Did Two Nation Theory Die in 1971 After Creation of Bangladesh?

[Joe Shearer]

depends on the angle you look from,
from our point of view,it was the proper justification,

We had to protect our ideology/religion,language plus the hindu extremism (shuddi,sangthan,aryan samaj,barhman samaj,riots upon slaughtering of cow,urdu-hindi language conflict)
forced us to do that,

that's another issue how much we have been able to actually obtain the objectives of creation of pakistan,
but pakistan was the need of time,

now i don't care which angle you are looking from,

It is interesting to note how ill-informed most Pakistani commentators are, about conditions in pre-partition times. Even those who should be grouped with the more discerning.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Not much erudition is needed to blow holes into this preposterous idea; perhaps one reason why nobody spends time on it may be because the people for whom it was visualised have done their best to blow holes in it themselves.

There were Muslims who promoted this idea, and our shallow learning on display assumes that it was a purely Muslim intellectual disaster, and continues from there. The trajectory the criticism follows is to show, perfectly fairly, that Muslims gained nothing by segregating themselves, but lost massively instead. Not a difficult argument, indeed, one which springs out of the pages of every contemporary newspaper published in Pakistan or in Bangladesh. But not the main argument, certainly not the sole argument.

There were also, it is amusing to note, obscurantist and fanatic Hindus who promoted this idea. those Hindus, like their Muslim counterparts, were proved wrong, for rather different reasons. Naturally, they too, will not shout out their defeat from the rooftops.

Why are those of liberal views and modernising dispositions silent? I have a clue, but that is all that is.

 

[shuntmaster]

The Two Nation Theory is incomplete when there are over 170million Muslims still living in India.

 

[Bang Galore]

It didnt die but made stronger by Bangladesh. I thank India for fullfling original two nation theory

Great. You are welcome to make it even stronger in the same manner.

 

[audi]

It is still a two nation theory even after 1971, the theory was Muslims and Hindus cannot live together. In 1971 Banglas were mistreated and had a right to secede but they didn't join India either so two nation theory is still intact.

Depends on how you look at it. From the events of 1971, it can also be argued that Muslims and Muslims cannot live together either (or even the current going-ons in Balochistan).

Living in a diverse nation like America, you of all people would know that at the end of the day, what makes people live together are mature educated leaders and general population that is the same.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Depends on how you look at it. From the events of 1971, it can also be argued that Muslims and Muslims cannot live together either (or even the current going-ons in Balochistan).

Living in a diverse nation like America, you of all people would know that at the end of the day, what makes people live together are mature educated leaders and general population that is the same.

kakay stop taking drugs..

 

[Thirdfront]

Bangladesh is secular with majority of the population being islamic (like Turkey). RIP 2 nation theory...

 

[my2cents]

Haq's Musings: Quaide-Azam's Death Anniversay: Is Two Nation Theory Dead?

Some argue that the Two Nation Theory died with the 1971 partition of Pakistan that led to the separation of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh. Others say that the TNT (Two Nation Theory) was dead the day Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah passed away on Sept 11, 1948.

As Pakistanis observe the 65th anniversary of the Quaid-e-Azam's passing, let's examine the state of the Two Nation Theory which gave birth to the Pakistan movement on March 23, 1940.

The key question that needs to be answered regarding the events of 1971 is as follows: Did the Awami League in East Pakistan fight to create their own country later named Bangladesh? Or did they shed their blood to re-unify the eastern wing of Pakistan with India?

These questions are answered by French historian Christophe Jaffrelot in his book "A History of Pakistan and its origins".

Jaffrelot cites British-Pakistani history Prof Samuel Martin Burke rejecting the notion that the Two-Nation Theory died in 1971 with Pakistan's split into Pakistan and Bangladesh. Burke says that the two-nation theory was even more strongly asserted in that the Awami League rebels had struggled for their own country, Bangladesh, and not to join India. In so doing, they had put into practice the theory behind the original resolution to form Pakistan, which envisaged two Muslim states at the two extremities of the subcontinent.

Here's an excerpt from the Pakistan Resolution passed in Lahore in March 1940:

"Resolved that it is the considered view of this Session of the All-India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to the Muslims unless it is designated on the following basic principle, viz. that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of India should be grouped to constitute "Independent States" in which the Constituent Units shall be autonomous and sovereign"

Clearly, the Pakistan Resolution called for "Independent States" of Muslim majority areas in the "North Western and Eastern Zones of India" in which the "Constituent Units shall be autonomous and sovereign".

What happened in 1971 with the creation of Bangladesh essentially put into practice the theory behind the original resolution to form Pakistan, which envisaged two Muslim states at the two extremities of the subcontinent.

Haq's Musings: Quaide-Azam's Death Anniversay: Is Two Nation Theory Dead?

After 65 years Mr. Haq is experiencing identity crisis. Hum tho aapko tasleem kiya hai. Aap be kudko qabool kar lo.

 

[KingMamba]

Depends on how you look at it. From the events of 1971, it can also be argued that Muslims and Muslims cannot live together either (or even the current going-ons in Balochistan).

Living in a diverse nation like America, you of all people would know that at the end of the day, what makes people live together are mature educated leaders and general population that is the same.

Nah America is a different story because it was ingrained in the psyche of the citizens from the get go whereas India and Pakistan split based on the reverse.

 

[Sriram]

So when Pakistan split it reinforced 2 Nation Theory? People here are so smart

 

[SQ8]

Why are those of liberal views and modernising dispositions silent? I have a clue, but that is all that is.

Perhaps because as such when the theory was postulated the underlying tensions and general disposition of the Muslim segment of occupied India felt wronged and dejected after the prevalence of the Hindu community in taking up the role of directing India's future by having a majority in the Raj's governance system.There was favouritism given by Hindus to Hindus in governmental roles on average and similarly with Muslims. There may not have been communal strife but there was certainly communal competition. However, this did not translate strictly into a two nation theory as per the idea of inability to coexist but rather a two nation theory based on the need for fulfilment of aspirations of the community. However, the two nation theory did not truly exist as people think, and even the greatest leaders of Muslims did not prescribe to the narrative painted in popular incarnations that are presented today.

Two understand this concept.. the Address given by Sir Mohammed Iqbal is a must and I am sure that many Pakistanis have not bothered to ever read it.. instead relying on the piecemeal of it given in textbooks.I am not sure if you have read it but I reproduce it anyway for the consumption of the thread. I could past the whole speech.. But Ill paste most of the crux and highlighting key points which outline what was the true idea of the two nation theory..and the origin of a separate Muslim state. For those who are not familiar with it, it will be quite shocking to see what the idea actually was.These are not the words of a cleric or military man... but a fairly educated man whose love of both his religion(Islam) and his land(India) were driving forces in his life.

I would suggest that those that do read, read it fully. Otherwise, you are better off ignoring this post instead of a half heard opinion.

This first section is quite interesting. Not just from its definition of Islam, but also a prediction of what eventually did happen to Islam as it faced the same questions that Christianity faced. It paints a stark picture of exactly what is going in the Muslim world today.


It cannot be denied that Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity – by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal – has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished those basic emotions and loyalties which gradually unify scattered individuals and groups, and finally transform them into a well-defined people, possessing a moral consciousness of their own. Indeed it is not an exaggeration to say that India is perhaps the only country in the world where Islam, as a people-building force, has worked at its best. In India, as elsewhere, the structure of Islam as a society is almost entirely due to the working of Islam as a culture inspired by a specific ethical ideal.Islam does not bifurcate the unity of man into an irreconcilable duality of spirit and matter. In Islam God and the universe, spirit and matter, Church and State, are organic to each other. Man is not the citizen of a profane world to be renounced in the interest of a world of spirit situated elsewhere.


To Islam, matter is spirit realising itself in space and time. Europe uncritically accepted the duality of spirit and matter, probably from Manichaean thought. Her best thinkers are realising this initial mistake today, but her statesmen are indirectly forcing the world to accept it as an unquestionable dogma. It is, then, this mistaken separation of spiritual and temporal which has largely influenced European religious and political thought and has resulted practically in the total exclusion of Christianity from the life of European States. The result is a set of mutually ill-adjusted States dominated by interests not human but national. And these mutually ill-adjusted States, after trampling over the moral and religious convictions of Christianity, are today feeling the need of a federated Europe, i.e. the need of a unity which the Christian church organisation originally gave them, but which, instead of reconstructing it in the light of Christ's vision of human brotherhood, they considered fit to destroy under the inspiration of Luther.


A Luther in the world of Islam, however, is an impossible phenomenon; for here there is no church organisation similar to that of Christianity in the Middle Ages, inviting a destroyer. In the world of Islam we have a universal polity whose fundamentals are believed to have been revealed but whose structure, owing to our legists' [=legal theorists'] want of contact with the modern world, today stands in need of renewed power by fresh adjustments. I do not know what will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam. Whether Islam will assimilate and transform it, as it has before assimilated and transformed many ideas expressive of a different spirit, or allow a radical transformation of its own structure by the force of this idea, is hard to predict. Professor Wensinck of Leiden (Holland) wrote to me the other day: "It seems to me that Islam is entering upon a crisis through which Christianity has been passing for more than a century. The great difficulty is how to save the foundations of religion when many antiquated notions have to be given up. It seems to me scarcely possible to state what the outcome will be for Christianity, still less what it will be for Islam." At the present moment the national idea is racialising the outlook of Muslims, and thus materially counteracting the humanizing work of Islam. And the growth of racial consciousness may mean the growth of standards different [from] and even opposed to the standards of Islam.


What, then, is the problem and its implications? Is religion a private affair? Would you like to see Islam as a moral and political ideal, meeting the same fate in the world of Islam as Christianity has already met in Europe? Is it possible to retain Islam as an ethical ideal and to reject it as a polity, in favor of national polities in which [the] religious attitude is not permitted to play any part? This question becomes of special importance in India, where the Muslims happen to be a minority. The proposition that religion is a private individual experience is not surprising on the lips of a European. In Europe the conception of Christianity as a monastic order, renouncing the world of matter and fixing its gaze entirely on the world of spirit, led, by a logical process of thought, to the view embodied in this proposition. The nature of the Prophet's religious experience, as disclosed in the Quran, however, is wholly different. It is not mere experience in the sense of a purely biological event, happening inside the experient and necessitating no reactions on its social environment. It is individual experience creative of a social order. Its immediate outcome is the fundamentals of a polity with implicit legal concepts whose civic significance cannot be belittled merely because their origin is revelational.


He then outlined why the idea of a Central Indian identity may not work based on the realities of the time. One has to keep in mind that when Muslim principles are outlined, these are referring to average Muslims who were still generally adherent to their religion and the core principles.


The religious ideal of Islam, therefore, is organically related to the social order which it has created. The rejection of the one will eventually involve the rejection of the other. Therefore the construction of a polity on national lines, if it means a displacement of the Islamic principle of solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim. This is a matter which at the present moment directly concerns the Muslims of India. "Man," says Renan, "is enslaved neither by his race, nor by his religion, nor by the course of rivers, nor by the direction of mountain ranges. A great aggregation of men, sane of mind and warm of heart, creates a moral consciousness which is called a nation." Such a formation is quite possible, though it involves the long and arduous process of practically remaking men and furnishing them with a fresh emotional equipment. It might have been a fact in India if the teaching of Kabir and the Divine Faith of Akbar had seized the imagination of the masses of this country. Experience, however, shows that the various caste units and religious units in India have shown no inclination to sink their respective individualities in a larger whole. Each group is intensely jealous of its collective existence. The formation of the kind of moral consciousness which constitutes the essence of a nation in Renan’s sense demands a price which the peoples of India are not prepared to pay.


The unity of an Indian nation, therefore, must be sought not in the negation, but in the mutual harmony and cooperation, of the many.... It is, however, painful to observe that our attempts to discover such a principle of internal harmony have so far failed. Why have they failed? Perhaps we suspect each other’s intentions and inwardly aim at dominating each other. Perhaps, in the higher interests of mutual cooperation, we cannot afford to part with the monopolies which circumstances have placed in our hands, and [thus we] conceal our egoism under the cloak of nationalism, outwardly simulating a large-hearted patriotism, but inwardly as narrow-minded as a caste or tribe.Perhaps we are unwilling to recognise that each group has a right to free development according to its own cultural traditions.


Has the above still happened in India? Despite progress, the age old issues of communal-ism still thrive. There are continued issues based on caste and creed and I do not state this from the point of view of someone who has ample Indians he is glad to call friends. I will come to Pakistan so I request those Indians with more fragile ego's to wait it out till you get there.


The principle that each group is entitled to its free development on its own lines is not inspired by any feeling of narrow communalism. There are communalisms and communalisms. A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble...the authors of the Nehru Report recognise the value of this higher aspect of communalism. While discussing the separation of Sind they say, "To say from the larger viewpoint of nationalism that no communal provinces should be created, is, in a way, equivalent to saying from the still wider international viewpoint that there should be no separate nations. Both these statements have a measure of truth in them. But the staunchest internationalist recognises that without the fullest national autonomy it is extraordinarily difficult to create the international State. So also without the fullest cultural autonomy – and communalism in its better aspect is culture – it will be difficult to create a harmonious nation."


This seems to build a very different picture to what is taught in the textbooks in Pakistan as well. Whatever Iqbal is hypothesizing has its eventual goal of Indian Unity and Harmony and as such looks to accommodate all differences and desires as amicably as possible.However, his next part is what generally forms the basis of current debates by Indian nationalist intellectuals(both true,quasi and fake in nature)


Communalism in its higher aspect, then, is indispensable to the formation of a harmonious whole in a country like India. The units of Indian society are not territorial as in European countries. India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages, and professing different religions. Their behaviour is not at all determined by a common race-consciousness. Even the Hindus do not form a homogeneous group. The principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India without recognising the fact of communal groups.

My agreement with the above is based on current realities in India. Despite great progress otherwise, communal disparity continues to exist at various levels and the existence of quotas and seats are ample proof that not all is well within the majority and the minority. Each comes up with various arguments both factual and imaginative in wholly blaming the other for the ills affecting the entire nation.

The next is the portion that is often put into textbooks as the demand for Pakistan. However, one must look at what follows that idea of a Muslim state. Was it an independent Muslim state? or as is illustrated, a federated state(s) that were part of a greater Indian Union. Moreover, Sir Iqbal actually stressed that this state would further the cause of a United India rather than diminish it


I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India. The proposal was put forward before the Nehru Committee. They rejected it on the ground that, if carried into effect, it would give a very unwieldy State. This is true in so far as the area is concerned; in point of population, the State contemplated by the proposal would be much less than some of the present Indian provinces. The exclusion of Ambala Division, and perhaps of some districts where non-Muslims predominate, will make it less extensive and more Muslim in population – so that the exclusion suggested will enable this consolidated State to give a more effective protection to non-Muslim minorities within its area. The idea need not alarm the Hindus or the British. India is the greatest Muslim country in the world. The life of Islam as a cultural force in the country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory. This centralisation of the most living portion of the Muslims of India, whose military and police service has, notwithstanding unfair treatment from the British, made the British rule possible in this country, will eventually solve the problem of India as well as of Asia. It will intensify their sense of responsibility and deepen their patriotic feeling.


Thus, possessing full opportunity of development within the body politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets.


Ironically, it is this very invasion of foreign ideas that the land of Pakistan succumbed to as it did not have the "strategic depth" of a Unified India to provide it support. Had there been such a federation, the free development of Islamic thought coupled with National identity as Indians and support from the other states in their communities and mixed ideals would have repelled and perhaps quashed the extremist teachings that led to Al Qaeda.


There is a second opinion that the two nation theory wasnt only the Muslims doing but had the input of Hindu nationalist leaders as well. In their need for communal superiority they may have pushed what was a demand for an autonomous federation to independent countries. This argument will definitely be contested by Hindus fairly vigorously but it falls on the Hindu who is not motivated by egoistic demands to give an objective assessment of the highlighted in the following.


The Right Hon'ble Mr. Srinivasa Sastri thinks that the Muslim demand for the creation of autonomous Muslim states along the north-west border is actuated by a desire "to acquire means of exerting pressure in emergencies on the Government of India." I may frankly tell him that the Muslim demand is not actuated by the kind of motive he imputes to us; it is actuated by a genuine desire for free development which is practically impossible under the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu politicians with a view to secure permanent communal dominance in the whole of India.


Dr Iqbal gave assurances that the imposition of Islamic thought as feared by Hindus and other communities in these states would not occur. He illustrated a fairly well balanced view of what Islam is actual implementation(not what you see in Pakistan or perhaps anywhere in the Muslim world today) would be.


Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states. I have already indicated to you the meaning of the word religion, as applied to Islam. The truth is that Islam is not a Church. It is a State conceived as a contractual organism long before Rousseau ever thought of such a thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earth-rooted creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism. The character of a Muslim State can be judged from what the Times of India pointed out some time ago in a leader [=front-page article] on the Indian Banking Inquiry Committee. "In ancient India," the paper points out, "the State framed laws regulating the rates of interest; but in Muslim times, although Islam clearly forbids the realisation of interest on money loaned, Indian Muslim States imposed no restrictions on such rates." I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim State in the best interests of India and Islam. For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.

Ironically, the benefits that Dr.Iqbal outlined go completely AGAINST the idealogical and identification efforts made by the state of Pakistan.Clearly there is a massive disconnect as to what the textbooks portray of the idea of the formation of Pakistan and Iqbal's ideals. Islam may have come from Arabia but is not their property and nor was it a religion static to the 6th Century. In a federated Indian state, this independent thriving would have been possible(as was demonstrated earlier through the localized sufi teachings) and perhaps would have served as an idealogical bullwark to the rabid ideologies that took over the Arabian peninsula in the name of Islam in this century. However, in complete contrast to what Iqbal outlined; the state of Pakistan has built a mythology on the foundations of Arab Imperialism and its Muslim population near worships them. Instead of moving forward the Pakistani state stagnates into medieval times with every passing day.

Dr Iqbal then summarized this section by stating:

Thus it is clear that in view of India's infinite variety in climates, races, languages, creeds and social systems, the creation of autonomous States, based on the unity of language, race, history, religion and identity of economic interests, is the only possible way to secure a stable constitutional structure in India.

The Hindu thinks that separate electorates are contrary to the spirit of true nationalism, because he understands the word nation to mean a kind of universal amalgamation in which no communal entity ought to retain its private individuality. Such a state of things, however, does not exist. Nor is it desirable that it should exist. India is a land of racial and religious variety. Add to this the general economic inferiority of the Muslims, their enormous debt, especially in the Punjab, and their insufficient majorities in some of the provinces as at present constituted, and you will begin to see clearly the meaning of our anxiety to retain separate electorates. In such a country and in such circumstances territorial electorates cannot secure adequate representation of all interests, and must inevitably lead to the creation of an oligarchy. The Muslims of India can have no objection to purely territorial electorates if provinces are demarcated so as to secure comparatively homogeneous communities possessing linguistic, racial, cultural and religious unity.

Furthermore, Dr Iqbal outlined the status of the military of these United States of India. Giving an outline how it would develop into an integrated force defending the borders of India.

However, in federated India, as I understand federation, the problem will have only one aspect, i.e. external defence. Apart from provincial armies necessary for maintaining internal peace, the Indian Federal Congress can maintain, on the north-west frontier, a strong Indian Frontier Army, composed of units recruited from all provinces and officered by efficient and experienced military men taken from all communities.. I have no doubt that if a Federal Government is established, Muslim federal States will willingly agree, for purposes of India's defence, to the creation of neutral Indian military and naval forces. Such a neutral military force for the defence of India was a reality in the days of Mughal rule. Indeed in the time of Akbar the Indian frontier was, on the whole, defended by armies officered by Hindu generals. I am perfectly sure that the scheme for a neutral Indian army, based on a federated India, will intensify Muslim patriotic feeling, and finally set at rest the suspicion, if any, of Indian Muslims joining Muslims from beyond the frontier in the event of an invasion.

So clearly, the two nation theory has been as hyped from both sides of the border. One hypes it on its significance while the other considers it null and void without going into the crux of the matter. Yet, from the above there seems to be no mention of an independent state like Pakistan. Dr Iqbal repeatedly states that the British do not understand the problem of India.

..the Prime Minister of England apparently refuses to see that the problem of India is international and not national. He is reported to have said that "his government would find it difficult to submit to Parliament proposals for the maintenance of separate electorates, since joint electorates were much more in accordance with British democratic sentiments." Obviously he does not see that the model of British democracy cannot be of any use in a land of many nations; and that a system of separate electorates is only a poor substitute for a territorial solution of the problem...
To base a constitution on the concept of a homogeneous India, or to apply to India principles dictated by British democratic sentiments, is unwittingly to prepare her for a civil war. As far as I can see, there will be no peace in the country until the various peoples that constitute India are given opportunities of free self-development on modern lines without abruptly breaking with their past.

Clearly this all points to a United India with autonomy within for all its separate communities. So where did the question of Pakistan and the two nation theory come in?
For this answer one must look at the alternative outlined by Iqbal in case this proposal was negated.

It is hardly necessary for me to add that the sole test of the success of our delegates is the extent to which they are able to get the non-Muslim delegates of the Conference to agree to our demands as embodied in the Delhi Resolution. If these demands are not agreed to, then a question of a very great and far-reaching importance will arise for the community. Then will arrive the moment for independent and concerted political action by the Muslims of India. If you are at all serious about your ideals and aspirations, you must be ready for such an action. Our leading men have done a good deal of political thinking, and their thought has certainly made us, more or less, sensitive to the forces which are now shaping the destinies of peoples in India and outside India. But, I ask, has this thinking prepared us for the kind of action demanded by the situation which may arise in the near future?

This was a clear hint, that IF the leadership of the Hindu Community did not agree to a solution in the next round table conference then there was a much less harmonious alternative. In 1933 the actions of the political leadership that represented Hindus forced Dr Iqbal.. who was otherwise championing a United strong India.. to give the following statement in rebuttal to Nehru's contention that Muslims were being reactionary.

In conclusion I must put a straight question to punadi Jawhar Lal, how is India's problem to be solved if the majority community will neither concede the minimum safeguards necessary for the protection of a minority of 80 million people, nor accept the award of a third party; but continue to talk of a kind of nationalism which works out only to its own benefit? This position can admit of only two alternatives. Either the Indian majority community will have to accept for itself the permanent position of an agent of British imperialism in the East, or the country will have to be redistributed on a basis of religious, historical and cultural affinities so as to do away with the question of electorates and the communal problem in its present form.

How much has changed in modern India today with regards to this? There are mixed opinions and as I said, each community will vehemently defend and detract the other with regards to true rights and perceived misgivings.

However, the crucible was the Indian Congress government after the 1935 elections and it is here where the demonstration of the two nation theory.. not by the Muslim league but rather by the Congress which took up a de-facto Hindu Flag. The treatment of Muslim states in the 1937 government is what is always attributed to be the turning point in the demand for Pakistan. Clearly when the man behind the ideology that spurred Pakistan was not in favour of partition till his very end cannot imply that the two nation theory's promotion was solely the work of Muslims. The British and Hindu leadership had equal contribution in shaping the formation of Pakistan. And as such, the current problems of India continue to stem the same way as they did back in the days of the Raj..as much as pride will force many Indians to turn a blind eye to it.
Pakistan on the other hand, has gone completely awry from what it was supposed to be and become the total antithesis of what it was supposed to be. The very stigma that Iqbal wanted to separate the Muslims of India and Indians and general has come to roost and call home a majority of Pakistan' population. Instead of being a bullwark to protect India, it now serves as a constant danger for it. Instead of being a beacon of the Progression of Islam..it serves as the rabid dog of it.

Perhaps, had it behoved Nehru and other leaders to be a bit more flexible in their political ambitions..... but alas.. the reality is quite different.

 

[Joe Shearer]

If, @Oscar, you do not object, I intend to reprint your post in its entirety in Insaniyat. It has been a very bad week, and they need the comfort and encouragement of this very good analysis.

I wish I could agree wholly with all its assumptions and tenets. As it is, I cannot. Please take into account that I speak not from the point of view of a Hindu chauvinist, or of an Indian nationalist committed to the destruction of Pakistan, but as a member of precisely that culturally and in religious terms declassified section of society that Iqbal stated, and that you pointed out did not exist in numbers.

More once I have finished packing, and bitten chunks out of the persons arranging my travel.

Iqbal's address is profound. Hindsight is an awful leveller of human rank and stature, and what I say will be from a position of artificial parity, brought about by the efflux of years.

Till a later moment, then.

 

[INDIC]

Hundred of millions of Muslims still live in India which shows Two nation theory failed.

 

[Nav]

it could die if india occupied the east Pakistan and merge it into to Mainland india. but now its alive. and for me now this theory applied on india as there are more muslims in india then in Pakistan

 

[AnnoyingOrange]

The two nation theory died the moment a huge number of Muslims decided to stay back in India in 1947....and the same 2 nation theory gets butchered every day in India by Muslim-Hindu friendship across India.