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India's Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization
Hasan has collected essays, extracts, memoirs, and a short story to create an evocative outline of the events preceding and surrounding India's partition.
- GenresIndia
444 pages, Paperback
First published September 16, 1993
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About the author
Mushirul Hasan
100 books10 followersMushirul Hasan was a renowned scholar and historian of modern India. He wrote extensively on the partition of India, communalism, and on the history of Islam in South Asia.
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October 26, 2021
I would not recommend this book to the average reader. Nonetheless, it is an interesting book which raises a significant question. The bulk of the book consists of academic papers that discuss politics in India prior to the 1947 partition. Much of the book concerns politics among the Muslims, though the Congress party and British are never far off the scene.
I learned a number of things. First, the Congress party had a mixed attitude towards Muslims. Some members of the party welcomed Muslims; others did not. When the party came into power in state governments, Muslims were sometimes excluded from positions of power. Second, the Muslim League was not a real power in India until about 1940, and they faced significant problems organizing the Muslim community so that they could claim to speak for the Muslim community.
A number of the authors observe that Hindus and Muslims living in the same geographic area did share many of the cultural practices. Bengali Muslims were more like Bengali Hindus than than like Punjabi Muslims. Nonetheless, there were differences, and communal riots had plagued India during the early 20th century. There were also concerns about government partiality, especially in light of Congress’s practices when governing. Congress’ nominal commitment to secularism was not reassuring.
This book raises the issue of how to organize a government when a minority community is concerned about its rights, especially when the minority community has a different culture. Clearly, this is a problem that the United States has faced for many years, and the answer has been assimilation. While the United States is more of a stew than a melting pot, ethnic differences have not been a major source of controversy. The question arises when the ethnic group desires to maintain its identity.
Obviously, contemporary India has not solved this problem. One wonders how any society can solve this problem.
I learned a number of things. First, the Congress party had a mixed attitude towards Muslims. Some members of the party welcomed Muslims; others did not. When the party came into power in state governments, Muslims were sometimes excluded from positions of power. Second, the Muslim League was not a real power in India until about 1940, and they faced significant problems organizing the Muslim community so that they could claim to speak for the Muslim community.
A number of the authors observe that Hindus and Muslims living in the same geographic area did share many of the cultural practices. Bengali Muslims were more like Bengali Hindus than than like Punjabi Muslims. Nonetheless, there were differences, and communal riots had plagued India during the early 20th century. There were also concerns about government partiality, especially in light of Congress’s practices when governing. Congress’ nominal commitment to secularism was not reassuring.
This book raises the issue of how to organize a government when a minority community is concerned about its rights, especially when the minority community has a different culture. Clearly, this is a problem that the United States has faced for many years, and the answer has been assimilation. While the United States is more of a stew than a melting pot, ethnic differences have not been a major source of controversy. The question arises when the ethnic group desires to maintain its identity.
Obviously, contemporary India has not solved this problem. One wonders how any society can solve this problem.
Displaying 1 of 1 review