South Asia: Creating Dilemmas of Diversity - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 177

As Britain had declared war on Germany without consul-
tation, the Indian provincial representatives resigned. Be-
ing called upon to “Quit India,” in 1942, the British
arrested the entire Congress leadership and 60,000 ac-
tivists. Then they invited Jinnah into the government.
With Congress power diminished, Jinnah was able to put
the Muslim League on an equal footing. The British had
agreed to Indian independence at the end of the war, but
now it was too late. Muhammed Ali Jinnah demanded a
separate Muslim state: Pakistan “Land of the Pure.” Un-
able to speak Urdu, he remarked in English, “If not a di-
vided India, then a destroyed India.”
Hindu-Muslim violence was widespread, and on
August 16, 1946, the “Great Calcutta Killing” event cost
the lives of 5,000 Muslims and Hindus. Bloodshed swept
across northern India, with violence and atrocities spar-
ing no community . Faced with the prospect of complete
anarchy , Nehru and other Hindu leaders became con-
vinced that a Muslim state was indeed necessary .
A new viceroy , Lord Louis Mountbatten, was sent to
India in 1946 to negotiate an independence agreement.
He quickly saw that the division of India into Muslim
and Hindu entities was inevitable. Pakistan was to en-
compass heavy Muslim concentrations in the northwest
and northeast, meaning that the new nation would con-
sist of two separate entities over 860 miles (1,400 km)
apart. Moreover, to give Muhammed Ali Jinnah his
Pakistan, both Punjab and Bengal would have to be
divided. The consequences were terrible.

in the Muslim quarter of Old Delhi and vowed to fast to
death if the communal violence did not cease. Although
calm returned several days later, many Hindus were
enraged by his seeming support for the Muslims. On
January 30, 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu
fanatic. A distraught Prime Minister Nehru spoke to his
nation: “The light has gone out of our lives and there is
darkness everywhere.”
In that same year, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan' s
first political leader, died as well. Spurning Muslim pro-
hibitions against pork, alcohol, and smoking, he died of
lung cancer.
The nearly 600 princely states were diverse geo-
graphically , socially , and politically , precluding any uni-
form policy regarding their status. With the creation of
India and Pakistan, each state was given the option of
joining either country . Most acquiesced to India but
some, such as Hyderabad, had to be coerced by the In-
dian army . Kashmir presented a special case, its complex-
ities defying easy solution.
The Maharaja of Kashmir was a Hindu, but the ma-
jority of his subjects were Muslim. While he wavered on
his decision, hoping to remain independent, Pakistan
tribesmen rebelled. The Maharaja then acceded to India
and asked for military help. Indian troops were unable to
oust the Pakistanis. With stalemate in 1949, a “line of
control” became the de facto boundary . This resolution
was not a solution, and Kashmir remains a region of con-
flict to this day .

THE PARTITION OF INDIA
As both Punjab and Bengal had mixed populations, no
boundary line would be satisfactory to all. Punjab, in
particular, was communally mixed with Hindus, Mus-
lims, and Sikhs interspersed. The decision was made to
award 62 percent of the land and 55 percent of the popu-
lation to Pakistan. As of midnight January 14, 1947, mil-
lions found themselves trapped in a country hostile to
their faith.
The partition of India in 1947 spurred the largest mi-
gration in human history . Around 12 million people
moved between West and East Pakistan and India seek-
ing refuge in their own religious communities. The ensu-
ing savagery was unparalleled. Entire villages were
massacred, and trainloads of people were butchered and
torched. At least a million people were killed in the wake
of India' s partition.
These events created Hindu-Muslim animosities
deeper than ever. A horrified Gandhi took up residence

Nationalism and Regionalism

Complex, diverse, and paradoxical—this aptly describes
the cultural mosaic of South Asia today . With ancient
roots and an amalgam of influences from within and
without, empires have risen and fallen, leaving indelible
legacies on the landscape. Despite continual religious,
linguistic, and political conflict and restructuring, India
and the newer nations of South Asia remain intact.
Nevertheless, the interminable dynamics of nationalism
and factionalism continue.
The idea of the territorial state was introduced by the
Mughals, who developed an ordered bureaucracy . This
merged into the British civil service, an all-encompassing,
multileveled network of control and regional division.
Y et, persistent national agitation did reap change. Consti-
tutional reform ended with a British, parliamentary-style,
democratic system. And the federalism that the British
employed in their devolution of power was retained after