Guha's 'Inida after Gandhi' --The logic of division.

The author ends 'Freedom and Parricide' with an observation that 'Gandhi could not reconcile, in life, Hindu with Muslim, but he did reconcile, through his death, Jawaharlal Nehru with Vallabhbhai Patel. It was a of rather considerable consequence for the new and very fragile nation' .

Obviously the reasons for Division of the country would have divided opinions and opposite views. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's Congress Presidential Address, 1940, quoted by the author '..These thousand years of our joint life have moulded us into a common nationality', stikes a chord in us. Similarly, M.A. Jinnah's address around the same time as Muslim League president, in some ways could easily appeal to many...'They never intermarry, not interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of life are different'.

In fact, it would be appear 'true' even now to many, not just Hindus and Muslims but to many other divisions we have in India. I remember as a kid my father, an advocate, had a number of Muslim clients. (I think they saw that religion was not on his mind at all.) They would come home sometimes and my mother invariably would offer them tea in a porcelain cup which was kept seperate and was never used by us! I do not know if they noticed or if they minded, but I did not appreciate it! I was reminded of it, years later when a friend of ours working in Africa, said that when their servants noticed that they were given seperate cups/ plates, they were really upset and left! We do indeed have many such practices that are continued without a thought about their effects on others .

Anyway getting back to the book, I quote the autor, 'The short-sightedness of Congress, Jinnah's ambition, Britain's amorality and cynicism.. .. all might have played a part'. He dwells on many more reasons that managed to separate the two religions during this crucial period. Elections being one of them. (Now it is perpetuation of caste politics, some sort of divide and win.)

In any case the notion of one Nation, it seems was not deep enough to create a strong resistance to partition, which was hastened through once the writing was seen on the wall. This hurry and probably the lack of experience and a lack 'humaneness' which was evident must have caused so much of loss of life.

The concluding paragraph has me looking forward to his assessment as I read on. He states 'While the debates continue to rage about the causes of Partition, somewhat less attention has been paid to its consequences. These were considerable indeed - as this book will demonstrate. The division of India was to cast a long shadow over demography, economics, culture, religion, law, international relations, and party politics'.