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

[civman2000]

I think that almost by definition, any partition that was "cleaner" would have been better. Whether it was really very feasible to make a cleaner partition is another issue.

[Lul Thyme]

Quick quote from Wikipedia, to give an idea of scale :
"Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new state line. It was an impossible task, at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; millions (no one knows how many) died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was the largest population movement in recorded history."

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme
Basically, current Pakistan, India and Bangladesh was one colony under the British Empire.

Yep. And for a while, it used to be Pakistan and East Pakistan (until 1971, when they declared independence and formed the nation of Bangladesh), a single nation with non-contiguous regions, kinda like the United Arab Republic or Alaska, Hawaii and the rest of the US.

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.

That's my understanding of it, yeah. People also decided to kill each other on the way to the promised lands, apparently.

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

It's The Partition with a capital P.

Alas, I have no historical ties to the region. I wasn't alive at the time, nor was I in the country.

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

It took many years for the situation to stabilize somewhat.

A fact not that unique, unfortunately.

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

Now that's a tragedy. But really, didn't hundreds of thousands of others do it too, making it a statistic-type thing?

[Dr Strangelove]

How could the seperation of Pakistan and India have been cleaner? The largest single point of contention is Kashmir. India claims that the majority of Kashmiri have always favored remaining part of India, Pakistan maintains that the polls showing this trend have been faked, and that the majority of the Kashmiri really want to unite with Pakistan. I don't forsee a way of resolving this issue because for the forseeable future Pakistan is not going to respect any poll that disagrees with its viewpoint no matter who conducts it.

[Q Classic]

Well, they could solve it like how they could solve the Holy Land problem.

1. Nuke the **** out of it.
or
2. Give it to a third party and force everyone already there to go on a long march/trail of tears type thing. For instance, Holy Land goes to China, Kashmir goes to Germany.

[joncha]

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

Quoted for TRUTH.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme
Quick quote from Wikipedia, to give an idea of scale :
"Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new state line. It was an impossible task, at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; millions (no one knows how many) died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was the largest population movement in recorded history."

Damn.

What did Gandhi have to say about all of this?

[The Mad Monk]

I don't recall, but I think it got him shot.

[Winston]

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

Yes. Move all the Muslims to an external, portable F: drive, and place it in a cardboard box under the kitchen sink.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
What did Gandhi have to say about all of this?

(a) He didn't like it, but couldn't stop it.
(b) It got him shot.

[Dr Strangelove]

He went on a hunger strike. He vowed to not eat until people stopped killing each other, and he also toured some of the places where the heaviest fighting had taken place. A group of Hindu nationalists proclaimed his efforts to stop the slaughter of muslims to be treason and assassinated him. IIRC they were members of the party currently in power in India.

[flash9286]

I thought the INC regained power after the 2004 elections.

[Mao]

Originally posted by Admiral
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.

It may be morally wrong, but it does work in some cases - see Europe after WWII. The forced relocation of so many Germans did have a stabilizing influence on the region I believe. The border disagreements and such there aren't nearly as strong now. Sometimes, sadly, a little ethnic cleansing does wonders for stability.

[Maniac]

It's not as if Germany had much choice regarding accepting these border changes...

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
He went on a hunger strike. He vowed to not eat until people stopped killing each other, and he also toured some of the places where the heaviest fighting had taken place. A group of Hindu nationalists proclaimed his efforts to stop the slaughter of muslims to be treason and assassinated him. IIRC they were members of the party currently in power in India.

Incorrect .

Nathuram Godse left the RSS because he considered it too mild ( and because it would not sanction the murder of Gandhi , who they consider a saint ) . The former ruling party , the BJP , is a member of the RSS , the RSS being an umbrella body which covers many child organisations which are part of the RSS family .

And secondly , the nationalist group murdered him because they thought that he was the one who allowed partition to take place , and that he was responsible for partition , not because of his efforts to stop the riots .