Do you think the decolonisation of the Indian subcontinent went as well as it could have?
With the benefit of hindsight, what would you have done differently. You become governor in 1937, and you have the full support of the British state and military.
Rules
[ul]
[li]No direct British control after 1957[/li][li]No genocide of civilians (including forced famines)[/li][li]No ‘giving’ the country to another power[/li][/ul]
Are you basically trying to ask if the partition of India was inevitable? Good question and a thread I’d like to see.
If not, not sure where you’re going. Why would a governor in 1937 think that decolonisation was desirable or necessary? At that time India was seen (rightly or wrongly) as an asset of the empire and a useful resource for the coming war in europe.
In a not possible universe where a governor that supported independence of India in 1937 was appointed sure they could have gradually introduced more and more autonomy… and maybe the violence of partition would have been prevented, but then maybe just as many or more people would have been killed in the probably inevitable civil war for a muslim homeland that would have flared up instead.
There is very little reason (with the benefit of hindsight) to see Partition as necessary or even beneficial to the parties concerned.
Certainly it appears to have been a well-meaning effort on the part of the colonial authorities to protect the Muslim minorities, but as it turned out it did nothing to protect anyone and made 10 millions homeless and killed a tenth of those.
In any event, partition clearly did nothing to protect Sikhs, Jews and Christians, who almost universally decided to take their chances in India.
But would it have been politically possible to avoid it? What could have brought Jinnah and the Muslim League on board for a united independent India? I’m thinking of the scene in Gandhi – don’t know how historical it is – when Gandhi offers to make Jinnah PM with an all-Muslim Cabinet; Jinnah says he would accept that but his followers would not, partition and civil war are the only possible options.
Would it have been politically possible for Gandhi and Jinnah? Probably not. For the British? Sure. It’s not as though they were forcing India and its tributary states to declare independence.
In my opinion, if you hadn’t had partition, you would have had secession and civil war. That said, the resettlement should have been handled better.
The other major issue most people outside of India forget about were the princely states. Britain essentially just walked away on that issue without even making an attempt to solve it. The British should have at least established a guiding principle for how the status of the princely states would be resolved.
As I understand it, the princely states were simply abolished by the Indian Republic, and why not. How could that have been handled better?
We had partition and still had secession and civil war.
There was a principle for how the status of princely states would be resolved: self-determination. They could join India, join Pakistan, or remain independent. If you mean they should have established a mechanism for making that determination, then sure, but ad hoc tribal councils and princely will actually worked quite well in most cases.
I think there would have been civil war in the West. Certainly the Baluchis and Pathans weren’t going to be happy as part of a united India. How the Punjabis and Sindhis would turn out, I’m not sure, but the united India would definitely be fighting some kind of perpetual guerilla war at least in the North West. And the Punjabis and Sindhis would need to take sides at some point.
The Bengalis in the East I can see being quite well integrated into a united India. There is a fairly strong Bengali identity.
“We”? Are you Indian?
:dubious: Why should independence have been an option?
India is now a united republic for the first time in its history and doing pretty well out of it. Every nation-state in Europe had to go through the process (different countries in different centuries) of abolishing feudalism and lords’ autonomy to become a united state.
Since the Bengladeshis clearly had second thoughts about being included in Pakistan, have they possibly had second thoughts about leaving India? Is there any political pressure at all for reunification?
With the benefit of hindsight, and thinking purely pragmatically, perhaps Kashmir could have become an independant state, neither Indian or Pakistani.
Or perhaps what is now Pakistan, but was W.Pakistan on partition, could have been subdivided into several different countires rather then being a single state.
By descent, yes. I’ve never been an Indian subject or citizen and haven’t even visited in 20 years so in that sense, no. I was using “we” in the sense of “we, the people of the world” because Little Nemo said “you” and it sort of fit, not because I’m Indian, though.
I’m not saying independence should or should not have been an option; I’m saying it was an option that was offered to the princely states, at least by the British. In practice, there were very few which didn’t choose to join India, and those that didn’t were quietly annexed over the next few years.
Gandhi was near the end becoming more and more detached from reality. historically, a plan in 1946 was offered to preserve the unity of India, and was accepted by the Muslim League and rejected by Congress (urged by Gandhi). Congress and Gandhi also wanted a heavy centralist estate while the Muslim league was only willing to accept a loose confederation.
You really are betraying your origin as a Karachite with that post.
I don’t think either country would have accepted that, and then there would have been immediate infiltration and attempts by both sides to influence the Kashmiri state.
Actually, from what I’ve read, the North-West Frontier Province only barely voted to be part of Pakistan, and that too because the pro-India faction, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and his followers, decided to boycott the referendum. The Baluchis apparently don’t particularly want to be part of Pakistan even now, so I can understand their not wanting to be a part of India. Sindhis and Punjabis(half of whom are still in India) can’t be told apart from Indians, so they would probably have mixed in as well as all the others have.
I’m not sure what you mean by your point about a ‘fairly strong Bengali Identity’.
Nope.
The Kashmiri prince did attempt to remain independent. There was immediate infiltration by Pakistan, followed by accession to India, and the resultant mess. So with the benefit of hindsight, Kashmir should have been definitively been handed off to one or the other, not allowed to remain independent.
I think he means Bengalis are Bengalis first and Indians/Bangladeshis/East Pakistanis second, so they wouldn’t care much about union with India because they’d still just be Bengalis.
Can we all agree, in hindsight, that Pakistan was a bad idea?