There were simply too many Hindus left in the East Pakistan. Not all of them could cross over.
Doesn't mean they supported the division of the country on the basis of religion!
I never stated that Hindus who were left in Pakistan supported the partition, however a number of religious minorities did opt for Pakistan and they supported the two-state solution.
My point is that the polarization was along communal lines during those days.
It was and the fact remains that it was a factor that played a role in partition.
It is not about our biases but about facts. If I am wrong with facts, I am willing to be corrected. I hope same is true for you.
The fact is that just because people didn't want to leave the land of their ancestors doesn't mean they agreed with the partition. They would likely have been happier if there had been no partition for obvious reasons.
I am willing to be corrected too but I need to convinced with facts.
You are right about the fact that this is what Mr. Jinnah said. May be the inherent contradictions were not too apparent then between what he wanted and what he created with the means that he used.
Are you guys not dealing with those contradictions till date?
These so called contradictions are mere lies, Jinnah had specifically stated to people including important figures that Pakistan was not going to be an Islamic state, he told this to the Raja of Mahmudabad. After the creation of Pakistan, he said the same thing to Iskander Mirza who asked him on the what kind of state it will be.
We never had to deal with such contradictions until Bhutto started to appease the Mullahs and Gen Zia Islamized the country.
Well I am referring to the almost complete cleansing of religious minorities during and after the partition from the then West Pakistan.
You think it was 97% Islamic since the beginning?
It was much bigger in scale than Bosnia! And much more violent.
Really, I am going to prove you wrong with facts, not propaganda that you seem to be high on.
The Hindu and Sikhs were almost 20% of Pakistan pre partition, what is their number now?
How could the reason be ethnicity when they shared the ethnicity!
They were driven out and you got UPiites and Biharis in their place. And you are telling me it was about ethnicity?
The Hindus like the Sikhs were told that Pakistan was as much theirs as it was of Muslims, a number of Hindus migrated, some stayed behind and a lot were killed. The communal tension was building for decades and it finally led to this eventual clash that was going to occur even if there wasn't partition.
Ethnicity specifically did not play a role, did it. As I have stated the movement had religious as well as cultural undertones and thus the reason why some opted for Pakistan.
I used the term universally used in Pakistan. I don't think it was their choice to be called that. Even now on this very forum I have seen undertones of bias against them.
As I mentioned, the partition violence was between people of the same ethnicity but different religion. I don't see how it aligns with your claims about ethnicity being any factor.
Were Punjabis closer ethnically to the Pushtuns than someone they shares a surname with?
Like I said before, the religious tensions of that time were waiting to tip over and the finally violence erupted during partition. The communal tensions are the primary cause of this, Hindu-Muslims were agitated with each other and the expected departure of the British would have created the opportunity for this to occur.
Yes that is a good question. Per my understanding, they wanted it all, not just a part of it.
I am not sure they were with the Congress though. Congress was hated by the Hindu religious as well as Muslim religious right.
They wanted to dominate the Hindu's in a United India and they stated that the idea of Pakistan was against the tenants of Islam.
They allied with the congress because in their minds, the Muslim League was a threat to them and the congress was the only party which could be used as a platform to oppose it.
Now regarding the population numbers of minorities, I will use Hindus to look into population change
There is common misconception that the population of religious minorities has decreased in Pakistan, in actuality the numbers have increased over time.
First of all you cannot use the data from 1947 because migration of Hindus and Muslims to India and Pakistan did not end till about early 50′s, similarly there is the matter of Eastern and Western wings of Pakistan. The Eastern wing (now Bangladesh) had a higher percent of minorities especially the Bengali Hindu community which opted for Pakistan.
JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
Now lets consider the case of West Pakistan alone because that is what is left from the Pakistan that was originally conceived. Data from 1947 cannot be used becuase of mass migration of Hindus towards India. Lets use 1950 for a better comparison shall we as it was when the migration and internal displacement was somewhat over. There were 39,448,232 people in West Pakistan and a total of 6.54 milllion hindus, of which 5.4 million left for India.
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/akhwaja/papers/The%20Big%20March%20December%202005.pdf
Now West Pakistan was left with 1.1 million Hindus, half of whom were unfortunately killed by Muslims in the riots that broke out. So by that account 500,000 hindus were left in West and today they are higher than 7 million, percentage does not matter because Muslim population boomed (much like in India) and there were alot of immigrants who entered Pakistan since that time.
Minorities in Pakistan: No public holiday for Hindus for festivals The Express Tribune
So you can see that by just looking at the example of Hindus, we can see that the numbers are much higher than what they were before. This is also true for Ahmadis, Christians and a few others. Another thing to note is the under reporting of minorities in this country.
Under-reporting of non-Muslim Pakistanis a major problem | Pak Tea House