DBWI: What if India had split up?

One of the great missed opportunities in history was back in the days when India was preparing for independence. I've read that there was some talk about splitting off the western Islamic parts of the nation into a separate nation, plus something about another splinter group somewhere in the SE of the place (not sure just where... the book didn't have any maps). I didn't quite follow just why they never carried through with this plan (something about economics, IIRC). WI they had done this plan? I can't help but think that it would have made things better all around. Sure, there's been no out and out rebellion in the western provinces, but there have been some ugly Indian vs. Muslim incidents (not to mention the Sikhs, who seem to be disliked by both sides). If the split had been done, both sides would be sovereign, and the two sides wouldn't really have that much to squawk about... that part of the world would a little calmer, although problems would still exist. Thoughts?
 
I don't think it could really happen, although there are muslim majority areas, actually the populations are more mixed than folk think. To make this work there would have to immense population transfers, I mean millions of people. And what would happen to the Punjab with mixed Hindu, Muslim and Sikh populations and of course all the holy sites is Sikhism. And what about all the Muslims in India down south? Would they want or be forced to move? I guess this might have changed geopolitics though, cos it would have been a mess and so the Soviet Union could have lost its most powerful non-aligned supporter and buyer of arms. And of course the take over of Afghanistan might have not gone so well without the sealing of the border by the Indians.
 
One of the great missed opportunities in history was back in the days when India was preparing for independence. I've read that there was some talk about splitting off the western Islamic parts of the nation into a separate nation, plus something about another splinter group somewhere in the SE of the place (not sure just where... the book didn't have any maps). I didn't quite follow just why they never carried through with this plan (something about economics, IIRC). WI they had done this plan? I can't help but think that it would have made things better all around. Sure, there's been no out and out rebellion in the western provinces, but there have been some ugly Indian vs. Muslim incidents (not to mention the Sikhs, who seem to be disliked by both sides). If the split had been done, both sides would be sovereign, and the two sides wouldn't really have that much to squawk about... that part of the world would a little calmer, although problems would still exist. Thoughts?

Luckily, I know a little about India. The Western part was called West India, quite aptly, but several names were considered. The little South East part was Bengal.

If Bengal, WIndia, and India proper broke up, they'd probably be friends to this day because of the lack of religious riots and 'culture clash' from living in the same country.
 
There are too many Muslims in Central India to make this possible without genocide and/or mass deportations.
If India could be divided into three, how about four or more. For example, part of Central India is ethnically cleansed of Hindus and becomes a Muslim haven. I would agree that deaths by genocide would go up, but that would not stop some people balkanising the sub continent.
 
India DID get split up. See: Pakistan

OOC: This is your first post, so I'll be nice. DBWI means "double-bind what if", ie, we're rollplaying people from a universe where Inda was not split up, speculating what would happen if it did.

I think the whole thing would fall appart. United India (the present day and every other TL apart :rolleyes:) is not a very normal occurrence. I can see a dozen stats coming out of it easy.
 
I've heard about this "Bengal-Pradesh" nation a couple times. It sounds reasonable until you really start to dig into the Subcontinent's cultures. Yes, it's true that Bengali is a proud and populous nationality. But just try getting an exact number -- I've seen ranges from 180 to 380 million, depending on how you phrase the question! The truth is, Bengali and Hindi cultures blend pretty seamlessly.

The other problem is that if you carve out a Bengal-Pradesh, then there's this weird dangly bit of India left on the map, the so-called "Northeast Frontier" If you think Bengali is distinct from Hindu culture, then the Northeast is really different - a hodgepodge of peoples who all look and talk a lot more like the Burmese than like Indians. In other words, you couldn't possibly have a Free Bengal without losing the Northeast Frontier to either Burma or to independence. Given that the Northeast Frontier was extremely impoverished until the Great Rural Reforms under Prime Minister Bhutto, it would be a giant humanitarian tragedy to cast the Northeasterns off to an ill-advised independence.
 
it would be a giant humanitarian tragedy to cast the Northeasterns off to an ill-advised independence.

No offence, but I think we've already agreed that the minimum required fro this is ethnic cleansing. Your NWF "humanitarian tragedy" won't even be on the map. :(
 
Would all of the newly independent states have remained in the Commonwealth following independence? I understand there were several high-profile politicians who pushed for India to become a republic, thus being ineligible for membership (don't forget, this is prior to the Harare Treaty which allowed members of the Commonwealth to be republics). Any non-Commonwealth states would feel the pinch when their citizens found themselves without the freedom of movement, and business would suffer outside of the trade agreements. And as for the effect on the Commonwealth itself...
 
No offence, but I think we've already agreed that the minimum required fro this is ethnic cleansing. Your NWF "humanitarian tragedy" won't even be on the map. :(

IC: What is "ethnic cleansing"? Doesn't sound so bad to me! Lots of people in India still lack access to decent plumbing.
 
Well, almost any modern political scientist will cite The Clash of Civilizations (1993) by Samuel P. Huntington. The modern conceit that multi-cultural or multi-ethnic states based solely on ideology can long survive modern pressures has been shown to be the road to totalitarianism. This has been in the rise to power of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia in 1989, Vladimir Zhirinovsky in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1994, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in India in 1996. In all of the cases mentioned, the road to tyranny is paved on a supra-nationalist ideology. In an ATL wherein India was allowed to partition in c.1950, the rise of totalitarianism in the region would have ameliorated to some degree.... We might even have a democratic republics in the region!!!
 
What about the United States, then Mr. Bodoc? It's the longest-lasting government in the world, and there's hardly a more diverse country. Huntington's approach smacks of recentism, though I do have to admit that it makes geopolitical sense. To unite a multi-ethnic country quickly, you need to use the idea of an external enemy to bring together various groups within a country. Just look at the hostility of the CIS and India toward China and Yugoslavia's hostility toward the EU.

Whether creating that sort of external enemy is a conscious decision by the leader of the country or not, I'm unsure, but I'm just glad that Zhirinovsky or whoever picked China instead of NATO. It'd really suck to start a new Cold War just a few years after ending the old one.
 
What about the United States, then Mr. Bodoc? It's the longest-lasting government in the world, and there's hardly a more diverse country. Huntington's approach smacks of recentism, though I do have to admit that it makes geopolitical sense. To unite a multi-ethnic country quickly, you need to use the idea of an external enemy to bring together various groups within a country. Just look at the hostility of the CIS and India toward China and Yugoslavia's hostility toward the EU.

Whether creating that sort of external enemy is a conscious decision by the leader of the country or not, I'm unsure, but I'm just glad that Zhirinovsky or whoever picked China instead of NATO. It'd really suck to start a new Cold War just a few years after ending the old one.
But you also have to consider the many additions to the National Militia Act since the 1995 assassination of President Bill Clinton in Oklahoma City, OK. Many on the right would instantly point to the increased police and law enforcement powers that were given to police by the Gore administration.

Also the issue of an "external threat" is not the only thing that can unite people under a dictatorship. Consider that since 1991, the unity of Iraq has been maintained not only by the external threats posed by Iran, Israel, ans the United States, but also from the perceived damgers of partition. On CNN-TV, Saddam Hussein recently released a manifesto wherein he claims to have a blueprint for the "New American Century" which shows a partitioned Iraq...

A good example wherein a multi-ethnic state fails to contain the danger of partition with either an "external threat" or internal political force would be the former state of South Africa. After the 1994 assassination of presidential candidate Steven Biko, the country fell apart rather quickly. By 1996, the many Boer states, tribal homelands, along with the Azanian Republic emerged mainly out of the political unwillingness of the different groups under a singular democratic state...
 
Another place to consider the "imperial theory" of Huntington would be the former People's Republic of China after 1991. After the collapse of the government under Deng Xiaoping, consider how the democratic Kuomingtang offered "national autonomy" to the states of Tibet, East Turkestan (Xianjiang), and Singapore. By 1993, those regions had formally seceded and became independent national states. Some say that if the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) had been under a less repressive leader (e.g. Boris Yeltsin, Alexander Lebed, et al.), following a path of political reform rather than one of purely of economic reforms, the CIA would have collapsed into at least 12-15 states. With India, the active split would have led to secession of Kerala, Kashmir, Nagaland, Punjab, et al...
 
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