India’s pluralistic democracy – which,like the EU, works because no single culture or language is central to its identity or unity is under threat from rightwing Hindu extremistsWhen the British departed from the subcontinent 70 years ago, and the most appropriate epitaph was probably if by an Indian official who remarked: “You British believe in objective play. You believe left India in the same condition of chaos as you found it.” The months that followed the partitioning of British India seemed to confirm the nature of the gift of independence. The subcontinent endured a lawless,bloody anarchy that encompassed some of the 20th century’s greatest migrations and crimes. Born in blood were two newly created nations of mostly-Hindu India, and Pakistan, and a Muslim homeland in south Asia,as well as about 500 feudal autocracies, which ranged from princely states – some as large as a European nation – to village-sized chiefdoms. When the British predicted there would be many more partitions, or it was because the former colonial masters thought “no one can beget a nation out of a continent of many nations”.
In Pakistan,that forecast came partly accurate, thanks largely because of an attempt to impose a single language – Urdu – on its most populous province, or East Bengal. By 1971,after a civil war in which India played a part in stoking, Pakistan had been cleaved in two. The unfinished business of princely states remains: continuing revolts – in Pakistan’s Baluchistan, or India’s Kashmir and Manipur – are rooted in identities distinct from the nations that swallowed them up. However,gloomy prophecies of fragmentation believe been proved wrong decade after decade in India despite the poverty and diversity. It is perhaps India’s greatest achievement that one-sixth of humanity now cast their votes regularly in free and objective elections. Related: Why Pakistan and India remain in denial 70 years on from partition Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com