic concept by Iqbal than some survival deal, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Are you referring to the speech by Iqbal in 1930 to the Muslim League at their annual meeting in Allahabad? Some people attribute that speech as the beginning of the Pakistani movement if you will. As I understand that speech did not gain any press or momentum because Jinnah and other non-Congress Muslim leaders were still advocating for seperate reserved seats for Muslims as a means to guarantee Muslim participation. Some historians would argue that the idea of Pakistan was given a more concerete shape for the first time by Choudhry Rahmat Ali at Cambridge in 1933 and it took Jinnah another 7 years to accept the idea in 1940 as you pointed out earlier.
I do not whether you caught on above in my comments re: Jinnah. I do not think he was interested in “safe haven”. He had a grand dream, some argue, that was just a bargaining chip
Kush: I agree with you that the idea of ‘safe haven’ for Muslims as the reason behind the creation of Pakistan is nonsense. In the late 30s and early 40s there were no mass scale riots against Muslims to warrant a ‘safe haven’. I saw earlier in one of your comments that you disagree with Ayesha Jalal in her analysis about Jinnah was bluffing on demands for Pakistan. I tend to agree with Ayesha Jalal or atleast she has moved me in that direction.
What happened in 1971 in East Pakistan, makes people think, that two nation theory was a failed experiment. I personally accept it as a fact of life.
I agree.
Shankar,
I just sent an email..
I don’t know the reason why some people are trying to portray Jinnah as some kind of a “secular hero” and it is the Hindu rightwing of the Congress that forced him to a corner or it is Nehru who because of his greed for power forced him to ask for secession. They are laughable at best..
We could say that some of his speeches are secular and many are not. Depending on the audience I think you’ll hear different voices of Jinnah. It is too bad that they did not have internet and instant communications or youtube at that time.
🙂
Partition may not have been the best thing that happened to India but it was un-avoidable. Even if India and present day Pakistan and present day BDesh would have remained togather on Aug 15 1947, it would not have taken long before someone in west or east or even central region for that matter (could have been Hindu or Muslim), would have started thinking about “independance”. Even today India has to fight the low level centrifugal forces that are born out of a few people’s political ambition.
Ruling such large population (close to 17% population of the world) under one central rule and not have any province with grievances seems naive.
But I would not call partition the best thing that happened to India. It caused too much pain to too many people and some of us know personal accounts of people’s harrowing stories of survival and struggle.
I find it alarming that you think that I actively try to avoid acknowledging Hindu Punjabis — I hadn’t realized that my comments seemed so slanted. I just wanted to state, for the record, that this is not the case. That said, I don’t really think anything justifies 1984. I often speak to the Sikh Punjabi experience, but one of the things I love about Punjab, particularly the historic concept of Punjab, is its religious and ethnic diversity. camallie i am not condoning 1984 all i’am saying just because sikh are minority dose’nt mean they are mistreated in punjab. infact during khalistan movement crime against hindu’s got totally unnoticed just because everybody wanted to sound politically correct by not offending the so called ” Minorities” . The truth on the ground was completely the opposite. You have stand into the shoes of people like me to understand, my family had to leave punjab in face of constant threats by sikh militants.Yes it is easy to say you love multicultural punjab but it is not the same punjab for everybody.
Well the American civil war killed more Americans than any other war that America indulged in. But I guess the Americans think it is well worth it.
Same way, I think partition is well worth it irrespective of the sufferings it brought to millions of people.. You only need to look at the alternative to see the miraculous escape of India from being caught in an eternal civil war.
I don’t know the reason why some people are trying to portray Jinnah as some kind of a “secular hero” and it is the Hindu rightwing of the Congress that forced him to a corner or it is Nehru who because of his greed for power forced him to ask for secession. They are laughable at best..
Ponniyin: Its a little more complicated than what you have stated above. The charge that the Congress Party did not want to share power with Muslim League is not revisionist history. The Congress Party overwhelmingly won the 1937 elections and saw itself as the rightful representative of both Hindus and Muslims. The Muslim League was routed in the election and the Congress Party felt that it had no obligation to share power with the League as the League had won barely anything. The Muslim League at that time was still an elite movement and organizationally weak. I am not faulting Congress for not sharing power but its a fact that the Muslim League was snubbed by Congress.
As far as Jinnah and his secularism is concerned, Jinnah of course had to play the Muslim/Islamist card or his demands for a seperate nation would make no sense. Look at this speeches after Pakistan was created. Once he had no need of playing the Islamist card anymore and in the brief period after the creation of Pakistan and his death, he made it pretty clear that he wanted Pakistan to become a secular state.
Nirad C on Jinnah:
“I must set down at this point that Jinnah is the only man who came out with success and honour from the ignoble end of the British Empire in India. He never made a secret of what he wanted, never prevaricated, never compromised, and yet succeeded in inflicting an unmitigated defeat on both the British Government and the Indian National Congress. He achieved something which not even he could have believed to be within reach in 1946. For this he can be compared to Weizmann who made a similar impossibility possible. But for this very thing he has been pursued with mean malice by British politicians, Hindu politicians, as also by writers of both the sides which had to admit defeat at his hands. It was said by them that all the misfortunes that came on the Indian people with the withdrawal of the British were due to his unreasonable extremism. But what is called his extremism was the minimum demand of the Muslims, and was known to everybody for years. Why did anyone expect the leader of the Muslims not to stand up for it? And if that was unreasonable why did both the British authorities and the Congress comply with it instead of calling his bluff? if the British surrender to him was pussillanimous, the Congress’s was a crime. it had rejected the lesser evil which it saw on Cabinet Mission’s plan to retain the unity of India by giving the Muslims the chance to be dominant in certain regions. In the end it agreed to the greater evil by handing over the very same regions to an independent Musllim State carved out of India. It is the defeat at the hands of Jinnah which has made both the British and Indian writers vent their spleen on him.” [Thy Hand, Great Anarch! India 1921-52, Page 823-824]
Himanshu @167: many thanks for your reactions to my comments. I think what you are asking for is quite reasonable, taken on its own terms. But here’s what I see as the larger problem with not having a more expansive vision:
India and Pakistan are currently pursuing what each sees as their self-interest in the nation-state system. But unfortunately, they are not just any two nation states; their very national philosophies run counter to each other. Pakistan cannot, within the internal logic of its philosophy, stomach a secular state; but neither can India tolerate what follows from recognizing a religious state. So each believes their ‘mutual recognition’ to be hollow – Pakistan believes India is not reconciled to its existence, while India believes Pakistan is committed to its dissolution. Neither is completely right or wrong about this, since the foundational logics are themselves in conflict.
Kashmir is only one symptom and the ‘flashpoint’ for this tussle, but the basic conflict is larger, it may even be called existential. So India and Pakistan, in this way, would be condemned to a cycle of conflict, whether ‘hot’ or ‘low-intensity’. You cannot just call a ‘time-out’ to the conflict, as you seem to be doing. Why should Pakistan ‘let India alone’, if it can make trouble at a low enough cost? That’s like asking, that the US should have left the Soviet Union alone in the Cold War or vice versa. So the answer is it shouldn’t, and indeed, as long as it is a nation-state pursuing it’s self-interest, it won’t. And neither will India. Nuclear weapons have only made sure that nobody will truly prevail, and the conflict will go on.
But this inevitable conflict arises only so as long as India and Pakistan retain their current conceptions of sovereignty. However, there’s a further twist in the problem: for reasons arising from technogical development, transnational migration, globalized capital, transcultural identities, etc etc, the basic concept of the nation-state is itself weakening. So India and Pakistan, if they stick to their traditional national logic, are not only fighting an unwinnable and never-ending conflict, they are also fighting this force of history – the slow dissolution of the nation-state system.
That is why it makes sense to consider a form of confederation instead, where the notion of sovereignty is initially intact, but a number of jurisdictions are shared – and eventually, once the confederation gets going, the old notion of sovereignty is essentially replaced by some kind of South Asian pan-national identity. Now we can’t get to this point immediately, but it makes sense to explore the notion, finesse it, smooth out its rough edges, consider what protections minorities (and majorities) want, etc, etc, beginning now. What better time than today, the 60th anniversary of Independence-Partition to think about this?
As I noted in another thread, India + Pakistan + Bangladesh now have more people than China, and soon India alone will be the largest country in the world. We need this kind of expansive vision also because a narrower vision – our present vision in India – could prove to have too many internal contradictions – the tension beween Union and state and region, and between BIMARU vs the South, etc etc. Also, with the Heads of Government in both Pakistan and India having been born in cities that are now in the other’s countries, this is a good time to think outside the box.
Kashmir can be the early model for a kind of joint sovereignty; eventually that model can be fleshed out into a Confederation that extends to the whole subcontinent. If we don’t move in this direction, I think the future will essentially be a version of the past 60 years – hot and cold wars, high and low intensity conflict, bloodshed, waste.
For the vision to succeed, also, it cannot be that Pakistan dissolves into India, while India stays the same. Rather, both have to transform themselves into something else that is not threatening to the other, and then each dissolve into a third type of entity. But how to do it and how to get there, that remains a challenge.
Al_Chutiya, Camille, you guys both questioned my assertions regarding who was to blame for Partition. I understand your skepticism…this sounds so lame to say but I may not have time to respond to that until MONDAY. That’s because it will be a fairly long post I’ll have to write, giving the historical perspective as I’ve come to see it, with reasoning and as much evidence as I can come up with to make my points. I’m leaving town for a few days and won’t even be checking SM after tomorrow until Monday. So if this thread is still active, I’ll deal with it then. Or, if you guys still care, I can email you personally next week with some comments.
Risible, you also made some points in the Hyderabad Black Face thread, pertaining to the ‘expediency’ and, as you perceive it, the correctness of Punjabi Hindus ditching the Punjabi language…I disagreed with everything you said, and I need to address that too…next week if you’re still interested.
I MIGHT still leave short comments on SM until tomorrow afternoon so don’t hold that against me guys.
As long as you had large components of the Hindu population calling for Muslims to forcibly integrate (refer to Vir Savarkars espousment of the Two Nation theory long before Jinnah) the partition was inevitable. So it’s useless to blame the Muslim “elite” of not wanting to share power. They wouldn’t have been given this power anyways.
And now 60 years later, what’s spilt is spilt. Both countries are established, and well on their way to creating their own futures (obviously India much more succesfully than Pakistan in recent years).
referring to my previous post.. it was not forcibly integrate, rather identifying muslims as a separate nation/identity that would need to conform to the majority ideas
Wikipedia link on Malerkotla – which Amitabh had mentioned was a miracle in 1947
As usual Ambedkar is brilliant in his analysis and is proved right. PonniyinSelvan, I think of Ambedkar as the voice of political intellectualism, a conscientious intellectualism that soared high above the intellectualism of those like Jinnah who were not his intellectual equals either in their maturity of political understanding or depth of sociological intellect.
Same way, I think partition is well worth it irrespective of the sufferings it brought to millions of people.. You only need to look at the alternative to see the miraculous escape of India from being caught in an eternal civil war. Quite right. I think the experiences of the current-day tell us that withdrawal from occupation must nescessarily be a managed one.
[i]Personally, I think what makes Partition hard to analyse objectively is that (in my view) it was mostly the fault of Muslim leaders, and the street/village level violence (at least in the beginning) was the work of Muslim peasantry. Yes, as a reaction, [b]there was equally horrifying violence committed by Hindus and Sikhs…but they didn’t start it.[/b][/i]
As far I remember Hindus have never started any religious violence in India.
ACfD:
Yes, Congress led alliance won the elections last time in India and they did not share power with the BJP. They ran against each other and on competing platforms. It could be said that Congress snubbed BJP. So what’s your point.
Didn’t you read what Jinnah said, I posted the link a few posts back..
Bal Thackeray was getting crap all over because he apparently asked the “Hindus to be aggressive”. I wonder why “secularists” are ganging up against him now and not give him the same leeway. Afterall, when Shiv Sena came to power on tis own it did not indulge in ethnic cleansing the minorities. So Is “Bal Thackeray” a secularist??. According to your logic, it should be ok to play the “Hindu card” to attain power as long as he behaves sensibly after getting into power. Right??
The Zorastrians and the Jews did not go out murdering the Hindus in India. They came in peace and lived peacefully as respected communities. Islam came to India via the sword. Islams entry into India was followed by massacres on an unimaginable scale, sacking of thousands of temples, demolishing of hundreds of thousands of idols of gods and goddess. Yet there is no monument to the biggest holocaust in the history of the world, the one that deals with the massacres of tens of millions of Hindus from the time the first Muslim army invaded India 8th century AD to the victims of Islamic terrorism.
Dipanjan:
While Nirad C’s books are interesting to read, I think he’s an Anglophile bureaucrat who never stopped sucking the Brits even after they left. There were many of his ilk, who switched to sucking Congress leaders after Independence, but he remained steadfast and later settled and died in London, I think.
What he sees as a lesser evil in the Cabinet Mission Plan is what I think is the greatest of all evils. Thanks to Nehru/Patel/Congress Indians escaped years of civil war and strife and partition became an one time event..
Yes, Congress led alliance won the elections last time in India and they did not share power with the BJP. They ran against each other and on competing platforms. It could be said that Congress snubbed BJP. So what’s your point.
Selvan: I think we need to step back and understand the political situation and the power dynamic between the Congress Party and the League in 1937 and onwards. The point is to see whether the snub had anything to do with the creation of Pakistan. Some believe that after the electoral defeat, the demand for Pakistan was a way to get concessions from the Congress Party and the British. The Congress rule during 37-39 led to the League issuing propogandist papers like the ‘Pirpur Report’ which inflamed the Muslim masses and the League gained popularity. To suggest that the 1935 event had nothing to do with the eventual creation of Pakistan (something which you have stated earlier) is simply not correct.
Acfd:
I think all the events starting from the establishment of Muslim league (1906), Minto-Morley reforms of communal electorates etc.etc.. led upto the eventual creation of Pakistan. I re-read the comments I made. What statement of mine do you think as not correct.
I just took offence to the claim that “Jinnah was some sort of a secular hero and it is the ambition of Nehru and the Hindu right wing of the Congress that is to blame” which apparently atleast from Jinnah’s statements is not true.. I won’t bite the bait that Jinnah said all this to garner support from the “Islamists” and what he really had in his mind was a “super duper secular state where Hindus are free to goto temples etc..etc..” If that’s the case I’d ask the “secularists” believe “Bal Thackeray” too.. and then there is a bridge on yard sale this saturday.. 🙂
Amitabh, no worries. If it’s easier to follow up by email, that would be great, too.
Thanks, terranova. This is what I was trying to get at 🙂
Anu, there’s no point in arguing. But, in your own words you said that “Hindu Punjabis WANTED Operation BlueStar” (emphasis mine), and then you went on to say that such action was warranted/merited/justified. If that is not an endorsement of violence, along with your subsequent explanation, then we communicate very differently.
Samir, are you just trolling, or have you not paid attention to any of the religious tension in India over the past 60 years?
Shankar, re: the Indian Constitution. I just wanted to point out that a “free exercise” clause and a “non-discrimination” clause are not entirely the same thing as a non-establishment clause. Also, I think different minority religious groups were also looking for a clause that would protect not only free exercise of religion, but also minority cultures/identities (as opposed to the idea of a monolithic “Indian” identity). I guess kind of an ECOSOC-style protection for cultural expression. I think one of the most difficult parts of the ofmration of an Indian state, post-1947, is that the idea of who is “Indian” was tied up in different nationalist rhetoric that was intrinsically exclusive, particularly along religious lines.
Allow me a guess…um.. the former?
187 terranova
As long as you had large components of the Hindu population calling for Muslims to forcibly integrate (refer to Vir Savarkars espousment of the Two Nation theory long before Jinnah) the partition was inevitable. So it’s useless to blame the Muslim “elite” of not wanting to share power. They wouldn’t have been given this power anyways.
188 terranova
referring to my previous post.. it was not forcibly integrate, rather identifying muslims as a separate nation/identity that would need to conform to the majority ideas
–> How comfortable it is to focus on the fringe elements(Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar, Golwalkar) in the fight for independence as justification for partition ?
What about comparing them to a large section of indian political class that was prepared to accomodate the minority(religious, linguistic, handedness etc.,) ?
Or is the demand for concessions from both sides an anathema to be considered at all ?
This stance sounds very similar to Bharathi exhorting ‘Thani oru manidhanukku unavillaiyenil jagaththinai azhippom'(Destroy the world if one individual is starved of food). Great poetry and hyperbole but irresponsible when it comes to leadership.
Thanks to Amit, Bess and Camille for their responses. I’d be interested in helping to organize/find support for an international video archive, as Camille suggested. Please let me know how I can help.