An analogy between Pakistani and Israeli "nation-building", is almost as strained as the analogies between Chalabi and George Washington. If Pakistan had claimed the entire subcontinent for themselves (perhaps allowing the Hindus a tiny Bantustan in Southern India), and, over the course of the last 50 years, fought repeated wars to conquer all of it, and dispossessed the Hindus of vast amounts of territory where they used to be the majority, then the analogy would be accurate. But Pakistan was formed of territory where Muslims had been the majority population for centuries, so the analogy is false.
Ghandi spoke and wrote against partition for 30 years, right up to independence. He agreed to it, in the end, only because the Muslims insisted, and because the only alternative was civil war. He wanted a united nation, including all of British India, a secular State with religious freedom for all. He considered partition a personal failure. He almost killed himself, in a fast, which he said he would continue until the Muslims and Hindus stopped killing each other, during separation. |
