Indian genius H M Seervai’s “Partition of India: Legend and Reality” should be mandatory reading for all Pakistanis and Indians.

Lets some get some facts straight shall we?

1. Creation of Bangladesh did not negate anything. Read the Lahore Resolution and you will see that the original idea never envisaged one centralised Pakistan. In 1947 Jinnah, Sarat Bose (Netaji’s brother) and Suhrawardy had agreed to an independent united Bangladesh. It was Jawaharlal Nehru who vetoed the idea and insisted on there being ONE Pakistan. How ironic that his daughter lied about “undoing” the Two Nation Theory (which frankly not many Indians or Pakistanis really understand – interpreting it according to their national dogmas) when all Indira undid was Jawaharlal’s handiwork.

2. Jinnah and the Muslim League agreed to the Cabinet Mission Plan. It was Nehru who vetoed it ultimately. Read Azad’s “India Wins Freedom”. It is quite clear that the Muslim League was ready for a confederation even as late as 1946. I am surprised now you want to undo what your Patel Sb. and Nehru Sb. did and talk of confederation. Well now Pakistanis like myself… born and raised

3. The idea of Pakistan envisaged a Muslim majority version of India. It did not envisage an exchange of populations. It was a reconstitution of centers around existing constituent units.
The two nation theory was not as much as Muslims could not live with Hindus but that Muslims being a permanent minority could not be dominated by a permanent majority, especially when the permanent minority had majorities in congruent units. This fit the in vogue definition of a nation. The solution lay in an India with a confederal loose centre consisting of Hindustan and Pakistan sub-federations. This again was vetoed not by Muslim League but Congress.

4. There is some confusion about the order of events. While Muslim League was always strong in minority provinces.. Pakistan idea had taken root in the Muslim majority provinces way before League took it up. In 1937 … Muslim League was a party of Muslim urban classes in United Provinces. It did not have a following in Pakistan regions. Muslim League won the Muslims seats in UP and wanted a coalition government with the Congress. Congress turned the League down… not because of anything else but because Congress wanted League MPs to merge themselves in the Congress (Read Durga Das’ “From Curzon to Nehru” on this issue). Muslim League only took up the Pakistan idea after realising that without winning the Muslim Majority areas, it did not have sufficient clout. Pakistan – thanks to Rahmat Ali and Iqbal’s efforts- was already a popular slogan in Punjab and Sindh. Muslims of Sindh had passed a resolution as early as 1938. It must also be remembered that Lal Lajpat Rai had suggested a separate homeland of this kind in the 1920s.

5. Still an amicable partition could have been achieved had three things not occured:

a. Congress’ insistence on the partition of Bengal and Punjab. Look Muslim League had won 87% of the Muslim vote in 1946 on the basis of reconstitution of existing units around a new center. Muslim League’s articulation of the Two nation theory recognised ethnic divisions… it rejected the one unitary Indian identity not the ethnic identities. I quote Mahomed Ali Jinnah here:

‘Muslim League cannot agree to the partition of Bengal and the Punjab. It cannot be justified historically, economically, geographically, politically or morally. These provinces have built up their respective lives for nearly a century’

(M.A. Jinnah, the President of the Muslim League, Mid May 1947, in a letter to Lord Mountbatten)

So you see… Muslim League’s two nation theory was very different from the spin both the high priests of Indian nationalism and Pakistani nationalism have given it to suit their own petty agendas. Congress on the other hand used its own version of two nation theory (while protesting it did not agree with it) cynically to divide Punjab and Bengal.

b. Even after division of Bengal and Punjab, had Mountbatten not played power politics on behalf of Mr. Nehru… and not given Muslim districts of Gurdaspur/Ferozpur to India at the last minute leaving the masses bewildered… most of the violence could have been stopped.

c. Had Mountbatten allowed the boundary force to take charge as agreed, things could still have been better. But so upset was India’s first governor general at Jinnah… because Jinnah did not let him become the first GG of Pakistan simultaneously… that Mountbatten willingly allowed “disturbances” so that Pakistan would be choked at inception.

6. Pakistan benefitted most of all the local and indigenous Muslims of this region- like myself.
The situation is stark. Forget that Muslim community as a whole lagged behind rest of India. This region that is now Pakistan … Punjab, NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan was industrially extremely backward in 1947. Most Muslims of this region were either caught up in their tribes or were soldiers or were farmers. The rigors of having a new state has created a new and confident bourgeoisie. This was recognised by William Dalrymple in one of his articles. Pakistan for those who can look beyond the biases and the propaganda and who visit it is a remarkably modern country- believe it or not. I quote Mr. Dalrymple:

‘On the ground, of course, the reality is different and first-time visitors to Pakistan are almost always surprised by the country’s visible prosperity. There is far less poverty on show in Pakistan than in India, fewer beggars, and much less desperation. In many ways the infrastructure of Pakistan is much more advanced: there are better roads and airports, and more reliable electricity. Middle-class Pakistani houses are often bigger and better appointed than their equivalents in India.

Moreover, the Pakistani economy is undergoing a construction and consumer boom similar to India’s, with growth rates of 7%, and what is currently the fastest-rising stock market in Asia. You can see the effects everywhere: in new shopping centres and restaurant complexes, in the hoardings for the latest laptops and iPods, in the cranes and building sites, in the endless stores selling mobile phones: in 2003 the country had fewer than three million cellphone users; today there are almost 50 million.

Mohsin Hamid, author of the Booker long-listed novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, wrote about this change after a recent visit: having lived abroad as a banker in New York and London, he returned home to find the country unrecognisable. He was particularly struck by “the incredible new world of media that had sprung up, a world of music videos, fashion programmes, independent news networks, cross-dressing talkshow hosts, religious debates, and stock-market analysis”.

I knew, of course, that the government of Pervez Musharraf had opened the media to private operators. But I had not until then realised how profoundly things had changed. Not just television, but private radio stations and newspapers have also flourished in Pakistan over the past few years. The result is an unprecedented openness. Young people are speaking and dressing differently. Views both critical and supportive of the government are voiced with breathtaking frankness in an atmosphere remarkably lacking in censorship. Public space, the common area for culture and expression that had been so circumscribed in my childhood, has now been vastly expanded. The Vagina Monologues was recently performed on stage to standing ovations.

Little of this is reported in the western press, which prefers its sterotypes simple: India-successful; Pakistan-failure.

7. Partition is the past and the past is another country. Pakistan exists. Live with it. No Pakistani worth his salt would ever want to sacrifice his independence and sovereignty to India. Altaf Hussain is hardly someone who can be trusted to form an objective opinion. He is a mobster who destroyed Karachi – albeit someone who knows how to play to the gallery. I strongly suggest we do not put too much faith Altaf Hussains and Fazlurrahmans… and I hope Indians will give up their pipe dreams about Pakistan. We want peace and friendship but only if you recognise that we have the inalienable right to exist as a nation state.

“When the Buying Stops, the Killing Can Too.”

I think it is equally applicable to communalism.

I suppose that if people stop ‘buying into’ the ‘ideologies’ preached by Mr. Advani and his ilk, which includes the extreme right-wing ‘leaders’ among Muslims, there can be lasting peace, friendship, economic development and prosperity in the sub-continent.

I dream of a day when the relations between India and Pakistan shall be akin to those among the member-states of the European Union, at present, where trade and movement of people between the two neighbours will be unrestricted. I hope it will be realised within my lifetime!

Kinkminos: thanks for the lovely lines – it is wonderful to get a comment in verse!

enmity
forever more
jeevay puristan
jai hindutvastan

—–

btw, wouldn’t “refugees from the Pakistani part of Punjab” be hindus/sikhs who’d hijrofied
during or after taqseem?

-

That such a large population of Muslims remains in India points to the fact that Partition only separated Muslims, who used to identify with a common identity. So I think it’s quite natural for Pakistan to be mentioned in discussions about Indian Muslims, for the bearing of creation of Pakistan on the circumstances of Indian Muslims cannot be denied. Guha rightly points to deeper failures of partition. “It had been meant to solve, once and for all, the Hindu-Muslim question. But in both countries, the two communities have only grown further apart.”

However, his prediction of a fifth war in the current times of goodwill and friendliness between the two neighbours seems out of place.