Would a "cleaner" partition of India have been a good thing ?

[aneeshm]

Looking at history and current politics , I've started feeling that a "cleaner" partition of India would have been a good thing for all concerned ( specially the Muslims ) . Because in the states where Muslims are a sizeable minority , communal tensions are a problem ( as evidenced by the Godhra riots ) . In states where , however , the Muslim population is insignificant , there are no such tensions ( such as in Punjab ) . A "cleaner" partition would have meant that 95+ % of the Muslims of India go to Pakistan and Bangladesh , and 95 + % of the Hindus of these states come to India ( making both insignificant minorities in the other's state ) .

It is , of course , too late to do anything about it now , but this thread is meant to discuss an interesting possibility .

Would everyone , then , have been better off with a "cleaner" partition ?

[Arrian]

Maybe. On the other hand, the real problem is people's intolerance, not where the line is on the map. Pakistan and India have had how many shooting wars?

-Arrian

[Az]

From personal experience, yes.

[Admiral]

Not really.

I don't know the specifics of the India/Pakistan situation, but in most cases there is not a situation where some areas are entirely one ethnicity/religion, and other areas are entirely another. Therefore, any attempt to create a "clean" partition would involve mass forced relocation, which is not only morally wrong, but also generally creates more problems than it solves. Really, people just have to suck it up and work on building communities that can actually tolerate differences.

[Arrian]

Heh. Yes, No and Maybe within the first 3 replies.

-Arrian

[Richelieu]

Is such a partition geographicaly feasable? Would you have to create Muslim enclaves in India and/or Indian enclaves in Pakistan and/or Bangladesh?

[Verto]

It's obvious the natives are not capable of governing themselves. Her Majesty should have never left.

[Sandman]

There's no such thing as a clean partition.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sandman
There's no such thing as a clean partition.

which may be why he said "cleaner".

But IIUC there were very few Hindus left in Pakistan, and almost all of those were in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. So it seems the OP is really asking if it would have been better if India had fewer muslims.

I dont think a cleaner partition could have been accomplished, based on the geography (well except maybe by giving Kashmir to Pak, but thats another story) Arent most Indian Muslims in places like Bombay, etc? Not concentrated along the border.

I suppose one could say India would have been better off if more muslims had left. But Im not sure the muslims who stayed havent made major contributions. But youve got to weigh communal strife against that. And presumably they thought long and hard about their own reasons to stay. I presume the OP is not suggesting they should have been expelled.

[OzzyKP]

Re: Would a "cleaner" partition of India have been a good thing ?

LotM, the OP may just be suggesting that:

Originally posted by aneeshm
A "cleaner" partition would have meant that 95+ % of the Muslims of India go to Pakistan and Bangladesh , and 95 + % of the Hindus of these states come to India ( making both insignificant minorities in the other's state ) .

Hindus go to India, Muslims to go Pakistan/Bangladesh.

At least that's how I read it, I could be wrong.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Admiral
Not really.

I don't know the specifics of the India/Pakistan situation, but in most cases there is not a situation where some areas are entirely one ethnicity/religion, and other areas are entirely another. Therefore, any attempt to create a "clean" partition would involve mass forced relocation, which is not only morally wrong, but also generally creates more problems than it solves. Really, people just have to suck it up and work on building communities that can actually tolerate differences.

You do know following the Partition, there WAS a mass relocation (although not really forced)...

[Zevico]

Look um , sorry , but please stop putting spaces between your punctuation devices . It ' s really annoying .

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme
You do know following the Partition, there WAS a mass relocation (although not really forced)...

And mass mutual slaughter on a vast scale.

It would have been better if there'd been no partition at all.

[Q Classic]

Okay, see, when you said "cleaner partition", my first thought was maybe a Calcutta or a Mumbai that didn't look like crap--as in, one that's as clean as the best streets of Tokyo or Seoul.

Then I thought, "maybe he means cleaner as in whiter?" and tried to think if there was a large enough American/Euro population in India to warrant that. Then I wondered if it would be tasteless to make a sort of apartheid joke about it.

Needless to say, from the context of the question and my unfamiliarity with anything more than the vaguest outlines of the 1947 issue, I had no idea what this was talking about.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Okay, see, when you said "cleaner partition", my first thought was maybe a Calcutta or a Mumbai that didn't look like crap--as in, one that's as clean as the best streets of Tokyo or Seoul.

Then I thought, "maybe he means cleaner as in whiter?" and tried to think if there was a large enough American/Euro population in India to warrant that. Then I wondered if it would be tasteless to make a sort of apartheid joke about it.

Needless to say, from the context of the question and my unfamiliarity with anything more than the vaguest outlines of the 1947 issue, I had no idea what this was talking about.

Basically, current Pakistan, India and Bangladesh was one colony under the British Empire.

When they gained independence, they decided that rather to try and make Muslims and Hindu live together, they split up in one Hindu country (India) and 2 Muslim states.

They drew approximates boundaries, and millions of people that were on the wrong side (Muslim in India etc..) decided to leave everything they had and move.

For anybody that was alive at the time in those countries, it is The Historical event.

It's The Partition with a capital P.

Lots of people died, others left everything, got separated from their children etc...

It took many years for the situation to stabilize somewhat.


When I was in Delhi, we had a cook who left now-Pakistan as a kid to move here because his family was Hindu.