Partitioning India over lunch

[Contrarian]

Our prayers are in Arabic and we pray like Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) prayed. All Muslims must pray in Arabic. Its not Talibans only, all Muslims regardless of ethnicity MUST pray in Arabic.

Says who? Then any and every foreigner who converts to Islam must be stopped by the clerics, as he would not know Arabic. And what of the majority of Pakistan, they dont pray in Arabic. And what of Iran, i think, they dont pray in Arabic either.

The Muslims of British India have been reading and writing in Urdu script for a long time now not devangri script. Today Indian Muslims have forgotten Urdu script and read and write in devangri.

Thankyou, but they can learn and read/write in any script they want. Urdu was not mandated by God.

 

[Omar1984]

^ All Muslims everywhere in the world pray in Arabic. Every Muslim in Pakistan prays in Arabic, every Muslim in the world prays in Arabic, we must pray in Arabic.

As for Indian Muslims not reading and writing in Urdu, I meant our Urdu poetry and literature is written in Urdu but today Indian Muslims are forgetting it.

All Muslims pray in Arabic and all Muslims must learn to read in Arabic because the Holy Quran is in Arabic.

 

[EjazR]

malaymishra123 it is true that prayers have to be said in Arabic, but to better understand Salaah or Namaaz has to be done in Arabic. But dua or supplication to the Almighty can be in any language and he can understand whatever you ask him.

Saying that we are forgetting Urdu is far from the truth. I wont go into details as this not the thread for that but suffice it to say that I studied urdu as a subject under the Indian education board CBSE. For those student NCERT also provides Urdu-medium books upto year 12 for all subjects. Very good urdu textbooks on Physics, Maths, Chemistry e.t.c. are available online from their website. The only other languages that it provides textbooks in are English and Hindi.
Also, Shariye conventions and conferences are held in Hyderabad where a large number of non-muslims participate to enjoy urdu poetry.

Coming back to the thread topic.
Partition was definitely a sad event in the history of the sub continent. But what has happened has happened, we must accept it and move ahead.

 

[EjazR]

I don't think Devangiri script is used for Urdu in India anywhere. If Devangiri script is used then it will be referred to as Hindi. But Hindi also uses a lot urdu words nowadays which shows how languages blend over time

You can check it out your self. The link to the website is ://ncert.nic.in/textbooks/testing/Index.htm
You will have to add http in the beginning as I have still can't post links.

To be fair, the quality of Urdu textbooks have improved recently after the Congress government came to power in 2004. But its a move in the right direction to provide all inclusive education, particularly to urdu-medium schools and madrassahs

 

[niaz]

Partition of any country is always contentious. I have been a student of Pakistan/Indian history for the last 40 years. IMO, as soon as Nehru rejected Quaid as PM of united India, partition was inevitable.

There is little doubt that Mountbatten was partial to India, however his actions did not result is any less or more blood shed. Since most of the older generation is now dead, Pakistanis & Indians of today have forgotten that Hindu-Muslim and Muslim- Sikh riots were very common. Even though all the communities lived in the same city, there were areas (Mohallas) segregated on the religious lines, where majority of the population was Sikh or Hindu or Muslim. Therefore some communal violence was inevitable. What was not expected was the violence at such a grand scale.

Again I put this to the greedy and every changing (Capricious) human nature. I was only 4 years old, however according to my late grandfather; criminal elements of both the Sikh and Muslim communities started the rot by looting the property and killing those who resisted. The rumors about Sikhs killing Muslims and Muslims killing Sikhs fanned the deep rooted ethnic bigotry with violence running uncontrolled. Each side blaming the other for the butchery to this day.

We have seen something similar in our life time in Mohajir/Sindhi riots and now MQM/Pathan riots in Karachi. Can anyone be truly certain as to who is to blame for starting it?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Partition of any country is always contentious. I have been a student of Pakistan/Indian history for the last 40 years. IMO, as soon as Nehru rejected Quaid as PM of united India, partition was inevitable.

Dear Sir,

I am not sure that the fault line lay in this rejection, which, if I remember correctly, was Gandhi's suggestion to the INC. If I further remember correctly, it was not intended to be much of a long-term position, but was intended to be one that would tide over the impasse over the Cabinet Mission Plan.

Therefore, I tend to disagree on this point being the point at which Partition became inevitable.

That should be put at the point when Nehru, in a news conference, more or less made it clear that the Congress did not accept the concept of three grand units in which the constituent states of India were to be grouped. This completely broke up the consensus which was sought to be built around the Cabinet Mission Plan and its modifications and variants proposed essentially by Jinnah. From this point onwards, Jinnah realised that a compromise at that point of time was impossible, and that the Congress would in its given state of mind force through Partition if it could not have its federal union. From this point, he accepted the inevitable, and took Partition as a given.

There is evidence that he hoped against hope that Congress would not remain in its intransigent state of mind and would accept some compromises. He had in mind, it would appear from one reading of the literature, a hope that immediately after Independence Day, there could be a discussion and dialogue leading to a reversal of some of the more extreme separating steps.

This was completely destroyed by the savagery and barbaric behaviour of all the communities during Partition; it was also destroyed, in Jinnah's mind at least, by the failure of the two states to agree over Kashmir.

Please note that the evidence cited above, and the information supplied above, should not be misunderstood to mean that in any way, an opinion is being expressed about the desirability or otherwise of Partition.

Can anyone be truly certain as to who is to blame for starting it?

This is completely impossible to do. There were so many riots, at so many places, at so many different points of time, some in continuation of earlier riots on Direct Action Day, that any such evaluation is completely beyond the judgement of mere human beings!

 

[sunny@general]

Was there a concept of "India" before the British colonized the sub-continent?

yes there was. have u heard the name of ALEXANDER THE GREAT?? i guess so. he was from macedonia and he had 3 great generals. after his death his generals divided his empire among themselves. 1 such general was named SELUKOS. he made truce with MAURYAN EMPEROR CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA, and sent his ambassador to his empire. this person is MEGASTHENES. when he returned to greece from India, he wrote a book called INDIKA. in it he had mentioned that mauryan empire stretched from himalayas in the north to indian ocean in south. and in breadth it extended from river bhagirathi in the east to western banks of river INDUS. this entire region is actually INDIA. it consisted of all land occupied by present india, pakistan and bangladesh.
thank u.

 

[Jackdaws]

Here is the deal -
Britain had set a deadline for the independence of British India by June 1948; it was Mountbatten who was the one keen on August 1947 - he could have done a much better job if enough time had been spent.

Jinnah and the Muslim League expected "Muslim majority provinces" - not Muslim parts of provinces. So Jinnah thought he would get all of Bengal and all of Punjab - this would be give a sizable Hindu and Sikh minority to Pakistan. He could also use it in the future as a bargaining chip if there were to be a loose federation of the Indian Union. Given that major chunks like Hyderabad and Kashmir were free countries and all of Rajputana was small independent kingdoms, India and Pakistan would have roughly been the same size. The last thing Jinnah expected was half of Punjab and half of Bengal.

 

[Maira La]

"The British government and Mountbatten must bear a large part of the blame for this tragedy."

Blame Mountbatten for all the killings and destruction done by Pakistanis and Indians? Communal violence still goes on in our countries. We need a new scapegoat to blame for inciting such crimes!

 

[Kaniska]

And its the Indians who always say that Pakistan should be part of India, Pakistanis never say that they want to be part of India...even Kashmiris protest to this day against being part of India, and we dont see any protest in Azad Kashmir against being part of Pakistan.

I wonder why Indians didn't ask Bangladeshis to join India in 1971, Bangladesh also used to be part of British India. A lot of these Indians talk about Akhand Bharat and always leave out Bangladesh, these Indians so want to associate themselves with the North-West, and people of North-West dont want anything to do with India.

-----What is the hell that you are talking about....Just come out of your self illusion that India want Pak to be part of India....This is a baseless allegation promoted by you guys to serve your own need...India cannot manage its 120 bill people...why it would be interested for adding more burden to it...

 

[Nelson]

No. The British saw the Indus river flowing through Punjab and Sindh (now Pakistan) and called their empire British India. Before the British came, South Asia was a bunch of independent states. British combined all these states and called it British India.

Who told you this? Your textbooks? Your textbooks lied and fooled you.

Our textbooks and the lies they teach – The Express TribuneOur textbooks and the lies they teach – The Express Tribune

They don't stop here. They go ahead and make stories about India and say that India was part of pakistan!!

India was part of Pakistan: History textbooks of Pakistan « 26 Alphabets

So I would suggest you to read some neutral source. Remember Christopher Columbus? He was in search of India and not British India. Vasco D Gama? Came for spices in Kerala.

Get some knowledge about history and come back.

 

[Subramanian]

The british made the Muslim league in order to partition India and they knew how to feed off Jinnah's egtherwise Congress has had a great image amongst all communities and would have had more power in India than other parties.

The elitist muslims of UP/Bihar were the biggest proponets of the ML and partition as they wanted to keep their power in a new state,on the otehr hand the punjabis despite all the violence are quite similar hindu/muslim/sikh anbd linguistically more connected.

In UP,Muslim elite and hindu Brahman/Thakur/Baniya elite never got along and differed in a lot of ways.

 

[somebozo]

The british made the Muslim league in order to partition India and they knew how to feed off Jinnah's egtherwise Congress has had a great image amongst all communities and would have had more power in India than other parties.

The elitist muslims of UP/Bihar were the biggest proponets of the ML and partition as they wanted to keep their power in a new state,on the otehr hand the punjabis despite all the violence are quite similar hindu/muslim/sikh anbd linguistically more connected.

In UP,Muslim elite and hindu Brahman/Thakur/Baniya elite never got along and differed in a lot of ways.

It is actually the other way around..Gandhi and Nehru are known as a British creation as they both played into the colonial policy of sidelining Muslims as second class citizens.

Was Gandhi a British Creation? | Indian Realist

 

[CorporateAffairs]

On first hand, India should never been partitioned.

 

[GURU DUTT]

Well my family has paid very dearly for this partition but it was right had there been no partition there would be no land reforms possible so no socio - economic equality yes partition was very painful most of the hindus of present day pakistan lost everything but in india today there is no concept of refugees & society is so vell mixed that hidus celebrate muslim& christian festivals and vicy-versa had there be no partition we would be in the same state which wiston churchill mentioned thanks a million to who ever made partition possible even when giving birth a women has a lot of pain but when her child comes in her hand she has no problem its another matter some children are smart and some are ...?