WI: Alternate Partition of India

@Cregan , the scenario you have given is simply not possible. Pakistan would never want to have Punjab which now resides in India, if they insist on doing so there would be war. Patel would never, ever allow such a concentrated muslim area (East Pakistan) into India. Note that Kashmir was actually not on the plate either. Patel, at best, wanted to keep it hanging in the balance to force Pakistan away from engaging in stupid shit like separation of Junagarh and Hyderabad (today mostly in Andhra). Not that they would have survived as they were being surrounded completely by Indian territories.
Kashmir came to be as it is because of the 1948 clash, with Patel finally asking : ' Jawaharlal,do you want Kashmir, or do you want to give it away?' Any Indian leader would not allow Jammu, Ladakh to fall way to Pakistan.

I didn't give any such scenario, the OP suggested it and I replied that trying to incorporate all of Punjab and Haryana into Pakistan, and East Bengal into India, was unfeasible and would result in religious insurgencies, ethnic cleansing and ongoing communal violence on a largescale. A very bad idea all round.
 
According to wiki, most of the Buddhists in Bangladesh live in the Chittadong district. Even then, it apparently has more mosques and Hindu temples than Buddhist temples.

I suppose Sikkim could be a Buddhist majority independent state, given that they were an Indian protectorate until 1975. Hell, there is already Sri Lanka and Bhutan, so perhaps there could've been a Sikkim state.

Sikkim wouldn't have remained independent because there was tremendous political pressure on the then Chogyal to accede to India in wake of the trend of the full assimilation of the former princely states being prevalent at that time. And the public opinion too was overwhelmingly in favor of the accession. Sikkim had significant interactions with North East India since a long time and not entirely culturally distinct from people living in the Northern parts of WB and Western parts of Assam.

The reason for Bhutan being independent is that it was never considered a part of India in any way at any point of time and even according to British records it was considered as an ally and not necessarily a protectorate, as well as it had an independent history for too long for it to be considered a part of India. Sri Lanka was and is an entirely independent country from India in all respects, that and combined with commonplace hatred for Tamils makes it difficult for Sri Lanka to be a part of India. Sri Lanka always had a vibrant culture combined with powerful indigenous kingdoms of its own for nearly it's entire history ; it has never been ruled by Indians except for a 80 year long stint by the Cholas and as an administrative division under the Raj for a short time.
 
Sikkim wouldn't have remained independent because there was tremendous political pressure on the then Chogyal to accede to India in wake of the trend of the full assimilation of the former princely states being prevalent at that time. And the public opinion too was overwhelmingly in favor of the accession. Sikkim had significant interactions with North East India since a long time and not entirely culturally distinct from people living in the Northern parts of WB and Western parts of Assam.

The reason for Bhutan being independent is that it was never considered a part of India in any way at any point of time and even according to British records it was considered as an ally and not necessarily a protectorate, as well as it had an independent history for too long for it to be considered a part of India. Sri Lanka was and is an entirely independent country from India in all respects, that and combined with commonplace hatred for Tamils makes it difficult for Sri Lanka to be a part of India. Sri Lanka always had a vibrant culture combined with powerful indigenous kingdoms of its own for nearly it's entire history ; it has never been ruled by Indians except for a 80 year long stint by the Cholas and as an administrative division under the Raj for a short time.
Yeah, I knew it was a stretch, considering that Sikkim is quite small. I suppose the point is that there is not place in India that is Buddhist majority or pluarity that justifies an independent state.
 
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