The writer is a journalist with Scroll.in in Delhi. He is a Multani from Lucknow who finds himself trapped in the Republic of South Delhi. He tweets @DilliDurAst
How good or bad the BJP’s first simple majority government will turn out to be for its religious minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims, will be keenly watched over the next five years. Yet, for now, Narendra Modi’s stunning victory is a symbolic blow to India’s 150 million-plus Muslims. Here is a man widely perceived by the Muslim community and many others as having deliberately turned away his attention from RSS-aligned mobs who were killing Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. The BJP doesn’t like to give tickets to Muslims, and so a BJP victory also means that the Lok Sabha has the lowest number of Muslim MPs — 22 — in decades. “A population has been made irrelevant. This is how Sikhs must have felt in 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi became prime minister,” a Muslim friend wrote on Facebook.
I thought that Pakistanis would share this despair. After all, Pakistanis often worry about the plight of Indian Muslims. After all, they are our neighbours and well-wishers and want peace and amity. Yet I saw that many Pakistanis were happy! The sentiment is best captured in the headline of the May 19 column by Asad Rahim Khan in these pages. “Modi elected, Jinnah vindicated”, it said.
The first thing that irritates the Indian in me about that is not the subject of the Two-Nation Theory. That is the third thing. The first thing is the schadenfreude. Just as there are those in India who feel happy when something bad happens in Pakistan — look at their democracy! Look at the freedom of the press! Look at their minority rights! Similar to that is how this Pakistani sense of joy over the ‘vindication’ of Jinnah sounds.
The Pakistani schadenfreude over the success of Hindu majoritarianism in India has several implications. It means, for one, that Pakistani nationalism’s self-interest is in contradiction with the self-interest of Indian Muslims. Every time an Indian Muslim gets killed in a riot, a Pakistani will say Jinnah vindicated. What is this game we have locked ourselves in; a game where only one of us can be happy?
The second thing that irritates me here is that it contradicts what Pakistanis usually say about India. Pakistanis say they are happy to have made another country, Pakistanis say they feel India hasn’t ‘accepted’ Pakistan. Pakistanis don’t like to hear the ‘we are the same people’ line from Indians. Not even when a Vajpayee visits the Minar-e-Pakistan and pays tribute to the Pakistani nation. A Partition refugee businessman in Delhi, seeing off his wife at the airport when she was taking a flight to Lahore, told his wife not to go around saying ‘we are the same people’ in Pakistan. They don’t like it, he said. When she returned from Pakistan she told her husband that while she never used the words, Pakistanis were saying it to her all the time!
So if Pakistanis are happy with the result of the Two-Nation Theory, why do they need a Modi victory for Jinnah to be vindicated? Does this also prove right the opposite — that all these years when the Congress and others kept the RSS out of power, it was Nehru and Gandhi who were being vindicated and Jinnah was not?
The third thing that irritates me about the Pakistani schadenfreude is, of course, the Two-Nation Theory itself. I am afraid that it puts into jeopardy the rights of 150 million Indian Muslims Pakistanis claim to worry about but actually don’t.
My question about the vindication of the Two-Nation Theory is this: how many times do people in Pakistan feel the need to be proven right? When the BJP first came to power, when there are any number of small and big Hindu-Muslim riots in India?
The fourth point that needs to be made here is that Jinnah’s Pakistan was supposed to not do to religious minorities what Jinnah feared Muslims would face in India. And yet we have at least 5,000 Pakistani Hindus asking for asylum even today. So who exactly has been vindicated? Who won? Who lost? How shall we calculate? Shall we do a religious census of the dead?
Lastly, the RSS-BJP also believe in the Two-Nation Theory. That is why Jaswant Singh and LK Advani love Jinnah. As you can see, the Two-Nation Theory has great support in India — among Hindus! Could there be a greater validation of Jinnah? In which case, let me congratulate Pakistan on Modi becoming India’s prime minister.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 23rd, 2014.
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COMMENTS (63)
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@Gp65:
And in my rebuttal to your misleading statement, I referred to this Reuters’ very recent “Special Report: In Modi’s India, a case of rule and divide”, by John Chalmers and Frank Jack Daniel, May 13, 2014, in which they have exposed how Muslims in India are legally, politically, and socially outcast "in a systematic way", and forced to live in ghettos. "The conditions particularly in Gujarat are worst presenting a scene of apartheid state".
(Dear Mod: I'm trying to post this comment since yesterday, but I get the server error. Now I'm splitting it into 2 parts to get around the error. Please allow both to make sense.)
@Gp65:
"Please write a specific statement i said and then rebut it with facts."
Apparently you don't pay attention to what others have already said and then complain, perhaps in a frenzy to post maximum like someone working on 'per line' basis. I had already quoted the part of your comment against which I was giving my rebuttal. Here it is again. Please pay attention this time. This is what you wrote and I quoted:
“I do not think you need to go anywhere because you are entitled to live in India as an equal citizen. As long as you accept living in a plural society, there shokd be no cause for heartburn.”
@Vijay K: No, Vijay, it is a Ten Nation theory, if you count the Kashmiris, Sikhs, Christians, Bodos, Tamils, Bengalis, The Untouchables and the Scheduled Castes. (Pls do not fret about the Muslims, they have already been counted)
Israel and the Indian Elections - When Netanyahu Meets Modi: After weeks-long elections in India, the Hindu nationalist BJP party, with Narendra Modi as prime-minister elect, has emerged as the overwhelming victor in a hotly contested campaign. The election results were both an affirmation of the BJP’s policies and ideologies and a resounding defeat for the Congress Party, which has led India’s government for most of the nation’s modern history, and which is now perceived by the electorate as riddled with corruption and inefficiency. One of the first heads of state to congratulate Modi after his triumph was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And in a statement about his call to Modi, Netanyahu noted that “the Prime Minister-designate has expressed his desire to deepen and develop ties with Israel.” The ties that Netanyahu was referring to — primarily economic and military (linked areas, of course) — have been developing since 1992, when India and Israel established full diplomatic relations. But the real push for making the two countries primary partners came during the BJP years of 1998 to 2004. Today, a decade on, Israel arms sales to India amount to close to ten billion dollars. In fact, India is now Israel’s largest defense market ; over half of its arm sales are to the Indian military. In addition to the arms deals, there is a 5 billion dollar bilateral trade relationship between the two countries that includes solar power, hi-tech research and agricultural development — areas in which Israel is a technical and economic force. That said, Congress party leaders who succeeded the BJP government in 2004 were by no means averse to deepening ties with Israel. Just six months ago, the Indian government, under Congress control, concluded a ten billion dollar deal with the Israeli company Tower Electronics to build two semiconductor plants in India. In addition to the military-industrial aspects of the budding Netanyahu-Modi bromance, there are the ideological factors that bind them together. For decades both leaders have been pushing an ethnic nationalist agenda in their respective countries, though India and Israel are democracies in which the Muslim minority (15% in India, and 17% in Israel) has the right to vote. And the liberal secular forces within both countries have attempted (though imperfectly) to stop this progression to an ethnic nationalist state. But those attempts are failing.
read more http://www.juancole.com/2014/05/israel-indian-elections.html
@Ronan: it is for GP65 and many others that Is it difficult for you as it is for GP65 and many other Indians that your perception of reality is very diferent from those of the believers. India relies in total on its laws and not on the stregnth of its culture, whereas in the world of believers, people do in addition rely on civil courage and morals derived from their religion. The best recipe is not to relativise crimes or compare one with another.
Rex Minor
@Sam: As a Pakistani, we don't want more immigrants from India, Bangladesh, Kashgar or Afghanistan in our midst. We are Pakistanis and although we respect the Muslims in our neighboring countries, we don't want them living with us. We have had enough problems from Afghan refugees in KPK and Indian Muhajirs in Karachi.
@Sore loser: THANK YOU FOR THAT........but my comment has been removed and I have no idea why.
@Pervez: That was in bad taste.
@ET Moderators This particular comment by Parvez is innuendo laced and in very bad taste. In context of maintaining decorum of this forum, I request that his comment be removed.
The immense concern by Pakistan for India Muslims - can they give clearance to help them migrate over to Pakistan just as India welcomes the persecuted HIndus into the country? IF yes, let the migration begin of those who feel persecuted in India.
@Strategic Asset:
Oh that is simple, they believe in both; that the hindus and muslims are two distinct nations, and the muslim nation as it were has no business to be present in the geographical confines of Akhand Bharat.
ET mods- how is it that you allow someone to call me a liar without bothering tomeven rebut anything i said? This is explicitly against your comment guidelines. In any case since you have published such a statement, do allow my response tonalso be published.
@Bewildered: Modi's India? He has not even been sworn in. In any case what have i said that you disagree with? Please write a specific statement i said and then rebut it with facts. Unsubstantiated personal attacks are a reflection on you not me.
I do not see your url as being a rebuttal of anything that i have said.
Can the Tribune editors or feature writers or some Pakistani intellectual please explain why no on - absolutely NOBODY ever - writes about the specific (sharia) laws that the Muslims in India enjoy. These ensure more rights than Muslims in countries like Turkey or some central Asian republics. No other minority in India gets sops to go on pilgrimages anywhere (forget Mecca, not even to the next village). The fact that Muslim men can marry four times (without even informing the spouses, forget seeking consent) and they can divorce at will without having to pay alimony (Shah Bano case) mean that half their population (or more!) is shafted. The fact that private schools (read madrassas) are beyond the oversight of local/state/federal government means that they could teach waht they like, admit who they like, beat any kid as they like. This is the latest law enacted by who else but the magnanimous Congress and guess where that will lead future generation of Muslims. More marginalization. But Pakistani journalists, westerners, and bleeding-heart Indian liberals like Vij never bring these facts to the fore. I find it disingenuous of Pakistanis to keep criticizing India based on reports by such sources and generally feel sad that they cannot travel to/in India. [Of course, by the law of statistics, there must be many more ignorant Indians who don't get Pakistan right].
@Bewildered:
You say, "exposing how Muslims in India are legally and socially outcast and forced to live in ghettos." I suggest you read it again. If I were to say, "In Pakistan, polio workers are killed, girls schools shut down, foreign tourists killed..." I'm sure you'll accuse me of extrapolating. The writers were talking about Gujarat and, even so, I don't know that's the whole story. Sure, Muslims are discriminated. But it is no worse than Shias and Ahmadis are treated in Pakistan. Actually it's a lot better although that's no defense at all for the boorish, inhumane behavior of locals. In the same vein, Indian Muslims are better treated than Pakistanis, Philippinos, Bangladeshis, Malaysians, Indians, Sri Lankans, etc. are treated in the middle east. If only these idiot governments of India would let Pakistanis travel in India, you could see for yourself!
@Pervez: And, in a parallel non-transparent track, throw the journalists out, beat up exchange students, imprison poor fishermen, keep firing at each other across the boundary and blame the other, play no cricket, issue vicious (make that "stupid") statements against each other, cynically play the third parties against the foe.... the list is really long. Most of the western people are scared of our two countries and that may be unjustified because I don't think these two will nuke each other out. However, what disappoints me is the general lack of maturity and plain intelligence amongst the people --particularly elites-- of our two countries.Actually, it disgusts me. Hopefully, 64 years from now, our children and their children will share some daal roti and spit on our graves for being so stupid.
@Reveal: No Pakistani will ever answer your question becuase it requires both truthfulness and introspection which are rare commodities in islamic world. Simple fact is Pakistani fear that Indians will start believing in TNT and this will end present Pakistan. OTOH, Indians have duty, national obligation to find the answer of this question of why Muslims are still living in india and dont go to Pakistan. After the consensus on anwering thsi question of "why:, Indians are capable of forcing the solution. Electing Modi is step in this right direction. Either Muslims become Bharti or Pakistani, they are free to choose.
@Gp65:
"I do not think you need to go anywhere because you are entitled to live in India as an equal citizen. As long as you accept living in a plural society, there shokd be no cause for heartburn."
Perhaps you're the best in the lying lot. Read this Reuters' "Special Report: In Modi's India, a case of rule and divide", by John Chalmers and Frank Jack Daniel, May 13, 2014, exposing how Muslims in India are legally and socially outcast and forced to live in ghettos.
I've seen better stuff from Sriram Vij. This seems so forced that it's tough to even comment on it. Many people don't even know the difference between the two nation theory and the two country theory. Naturally they confuse the former for the latter.
@Indian:
"Anyone — especially Pakistani nationalists who love Jinnah — who seriously thinks of the interests of Indian Muslims in all of the Indian subcontinent has a lot to answer for as to whether the Partition of India actually was in the long-term collective interests of all South Asian Muslims."
Brother, what do you say about USA and Canada, Canada and Quebec, UK and Scotland, Sudan and South Sudan, Indonesia and East Timor?
@Parhakoo:
You reckon the guy should have used the word 'Angst' instead?
Rex Minor
@author What do you want Pakistan to do? Attack neighbor with nuclear arms and an army ten time bigger in number.... and reason we give to the world:: They have elected modi!!
In current scenario we want peace on eastern front because there is proxy war going on in Afghanistan!!
@Indian: Jinnah worked for United India till very last.
@sensible: I think Modi's win has disapproved TNT and exposed it vehemently. It took 67 years for RSS or BJP (perceived as pro Hindu Party) to get full fledge majority in Indian Parliament that too when it fought the whole election purely on development agenda. It couldn't win majority when it was fighting on religious agendas. It happened in India where, minorities are 15% (and many have voted for Modi-BJP this time). Just imagine, when muslim would be almost 35% of the population in United India, could it ever happen ? This is the reason BJP loves Jinnah. I don't know why common poor Pakistanis love Jinnah. They are the biggest losers in whole political game. Have they ever analysed the events in a rational manner ?
THANK YOU! - That's my personal response to your congratulations.
But I sense some sarcasm behind your congrats and I sense more cynicism about Modi being elected PM of India -
Like it not, my friend, irrespective of ALL else, at the end of the day, YOU GUYS (Voting eligible) Indians are the ones who elected Modi as a PM;
Pakistanis or I may have our opinions and concocted theories about the prospects of this reality, however we have had NOTHING to contribute towards YOUR new PM - so quite frankly, your congrats, which after reading your spiel feels more like a taunt, is misplaced.
@Strategic Asset: I had posted a detailed reply to your comment about RSS/TNT/Akhand Bharat etc. ET in its immense wisdom decided to kill it off. That's that. May God grant me the serenity to accept what I can't change!
I often hear Indians say TNT is negated by Bangladesh. I would agree had Bangladesh decided to rejoin India. Far from it, the first thing the Bangladeshis did is remove Indian forces & influence post 1971 and remain an independent and discrete country from Pakistan but also self-perceived mother-ship India. I would argue somewhat sadly that Bangladesh continues to thrive as Pakistan the concept better than Pakistan the state.
I disagree with the other blog suggesting Modi elected - Pakistan Vindicated. While this title is an eye-catcher, the truth is a minor event such as Modi being elected can neither vindicate nor negate the momentous development of Pakistan coming to be.
The area that comprises Pakistan has been independent of peninsular India for 9500 of the last 10,000 years. There is more to this geographical region than TNT.
Finally, Indians and Pakistanis need to understand they are an amalgamation of many nations conquered by Muslims & consolidated by the British. TNT avoided a major human catastrophe... An epic south asian civil war that would break Moghul-Conquered, British-Consolidated South Asia into a TEN-nation-theory.
ET, i don't know how my comment as a pakistani is worse than the often approved propaganda by indian trolls.
"After all, they are our neighbours and well-wishers and want peace and amity" seriously i never seen such words from an indian i wish it will become true in future bu not know you know the reason
As a Hindu boy, born and raised in an average Indian family, I absolutely hate Two-Nation theory. I grew up with a lot of Muslim friends and life would not be the same without them. . During final exams, Muslim friends used to drive us to temples on their bikes. They waited outside patiently while we prayed for divine help with the exams :D We celebrated Eid and Diwali together. . So all of you who claim that Hindus and Muslims are two nations and can't live together, please continue to live in your self-created narrow minded bubbles. Rest of us are happy having friends from all religions, sharing smiles and tears together, enriching our lives with diversity. . Sincerely
@Pakistani: Agreed completely. I don't care about Indian Muslims any more than any other Indian. I was born after 1947 and the TNT talk is just nonsense for me. Just accept it and move on. I am a son of Pakistan's soil - as such we don't think of ourselves as Indian at We know our history in many empires. It's only Muhajirs who originate in India who talk about TNT in Pakistan. Go ask a Pashtun, Baluchi, Sindi or Punjabi if they ever question partition. They would rather be with Iran or independent province than to be part of India or Sri Lanka.
Author - As someone who claims to be a liberal, have the grace to accept the election results, Also stop diiding Indians on the basis of religion- that is anything but liberal. @Parvez: Well said. And why just the 600 million poor, it is about 125 crore Indians as Modi always says.
@Jahangir Chauhan: If it was so why didn't all Muslims in India go back to Pakistan? why is India having third largest Muslim population in the world after Pakistan?, why they stayed back 67 years after creation of Pakistan?. At the time of creation of Pakistan Indian Muslim population was greater than that of Pakistan? Why Why Why?
We had enough of non sense about this author ,its high time Vij leaves the country . We are sick and tired of his rants and useless articles .
Pakistan Zindabad.
@Indian: please read 1937 congress lead government and their attitude and atrocities towards muslims they lead muslims towards getting a separate homeland don't forget Quid-e-azam was once a congressman and supporter of unity of Hindu Muslim in sub-continent, By blaming everything on other side you will never realize the true nature what happened and why Muslim of India took such a big decision back then.
The author needs to permanently settle down in Pakistan or any other country of his choice, Majority of Indians are democratically voted for Modi, his performance will be gauged in 3 years time and if unsatisfactory then people of India will elect a new leader. The author Indian commenting on the Prime minister of the country that too in such a derogatory manner will not be tolerated. Indian courts are capable enough to punish Mr. Modi if found guilty. I request the author don't play the same record again and again its boring. I would like to tell the author Times are changing.
Two Nation theory or Many nation theory in the world can only be negated by LIBERALS. Only few dare to be LIBERALS, a LIBERAL person is the person closest to god and nearest to truth, in other words LIBERAL person is ABSOLUTE TRUTH(HAQ).
@Mega: If yours and his elecorates perception of him becomes truue, then the status of your Ram should be upgraded to that of Zeuss! By the way yours constitution is the implant of French constitution, established after the French revolution. Sorry, I am not aware of the Indian revolution?
Rex Minor
@dr Junaid Tipu: @Mujahid Hussain:
Modi's is a classic manipulation by the media houses. They told you he was a bad man, they didn't tell you this bad man made sure there weren't any riots in his Communally sensitive state for 13 straight years!
They told you he is a fanatic, a Pakistani hater. What is the first thing he does when appointed PM? Invite all neighbouring countries to India, together, under the banner of SAARC.
The same kind of lies were told about Gandhi and Nehru. It was said they were Hindu nationalists and didn't care for Muslims. Muslims in India even today are grateful for Nehru for protecting them and enshrining their Rights in the Constitution. You know how famous the word Gandhi has become among the masses. Even the actual Gandhi is the most loved Hindu of all time among the Muslims of India.
Your very first prediction that Modi is bad for India-Pakistan was hit for a six. Modi is the best thing to have happened to India, and in time, like the Mahatma and his heir, he will be proved right and fair.
@sensible we are quiet sensible we know him since 14years to have trust he won't destroy india. So no need to worry for us. Our constitution is very strong govt may come and go but no one can change its secular nature. "Perception india doesn't want good for Pakistan" wrong perception undemocratic, fanatic, unstable Pakistan is biggest threat and nightmare to india and its security. india wants democracy in Pakistan be strengthened there and estab non state actors be controlled. Democratic leaders be sole dicider for pakistani civilians. As far as india having negative feeling about pakistan after every peace deal if your country was gifted plane hijack,parliament attack,mumbai,beheading on border,attack on indian consulates in afgan. would your country have good opinion about us? Won't these terror issues and security be national election agenda issues how we tackle them? @np yes rss believed in TNT as that Muslims and Hindus can't live together either they live under them or go back their land as they consider them as forced ancestral converts. Their issue has nothing to do with religion Hinduism. But about how our land was attacked, temples demolished built their mosque and converted people. That's the reason for their hate.
I think rise of Modi is because of poor performance of congress in India. The Indian people have elected a person who has shown better economic performance in his state Gujrat as chief Minister. So it is quite understandable that either it is Pakistan or India, now only those parties and politicians will be elected who will deliver on economic front. As far as the relationship is concerned the political and economic issues need to be resolved in a fair manner which gives a win win situation for both countries otherwise the establishment of both the countries will not allow any political party or government to make a durable and peaceful relationship.
'schadenfreude' is the incorrect word to be used where it is used above. :-)
So what if the slightly Crazy Guy won the election?? Why is everyone making a Mountain out of a Modi Hill??
ET Mods- 3rd attemot. Everything is factual and polite. The author has made several factualy incorrect statements, please allow rebuttal.
@Syed (Indian Muslim): Which Hindus believe in TNT? Considering partition to be a good thing is not the same as believing in TNT. If a country with 80% Hindus believed in TNT, India would not have been a secular nation. I do not think you need to go anywhere because you are entitled to live in India as an equal citizen. As long as you accept living in a plural society, there shokd be no cause for heartburn. Of course if you still crave for return of days when you lived under Muslim rule, then you do have a problem but it is self created,
@Author - for a senior author you have quite a few factual inaccuracies. 1) RSS believes in Akhand Bharat which means they want to reverse partition - certainly not he same as TNT.
2) BJP does not believe in Akhand Bharat( Vajpayee even went o Nishan-e-Pakistan) and have no desire to reverse partition. At the same time they swear by the constitution which is secular. Any secular person cannot believe in the premise of TNT i,e, that Hindus and Muslims are two nations and cannot be yoked together.
3) due to the fear mongering and disinformation media has created about BJP, media has facilitated a Muslim consolidation against BJP. Due to this few Muslim leaders dare to join BJP. Ultimately BJP can only give tickets to those who are member of BJP and it is a very thin slate of candidates they have. Within that they gave tickets to 7 Muslims and all of them lost.
4) the notion that 150 million Muslims have been marginalised is absurd. They have a vote not a veto. In any case they are not the monolith that you depict them to be and several Muslims did vote for BJP. In case you want to figure out why a Muslim may want to vote for BJP, talk to your colleague and senior journalist M.J.Akbar or read his blog about why this person who was a fierce critic of Modi joined BJP and strongly endorses Modi
5) do you bleive in India's constitution which says innocent until proven guilty? If yes, why do you insist on laming Modi for riots even after courts have acuitted him?
6) comparing Rajiv's election after 1984 riots to Modi's election after 2002 riots is false equivalence. Key differences are:
A) in 1984 only Sikhs were killed, in 2002 Hindus and Muslims were killed.
B) Rajiv justified the massacre w ith the 'When a big tree falls'. An attemot was made to imply that Modi did the same with the Action Reaction statement - except he never said it.
C) those responsible for 1984 had not been tried or convicted when Rajiv became PM (oh wait...) whereas those responsile for Godhra have been convicted.
D) Rajiv's role for Delhi riots was never scrutinised whereas Narendra Modi was scrutinised by the highest levels of courts and found o have no role in the riots
E) the police never came out during Delhi riots. In Gujarat riots, dozens of police were killed trying to stop the riots, tens of thousands of preventive arrests were made, assistance from police of neighbouring states was sought but they denied it.
E T is a pro India newspaper. It will allow the the most vile anti Muslim anti Pakistan comments from Indian trolls. But censures comments, sanctimoniously, from others. Non Indians. Simple civilized rebuttals.
@Author: I am a third generation Pakistani. I don't care about who India elected or for the Indian muslims. I also don't care about TNT. The only thing I really care about is the well being of Pakistan and every single Pakistani living in this country. Yes, people like me still exists in this battle of the hawks from both sides.
Take it easy, Vij. Modi's victory appears to have shaken you up.
Maybe you are a Scythian Gypsies who share some similarities with other gypsies across the border.Dont for one instance assume that India wants to do the same.RSS is a patriotic organisation which will not bow down or give Bharat Mata to Muslims or Arabs or Christians or others.Yes, its definitely a blow and a warning to the Muslims in the subcontinent.Dont cross the limits, the Hindu is not going to convert, keep the Owaisi and Jalaludeen on the leash or soon we would have to handle the terror emating from Mekkah.The mandate is clear, India has voted.Sorry Gypsie.
Very good article. I had been trying to visualize how Indian intelligentsia looks at Pakistan's deterioration at multiple fronts. The article makes many things clear in this regard. Also my age old dream of friendship between Pakistan and India, that was weakened after Moodi's victory, is back again. At least there is still ray of hope for it. I would love to know more about India's general perception about this much-hoped-for friendship.
RSS belives in TNT? Really? It actually believes in Akhand Bharat which is the opposite of TNt. BJP does not subscribe to Akhand Bharat but it swears by the secular constitution of India which is inconsistent with the notion that Hindus and Muslims are two nations who cannot live together.
The biggest validation of TNT lies in the desperation with which some seek to validate it. You are different if you think you are. That's all the logic, justification and validation of TNT that there is.
Before complaining about our schadenfreude-Ness you should take a brief look at the comment sections of times of India , first post , India today and so on. This game of hate is mastered by Indians not Pakistanis. Please keep that in mind. Pakistan is made the scapegoat in all you election speeches everytime one has to gain poltical mileage blame Pakistan. You will never see this in our main stream politics that India is to be blamed or used as scapegoat. We talk peace while you talk hate so please take a look at yourself and understand why a common Pakistani gets irritated when they read your media.
Shivam, I have followed many of your writings on here. You have pointed out something very rightly. Unfortunately, some in our Pakistani media have only expressed their inner frustration over Modi;s victory in the form of such bold statements as Jinnahs vindication. However, there are many in Pakistan, like in India, who still do not feel happy over terrible things happening in the neighbouring nation. We feel our neighbouring nation has picked a government freely, so we hope it serves them better! That's just about it................
It looks like Pakistani muslims are very happy with two nation theory. And it sounds like many Hindus also believe in TNT. Only the Indian Muslims are caught in the middle nowhere to go. At least the tiny Pakistani Hindu minority is slowly migrating to India.
Pakistanis have done everything possible to make the situation of Indian muslims much worse since 1947. But majority of Hindus are secular including many who voted for BJP. That is the consolation.
Dear Shivam,
There are some points I would like to comment on:
Two Nation Theory: some people in Pakistan still say that Pakistan was ceated by Nehru and Gandhi rather than Jinnah. If you refer to resolutions of the cabinet mission plan the demand from Jinnah was of a loose federation.Till 1938 there was no solid demand of Pakistan creation. By the way Jinnah wad himself a member of congress till 1930. It was only after the first government of Congress in late 1930s that Muslims came to realize how cruel a Hindu majority government could be. Another alternative view of creation of Pakistan was that Muslim league supported feudalism and thus members of Unionist party ( mostly muslim feudals) came into Muslim league and got the votes for muslim league and Pakistan. 1.
Nobody gets happy In Pakistan at BJP'S rule for the reasons you mentioned but yes Modi's rise does remind Pakistanis whu Pakistan was necessary! 2.p
Its about perception. People in Pakistan believe India does not want anything good for Pakistan. And sadly that can be observed in what India says, thinks and does. Thus when someone like Modi gets elected people in Pakistan tend to think 'oeps thats a mistake by Indians' and now they (indians) will bear the consequences. This is bexause Pakistani know extremism omly reaults in more problems and modi is an extremist; unfortunately.1.1.2.
The author makes some excellent points, but misses the obvious: the solution to the two-nation theory problem is the intelligent use of diplomacy missions. The recent course-correction measures taken by the Pakistani foreign office are a good example. By letting the Indian foreign office apparatus repeatedly enter and exit and then forcefully inject a dose of warm foreign policy right through the Pakistani backdoor, both parties have benefited immensely. Such steps must be respected (and facilitated) by the educated middle class in both countries.
Lastly, the RSS-BJP also believe in the Two-Nation Theory. That is why Jaswant Singh and LK Advani love Jinnah.
Am terribly confused. Which one does the RSS-BJP believe, Akhand Bharat or Two-Nation-Theory (TNT)?
Good one .. Nice reply to Mr asad Khan.
Dear Mr. Shivam Vij, I actually like your writeup, not sure how much "love" you would wakeup to tommorow when the comments start pouring in :) You see rational takes a leave and emotions lead when it comes to the subject of India and Pakistan.
What happened in past is one thing, but what we are doing to our countries and countrymen now is more important and relevant. Opinion wont change too soon, but we can hope that emotions would eventually give way to sense and sensibility.
The end result of M. A. Jinnah's political project -- Pakistan -- is that today what could have been a 510 million strong Indian Muslim population in United India is now roughly 180 million Indian Muslims, 180 million Pakistani Muslims, and 150 million Bangladeshi Muslims.
This forever destroyed their potential power and influence in a United India. It also made them forever suspected and distrusted by many Indian Hindus as potential traitors to India.
Anyone -- especially Pakistani nationalists who love Jinnah -- who seriously thinks of the interests of Indian Muslims in all of the Indian subcontinent has a lot to answer for as to whether the Partition of India actually was in the long-term collective interests of all South Asian Muslims.
Can someone tell this guy we are most irritated with his useless rants every now and then
Sir, Actually it is 3 nation theory.