I’ve always been curious to ask an Indian left-winger: do you personally think that the subcontinent’s communal situation would be better today if the partition had never happened? I’ve seen an argument that, while it would seemingly be better for stability if two groups who didn’t get along were separated into different states, that in reality the effect was just to equip each side of the feud with rocket artillery and nuclear weapons. If there had never been wars with Pakistan and Hindus had a smaller majority, would the situation for Indian Muslims be better now?
I’ve thought about this a lot. A lot of India’s policies and social life is centered around countering Pakistan. Our extravagant military budget, for one. Pakistan is used for nationalism too. If anyone is critical of India or the government, the common retort is “go to Pakistan”. When India performs poorly on global metrics of poverty, education etc., the fall back is to compare to Pakistan (which usually does worse). When people talk about lack of freedom (of speech, of press etc), again Pakistan. I haven’t even talked about how people view Indian Muslims as secret agents of Pakistan, or working on Pakistan’s behalf. It feeds into the racism, xenophobia etc. And Bangladesh is used to denounce “illegal immigration”.
The Partition was a terrible thing to happen to South Asia. Millions died, tens of millions became refugees overnight, losing their houses, their belongings, their jobs, having to move hundreds of kilometers on foot just so they could live. Most people, whether leaders of various groups, or the population at large, didn’t want the partition at all. There were very legitimate concerns about the fate of Muslims in an Independent India, which was given as a reason for the Partition, but that just made things worse. Muslims would have been a third of the population, and the Hindu fascists could do nothing about that. At that time, in the 40s, 50s, 60s, Hindu fascists were nowhere close to power. And they would never have dared to destroy the Babri Masjid, or commit the various atrocities in Kashmir, or anything of that sort.
Anyways, sorry I rambled on. Yeah, the Partition was bad, for India, for Pakistan, for everyone. The only people who’ve benefited from it are Hindu fascists, the military, and the West.
