We are One Nation (India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh):
The Original Melting Pot.
I begin this chapter with great trepidation. It is of questionable merit whether a topic such as this should even be attempted, but I think there is at least a seed of truth in what I have to say, and perhaps, while thinking of this issue, we will at least be able to dream of the greatness that we might possibly achieve, even though the when we wake up from the dream we realize that this is easier dreamt of than actualized, given the political maps drawn out today.
One other reason why I must raise this issue is that I the views I hold on this issue are privately held by many, but given various constraints - some religious, some economic, most of us fight shy of expressing them publicly. We are afraid of consequences to our own little middle class existence. "I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions" (Emerson). We need to think of our societies and institutions as created and re-created by us; not as something to be taken as given. I imagine that I know what is good for our citizens. That is why I am writing this book about wealth and power in the first place. I will therefore go ahead with this task of taking up what will surely be held by some to be a foodhardy enterprise. As Emerson once again rightly said, "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." Uniting our nations is definitely cannot be a task for cowards.
Not so long ago, India and Pakistan (I include Bangladesh here since it was a part of Pakistan for a while) decided to split their eternal bond when the British left us. I firmly hold that this split between these two brothers was instigated at least indirectly by the West, which had everything to gain and little to lose from this split.
Today, if the world is afraid of any one developing nation, that nation must be China. In the 1940s, if the West was afraid of one such developing nation, United India must have been the one. United India had a quarter of the world's population, and a history of being at the cutting edge of learning. India was never much poorer (nor perhaps much richer) than the West till the 18th century. Therefore by sheer virtue of numbers, it was a powerhouse unparalleled in the history of the world. Estimates of India's exports accounting for a quarter of global trade a couple of hundred years ago are not too far-fetched. Further, by the time the British left us, we had in place the basic institutions usually needed for economic development, as well as command over the English language, a great asset in the modern world, despite having been pushed by the British to a far lower level of economic power in the world than India was when they found it.
While Indians had lived as one huge brotherhood (or a set of conflicting brotherhoods), for thousands of years, and had very rarely taken the shape of one nation as we mean it in the modern sense, we must remember that the very concept of nationality as observed in the world today is a very recent phenomenon, developed only in the past three to four hundred years in the West. We cannot write off India as a united nation on the ground that it was not a united nation in the sense of a nation today, because, in the past, no nationality, anywhere in the world, has been a nation in that sense. It is ethnicity and culture that defines a nation, and perhaps shared memories. In that sense, united India has always been a single nation.
It was an "unfortunate" consequence for the West that the British brought in not only political unity in the modern sense to this latent nation, but also sowed the seeds of modern nationalism in India through modern education. Therefore, when the Congress started its rebellion in the late 19th century, the West faced a great risk of competition for power from this giant of thousands of years which was now likely to become a powerhouse of technology as a modern nation state.
Without analyzing the history of the early 20th century India in great detail, one can see the connivance of the British in promoting this great split in India on the basis of religion ("Divide and Rule" was their mantra), which is so absurd that one marvels how the British were allowed to get away with this by the great global powers which today pounce like leopards to prevent changes to global boundaries. The farce is that despite the professed intention of separating these brothers on the basis of religion, India retains its position as a major Muslim nation. We support the fourth largest Muslim population in the world, despite having been severed from Pakistan on the pretext of separating the Muslims. [Facts: The largest Muslim populations are in Indonesia: 170 million, Pakistan: 127 million, Bangladesh: 102 million, and India: 100 million]. It is very difficult to directly implicate the British in this strategic connivance, since documents would perhaps show otherwise, perhaps a great concern of the British for the fate of the Muslims. But those who manage power know that what is written in files and letters is often quite different from the "implicit" force of thinking that is discussed at best in private conversation. If the British wanted, they could have easily have prevented the partition. Further, the British and the West had, as mentioned earlier, everything to gain from the partition.
Today, when I meet students from Pakistan, I have much more in common with them than with many Indians. We share a language, a culture, a flavor, and many Indians share the religion of Islam. If any nation was ever one nation, then India and Pakistan are that nation. They were one nation from the birth of recorded history, and will always be one, by all definitions of ethnicity, culture, and religion.
By artificially severing the links between blood brothers, by causing this artificial divorce between the most long-united marriage, and by doing so in a most obtuse manner so that the two nations will perennially contest the area of Kashmir, the British and indirectly, the West, have gained a century of leadership over us. A united India, fuelled by capitalism, would be a force unstoppable. But a broken India, fighting over Kashmir and other areas, would be loved by all strategy makers in the West since it would help continue the dominance of the West.
There are always those who doubt whether the British were smart enough to act as a "cause" of the partition. It is possible, the argument goes, that the British were simply recognizing the heterogeniety of India and that the partition followed. But even the most simplistic analysists of British policy do not deny what Nehru said in his Discovery of India: that there was a "deliberate policy, pursued throughout the period of British rule, of creating divisions among Indians, of encouraging one group at the cost of the other."
Today, when some of our politicians (on both sides of this artificial border) prevent the resolution of the Kashmir problem, and prevent free trade between us, they act as stooges of the shrewd British who, fifty years ago, promoted this split.
I offer a test to the people of India and Pakistan: Offer, to the world, the proposal of a united India and look at their response. I cannot imagine anyone from the West being euphoric about this, despite their professed interest in "defusing" tension between our two nations. They use the pretext of the India-Pakistan tensions to increase the size of their nuclear weapons. They use this pretext to send huge fleets into the India ocean and to open bases around us. They would almost die when they hear that India and Pakistan are uniting once again. There is no way, in the modern world, and given the technology known to Indians and Pakistanis throughout the world, that the West can exploit us today if we were to unite.
Pakistanis and Indians are blood-brothers. They cannot be separated for ever. It is not in their interest to be separated for ever. It is a choice between pathetic poverty (if things continue as they are today) and subservience to Western "donors" and "nuclear controllers" on the one hand and power and glory on the other. I place below a note which shows the ultimate success of the British strategy of divide and rule: A South Asia poorer than Sub-saharan Africa.
Also read this report of how the Sub-Saharan African region is beginning to grow well after a period of decline.Current US nuclear policy (December 7, 1997)
Ultimately, to succeed, India and Pakistan will have to re-unite. Our situation is very similar to East and West Germany: brothers on opposite side of the border, forced (in our case, by devious strategy) to separate. It is time we realize that we can not be stooges to the Western strategists for ever. It is time that we talk of re-union.
It is worthwhile recognizing here that this merger will never take place easily unless economic policies are corrected. Whichever nation corrects its economic policies first will become a tremendously richer and powerful nation. The leadership will pass to that nation. How much easier it was for the East Germans to flee over the Berlin Wall to West Germany, since they could see and feel the difference in living standards across the border. On the other hand, all three nations in South Asia have followed each other's policies leading to situation where the living standards of neither are higher than those of the others. This must change before people will be attracted by a merger.
An article I liked:
February 08, 1997; SECTION: Opinion (of HINDU)
Roots of
Muslim separatism
Date: 08-02-1997 :: Pg: 12 :: Col: c
By Asghar Ali Engineer
Muslim separatism was an elite phenomenon and if the Indian National Congress had shown greater tact in handling the complex situation, partition could have been avoided.
That is, to say the least, a far-fetched and unrealistic view ignoring the ground realities. Its votaries believe that in the final analysis everything is determined by religious beliefs ignoring the role of human interests. Human behaviour is determined not by religious beliefs alone, it is often determined by secular interests. Religion, no doubt, if often used as a legitimising tool and thus those who take a superficial view are unable to distinguish between the two _ religion as a fundamental cause and as a legitimising agent.
Neither Muslim nor Sikh or any other separatism is on account of religion. Its main cause is political. And those who think that religion is the main cause conclude that two different religious communities will never be able to come to an arrangement to share power and live together. The facts are otherwise and whenever a successful arrangement has been worked out, separatism has been tided over. If the elites of Hindus and Muslims had arrived at a power-sharing arrangement, partition would have certainly been averted. Partition, not inevitable, was a sheer historical accident brought about more by a lack of faith in each other and aggrandisement for power. Pakistan became a reality only in July 1946; earlier, it was only a bargaining counter.
The seeds of separatism were sown in the 19th century after the British began to consolidate their rule. The feudal system which prevailed in India before the British came was non-competitive and it was up to the monarch to grant positions in the court to his favourites. There was no competitive examination, nor were rules for selection. The feudal economy was also non-competitive and production was meant more for local consumption than national or international markets.
But the British colonial rule created competition for political power and government services and a competitive economy. The entire Muslim elite was feudal and had no experience of market operations. But a section of the Hindu elite could take to it a s it had the experience and expertise. Thus, a competitive market economy had no impact on the process of separatism. But the competition for government jobs and political power had a great impact. This competition, coupled with the language policy of the U.P. Governors, led to a bitter controversy among the Hindu and Muslim elites leading to the beginning of separatism. In his essay on ``The Economic Background of Communalism in India _ A Model of Analysis,'' P. C. Joshi says the professional Hindu commercial class monopolised the new economy so tightly that all competition from the late-comers was virtually ruled out. Also, the Muslim feudal elite resisted Western education to begin with and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan had to strive hard to induce Muslims to take to it. By the time the Syed could convince Muslims, they were at least 50 years late.
The Aligarh movement is regarded as the key to Muslim separatism. True, the movement was used to encourage separatism, but it is not the whole truth. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan founded the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO College) on May 24, 1875. Started as a school, it became a college after two years to provide education primarily to the scions of the feudal elite (though some low-income Muslims were also admitted). But it was not an exclusively Muslim college as Hindus were admitted and the first graduate was a Hindu. Some Hindus also had given donations for the college. But the Britishers manipulated the movement to encourage separatism. The turning point came when the Indian National Congress was founded in 1885.
Some British officers took an alarmist view and began to encourage the Muslim elite to voice its demands. The role of the Principal, Mr. Beck, was particularly reprehensible. The main objective of setting up the college was that the Muslims should take to Western education and assimilate the elements of the most perfect civilisation which had made marvellous progress in scientific, industrial, political and social fields. But soon the British began to treat the college as an institution of Muslim political elite to be pitted against the Indian National Congress.
No religious community is homogeneous in terms of its secular interests. It invariably gets divided in terms of its socio- economic and political interests and Muslims too were divided on such lines. Separatism is an expression of elitist interests an d not of religious beliefs. While the Muslim elite from the Aligarh College led by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan boycotted the Indian National Congress as its interests were better served by remaining close to the British rulers, the Muslim masses, particularly artisans ruined by the introduction of British manufactured goods, were adopting a militant anti-British attitude under the leadership of the Ulema. It was published in a book of a hundred `fatwas' called Nusrat al-Ahrar (which means help for the freedom- fighters). The first murder of a British officer was committed by a Muslim in Calcutta in 1869. While the Syed was persuading the Muslims to keep away from the Congress, the Ulema led by Qasin Ahmed Nanotvi issued ``fatwas'' urging the Muslims to wage a `ji had' against the British and join the Congress to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the Hindu brothers.
Thus the Muslims were vertically divided in their attitude to the British rule. Such a division can also be seen during partition. While the elite led by Jinnah supported the Pakistan movement, the ``ulema'' organisation, Jamiat-al-Ulama-I-Hind, was a n ally of the Indian National Congress and its leaders such as Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani vehemently opposed the formation of Pakistan. Thus, separatism is not religion-based but a phenomenon based on the socio-economic and political interests of the elite. Had it been a religious phenomenon, the Jamiat would have led the partition movement and Jinnah, a leader of the modern Muslim elite, would have vigorously supported the composite nationalism.
The British took an alarmist view of formation of the Congress and made concerted efforts to divide the two communities. Addressing the London Muslim Association in 1895, Prof. Beck emphasised the impossibility of Hindu-Muslim unity. He said a democratic set-up for India was doomed to fail as that would make the Muslims slaves to the Hindu majority forever. By joining the Congress, he asserted, they would revert to the post-mutiny era of servitude. He also advised the British Government against the introduction of competitive examinations for the services, and advocated equal division of posts between the Hindus and Muslims.
Thus encouraged, the Muslim elite (with certain honourable exceptions) began to oppose the elective system. Syed Ahmad Khan argued that the representative system would prove a bane to Muslims as for every Muslim there would be four Hindus. He appealed to the Muslims to have no truck with the Congress, a ``Bengali organisation and run by the Bengalis for the Bengalis.''
The political nature of separatism is proved by the fact that the country got divided precisely on the issues which the Syed and other Muslim elite leaders raised in the 19th century. The main question for Jinnah and his followers was the representation of Muslims in the central legislature. The Nehru Committee report of 1928 failed to resolve this question. The Muslim elite feared Hindu domination and thought that they would be hopelessly outnumbered in Parliament in independent India. They, therefor e, demanded a one-third representation though the Muslim population at that time was not more than 25 per cent.
The question could not be resolved to the satisfaction of Jinnah and hence the country was partitioned. Despite these differences, the Muslim League fought elections, together with
the Congress in 1937 on getting an informal assurance that the Congress Ministry would have two Muslim League representatives. As the League lost heavily except in U.P. and the Bombay province (it could hardly get 25 per cent of the seats contested) t he Congress reneged on its promise. This infuriated and alienated Jinnah. Again, both the Congress and the League accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan and entered the government also. Still lack of faith in the final arrangements and Nehru's statement to the press in Bombay on July 11, 1946 brought about a complete collapse and Pakistan became a reality.
Thus Pakistan or Muslim separatism was an elite phenomenon and if the Congress leadership had shown a greater tact in handling the extremely complex situation, partition could have been averted. Most of the Muslim leaders, including the religious leaders led by Jamiat had accepted a composite nationalism. Madani even wrote a book Muttahida Qaumiyat aur Islam (composite nationalism and Islam) and quoted extensively from the Quran and the hadith to prove that Islam was in no way opposed to the composite nationalism. It is patently wrong to consider the Muslims inherently separatist. There are more Muslims now in India than in Pakistan, itself a negation of Muslim separatism and the two- nation theory. Today, no one, except a small minority in Pakistan believes in the two-nation theory. A majority of the Bangladeshi Muslims have also rejected the theory, separating themselves from their mother country. The masses of Indian Muslims have never accepted it either. It is a different thing that they had no voting power in 1946. Less than 10 per cent of the Muslims were enfranchised.