After the 16th century, India was under the unified Mughal dynasty before becoming a British colony. During the empire's heyday, its territory encompassed almost the entire Indian subcontinent.
In 1858, the British abolished the East India Company, took over all its powers from the Secretary of State for Indian Affairs, and established the Indian government headed by the Governor-General of India. This officially ended the Mughal dynasty in India, and India entered an era of direct rule by the British government.
India was not divided at this time.
After the end of World War II , Britain's strength declined sharply, and its colonial rule in India was impossible to maintain.
How should India be ruled after the withdrawal of British power? In 1947, the United Kingdom proposed the Mountbatten Plan .
According to this plan, British rule in India came to an end, and the two autonomous dominions of Pakistan and India were established on August 14 and August 15, 1947 respectively.
In January 1950, the Republic of India was established as a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. In March 1956, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was formally established and remains a member of the Commonwealth.
The level of "power"
During the British rule in India, the seeds of division were sown. The United States, out of strategic considerations of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, ultimately supported the division of India and Pakistan in order to win over Pakistan.
In the process of Muslims creating the Mughal Empire and gradually becoming the rulers of the subcontinent, Islam was promoted as the state religion in the empire's ruling areas.
India During the Mughal Empire, Islam was the second largest religion in the South Asian subcontinent after Hinduism.
The Muslim conquerors provided a channel for low-caste Indians to change their situation by changing their religious beliefs. It turned out that a large number of Hindus converted to Islam.
Different rulers of the Mughal Dynasty adopted policies of religious tolerance or religious discrimination. Religious conflicts between Muslims and Hindus sometimes eased and sometimes intensified.
During the nearly two hundred years of colonial rule in India, the British rulers did not eliminate the contradictions between the two major sects, but used this contradiction to consolidate their rule.
During the Mughal rule, Muslims not only monopolized political and military power, but also occupied a pivotal position in the economic and cultural fields.
In order to weaken this traditional power, the British rulers severely cracked down on Muslim forces in terms of law and administrative power, and kept alienated from the upper class of Muslims.
From the late 1870s to the early 1880s, due to the gradual rise of the Indian national independence movement, which posed a threat to British colonial rule, the colonial authorities began to change their strategies to win over the Muslim upper class and contain the Hindu-dominated Congress Party. policy.
In short, during the British colonial rule, the British colonial policies intensified the conflicts between Muslims and Hindus.
When religious conflicts were difficult to resolve, in March 1940 the Muslim League formally proposed the goal of splitting India into two countries, Indian and Muslim, and gradually gained international support.
After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, the United States tried its best to advocate Indian independence in exchange for India's participation in the war against Japan. British Prime Minister Churchill was very dissatisfied with this.
Later, as the victory of the Allies on the battlefield of World War II became a foregone conclusion, in the face of the demands of Indian nationalists, the issue of Indian independence also reached a moment that must be resolved.
At the same time, the bipolar political situation in the South Asian subcontinent has become increasingly clear, and Congress Party leader Gandhi is powerless to divide India.
In the spring of 1947, the British authorities felt that the situation in India was extremely serious: the provisional government could not work, and the Constitutional Assembly was in vain.
The Muslim League was unwilling to join the interim government at first, but later agreed, but still aimed at realizing Pakistan. When the Constituent Assembly was convened, the Muslim League announced a boycott. Because the Muslim League demanded the convening of a separate Constituent Assembly to formulate the Constitution of Pakistan .
Sectarian conflicts occurred one after another, workers went on strike, the peasant movement also set off a climax, and the struggle of the people of the feudal state also developed further.
The British authorities were eager to transfer power before the situation completely got out of control. In February 1947, the British government issued a statement declaring that it would transfer power to responsible Indian hands no later than June 1948.
The newly appointed Governor-General Mountbatten also raised the hope of maintaining the unity of India in consultations with various parties, but all efforts to prevent partition have failed.
On the issue of India's division, the United States initially took a firm stance, that is, it supports a unified India.
In Asia at that time, China's civil war had already caused great headaches for the United States. Since India bordered China and the Soviet Union, the United States believed that division would seriously weaken India's national power, thereby creating an opportunity for the Soviet Union to expand.
In the 1945-1946 Indian general election, the Muslim League led by Jinnah achieved a huge victory. This made the United States truly feel that its power in India could not be ignored. The U.S. government began to consider new policies towards Jinnah and Pakistan. statement. The key to the turning point of
was the beginning of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.
In March 1947, the United States proposed the "Truman Doctrine", which marked the beginning of the Cold War. The United States regarded containing the Soviet Union as the focus of its global strategy, so it tried its best to win over India and Pakistan.
When Jinnah was sworn in as Governor-General of Pakistan in August 1947, the United States was the first to give him diplomatic recognition and the only country to send a diplomatic representative to formally express congratulations.
The Soviet Union regarded India and Pakistan as Western spheres of influence and had little interest in establishing friendly ties with the two countries. This provided sufficient external conditions for the split of India and Pakistan.
The level of "force"
The Muslim forces advocating the partition of India and Pakistan are already strong enough.
Due to British colonial rule, India's upper class generally accepted British Western education and Western political influence.
Against this background, in 1885, Indians established the first political party, the "National Congress Party" (or Congress Party), and promulgated the Indian Parliament Act in 1892 to establish local self-government agencies and local administrative districts, and expanded the scope of elections to Indians, but more than 90% of its party members and cadres are Hindus and cannot fully take care of the interests of Muslims.
In 1906, India established the "All India Muslim League" (or Muslim League, Muslim League) composed of Muslims. As a Muslim leader, Jinnah broke away from the Congress Party because he disagreed with the non-cooperation program of Congress leader Gandhi.
In 1940, Jinnah proposed the "Pakistan" plan. He first proposed that Hindus and Muslims were "two nations." Only by adhering to political equality can India's stability and Muslim autonomy be achieved. Advocates the establishment of independent Islamic states in Muslim-inhabited areas.
Thereafter, the "All India Muslim League" gained political control over the Muslim-majority provinces except Punjab. In 1945, the All-India Muslim League participated in the Central Legislative Assembly elections and won all the Muslim seats.
For a long time, under the policy of "supporting Indians and suppressing Muslims" of the British colonial authorities, the Muslim bourgeois group has been at a disadvantage in competition. In order to change their disadvantages and win in economic competition, they require internal coordination within the group Unanimous and political fight for more rights.
This appeal was easily responded to. The partition of India and Pakistan was supported by the upper echelons of Muslims.
When the national independence movement flourished and Indian independence became the general trend, the upper class Muslims were afraid that they would continue to be at a disadvantage after independence, so they insisted on establishing an independent Pakistan to protect their economic and political interests.
At the same time, the partition of India and Pakistan was supported by Muslim farmers. The interests of India's Muslim farmers were in conflict with those of Indian landowners and moneylenders.
For example, farmers in Bangladesh support the movement for Pakistan's autonomy because they hope that Bangladesh's joining an Islamic country will free them from the enslavement of landlords and loan sharks.
In this way, the Pakistan Movement won the support of the broad masses of Muslims and became a social and political movement with a mass base.
In 1946, a cabinet mission sent by the British discussed India's autonomy with various political forces in India and proposed the idea of autonomy (or independence) under a federal system.
This plan was originally accepted by the Congress Party and the Muslim League, but the Congress Party headed by Nehru unilaterally tore up the agreement and demanded renegotiation. This led to the Muslim League withdrawing from the plan to create a united India and instead seeking to establish an independent Muslim state.
The differences between the Indian Muslim League and the Indian National Congress are expanding and hatred is deepening. Bloody incidents of killing each other have broken out between the two factions, and violent confrontations have escalated.
The situation is obvious. If there is no partition, there will be a civil war.
The British government appointed Mountbatten as the Governor-General of India in February 1947, and announced the "Mountbatten Plan" for the partition of India and Pakistan in June. In the
plan, India is divided into:
(1) Pakistan, including West Pakistan and East Pakistan, with a population of 70 million;
(2) Indian Federation, including the rest of British India, with a population of 225 million;
(3) There are 562 princely states, accounting for 2/5 of India's area and a population of 81 million. They enjoy independent status after the transfer of power, but can join India or Pakistan.
Later, most of the princely states joined India, but the ownership of the original northern princely state Kashmir was undecided, and India and Pakistan had two large-scale armed conflicts here.
Although the Congress Party and the Muslim League were dissatisfied with the Mountbatten Plan at first, they eventually formally passed resolutions announcing their acceptance of the plan.
In July 1947, the British Parliament passed the "India Independence Plan", which stipulated that the rule of India would end before August 15 of the same year and the two autonomous dominions of India and Pakistan would be established.
The Indian National Congress finally had to accept the results of the partition of India in the face of the Muslim forces that firmly advocated the partition of India and Pakistan.
"Policy" level
If the relationship between the Congress Party and the Muslim League is handled properly, it is still possible to avoid the partition of India and Pakistan. At least it can avoid violent separation, and it is unnecessary to have at least 500,000 people killed and 12 million people homeless. The divisive conflict of return.
From the perspective of the Congress Party, the breakdown in the relationship between the Congress Party and the Muslim League was due to serious strategic errors in the Congress Party's policy towards Muslims, which was related to its errors in judgment.
First, the Congress party underestimated the importance of sectarian issues and mishandled specific issues.
The Congress Party under the leadership of Gandhi tried to stimulate people's national sentiments from the perspective of reviving Hinduism. The consequences of this naturally caused uneasiness among Muslims.
Second, there is a lack of correct understanding of the status and strength of the Muslim League, which manifests itself in the policy of annexation and exclusion of the Muslim League.
The main leaders of the Congress Party do not recognize the status of Muslim culture in India, let alone Muslims as a nation. Nehru even said: "There are only two parties in the country - the Congress Party and the British", and there is no third party Muslim alliance.
Especially when it came to Jinnah's proposal to establish a united front and organize a coalition government in the general election in 1937, Nehru rejected all harsh conditions.
Provincial government elections were held from 1936 to 1937. As a result, the Congress Party gained an absolute advantage in the Central Legislative Assembly and in the five major provinces.
When the defeated Muslim League requested the establishment of a coalition government, it was rejected by the Congress Party members and asked the Muslim League to merge into the Congress Party.
Jinnah, who had been willing to cooperate with the Congress Party, publicly stated that Muslims could not expect justice and fair treatment under the Congress Party's rule.
From the perspective of the Muslim League, there are many reasons for the breakdown of relations with the Congress Party and the major change in the position of the Muslim League. But the main strategy is to guide the movement by ideological trends.
The Enlightenment thinkers of the Muslim League originally agreed with reform, but when the demands for constitutional reform put forward by the Congress Party gained increasing repercussions among the masses, they believed that this posed a threat to the future status of Muslims.
Hindus account for 3/4 of India's population, and Muslims only account for about 1/4. In this case, representative system is only beneficial to Hindus. Therefore, sectarian differences and the supremacy of sectarian interests are the fundamental reasons for the change in attitude.
In addition, the formation of the "two nations" theory played an important role in the Muslim League's final choice and firm stance on separatism.
This theory is a political trend in Indian society during the British colonial period. It believes that Muslims and Hindus have different social customs, lifestyles, and ideological concepts, and are independent religious, linguistic and cultural entities, thus forming independent nations. On this basis, independent Hindu and Muslim states should be established respectively.
This theory was first proposed by al-Sayyid Ahmad Khan in 1883, and later developed by the Punjabi poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (Shaikh Mohammed Iqbal) and Muhammad Iqbal. Ali Jinnah (Muhammad Ali Jinnah) development and integration.
Jinnah's contribution to Pakistan was that he turned the "Muslim nation" as an ideological form into a social entity through a public imagined community, and led the subcontinent's Muslim nationalist movement to success.
He proposed: Indian Muslims have an undeniable right to self-determination . "No matter what theory of nation, Muslims are a nation, they must have their own homeland, they must have their own territory and country."
He argued: "The only way out that we can accept is by giving separate status to its main ethnic group The establishment of the country divided India into several autonomous nation-states. In this way, there is no need for these nation-states to be enemies of each other. "
In practice, the "two nations" theory and the Pakistan Movement (the establishment of the Muslim country Pakistan) The combination of social movements) became the foundation of Pakistan and the driving force behind the partition of India and Pakistan.
- Excerpted from my book "System Evolutionary Dynamics of National Unification"
