Pakistan

[Imran Siddiqui]

That's why it's aptly named .

[SlowwHand]

I keep clicking it, checking to see what's up.
Not a ****ing thing, evidently. Too drunk to make entry in it, maybe.
I bet that's it. You're a LUSH! Oh, man.

[Zkribbler]

I had no problem with the link.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

Of course one should consider the degree to which the rivalry with Pakistan has served to cement together hindus of different languages and cultural traditions who otherwise might not have gotten along even as well as they have.

I can't help but be amused by this.

One of the metrics Indians use to measure each other's patriotism is - how much do you despise the goddamn Pakis?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by LordShiva

I disagree. There are plenty of assimilated Indian Muslims, so blaming one's being Muslim for the inability to assimilate can't be the answer.

It's true that they exist, but the problem is that there are so goddamned few of them!

When, in a batch of around 280 in my college people, you have three - yes, only three - people who are Muslims, while over 10% of Maharashtra is Muslim (according to your map), you start to see that there is a problem. Another important point is that I feel a bit ridiculous pointing out those three because they're not Muslim in anything but name. Nobody would be able to make out they were Muslim. And out of those, one's Bohra (they're a very prosperous bunch, way above the Muslim average), and I don't know about the other two.

I'm not saying that Muslims cannot assimilate. But the problem is, the minute hardship afflicts a Muslim family, the nature of the faith encourages a turning away from rationality, a descent into fanaticism, as an outlet. All the people I know and interact with are of roughly similar economic backgrounds. I have never really interacted with a Muslim from a lower economic or social background, because they're the ones who don't assimilate.

Originally posted by LordShiva

Punjab is quiet today because it prospered economically. If India had remained undivided and hadn't gone down the ridiculously stupid economic path it chose, I think, with time, the outcome would have been preferable to what we have today, as well as to one in which the entire population had been arbitrarily divided along one of several possible faultlines.

You have to understand, Shiva, that once the idea of Pakistan was promulgated, and caught hold of the popular Muslim imagination, it was inevitable. Trying to stop it, or saying that the country would not have been partitioned, would have led, as said before, to the bloodbath of the millennium.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by LordShiva

Here's an article on the state of Indian Muslims.

Most of the problems that aneeshm raised have less to do, IMO, with their being Muslim, and more with the fact that they're poor, and the fact that there isn't a critical mass of progressive, educated, socially "elite" Muslims. A big part of the reason for this is that a lot of them went to Pakistan, and the poor were disproportionately represented in the population that stayed behind.

Maybe so. But then, they've had sixty years - two, or two and a half generations. Why don't we see that critical mass now?

And the fact that it was the elite and the rich which went to Pakistan says a lot, doesn't it?

[Apocalypse]

I don't get why Obama is so for invading Pakistan. Really, I had considered him if one of those Republicans who were anti-evolution won the primary. Up until now.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by aneeshm
You have to understand, Shiva, that once the idea of Pakistan was promulgated, and caught hold of the popular Muslim imagination, it was inevitable. Trying to stop it, or saying that the country would not have been partitioned, would have led, as said before, to the bloodbath of the millennium.

I can't think of a situation in which mass killings could have been avoided. Dragging the process out over 5-15 years would hardly have helped, when people would be sitting around waiting to move out of places where they were no longer welcome, and others waiting like vultures to move into their homes.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Maybe so. But then, they've had sixty years - two, or two and a half generations. Why don't we see that critical mass now?

Because poverty begets poverty.

Originally posted by aneeshm
And the fact that it was the elite and the rich which went to Pakistan says a lot, doesn't it?

Not really. They were just better at being able to afford to make the trip and settle into new lives.

Besides, the lure of forming the sole elite in a new nation must have been quite a draw.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by LordShiva

Because poverty begets poverty.

Of course. That's why Singapore is so poor.

Oh, wait......

Originally posted by LordShiva

Not really. They were just better at being able to afford to make the trip and settle into new lives.

Besides, the lure of forming the sole elite in a new nation must have been quite a draw.

And ideology, and religious sentiment, of course, had nothing to do with it. Right.

Do you know how immigrants from India to Pakistan were and are treated by the Punjabi Muslims who dominate there? Some "elite" they formed.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by LordShiva


I can't think of a situation in which mass killings could have been avoided. Dragging the process out over 5-15 years would hardly have helped, when people would be sitting around waiting to move out of places where they were no longer welcome, and others waiting like vultures to move into their homes.

Mass killings could have been avoided by acceding to the demands, but not building up people's expectations by saying that Partition was something that could be simply declared on a day, like Independence.

If it had been made clear that partition was a 10-year or 15-year process, with plenty of time for people to prepare and leave, and that the country would be declared fully "partitioned" only AFTER this process was complete (even though the states would be separated at Independence itself), then most of the killings would not have happened.

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Yeah, cause you guys spent a few hundred years beating down the Welsh and Scots and making them English speaking Britons.

it was more like centuries of peaceful assimilation punctuated by brief periods of violence. even that wasn't wholly successful, in that today there are 5 separate national identities which make up britain.

nevertheless countries like the UK and belgium are good illustrations of the difficulties which countries containing more than one national identity face, and the compromises which need to be made to accommodate them in one working state.

[East Street Trader]

I wonder if any comparison is possible between Moslems who decided to up sticks at the time of partition and move to Pakistan compared to those who decided to stay put?

Which, I wonder, have done better - economically and in terms of quality of life generally?

I suppose the same question could also be posed as regards Hidus who left Pakistan and those who stayed.

My suspicion is that staying in or moving to India would prove to have been the winning move. And that at least one reason is that a larger economic unit seems eventually to do generally better than a small one.

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
I don't get why Obama is so for invading Pakistan. Really, I had considered him if one of those Republicans who were anti-evolution won the primary. Up until now.

He's just trying to shake the whole "Democrats are soft on terror image". I don't take him at his word. He's too much a bleeding heart liberal like the rest of them.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by LordShiva
East and West Bengal have been divided for almost a century, now.

Muslims in West Bengal, which is 25% Muslim (about the percentage of an undivided India), get along reasonably well with Bengali Hindus. The biggest threat to peace is due to class-divisions that are exploited by the Maoists and their like, not religious conflict.

Yes, in a situation where the muslims in West Bengal have long accepted their minority status, and those uncomfortable with such status have had the opportunity to move to East Bengal/East Pakistan/Bangladesh.

Im still not convinced you can use the OTL history of India to project what life would have been like in an ATL unpartitioned India, nor can you make the case that either Pakistan or Bangladesh are fundamentally artificial entities.

It would be nice if we had an actual Pakistani in here (sorry IS, youre an American, and AFAICT dont pay close attention to issues of Pakistani identity, or am I wrong?) rather than having a Hindu nationalist as the primary voice favoring partition.