Continuing on, X.T.M says that āIndiaās post-Independence settlement created structural ambiguityā and cites four factors in particular:
- Upper-caste Hindu political dominance at the center
- Muslim demographic concentrations with limited elite integration
- A constitutional secularism that promised equality while leaving communal structures intact
- No acknowledgment that the Muslim Leagueās victory posed a legitimacy problem
I think his key insight is this: āThe constitution guaranteed rights. It could not guarantee renewed political consent.ā
The issue as I see it is that the Indian state took the most half-hearted, wishy-washy approach towards the problem of integration. It allowed Muslims to construct bastions of political power while at the same time dividing Hindus along caste and linguistic lines. It allowed criminal elements, many from a Muslim background, to dominate perhaps its most significant sector ā the arts ā and spread messages of the innate goodness of Indian Muslims and Pakistanis (which is only being suppressed due to both governmentsā actions) and the need for peace between Hindus and Muslims, thereby constructing an illusory palace to beguile secularized urban Hindus, while behind the silver screen they fund terrorist attacks in India. The murder of Gulshan Kumar comes to mind as (seemingly) among the least of these crimes, but that he was killed outside a temple is like having salt poured into the wound and mud slung at oneās face. What to speak of 26/11 which has already been talked about, especially recently.
Again, as I mentioned previously, I donāt think the overwhelming issue is that Muslims were allowed to maintain particular political fiefdoms ā itās that Hindus were stymied from establishing systems of political power based on traditional models. When talking about āindependenceā, Moldbug (2008) in chapter 2 of An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives suggests that:
āOne test we can apply forĀ independence, which should be pretty conclusive, is that the structures of government in a genuinely independent country should tend to resemble the structures that existed before it was subjugatedārather than the structures of some other country on which it may happen to be, um, dependent.Ā These structures should be especially unlikely to resemble structures in other newly independent countries, with which it presumably has nothing in common.ā
