India-Kashmir-Pakistan: Perceptions on the History of Partition

I believe that both Pakistanis and Indians want peace.
Looking at the articles and interactions at Chowk, it seems that Indians always say let us be friends if not unite. That is their approach to peace. Pakistanis seem to concentrate on Kashmir, that is their approach to peace.
What is missing?

I thinks that there are some things that create problems:
1) Pakistanis feel that a great injustice was done to them, by keeping Kashmir in India. Indians take it for granted that Pakistanis understand the injustices they have done to Indians.
2) For Pakistanis, peace means not having a bad relationship with India. For Indians peace means having a good relationship with Pakistan. These two are two different things. Indians should adjust their definition of peace to Pakistanis. (This is the perception I get when Pakistanis write about peace and there are always exceptions).
Indians need to express their feeling of injustice done to them. (They may not be expressing the emotions as they assume Pakistanis know it or maybe there is not enough trust to express the emotions). The feelings may not please Pakistanis. If they understand things may improve. If they don’t, things are anyway getting worse. I heard about this site, by reading an article in Indian newspaper about a Pakistani who wants to write the history in a different way.
History can be started at any point one wants. If we start history at 1947, it will seem that Pakistan has been at the receiving end. One cannot choose to start history from just one’s perspective.
Some of my beliefs:
Belief 1) In South Africa if whites ask for a different homeland and they say the cannot live with blacks then it is wrong. They came there, conquered them, lived with them for years by ruling them. If they now claim that they have a different culture and cannot live with them I think it is wrong. If they fear that blacks will take revenge for the injustice they did, then they should at least take the risk and see how bad it is. They came there, blacks did not ask them to come there. They cannot say that it was a tradition/culture at that time to occupy and rule so it was OK. That is not a valid excuse. If they say with hatreds that they will rather live under someone else rule, then as equal to black, it is “racism”.
Belief 2) Preaching religious exclusiveness, and superiority is as bad as racism. As this sort of teaching leads one to believe that others are inferior or need to be hated. This was how common man was convinced to get rid of “red-indians” in America. “Red-Indians” were not considered human beings, so it was OK to kill them (this was one of the reasons I heard and certainly civilization has come a long way from such reasoning).
Belief 3) People are all good everywhere but nobody is saint. If we hate someone, we will probably get hate in return. We might then look back and say we were right in hating. If we love someone, we will probably get love in return. We might then look back and say we were right in loving. (I understand things are not so simple, but I do believe that people are good everywhere).
Belief 4) Secession and Freedom are two different things. Freedom is from people, when the ruler class has more rights than the ruled. Secession is when two groups have the same rights but one group decides to have a separate country. If Indians had same right as Britishers and there vote carried the same values as a Britisher, then the Indian Freedom movement would not have been the right thing to do. We should all try to live together, this is my personal belief. People are not bad, and in democracy, it is difficult to convince the majority of some injustices. Usually, the majority community will be divided anyway.
I assume many of you would read between the lines of above beliefs. Now I will make them more clear.
History as I see it in short:
Muslims (please read as Pakistani Muslims - authors request) came and conquered Hindus. They lived with them and ruled them. Many Hindus also got converted to Muslims. Some rulers like Aurangzeb, destroyed Hindu temples and put extra taxes on Hindus. Some like Akbar were kind to Hindus. Muslims lived with Hindus for 100s of years. By living with them for so long, I think they became as much part of the land as Hindus were. They in a way were like brothers and had the same rights as a brother would have, not more not less. Then, Britishers came and ruled for couple of hundred years.
When the Britishers were leaving India, Pakistani Muslims refused to live as an equal with Indians. They said, they have a different culture and hence different needs and hence should have a different country. They were like brothers, but they were asking for more than what a brother can get. They divided India. They betrayed us in a way. It is like the whites in South Africa asking for a different country. In our current President’s words regarding Partition: “It was a great sacrifice on part of India for the sake of peace, no other country has done it.” (I know many Pakistanis will laugh at this.)
How was India Divided?
Jinnah proposed the Two-Nation theory. It was NOT only on this theory that the Britishers partitioned India. It was their own theory. They allowed freedom to friendly kings (friendly to Britishers), either to join a country or remain independent. Since it was an injustice to India, but India accepted the partition, both should accept the results of partition. If one says that partition was not done in a “fair manner”, the other can say that “partition” was “not fair”. How can an unfair thing be done fairly?
Now many kingdoms were forced to join either India or Pakistan. Since India originally belonged to Hindus, there were many anomalies in the regions. Some Hindu majority places were ruled by Muslims (remember, Muslims used to rule majority Hindus for a long period).
Another such anomaly was Kashmir, which was ruled by a Hindu King but the majority was Muslims. That king was friendly to Britishers so he had the freedom to do what he wanted. Pakistan attacked Kashmir, and he sought India’s help. Kashmir was annexed to India, in trade for protection. Lord Mountabatten signed the document. The partition process was followed and by that process Kashmir had become a part of India.
One part of UN resolution is always quoted, but not the other part. The other part of UN resolution asked Pakistan to withdraw. An aggressor is asked to withdraw, not somebody else. An illegal occupant is asked to vacant, not somebody else. If Pakistan thought UN was the right body to take care of it, it should have obeyed and vacated. Let UN take care of what it thinks is right, they don’t need Pakistan for it. I think that it was wrong for UN to decide that way, what they told was one more way to partition India. India should never accept it. Look at Kashmiri Hindu’s plight.
I think Kashmir problem is in a way punishment to Pakistan, for all the wrongs they have done to Indians.
If you look at history of Kashmir, it won’t be very different from history of any other state of India. They all were ruled, by Kings, some kind and some unkind. Only difference in Kashmir is that the majority is Muslims. Preaching exclusiveness based on religion is not right, even Muslim leaders in Kashmir say that so I don’t have to prove it. They say that Hindu Pundits should return, the militants basically drove them away.
Hindus and Muslims are like brothers by living for so long together. What if some of my relatives change their religion tomorrow? Won’t they be my relatives anymore? As far as I am concerned they will be. All brothers have equal right. No brother has a right to secede though.
I believe that Pakistanis feel it is below there dignity to live as equals with Indians. Some of the statements I read/hear from Pakistanis are: “It is better to live under the British rule, than with Indians in democracy”. Indeed we think of Partition as a very sad thing. They had equal right as Indians but they wanted a different country. I even hear statements like “Jinnah was so great, that he created Pakistan from nowhere”. I feel it is our part, that he took and created Pakistan, may be like free for people who express like that.
I am not sure if Jinnah saw what came out of Partition, if he would have thought that Partition was the right thing to do.
Why Kashmir won’t solve the problem?
Why would Pakistan stop after Kashmir. Look at one of the persons who said “if Pakistan helps them, they can free half of India from Hindus.” The problem is of trust that was betrayed. The feeling by some that, they have ruled Indians in past, so they can again (even after getting defeated. Not sure if you all read the history as we do. Even Ghouri was defeated by Prithivi Raj Chauhan. Prithvi Raj forgave Ghouri. Ghouri than took help of Jaichand, to defeat and rule India. So don’t think that in the past Indians were weak, and only after 1947 they have become strong). You may not be feeling that way, but you can see Indians don’t trust and they have good reasons not to trust. Besides the history, it is also the religious exclusiveness that seemed to be preached. (I believe that religious fundamentalist will be in minority like in India, but they can express themselves more freely as there is no significant Hindus out there).
What about the current problems in Kashmir?
I think the problem Kashmir is facing is the same as problems any other Indian state would face if they wanted to secede. It is easy to fight an organized army, you don’t have to bother the common man, but in case of militancy, sometime common man gets more hurt than they should. If militancy in Kashmir stop they will have less problems. Remember when India fought with Pakistan, it was fighting the military and not trying to kill every Pakistani. There was time in Kashmir after 1947, when the chief minister was popularly elected by the people. If they were not able to live with Indians at all, there would be no such single Chief Minister of Kashmir. An example of a popular chief-minister who was elected by Indian constitution and accepted it shows that Muslims and Hindus can live together. It is interesting that how only the violence of last 10 years is stated, not the years before it when things were better.
Since Pakistan seceded from India, and Pakistan believes in secession, Pakistan should give freedom to all those who want to secede. The reason why some Pakistanis may want to secede may be just because they want to, or may be like Bangladesh.
I cannot understand how Pakistanis think bad of Indians. It was Ghazni, who came and looted temple. I saw in a US TV program, that there is some place in Andhra Pradesh, where many Idols of God from various part of the country were hidden. They were hidden there to save them from being destroyed by the Good Mughal rulers, whom Pakistani I assume are proud of. Andhra Pradesh, is in the southern part of India. Pakistanis had penetrated so deep and even than they said we cannot live with you. I would like to hear, how Pakistanis justify all this. Do they justify same way, as in the past killing of “red Indians was justified”. After all this they preach to their children and citizen that Hindus are bad. I say this because of the letters I see written in Dawn.
I certainly don’t want the current Pakistanis to be punished for what their ancestors did. They should at least think what was right, and try to be brothers to Hindus. If they cannot do that then I think they are wrong, and Kashmir is perhaps God’s way of punishing them. They have to put all their resources to fight Kashmir.
Inspite of all this, I don’t think bad of Pakistanis. How can I? When I look at Musharraf, he looks like a Hindu to me. Just because he is Pakistani or follows a different religion, is he bad? I was indeed surprised to see a picture of him, with some woman behind him in a saree(perhaps his Mother). Saree is such an Indian dress.
For the sake of peace, we should accept the result of Partition as it is. Partition was a big injustice to India, but let it be. There was lot of politics in partition, and whoever got what should remain with that. If somebody wants to revisit partition, then partition should be questioned first, not how partition should be done.
One of my colleagues here said, that one American went to Pakistan. The American wanted to buy some gift for his son’s birthday. The Pakistani friend he had, took him to a place where all sorts of guns were in display. Not simple guns, but big guns it seems, where he could buy all this. I did not believe this. The impression was like, everyone in Pakistan had access to war like guns and it was common to sell it, like one sells vegetables. I said I cannot believe that. Pakistan is not like Afghanistan. They are people like Indians who used to live with us. We finally agreed, that it must be some place in the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This was just an incident to show you that I don’t think Pakistanis are bad, but I am afraid that they might turn into another Afghanistan.
I think I have made a long article. I cannot say that everyone in India feels it this way. It is my individual thinking. Indeed some of the examples I gave here are completely of my own making. I do believe that if we understand each other feeling things might get better.