What if India had not been partitioned ?

[Mridula]

Let me open put my hand in the bees nest. What if India had not been partitioned? The Pakistanis will be very upset by this question, but do understand that it is a rhetorical one.
If the British had not divided up our country into various parts maybe we would not have fought so many wars , lost so many lives, and maybe both of us - Pakistan & India would spend more money on development and less on arms

[DaHLiA06]

Aah! Well, It is a very big 'What if?' I feel "What if India hadn’t been partitioned?" becomes the most intriguing of questions.If we are one of those who believe that history is "the play of the contingent and unforeseen", that no events are inevitable until they happen, and that there are many plausible possibilities in every decision. I now just wonder How this Hindu-Muslim emphasis must have grated on secularists! Well, talking about this 'what if'... I would say..


The suffering caused by the secession of Bangladesh could have been avoided.

The dispute over Kashmir would not have occurred, with all the attendant terrorism that has distorted life in India.

The foreign policy of India would not have been dominated by relations with Pakistan, with all the attendant distortions.

Over all, It would be much better in many other ways if India had not been partitioned! It had happeed, anyways.. :?

[Belisarius]

If the British had not divided up our country into various parts maybe we would not have fought so many wars , lost so many lives, and maybe both of us - Pakistan & India would spend more money on development and less on arms

Indians fought amongst themselves long before the British came. The Raj brought stability to the area, and I don't think it fair to blame Hindu-Muslim relations onto the British.

[Mridula]

Before Partition, we have fought very few wars on religious grounds. Before the Raj came in the Mughals had unified the country under one ruler. They ruled the country well and all religions prospered. The British were not responsible for the Partition, but they did encourage it.
Anyway, the fact remains that it did give birth to 2 new nations ( Bangladesh came later ) and unfortunately for all of us at the subcontinent, it left us with an animosity towerds each other, which eradicated years of harmonious livimg
But then as someone said - the saddest words in English are " it might have been "

[Belisarius]

Before Partition, we have fought very few wars on religious grounds. Before the Raj came in the Mughals had unified the country under one ruler. They ruled the country well and all religions prospered.

Not sure I can accept this statement; was not the Mughal/Mogul conquest a "religious" war in itself? Even a cursory glance through the history of Mughal/Mogul India reveals several wars between the Muslim North and the Hindu South. Between 1488 and 1517, and again in 1664 and 1707 there were Muslim persecutions of Hindus and consequent rebellions.
Before then, you had Mahmud of Ghazni and Tamurlane's invasions; basically Muslim-Hindu wars.
Ater that, the wars between the declining Muslims and the resugent Hindus fractured the continent and sucked the British into the power vacuum thus created.

The partition was the only viable solution to the problem of religious strife in India that emerged when the British empire was in decline and effectively on its way out. By then, the world had seen enough genocidal war, and the British, as the imperial power, were not prepared to allow another such war in India once they'd left.

[Mridula]

This debate could go on and on - for there are so many sides to it. The British agreed to the partition because by then they knew that they should leave and they were in a great hurry. The maps were drawn by an English gentleman living in England, who in a few places bifurcated the villages.
Yes before the Mughals came there were innumerable wars in India - more of battles than wars. But India was unified as a large nation only among very few rulers - Ashoka and the Mauryas, and then the Mughals.
The wars were religious wars but were more territorial. Mahmud of Ghazni came to conquer a nation - not neccessarily because he though they should be removed because they were Hindus.
A lovely debate - it has been a long time since I had a discussion on Indian History.

[Nick]

India's unity would depend on the Muslims and Hindus cooperating. The country would be at risk of collapsing into anarchy, fueled by sectarian violence. Granting the Hindus and Muslims their own independent countries was a good thing as it prevented this and ensured India's survival and potential to one day join the modern superpowers.

[spaniard]

Let me open put my hand in the bees nest. What if India had not been partitioned? The Pakistanis will be very upset by this question, but do understand that it is a rhetorical one.
If the British had not divided up our country into various parts maybe we would not have fought so many wars , lost so many lives, and maybe both of us - Pakistan & India would spend more money on development and less on arms

Hey Mridula...
This is one of the nice and timely question. ;)

If India had not been divided...then there would be two nations existing in one and could have lead to more chaos. :confused:

I know you would strongly object to my opinion. :mad:

But in a country where an individual is discriminated and preferred on the basis of his religion, race, caste and gender...it would become a nightmare if the islamist population from Pak and Bangla were a part of Indo. :eek:

With exremely stupid people in power...the whole scenario looks very gloomy.
No strategy...no vision...no system in place...this is a failed state...believe me!!! :(

I need not elaborate further...:cool:

[Medievalist]

Things happen for a reason and there is wisdom in ALLAH's plan for everything. Thats my take on things.

Sometimes I do wonder that would one united india not have been better? But then it only gets depressing because we cant change the past, just deal with the present.

[Toltec]

I think a greater India could have worked. There's almost as many muslims in India as Pakistan anyway. A doubling of the number would change little.

Should Pakistan ever have been a country at all is another question. Baluchistan, the Sindh, the Punjab, Northern Pakistan, Bengal. Does anything connect these places? The British could easily have divided it between India, Afghanistan and Iran and avoided a lot of strife.

That the British messed up big time in dividing up countries is legendary, look at Africa for an even bigger bolognaise.

[Medievalist]

A united india may have worked but considering the fact that there was an atmosphere of mistrust between the hindus and muslims - that was always going to be a problem.

[Kiwi]

Well, can't Indian be reunited?

I mean currently, India is a federation, and if Pakistan and India were to be reunited, Pakistan could dissolve itself, and re-incarnate itself as a state of India. Theoretically, it'd solve the problem, but it wouldn't work in the real world, eventually the Pakistanis will get sick of being ruled by Indians, and they'll revolt, and the whole 9 yards, and more sectarian violence will occur.

I'm gonna go back to the very core of this problem.
I don't understand WHY the United Kingdom decided to let India go, it was the crown jewel of the British Empire. Sure there was protests, but India isn't all that different from British India, there are still masses of poor, and there are still major protests, India is still being exploited for their cheap labour and resources.... it's getting ready for another revolution.

I betcha, if the British never left, India would've become a more successful nation.

[Toltec]

A man after my own heart.

I have exactly the same views about New Zealand. We should certainly have never left and it would be a so much better country today with us ruling it.

[galteeman]

I read recently about the theory that Churchill was the driving force behind the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. he thought that in the long run he would be able to use Pakistan against the Soviets in some way whereas a united India would not be as cooperative.
There is a good article about this subject here.

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj03-1/meyer.html
here is a sample from it.
Three persistent questions haunt the founding of Pakistan. Did the British deliberately inspire Hindu-Islamic enmity to divide and rule? Was partition inescapable? Did Britain’s precipitate withdrawal from India in 1947 contribute to massacres that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives? Regarding the first question, the British editor and imperial veteran H. V. Hodson offers the standard yet credible rejoinder in his account of the Raj’s final months, The Great Divide: "It is not possible to divide and rule unless the ruled are ready to be divided. The British may have used the HinduMuslim rivalry for their own advantage, but they did not invent it. They did not write the annals of Indian history, nor prescribe the conflicting customs of her communities, nor foment the murderous riots that periodically flared between Hindus and Muslims in her villages and cities. They were realists, and if they did use India’s divisions for their advantage, the divisions themselves were already real." .htm (http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2003/11/30/stories/2003113000310500.htm)

[Bucephalus]

"It is not possible to divide and rule unless the ruled are ready to be divided. The British may have used the HinduMuslim rivalry for their own advantage, but they did not invent it. They did not write the annals of Indian history, nor prescribe the conflicting customs of her communities, nor foment the murderous riots that periodically flared between Hindus and Muslims in her villages and cities. They were realists, and if they did use India’s divisions for their advantage, the divisions themselves were already real."


So true. As with so many artificially drawn and partitioned colonial boundaries, the ethnic, regional, geographic, religious, and linguistic divisions already existed. As an example, even with the division, India and Pakistan have been arguing and fighting over Jammu and Kashmir for decades.

With the recent resignation of Musharraf and the fall of the transitional government in Pakistan, we now have the ominous specter of a dangerously destabilized adolescent nuclear power...

[Kiwi]

A man after my own heart.

I have exactly the same views about New Zealand. We should certainly have never left and it would be a so much better country today with us ruling it.

I agree, I'm a huge supporter of the British Empire, and how happy I would be, if one day the British Empire returned to it's former greatness.

Although New Zealand was not really "occupied" and "controlled" the way India was, as New Zealand, in the eyes of the British Government, was not really a concern, and plus, India was where the British Government focused all their attention on.

British colonisation of New Zealand and India are totally 2 different things in many respect, Britain used military force in India to control the population, while New Zealand was settled in by Brits, that later started to control their own affairs, which would eventually to Dominion status.

New Zealand's foreign policy now is rather...err... "Pro-US", which I strongly disagree with. I think we should realign with Britain, reasons being tradition and culture, not to mention, we share the same queen =P

[Kris]

I'd like to focus on what perhaps is an unpopular point.

According to the Koran, Muslims are to provide protection to Christians and Jews (referred to as People of the Book) when they live under their rule. No such protection is guaranteed in the Koran to Hindus, Buddhists, and other non-Abrahamic followers of religion who are simply given the choice of converting or dying (the People of the Book are given a third choice, paying the Jizya, a protection tax).

With the exception of the rule of Akbar, Hindus haven't had easy relations with Muslims. The very insistence of the creation of Pakistan stems from the fact that Muslims did not want to be ruled over by Hindus and considered it an inconvenience and possibly a disgrace.

There would still be problems if India had not been partitioned. This is evidenced in the destruction of the differences boiling over in the destruction of the Babri Mosque,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babri_Mosque

...which lead to wide scale revenge attacks on innocent men, women, and children. But, there would be no impetus for nuclear proliferation if the violence was between a national majority and national minority. No one is going to nuke what is nominally their own territory. In my mind, the division of India was a mistake and, if anything, solidified the differences between Hindu and Muslim.

[Belisarius]

.

British colonisation of New Zealand and India are totally 2 different things in many respect, Britain used military force in India to control the population,


So the Maori wars don't count then? ;)

[Rosicrucian]

I distinctly remember posting on this thread last night, seems to have gotten lost.

Anyhow, I was saying it's actually a good thing that India was partitioned. If not, we would have only had more people, more poverty, more problems. And God knows we have our plate full with all that as it is. So good riddance, I say.

If India had been left intact, so to speak, we would have had Iran and Afghanistan as our neighbours on the western side, which doesn't look very exciting considering the perpetual cat-&-mouse game they seem to be playing with the U.S. In the regions bordering these countries the people would have been as fundamentalist as ever which doesn't sit well with India's secular ambitions. Sooner or later sectarian problems would have surfaced. So it's good we got it out our way in the early years of independence.

On the Bangladesh side, we don't have to deal with their terrible floods any more (don't you think we have enough of our own natural calamities?)

Besides, if a certain segment of the population gets into their head that their ultimate loyalty is towards Islam and not the country they are inhabiting, then it's best to let them go. No point wasting time and resources in trying to keep people who don't want to be with you.

As to the highly frequent terrorist attacks all over India, I don't think the situation would have been any different in an unpartitioned scenario. At the most, the cause would have been different. The basic problem lies with the mindset of the people. Prior to the Brits, I don't think a unified India even existed. We don't seem to have a history of standing by our country as such and have always been governed by self-serving rulers (be it the Indian kings, or later on the Brits, and now our politicians). Considering all that, I'd say whatever happened was for the best. A relatively smaller India is more manageable, and in spite of our numerous problems, we seem to be doing well (relatively, again).

Of course, it's extremely unfortunate all the bloodshed that the partition caused. But I think all the violence in the world only reflects that we as a species aren't much evolved yet. And besides, there's little to do except learn our lessons and move on.

[Kiwi]

So the Maori wars don't count then? ;)

No, I don't think so, after the wars, the Maori decided to leave the European lifestyle that was rising in NZ, instead they resettled in secluded areas (Not so secluded nowadays though), the British didn't really bother to try to control them, as at the times they were expected to die out as a race around the early 20th century.

It's easy to control a British colony where the majority are British, as most British would stay loyal to their own, and to The Crown.

India on the other hand, the British were a major minority there, 500 million (my estimate) Native/Ethnic Indians, controlled by a handful of British politicians and some wealthy settlers surely messed up the Indian's life, it's hard to stay loyal to a Government that doesn't represent you, or your people, in which case the British Government in India, was as you know, British, not Indian.

So, of course, the British had to use excessive military force to control the population.