The targeted attack on former VP Hamid Ansari is very unfortunate. Just shows how difficult it is in India today in this Hindutva environment to express ideas and opinions. A few things need to be said on Partition, though, and I hope my readers will be kind to me. #HamidAnsari
The Hindutva forces and their votaries present a strange contradiction. On one hand they want to squarely blame Congress for Partition, but on the other, they get worked up if someone says Indians were also responsible for it. They blame Nehru but get angry when Patel is named.
Do people think that Muslims all of a sudden rose up one day and decided that they wanted a separate country called Pakistan? It's amazing that the Hindutva brigade still believes in fairy tales where everything is black and white and where there are clear heroes and villains.
We should have been wiser today because we have hindsight, but we are not because we are not willing to look back. We don't ask this basic question: how did the Muslim League manage to get a separate country in 1947 when Muslims had rejected them in the 1937 elections?
The obscene display of sectarian prejudices by sections in the Congress and other smaller outfits turned the people away. Some of the Congressmen had celebrated the 1937 win, portraying it as Hindus returning to power after 800 years. This really turned the Muslims away from them
We saw a repeat of this "Hindus returning to power after 800 years" when Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014. They said all this to Muslims who voted for them. Naturally, Musliims got the signal that Congress would only serve Hindu interests. So they sided with League
There were hardcore communalists on both sides. In the League and the Congress. And they had their following among the people. Hindu and Muslim. Ugly, hateful and hurtful statements were uttered freely back then, just like they are now. All of these together led to Partition.
The Muslim League that had got badly smashed in the 1937 elections made a strong comeback in the 1946 elections. This time, they won most of the Muslim seats. And that gave them the bargaining power. A decade of polarising politics was enough to break the country into two.
So if you profess to love India, and you claim that your love for the country is greater than somebody else's, then you must learn from the past. Because if you can't love your own people, you cannot serve national interests. Don't make the mistake of your forefathers.
