Mohan in 1947 Hyderabad State, with a Muslim leader was
co-opted into joining India: at the same moment Kashmir, with
a Hindu leader ruling over a Muslim population joined India.
Therein lie the seeds of the present troubles, but doubtless
you know this.
A slightly different opinion.
If one is to believe the version of pop-history documented in
a book called "Freedom at Midnight" by Collins/La pieere,
things happened a little differently than what you and Mohan
suggest.
India was ruled by small and large kingdoms with princes
These princes made deals/wars with a Muslim Empires before for
300years
These princes made deals/wars with British Empires for another 200
years.
These princes signed another deal which created another new country
called "Independent India". There were approx 500 such princes and
kingdoms varied from few miles across to few hundred miles across.
If you theorize, the ones few hundred miles across could have been
separate countries. The ones few miles across...surrounded on
all sides by big India..or others...after they have not
really been independent for 500 years...well I doubt it :-).
There have been similar "countries" ofcourse, like Vatican to
keep the Catholic religious happy and Lesotho (surrounded by
South Africa) probably because the white majority rulers wanted
black people to live in ghettos and feel "independent".
But survival of such small kingdoms surrounded by a large one
is largely impractical.
There in lies the difference between Hyderabad kingdom (really small)
and Kashmir (substantial size).
Unlike what Mohan wrote about Kashmir choosing to join India, it
seems the King there had decided to stay independent and the
"relative large" countries at times of India's independence
(1947) were India, Pakistan and Kashmir. However the book
does tell how Pakistan, unhappy with the arrangement sent armed
men to capture Kashmir and the king of Kashmir(Hindu)under some
duress signed the deal with India to protect his turf after some
tough special clauses such as people from other parts of India
not allowed to own land etc.
The book also tells how Portugal considered Goa to be its territory
until 1960s and if you believe their claim that is something India
also took away though you will find less sympathy these days for
rights of Europeans to have faraway colonies :-)
So if you hold a vote in Kashmir to decide instead of the process
followed by the British (ask the kings/princes, their version
of having "representative democracy" ), you may create
similar claims in other parts of India mostly by other
men wanting to be kings (not because they have welfare of people
at hearts). The most recent place "country-building" was attempted
was attempted was Yugoslavia and we know how well that worked.
You want to consider the possibility of upto 500 countries in
India ? I think it might easier to have people learn to
get along :-)
Kashmir also has factions that want to be neither with India
or Pakistan...if you read enough in NY times.
How about that as a version of History !
As these things go, history depends on who gets to write it, so
I don't really have a clue. :-) But there is version in the
book "Freedom at Midnight" which you may want to read. |
