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Bull's Eye
by Salih on Jun 13, 2005 04:02 PM

Frankly I could never accept RSS as an intellectual organisation. It neither knows history nor ever appreciates its niceties.

Indian understanding of Partition story stems from the belief Muslim League divided Bharat/Hindustan that existed for thousands of years. The India we have today was just a generic, geographic term used erroneously by many societies to the whole of South Asia. We have to thank - among others - the Mughals and the British - for the evolution of India that we know of today.

Appreciation of this fact is important to put partition in perspective. The Partition was wrong not because it divided 'an eternally existing India', but it was wrong because some - both in the Muslim League Hindu Mahasabha - believed Hindus and Muslims cannot live together. This belief caused thousands of deaths and displaced millions. This turned out to be an alarmist belief as we know from the Indian experience that Hindus and Muslims can indeed live together.

Of course, a united India (with Pakistan and Bangladesh) would have been a bigger country with nearly 30% Muslim presence. A moot point whether this percentage distribution would have caused its own tensions ala Lebanon.

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Advani puts Jinnah first