Two Nation Theory

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Shia~Sunni Conflicts in Pakistan.
Nations divided on communal lines have no guarantee that all will coexist peacefully..I think this 2 nation theory is a farce by leaders..

Shia-Sunni and inter-tribal, inter-ethnic conflicts exist in many other nations as well, not just Pakistan. And just because sectarian or ethnic conflicts exist in nations does not mean that the rationale behind nationhood is in question. People who supported Pakistan chose to identify themselves as distinct from Indians (as do people of any nation with respect to another nation) and continue to do so.

 

[M8R]

Hell there are even White-Black issues in US but does not mean US is a weak country.

 

[PlanetWarrior]

Shia-Sunni and inter-tribal, inter-ethnic conflicts exist in many other nations as well, not just Pakistan. And just because sectarian or ethnic conflicts exist in nations does not mean that the rationale behind nationhood is in question. People who supported Pakistan chose to identify themselves as distinct from Indians (as do people of any nation with respect to another nation) and continue to do so.

Your suggestion (bolded part) flies against the face of writings of people who were responsible for the partition. Perhaps current day Pakistanis may wish to believe what you submitted. I would however suggest that you correct that fallacy by reading up on the causes for the creation of your nation

 

[Joe Shearer]

Muslims who chose to migrate to Pakistan saw partition as an event of great self determination.

Well, actually, if you look at the demographics, you will realise that the reality is that there was a huge population transfer in the Punjab (around 5 million Muslims from East to West Punjab); a major one in the Sind (around 1.2 million), and some more from other parts of India. Perhaps another 1 million or so migrated from Bihar and west Bengal into east Bengal. I don't have a figure for the Urdu-speaking migrants, the Mohajirs, but today, Urdu-speakers are 8% of the population of Pakistan, I should imagine around 13 million.

Pakistan is certainly not made up of a flood of Indian Muslims leaving India and landing up in Pakistan. It was largely a transfer in the Punjab and in the east, Bihar and Bengal in, Bengal out.

In today's figures, after all, nearly 160 million out of the 175 million in Pakistan are 'original' inhabitants.

This is not to dilute the huge numbers involved, or the catastrophic human tragedy. It is just not true that when partition came, half the Muslims in India marched out. Many left, but nowhere near all. After all, there are 138 million Muslims in India, 10 times the number of non-Punjabi, non-Sindhi migrants to Pakistan.

Jinnah and the Muslim League weren't asking for a homeland for ALL Muslims, they were asking for a homeland for Muslims, two, in fact, in the north-west and in the east. Neither they nor anybody else expected the population transfers that took place (Gandhi may have been an exception).

It was never to have happened like that. The best that we can make out is that what was anticipated was the sort of 'partition' that formed Punjab, Himachal and Haryana out of the old Punjab, and MP and Chhatisgarh out of MP: administrative measures, not death and disaster on an epic scale.

Jinnah personally must have felt vindicated in some respects, but he had never wanted a moth-eaten Pakistan; he had hoped to keep Punjab and Bengal together, which, incidentally, would have prevented the transfers, most of them, and perhaps the bulk of the slaughter, and he had hoped that the two homelands would serve to keep majoritarianism in the other entity at a low level.

In brief, what happened in reality was beyond the imagining of anybody.

 

[deepak75]

It is necessary to explain why these matters are of life and death importance, and should not be treated with the cavalier disdain that they have met from some.

Sir, you intrepreted my words incorrectly. I have no disdain, cavalier or pedestrian, but I can find no empathy with a matter which is long gone and which we have to now carry as baggage. If I have to see it, I will see it as an opportunity of not repeating the mistakes of the past while we move ahead.

We exist, Pakistan & Bangladesh & India. That is the only way I have known it. Even the elders in relations who had seen a unified India tell us, "Beta aap aage dekho, hamne bahut kurbaniyaan di hain aap logon ko yahaan tak laane ke liye".

People, both Indian and Pakistani, often wonder aloud why we should be dealing with these ancient matters. Pakistan exists; it is a fact. Only a Sanghi Parivar member, with dreams of Akhand Bharat, or a rigid theologian of the Deobandi School would object to its existence (it is not very well known that Deoband and almost all religious figures of a sort vehemently opposed Pakistan's creation).

These matters are in fact vital to an understanding of the situation of both the countries today. Such an understanding is also important in planning the course ahead.

I agree with only the bolded part. For me nothing else in your above post is important while looking at the future where we want to take this country. I will consider religion but only in the sense that Muslims in India should be given more opportunities so that they can rise to the prosperity levels of other communities. (I want that to happen for certain other strata of our society too but why drag the argument needlessly). They need attention and that is my only consideration to religion in my country.

My Bharat is limited to what I have today and what my elders fought and toiled to build. Just so that you do not misread me again, my elders were Hindus and also Muslims and also Sikhs and also Christians and were of all castes and all religions and creeds and ethinicities across the length and breadth of my country as it is today. They were also Gandhiwadis and also in INA and also the revolutionay Bhagat Singhs and Tilaks and Maulanas and Humes.

The rest of the Akhand Bharat that you may be referring to can be happy where it is. I have no interest in pursuing those goals, though I want China to give special rights to India for management of Lake Mansarovar in any administrative way they want to even if it remains in the territorial controls of China. That will be one of the things that will endear China to me a lot.

For Pakistan, rather, for Pakistanis, it is a vital matter. There is today open battle for the moral high ground in that country between the liberals and the religious right, or perhaps the religious extremists. Which of them is to prevail, or even if they do not prevail, how much of their particular point of view is to be incorporated into the constitution and the laws is dependent on the outcome of this battle.

Even for Pakistanis, I find no relevance to the past except to learn from the mistakes. It is time that they shed it off and looked in to now and ahead. 1947, 1965, 1971 or the 2000s are not bringing anything to the table except for mistrust. They are today losing billions of dollars of export and trade opportunities which could do wonders for their economy because of this baggage.

The religious extremism and terrorism that is plaguing Pakistan in my view can be negated only with a change in thinking and ideology. Only then will the liberalism set in to the social institutions.

The situation on the Indian side is divided along two sections, and each of these into two more.

First, with regard to internal matters within India, it is now no longer possible to sweep matters relating to identity under the carpet. The situation in the country should be apparent to the meanest intelligence. As Sahir Sahab described the constituency,Jinke naaz hai Hind par, these are critical issues.

In a responsible state there is no occasion when any matter, whether immediate or urgent can be swept under the carpet and neither can it be done now in India.

However, the fascists cannot be grouped under the heading of intelligent beings, so they may be excused for believing that they may continue to labour to restore a state of affairs that never existed except in their opium fantasies.

I am not able to get the point of that rant.

For those who understand that we live or die as Pakistan itself lives or dies, that it is in fact our relations with our neighbours which define us as a civilised nation, the matter is even more critical. If Pakistan becomes the Pakistan that Jinnah thought it would, we are home and dry. A Hindu-majority secular democracy will face a Muslim-majority secular democracy. This was the 'ballast' for the nation Jinnah had worked for, and ultimately died for.

Quite verbose, but please understand that nothing in my post alluded to anything otherwise.

If his programme is interpreted as the Islamists wish it to be interpreted, and that distortion comes to be the State organisation of Pakistan, we are in trouble. The wishes of the unnamed Brigadier of the famous essay, A Modest Proposal by the Brigadier, may well come true. Estimates are that over 120 million Pakistanis will die, and in the region of 500 million Indians, and that another few millions will die every year on both sides due to continued fallout. Presumably this outcome should energise us all to work for a peaceful and friendly relationship between ourselves.

This is the justification for what we are discussing, for the discussion itself.

I do not believe in doomsday theories. Takes the flavor out of living in the present. I do not think that Pakistan has leaders and Generals who underestimate the importance of their coming our victor in this war or who would raise the stakes to a nuclear extent and I do not think that there may be any sensible person in India who will think that we are insulated from what is happening in Pakistan.

India and Pakistan are conjoint twins, if one suffers the other will be impacted.

Here is to hoping that I was able to submit my thoughts more clearly to you. I sincerely regret that I was not able to do it in the first instance.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

.

Another Strawman ! Maybe even bordering on Dissembling !

Who argued that Z community is incompatible. What the heck, for your sake we would be willing to make them an offer if they want to accept.

Yes, and if they/Indians chose to reject it then that would be Z (British)/X (Indian) community determining that they do not wish to co-exist as one nation, a decision that should be respected by the other side. Similarly, an offer was made to Y (Muslims who supported Pakistan) to coexist as one nation - we chose not to. That decision should be respected, just as those of the citizens of the 195 Independent countries in the world that choose not to coexist as part of another nation.

The British never claimed to be one nation with India. Pakistan was carved out of India as the homeland for Muslims. A portion of the X community-X(y) did not accept the thesis that X is incompatible with Y and preferred to stay with Y immediately bringing into question the theory that X is incompatible with Y.

Exactly, Muslims that supported Pakistan chose not to accept being one nation with India. As much our choice as that of the British and Indians to not coexist with each other as one nation.

That other Muslims chose to not support Pakistan is their business - as I said, perfect homogeneity in human opinion is an impossible feat. But in the context of the millions of Muslims that inhabited the lands the became Pakistan and supported the idea of Pakistan, the argument was correct from their perspective just as it was for the British, French, Indians etc. to not coexist as one nation.

The problem with that is once you have gone down that road in your argument, you open yourself to this:

That is a dicey argument. Apparently Baluchistanis 'fear for the rights' of their 'community'. Are they then justified in their claim to break away from Pakistan?

That argument was in the context of a community using certain tactics to negotiate for a better 'deal' - are some Baluch nationalists (not referring to terrorist groups carrying out violence against the State and civilians) using 'threats and demands' for Independence as a means to force the Federal Government to allocate more resources to Baluchistan and grant more autonomy to the provinces?

Absolutely.

And has it worked?

Absolutely.

It did not however work in the case of negotiations between the ML and INC, and the result was greater support for Pakistan.

So, where do you stop? When you deem it convenient? After all if the above is accepted and considering that X/2 happened in 1971 causing X1 & X2 over non religious differences, then X1 could be further divided by the acceptance of further incompatibility within X1. After all wouldn't you be the outsider in some or all of the cases?

Why only argue this in the case of India and Pakistan? Do you not see the 190+ other nations in this world, whose residents also choose to live as distinct from one another? Many of those nations are no homogeneous either (on the grounds of religion, race, ethnicity, tribe, political ideology etc.). Pakistan's case was unique in the sense that a region colonized by the British was finally being freed, and in that process, Y community had the option to strike out on their own as an independent nation rather than be part of one nation created out of that colony.

Now the trick is to satisfy all the diverse groups that are part of that nation, just as India has to, and that is part of 'nation building'.

My point was just that on a personal level, it reinforced bigotry in both communities and made it that much easier to vilify the other. My argument was on the moral plane, not on the practical one.Maybe a point of agreement here?

I don't agree that the two nation theory itself reinforced bigotry, but bigots on each side who already detested the 'other' did use it to strike out using violence and polarize opinion. The failure was that of a flawed partition plan and inept governance IMO, in that the actions of bigots were not anticipated and not thwarted, and the consequences of pursuing partition in the manner that it was pursued not anticipated.

 

[Joe Shearer]

<snip>

Hindus saw it as a reward to the Muslim league for their support in diluting the demand of Independence of India amongst Muslims who were fearful of reprisals in a Hindu dominated India.

British saw it as an opportunity to ensure that they will leave a telling memorial on the geo-politics of the sub-continent for years to come.

Any which of them could be right or equally wrong. Depends on which side of the Radcliffe line we stand.

<snip>

About the Hindus, I don't know; I don't know that Hindus react so uniformly that there might be a uniform Hindu reaction.

About Indians in general, discussing it, talking about it, reading about it, writing about it, watching it on film, seeing it on TV, I am afraid you are right.

As regards the British role, this is a myth that we have built up, with little or no basis except in our sentimental attachment to conspiracy theories.

At the time of independence, Britain had just gone through a terrible World War. Hostilities affected her far more than it did India. We have no real idea of the hardships that Britons suffered, and tend to underplay its effect on their thinking. This had led to a political revolution; for the second time in its history, that country elected a Labour government, a government on whose ministers its own secret service spied for another twenty years or more, a government seen to be close to Soviet Russia. This government was bent on dismantling the apparatus of Empire, that to them seemed to be designed for the benefit of the aristocracy and the middle classes. Attlee gave Mountbatten no leeway, no space for manoeuvre. Mountbatten's only utility was that as the King's close relative, his sambandhi, so to speak, as Charles' uncle and head of the Battenberg family, he had the credibility that a more natural Labour nominee would never have had.

People who served in the imperial services at that time were witnesses to the fact that the British officers themselves had no clue about what to do and how to plan for the future; they knew nothing of the future.

Added to that was the reluctance of the British Army to fight on. Major General Habibullah told my father about the British Cavalry regiment asked to make a perfectly normal river crossing in Burma, which refused point blank; they had their demob. coming up, they explained, and wanted to run no risks any more, they said.

All this in face of an Indian Navy in open mutiny, and an Indian Army bloated by wartime to a huge size, and already considered shaky after the debacle of the INA trials.

This deep British plot to divide and conquer has no basis outside our wish to find some external agency to blame for our own acts of murder and ethnic cleansing.

 

[deepak75]

Well, actually, if you look at the demographics, you will realise that the reality is that there was a huge population transfer in the Punjab (around 5 million Muslims from East to West Punjab); a major one in the Sind (around 1.2 million), and some more from other parts of India. Perhaps another 1 million or so migrated from Bihar and west Bengal into east Bengal. I don't have a figure for the Urdu-speaking migrants, the Mohajirs, but today, Urdu-speakers are 8% of the population of Pakistan, I should imagine around 13 million.

Pakistan is certainly not made up of a flood of Indian Muslims leaving India and landing up in Pakistan. It was largely a transfer in the Punjab and in the east, Bihar and Bengal in, Bengal out.

In today's figures, after all, nearly 160 million out of the 175 million in Pakistan are 'original' inhabitants.

This is not to dilute the huge numbers involved, or the catastrophic human tragedy. It is just not true that when partition came, half the Muslims in India marched out. Many left, but nowhere near all. After all, there are 138 million Muslims in India, 10 times the number of non-Punjabi, non-Sindhi migrants to Pakistan.

Sir, the plan proposed by Sir Mohamed Iqbal anyway took in to consideration major muslim population regions so displacement would have been only as necessary. Further, not all muslims were unified in the idea of creation of Pakistan so a lot of them did not migrate.

Jinnah and the Muslim League weren't asking for a homeland for ALL Muslims, they were asking for a homeland for Muslims, two, in fact, in the north-west and in the east. Neither they nor anybody else expected the population transfers that took place (Gandhi may have been an exception).

It was never to have happened like that. The best that we can make out is that what was anticipated was the sort of 'partition' that formed Punjab, Himachal and Haryana out of the old Punjab, and MP and Chhatisgarh out of MP: administrative measures, not death and disaster on an epic scale.

Sir, that is bordering on naiviety. How can you expect anyone to believe that it was thought that this massive displacement will be as simple as mere redrawing of adminstrative lines as was and is done during the redivision of states India. Was it envisaged that once a division was done on basis as sensitive as religion (even more in those times) then there will be no mass displacement? Was it expected that only the elites and intellectuals of the muslim community move to Pakistan and not the Biharis who did not want partition in the first place?

Jinnah personally must have felt vindicated in some respects, but he had never wanted a moth-eaten Pakistan; he had hoped to keep Punjab and Bengal together, which, incidentally, would have prevented the transfers, most of them, and perhaps the bulk of the slaughter, and he had hoped that the two homelands would serve to keep majoritarianism in the other entity at a low level.

In brief, what happened in reality was beyond the imagining of anybody.

Ever thought why Indian schedule gave acceptance to regional languages while Mr. Jinnah on this visit to Dhaka university during discussion with students, insisted that only Urdu can be acceptable in Pakistan?

That was the seed of the 3rd nation. See that religion had nothing to do with it but tolerance?

 

[deepak75]

About the Hindus, I don't know; I don't know that Hindus react so uniformly that there might be a uniform Hindu reaction.

About Indians in general, discussing it, talking about it, reading about it, writing about it, watching it on film, seeing it on TV, I am afraid you are right.

As regards the British role, this is a myth that we have built up, with little or no basis except in our sentimental attachment to conspiracy theories.

At the time of independence, Britain had just gone through a terrible World War. Hostilities affected her far more than it did India. We have no real idea of the hardships that Britons suffered, and tend to underplay its effect on their thinking. This had led to a political revolution; for the second time in its history, that country elected a Labour government, a government on whose ministers its own secret service spied for another twenty years or more, a government seen to be close to Soviet Russia. This government was bent on dismantling the apparatus of Empire, that to them seemed to be designed for the benefit of the aristocracy and the middle classes. Attlee gave Mountbatten no leeway, no space for manoeuvre. Mountbatten's only utility was that as the King's close relative, his sambandhi, so to speak, as Charles' uncle and head of the Battenberg family, he had the credibility that a more natural Labour nominee would never have had.

People who served in the imperial services at that time were witnesses to the fact that the British officers themselves had no clue about what to do and how to plan for the future; they knew nothing of the future.

Added to that was the reluctance of the British Army to fight on. Major General Habibullah told my father about the British Cavalry regiment asked to make a perfectly normal river crossing in Burma, which refused point blank; they had their demob. coming up, they explained, and wanted to run no risks any more, they said.

All this in face of an Indian Navy in open mutiny, and an Indian Army bloated by wartime to a huge size, and already considered shaky after the debacle of the INA trials.

This deep British plot to divide and conquer has no basis outside our wish to find some external agency to blame for our own acts of murder and ethnic cleansing.

Amongst the other diatribe, as to the bold part, so you would consider the 1905 partition of Bengal too as a benevolent act from a "lost to the bone" British administration? Is it not? Or was that a deliberat act to dilute the independence struggle?

 

[Joe Shearer]

@Deepak75

Please do not be under the impression that any part of my commentary on your post is intended to convey personal disrespect. Not at all; nothing could be further from my intentions.

As far as the facts and the analysis are concerned, you will readily agree that only evidence, explained with honesty and integrity, counts, not our fables and myths. That is my only concern; to set right what I see as mistakes or misunderstandings, as best as I can. If at any point what I write seems abrasive, my apologies. Nothing personal is intended. But the Internet, and India itself, are both free, and your comment is as valuable as mine, and conversely. While I do not question your right to say what you will, I retain my right to refute what I see as error.

While on the subject, could you please eschew personal insults and pejorative comments on the nature of my writing?

 

[Joe Shearer]

<snip>

If the 2 nation theory tries to establish that there were a mass of minority who did not identify with a united India in the events moving up to our Independence, I agree with that.

However, any proposition that the creation of Pakistan was based on any ideology but for Islamic, is blatantly false, specially when the basis of the two nation theory is religion itself.

It is also completely false that the idea of separate Independent muslim states was not envisaged or agreed to by Jinnah up till 1947. Following clause from the Muslim league resolution from March of 1940 makes that fact very clear:



File Not Found

The original link above is broken. But the same content can be accessed on the following as well: http://pakistaniat.com/2007/03/22/march-23-1940-pakistan-day-resolution-lahore-qarardad-minto-park/

I am afraid that this part will make hardest reading for the author, as it is the part that is most in error. It seems reasonable, therefore, to spend a few extra minutes over the commentary, to avoid any element of personal animus.

Bear with me.

 

[toxic_pus]

My point is that the decision of compatibility is for the people of a community to make - whether they be Indians and the British, Muslims and Hindus, Indians and Pakistanis, Pakistanis and Arabs etc. etc. ....

In the context of TNT, when did the Muslim community decide that they are incompatible with the Hindus? Clearly when Jinnah was breathing fire about TNT, the Muslim peasantry was almost entirely behind Gandhi. In fact at the time of Partition the staying back of majority of Muslims in India also runs counter to your claim, or rather allusion, that the Muslim community had decided that they were incompatible with Hindus. In reality it was just a handful of Muslim elites who decided on behalf of all other Muslims in the subcontinent that Muslims were incompatible with Hindus.

Now how is that different from, say for example, the Taliban’s attempt to decide, on behalf of all other Muslims, what is ‘pure’ Islam.

Every community, or a people, can define their identity and their destiny - you have many nations in Europe, of people with the same faith and of the same race, yet many have defined their selves as distinct nations. This is a choice for a community or people to make, and not for outsiders.

Yes that’s correct. But TNT is not based on the concept of ‘nationhood’ that Europe espouses. TNT basically states that religion, and religion alone makes disparate communities homogeneous. Thus, as I have mentioned earlier, a Bengali is not a Bengali first, but is foremost a Muslim (or a Hindu) and by being a Muslim (or a Hindu) their aspirations are same as, for example, a Punjabi. That is entirely opposite of European ‘nationhood’.

 

[toxic_pus]

That is a dicey argument. Apparently Baluchistanis 'fear for the rights' of their 'community'. Are they then justified in their claim to break away from Pakistan?

That argument was in the context of a community using certain tactics to negotiate for a better 'deal' - are some Baluch nationalists (not referring to terrorist groups carrying out violence against the State and civilians) using 'threats and demands' for Independence as a means to force the Federal Government to allocate more resources to Baluchistan and grant more autonomy to the provinces?

Absolutely.

And has it worked?

Absolutely.

It did not however work in the case of negotiations between the ML and INC, and the result was greater support for Pakistan.

Why stop at getting or, from Pakistan’s perspective, giving better deals? Why not take it a step further and let them have a ‘nation’ of their own, which clearly many of them want (no need to dilute that calling it a politics of blackmail, given that PA takes it quite seriously)? Why won’t Pakistan ‘respect’ their ‘nation’ like the rest of ‘195 nations’ do to each other?

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

In the context of TNT, when did the Muslim community decide that they are incompatible with the Hindus?

By voting for the ML or allied parties, and in other cases through referendum or provincial legislatures voting in favor of Pakistan.

Clearly when Jinnah was breathing fire about TNT, the Muslim peasantry was almost entirely behind Gandhi. In fact at the time of Partition the staying back of majority of Muslims in India also runs counter to your claim, or rather allusion, that the Muslim community had decided that they were incompatible with Hindus. In reality it was just a handful of Muslim elites who decided on behalf of all other Muslims in the subcontinent that Muslims were incompatible with Hindus.

That not all Muslims chose to support the idea of Pakistan is why I have attempted to use the phrase 'Muslims who supported Pakistan'. This community was comprised largely of the residents of the provinces with large Muslim populations. So for many of the millions of Muslim residents of the Bengal, Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan, the idea of Pakistan as an independent nation made sense and was justified. For millions of other Muslims in British India it did not, or not enough to justify relocating. To them the best of luck.

Now how is that different from, say for example, the Taliban’s attempt to decide, on behalf of all other Muslims, what is ‘pure’ Islam.

Barbaric violence against civilians for one - I have no problem with the MMA (defunct coalition of religious parties) or even the Taliban running a peaceful grassroots or political campaign in favor of their religious or political views, but beheading civilians for not adhering to your code and views on religion, unacceptable.

Yes that’s correct. But TNT is not based on the concept of ‘nationhood’ that Europe espouses. TNT basically states that religion, and religion alone makes disparate communities homogeneous. Thus, as I have mentioned earlier, a Bengali is not a Bengali first, but is foremost a Muslim (or a Hindu) and by being a Muslim (or a Hindu) their aspirations are same as, for example, a Punjabi. That is entirely opposite of European ‘nationhood’.

So what if TNT uses religion instead of some other identity marker to determine 'distinction' from another community? Why is that worse than using race or language? At a basic level, whether using race, religion or language, the idea is the same - a community picking one/some aspects of its identity matrix as making it distinct from others.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Why stop at getting or, from Pakistan’s perspective, giving better deals? Why not take it a step further and let them have a ‘nation’ of their own, which clearly many of them want (no need to dilute that calling it a politics of blackmail, given that PA takes it quite seriously)? Why won’t Pakistan ‘respect’ their ‘nation’ like the rest of ‘195 nations’ do to each other?

Because giving them a 'nation of their own' is a loss for Pakistan obviously, and violates the contract that the peoples of Pakistan entered into. Independence for one/some/all territories that constitute a nation may not be in the best interest of a nation, and may not be in the best interest of the smaller nations. It is up to the stakeholders on all sides to come to an agreement on how best to preserve the nation as a single entity and what sort of national structure serves the interests of all concerned better than breaking up into smaller nations.

In Pakistan, perhaps for the first time, we are seeing tangible progress in addressing the political and economic issues in Balochistan in a manner that keeps all major stakeholders happy, and preserves a single nation.