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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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RETREAT AND RAGE |
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joint electorates could have left some space for a Muslim political
community if there were a sufficiently large number of
Muslim-majority constituencies in independent India. But outside
Jammu and Kashmir, there are only two such parliamentary
constituencies in the whole of the Union of India.
Muslim nationalism found its fulfilment in the formation of Pakistan if anything so artificial (it was all along propped up by the Raj) and so negative (it arose out of the fear of Hindu domination in free India) could find fulfilment. Inevitably that fulfilment marked its demise not only in India, where the necessary conditions for its rise and growth inevitably disappeared but also in Pakistan. For Pakistan has been an utter failure in terms of the ideology of Muslim nationalism. Within a couple of years of the
establishment of Pakistan, the Punjabi identity asserted itself over
Islamic universalism, provoking the assertion of language-based
Bangla cultural identity which culminated in a sovereign Bangladesh
in 1971 20. Incidentally, this was
the first case of a country breaking up under the weight of its own
contradictions after the Second World War. |
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