>2. why is Kashmir part of India if its population is overwhelmingly muslim?
Goto www.cnn.com/world and go down to countrywatch pulldown menu. Select Pakistan and then Select History.
In Short, India was partitioned at the time of Independence into two parts India (Secular) and Pakistan (Muslim).
Though Secular India is predominantly Hindu (80%) it still has more Muslims than the entire population of Pakistan. Kashmir was not under direct British control and had the choice of going to either India or Pakistan. The Maharaja of Kashmir (Hindu) and the Most Popular Leader (Muslim) decided to formally became a part of India when Pakistani troops moved into Kashmir. Since Kashmir is the only majority Muslim state in India, it has always been an issue between Pakistan and India, which each control parts of it today.
I have copy pasted a long not of history from cnn if some one wants to read it.
===From www.cnn.com/world country watch===
Documents dating back to the late 19th century show the British strategy had been in the making for
sometime. Lord Dufferin, the secretary of state in London, advised the British viceroy of India between 1884
and 1888 that “the division of religious feelings is greatly to our advantage,” and that he expected “some
good as a result of your committee of inquiry on Indian education and on teaching material.” A few years
later, Lord Curzon (governor general of India 1895-99 and viceroy 1899-1904) was told by the secretary of
state for India, George Francis Hamilton, that they “should so plan the educational text books that the
differences between community and community are further strengthened.”
But it was with the creation of the Muslim League that the British saw their best chance to extend their rule in
India, which was becoming a difficult prospect. The military and economic pressures of the World War I
made the British departure imminent. But the British exploited divisions between the Hindus and Muslims to
the hilt, sowing the seeds of the idea of an independent Muslim country to cater to the needs in the
mid-1920s.
In the 1930s, the Muslim League, under the leadership of its highly ambitious leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah
began talking of being the sole representative of the Indian Muslims, even though it had not won any popular
vote to prove its credentials. In fact, the 1937 elections led to a humiliation of the Muslim League at the
hands of the Congress all over India, including the Muslim majority parts.
However, almost a decade long propaganda of hatred and fear -- by extremists on both sides -- began to
show its affects in the 1940s, during the Quit India Movement launched by the Congress between 1942 and
1945. The League told the Muslim elites in the Muslim majority states that they would be denied all rights in
a Hindu dominated India and that only they – the Muslim League –could guarantee their rights as Muslims.
And in the 1945 provincial elections, the league ended up with almost half the seats in Bengal and it gained
in Punjab, winning as many as the Unionist Party -- comprising people of all religious beliefs -- and pushing
the Congress to the third place.
It is also noteworthy that several important Islamic theologians were against partition. Maulana Madani
undertook a whirlwind tour to campaign against the league. And representatives of the Muslim working class
were also against partition. The Ansari Muslims (weavers by profession) who were very politically conscious
and well organized in the northern India publicly demonstrated against the league's partition resolution.
These ought to have weakened the claim of Muslim League that it was the sole representative of the
Muslims in India. But the British, by now actually eager to get out of India, accepted the league as the sole
representative of the Muslims.
In June 1945 India became a charter member of the United Nations. In the same month the British
government issued a white paper on the Indian situation. However, the proposals closely resembled those,
which had been rejected by both the Congress and the league. Another deadlock developed and during the
second half of 1945 a new wave of anti-British riots and outbursts swept over India. Three representatives of
the British government made another attempt to negotiate an agreement with Indian leaders in the spring of
1946. Although the Muslim League temporarily withdrew its demands for the partition of India along religious
lines, insuperable differences developed with respect to the character of an interim government. The
negotiations were fruitless, and in June the British viceroy Archibald Wavell announced the formation of an
emergency “caretaker” government. An interim executive council, headed by Congress' Jawaharlal Nehru
and representative of all major political groups except the Muslim League, replaced this government in
September. In the next month the Muslim League agreed to participate in the new government. Nonetheless,
communal strife between Muslims and Hindus increased in various parts of India.
By the end of 1946 the political situation in the subcontinent was on the brink of anarchy. The British prime
minister, Clement R. Atlee, announced in February 1947 that his government would relinquish power in
India not later than June 30, 1948. According to the announcement, the move would be made whether or not
the political factions of India agreed on a constitution before that time. Political tension mounted in India
following the announcement, creating grave possibilities of a disastrous Hindu-Muslim civil war. After
consultations with Indian leaders, Louis Mountbatten, who succeeded Wavell as viceroy in March 1947,
recommended immediate partition of India to the British government as the only means of averting
catastrophe. A bill incorporating Mountbatten's recommendations was introduced into the British Parliament
on July 4; it obtained speedy and unanimous approval in both houses of Parliament. Under the provisions of
this enactment, termed the Indian Independence Act, which became effective on Aug. 15, 1947, India and
Pakistan were established as independent nations within the Commonwealth of Nations, with the right to
withdraw from or remain within the Commonwealth.
The new states of India and Pakistan were created along religious lines. Areas inhabited predominantly by
Hindus were allocated to India and those with a predominantly Muslim population were allocated to
Pakistan. Because the overwhelming majority of the people of the Indian subcontinent are Hindus, partition
resulted in the inclusion within the Union of India, as the country was then named, of most of the 562
princely states in existence prior to Aug. 15, 1947, as well as the majority of the British provinces and parts of
three of the remaining provinces.
Consequently, a bifurcated Muslim nation separated by more than 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of Indian
territory emerged when Pakistan became an independent country on 14 Aug. 1947. West Pakistan
comprised the contiguous Muslim-majority districts of present-day Pakistan; East Pakistan consisted of a
single province, which, after gaining independence following a revolution in 1971, is now Bangladesh. But
the two sides -- the Congress and the Muslim League were unable to come to any agreement over the
status of the highly contentious state of Jammu and Kashmir. The issue was left unresolved at the time of
the partition, leaving it up to the Maharaja of J and K to take a decision on whether to merge with Pakistan or
remain with India.
The Maharaja of Kashmir was reluctant to make a decision on accession to either Pakistan or India. Armed
incursions into the state by tribesman from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), however, led him to
seek military assistance from India. The Maharaja signed accession papers in October 1947 and allowed
Indian troops into much of the state. The government of Pakistan refused to recognize the accession and
campaigned to reverse the decision. To this day, the status of Kashmir remains in dispute. (See discussion
under “Foreign Relations” in this review).
Pakistan's history as a nation is full of political instability, blamed largely on ambitious generals of a very
powerful army who have never really let go of their iron grip on all the aspects of the Pakistani society. When
the military has not been in power, it has never been far away from it either. The instability in Pakistan began
almost with the independence. The death of its founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in September 1948 was the
first shock and it also robbed Pakistan of an almost mythical figure who had for the last two decades been
the sole leader and dictator of the Muslim League. Jinnah's death left a power vacuum that was never really
filled, at least by a popular vote.
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====Taken from www.cnn.com/World===== |
