A Tale of Two Partitions: India 1947 and Palestine 1948

by Norman Berdichevsky (March 2009)

One of the untold stories of India is that the Muslim population has not shared in the boom the country has enjoyed over the last 10 years. There is still a lot of institutional discrimination, and many remain persecuted.”  “raj.”     Fedayeen from the Arabic word for those who commit “self sacrifice” (martyrdom). Ulama” to transmit the core of Islamic knowledge and tradition. Under British rule, Muslims became aware of the power of this Christian upstart nation and its success in establishing a modern administration, promoting order and civic responsibility that increasingly involved a large section of the Hindu population who eagerly flocked to the new secular state schools based on European knowledge. Ummah – a Nation apart and unable to accept less than a position of primacy and domination over others. The same motivation prevented any accommodation or bi-national compromise or two-state solution in 1948 in Palestine.Punjab  Afghania, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan.General Zia ul-Haq led a military coup and came to power in Pakistan in 1977 and almost immediately made Islamic Law the basis for legislation and worked to further exclude and marginalize Hindus. Between 1989 and 1992 over 300 Hindu temples were destroyed causing homelessness and destitution among many Hindus and provoking a new exodus to India.

“raj.”  

Many Kashmiris were suspicious and resentful of the outcome of hostilities in 1948 and felt that their rightful place was within Pakistan but the past 60 years have demonstrated that they have much to be thankful for. Although Indian rule was helped by manipulating elections to run the province during the first two decades of Indian rule leading to an insurgency in the Kashmir Valley, the widespread aid provided by Pakistan to the rebels in the form of sanctuary, weapons and training was followed by augmenting direct sponsorship to outside Muslim religious extremist groups such as the now infamous Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Righteous) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Muhammad). Their bloodthirstiness, greed and use of blackmail to help win over Muslim opinion in the central valley area of Kashmir turned the local population against them.

Dar-al-Islam – the Camp of Subjection and must not be allowed to revert to its former and rightful rulers who constituted the Dar-al-Harb, the Camp of War that must be fought. The truth of the 1947 partition is that the Muslims in India demanded it because they were unwilling to accept any kind of minority status. Had they accepted it, it is quite likely that today they would enjoy full equality in a secular democratic state without the fatalities, destruction, bloodshed and displacement of millions. There would be no “cancer” of perennial threat of war between two nuclear powers over the issue of Kashmir.

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