successor state – Brown Pundits

I am just briefly highlighting Calvin’s excellent comment on BB’s thread.

Calvin writes:

Also there was no country or state called British India, it was a part of the British Empire like British Australia or British Kenya. Resting a lot of the system the British developed does not make us a continuation.

Over the last year, I have consistently made the point that there was no nation-state of “India” prior to August 15, 1947. Thus, the Indian and Pakistani nation-states were created at the exact same time. The argument that India was always there while Pakistan is a made-up entity is a common Indian nationalist trope and is basically just a way of de-legitimizing Pakistan.

This position has gotten me in a lot of trouble on this forum but I stand by it intellectually. Presumably, now that this same argument has been made by a non-Pakistani and a non-Muslim, it will get a fairer hearing.

Of course, the fact that there was no such thing as an Indian nation-state doesn’t mean there was no sense of a geographic entity called “India”. That has never been my argument. Prior to British India, there was the Mughal Empire etc. Most of these geographical entities included what is now Pakistan. It is just a fact that for most of history the land that is now Pakistan has been part of Delhi-based empires. As a Pakistani, I’m absolutely fine with that. However, it is also true that it was the British who created the borders that are commonly taken to be the natural borders of India. For example, the Mughals never ruled the Northeast or the very southern bits of India.

I have no problem with BB arguing that the Republic of India is the successor state of British India. The arguments about the UN seat etc cannot be argued with. I would simply add that, in some ways, Pakistan is also a successor state of British India. For example, Pakistan inherited the Durand Line–the legal border between British India and Afghanistan.

On a related note: I came across this article about South Korea yesterday which discusses how the South is debating what to officially call the North.

The article notes:

Continue reading British India was not a Nation-State

In the last few days, there has been a lot of discussion of the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Predictably, the “Saffroniate” has argued that while the mob destruction of the mosque was wrong, the decision to build a Ram Temple on the site of the mosque is justified.

This post will serve as a brief rebuttal to this argument. India is a constitutionally secular state. In a constitutionally secular state, there is absolutely no excuse for destroying a minority place of worship–no matter what the circumstances. This is a red line that must never be crossed. While Babri may not be equivalent to Notre Dame–I am personally agnostic about this argument– there is no excuse for even one mosque to be destroyed in a secular state. The decision to build a Ram Temple where the mosque used to be is a post-facto justification of the mob destruction of the minority place of worship.

The argument has been made that India instituted a new piece of legislation–the Places of Worship Act– in order to make sure that such an incident doesn’t take place again. The question was asked if Pakistan has instituted similar legislation. Continue reading A secular state does not allow a minority place of worship to be destroyed