.As the years rolled on, what was supposed to have been the cure, turned about to be worse than the disease ...
Fifty years have gone by since then but ... Muslims, who did not go to Pakistan, have by and large lived as if in a state of stupor. Not even five per cent of them could migrate to Pakistan; but an ocean of ill-will was created against the entire community among Hindus. They had to constantly prove their loyalty and patriotism to their own country and their attachment to their own motherland .. They faced an uphill task in every human endeavour ... Resentment against them had taken deep roots; it was kept alive by the communal forces which were reinforced by partition. The "Two-Nation" theory had poisoned Hindu-Muslim relations as never before. Even I , as a Muslim, despite my antecedents, felt sometimes a strange sense of alienation and frustration. Sometimes when tempers rose to fever pitch and the irrational reigned, I also found myself, as if, a square peg in a round hole ... The divide that Jinnah had created would take years, perhaps decades, may be even centuries to get bridged. His own lieutenants later confessed, to quote Chaudhary Khaliquzzaman, that the "Two-Nation" theory "had positively proved injurious to Muslims everywhere. It destroyed whatever political weight Muslims in pre-partitioned India enjoyed". Shaheed Suhrawardy, who became subsequently Prime Minister of Pakistan, denounced it as a "big mistake". The harm had been done; how could it be undone and who would undo it - these were the mind-boggling questions for which no one had any answer. As an Urdu poet has said, "Blunders are committed in moments but centuries have to suffer the consequences. ...
India and (have) been embroiled in armed hostilities on the question of the accession of Kashmir. Jinnah had sent raiders to usurp the only Muslim-majority state which had legally, under the terms of the transfer of power, joined India. This was patently an unconstitutional move. Jinnah owned the creation of Pakistan to the struggle of Muslims who had remained behind in India. Unsurprisingly he did not care to consider the implications of such an unwise adventure on his part, especially when his erstwhile followers were trying hard to adjust to the new set-up; it was, to say the least, a callous act. His advocacy of the "Two-Nation" theory had already created much animosity against the Muslim minority among Hindus; and now the Kashmir issue would strike another blow to communal harmony and peace. What was a piece of land and a few million Muslims compared to the forty million Muslims spread all over India whom partition had rendered forlorn and helpless! Could Jinnah not have shown the statesmanship to provide for those whom he had left in such a lurch, some measure of relief and safety? The Muslims in some measure of relief and safety? The Muslims in Kashmir under the charismatic leadership of Shaikh Abdullah, had already opted to be with India; but Jinnah, who was then on his death-bed, did not think of the repercussions on his stranded faithful, who in fact had made him the Quaid-e-Azam.
Jinnah's successors carried out the same policy; they waged three wars to grab Kashmir. Despite having suffered one defeat after another, they have still not given up their aggressive stance. Where war has failed, they have resorted to terrorist insurgency. They continue to spend billions of dollars on arms build-up in the hope that they would be able to somehow snatch Kashmir from India; in the process they have ruined their economy. They claim to be the defenders of Islam, but they fail to realise that if Kashmir went to them, the position of Indian Muslims, who are as many as the Pakistanis, will become the target of Hindu chauvinism. Muslim leaders, like their League predecessors in the past, turn a blind eye to the ground realities and propagate that the loss of Kashmir would not have any adverse effect on their co-religionists in India. The fact is that such an eventuality will shake the very foundation of secularism and unleash a reign of terror against Indian Muslims. Hence more than the Hindus, it is the Muslims in India who have to guard against it. Kashmir is the arsenal for their security. They are aware of the miseries that partition has brought upon them; they have also seen that once religious fanaticism is inflamed, as happened recently in Bosnia, brute force takes over. ...
Indian Muslims ... continue to struggle against poverty, unemployment and disease. Their so-called leaders in India instead of bridging the gulf between Hindus and Muslims, are ever ready to widen it. They turn non-issues into crises and whip up religious frenzy. They are neither bothered about the educational backwardness and economic plight of their co-religionists nor are they interested in making the biggest minority of 140 million an integral part of the nation. Pakistanis seem little concerned about the consequences of their tirade against India, which inevitably harms the vital interests of their leftover faithfuls in India. Here in India in the name of secularism, bogus or genuine, Muslims are either made pawns or scapegoats in the power struggle. How long will Indian Muslims have to pay the price of partition? ... (Source: The Price of Partition by Rafiq Zakaria)
