AHC: Most prosperous possible India

Many people say that the Partition of India was one of the greatest mistakes of the twentieth century. For example, what idiot decided to split Bengal in half? As a result, the mainstay of the local economy, the Jute industry, was left split in two, as all the Jute mills in bengal were now in India, while most of the Jute farms were now in Bangladesh. Also, there was the placement of Bengali-speaking Bangladesh under the rule of Punjabi-dominated Pakistan. It seems that the people in charge of the Partition of India were more concerned with dividing people by religion and not nearly concerned enough about creating states that were actually viable. Is there any way for a Partition of India to be made to work? Or, is there any way to prevent it?
 
It seems like your post is asking a different thing than the title. I'll respond to the post. You're completely right that Partition was a truly terrible idea. However, by the time Independence came around, partition was inevitable. In order to forestall that possibility entirely, you can have one or both of two PODs.

1. Kill Jinnah in the early 1930s. This is late enough to remove the possibility of a competent successor coming out of the woodwork, but just early enough to allow Congress to take up his mantle and become a truly unified Indian party. However, with a POD this late, India will still likely have sectarian troubles on a scale far larger than today.

2. Change the Indian National Congress, starting from their founding in 1885, to be more inclusive and aim to court Muslims more. Thus, if they are as successful as OTL, they can speak for everyone. Jinnah will hopefully not feel the need to split off and advocate for a separate Muslim state. This POD, given that it's 50 years earlier, has a much greater chance of success.
 
Actually, right the way up until the early 40s Jinnah was still advocating autonomy within an Indian confederation rather than full independence. The 30s is still early enough to prevent partition even without Jinnah dying. Congress was much more of a secularist party than a Hinduist.
 
congress actually had considerable support in what would become pakistan. partition was by no means inevitable.

if you eliminate british support for the landlords of the muslim league (which started out as a pro-british organization) that could have a positive effect.

also I disagree that killing jinnah is at all necessary - jinnah had said to the leaders of congress party that he would accept a united india if he were made prime minister. since he was already in poor health it really wouldn't have been too unreasonable a compromise.
 
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