ETA: Hand to goddess, Cole’s post below was not there when I hit publish! I’ve been holding this in draft since last week, waiting for a quiet moment…
*****
Only partly because I fear we’re due for another round of self-congratulatory ‘This time we should just let those Southern bigots secede’ commentary, here’s William Dalrymple in the New Yorker on “The violent legacy of Indian Partition“:
In August, 1947, when, after three hundred years in India, the British finally left, the subcontinent was partitioned into two independent nation states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Immediately, there began one of the greatest migrations in human history, as millions of Muslims trekked to West and East Pakistan (the latter now known as Bangladesh) while millions of Hindus and Sikhs headed in the opposite direction. Many hundreds of thousands never made it.
Across the Indian subcontinent, communities that had coexisted for almost a millennium attacked each other in a terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other—a mutual genocide as unexpected as it was unprecedented. In Punjab and Bengal—provinces abutting India’s borders with West and East Pakistan, respectively—the carnage was especially intense, with massacres, arson, forced conversions, mass abductions, and savage sexual violence. Some seventy-five thousand women were raped, and many of them were then disfigured or dismembered…
By 1948, as the great migration drew to a close, more than fifteen million people had been uprooted, and between one and two million were dead. The comparison with the death camps is not so far-fetched as it may seem. Partition is central to modern identity in the Indian subcontinent, as the Holocaust is to identity among Jews, branded painfully onto the regional consciousness by memories of almost unimaginable violence. The acclaimed Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal has called Partition “the central historical event in twentieth century South Asia.” She writes, “A defining moment that is neither beginning nor end, partition continues to influence how the peoples and states of postcolonial South Asia envisage their past, present and future.”…
The question of how India’s deeply intermixed and profoundly syncretic culture unravelled so quickly has spawned a vast literature. The polarization of Hindus and Muslims occurred during just a couple of decades of the twentieth century, but by the middle of the century it was so complete that many on both sides believed that it was impossible for adherents of the two religions to live together peacefully. Recently, a spate of new work has challenged seventy years of nationalist mythmaking. There has also been a widespread attempt to record oral memories of Partition before the dwindling generation that experienced it takes its memories to the grave…
Mary G
Ann gets to bigfoot this time! And with a different view of the same subject.
Pogonip
And the foot comes down–WHOMP!
They’re so used to Cole and his bizarre life, when he explains to the ER personnel that he was stomped on by a bigfoot, they’ll just nod and put him back together again.
Yatsuno
Partition is when Gandhi was assassinated.
Trentrunner
My recollection is that Dalrymple was a Niall-Ferguson-level douche-elitist. Will now try to find some links…
Gene108
@Yatsuno:
Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948, several months after independence and the worst of the partition riots.
He had plans to go Pakistan to try and ease tensions, but was killed before he had a chance to try.
Rand Careaga
I’ve long thought that, while the possibility is remote (less so than when I first began to contemplate it), this country’s institutions have grown so brittle, a development that has come about in part of set purpose and sustained effort by certain factions, that it could take just another sharp blow to fracture the commonweal before we find ourselves living in Bosnia on a continental scale. The mayhem would be unevenly distributed, of course: Cambridge and Berkeley would not support many Confederate revanchists, and Cletus Dungwallow down on his farm in Recessive Corners, Alabama, would likely not find many armed gay militants at whom to shoot.
The breaking of the commonweal is a long-term project that has had GOP support at the highest levels going back to Patrick Buchanan’s infamous memo to Nixon in 1971. Milosevic had the same thing in mind when he broke up Yugoslavia twenty-five years ago: he planned to gather up the lion’s share of the pieces. True, he died in a cell in The Hague, but many tens of thousands of former Yugoslavs preceded him.
The notion of armed factional strife in the USA appears remote and implausible to us, but consider how the violence of partition caught informed opinion by surprise in 1947. A heavily-armed fraction of the American populace awaits merely a trumpet blast (and not the pathetic bray on the kazoo essayed by Dylann Roof) to take the field against Christ’s foes: that would be us.
I suspect that when the dust settles Cletus and his cohorts will lose (for the same reason that Sam Houston advanced), but the conflict and its aftermath won’t be pretty. Let’s hope an American Partition can be avoided again.
Pogonip
I need to horn in up near the top, sorry. Shaper-uppers, Elmo mentioned that Obergefer (gesundheit!) relieved her of a whole lot of family health-cum-legal worries. Given this, I think we should be good sports and allow her to count jumping for joy as exercise–but only for this week that’s just closing. Starting tomorrow, she has to sweat and suffer with the rest of us. Does that sound fair?
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Texas.
ruemara
I can’t really even joke about secession. It was a horrible war, we have even more horrible weapons (and even more hate), and I would not want a well armed group of nutballs that hate us, right next to us. Especially since the toxins of their hate are spread throughout the nation. I think it’s one of slowly diffusing this bomb. Just wish I knew which wires needed to be cut. Oh, all the ones that connect to Fox and the internet.
Brachiator
I think the New Yorker essay on Nisid Hajari’s “Midnight’s Furies” is quite good. You might also check out the June 9 interview with the author on NPR’s Fresh Air.
It’s funny, we’re mainly Amurricans, and seem to have no interest in countries we haven’t invaded or visited regularly on vacation. But Pakistan and India are regional powers, both have nuclear weapons, and India is a bigger assed democracy than the US ever was or will be. Some of the problems and conflicts there have had echoes that we should not ignore.
Midnight’s Furies is a very interesting read, and yet it is still a mystery why Pakistan so pointlessly views India as an enemy, or even how the country can’t shake off its domination by its military officers.
http://www.npr.org/2015/06/09/413121135/indias-1947-partition-and-the-deadly-legacy-that-persists-to-this-day
@Trentrunner:
I don’t get that at all from, say, “White Mughals” or his latest book, “Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan.” “Mughals” seems to clearly expose the rancid and brutal effects of Britain’s colonialism and racism. But I don’t keep up on British gossip or the infighting and backbiting surrounding authors and other literary types. You got anything that backs up your insinuations?
Chris
I’ve always been against this “let the South secede” fantasy in large part because I think creating a hostile, unstable, reactionary nation right on our border would ultimately cause just as many problems for the remaining United States – whether in 1860 or 2015. This analogy is exactly right. An independent Confederacy would have been the Pakistan to our India, and still would be today.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So you are all saying that the Right, composed of 50+ middle class whites, will line up to die to prevent health care and gay marriage? Ya, sure
Do keep in mind “India” is a British invention. There was no India state until the British made it in the late 19th as an administrative convenience. And you go into the history of British India an some kind of holy war invasion by the Muslims was a constant fear of the British. Not surprising it got passed to the Indian and Pakistani nationalist.
mai naem mobile
The theory I heard about the Indian Partition, the Mideast post WW11 and several country borders in Africa was that the Brits intentionally did this so that they could continue to financially benefit from the various companies that were still British owned while the citizens of these various areas would.be distracted by these ethnic tensions and wars.
A guy
I won’t line up to die for Heath care or gay rights. But if any of you come for my guns I’ll kill you dead in my driveway, if u get that far.
Tyro
I remain skeptical of these “[region] was a peaceful land of diverse nations and religions living side by side until it was ruined by colonialists/nationalists.” The historical reality is generally that these regions, like the American South or 19th century Istanbul, are kept “peaceful” by the threat of the elite majority which knows that it can, at any time, whip up its supporters into a violent mob to remind the minority who’s in charge. It keeps the repressed minority docile and allows the majority to “blow off steam”, directing their grievances at the minority rather than those in charge. That peaceful land of diverse cultures interacting all to frequently has an undercurrent of violent repression going on.
cokane
that is a fantastic read
Tree With Water
General Sherman to the mayor and city council of Atlanta 1864.
“..But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now it will not stop, but will go on… The United States does and must assert its authority wherever it once had power. If it relaxes one bit to pressure it is gone, and I know that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the National Government, and instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may… You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home is to stop the war, which can alone be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride”.
Brachiator
The 3 stupidest things often said about the Civil War.
1. The war was about states rights (or economics), not slavery
2. The Civil War was unnecessary because slavery would have soon ended on its own
3. The North should have just led the South leave the Union, because, well, because
Whenever I hear something like ‘This time we should just let those Southern bigots secede,’ my first thought is that the person who is saying this is an ignorant white fool who ignores the existence of blacks and Latinos and other nonwhite people in the South.
Or, what, like the partition of India, they would endorse the forced migrations of hundreds of thousands of people out of (or into) the South?
John Revolta
@A guy: Dude, you are just simply adoreable!
Gimlet
I can see similarities with the ongoing battle for control of the Democratic Party – monied interests, factions, talk of a split and new Party…
Major Major Major Major
Great read. Hadn’t thought of it that much in-depth before.
Somebody dosed me last night, because San Francisco is stupid. To be honest it was a blast, but how rude is that?
FlyingToaster
@A guy: Dude, you’ll be nuked from orbit. I don’t *need* your guns.
Some people just don’t comprehend how the modern world works.
OzarkHillbilly
Let me just say, it is a bit hyperbolic to think any of these states will even think about seceding in a serious way. They tried it back in 1861, didn’t work out too well then. Now? They are even more dependent on the Federal gov’t. And yes, I’m looking at you, Texas.
Brachiator
@mai naem mobile:
Yeah, and I used to hear that the US invaded Vietnam because of oil or exotic minerals.
And yet somehow, there doesn’t seem to be tremendous mineral wealth in Vietnam being exploited by anyone, and it is hard to find any benefit that the British got out of the violence of partition. The Mideast and Africa is more complicated, but even here today the issue is more China’s potential economic exploitation of Africa than the residue of colonialism.
Gene108
@Tyro:
People were not at each other’s throats. There was no threat of retribution from the state.
The state was, for much of the pre-Idependence history of India, run by the minority group, eithe the Muslim Moghuls or the Christian British.
What would the response be of potential violence by the Hindu majority? The state did not have their back.
Earth is worth seeing on how the thread of civility and friendship could come unraveled so quickly. It is about a multi-ethnic group of people in Lahore that fall apart during partition.
Chris
@Brachiator:
Yeah, all the people being ignored who aren’t born again Dixiecrats are the other big thing.
You know what the “let the South secede” mentality reminds me of? Every time cops and city officials look at their ghettos and just write them off. “That part of town? It’s gangster central! There’s just no policing it, so don’t even try.” Same story, white gangsters.
Major Major Major Major
@A guy: Hahahahahahaaaahahahahahahaaaahhaaaa
ahhhahaaahhaaaa
ha
hhaaaaaha
ha.
I’d be more worried if you had a sword.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I think the whole thing about letting them secede already is generally an expression of frustration at dealing with those assholes rather than a serious policy suggestion. I know that secession would be a terrible thing, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking from time to time that it would make life a lot easier for those of us left behind. Of course, I also sometimes think it would be nice for California to secede so we wouldn’t have to put up with the rest of the country, even though I know enough to realize what a terrible idea that would be in practice.
Gene108
@Brachiator:
The South seceded not because they felt the North was going to end slavery in the South, but because the North had succeeded in limiting its spread into the territories acquired after the Mexican-American war.
The South wanted to spread its slavery based plantation economics across the continent. An independent Confederacy would not np be contented with its borders and would have sought out expansion.
Gimlet
Another interesting thought is that India was partitioned along religious lines (as has Iraq).
Along what lines would partitioning occur in a more secular America?
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
I agree. But we have seen state governments redistrict themselves to create unassailable Republican majorities, and then used this to restrict women’s reproductive rights, push creationism in public education and to generally create mischief.
I can see a segment of the population feeling that the victory of Obamacare and same sex marriage is an intolerable assault on everything they have ever known. It’s hard to predict what the counter-reaction might be.
Gene108
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
India was not a creation of the British. There was no strong central Indian state as such, which did not wax and wane over the centuries, but this does not mean the people of the Subcomtinent did not have a shared cultural and religious history.
You could not have a stable Indian state today without any common history that can bind a people together.
JPL
@Major Major Major Major: Leave Doug alone. Actually it could be John paying back Anne for bigfooting him.
Trentrunner
THEODORE Dalyrmple is the conservative douche.
This is WILLIAM Dalrymple.
Carry on.
OzarkHillbilly
@A guy: pussy.
Tyro
@Gene108: The state was, for much of the pre-Idependence history of India, run by the minority group, eithe the Muslim Moghuls or the Christian British.
South Carolina and Mississippi were run by the minority group, whites. These “diverse communities” are kept peaceful by force and, more importantly, by the threat of violent retribution if anyone gets any ideas about being unhappy with the current social and economic order.
The other thing about the New Yorker article is that it focuses on the laments of writers and intellectuals upset about the fracturing of south asia. Why is their sentimental vision of a united south asia more important than those who wanted partition and benefited from not having neighbors ready to kill them at a moment’s notice from a local leader’s order?
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
Pretty clear, by the end of WWII, that shit was about to get real. What “Great Britain” got out of leaving India when they did is a quick clean getaway — not even a dozen “British” soldiers sacrificed, and what happened after the redcoats split town wasn’t London’s fault, was it now. Compare that with, ferinstance, what the French did in Algeria, or its West African colonies.
There’s been a certain amount of discussion, among the foreign policy professionals, about how America might learn from those crafty Brits about “gracefully” abandoning our post-war never-call-it-an-empire “defense outposts” scattered from Germany to Korea to Bahrain. The analogy overstretches quickly, but it would be nice if “we” could waste a few trillions less supporting oligarchs and hedge-fund managers all over the globe, and spend that money on useful projects here at home.
JPL
@Gene108: I could never understand states rights argument, because the south had the constitution to stand behind. It was northern states that were breaking away from slavery. One could say, it was the north practicing states rights.
Cervantes
@Trentrunner:
You could not be more mistaken.
Major Major Major Major
@JPL: Doug would do wayyyyyy better.
OzarkHillbilly
@A guy: In moderation. Let me rephrase: You, a cat afraid of it’s own shadow.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Agreed.
NotMax
@mai naem mobile
Dang it, turned attention away for an eyeblink and missed III through X.
:)
Gene108
@mai naem mobile:
Divide and rule was the corner stone of British Imperialism.
The British partitioned Bengal, in 1905, into East and West Bengal along religious lines.
They pushed for the U.S. to overthrow Iran’s government, in the 1950’s, because Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian oil company.
Britain still had ideas about maintaining its status as a great power, into the 1950’s, such as their attempt to take control of the Suez Canal, along with Israel and France, from Egypt in 1956.
I would not be surprised, if some of the geographic boundary decisions done by the British was done with maintaining some level of economic control in its former colonies.
Gimlet
@JPL:
Factor in it was a time of limited communication. The abolitionists of the North were righteous about slavery (and Uncle Tom’s Cabin).
OzarkHillbilly
@Brachiator: True. We have been fighting Jim Crow for how long now? The battle is never done, they just shift tactics.
Major Major Major Major
@Gimlet: Except for the Irish, since the abolitionists had a hate-on for Catholics for some reason.
Tree With Water
@Roger Moore: If we ever do, there are parts of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona we’ll need for lebensraum. So we’ll need to play our cards right when we take over the foreign warships currently parked in San Diego harbor, as well as drive hard bargains for the return of the U.S. troops we’ll need to quarantine when we declare independence. The good news is we can manufacture the most sophisticated weaponry in the world, which will cause those pig-fucking other states to think twice before ever tangling with us. I say go for it.
Major Major Major Major
@Tree With Water: Water.
Pogonip
@Rand Careaga: Well, it’s not looking good; there are too many dispossessed, rootless young men; the middle class is vanishing; and the two main religions, Christianity and liberalism or secularism or humanism or whatever you want to call it, have reached a point where they can no longer compromise. They’ll either have to part company amicably or fight it out; the historical record shows the latter to be more likely.
In honor of Cole and his site, I have dubbed that other, dominant religion, the one that’s not Christianity, Juiceism.
The wild card in this situation is Islam. Muslims have more in common with Christians than with Juiceists, so if those are the only two options they’ll likely throw in with Christians, but if they develop the numbers to form their own third faction of course they’ll do so. I figure there’s no more than 50 years before you have THREE religions battling it out, so an amicable breakup sooner rather than later is much to be desired. I’d have no objection to Texas leading the way if I could afford it.
Cervantes
@Tyro:
Some of those leading advocates of partition were, until that point, strong advocates of a united India. But when it became possible for them personally to gain considerable power from partition, they changed their tune.
To put it concisely: partition — separatism — religious bigotry — was, to a large extent, driven by ruthless demagogues. Is it sentimental or idealistic to wish they had not succeeded?
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Again, it’s stupid, and racist. It assumes that white people are the only people in the world, and that only their feelings and frustrations matter.
One of the better commentaries I saw about Obama’s eulogy in Charleston was that the visuals emphasized that black people are, and always have been, a vital part of America.
Independent California: Would that be Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Oakland, a thin sliver of highway down the coast, and Los Angeles?
@Gene108:
The Kansas–Nebraska Act essentially nullified the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and permitted the expansion of slavery.
Yep, you got it. The Confederate Constitution would have made slavery perpetual in the South, and also allowed slavery in any new states or territories. And had the South become independent, certainly treaties would have been signed permitting Southerners to travel and live in the North with their slaves. Slavery within the United States created irreconcilable contradictions. An expanding North and South, with new states and territories, slave and free, would probably have created new tensions. I can also see the South trying to expand by invading Mexico or Cuba.
Gene108
@Anne Laurie:
The only reason Britain agreed to leave India whenit did was that Churchhill and the conservatives lost the elections just after WW2.
Britain granting India independence was not a given, in the 1940’s. Churchill would have doggedly tried to hold onto Empire, if he had remained Prime Minister.
He made this clear during WW2. The Indian National Congress Party (Nehru, Sardhar Patel, etc.) requested from Britain, in return for India’s unconditional support of “democracy” against fascist aggression, I.e. Japan and Germany (especially Japan), was a promise India would be independent from British rule, at the end of the war.
Churchill flat out refused to contemplate any path for Indian independence, which is why Congress resorted to mass boycotts to protest British rule (the Quit India movement) during the early 1940’s, ie the height of WW2. Plenty of Indians fought under the British flag, but it was not nearly the level of support Britian could have had, had Churchill agreed to independence after the war.
Mind you India threw a bunch of support for Britain, both financially and with personnel, during WW1, in the hopes of being granted Dominion status that had been awarded to British colonies, such as South Africa, Canada, Australia, etc at the time. India’s “reward” we’re harsher martial laws, the
Rowlett >Rowlatt Act.Edited for misspelling.
schrodinger's cat
The erst while British administration in India under Lord Mountbatten displayed Dubya level ineptness, lack of commonsense and a total disregard for the lives of Indians and Pakistanis during the Partition. It needn’t have been such tragedy with millions of lives lost and millions more displaced if it had been handled better.
Cain
My family was not affected by the partition because we come the deep south and we are Hindus. But I know that many Muslims went to Pakistan from the south. There are probably still old folks whose birthplace is in India.
The reason that Muslims and Hindus hate each other is because the British set one against the other to maintain control. They are the wormtongue of history. They have successfully used this in many other countries. Which is why all of them are so fucked up.
Gimlet
@Cervantes:
It was a viable option, but just didn’t work out as well as hoped.
schrodinger's cat
@Cain:
That is too simplistic and takes away any agency from the Indians. The British exploited the divisions that were already in existence. The history of Hindu-Muslim animus in India did not begin with the British.
Woodrowfan
Meh, they went straight to DVD.
Brachiator
@Gimlet:
India has tried to be multi-religious and multi-ethnic. Parsi, Sikh, Jain, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians have always been part of the country. There is no religious bar to holding higher office or being the leader of the country.
Pakistan also comprises non-Muslim people. However, you cannot be elected leader of the country if you are not a Muslim.
Gimlet
If only we could screen and train our leaders so that those in power would consider the country as a whole.
If anything the last decade or so has shown us, we are ruled by men, not laws.
NotMax
@schrodinger’s cat
Trivia (IIRC): Mountbatten as the family designation had barely come into being, the name having been Anglicized from the German during the First World War.
Chris
@Cain:
Legacies of the British Empire: Burma, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Zimbabwe, Nigeria. Kind of reads like a greatest hits album of the world’s worst problem zones, doesn’t it?
Roger Moore
@Tree With Water:
As I said, discussion of secession is an expression of frustration with the current political situation, not a serious policy idea. I don’t want to think these things through in detail because I don’t want them implemented.
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Yes, Battenberg.
Yes, for obvious reasons.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Yep.
Gimlet
Another thought for how America is going to resolve this conflict is that one of these factions is going to control the Federal government if it comes to a crisis.
If Lincoln had not won in 1860, I wonder how it would have played out?
Brachiator
@Cervantes:
I don’t get any sense that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a ruthless demagogue. And he was more secular than religious. There was certainly a logic in his wanting to self-determination for the Muslims of India. Sadly, with a tradition of Mughal rule over India, I don’t know that some of the Muslim political elite could see themselves as the equals of non Muslim Indians. But once you begin to entertain the notion of self-determination, it could not limit itself to just the idea of separating from Britain.
As an aside, consider that in fomenting the War of 1812, some Americans naturally assumed that Canada would want to be part of the young United States. Instead, attempts to invade Canada only helped spark Canadian nationalism.
@schrodinger’s cat:
I agree that Britain and Mountbatten handled this poorly, but after a certain point, Britain had neither control nor influence. It was up to the people of India to determine their future. And unfortunately, passions got out of control.
kped
I worked for an Indian Sikh about a decade and a half ago, and he had been on the Pakistan side of the border when the partition happened. Hearing his story of his family fleeing for their lives, and how his father had sadly not made it, being murdered by a mob, was eye opening. We, in this time, and on this part of the continent (I’m in Canada), have no idea how brutal the world is sometimes. I cannot fathom that level of violence. I really just cannot.
Were I born a Palestinian, or a religious minority in some African or south east Asian countries, my perspective would be so different then it is today, and it’s really just the luck of the genetic draw.
Baud
@kped:
Yep.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
A couple of things that popped up in the recent Hugo Award discussions on File 770 that touch on recent topics here:
YA and MG SF/F recommendations
Dylann Roof refers to Harold Covington’s white separatist group, the Northwest Front, in his alleged manifesto. The rightwing sci-fi writer distances himself from the shooting, but his followers speculate if his work influenced Roof’s actions
Culture of Truth
I had relatives living in India during this time. I wish I had asked them more about what it was like.
Gimlet
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
The Guardian has a piece on Covington. He is associated with two other acts of violence as well.
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
Yes, and nothing I said should have led anyone to conclude otherwise.
boatboy_srq
@Tyro: The problem with “let them secede” is that if the Union lets the orneriest states go, then those states have won. They got to leave the Union (over seriously questionable grounds in this case), which to them proves a) that Calhoun was right and b) that the Civil War should have been winnable and wasn’t the great Lost Cause they pined for all these years. Eviction, on the other hand, would be very different: it would put the onus on the evicted, it would deny the evicted the patriotism and Ahmurrcan-ness™ they insist is theirs and theirs alone, and it would require removal of Union assets (which would hit the evicted state’s economy hard) as well as cut off Union funding for their various programmes. Imagine for example what President Cruz of Texas would do if the next time a major disaster swept his
statenation he appealed to Washington – and Washington told him to call the IMF.I doubt it would happen. But the suggestion that Texas (and places like it) would react in the same way if they were forced out instead of allowed to leave misses the point the secessionists think they’re making with their noisemaking. And simply throwing up our hands and saying “fine, get out” doesn’t have the necessary sting that “get out now; we don’t want you as part of us anymore” would deliver.
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
Example: For nearly twenty years, the president of one of the major political parties has been Sonia Gandhi — an Italian woman who married one of Prime Minister Nehru’s grand-sons, i.e., one of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s sons. Her husband was Prime Minister for a while, then assassinated. Later, elected to parliament, she almost became Prime Minister but declined to pursue the office because of opposition from people who said her Italian origins should disqualify her.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Also the same time and rationale for the British royal family to change to designating itself the House of Windsor.
Brachiator
The New Yorker piece ends with this:
And yet both Pakistan and India have signed trade deals with China. The China-Pakistan pact promises a great deal of infrastructure development.
It would be foolish to let political or military conflicts destroy what good might come from peaceful economic development. But fools and their egos have too often prevented peace between these countries.
Elmo
@Pogonip: Damn, I’m late to the party, but thanks!
Culture of Truth
Of all the people to blame for the violence around partition, Mountbatten comes way, way, way, down on the list.
Roger Moore
@Gimlet:
If Lincoln hadn’t won, the South wouldn’t have seceded. Secession was a response to the South losing control over the federal government.
the Conster
We’re already looking into the abyss when all of the Republican candidates for president are proposing dismantling one of the three branches of government in a hateful tantrum, and the media plays along with them. However, the Obama presidency has not only exposed the abyss in this country as being about race, it has created the bridge over it. We’re over the abyss now, looking in. India and Pakistan, Sunni and Shia, Bosnians and Serbs are an object lesson on how not to let the abyss look into you. I think we Americans can do it, after this week.
Culture of Truth
Nehru asked Mountbatten to stay on after the British left. He wasn’t the greatest, but the problems were hardly his fault.
cyd
I am reading Midnight’s Furies now, and Gandhi does not come across looking good AT ALL. It seems the Mahatma was so convinced about the peaceful nature of his mythical Indian small village communities, that he went into denial about the possibility that the Hindus and Muslims villagers could turn on each other. Even after it began happening:
In another awful instance, Gandhi uncritically swallowed exaggerated rumors of an anti-Hindu progrom in Bengal, and publicized it widely. Then,
This backfired by turning the rumored progrom into a real one, by Hindus against Muslims in another part of India.
NotMax
@Chris
Former French colonies and holdings aren’t exactly devoid of the same, and arguably were shed purposefully in more tenuous and/or unstable condition.
Culture of Truth
Prince Philip was always angry that his children do no have his surname. So Prince William and Harry’s kids are supposed to carry the name Mountbatten. Which if it happens would some kind of vindication of old Louis.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: The administrative handover was rushed and hurried. It became a total free for all. The Indian and the Pakistani government had no way to stop the bloodshed, no one was in charge.
From the BBC website:
More here
Pogonip
@Gimlet: I thought Northwest Front was a tent brand. I’m just not up on my nut groups.
I looked at the site and, although my eyes are green, hazel, or gray depending on what I’m wearing, and my hair is curly and was coppery-brown in my youth, I would not be admitted to Mr. Covington’s utopia because my paternal grandmother was Cherokee, although you would never know it from looking at me. I can only tan out of a spray can. Real sunlight just causes annoying freckling.
Would any of you other rejects like to live under my benevolent despotism in the Pogonip Front? I bet we’d have more fun than grumpy old Harold’s crowd, if nothing else.
Brachiator
@Cervantes: The Sonia Gandhi situation also gets into the issue of family dynasties.
It’s simpler to note that the Constitution of India states that the prime minister must be a citizen of India. The prime minister of Pakistan must be a citizen, must also be a Muslim and must be able to demonstrate:
Manmohan Singh, a Sikh, was elected prime minister of India in 2004. And, as noted, “The first Sikh in office, Singh was the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term.”
And it might be useful to note here that Indira Gandhi had been assassinated by Sikh members of her bodyguard, and that this had led to horrible reprisals against Sikhs. And yet the nation was able to absorb this and move on.
Elmo
@A guy: Why would I come for your guns? I have plenty of my own.
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
And Sonia has been a citizen since the early ’80s, before her husband became Prime Minister. Moreover, the Indian Constitution does not require that candidates for high office be “natural-born citizens.”
Feathers
@NotMax:
And Mountbatten’s wife Edwina was having an affair with Nehru. There was going to be a movie starring Cate Blanchett, but they couldn’t get permission to film in India.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Now there’s an interesting late night legal hypothetical.
If someone running for U.S. president was a (so-called) test tube baby, might that someone not be a natural-born citizen?
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
I note your points here. But after a certain point, the British were no longer in charge either.
Partition of Israel, partition of India, exit of US forces from Iraq, exit of US forces from Vietnam, pick your region and historical epoch. Sometimes it is sadly, impossible, to contain tensions which have been boiling over.
After a certain point, the people of India wanted the British to be gone. I am not saying that the chaos was inevitable, but I don’t see that a longer British presence would have ensured a more peaceful outcome.
Culture of Truth
That’s true, but Edwina did all right in the end. My relative told me about the affair with Nehru and I didn’t believe it. at first. You can’t make this stuff up.
Gene108
@cyd:
Gandhi’s role in India’s independence is not linear. Unlike other leaders of independence movements, he actually stepped down from the Congress party, in the 1930’s.
He went on to focus on religious reforms, within Hinduism, as well as economic programs to try and lift up the poorest of the poor.
He was still very much considered a leader, by those still working within the Congress party, but he was not the actual head of the party spearheading the independence struggle.
I think by 1947, everyone involved with the struggle was ready for independence, even if the terms were less than ideal. India had been pushing for self-governance, either through Dominion status or independence, for 25 to 30 years.
Pogonip
I may not qualify for Mr. Covington’s snooty gated community, but I can join the Benedict Option! So there.
The Benedict Option needs a new name, for when it gets big enough to advertise. “Come to the light side! Enjoy the BO!” won’t work.
Brachiator
@Cervantes:
I’m not sure what bone you are gnawing on. Opposition to Sonia Gandhi seems similar to anti-Obama foolishness on spurious grounds. There is nothing in the Indian Constitution that would bar her from running for office.
I also presume that if she were a citizen of Pakistan, and a Muslim convert, that she would be eligible to run for prime minster there as well.
In either country, who knows how personal bigotries or a sense that only “real” Indians or Pakistanis could be leader would intrude.
Chris
@NotMax:
Oh, absolutely – French, and Belgian, and Portuguese. A lot of Europe is guilty. The British were just the ones with the biggest empire.
schrodinger's cat
@kped: The bloodshed was the worst in Punjab, the ancestral homeland of the Sikhs. You should read Khuswant Singh’s Train to Pakistan.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: The British were the best of the worst. The relationship between India and Britain post independence has been friendly and cordial.
Tyro
@Cervantes: To put it concisely: partition — separatism — religious bigotry — was, to a large extent, driven by ruthless demagogues. Is it sentimental or idealistic to wish they had not succeeded?
A few ruthless demagogues would have been powerless without millions of followers willing to serve as willing executioners. All those “friendly neighbors” in diverse villages and towns turned out to be people willing to kill their neighbors when given the order. That likely could have occurred at any time, it was just in the 40s that the orders were finally given.
schrodinger's cat
@Tyro: Its unclear what you are saying, who exactly are you blaming for the loss of lives and displacement of millions in the aftermath of partition of India and Pakistan?
catclub
@Gimlet: I think partition may come in the combined Syria and Iraq. It should not be as bad as 1947. But it will still be bad.
Cervantes
@Brachiator:
Femur.
How about you?
Cervantes
@Feathers:
You know this for a fact?
I do not.
Cervantes
@Tyro:
No, religion-based violence in India was recorded as far back as 250 BC. The targets and perpetrators have included Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and others. One prominent historian estimated that the Hindu population of India decreased by more than 50 million in the first half of the second millennium AD.
Tyro
@Cervantes: yes. It’s why the fantasy land of the happy religiously diverse neighbors in Indian living side by side in harmony was basically a lie. Communities will kill their neighbors given the right provocation.
Cervantes
@Tyro:
And what do they do when they are not given “the right provocation”?
Cain
@schrodinger’s cat:
Of course, that’s why the British did what they did. It existed because to this day, Hindus still resent the monghal invasion.
But the British manipulation did lead to the partition.
Tyro
@Cervantes: If your entire civilization depends on the idea that local leaders shouldn’t call upon members of their own community to kill their neighbors from a rival community, that cultural structure is very weak indeed.
The communities of Muslims and Hindus, Turks and Greeks, and southern whites and blacks might get idealized as models of harmony in religious and cultural pluralism, but there’s a consistent undercurrent of violence that runs through them.
Yes, it’s a shame that India was partitioned. It’s also a shame that, given the chance, muslim and hindu civilians were willing to hack their neighbors to death by the hundreds of thousands: but given the chance, they were. Knowing that, they’re probably better off living in separate countries. I wouldn’t feel to comfortable knowing that the guy who owns the local store I shop at and say good morning to every day will take a machete to my family once he gets a phone call telling him to.
Bill
I fear violence will be the outcome no matter what. In fact, it already is. We see that violence around us every day through insane gun policies, racist implementation of the rule of law etc… The fact that nice comfortable white folks aren’t the ones suffering the majority of the violence doesn’t make it any less real. And we may be heading toward even more overt acts of violence. (Like the burning of black churches.)
Better to find a way for the left and right to uncouple in the least violent way, than continue on the path we are on.