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.
RE:Bull's Eye
by Robby on Jun 14, 2005 09:16 PM Permalink
Ok Salih, let's not get over-excited here at the latest Indo-Pak bonhomie. India may have been a loose mass of many smaller states for hundreds of years - but the idea of Bharat is as old as Mahabharat. It was known as Aryavart then - and stretched from Kandhar(Gandhar - Shakuni's capital, where Gandhari was from) to Sri Lanka, including Kashmir(many scriptural references here) and Assam (and here too). The Aryavart was that and just that. Not Tibet, not Iran and not Thailand. So even if it was not neatly carved out in a single country, India's claim as a country is much more valid and older than most other countries'. And please, British or Mughals deserve no credit for that. It was just a conquered land for them.
But, really, this is a superlative column. It separates the wheat from the chaff- not just among the columnists but also among the readers. Proves so clearly that the common public is so naive and prone to thinking in black and white. The real issue is lost though. Advani NEVER called Jinnah secular. He only talked about a certain passage from a speech to remind Pak of a lesson their father had tought them and which they have now forgotten. What's so bad about that?
