The politics of Partition was not driven by the masses but by elite insecurities and ideological maximalism. The Muslim League and the RSS were mirror movements—each imagining purity, each refusing pluralism.
Against this tide stood Gandhi and Nehru: flawed, but fundamentally committed to a united, secular, socialist India. That republic—messy, crowded, imperfect—might have spanned 2 billion people today.
Instead, the war of elites birthed nations. And the cost was paid by peasants, mothers, porters, and children—those who never cast a vote in the halls where maps were redrawn.