I'm probably going to do a Latin American roundup, a Western Europe roundup, and then probably a Greek/Turkey roundup. Then we're doing a chaotic as hell pileup war. Cookies to whoever guesses where it is.
The Fallout: India and Pakistan (Part 5)
Nowhere epitomized the Cold War stronger than the struggle between India and Pakistan. Although neither were truly that well-orientated towards their respective bloc (India was a self-described secular socialist democracy aligned with the West and Pakistan a self-described Islamic socialist democracy aligned with the USSR, at least starting in 1952), the antagonism between the two was strong and deep. Many Pakistanis military officers bought into racist tropes of West Pakistanis as being a "martial race" and Hindus (as well as Bengalis) being a "subject race", arguing that the Indians had only won the Kashmir War due to overwhelming numerical superiority and mass human wave attacks. The point about overwhelming numerical superiority was true, but India could only successfully utilize their superior numbers because of excellent Indian morale. There were no shortage of courageous Indian soldiers. President Akbar Khan proclaimed a model of socialism whereupon the "racial superiority" of Pakistanis was only held back by a "backwards, feudal society", and thus a hard dose of socialism was deemed necessary to modernize Pakistan.
Ironically, despite Islam being very much interwoven into the national identity of Pakistan, the Pakistani government was incredibly hostile to actual Pakistani Muslim clerics. In many ways, this paradox mirrored the example of Turkey. In Turkey, Ataturk and his supporters often defined Turkishness by Islam (for example, in the 1920's, Turkish-speaking Christians were deported to Greece, and Greek-speaking Muslims were deported to Turkey). However, both groups strictly championed their states as entirely secular, often denigrating their own national traditions. One of the most unusual outcomes of the South Asian Cold War was the PRP abolishing the Urdu script, adopting Latin scripted Hindustani (Roman Urdu) as their national script. Ironically in response, the Government of India immediately enacted a law declaring Traditional Urdu one of the two official languages of Kashmir (the other being Kashmiri). Ironically, the Urdu script would survive only in India.
In addition, Bengali was romanized, angering most non-Communist Bengalis, largely because Romanized Bengali didn't work very well at all. Similiarly, the PRP standardized a register of Bengali very different from "Standard Bengali." Standard Bengali was based on the Rarhi dialect in West Bengal. Instead, Pakistani Bengal was based on the Bangali dialect in East Bengal. Bengalis had long protested for Bengali to become an official language of Pakistan. They got their wish, albeit not in the way most of them wanted. Ironically, traditional literary Bengali would also only survive in India. However, the heavy Bengali representation in the Communist Party of Pakistan kept a lid on their home turf. One group was even madder: the Baluchis, long angered by the Pakistani state's refusal for autonomy, began a revolt. In particular, Akbar Khan was hated by the Baluchis for his brutal suppression of their first insurgency. The fact that "Proletarian" Urdu and Bengali were co-national languages of Pakistan, with all state documents in both, outraged Baluchis, who did not see similar representation.
Another group was also not a fan at all of Islamic Socialism. The PRP insisted that their modernizing reforms would shine a light on South Asia, sparking a revolution in Kashmir that would sweep out the Indian feudalists. The result was the opposite. Islamists were outraged at the Pakistani government, with the government justifying a tighter and tighter police state in opposition to Islamist terrorism. Kashmiris generally were horrified at Pakistan. They didn't like the Indian "colonialists", but Pakistani progressivism terrified the common Kashmiri Muslim. The once popular Kashmiri socialist, Sheikh Abdullah, ironically found himself under attack from Islamic clerics, ironically ralied behind the Hindu Maharaja, Hari Singh (very ironically) because of their deep fear of Pakistani socialism. Abdullah turned against ascension to India in light of Pakistani progressivism, which in turned Kashmiri's Islamic clerics towards either union with India or independence.
Nehru was prepared to violently crush dissidents in India if he thought they were agitating for union with Pakistan. But the concept of an independent Kashmir aligned with India didn't repulse him. In fact, his proposed Article 370 would have turned Kashmir into more or less a totally autonomous region of India. With India condemned by the UN for not holding a referendum in Kashmir on either integration with Pakistan, India, or independence, Nehru prepared to take the issue off the table completely. After "negotiations" with Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, Nehru announced in early 1954 that India had accepted the upcoming independence of the Kingdom of Kashmir and Jammu, a seemingly "ecumenical Islamic constitutional monarchy". Of course, the Kingdom wasn't to actually be that independent. In fact, a secret agreement signed between the parties in question gave control of all Kashmiri defense and foreign affairs to India. In practice, Kashmiri Pandits dominated the affair of the state, ironically accommodating Islamic clerics who agreed that any implementation of Sharia law would only apply to Muslims.
Pakistan fumed in anger, but Pakistan wasn't the only outraged party. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, a member of Nehru's cabinet, immediately resigned, condemning Nehru for compromising Indian national integrity, working instead with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to find the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS). Nehru had actually not expected any such anger, feeling that his own status a Kashmiri Pandit would give his declaration gravitas. On the eve of Kashmiri independence, which took place shortly after the beginning of the Three Years War, Nehru gave a famous speech about Kashmiri independence, at which point a Hindu nationalist activist managed to break through the guards, wielding only a patta, a traditional weapon most famously used by the Maratha Confederacy (Shivaji himself included) against the forces of the Mughal Empire. The activist, despite being shot, managed to charge straight into Nehru, stabbing him in the heart with the sword. A foreign photographer managed to take one of the most iconic pictures in Indian history.
Unfortunately for India, the Indian cabinet was thrown into chaos immediately right when the world went into chaos. Nehru had no deputy Prime Miniser - his Deputy Sardar Patel had died in 1950. In the ensuing power struggle, the Defense Minister V.K. Menon had managed to come out on top. Under his harsh policies, the RSS was blamed for the assassination of Nehru. The assassin in question was an RSS member, but there was no evidence that the RSS or other Hindu nationalist groups had plotted the assassination. The RSS was banned and the famous Hindu nationalist leader, Savarkar, was infamously hung despite the evidence being highly favorable towards his non-involvement. Ironically, Savarkar probably knew about the plot against Gandhi and was released on a technicality. This time, he was innocent, but executed on a technicality. This outraged Hindu nationalists, who vowed revenge against the Congress.
Menon also sought to illegalize both the Communist Party and BJS, but the Supreme Court of India intervened against him. He also sought to circumvent the Supreme Court, but foreign affairs ended the Menon ministry. With the Three Years War raging, Menon planned on an Indian invasion of Goa. He had consulted the Soviet Union, who had promised to stop any Pakistani incursion on Kashmir in exchange. The Pakistanis had actually plotted a large offensive into Kashmir, but their Soviet backers vetoed the move, something the Pakistanis accepted after they saw the catastrophe inflicted on North China. In 1956, Menon was about to greenlight an Indian invasion of Goa, before a joint communique from the United States, UK, France, Spain, and Portugal declared that an attack on Goa would be considered a direct attack on all of them. The Western powers knew something was up when border skirmishes between the Burmese Communists and the Indian Army ceased for several months. With American troops dying in the thousands against North China, most Indians realized that the Western powers were not playing around. Menon aimed to go for it anyways. Although the Indian Army served bravely in the Indo-Pakistani War, the skirmishes against (Pakistani-backed) Burmese Communists generally went fairly poorly for the Indians. They did not feel confident of a war with the West. It was very much considered a quagmire for the Indians and Nehru was trying to broker a peace until his death, at which point Menon brokered the peace, greatly angering the Chiang Kai-shek, which saw those Burmese troops immediately attack the KMT.
A last-minute cabinet coup was launched against Menon, with the Indian cabinet declaring they had no confidence in his cabinet. A last minute vote was taken in the INC, which Menon narrowly lost. It was widely considered an extremely corrupt vote, with several INC members being famously assassinated by shadowy foreign forces (generally thought to be the CIA), with many others famously bribed. Menon fell, but it was too late. Indian troops had already marched into Goa and occupied it entirely. India had engaged in an act of war against much of NATO. Desperate to avoid war with NATO, the remnants of the INC (Menon and his supporters stormed out of the party, founding their own party, which infamously included Nehru's daughter, Indira) elected someone they knew had proven pro-Western credentials. The President-elect of the United States, Joseph McCarthy, had already publicly advocated nuking New Delhi. The new Prime Minister, C. Rajagopalachari, had long preached about the dangers of Communism and was well-beloved by the West. The C.R. Ministry quickly repaired relations with the West. In 24-7 negotiations with the Portuguese government, it was deemed that a compromise had to be found in Goa. The Dominion of Goa was released as an independent state, with the Portuguese appointing a Governor-General and the Indians in control of defense policy. Goa would notably also be a free-trade zone for both Indians and Portuguese, and Indians would have the right to freely live and work in Goa, although not the right to become citizens. The parties also promised to revisit Goan sovereignty in 50 years, or in 2006/2007. The compromise was more or less forced onto both the Indians and Portuguese at gunpoint by the other allies - neither were happy with this.
Unsurprisingly, Indian-Soviet relations soured again, as Pakistani-backed Burmese Communists continued their attacks on Indian forces. Although the Indian population gave C.R. applauds for evading Indian entrance into the horrifically bloody Three Years War, he had angered Hindu nationalists, Communists, and secular nationalists. The 1957 elections would be the greatest ever electoral challenge for the Indian National Congress.
