Unpartitioned India

Regarding the possibilities of a further divided India. I don't buy the Presidency theory of the three centres Bombay, Madras and Calcutta splitting from Delhi into three separate parts. At least not without some major flapping of butterfly wings. Congress after WWI was calling for the independence of all of India, not just minor parts.
Such possibilities existed only before the Independence Movement gathered momentum and popularity under Indian National Congress. A division based on regional languages was never possible as the present linguistic states were not formed at that time. The large princely states like Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, Gwalior, Kashmir etc. also had a chance to go independent, if the British had left before the twentieth century. The regions directly ruled by the British would have solidified around existing power centers in a similar situation.
But once the national movement under the Congress became strong, especially after the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi, the dream of a united India got entrenched in the minds of people. Then a division of the country would have faced the opposition of the people. That was why the partition caused such a large scale bloodshed.
 
Such possibilities existed only before the Independence Movement gathered momentum and popularity under Indian National Congress. A division based on regional languages was never possible as the present linguistic states were not formed at that time. The large princely states like Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, Gwalior, Kashmir etc. also had a chance to go independent, if the British had left before the twentieth century. The regions directly ruled by the British would have solidified around existing power centers in a similar situation.
But once the national movement under the Congress became strong, especially after the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi, the dream of a united India got entrenched in the minds of people. Then a division of the country would have faced the opposition of the people. That was why the partition caused such a large scale bloodshed.
One could argue that the trend towards pan-Indianism was also a leftover from the Mughal Empire, regarding how the Princely States often retained their titles from said era...so once that occurs, I'd wager events have been lined up to move forward the momentum of an Indian state.
 

amphibulous

Banned
But once the national movement under the Congress became strong, especially after the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi, the dream of a united India got entrenched in the minds of people. Then a division of the country would have faced the opposition of the people. That was why the partition caused such a large scale bloodshed.

This is nonsense. No pro-partitioner was killed anti-partitioners; Muslims killed Hindus and vice versa. The very violence that errupted is the best possible evidence that non-partition could only have led to civil war. Remember that partition wasn't forced by the British: the Hindus were unwilling to be ruled by a Muslim majority. And it's hard to blame them - would you want to be ruled by people whose lives are dominated by an alien religion, who you have a history of conflict with?
 

amphibulous

Banned
If you keep Jinnah satisfied and secure in equal rights and privileges for Muslims the Muslim League would probably lose momentum.

Was it Jinnah or Nehru who said "Here come my follower; quick - I must run to stay ahead of them!"

So, no. Politicians are't telepaths who mind control their followers. They're surfers on popular causes.
 
This is nonsense. No pro-partitioner was killed anti-partitioners; Muslims killed Hindus and vice versa. The very violence that errupted is the best possible evidence that non-partition could only have led to civil war. Remember that partition wasn't forced by the British: the Hindus were unwilling to be ruled by a Muslim majority. And it's hard to blame them - would you want to be ruled by people whose lives are dominated by an alien religion, who you have a history of conflict with?

Non partition would not have led to civil war. Hindus and Muslims lived side by side peacefully for a large amount of time. And you do realize that Britains colonial policy was divide and rule, right? They spilled the seed that would grow into partition, after switching their support from the Princely States to the Muslim League. And mass movement caused by the ridiculous partition understandably escalated tensions...because a million people having to move will generally do that.
 
Suppose independence came much earlier. Either (i) the Indian Mutiny succeeds or else (ii) it fails but Britain decides that the East India Company has to go and it doesn't want to rule the country directly. The princely states are stronger then, and wouldn't seem as anachronistic as they did in the late 1940s. On the other hand, enough princely states had already disappeared for a central government to have a substantial territorial base of its own.
 
Gandhi's proposal to have Jinnah be PM of a united India was, I thought, a brilliant way to avoid partition. If the Congress Party had only jumped on that with both feet!!!
 
Gandhi's proposal to have Jinnah be PM of a united India was, I thought, a brilliant way to avoid partition. If the Congress Party had only jumped on that with both feet!!!

Yay for sarcasm?

In any case, I think that Gandhi essentially removed Jinnah from thE spotlight, and so Jinnah became more and more outspoken for Pakistan once that happened. Coupled with British support and Congress' boycott of the 1940(?) elections, led to the Muslim League gaining much traction. Any one of those three things being removed could probably remove partition from actually happening.
 
Gandhi's proposal to have Jinnah be PM of a united India was, I thought, a brilliant way to avoid partition. If the Congress Party had only jumped on that with both feet!!!

I think Gandhi put such a proposal knowing very well that the Congress would not accept it. Jinnah also could have guessed that Gandhi was trying to outsmart him with such a proposal and he was not likely to agree even if the Congress had agreed. A Prime Minister in a democracy is only the First among equals and Jinnah as PM would have been held captive by the Congress with a huge majority.
 
This is nonsense. No pro-partitioner was killed anti-partitioners; Muslims killed Hindus and vice versa. The very violence that errupted is the best possible evidence that non-partition could only have led to civil war. Remember that partition wasn't forced by the British: the Hindus were unwilling to be ruled by a Muslim majority. And it's hard to blame them - would you want to be ruled by people whose lives are dominated by an alien religion, who you have a history of conflict with?

Generally it was the Muslims who supported the partition and the Hindus who opposed it. Hence you could say that pro-partitioners were killing the anti-partitioners and vice versa. Then the Hindus were the majority and the Muslims were the minority, not the other way.
 

amphibulous

Banned
Non partition would not have led to civil war. Hindus and Muslims lived side by side peacefully for a large amount of time.

With somebody else in charge: different. (Or in kingdoms where no one had democratic rights - which had been formed by conquest.)

And you do realize that Britains colonial policy was divide and rule, right? They spilled the seed that would grow into partition

Yuck! (I think you should find what "spilled their seed" means before using it. You probably meant *sewed*... But this is still silly: you're making an extraordinary claim with no evidence.)
 

amphibulous

Banned
Then the Hindus were the majority and the Muslims were the minority, not the other way.

Sorry: I have flu and I typoed.

Generally it was the Muslims who supported the partition and the Hindus who opposed it.
Hence you could say that pro-partitioners were killing the anti-partitioners and vice versa.

You could, but you'd be very silly. Hindus killed Muslims BECAUSE they were Muslims, not because they were pro-partition. And there were exceptions on each side - no one bothered to ask "Are you pro or anti-partition?" before committing murder, but there will certainly have been times that pros killed pros and antis killed antis.

Really: to claim that there wasn't deep hatred on both sides is too make a complete mystery of the half million deaths that occurred! It's no mystery either why the Muslims wanted a separate state: from the Hindu perspective any non-Hindu is no better than Untouchable - someone who is being punished for previous sins by being made unclean. Given the way that most Hindus have treated Untouchables, what sane person would want to be in the same position?
 
With somebody else in charge: different. (Or in kingdoms where no one had democratic rights - which had been formed by conquest.)

They still lived side by side, even throughout the Mughal Empire (notable exception of Aurangzeb) and in the Republic of India today.

Yuck! (I think you should find what "spilled their seed" means before using it. You probably meant *sewed*... But this is still silly: you're making an extraordinary claim with no evidence.)
Um, I knew what spilled the seed means. Britain helped the subcontinent conceive the idea of a religious based state.

In fact you're the one here making the extraordinary claim with no evidence, and possibly a lack of understanding of Indian politics at the time.

The Muslims who supported the Muslim League were usually minorities in Hindu-majority states. Muslims in Muslim majority states supported Congress, generally because Muslim interests were already guaranteed in those places. It was in the Hindu majority areas where Muslims were more worried, and in any case, most of the independence movement were run by intellectuals and not the masses. India was not won by war, but by negotiation and agreement, and thus a small group of people, many of them British-educated, whether the Aga Khan or Jinnah or Nehru. Ask the average Hindu or Muslim at the time, and I doubt they'd give a damn about much of the negotiations between Congress and the League.

You're postulating an exaggerated scenario based on violence caused by an artificial line dividing a subcontinent bringing religion into play, in the first place. The British encouraged divide and rule, and they supported the Muslim League's agenda to Pakistan, and thus indirectly creating the very situation in the first place. Your claim that the British are entirely blame-free for this is quite frankly false.

Also, the first partition of Bengal (or its failure) clearly marks a precedent in Hindu-Muslim kinship.

I'm certainly not saying that India will be a completely tension-free paradise, and I do think sectarian conflict will occur, but a civil war would be far fetched in such a situation.
 
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amphibulous

Banned

Originally Posted by amphibulous
With somebody else in charge: different. (Or in kingdoms where no one had democratic rights - which had been formed by conquest.)


They still lived side by side, even throughout the Mughal Empire (notable exception of Aurangzeb) and in the Republic of India today.

Apparently you skipped the last couple of decades of news; you might want to google "ethnic cleansing". Be ready for some nastiness in the former Yugoslavia and quite a few other places.

Um, I knew what spilled the seed means.

I really doubt it: what you said was that the UK avoided getting someone/something (India) possibly pregnant via withdrawing from coitus before climax. What you probably mean would have been said by "SEWING the seed." (Hint: you might want to google in future when someone tells you that you are possibly mis-using an idioim in a foreign language. Oh - and if you did want to say "spilled", then you need medical help.)

It's a nasty thing that happened. Britain encouraged it.

It was nasty. No, Britain didn't encourage it - it "encouraged" the Muslim League possibly, but there are could be many reasons for doing that.

In fact you're the one here making the extraordinary claim with no evidence

You can certainly say that, and I will laugh at you: HALF A MILLION PEOPLE DO NOT GET MURDERED IN A FEW WEEKS UNLESS THERE IS SERIOUS HATRED THERE.

You're postulating an exaggerated scenario based on violence caused by an artificial line dividing a subcontinent bringing religion into play, in the first place.

Half a million dead is still a bit of a puzzling reaction. Switzerland, for example, went through a similar process on a cantonal basis - there were no mass murders and rapes. Even in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, no more than a thousand or so civilians were massacred. To claim that the Partition could lead to half a million deaths, with no real animus on either side, when these other events had been so comparatively pacific, is simply insane. 5000 deaths due to the confusion of relocation I could believe; 50,000 would stretch my credibility - but half a million? No. You're indulging in national face saving, just like those Japanese who have convinced themselves that Japan was minding its own business when the USA attacked Pearl Harbour.
 

amphibulous

Banned
It's also hard to swallow stories about Jinnah (and his British super-hypnotist backers) being the cause of f Partition, while the Hindus wanted to shower them with love and keep them forever when you read the details of what was actually happening in the Congress Party:
http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1576.html

Earlier in 1924 and 1939 Gandhi was rattled in that he lost his position of supreme leadership of the Congress party. In 1924 during the Ahmedabad session of the All India Congress Committee Gandhi was rattled by the Swarajists led by Motilal Nehru and C.R. Das. Gandhi had declared that if his programme and also resolution declaring the members who did not spin for half-an-hour a day and did not observe the five-fold boycott of legislative councils, law courts, government schools, titles and mill made cloth would have to resign from the All India Congress Committee. This resolution, if carried, would have automatically excluded the Swarajists from power. Speaking for the Swarajists Pandit Motilal Nehru said: “We decline to make a fetish of the spinning wheel or to subscribe to the doctrine that only through that wheel can we obtain Swaraj. Discipline is desirable but it is not discipline for the majority to expel the minority. We are unable to forget our manhood and our self-respect and to say that we are willing to submit to Gandhi’s orders. That Congress is as much ours as our opponents and we will return with greater majority to sweep away those who stand for this resolution.”

...About the 1939 issue M.N. Roy wrote in an article: “The second defeat came when a much younger man than Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, defeated Gandhi’s nominee, Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, in the Congress Presidential election. Gandhi’s tormented soul made him acknowledge after the election ‘Pattabhi’s defeat is my defeat’. Gandhi and his disciples brought a charge of indiscipline against Subhash Bose. One would fail to understand what act of indiscipline Bose had committed except that he contested the election against Gandhi’s nominee. But for the immoral political practice adopted by Gandhi and his followers in throwing out Subhash Bose from the Congress, things might have been different in the sense that Gandhi might not have remained the absolute leader for a long time.”

So far from a Congress that was trying to embrace Muslims, you have one that it is trying to expel their main faction, for very selfish reasons.

And (same source):

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1576.html

...when Lord Wavell became the Viceroy of India, he met Jinnah. What the British Government wanted to do in India was to install an interim government in Delhi, which would have the support of the Muslim League, that is, Jinnah and the Congress, that is, Gandhi; so that the British could transfer power to this government in Delhi after World War-II (after defeating the Axis powers). So when Lord Wavell met Jinnah, his main demand was that Muslim Ministers in the proposed government would be nominated by the Muslim League and by nobody else. Wavell then met Gandhi and asked him to show statesmanship** and accept Jinnah’s demand for the sake of peace but Gandhi would not. If Gandhi had accepted Wavell’s plea united India would not have suffered any loss except that men like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, who were the Congress’ Muslim candidates for Ministership and would in no case have been nominated for the post by the Muslim League led by Jinnah, would not have become Ministers.

So far from the British wanting Partition, the person who chooses it is Gandhi - because otherwise Congress will have to share power.
 
It's also hard to swallow stories about Jinnah (and his British super-hypnotist backers) being the cause of f Partition, while the Hindus wanted to shower them with love and keep them forever when you read the details of what was actually happening in the Congress Party:


So far from a Congress that was trying to embrace Muslims, you have one that it is trying to expel their main faction, for very selfish reasons.

And (same source):



So far from the British wanting Partition, the person who chooses it is Gandhi - because otherwise Congress will have to share power.
Clearly you didn't read my post....living side by side doesn't mean living in a fairy tale dream land of happy fun and unicorns, and yes there were underlying tensions. What I am saying is that leading to a civil war is an exaggerated conclusion. In any case you clearly view Congress as a "Hindu" organization, which is false. True, one could say Gandhi brought a lot of spirituality to it, but otherwise Muslims were very active within it, including Jinnah. And as someone who believes Gandhi was indeed one of the factors to partition, you should perhaps not make baseless accusations. And at the same time, you should not ignore the fact that Britain did encourage the Muslim League. And Jinnah was equally responsible for, I don't know, leading the Pakistan movement? Jinnah was someone who felt irked by Gandhi and personally, I feel, felt his personal ambition being blocked...in addition, I can certainly understand why one would be alienated from Gandhi....the ideal situation would be the removal of Gandhi, but, at the same time, with official British policy essentially geared towards partition and over time increasing religious tensions, coupled with the Muslim League's alienation from working with Congress, led to the entire affair.
 
Oh, and I'm a sixteen year old Canadian. I apologise for using the term wrong, but assuming that English is a foreign language to me because I'm on an India thread is pretty goddamn insulting.
 
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In the argument between trollhole and amphibulous I agree with trollhole on the following points.
1) The British Government had pursued an active "divide and rule" policy. That was the reason why the British Raj encouraged the Muslim League and supported their partition demand. The Prime Minister Winston Churchill especially hated Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party and did everything to undermine them.
2) It was Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Muslim League who were mainly responsible for partition and it was a fact that Jinnah was jealous of Gandhi since he was sidelined in the Congress after the arrival of Gandhi and his assumption of leadership of the Congress. The sidelining of Jinnah in the Congress was not the result of any deliberate action of Gandhi. Jinnah belonged to that group of elite upper class politicians, who moved in a high circle and viewed the common people with disdain. Under Gandhi the Congress became a mass organisation and the politics moved out of the drawing rooms of the rich people to the market places and maidans where the common people gathered. People like Jinnah who hated to mix with the poor were naturally ignored by them. The reaction of Jinnah was to throw away the secular ideals that he had acquired due to his very high intellect and learning and adoption of lowly and narrow ideas of Islamic communalism and separatism. For Muslim League which lacked quality leaders the arrival of Jinnah was like a special blessing of the God.
3) The religious hostility between the Hindus and the Muslims was not something carried over from the history. It is true that the Muslims had arrived in North India as conquerors and destroyers. ( In South India the Arabs had come as traders of spices and hence as friends and guests). But the centuries of interaction, especially under the rulers like Akbar, had helped the development of mutual tolerance and friendship. The British saw this during the Indian Mutiny and deliberately designed a policy of encouraging mutual enmity between the followers of the two religions.
Amphibulous is correct when he says that the genocide of millions that took place during the partition riots is the result of communal hatred between the Hindus and Muslims. But that communal divide was the product of the British policy of "divide and rule" practiced for nine decades after the Mutiny.
 
I'd argue that Mother India took second place to kick the British out in most peoples eyes.
Really depends on when you look at it. Before Gandhi penetrated the rural communities of India and solidified the alliance between rich Bombay lawyers and poor peasants, the Ryots didn't care much for sleek Congress politicians.

Congress made the two synomynous - without Congress leadership a federated states solution to independence could have succeeded if the British had supported it. However it was in the UK's perceived interests to engage with Congress as it was their route to a unified India which was the end goal.

Change British policy to a weak Federation (rather than a centralised one) and have the Uk promote the Federalists / separatists at the expense of Congress and a different solution is possible.
How could the British just ignore Congress, who by 1942 had such monumental public support that one British officer remarked that India "is now a hostile and occupied country"?

Such possibilities existed only before the Independence Movement gathered momentum and popularity under Indian National Congress. A division based on regional languages was never possible as the present linguistic states were not formed at that time. The large princely states like Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, Gwalior, Kashmir etc. also had a chance to go independent, if the British had left before the twentieth century. The regions directly ruled by the British would have solidified around existing power centers in a similar situation.

But once the national movement under the Congress became strong, especially after the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi, the dream of a united India got entrenched in the minds of people. Then a division of the country would have faced the opposition of the people. That was why the partition caused such a large scale bloodshed.
I was arguing from a OTL post WWI perspective. Gandhi facilitated the elite's idea of a unified India to the masses, but he was in no way unique in supporting such a state from Khyber Pass to the mouth of the Ganges.

Was it Jinnah or Nehru who said "Here come my follower; quick - I must run to stay ahead of them!"
I have absolutely no idea.

So, no. Politicians are't telepaths who mind control their followers. They're surfers on popular causes.
Please spare me your dyslexic sarcasm. Jinnah was the man behind the formation of Pakistan and the idea that Islam and Hinduism couldn't work together in a post-British India. Just like Gandhi reached out and roused the peasants with dreams of Indian independence, so did Jinnah establish a base for the foundation of Pakistan among the common populace fearful of Hindu supremacy. In that way he was unique. So, yes. I think my earlier statement is valid.

1) The British Government had pursued an active "divide and rule" policy. That was the reason why the British Raj encouraged the Muslim League and supported their partition demand. The Prime Minister Winston Churchill especially hated Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party and did everything to undermine them.
Indeed in regards to the Caesarian divide and rule policy, just look at the British Partition of the Bengal in 1905. However, I don't think we can connect Churchill's hatred for the Mahatma ("that half naked fakir") with British support for partition. Truth be told, I think Atlee in 1947 just wanted to get out of India, come hell or highwater. Had Wavell been allowed to stay on as vice-roy instead of the vain idiot Mountbatten, partition might have, however unlikely, been avoided (to some degree at least).
 
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