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Fables of Nationalism
Published here: The recent hullabaloo over the DelhiCommonwealth Games has been followed with much interest in Pakistan. Many have gloated over the inability of the creaky Indian state machinery to deliver in time and address the issues of quality that became apparent with the collapse of an overhead bridge. South Asia now lives in the new information age where despite the distortions created by the mainstream media, it is difficult to hide state failures
Each story of corruption in Delhi has been greeted with a strange familiarity here. Essentially, all narratives of shining and marching India aside, the two nations remain hostage to a postcolonial state and embedded corruption. To cite Pankaj Mishra who wrote a rather scathing piece on the Games’ saga (New York Times, Oct 2, 2010):
“Two weeks ago, a huge footbridge connected to the main stadium collapsed. The federation that runs the games has called the athletes’ housing “uninhabitable.” The organizers have had to hire an army of vicious langur monkeys to keep wild animals from infesting the venues. Pictures of crumbling arenas and filthy toilets are circulating more widely than the beautiful landscapes of the government’s “Incredible India” tourism campaign.”
These issues of self-image and imagined greatness are shared woes of new nation states – India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – as they all suffer from this grandiose complex, of military and economic might over others. This is what makes such narratives so troublesome for they distort the essentials of freedom, Independence and the two Partitions of 1947 and 1971 which were all meant to lead to a poverty free and better environment for the ‘masses’.
Sixty three years later, the nation states are mired in issues of identity, violence, control and elite-extortion creating unequal societies that Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah and Bose would have shunned. India, admittedly a functional democracy has the advantage of citizen participation in governance. However, the corporate media’s celebration of 30 individuals who own more than 31% of national wealth is disturbing to say the least. Kashmir inhabited by 4 million people is guarded by 750,000 troops. Is this what a nation-state meant to achieve?
Pakistan on the other hand is battling with itself. Its extremists have rocked the country and have left no urban centre and shrine safe. Inequality is not perhaps as extreme but poverty and crises of governance remain severe. Its economic growth rate has dipped amid the war on terror and politicalinstability. A nation-state that defines itself as ‘not-Indian’ and not unlike its nemesis holds nuclear weapons as a proof of its muscle and identity.
Bangladesh has just reverted to democratic governance after two years of a sham-technocratic model. Its dynastic, divisive politics remains a potent danger to the future of the process. The country’s inequality and poverty are grave challenges and it too wants to be a mighty nation separate from India and Pakistan. Yet, the Bengalis on the Western side share more with them than their original compatriots the Punjabis, Pathans and the Balochis. And, India still has almost the same number of Muslims as Pakistan and Bangladesh combined.
Let’s not even talk about the bloody ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka which dehumanized so many followers of Buddha and Hindu deities. Twenty years of conflict has temporarily ended but analysts say that the peace may not be as durable as imagined now.
What a royal mess and recipes of social disasters our elites carved out in the twentieth century. In this game of power, domination and nationalist hegemonic discourse the millions and now nearly 1.5 billion are disenfranchised and marginal to the construction of histories and setting the nationalist agendas. The colonial institutions of Army, steel frame bureaucracy and engineered classes remain dominant. Colonial clubs with restricted memberships continue to serve ‘nimbu paani’, Mulligatawny soup and tend their golf courses while slum dwellers don’t have access to a bucket of water. India Shining, Pakistan Rising and globalised Bangladesh are hollow slogans crafted by those who have benefitted the most – the rapacious elites and middle class opportunists who want to join the ranks of post-colonial masters. English language is the gateway to success and looking down on native cultures has acquired a new intense ferocity, which would make Lord Macaulay most content in his grave.
Globalization has fanned the iniquitous contours of South Asian societies. High levels of consumption (gadgets, credit cards, McDonalds etc.) and getting rich are new illusions of success and having arrived in the new age. At the same time, there are millions of younger people who are without skills, jobs and prospects in this skewed, misgoverned and resource-deficient South Asia.
Nation-state is a borrowed, passé framework, which our elite leaders had imbibed in the early twentieth century. Europe after massive wars and death of millions has moved on. European Union formula is the way the continent has devised an arrangement for coexistence and economic and social stability. It is not a perfect model but it is undergoing a lived adjustment. The world has moved on and we are busy blaming our neighbours for our internal fissures and fault lines. Bangladesh for a decade had played up the water issue. India holds Pakistan responsible for every terrorist act that happens within its territory overlooking how the state agencies are dysfunctional and in need of dire reform. Pakistan blames the entire world especially India for everything that goes wrong. RAW and ISI are the unpleasant manifestations of constructed nationalism.
India was barely a nation in a modern sense. Even Nehru’s romantic and most erudite ‘discovery’ did not make it into a nation state with Raj institutions. South Asia can only survive as a subcontinent that is interlinked yet gives autonomy to local cultures, peoples, ethnicities and geographical zones. It can definitely not continue for long the way it is being governed and turned into a nuclear region.
As Lenin had asked a century ago- so what is to be done? There is no alternative to people of these countries to exert pressure on their states to mend their ways and reimagine themselves as people-friendly and peaceful entities. This will not happen overnight nor in the face of a powerful corporate media that sells war, jingoism and paranoia. Nor would it happen when the arms industry is globally powerful and locally entrenched.
This calls for investing in alternative media, social movements and reshaping the political process that is disengaged from the war machine.Never has there been a more critical need for re-engineering SAARC and delinking it from the bilateral, child-like mess of Indo-Pak animosities. It has to be restructured and relieved from the clutches of conservative, status quoist bureaucracy that sets the agenda and drives it like a tamed mule.
We the disempowered people of South Asia know that the odds are great and the ever-present danger of nuclear conflagration is serious. But we will not give up. Our political parties, civil society and alternative media have a historical responsibility on their shoulder. Their lack of focus over the past six decades has led us to this impasse. Until we don’t re-imagine ourselves how will the subcontinent recast itself?
The farmer who is on the verge of suicide in India or the peasant who is about to join the Taliban in Pakistan or the boatman in coastal Bangladesh whose livelihood is a prey of changing climate care little about how Commonwealth games will launch India as a world power. Or whether Pakistan’s new test of a nuclear missile will give it a geostrategic edge? Their concerns are ours and they will be the natural allies in this process of shunning fables of nationalism. Prejudice, bigotry and xenophobia are rooted in this mess of our histories and fractured present.
Let us redo the broken pieces of our collective mirror and try to make sense of our splintered selves and identities.
Raza Rumi is a writer and policy adviser based in Lahore, Pakistan.
Filed under: Uncategorized · Tags: India, nation, Pakistan, state
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EDITED
There is nothing new come to light that Indians did not know about. We have known, at least those of us who have dealt with them, that politicians, bureaucrats, judges and journalists are waist deep at least, in the muck. There are some honest judges and civil servants around, and there may be some honest journalists, I know one, and there is supposed to be one honest politician at least, the Prime Minister, and perhaps a couple of others, including the Defence Minister. The hysteria you see is because journalists and judges got caught out and they are being extra vocal. No one else is much surprised.
Pankaj Mishra should be discounted. He is a kind of VS Naipaul in reverse. The false sympathy, the studiously exaggerated sentiment, shamelessly soliciting patronage from whoever happens to dictate the current season’s human responses appropriate for India in the New York Review of Books.
Also, RR should check his figures of Indian troops in Kashmir, as well as its population and the role of the troops.
India’s army is around 1.2 million. J&K’s population is around 12 million. India has about a quarter of its army in J&K, mainly comprising the Northern Command. This command fights defend India against China and Pakistan from Kashmir through three fighting corps located in Jammu Srinagar and Leh. These fighting troops are not used to hold down 4 million people.
On the other hand since Pakistan began sending in those nasty fellows India has augmented its strength by both army and paramilitaries that just sit on the ground most of the time denying free movement to the nasties. The figures are not revealed officially but in my estimate they do not exceed 100,000. Most of them are just sitting around at bridges and other static guard duties. In other words if those jehadis went away Indian troop deployment would decrease by about 100k in J&K, not just Kashmir. You heard wikileak story about Indian 3rd degree in J&K. Is that news?
India is not in ferment because of the stories of corruption. People are pleased that the crooks are being exposed. They will have to be more careful in making their money in future, including judges and journalists. No one expects corruption to stop.
Indians don’t feel disempowered in their nationalism. They all want to get their hands on the stuff that seems to go only the some echelons of the four groups. Everybody would be happier if the moolah was spread around.
There is plenty of malicious enjoyment of the misfortunes of those in power that not even the disaster in South Africa can dispel.
The CW games was not the disaster that Mishra wrote. The village was used by the labourers who built it for their toilet, very democratic one would think, and after if was cleaned up it was better than what Britain or Australia offers CW athletes.
Now that you have listed the problems, extend this article to write solutions, and evaluate the performance…
Btw native culture flourishes in india…
You have got many things wrong on india…
You could have bashed india without mentioning Pakistan. It’s ok once in a while. We will continue to think of you highly regardless…
Raza Bhai,
I totally agree. How eloquently you have presented the real truth. No doubts in my mind that forefathers of all these nations did not imagine any of this nonsense.
It is high time for a real SAARC and a South Asian Union, so to speak. Time to embrace and move on. That’s all. Differences will always be there, but co exist we must, as we have no other choice.
@ Raza Rumi
Pakistan’s sense of nationalism is based on its religion and everything else flows from it and religion is the glue, which binds the Pakistani identity.
The nation-states of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have adopted the colonial heiritage of the British, which is why these states are more concerned with the issues of effective political administraton rather than issues of goverance.
ciao
A very good article.
“South Asia can only survive as a subcontinent that is interlinked yet gives autonomy to local cultures, peoples, ethnicities and geographical zones.”
India’s main problem is corruption. The others will sort themselves out, but greed and corruption will not, because with growth they tend to follow an upward trajectory.
Most corrupt Indian politicians are the so-called grassroot ones. They are not the brahministic elite, the favorite whipping boy of Pankaj Misra’s ilk. Most corrupt Indian politicians are also regional satraps. How will more regionalism solve this problem? In the Indian context, what does it mean to give more autonomy to local cultures and peoples, more than what they already have? May be a champion of local autonomy (who also knows India) can clarify this.
The Indian champions of more autonomy to local cultures and ethnicities, will they support the Khap Panchayat’s demands for their own traditional marriage rules? Or the tribal idea of justice by which a girl from rural West Bengal was forced to walk nude for 8 KM? (This girl, who has been recommended for bravery award from the Govt. of India, now fears social and economic boycott from her own community.)
If not, the question is why not; these are also age-old cultures and rules embraced voluntarily by the local people.
Breathtakingly negative take from a person who purports to want to better our lot. Using Mishra’s opinion to forward a Hobbesian view of the subcontinent. And EU to illustrate the transitionary nature of the nation-state. Well, I’d best real money that the EU will collapse under it’s contradictions – it’s more than fraying already.
South Asia can only survive as a subcontinent that is interlinked yet gives autonomy to local cultures, peoples, ethnicities and geographical zones. It can definitely not continue for long the way it is being governed and turned into a nuclear region.
@Raza Rumi: interesting insight into your thought process. This is a neo-Iqbal-ian view. The original view was bad enough. If it weren’t for strongmen like Jinnah, Nehru, and especially Vallabh Patel, the subcontinent would have splintered beyond recognition. Anarchy would be the order of the day. The only possible positive outcome is there would be no nuclear weapons: we’d be too busy clubbing each other back into the Stone Age to care. We’d be Africa-East. While I am extremely distrustful of government – consider it a necessary evil – I shudder to think of the federalist (anarchist really) structure you imagine without a decent social contract in place.
In 10 years, India will have halved the sub-Saharan number, Bangladesh will have made many more decent strides in human development, and Sri Lanka will have (hopefully) enfranchised it’s Tamil population. In the same 10 years, the EU will have had at least 1 more disaster like Greece and Ireland. The already-aging EU population (median age nearing 40) will look positively geriatric. A massive influx from North Africa and Eastern Europe will accelerate a rightward political shift. And the underlying fascist nature of European states will be horribly manifest.
Raza, is there an alternative to the nation-state? It is lack of nationalism that resulted in the Indian subcontinent being easily taken over by foreigners, whether it’s invaders like Ghori or the East India Company. If people at the grassroots were aware of their identity as part of a nation, Islamic or British invaders would not have been able to colonize, rule and impoverish us so easily, don’t you think?
Ahem…
Yet another feeble attempt to club India and Pakistan together and make it sound like they are in the same boat..of course there will be pankaj mishra…in case you could’nt find A ROy to scream aagainst the most evil, vile, fascist state in the world called India.
And then the old Jinnahesque fantasy ( delusion actually) about autonomy, sub culture, etc.. This may be applicable to “Pakistan”, in India separatism has faded except in Kashmir valley.
Raza Rumi has painted the various issues with a very broad brush. The problems of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are not the same. India is in a totally different boat entirely from the other two.
India has no identity crisis and has incorporate thousands of subcultures very well with its inclusive form of democracy. Its problems are corruption and extremely lopsided development and wealth concentration.
Pakistan on the order borders on anarchy and is close to becoming a failed state with nuclear weapons. And, perhaps even a religious theocracy like Iran.
The problems are different. So, different that a unified narrative like this does no justice at all.
Ahmed
Problems exist in all countries. But Pakistani writers love to exaggerate India’s problems .And hide Pakistani economic failures
At the same time Pakistani writers paint a picture which suggests that India and Pakistan are “nearly” the same when it comes to economy
The biggest problem is that Pakistanis dont mind their own problems and weaknesses but strongly resent India’s successes
One cannot help reading Raza Rumi’s excellent essay on the need for post-national thinking without agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously. Yes, this sounds closer to what is practical in the long run; no, we are in no shape to take it up immediately. The states we have at the moment still have to deliver much before giving up their ghosts and giving the Common Man a more forgiving and more supportive environment.
One of the lessons of Indian history is that no single state on the sub-continent has lasted longer than 600 years. This is not a reference to dynasty, or to loosely-strung collection of culturally, ethnically or linguistically distinct provinces grouped as an empire, but to a single state managed, effectively, as a unit. If we are to take this as a benchmark, India as a nation has run through 1/10 of its projected duration; Pakistan an uncertain figure higher or lower according to the inclinations and nationality of the reader. The process of change has begun, the immediate successor states have started unwinding, but it is far from time to start thinking post-national.
It is certain that on the sub-continent, what we needed was neither the Two Nation Theory, which looks so emaciated and debilitated today, nor the religion-soaked faux secular single nation visualised by our other set of national figures leading us to independence, but what Raza has just cautiously advocated, a Multi-nation Theory, many identities living without mutual oppression and terror in a broad and loose political union. This is just right for us, but it is not a Holy Grail on which we can spend a lifetime, not yet; other forces need to play themselves out, without which process being necessarily suffered, we will only go around in circles.
The trick is to get from a tightly-centralised colony under European rule to the Utopia of an EU type of Union without killing ourselves off completely in the process. We are nowhere near that yet. Any flag that is put up today as a symbol of a common union of several parts of the sub-continent is likely to glow in the dark.
Unfortunately, corruption and a desultory pace of work, the grinding down to gradual halt of our educational and health care systems, the slow drift to the point of no return of nation-wide services such as the railways and the telephone services – all these represent the youthful excesses of a political system trying out its capabilities. We are still learning what a minister should do, where he or she may exceed the power s granted, where there is reason to curb such powers to merely defining and promulgating policy; at the same time, the steel frame of the bureaucracy must desperately urgently realise that it is the servant of the people, not the master.
At the highest level, above states, until the states in question agree on a common vision of what they seek to deliver as states, or as post-national entities, we will only see bloody internecine battles, between followers respectively of Pakistan’s desiccated exclusivist vision, India’s candyfloss inclusivist vision and Bangladesh’ paranoid suspicions. We will only see mayhem in tightly confined spaces if we unite even in a loose union.
Between states, until tensions between today’s nation states are sorted out, and their mutually belligerent postures corrected, simply locking up these corrupt, violent and unresponsive political systems within one common political fence will only transfer internationalised disputes right into the body politic, as a series of regional disputes. There is too much emotional capital locked up in disputes over unknown creeks, unused stretches of river and rocky patches of land of no conceivable use to be unlocked and redeployed without major effort.
Finally, within states, there are enough problems in present-day Pakistan or present-day India to need further major efforts to resolve. Considering that some of these are sectarian or broadly religious in nature, considering that others are linked to the frustrations of minorities seeking to improve their lots in life and held back by fiercely-fought rearguard actions, considering the number of territorial, ethnic and tribal grievances abounding, we cannot hope to move forward without major successes in resolving these complications.
All in all, Raza Rumi’s recommendations are very worthwhile objectives to seek, but the roads to those are difficult ones. Just at the moment, we need to concentrate on traversing these roads; we need, for instance, to look away from a sterile posture of glaring fiercely at each other’s most hated patterns of behaviour to correcting our own problems. We need to stop allowing our individual securities to be taken up and magnified at national level to maintain bloated and irresponsible military formations which are never going to fight. And finally, we need to be convinced, and we need to convince each other of the need to come together, if only to immediately form looser unions in place of today’s three tightly-held together intellectually-failed states.
It’s good to see excellent long-winded solutions in search of a problem.
Not to mention crisp little one-liners indicating that the writer has nothing to say.
Pankaj Mishra hopped on the “Indian government committed the Chattisinghpora massacre when President Clinton visited” bandwagon.
Lately, we are told by David Headley/Daood Gilani that that was Lashkar-e-Taiba indeed.
I searched, but haven’t found Pankaj Mishra making a retraction.
Sixty years into independence yet three competing concepts continue to haunt us. First there is the mythical concept of pan-Islamism, the pet project of Islamists and pseudo-Islamists alike. Islamists at least are sincere and consider it a worthwhile and achievable goal unlike the fake variety that uses it only to advance its immediate and local political agenda.
Then the concept of Two-Nationism. Never mind that the concept was dead at arrival as Muslim Congressites rejected it and instead chose to side with the Indian Nationalists. At the same time the creation of Pakistan killed ‘Sub-continental Nation’ if there ever was one. But that did not stop the two successor states from claiming victory. Pakistan claimed victory even when one-third of the ‘Muslim Nation’ was left to rot in India. And Indian Nationalists claimed victory even when majority of the Muslims left the ‘Indian Nation’. But the process does not stop there. The next blow to the trumped up concepts of Two-Nationism and One-Nationism came when Bengali Muslims left the Nation of Pakistan and to this date Kashmiri Muslims refuse to become ‘Indian’.
Now in the post-independence post-colonial era, to complete the circle, we hear about the third concept of, if I may coin the term, ‘Sub-continentism’. Under this concept, we are told that the nation-states of Pakistan, India and, Bangladesh are “borrowed, passé framework – a royal mess and recipes of social disasters our elites carved out in the twentieth century”. We are now being told that “South Asia can only survive as a Sub-continent that is interlinked yet gives autonomy to local cultures, peoples, ethnicities and geographical zones.” A European Union model is being touted as the most useful model for us. If that is so then should the Sub-continent not be first further divided into “culture, peoples, ethnicity and, geography based” Europe-like states before it could be brought together into a Europe-like Union? Europe is relatively at peace with itself because there every ethnic group has its own country, its own state. Unlike the Sub-continent there are no One-Nationism or Two-Nationism claims to Europe. SAARC is not functional because the one larger-economy state is bigger than all the next smaller-economy states combined. SAARC as organised is doomed to fail. There is no Sub-continental Utopia.
Considering the heydays of the 1970s, when Pakistanis used to find any comparison with their Indian neighbours condescending, this effort to justify the quagmire of Pakistan by finding instances of corruption and moral vaccum in India and Bangladesh is baffling yet (for me strangely) satiating.
To start with, Pakistan seceded from India on the course to be the perfect and pure Islamic nation away from the morally corrupt, castist, psuedo-secular and a muddled coalscense of ineptitude (“not even a country” ref: Bhutto, 1965) that was India.
And on the other hand, a “swarthy, illiterate, overpopulous, traitoruos Bangladesh was discarded by Pakistan in 1971.
So the comparison is a total non-starter since via the Pakistani logic, India and Bangladesh were anyway a circus of the impure while Pakistan was coversely the epitome of morality and puritanism. However, in light of the realities, it is neither disappointing nor surprising that Pakistan needs to find a parrallel in India and Bangladesh to justify their plight today.
However, while attempts are made to brush all these nations on the same canvas in Pakistan, what needs to be understood is that the malice in India and Bangladesh (now less since the election of Awami league) is more individual as compared to Institutional in Pakistan. So the current instances of (what Indians think of rightly as rampant) corruption in India and Bangladesh, are simple summers of a maturing democracy and steps to increased individual accountability.
It is a long journey to arrive and awaken in the land “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high…..”
no-communal:
You have bought into the Delhi discourse.
“Most corrupt Indian politicians are the so-called grassroot ones. They are not the brahministic elite, the favorite whipping boy of Pankaj Misra’s ilk. Most corrupt Indian politicians are also regional satraps. How will more regionalism solve this problem? In the Indian context, what does it mean to give more autonomy to local cultures and peoples, more than what they already have? May be a champion of local autonomy (who also knows India) can clarify this ”
As one who has seen the whole business from quite close please permit me to it is precisely because the top levels were infected that the disease travelled down.
Under the British corruption was confined to the lower echelons, true enough, the patwari, tehsildar, thanedar etc-the functionaries with whom Indians had to deal. The higher civil services were almost entirely clean.
They got their infection from their masters the politicians. The very earliest ones were the union ministers. In 1969 the most honest of civil servants, E N Mangat Rai was made to quit because he would not give false evidence against the Petroleum Secretary Naik as Mrs Gandhi wanted. An additional complication must have been that Mangat Rai was the partner of Nayantara Sahgal, Mrs Vijaylakshmi’s Pandit’s niece. Naik was being troubled because he had stood up to HD Malviyya in some deal that he was doing in oil trading.
Nehru defended Kairon to the last, and Ghulam Mohammad Bakshi, but he was not above nepotism himself, and winked at corruption. It was Nehru who got the IDBI to give crores in loans to Dharma Teja who became a shipping magnate and later defaulted. Nehru appointed his sister Ambassador to the UN. And all the Kashmiri Pandits in his vicinity prospered.
Pandit Pant made a killing as CM UP but became Home Minister of India later. In the 1970s it was open house on corruption in Delhi. Do you remember LN Mishra who Mrs. G defended to his death?
The regional satraps owe their position to making their contributions to Delhi regularly. I won’t take names; it isn’t necessary.
On autonomy and centralization there is a lot that should be said, but I won’t because it is not the place here. Suffice to say that we are all centralized now.
” South Asia can only survive as a subcontinent that is interlinked yet gives autonomy to local cultures, peoples, ethnicities and geographical zones. It can definitely not continue for long the way it is being governed and turned into a nuclear region.”
“a Multi-nation Theory, many identities living without mutual oppression and terror in a broad and loose political union. ”
There we go again. Fables I say. From my experience, nationalism has grown more in the recent years.
NC,
Corruption has infected everyone not just regional satraps.
PMA,
“even when one-third of the ‘Muslim Nation’ was left to rot in India. ”
instead of being bombed to smithereens in the land of Pure?
Hayyer, BM
I agree that corruption is everywhere. I was, however, wondering how “more autonomy to local cultures”, which seems to be the panacea, will solve this problem. Corruption is the biggest hurdle to India’s prosperity. Like everybody else, I have also seen it first hand. Our local ration shop owner regularly sold his goods in the black market. In just a few years, he built a two story house just on this “income” itself. Because he was protected by the local political goons, I do not see how local culture will solve such grassroot corruption.
It seems “more autonomy to local cultures and peoples” is the proverbial solution looking for a suitable problem in the Indian context. Being a long time resident of West Bengal, who doesn’t know Hindi well enough and who never had to read the centrally prescribed textbooks, I personally think there’s sufficient autonomy to local cultures and peoples.
Autonomy is no cure for corruption but it can be argued that centralization encourages it.
Centralization is on the increase as the months and years go by. Just look at Jairam Ramesh. He now wants all housing projects first approved by him. Remember Housing is not a central subject under our constitution. First Delhi set up a Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and then it set up an environment ministry. Between them the urban sector is now a free range for the centre.
Hayyer Sb,
Yes, I agree with you on that.
Raza : Honest attempt to advocate decentralization. Will it help though?? Decentralization will break the subcontinent into a thousand pieces which we at micro levels do not want or need.
Patel and Nehru worked around the centralization concept and Nehru in particular went for Public Sector Undertakings big time to bring the sense of nationalism at micro levels. Imagine during 1950′s a Bhilai or a Durgapur had people from all across India settling in and contributing for nation building….how else could integration be achieved in true sense??
SAARC can never function as equivalent to ASEAN not because a ‘Large’ country is ganging up against a host of smaller countries but due to 2 neighbors who can never agree on anything for perpetuity due to deep fissures that exist at various levels. Assuming even if Kashmir is handed over to Pakistan without a murmur, that nation will still find multiple reasons to create troubles all across India. It is a state policy which cannot be deviated !!
Anil Dhar on Kashmir writes ( Times Crest 25 Dec 2010) how Kashmir that he knew and was part of the secular culture has changed over years. Women are behind veils, Men almost all of them have beards and skull caps…Anantnag is called Islamabad today…People over the last 20 years have started going back to caves instead of moving forward…This is what ‘fight without a cause’ does to the people…be it Kashmir/ or Afghanistan the situation is the same. How does stone pelting, renaming Anantnag as Islamabad going to create a healthy atmosphere when all you have done ( kashmiri muslims) is to totally alienate Kashmiri Pandits (Jo bhee bacha kucha) , Dogras and Sikhs
Any nation which doesnot encourage commerce / education and instead just depends on theology, terror propaganda and ofcourse the unavoidable social phenomenon called corruption is…doomed to fail
Atleast India will not be in that list since irrespective of challenges, business, modern education to masses flourish and there is hope!
Raza has written a well argued article and I believe he is right in that this is the only way forward out of the current mess that our combined (sometimes even misplaced) sense of nationalism has landed us into. That several critics have expressed differences of opinion regarding specific points does not diminish the main thrust of the article which I may summarize in the following points:
1. Nation-state is a borrowed, passé framework, which our elite leaders had imbibed in the early twentieth century.
2. European Union formula replaced a previously war torn region with coexistence and economic and social stability and it can and must be replicated in the long run.
3. That the people of our countries must exert pressure on their states to reimagine themselves as people-friendly and peaceful entities.
4. This will not happen overnight but over time by investing in alternative media, social movements and reshaping the political process that is disengaged from the war machine.
5. That it is up to us the disempowered people of South Asia to use every means to influence our societies to reach those goals.
PMA Sahib and Vajra have written two excellent follow up posts that deserve a special mention. PMA Sahib very crisply and appropriately summed up the confusion and the contradictions that collectively influenced our people as we emerged from colonial rule.
I only have a minor comment on his post that in his stated fear for the smaller economies in SAARC of one economy in it being far larger than all others is not unlike the fear of our founding generation that felt similarly in terms of political space (fear of a political domination of the minorities by a ‘majority’). I believe it is similarly unfounded and hopefully this time around, given a proper political will, farsightedness and of course the luxury of time to sort out these issues in a more unhurried fashion, these issues can be addressed satisfactorily for the smaller economies. An example is the NAFTA in our part of the world. Both Mexico and Canada are but a fraction of the US economy in size yet the NAFTA has been beneficial to both without overwhelming them culturally; however your point is well taken, unless the fears of the smaller countries are addressed, such an organization is a non-starter; hence the need to build a consensus; over time.
Vajra too makes valid points why such a union\trade block is unlikely to happen in the near future because we have larger issues to be solved at home first.
Corruption, healthcare education is all valid issues to be tackled first. Yet these are the exactly reasons why we have to first wean off our media, our politicians, our thought leaders, in effect our collective selves from the mindless jingoism and knee jerk actions and reactions to events\statements from across the border as RR has suggested.
It is not easy, it is a generational task.
The generation before ours not only delivered to us our political freedom, and gave us a half way decent nation in the form of an integrated political unit, a comprehensive constitution and democratic institutions; they also repeatedly hammered into our collective psyche that a secular democracy is in our best interest.
Similarly our generation has to work hard to provide the next step; economic freedom, and its associated paraphernalia, universal healthcare, education, and above all good governance.
To reach that goal, it is important that while we do not lower our guard against non state actors and such, we stop competing with each other and focus more on development of our human capital.
Perhaps then the next generation will find our nationalistic impulses dilute enough to let the entire issue of ‘Nationalism’ (one two or many) become as irrelevant as it is for the Europeans today.
PS: Both NC and Hayyer make valid points but since federalism debate (more vs. less) is a separate debate in itself, I limited my comments above to the specific issue raised by RR.
Regards.
An interview of M A Jinnah:
http://m-a-jinnah.blogspot.com/2010/09/interview-of-muhammad-ali-jinnah-with.html
“The new clamour for partition that is stated is by the vocal section of the caste Hindus in Bengal and the Sikhs in particular in the Punjab will have disastrous results if those two provinces are partitioned and the Sikhs in the Punjab will be the greatest sufferers; and Muslims under contemplated Western Punjab will no doubt be hit, but it certainly will deal the greatest blow to those, particularly the Sikhs, for whose benefit the new stunt has been started. Similarly in Western Bengal, caste Hindus will suffer the most and so will the caste Hindus in Eastern Punjab.
This idea of partition is not only thoughtless and reckless, but if unfortunately His Majesty’s Government favour it, in my opinion it will be a grave error and will prove dangerous immediately and far more so in the future. Immediately it will lead to bitterness and unfriendly attitude between Eastern Bengal and Western Bengal and same will the case with torn Punjab, between Western Punjab and Eastern Punjab.
Partition of Punjab and Bengal, if effected, will no doubt weaken Pakistan to a certain extent. Weak Pakistan and a strong Hindustan will be a temptation the strong Hindustan to try to dictate. I have always said that Pakistan must be sufficiently strong as a balance vis-à-vis Hindustan. I am therefore, deadly against the partition of Bengal and the Punjab and we shall fight every inch against it.”
Sikhs Hindus and Muslims all suffered at the time-who is happier now is moot. No one wants to go back to the times before ’47, in the Indian Punjab anyway.
Jinnah’s argument for not dividing Punjab and Bengal is dictated as he says, by the need to balance Hindustan, ignoring the principle upon which he forced the partition of India. There is nothing called India and therefore it can be divided into Hindustan and Pakistan but there are real entities called Punjab and Bengal which cannot. How well does that sit with current Pakistan ideology?
@Hayyer (December 27, 2010 at 7:57 am)
“…..Sikhs Hindus and Muslims all suffered at the time – who is happier now is moot. No one wants to go back to the times before ’47, in the Indian Punjab anyway.
Jinnah’s argument for not dividing Punjab and Bengal is dictated as he says, by the need to balance Hindustan, ignoring the principle upon which he forced the partition of India. There is nothing called India and therefore it can be divided into Hindustan and Pakistan but there are real entities called Punjab and Bengal which cannot. How well does that sit with current Pakistan ideology?…..”
With respect to the “current Pakistan ideology”, may I reiterate that in my opinion this is an “ideology” that was never known to the founder of Pakistan. The present Pakistan ideology is less of an ideology and more of an afterthought invented by the pro-theocracy mindset. An autonomous and politically secular conglomerate of Muslim-majority states was Jinnah’s “idea” of Pakistan – “idea” not “ideology”. It was the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan of ’46 that allowed the demand of autonomy to evolve into the call for partition. The Muslim-majority states, not districts, was what Jinnah spoke of. This classification included Punjab and Bengal, and included them as the Muslim-majority “states” of Punjab and Bengal, instead of “geographically contiguous Muslim-majority districts” of these respective states. Personally, I feel, and of course my feeling is no argument, that if Punjab and Bengal had been left undivided, the emerging entities of Pakistan and Hindustan would have remained mutually compatible and closer.
There is absolutely no doubt that Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims all suffered the wounds of Partition and that the scars still exist. Certainly, no one wants to go back to the times before ’47 nor would anyone want to relive the trauma of Partition. It should have been a peaceful Independence for both states, with no displacements of humans. We cannot go back in time but we can indeed learn from our History.
Bin: //I feel, and of course my feeling is no argument, that if Punjab and Bengal had been left undivided, the emerging entities of Pakistan and Hindustan would have remained mutually compatible and closer//
Having always maintained that you and your fine thinking forms probably <5 basis points of the entire population. However let me share that the Hindus and Sikhs of East Punjab and West Bengal would have migrated to India in Millions thereby forming enormous humanitarian crisis in India. When 5% of minorities could not change the Wahabbi view point that is growing across Pakistan and Afghanistan for ages now, what will 25% minorities do to the society?? As a case in point may I point out the hapless Pandits who were driven out from the valley by the localites during 1990's…Both were co-existing for centuries peacefully. Why was this sudden exodus??
There is just unbelievable intolerance in your society…At times this intolerance percolates this side of the border ( not withstanding whatever security arrangements by our corrupt Govt) and results in maiming hundreds here also
Hayyer ends his December 27, 2010, 7:57 am comment with a question. 1947 division of Punjab was sad but we Pakistanis have put it behind us. Today Pakistan is a country, a state, a republic defined by its political boundaries and not by an ideology. Pakistan is a reality and a political entity that does not need an ideology. The purpose of the state is to govern for the good of its citizenry not to promote this ideology or that ideology. Man-on-the-street in Pakistan does not wake up thinking about ‘ideology’ but about his daily grind. Yes there is an on-going internal debate about what system of governance and laws is best for us. Islamists would prefer an ‘Islamic system’ while others disagree. Pakistan is not unique to this debate. All Muslim countries have this internal debate. But that is not a debate on ‘ideology’. Pakistan is a Muslim country and everyone agrees with that. No one talks about ‘ideology’ anymore except the internet junkies. So let us move on beyond this discussion of ‘ideology of Pakistan’ and get to the real business of the state, that is to provide and protect its citizens under whatever system the majorty wants.
Bin Ismael:
Thank you for your reasoned explanation. We are of course flogging a dead horse, but more punishment to this particular deceased quadruped may help us all clarify what we understand of the sad events that led to the creation of India and Pakistan.
Much has been said about the CMP and its consequences. Is is possible to look at the CMP not as a natural evolution of Hindu Muslim political reconciliation but as a bad compromise by the British to fulfill their wartime obligations to an ally against the Congress. In which case the Congress ambiguity over the CMP as famously expressed by Nehru, (leading to its rejection by Jinnah) can be seen as a disinclination of the Congress to assign any weight to Britain’s war time compulsions-the Congress having been treated almost like an enemy for the duration of the war.
Another dead horse on PTH is the partition of Bengal and Punjab. Your argument that it would have made Pakistan more compatible with India has substance if you follow the Majumdar thesis; to me it is a hypothesis, no more.
But the argument is proleptic anyway-If Jinnah’s Pakistan needs a large non Muslim minority ab initio that collapses the TNT straightaway, and thus undermines the Pakistan idea at the very outset. We can then argue at best, as Iqbal does for the Muslims of North West India, no more. Jinnah is not from Pakistan, he is a Gujarati based in Bombay. Why does he abandon the Muslims of Gujrat and the rest of Hindustan to care for the Punjabis and Pathans who don’t need his protection anyway-or the Bengalis who run their own Muslim majority government from Calcutta.
The Muslim majority states did not want Pakistan. They were led to believe that they did as a result of the collaboration between the British administration and the AIML in the war years. Despite that the Punjab did not vote for Pakistan in the 1946 election. The Unionists did form the government. The referendum in the Frontier gave the separatists 50.49% of the electorate despite the boycott. Suppose Ghaffar Khan had not boycotted it and actually campaigned against Pakistan-is it conceivable that he might have managed a respectable showing of Pakhtuns against Pakistan.
The course that Pakistan took can be traced to the contingent situation of the WW2. We are forced to focus on the two years following the war as the backdrop of Partition, and we live with the consequences of the shotgun arrangements that followed. India and Pakistan are as much victims of the war as Europe and the rest of the world, but victim-hood alone does not validate the political theory behind Pakistan any more than it resurrects Mother India.
@Prasad (December 27, 2010 at 8:20 pm)
Thank you. In my humble opinion, if Punjab and Bengal had not been cleaved, the mass-scale migrations would not have taken place on either side. The demographics of Pakistan, in that case, and specially due to a united Bengal, would have led to an entirely different outlook and would have greatly favoured amity between Pakistan and India. History would have treaded along an grossly different path. In all likelihood, there would never have been the wars of ’48, ’65 and ’71. But as I said earlier, however deep our wounds may be, they should not bar us from being pragmatic and looking forward. Miscalculations of the past can not be annulled and the tragedies born out of them can never be undone, but much can be learned from them. Lastly, I wish I could deny your statement about the intolerance found in our society.
@PMA (December 27, 2010 at 8:59 pm)
I agree that the common man has neither the appetite nor the will to indulge in debates surrounding the so-called ideology of Pakistan. This however, does not diminish the harm that this ideology continues to cause to Pakistan.
@Hayyer (December 27, 2010 at 9:53 pm)
Thank you. Let’s give the dead horse a decent burial – the horse we once rode together.
In my humble opinion, there was not one, there were many factors that led to the Indian Subcontinent emerging on the world map as three republics, “victimhood” certainly being only one of them. With reference to Jinnah, in my opinion, he advocated with tremendous sincerity, integrity and justice, the political cause of the Indian Muslim community, which was a minority community on two separate planes – the Muslim minority living in the Hindu-majority states of India and the conglomerate of the Muslim-majority states which formed a minority-group among the states of Undivided India. On both these planes, Muslims formed a minority and a not-so-secure one. The Two Nation Theory was essentially meant to secure a greater sense of security for Muslims on both these planes. Partition was not the prime intention.
“A large non-Muslim minority ab initio”, as you’ve put it, would indeed have been beneficial to Pakistan just as a large non-Hindu minority would for India, and for obvious reasons. But not having had this luxury does not, in any way, justify Pakistan’s drift away from the Jinnah’s vision of a “secular and modern Pakistan” and a Pakistan that would have “peace within and peace without”.
The biggest tragedy of 47 partition was that no one asked Indians if they want to keep such huge Muslaman population within their boundaries . Jinnah got what he asked for and Gandhi/ Nehru group got the political power . Punjabi Hindus / Sikhs and Bengali Hindus suffered the maximum damage . Pushtuns also suffered as they lost control over their destiny and became servant of the outsiders. I any issue deserve plebiscite now, it is this pending issue of deciding the real home for minorities stranded in both India and Pakistan. They deserve to live with their kith and kins and not remain separated in distant lands.
“The biggest tragedy of 47 partition was that no one asked Indians if they want to keep such huge Muslaman population within their boundaries…”
Where the ‘Indians’ ever asked if they wanted even larger number of Hindu population within its boundaries ?
I am kidding but hope you get my point…..
Dear Gorki,
let me give a gentle reminder about the 2NT discovery by a wise man South Asia M.A Jinnah. Do you deny the theory or the wisdom of Qaid or both ?
Bin Ismael:
It is undeniable that India is de facto a Hindu country, but Congress did not propose such a status de jure. In that sense the question of India needing minorities is irrelevant. They existed and would have continued to do so in a united India. Political power on the other would have been weighted for Muslims, with separate electorates or without. That is not my point though.
Why did Pakistan need non-Muslim minorities? In the context of TNT there would have continued to be two nations within Pakistan as they would within India, which makes a mockery of the notion that Muslims are a nation and should therefore separate out.
We can’t assume that the concept of Pakistan was a good thing in itself and for that reason Hindus and Sikhs should have continued to be part of a Pakistani Punjab. Pakistan arose out of sectarian politics, or out of Congress cussedness, or of Muslim landlordism or whatever, but in any case out of factors irrelevant to peoples who lived in areas that now form Pakistan.
NW India went from centuries of Muslim rule to a few decades of Sikh rule and then British imperial power culminating in a constitutional process that empowered people of all religions but under Muslim domination. And though the idea of separatism was expressed by Lajpat Rai earlier it would not have amounted to much on its own. Punjab and Sind’s minorities were living in reasonable coexistence till contradicting concepts of nation disturbed the setting.
Jinnah did invite the Sikhs through Baldev Singh to join Pakistan. Baldev Singh reported thus;
“Baldev Singh! You see this matchbox. Even if Pakistan of this size is offered to me, I will accept it. But it is here that I need your collaboration. If you persuade the Sikhs to join hands with the Muslim League, we will have a glorious Pakistan, the gates of which will be near about Delhi if not in Delhi itself.”
This is in December 46, and one wonders if Ayesha Jalal can be right at all.
Jinnah was a secular man, to the core one might say, but in attaining his ends he did say different things to different people about what Pakistan meant. Even if we ignore the rhetorical nature of Jinnah’s advocacy above we must still question both his own belief in the TNT and his conceptions of Pakistan.
@Hayyer (December 28, 2010 at 9:25 am)
“…..Even if we ignore the rhetorical nature of Jinnah’s advocacy above we must still question both his own belief in the TNT and his conceptions of Pakistan…..”
I’m not sure about rhetoric, but one cannot overlook the fact that Jinnah was confronted by a host of very able and robustly posed individuals. This does seem to justify his playing on the front foot. Other than this narrative we get from Baldev Singh, he has never been reported talking about aspiring to be “near about Delhi if not in Delhi itself.” Let’s be fair to Jinnah and not make him look and sound like Zaid Hamid.
In my opinion, there are no solitary concepts of TNT and Pakistan. The Two Nation Theory went through several phases of metamorphosis before it finally took the form of a demand for a separate state under the name of Pakistan. I submitted in my previous post, “…The Two Nation Theory was essentially meant to secure a greater sense of security for Muslims…Partition was not the prime intention…”. Whether, as you’ve suggested, “…Pakistan arose out of sectarian politics, or out of Congress cussedness…”, is of academic relevance only because there was no practical alternative to the Cabinet Mission Plan at hand, to be considered. Congress’ cussedness – perhaps yes – considering that their unrelenting attitude was a bit more than conspicuous – but as I said earlier partition was not Jinnah’s choice#1. It became the only alternative available, as soon as the Congress dumped the CMP. Let us also not lose sight of the fact that AIML did win all the 30 seats in the Centre, which also reflected the confidence of the Muslim-majority states in Jinnah.
Regards.
I am being fair to Jinnah and I certainly do not bracket him with Zaid Hamid.
I am an admirer of the early Jinnah, and I admire his stewardship of the AIML even when he pursued policies that I entirely disagree with.
There is some evidence that conceptions of Pakistan did extend to Delhi, and of a Princestan, as well as of Muslim rules states aligning with Pakistan, leaving a patchy Hindustan.
Hayyer: Choudhary Rahmat Ali, unlike Dr. Mohammad Iqbal did not write a lot. But he did write about his idea of Pakistan. He even produced a map of future Pakistan. May be it is time to revisit the other Ali.
PMA:
Thank you. I was aware of the map having read about it earlier, but I didn’t have Rehmat Ali in mind in my post above. The Khalistanis also produced a map of Khalistan. That is intriguing too.
After the Lahore Resolution, Partition was Jinnah’s choice #1. This was visible to any number of his contemporaries. Jinnah was against any kind of common political structure to Pakistan and Hindustan except mutual treaties between two sovereign states. Repeated assertions to the contrary, and Ayesha Jalal nonwithstanding, there is no changing or evading this fact.
@Samachar (December 28, 2010 at 9:38 pm)
The Lahore Resolution came in 1940 and the Cabinet Mission Plan, which Jinnah wholeheartedly endorsed came in 1946. The Cabinet Mission Plan provided for the areas corresponding somewhat approximately to present Pakistan, present India and present Bangladesh to function as three autonomous sub-federations within India, leaving only Communications, Finance and Foreign Affairs with the Center. So, as is evident, as late as 1946 Partition was not Jinnah’s choice#1. Jinnah endorsed the CMP and the Congress evaded commitment. There was no alternative plan on the table and then onwards, yes, Pakistan being the only way forward, did become Jinnah’s choice#1.
Bin Ismail:
I have earlier reproduced the interview the Cabinet Mission had in private with Jinnah. ***In private***, he was against any kind of center. Jinnah’s and the Muslim League’s acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan was conditioned on the idea that Pakistan could secede from the CMP-proposed union after 10 years. Since the CMP offered Jinnah a moth-eaten Pakistan outright, or the larger Pakistan after 10 years, it is clear why Jinnah endorsed it; and why the Congress stand that provinces could opt out of their sub-federations caused Jinnah to be so upset.
After 1940, Jinnah stuck steadfastly to the following, which he uttered in April 1941, in the Madras session of the Muslim League. Anything he accepted was always with the proviso that such acceptance did not vitiate Pakistan.
Quote: The goal of the All-India Muslim League is that we want to establish a completely independent State in the north-west and eastern zones of India with full control of defence, foreign affairs, communications, customs, currency, exchange, etc. We do no want under any circumstances a constitution of an All-India character with one Government at the Centre. We will never agree to that. If you once agree to it, let me tell you tha t the Muslims would be absolutely wiped out of existence. We shall never be a feudatory of any power or of any Government at the Centre so far as our free national homelands are concerned…….”
Resolution of the Council of the All India Muslim League, June 6, 1946 (excerpt)
“That the references made, and the conclusions recorded in paras 6,7,8,9,10 and 11 of the statement concerning the Muslim demand for the establishment of a full sovereign Pakistan as the only solution of the Indian constitutional problem are unwarranted, unjustified and unconvincing, and should not therefore have found a place in a state document issued on behalf and with the authority of the British Government.
These paragraphs are couched in such language, and contain such mutiliations of the established facts, that the Cabinet Mission have clearly been prompted to include them in their statement solely with the object of appeasing the Hindus, in utter disregard of Muslim sentiments.
…
In order that there may be no manner of doubt in any quarter, the Council of the All-India Muslim League reiterates that the attainment of the goal of a complete sovereign Pakistan still remains the unalterable objective of the Muslims in India for the achievement of which they will, if necessary, employ every means in their power, and consider no sacrifice or suffering too great.”
“3. That notwithstanding the affront offered to Muslim sentiments by the choice of injudicious words in the preamble to the statement of the Cabinet Mission, the Muslim League, having regard to the grave issues involved, and prompted by its earnest desire for a peaceful solution, if possible, of the Indian constitutional problem, and inasmuch as the basis and the foundation of Pakistan are inherent in the Mission’s plan by virtue of the compulsory grouping of the six Muslim provinces in Sections B and C, is willing to co-operate with the constitution-making machinery proposed in the scheme outlined by the Mission, in the hope that it would ultimately result in the establishment of complete[ly] sovereign Pakistan, and in the consummation of the goal of independence for the major nations, Muslims and Hindus, and all the other people inhabiting the vast subcontinent.”
—–
April 16, 1946 – Cabinet Delegation and Jinnah
Mr. Jinnah asked how Pakistan came in under the proposed all-India Union.
The Secretary of State said that briefly there were two propositions – a small Pakistan with sovereign rights and a treaty relation, and a larger Pakistan including broadly the present Provinces except Assam and subject perhaps to some frontier adjustment. The latter would come together with Hindustan on terms of equality within an all-India Union for the essential purposes of defence and foreign affairs. Sir S. Cripps said that under the second alternative two Federations would be created linked by a Union Centre. The {princely}States would come in either at the Union or the Federation level and there would be equal representation of Hindustan and Pakistan at the Union level. The communal balance would be retained at the Centre by some means even if the States came in there.
Mr Jinnah asked how the Union Executive would be formed.
Sir S. Cripps said that the Federations would choose the members of the Union Executive.
Mr Jinnah asked how, if there were equal representation, decisions were to be reached and Sir S. Cripps said that there would be no Union Parliament. The responsibility would go back to the two Federations if agreement could not be reached and differences could only be decided by inter-Governmental agreement.
Mr Jinnah expressed doubts as to whether this arrangement would work in practice. Matters would have to be decided everyday in regard to defence. From what had been said he had not been able to get anything which would enable him to say that the Union idea was worth considering.
The Secretary of State emphasised that the essence of the Union scheme was the equality of the two component parts which made it entirely different from a Centre in which the Hindus had a majority. {Thereby doing what Hodson mentioned and that Jinnah supposedly endorsed.}
In so far as the Muslim League’s claim as to the territory of Pakistan would be conceded the Muslims would have control by majority of large areas in all except the essential Union subjects and there they would meet the Hindus on a level where it was the States which counted and not the number of individuals in them.
Of course, the Secretary of State did not know whether the Congress would agree to this principle of equality but it was the essence of the proposal.
Mr Jinnah said that no amount of equality provided on paper was going to work. Equality could not exist between the majority and a minority within the same governmental system. Would there, for example, be equality of each community in the Service? A Treaty of mutual defence between two separate States was quite different. It operated in certain contingencies such as external attack, but at other times and in other matters the States were separate.
He did not think that the domination of the Muslims by the Hindus could be prevented in any scheme in which they were kept together. It is only when the Muslims are the majority in Pakistan and the Hindus in Hindustan that you have sufficient united force running through the State from the top to bottom to provide a “steel frame” which can hold it together.
The Secretary of State said that Mr Jinnah seemed to be turning to the other alternative and asked Mr Jinnah’s views on that. Mr Jinnah said that once the principle of Pakistan was conceded the question of the territory of Pakistan could be discussed. His claim was for the six provinces but he was willing to discuss the area. The first question was whether the principle was accepted……..
…..The Secretary of State said that if Mr Jinnah got his two steel frames set up by agreement he could see the force of the case he put forward. If, however, Mr Jinnah did obtain otherwise than by agreement more than the Muslim-majority districts he would find himself in a very vulnerable situation subsequently…..{and he was unlikely to get that agreement.}
….The Secretary of State said that the Delegation was not asking Mr Jinnah to commit himself to anything but merely to say whether he would prefer the matter to be considered on the basis of sovereignty and the small area or a Union and a larger area.
Mr Jinnah said that as far as the Union was concerned he could not accept the principle. On the other hand he claimed the six Provinces and if Congress considered that that was too much they should say what they considered he ought to have.
===
Now, of course, you can argue, like Ayesha Jalal & co, that this is coded language, that Jinnah and the Muslim League meant something quite different from the plain language here. And of course, it is Jinnah’s contemporaries’ fault for taking him at his word, instead of reading the code. One has to be truly incredulous to buy such arguments, however.
Does any one know about the percentage of Bihari and UPites Muslim votes ML got on partition issue ? AFAIK, Qaid had quiet a bit following in these areas.
@Samachar (December 29, 2010 at 12:43 am)
Thank you indeed for the detailed post.
I would certainly not be of the opinion that Jinnah’s message was coded. It was less a situation of coding and deciphering and more a situation of a gradually diminishing trust on either side.
The understanding that, after 10 years Pakistan “could” secede from the Union proposed by the Cabinet Mission Plan, is certainly not the same as Pakistan “would” secede. On the other hand, Nehru’s statement made during his press conference of July 10, 1946, in which he announced that the Congress would reserve its right to modify the Cabinet Mission Plan to suit its own judgement, could hardly be termed a “commitment”. If anything, it was this statement of Nehru that served the purpose of a coded message, a message that clearly said “you go your way – we go ours”, and a message that was very rationally deciphered by Jinnah.
’40 and ’46 were eventually followed by ’47 and two independent and sovereign neighbours emerged on the map of the world. These states have a common past and a common cultural heritage, a commonality that needs to be appreciated and respected.
Regards.