The Old Pakistan is Dead, Long Live New Pakistan

``The hawkish demagogue Vallabhai Patel of Congress, and his powerful faction refused to share power with the Muslim League despite laments to the contrary of their elderly leader, Gandhi.``

How little knowledge is dangerous... and SR excels at ``little knowledge``.

Patel and Azad had agreed to power sharing... Nehru and Gandhi rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan...

This much is clear from H M Seervai`s ``Partition of India: Legend and reality``

Gandhi comes out as the most manipulative ``hawkish demagogue`` of them all.

Re: # 49

No... Sohail Rabbani doesn`t have a soul...

Many years later I can say that ... Sohail Rabbani is an idiot of the highest order who doesn`t know what the hell he is talking bout... who decided to write this article to sound intellectual...

This article has to rank as the stupidest and most idiotic ever written on Chowk!

I don`t know who is guilty and who is not. Musharraf is supposedly better than Sharif and Bhutto but well...I don`t see evidence of that either.

What I do know is that Pakistan needs very strong independent institutions like the Judiciary who decide who is guilty of what and should enforce punishment for the wrongdoers. Again, the strong institutions will only come from strong leadership thats lacking in Pakistan. Its a vicious circle.

Man I think I should get into Pakistani politics!

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Sohail Rabbani has a soul and that soul loves Pakistan... well written... I liked especially the part about `Quaid e Awam` Bhutto ... and his `blunderous arrogance`... if only Bhutto would have been more in control of his faults...

Agree with the writer on his views about the History... though I don`t think he is accurate in blaming Patel for the crucial decision of not forming a coalition with AIML... I am sure someone must have pointed out that it was Nehru who continued to give the very traditional `Jamiat e Ulema` precedence over the the League which after all constituted the non-religious political leadership of the Muslims of South Asia ...


About Mohammed Ali Jinnah ... perhaps it would suffice to read his vehement and spirited defence of Shaheed Bhaggat Singh in the Indian National Assembly to see where Mr Jinnah stood on the question of nationalist politics... a complete text of that speech can be found in A G Noorani`s `The Trial of Bhagat Singh` and Aitzaz Ahsan`s `Indus Saga`. Jinnah had consistently stood up in Assembly as a voice emphatically supporting the rights of Indians, the down trodden and the freedom fighters while also supporting the cause of democracy ... perhaps the greatest misfortune is that his contributions in the field of legislation and civil liberties made as a member of the parliament are forgotten...

The creation of Bangladesh put to bed the theory of nations being created on the basis of religion alone. In this case it was especially true since the majority separated from the minority.

The Pashtun from NWFP relates more to the Pashtun from Afghanistan than to other ethnic groups from within Pakistan. Similarly a Punjabi Muslim from West Punjab is more at ease with a Hindu or a Sikh Punjabi from East Punjab rather than a Bengali Muslim.

The important factor in creating a nation is ehnicity and language rather than religion. I tend to agree with Sohail Rabbani that it would make more sense to devolve power down to the state level and am sure that the state boundries will change in the future.

amit (#45)

Gandhi never did provide any vision for Indian Hindus or Sikhs or Dalits separately so the question of him providing a separate vision for Indian Muslims doesn`t arise. His goal was first and foremost to obtain independence for India and he wanted it to be as a unified nation.

As far as protecting the rights of the minorities including Muslims is concerned, it seems logical to me that a solution to discrimination cannot be found unless it occurs in the first place and Hindus certainly were not discriminating against Muslims prior to independence given that it was the British who were the ruling class.

Your analogy of Indians living in US not liking being a minority to the situation of Muslims in pre-partition India is incorrect. First of all, Indians are generally grateful to the U.S. for the excess of opportunities provided for them to prosper and raise their families. I wonder how you conjure up thoughts that Indians feel insecure in the U.S.. If anything, they are confidently getting into the political process and making their presence felt. I don`t think Indians feel as insecure as Muslim expatriates from other countries to the West and prosper wherever they are, be it the U.S., Britain, the Middle East etc.. Perhaps that is because they are not as inward looking.

Coming back to partition era politics, I think the logical solution would have been to go for a United India and thrash out the issues of proper representation in the Constituent Assembly and given some time for things to work themselves out. That was the right place for it to have happened and not having the issue decided on the streets. If say after 10 years Muslims felt discriminated against or if there were no solutions to their grievances, the leadership could have opted out of the Union. No power could have stopped them then.

Where are the Muslims of the sub-continent today? Part of them are living in a land which is supposed to be a republic governed by a constitution that is not worth the paper it`s written on. Part of them are living in a country where they are still paying for the cost of partition. The Bangladesh is probably the only country where sub-continental Muslims don`t have an identity crisis and that`s because they realize that they decided to be Bengalis first and foremost.

Re:tvarad#39
With all due respect, what exactly was Gandhi`s vision for Indian muslims ? He was well aware that in a parliamentary democracy, muslims would be a permanent minority and the community was apprehensive about its future. That is not surprising considering that Indians living in USA with all their prosperity, do not like being a minority. Imagine 1930s and 40s India with massive poverty, unemployment, overpopulation and potential political chaos after independence. No one would want to sign up for a minority status in that situation, if they could avoid it.
While Gandhi himself was a great man with noble ideals, he did not offer any practical ideas to solve this problem. The only real negotiation was the Cabinet Mission Plan, which got scuttled by the Congress. One did not see any efforts for negotiation like the ones in Northern Ireland or South Africa, where you have similar situations between adversarial communities. The Congress could have offered real constitutional protections to muslims including power sharing at the top level, which it did not. As compared to that, Gandhi and the Congress did make a deal with Ambedkar to protect lower caste interests. To be fair here I should say that Jinnah and the Muslim League did not offer any ideas either. So it was a collective failure of leadership.

Re:Pankaj#41
You have to evaluate Akbar by the standards of that era. Every king in those days had to resort to warfare and occasional savagery to subdue his enemies. The mughals were no different from any other Indian king, for e.g. Ashok who killed his brothers and massacared so many people at Kaling that he himself got digusted and converted to Buddhism. Heck, our epic Mahabharat celebrates a bloody, fratricidal war between cousins that engulfed entire India.
What intrigues me about Akbar is that he had the vision to think outside the box at a time when no one really did that. He was perhaps the only ruler ever who went beyond just tolerating other religions, to actually coopting people from another religion in ruling and sharing power. In fact, his military was led by a Rajput, Man Singh. Akbar was virtually a secularist in his ideals. Historians have noted that Akbar started celebrating Diwali (Jashn-e-Chiragan) at almost the same scale as Id-ul-Fitr. He even came up with his own religion that blended Islam and Hinduism, which unfortunately did not succeed. So let`s give credit where credit is due. Just because we hate Aurangzeb and his likes, does not mean that we have to hate every mughal ruler.

Sameer #40/SR: Very interesting.

Some other, ``what would have happened, ifs:`` (not quite sure how many of them are accurate)

- Nehru and Cabinet Mission worked out
- Moors successfully invaded France under Abdar-Rahman and move furthur into Europe
- Moors defeat to Isabella in the late 15th century, who would fund a sailor named Christopher Columbus in 1492 (I suppose by the that time, the Moors were too weak anyways)
- US Congress adopts German, instead of English, as a national language, by one vote
- US does not enter WWII by one vote
- Gandhi is not assasinated
- Jinnah, like Nehru, lives till the mid-sixties
- US aircraft carriers had been in Pearl Harbor when the Japenese launched their attack
- Hitler not switched to city bombing, when he was winning the Battle of Britain

If the subcontinent had split into several smaller countries, we would have become a battleground for the former Soviet Union, the US and China to compete for influence over during the Cold War like every other region of the world.

Kerala and WB for instance would now be split into separate countries like North Kerala and South Kerala and North Bengal and South Bengal in the Korea or Vietnam style. A few countries would be overrun by China like Tibet. A few countries would be destroyed with millions dead like Afghanistan or Cambodia, others would be heavily militarized. We would have had to contend with thousands or hundred of thousands or even millions dead on every Cold War frontier in our region like happened in Eastern Europe, China, South and Central America, and SE Asia.

With a billion and a half souls(1/5-1/6th of humanity) and a large region like the subcontinent up for grabs, its quite possible that the Cold War would still be continuing in 2002.

Sameer, your speculative post #40 is most inspiring... splendid in deed.

I used to wonder about such `would-have-been` versions of history myself. The fact is that the British were not the only ones who had designs on the `golden sparrow` that was India. Beside other sea going western colonials (French, Dutch, Spanish, Portugese) there were, as you point out, the Asians. Nadir Shah`s plunder of Punjab and Delhi in 1737, and Ahmad Shah Abdali, Rohail Khund being other examples. Actually, the third battle of Panipat created a military vacuum that played wonderfully in the facor of the British. Over 85,000 lay dead on the field after the Afghan allies and the Marahata coaliation `wasted` each other at Panipat III.

The real damage was actually done much earlier by that fratricidal criminally insane monster, Aurangzeb. I have wondered how Indian history would have played out if Dara Shikoh had made emperor? He was enlightened, moderate and cosmopolitain in his worldview. Would he have been another Akbar the Great? At least he would not have squandered national resources in half a century of inter-ethnic civil wars in the subcontinent as did his demented brother. Would Dara, with Muard at his side, have begun modernization reforms instead and brought India into the scientific age, as the rulers of Siam and Japan tried to. I think so. But, of course, we`ll never know.

As for Tipu Sultan and Saraj-ud-Daula, I would not mention them in the same sentence. Unlike the very capable Tipu, Saraj-ud-Daula, in my humble view, was a corrupt, immature and incompetent bafoon. He brought it upon himself.

At the battle of Plasi Robert Clive had only 2,900 troops (800 Europeans, 400 mercinaries from Burma and remaining bengali sepoys) as opposed to Siraj-ud-Daula`s 55,000. Clive`s back was towards the river. Thirty thousand of Siraj`s troops were on the nearby hill under the command of his uncle, Mir Jaffar, who took Clive`s bait and decided to ``sit out`` the battle (Jaffar begrudged Siraj having superceded his claim to the thrown when his grandfather annointed Siraj as the ruler after himself).
Nonetheless, the remaining 25,000 were under the Nawab`s direct command (an almost 10:1 advantage). The Nawab also had over a hundred French military advisors and trainers including artillary officers sent by Napoleon. The Nawab`s forces had more muskets, cannons and horses than Clive`s expeditionary force. Clive`s lighter brass cannon`s, however, had longer range. We all know what happened at Plasi. Clive was no super-general, it was just that Siraj-ud-Daula was sub-mediocre.

Plasi is one of those strange military disasters that become turning points of history. Just like Alexander and Darius some two thousand years earlier. Alexander would never have been ``The Great``. He would have died `Alexander the mediocre` had it not been for the utter incompetence of Darius who had no business losing that fateful battle which changed the course of history.

I love these speculations.

...SR

Amit

``Even leaders like Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah never really displayed the wisdom of Akbar to sit down and hammer out a proper power sharing arrangement such as setting aside seats for minorities and ensuring equal opportunity for everyone.``

Mr. Amit, I think you need to do some more research on India under Akbar. In particular on whether Mughal emperors provided ``equal opportunities`` for everyone and whether there was ``proper power sharing``. The historical records show that 70% of the government officials in Mughal rule were ``foreigners`` (Central Asia) and the remaining 30 % posts roughly divided between Indian Muslims and Hindus(Source of the numbers: A History of India by John Keay). Mughals distrusted Indian Muslims as well as Hindus. The pact with Rajputs was definitely an act of statesmanship by Akbar but it was not a benign one. For instance, after the fall of defiant Chitore in February 1568 after a four month seize, some thirty thousand of its defendents were slaughtered. No prisoners were taken. The source of this info is ``A New History of India`` by Stanley Wolpert. The author is a favorite of some Pakistanis. Basically either you agree with Akbar on his terms or face mass-slaughter.

Mughal empire, in essence, was a brutal military state that thrived on the massive economic exploitation of its subjects through a very well oiled administrative machinery. For substatiation of this statement you can again research through the taxation policies of Mughals and compare it with the percentage taxation in India under Gupta rule ( I can again give you the data if you so desire). Whatever little compromise was made with Rajputs was to protect their North Indian territory and it was instituted with an iron hand. To keep the balance, let it be said that repealing of jizya by Akbar was a magnanimous act.

tvarad: I agree with your reply #37 and disagree with $39 whereas almost completely agree with Amit`s #38. I agree that British were not in subcotinent for white mans` burden but for colonial expansionist reasons. From the very begining it was a business with shares of British East India company could be bought and sold at London and Amesterdam markets. From business point of view it can not totally win-lose situation between management and workers. It was more like big win-small win situation between masters and colonies. One more think to remember is that British knew too well that just divide and rule was not sufficient to rule for extended period. It had to be substantiated with least discontented masses theory.
The disagreement with post #39 stems from your understanding of Amit`s quote, ``Hindus had never united against muslim rule but they did against the british``. The way I see it is that Hinduism never was a force at religious level for most of history until British time. on one level Hinduism was an esential voluntary component of each tribal or identity cultures with variable religious religious culture. This is in sharp contrast to variable social cultures and fixed/ rigid religious cultures of Christianity and fixed social as well as rigid religious culture of Islam, though in practice most Muslims observe varying degrees of social cultures such as languages. The answer is that Hinduism or whatever it might have called it then was not meant to unite people politically. The highly respected and honored religious practices of seclusions, retreats and detachment are antithesis to politically uniting forces. the seventh chakra of kundilini yoga is almost outside the mind. The nirvana or ultimate goal is in sharp contrast to making Hinduism a political glue.
I would also disagree on both accounts that Gandhi was the first serious articulate taker of freedom . He was actually for dominion status like the rest and later committed to total freedom struggle like most other mainstream politicians. The other point I vehemently disagree as mostly Muslims fighting for independence from British rule before Congress and ML. Nawab Saraj Ud Daula and Tipu Sultan fought for defense of their empires aginst advancing British and 1857 was fully cooperated by Hindus although the goals were ill defined and lack of organization and coordinatioin led to failure. Since 1857 onward it was mostly non-Muslim struggle with Ghadar movement being the most well-known. It was mostly Sikh in organization and participation. There were also many other movements by Sikhs and Hindus in Punjab with sizable Muslim participatioin.
the fact is that everybody except Christian minority united against British for independence with Sikhs giving the disproportionately large number of lives sacrifices. Number of hangings were 9:1 in favor of Sikhs during quit India movement and of course Jullianwala Bagh massacre also produced much more Sikh casualties than Muslims and Hindus.
India would have gotten independence within +/-10 years of 1947, without Jinnah, Nehru and Gandhi as one nation, two or multiple nations with same, less or more sacrifices.
Amit #38: As usual, I have nothing to disagree with your post. Like I said in my previous post about the difficulty of what did not happen, the case for what could have been if British were not arrived on the scene. Ist we have to assume that nobody else interference in subcontinent affairs. The reason for this is that without British or Europeans, at least three other forces would have potentially interfered, the Russians, Ottomans and Persians in the wetern part, now Pakistan.
In Islamic history, Yusuf Bin TashfaiN from north Africa went into spain to defend dying Andulasina empire and made them to last another 200 years. A Mamluk (slave) self made king of Egypt defeated and routed Hilagu Khan of Mongol to sabe Arab lands from Mongol control although it came later than sacking of Abbasids at Baghdad. similarly a Turk, Afghan or Persian general or king might have tried to afloat sagging Mughal kingdom.
Wihtout foreign intervention, two powers in the western part of india, Marathas and Punjabis were to be reckoned. They would have fought over the control of Sindh and access to sea. Both were big enough to establish independent kingdom and Sikhs would have provided a religious bridge between Muslims and Hindus to unite for the sake of Punjab. Bengal would have definitely gone on their own way. south India would have been uncontrollable for the north excluding Marathas and Punjabis. I forsee about 5-10 countries in the region if not for outside interference and western influence of political nationhood concept. Whether Kashmiris liked it or not, Kashmir would have gone with Punjab Kingdom or Republic or whatever. Punjab would have been a region on both side of current GT road, from Peshawar to Delhi and from Chinese border to Multan or Arabian Sea. Marath Kigdom or republic controlling Maharashtra, Gujrat, Sindh and part of Rajisthan. The fighting with armies to win land would have died down by the turn of 20th century and we would have had international boundries between states. Mayanmar would have controlled India east of Bangladesh and definitely part of southeast Asia. Many Malay and Chinese would have migrated there creating stable economies. I think Mayanmar is the biggest loser of British colonialism in the region and Sri Lanka biggest winner. *Some wild guessing*. I am feeling unconfortable about this wild guessing.

RE: #38 by amit

`` Hindus had never united against muslim rule but they did against the british.``

This is a total mis-read. As long as the ``freedom movement`` was in the domain of British educated elitist Hindu clique until the early 1900`s, there were few takers for independence. It was only when Gandhi took over and made it into a grass-roots movement by bringing in people from all walks of life that the movement took hold. Not only that, his methods put the Indian mind on par with the Western mind since it was an moral and intellectual struggle and the last thing the British would grant Indians is that they were morally and intellectually equal. That in itself was a powerful incentive for Indians to come together.

Even today, India is together because of this sense of higher purpose instilled by Gandhi. It would splinter today were it cast as a Hindu nation, not because the minorities would revolt but because there is no way the disparate states would stick together simply on the basis of a common Hindu background.

Lastly, to say that India got it`s independence because Hindus came together is to totally disregard the tremendous input of the minorities, especially the Muslims. Almost all military revolts against the British were by Muslims but they inevitably failed because they couldn`t match the superb organizational skills of the British. It is also a pity that so many Muslim stalwarts whose intellect could have brought pride and dignity to the sub-continental Muslim was consumed by the madness of the partition.