Rajmohan Gandhi on why we are all wearing the same pair of chaddis

When India became independent, some Communist nutters pretended it was still a slave to the Capitalist West. They were wrong. 

Similarly, some people pretended India was not a Hindu nation from which the Muslims had separated- if it was possible for them to do so. On the other hand, the notion that Tamils wanted a separate State did turn out to be a chimera as did the presumption that Indians wanted Soviet style Socialism or Gandhian type gobshiterry. 

Rajmohan Gandhi- now doing 'Research' in Illinois- writes in the Indian Express

What took place in August 1947 was emphatically not the creation of two nations,

Yes it was. In the previous year, Hindus had voted overwhelmingly for Congress, which Gandhi, in 1939, had described as a High Caste Hindu Party, while Muslims voted overwhelmingly for the Muslim League which was committed to the creation of Pakistan. Some stupid Dalits did, it is true, support JN Mandal who supported the Muslim League. But Mandal and his people were chased away from independent Pakistan.

 one Hindu and the other Muslim. 

This was a thorough going separation. Non-Muslims did not want to live under Muslim domination and vice versa though, no doubt, a much bigger number of Muslims were left on the wrong side of the border. They were condemned to sink politically and economically decade after subsequent decade. 

It was only the separation of contiguous Muslim-majority areas in the subcontinent’s north-west and east. 

That is all any partition is. The American Revolution was merely the separation of contiguous areas on the North American continent where the Rebels dominated. The loyalist areas became Canada. Similarly, Irish independence involved the partition of contiguous areas where Protestants predominated and the Treaty of Lausanne involved population exchange on the basis of religion such that Turkey received Muslims on the wrong side of the border while Greece received Christian refugees. 

Later, Pakistan indeed chose to become an Islamic nation,

As did Bangladesh. But Pakistan was ab ovo Islamic. It was created by the Muslim League.

 yet India remained a nation for all, 

except Muslims who had crossed the border in panic. A 1948 Act stripped them off citizenship.

with equal rights, firmly entrenched in its Constitution, for all its citizens, irrespective of religion (or race, gender or caste).

but non-Hindus expressed separatist sentiments wherever they dominated. Furthermore, India degenerated into an dynastic autocracy- tempered, it is true, by assassination. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has blamed Partition on Nehru. 

He blamed Nehru's ambition. The fact that Congress was in a hurry to get power meant that it agreed to Radcliffe drawing lines on the map. 

Assigning sole or main responsibility for that painful event to Nehru lacks any historical basis.

But is not as crazy as saying that partition did not validate the two nation theory. The fact is two nations did in fact come into existence. It is also a fact that Congress was greedy for power and showed scant regard for the plight of those who would be caught on the wrong side of the border. 

 It should be recognised, moreover, that if Partition had not occurred, all the residents of today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh would have been free to move to any corner of today’s India.

Where their throats would have been slit if they belonged to the wrong religion.

This should be realised by persons like Union minister G Kishan Reddy of the BJP who claimed, on February 9, that if Indian citizenship was offered, half the population of Bangladesh would migrate to India.

As opposed to Bengalis migrating the fuck away from Mamta's tyranny. Bangladesh did the sensible thing- viz. get rural girls into factory dormitories- and has pulled ahead of Pakistan and parts of India.

Who should be held responsible for Partition is not this article’s theme. 

Mahatma Gandhi's unilateral surrender in 1922 made Partition inevitable. 

Nor am I focusing here on movements or migrations of people.

Because that was what actually happened. This cretin prefers to focus on fantasy.

 My purpose is to recall that though the two-nation theory was indeed advanced by the Muslim League after March 1940 and by the Hindu Mahasabha from 1937, India’s 1947 partition did not validate the two-nation theory.

Though two Nations did indeed come into existence. Sadly, reality don't validate shit for Rajmohan coz he really is fucked in the head.

 It should also be remembered that the Constitution of India adopted at the end of 1949 totally rejected that theory.

Nope. It completely confirmed it. Muslims lost everything previously conceded to them. Cow protection became a Directive Principle. India, that is Bharat, has Hindi in Devanagari as its official language. Many Muslims lost citizenship. The first President had been a member of the Hindu Mahasabha. The Hindu triumph was so complete and Muslims so wholly marginalized that politics was about the progressive Hindus pushing back against the orthodox. 

Ignorance about one another is a reality in almost every society. 

As is ignorance of reality.

So is prejudice about groups different from ours.

As well as prejudice against our own- which is what might want us to do 'research' far far away

 But the history of human beings is, among other things, a story of growing awareness that all of us are the same underneath.

Moreover, we are all wearing the same pair of chaddis- right? 

When a Korean movie wins the Oscar in the US, 

it tells us something about American politics- viz. that it has become deeply divisive. 

when people of Asian descent hold powerful political positions in several countries in Europe and North America,

because they have become thoroughly assimilated. Priti Patel isn't prancing around in a Sari. Rishi Sunak aint doing Satyagraha against BoJo.  

when Indian-Americans not only win seats in the US Congress but hope, one day, to send an Indian to the White House, something like the two-nation theory can only be seen as a relic from a retrograde past.

No it can't. It is clear that Pakistan and Afghanistan are on a very different trajectory to Hindu majority area. 

Long ago, people indeed thought that other tribes, races, religious groups or castes were inferior, or superior, or menacing, or an easy target. We know better today.

No we don't. Either China is superior to India and will take Arunachal and gain access to Indian markets by brute force or else India- with or without allies- will prove it isn't inferior. 

It is important to find out if we are inferior in some field so that we can imitate those who are superior. Equally, if we have a superiority in some field, we must build further 'acquired advantage' upon it. 

The two-nation theory has to be rejected not only categorically but also thoroughly.

But that won't change the fact that the country will have to defend itself against Pakistan and its terrorist proxies.  

It is not enough to agree that as between Indian citizens no law can discriminate against anyone on religious grounds.

Though the Law does indeed do so. 

 Denying a path to citizenship to immigrants of a particular religion is an unconcealed expression of the two-nation theory, 

No. In 1948, it was explicitly stated and enacted that Muslims who had gone to Pakistan could not return to reclaim Citizenship or property. Rajmohan is simply lying his head off. The two nation theory was accepted by both his grandfathers. On the other hand a reckless disregard for the truth may well be a hereditary trait. 

apart from being a violation of the constitutional and human principle of equality.

There is no such principle. Equality under the law does not mean that the law itself must be equal. I and Prince Andrew are equally subjects of British Law. But I am not, by reason of birth, in the line of succession to the throne. 

Applied today to immigrants, the theory will be directed tomorrow against fellow-citizens whose ancestors were Indians several hundred years ago. 

That happened in July 1948. What triggered it was the return of some refugees from Lahore. The Constituent Assembly quickly passed a law stripping such people of citizenship even though their ancestors were indigenous for thousands of years. The reason given for this move was simply that the property the refugees had left behind was needed to accommodate those flooding in. There had been an exchange of population following the establishment of two nations. Pretending this did not happen is simply silly. 

Eventually, it will set neighbour against neighbour. It should be given no sustenance whatsoever, not even in the name of succour for the persecuted.

Why stop there? Why not deny that India ever became Independent? How could it have been colonized? There can only be one Nation on Earth. Indeed, we are all actually just one person wearing the same pair of chaddis. At any rate, this is the conclusion Rajmohan's further 'research' in Illinois will lead him to.