Prof. Samuel P. Huntington (says) "The India-Pakistan nuclear tests" in the view of this American intellectual, "certainly confirm the thesis that the clash of civilisations - in this case, Islam and Hinduism – has replaced the ideological confrontation of the Cold War as the main characteristic of conflict in today's world ... Obviously, India and Pakistan represent different civilisations." ...
What the clash theorists seem to forget, however, is that the Hindu-Muslim interface is almost fourteen centuries old. Soon after the advent of Islam in 6th century A.D., Indian and Arab traders brought the message of Islam to the South Indian coastal regions.
While Islam was spread by Sufi saints in North and East India, central Asian bandits, claiming to be Muslims, devastated parts of North, West and Central India, often with the help and on the invitation of Hindu kings seeking to wreak vengeance on their rivals. Throughout the first thirteen centuries of interaction, the Hindus and Muslims lived peacefully, sharing each others' joys and sorrows, and even certain religious beliefs, without having clashed even once.
Indeed, the Mughal period is known as one of the two golden periods in Indian history. In 1857 when the Hindu kings and sepoys fought our first Independence, they unanimously decided to restore Mughal rule in the case of victory.
This happened at a time when the last Mughal king Bahadur Shah Zafar was in no position to help the war effort. This would not have been possible if the final legacy of Muslim rule had been Hindu-Muslim bitterness and conflict.
Thirteen centuries of peaceful and harmonious coexistence have been followed by a century of conflict. The obvious culprits must be colonialism with its divide and rule and democracy with its vote-bank politics ... Democracy is here to stay and so is the divisive vote-bank politics. Are we thus condemned to remain mired in conflict, internal and external, in the name of the two-nation theory or clash of civilisation? ...
The important factor in a long-term and civilisational perspective is the attitude of the people. Last year the Pakistani people had voted overwhelmingly for a party that went to them with the agenda of normalisation of relations with India.
In response to a query put by the Peace Boat, if they thought Pakistan needed nuclear weapons, 43 per cent of the respondents in Lahore replied in the negative. This is a high negative vote for the city of Lahore, the home of the ruling Punjabi establishment .. (Source: The Hindustan Times, 18 July, 1998)
Shahabuddin's Response Letter to The Hindustan Times, 18 July, 1998
In his article on Hindu-Muslim Relation (18 July) Mr. Sultan Shahin equates India-Pakistan Relation with Hindu-Muslim Relation in India. While it is a fact that the Partition did not resolve the communal problem and merely internationalised an internal problem. The two sets of problems have a different context today. Muslim Indians are not Pakistanis nor Pakistani agents. They are Indian citizens like other Indians and the Hindu-Muslim relations in India have to be sorted out within the framework of the Indian Constitution, through political discourse and social interaction within the country. However, such discourse and interaction has two sides. Mr. Shahin highlight the Muslim side but has not a word to say about the Hindu side. This makes his approach lopsided and impracticable. If the Muslim Indians have to be liberated from Maulanas and Muftis, the Hindu Indians have to be liberated from the Sants and the Mahants. Perhaps neither can be. Hence the Hindu- Muslim relations can be resolved only with their cooperation.