BUSINESS RECORDER
April 9, 2016
Sadiq Jafri
Ever since independence in 1947, successive rulers and policymakers of Bharat or India have been despising Pakistan. Their inherent narrow imagination has never permitted the unending series of talks and interaction between the two countries to bring forth any meaningful and lasting results.
On the other hand, a major section of India’s society has all along been questioning the ‘patriotism’ of the Muslim population living inside India for the “unpardonable sin” of their previous generation’s direct or indirect support to the idea of Partition of British India. They might feel triumphant to think that their arrogance throws the Muslims on the defensive.
However, they tend to neglect the fact that by segregating such a large segment of their coinhabitants, they actually endorse the two-nation theory – the idea that they would always oppose in spoken words quite fiercely. But the venom against Muslims is so powerful that it almost blinds their vision.
Deep inside though, they might not really care if the theory is proved right or wrong. The far-right parties and pressure groups in the current Indian politics have admitted in public that their vendetta against today’s Muslims actually emanates from their uncontrolled feelings of revenge of their own forefathers’ defeated status under Muslim rule over the Hindustan of past. Many of their leaders grudgingly claim that for more than five centuries, when Muslims were the ruling nation, more or less 20 generations of the non-Muslim natives had suffered greatly as a ruled nation.
The anti-Muslim hatred is not the only issue that the native rulers of India have failed to resolve. In spite of their claim to have become one of the fastest emerging economies of the world, internally they have been unsuccessful on many more fronts as well. The existence of long unresolved issue of Kashmir is one other example, where their own citizens and numbers of law enforcement forces have been getting killed in dozens, sometimes in hundreds, every passing day. Leaving aside the question of outside interference, the fact remains that everything happens well within their own borders among their own people. Yet they have not been able to figure out a finish mark to the Kashmir problem.
Reason is very simple. As this author has described in a previous writing, the Indians have all along been heralding a nationalism that they claim was punctured by the Partition of their “motherland” – a united subcontinent of Hindustan ruled by natives that is just a fantasy since it never existed historically or geographically for the past two millenniums. Also, they start up their post-independence history from a self-imagined role play of “freedom war” against the British which never happened on ground, as the independence came as a by-product of the Second World War. Since they have tempered with the take off point of their history, their future destination is bound to be blurred.
If the developed world is currently attracted towards India for interaction, that is basically to earn big profits from the huge consumer market that the country offers. This does not, and cannot, reflect a desire to co-relate with a genuinely developing and forward-looking society that Indians might claim to be
The picture of a colorful and entertaining India that is painted before the outside world to see the rough Bollywood movies is absolutely unreal, quite opposite to the ground realities. For example, the horrifying issue of untouchables is hardly ever mentioned. Similarly, after producing perhaps 1,000 or more movies on the topic of a girls right to choose her spouse, the Bollywood filmmakers have finally abandoned the theme and fell into a state of denial. In their current movies, they pretend to suggest that the parents have ultimately accepted the personal rights of their children. However, one finds an unending stream of news of girls’ murder on the excuse of family honor from across the border.
Same is the case with atrocities of landlords – a specie which should have long been eliminated from India if the reports about promulgation of Zamindari Abolition Act in that country were to be trusted. But the typically atrocious landlords are still alive and thriving upon the miseries of their subjects. Likewise, one cannot find any meaningful mention of all other grave issues like uncontrollable hunger, disease, ignorance, illiteracy, humiliation, lack of respect for law, highhandedness of the powerful and other uncounted social evils either in their official policies or in their movies.
Intolerance to difference of opinion is at its peak in that country right now, to the extent that writers and authors are murdered for having their independent thoughts. Recently a large number of writers have returned their officially granted awards in protest to the intolerance. The government, in turn, has not adopted any serious and long-term policy to overcome this menace.
Hinduism itself is not a singular religion but an aggregate of the followers of about a dozen distinct major ancient beliefs. These include Sanatan Dharamis, Parakritis, Vedantis and Patanjalis etc., besides Nastiks, Jainnies, Buddhists and Sikhs who are counted outside Hinduism. The practitioners of every one of these beliefs have their isolated philosophies about evolution, and life and death and after. Each has their own set of gods and testaments to follow and places of worship to go. It would be an uphill task to co-relate to all of them and motivate them to join together for common goals of prosperity and progress. But the Indian leaders have yet to start that task.
If the developed world is currently attracted towards India for interaction, that is basically to earn big profits from the huge consumer market that the country offers. This does not, and cannot, reflect a desire to co-relate with a genuinely developing and forward-looking society that Indians might claim to be.
After observing the current inability and incompetency of Indian rulers to govern their over-populated country, one wonders how exactly the Congress Party of British India could stand rightful in its claim over the huge and vast India – minus Pakistan – in the eyes of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of 1947. The Indian rulers and intellectuals might like to refer to the results of 1946 vote as an excuse. But in essence those polls were farcical under any sensible interpretation of democracy. The Congress Party while claiming victory in non-Muslim provinces conveniently forgot the reality that the vote was not held on the basis of adult franchise. Of the roughly 400 million population of British India at the time, only 586,647 persons had been enrolled as voters, of which 59.6 percent actually cast their votes. That brings down the ratio of the polled votes against actual population to roughly 1:1000.
A very pertinent but just hypothetical question here is: Why didn’t the UK Parliament, or Viscount Mountbatten of Burma who was the architect of the Partition plan, opt to cut the British India into more than just two countries after they had decided to vacate it? The Englishmen had re-integrated hundreds of disconnected pieces of Hindustan bit by bit after winning numberless big and small battles stretched over about two centuries. Had they un-bundled the British India – minus Pakistan – into as many pieces as they had conquered, perhaps it would have been easier and more practical for the small entities to concentrate on the progress of their people in the right manner.
Once the Indian rulers stop pursuing their pointless grudge against Pakistan, and concentrate upon improving their internal conditions, they might be able to lead their misery-stricken people to the destiny of progress and prosperity. It is never too late to: start good work. But for doing so, they will need to leave Pakistan alone to quest for its own goals of a better future
The case of 565 princely states that existed at the time of independence is even more curious and complex. These states were not component of British India but parts of Indian subcontinent. They had not been conquered or annexed by the British Empire but were subject to subsidiary alliances. The Indian Independence Act of 1947 had allowed the rulers of the princely states to decide whether to accede to one of the newly independent states of India or Pakistan, or to remain independent outside both. However, Indian rulers violated all laws and rules while dealing with these states, even though they would not fare well while ruling their population in the years to follow.
For example, they refused to accept the independent status declared by the Muslim Nizam of Hyderabad Deccan. They sent police and military forces to illegally invade and capture that state after carrying out a large-scale massacre. In Kashmir, the Sikh Maharaja was in the start reluctant about joining either of the two new countries. In that brief uncertain gap, the Muslim tribesmen from inside and outside the valley rose on their own and liberated a part of the state, today called Azad Kashmir. Soon after that, Indian forces invaded the rest of the valley and occupied it.
Two other such states were Junagadh and Bantva Manavadar whose Muslim rulers had signed accession to Pakistan during their meetings with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah Karachi in August and September of 1947. But India captured these states in connivance and conspiracy with low-rank officers of these states, through use of brutal military power in clear violation of the law and the will of their rulers.
Later, under the world pressure at the United Nations, the Indian rulers offered to hold plebiscite in these three disputed states. They arranged a referendum in Junagadh in 1948 and in Bantva Manavadar in 1950. In both these states, non-Muslims were in great majority who voted in favor of India just as per the expectations of tricky Indian rulers. Kashmir, knowing that the Muslim majority population might vote in favor of Pakistan, the dodgy Indian rulers stepped back from their commitment to the world and never held the promised plebiscite.
Apparently, the native Indian government in general appeared a bit better off than that in Pakistan at the starting point of independence. But that was essentially because of the fact that they had inherited well-designed and fully functional centralized administrative structure originally created by the British government of India during about 100 years. For them it was a very convenient transfer of power as even the last Viceroy of British India had opted to convert as their first Governor-General so as to keep the entire administrative system intact. In sharp contrast to that, in Pakistan, the newly liberated nation had to face, the challenge of starting off from minus zero. Apart from that difference, the Indian rulers are as corrupt and unskilled as any others, and they have not proved their nerve to govern one of the largest countries of the world to date. There has been no revolutionary change in the political and general conditions of that country as compared to the days of British Raj.
One would like to point out that the Indian rulers do not need to imagine false threats and unsubstantiated fears from Pakistan while they already have enough internal issues to address. Genuine and constructive opposition and criticism coming from this side of the border may not be translated into a hint to “plan to disintegrate” today’s India. While collecting huge heaps of weapons and destructive devices from all over the world, they need to remember that their longtime associate of the past, the Soviet Union, disappeared from the world map solely because its economy collapsed under the burden of the military expansionism that its leaders were hell bent upon to undertake. Once the Indian rulers stop pursuing their pointless grudge against Pakistan, and concentrate upon improving their internal conditions, they might be able to lead their misery-stricken people to the destiny of progress and prosperity. It is never too late to start good work. But for doing so, they will need to leave Pakistan alone to quest for its own goals of a better future.