Appeared in Times of India - September 21, 2008
| What if India were not partitioned? |
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Monday, September 22, 2008
by Aakar Patel
Unpartitioned India would be the word�s largest country (1.4 billion people), the world�s largest Muslim country (500 million) and would have the world�s second best cricket team (size has nothing to do with Australia�s dominance).It would also be the world�s poorest country (over 600 million hungry).
Many Indians fantasize about such a nation, stretching from Iran to Burma, from the Middle East to the Far East, and the maps of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh even visualise it. Their fantasy is not necessarily about the conquest of Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is the wistfulness of an Indian identity that is pure geography. It is also born out of their belief that Partition did not have the approval of India�s Muslims.
India�s textbooks ignore the 1945-46 provincial elections in which the Muslim League trounced the Congress on Muslim seats, settling the issue of Partition. Even Bombay�s Muslims gave 40 seats out of 40 to their beloved Jinnah and MC Chagla, later Chief Justice of Bombay High Court, recorded the cries of �Jinnah Zindabad!� and �Pakistan Zindabad!� at mosques in the city�s Muslim neighbourhoods.
But most Indians do not think of Pakistan as the result of a popular movement. India�s textbooks have attacked Jinnah ad hominem because it was felt, correctly, that the Indian public would not be able to accept general Muslim acquiescence to Partition. For Indians, Pakistan remains the creation of one man, a fluke almost. Therefore the fantasy about undivided India. But such a state would have been a disaster for both communities.
In undivided India, religion would have dominated political debate, as it did in the 30s and 40s, and consensus on reform would be hard to build internally. All energy would be sucked into keeping the country together. Undivided India would have separate electorates, the irreducible demand of the Muslim League and the one that Nehru stood against. A democracy with separate electorates is no democracy at all.
But Pakistan was formed out of a positive desire, not a hatred of India. Allama Iqbal articulated something that the majority of the subcontinent�s Muslims felt and feel: the desire to live under Nizam-e-Mustafa. This was not possible without Partition, which did not change the demography of what was to become Pakistan. Hindus would never have been able to rule Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan or the Frontier. Partition was not about that. It was about what kind of rule these places would have. The politics of Pakistan are about how to capture this desire and turn it into a constitution.
Post-Partition India�s politics have never been a debate about its constitution. All parties believe India should be a secular, democratic republic. It is the definition of the word secular that forms the fault line. The Congress and the Communists believe, as Gandhi did, in an inclusive secularism: one that constitutionally allows a religious identity to citizens.
The BJP points out to religious aspects of the Indian Constitution (Hanafi civil law for Muslims, separate status for Jammu & Kashmir) and wants them struck down in an exclusive definition of the word. There has never been a debate in India about whether the constitution should be Hindu or secular. The reason for that of course is that there is no such thing as a Hindu constitution.
Till its monarchy was abolished this year, Nepal was the only state in the world to have been ordered along the lines of the Hindu prescriptive text, Manu Smriti. Nepal had warrior kings (of the Chetri or Kshtriya dynasty) from whom executive power flowed - but princely India had no clear hierarchy of kings. And what about the other parts of Hindu doctrine? Would only some castes be allowed education? Only some castes allowed trade? And who would decide which communities belonged to which caste? Nepal ignored all of this.
None of these absurdities was even considered in India, because nobody demanded consideration. On November 26, 1949, the members of all Indian parties, including the BJP�s predecessor and the Muslim League�s successor, agreed to the constitution, automatically reforming Hindu law. Among those who voted was the man who would be the first president of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad. He sadly noted his understanding of what this meant: the end of doctrinal Hinduism. At least in law.
Agreement, if not consensus, about the nature of the constitution came earlier to Pakistan, on March 12, 1949. The Objectives Resolution tabled by Liaquat Ali Khan six months after Jinnah�s death laid down the principle that is still constitutionally true: that Pakistan�s laws would enable Muslims to live their lives individually and collectively in accordance with the Qur�an and Sunnah, and that Pakistanis would enjoy democracy, freedom and equality �as enunciated by Islam�.
All 10 Hindu members of the Pakistan Assembly voted against Liaquat�s resolution; all 21 Muslims, among whom Sir Zafrullah Khan was then included, voted in favour. The Hindus, who were Bengalis from East Pakistan, had not yet been able to understand the meaning of Partition and in their speeches kept referring to Jinnah�s secular appeal.
But without Partition there would have been no Nizam-e-Mustafa.
Without Partition, there would have been no constitutional reform within Hinduism: there would have been no confidence. The fault line of national politics in undivided India would have remained Hindu versus Muslim. Jinnah alone understood that from the start. Nehru and Patel understood it much later, agreeing to Partition. Gandhi never understood it; if he did, he never accepted it.
Gandhi led Muslims in the 20s during the Khilafat movement but did not comprehend what it was that he was stirring. Jinnah knew and offered resistance. Because he knew, he was able to later take control of that stirring and lead it to its final destination. Would Jinnah have been surprised by Liaquat�s Objectives Resolution? It is unlikely that he would have been: his papers show that he was informed about the direction in which the Constituent Assembly would tilt.
Dr Rafiq Zakaria, who opposed Jinnah as a student in England, wrote that the partition of India was the partition of its Muslims. They were divided first in 1947 and then in 1971 to form three communities, each cut off from the others, politically and culturally. The Hindus were united by Partition, leaving Pakistan almost entirely and increasingly leaving Bangladesh. Three parts of undivided India had a Muslim majority. The west became Pakistan, the east became Bangladesh. Sooner or later, the north will become something else: the Muslims of Kashmir do not want to be India. But Indians do not understand that.
The writer is a former newspaper editor. He lives in Bombay. Email: aakar @hillroadmedia.com |
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