“The Muslim League happened to get the British to go along with them”– You’re dismissing the failure of the Congress to compromise. I’m generally an admirer of Pandit Nehru but let’s not pretend his arrogance didn’t have a role in the outcome. The dismissal of the CMP was the last straw.

British India was a colony and not a nation. It was the British that created the borders of India that were “vivisected” in 1947. I know many right-wing Indians lose their minds over how part of Bharat Mata’s body was cut off by Muslims. Maybe you’re not one of them.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are two sovereign nations. The Durand Line was agreed between the Afghan king and the British. Pakistan inherited that border as the successor state of British India. Under International Law, the Durand Line is a border. It really doesn’t matter what Afghanistan thinks.

Two parties can break up either violently or non-violently. Czechoslovakia broke up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This happened completely non-violently. British India broke up into India and Pakistan. Unfortunately, this was accompanied by mass ethnic cleansing. But taking the position that the Muslim minority didn’t have the right to go their own way is a ridiculous one.

On Partition: You can read my review of Sam Dalrymple’s “Shattered Lands” . I am really not interested in relitigating this constantly. You’re entitled to your views even if they happen to be incorrect.

I also know Indian Muslims personally. Some of them happen to be my blood relatives.

There are plenty of Indian Muslims who strongly agree that their rights are threatened under BJP rule.

You are welcome to defend the BJP all you like. Nothing you say is at all intellectually convincing.

I don’t need to “ask”, I know plenty of them personally. Rest assured, they would strongly disagree with your take.

>You seem to be wedded to the standard Indian nationalist view that Quaid-e-Azam was the villain that “vivisected” Bharat Mata. If this helps you sleep at night, that’s fine. However, it is not historically accurate in any way, shape or form as the scholarly consensus on Partition demonstrates.

I think history and outcomes are the objective judges of religious secessionism. The Confederacy happened to lose the civil war. The Muslim league happened to get the British to go along with them. It is what it is.

What is with the “Bharat Mata” stuff? Is it so that you can somehow pretend I’m a Hindooootva extremist and hence my perspective is somehow dismissable? Borders are borders. sacred or otherwise. If you feel that 2 parties can go ‘their own way’ if they fail to compriomise, do those feelings apply to the Durand line and the Pak-Afghan dispute the same way? Or the questionable seizure and annexation of Kalat?

Is it somehow “haram” to hold the perspective that religious apartheid is a regressive undesirable outcome and that nation-states ought to be free of religious supremacism? I would think that most ‘center left’ folks or “Nehruvian secularist” would find common ground with that stance.

The point is that Pandit Nehru accepted the CMP only to then say that “we can re-negotiate it in ten years”. That was the last straw for Quaid-e-Azam. More generally, when two parties repeatedly fail to find a compromise, there is nothing wrong with them going their own way. There was nothing sacred about the borders of BRITISH India and no obligation on the Muslim minority to stay yoked to a Hindu majority that they did not trust to protect their rights. You seem to be wedded to the standard Indian nationalist view that Quaid-e-Azam was the villain that “vivisected” Bharat Mata. If this helps you sleep at night, that’s fine. However, it is not historically accurate in any way, shape or form as the scholarly consensus on Partition demonstrates.

I am Center-Left in an absolute sense. I am an American citizen. I have voted Democrat in every single election since I turned 18. I believe in gay rights, trans rights, “black lives matter”. I am basically a standard-issue Democrat.

I’m not going to re-litigate this constantly. This is XTM’s thread so you can say what you like. But on my threads, I will not tolerate rudeness or anti-Pakistan comments.

I’m not “pretending” that the Muslim minority is suffering in India. There is an entire world of evidence out there. How about we start with the fact that a temple was built over the ruins of a destroyed mosque? I’m sorry but this doesn’t happen in a secular state.

You keep ignoring the fact that Muslim representation in the Lok Sabha is the lowest it has been in years. This is an objective fact that you will have to deal with–however inconvenient it is for your worldview.

If it were simply a matter of Pakistani opinion, you could reject it it out of hand.However, the Western world agrees that the BJP is an ethnonationalist party. It is the Indian equivalent of Likud in Israel. You’re arguing against reality.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Let’s just ask an actual Indian Muslim.

The Cabinet Mission plan was DOA – it would have doomed India to a Yugoslavian or Lebanese fate. Thank god that nonsense didn’t go any further. And a “Nehruvian secularist” wouldn’t go anywhere near supporting religion based ‘separate electorates’ or even provinces. That by definition, violates secularism.

Present-day Pakistani Right-wingers love to wax eloquent about Nehru and Gandhi, when just a couple of decades ago, they were Hindu bigots from whom emancipation was necessary. Its a propaganda attack line. And deserves to be dismissed as such.

And if you’re going to bring up the ‘center left’ stuff again – sure you may identify as such in Pakistan. But with respect, what passes for “center left” in Pakistan, out here in the normal world, is hard right.

Would you say a black person is “better off” in South Africa where he’s in a majority instead of in the US? And cite anecdotal instances of racial crimes?

You are “all in” on pretending that present day India is “discriminating” against muslims, even though the legal and governmental basis for the Secular Indian Republic has stood as is.

Its up to you, I am not interested in getting you to “change your mind”. But I will of course choose to respond and call out questionable statements made on these pages. You can disagree, but can’t fabricate “facts” out of opinions.

I gave you the evidence. Beef lynchings, making Muslims chant “Jai Shree Ram”, the fact that a temple was built on the ruins of a destroyed mosque. Not to mention the fact that the proportion of Muslims elected to the Lok Sabha is the lowest it has ever been.

These are not opinions held only by Pakistanis but evidence used by the whole world to determine that the BJP’s vision for India is an ethnonationalist state that belongs only to the Hindu majority.

If you want to deny what the entire world knows is true, be my guest.

I am a Nehruvian Secularist. I don’t personally believe in the Two Nation Theory. However, I can understand why it was applied. I have never defended the “necessity” of Partition. My position has always been the historically correct one: that there were many opportunities for Congress and ML to come to a compromise. The last one was the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946. However, once they failed to come to a compromise, than Partition was the only option.

I have laid out my positions very clearly. You can read if you are actually interested in arguing in good faith:

https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/what-being-a-centre-left-pakistani

Once Pakistan existed as an independent nation, it was then the right of the elected representatives of the Pakistani people to decide on whatever form of constitution they want for the nation. They decided on the Islamic Republic, whether we like it or not.

Hope that clears it up for you.