The War That Made India a Great Power (and Destroyed Pakistan)

National Interest Magazine ^ | Dec. 16, 2016 | Michael Peck

[BobL]

This is what happens when you chop a nation in half.

Before December 3, 1971, Pakistan was a country suffering from a split personality disorder. When British India became independent in 1947, the country was divided into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The problem was that East Pakistan and West Pakistan were almost a thousand miles apart, and wedged in between them was archenemy India. Imagine if the United States only consisted of the East Coast and West Coast, and Russia controlled all of North America in between.

Thirteen days later, Pakistan had been amputated. Indian troops had conquered East Pakistan, which became the new nation of Bangladesh. More than ninety thousand Pakistani soldiers were taken prisoner, half the Pakistani Navy had been sunk and the Indian Air Force came out on top. It was total humiliation, and not just for Pakistan. The United States and Britain sent aircraft carriers in a futile attempt to intimidate India, and ended up facing off against Soviet warships. Pakistan’s defeat also spurred its rulers to begin development of nuclear weapons.

[DJ Taylor]

"The world would be a better and safer place today if Pakistan had never been created, and the Muslims currently living there had simply remained a minority in India."

One look at world history will show you that no country with a diverse population of different races, languages, and religion has long survived. Countries don’t naturally form with a diverse population, and when in the past they’ve occurred it’s usually been as a result of armed conquest, as was India.

These unnaturally formed countries have either melded together into a single population made up of one mixed race with one language and one religion or they’ve come apart, and they’ve usually come apart with extreme violence. The longer these diverse populations were forced to coexist with one another without mixing and becoming one, the more the hatred grew among them and the more violently they broke apart, but break apart they did, or genocide has settled the issue once and for all.

One way or the other, India will either become completely Muslim, or it will become completely Hindu, but there is little possibility of India maintaining the current mixture indefinitely.

[PilotDave]

I’m in Dehli now. Incredible.

[YogicCowboy]

Agreed.

The vaunted Gandhi and Churchill were wrong.

[hanamizu]

Consider this. Indians and Pakistanis/Bangladeshis are the same “race” with similar history, language etc., etc. The only difference is religion. Yet I have heard of no country that has a problem with Indian immigrants (save perhaps Fiji). Pakistanis/Bangladeshis on the other hand are labeled in Britain as ‘Asians’ and are the ones that have the rape gangs and the no-go areas. I have to wonder why that is.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

The Genocide the U.S. Can’t Remember, But Bangladesh Can’t Forget

I thought genocide was an ethnic cleansing act. My guess is that people in Bangladesh share much of the same genomes found in India. I think the killing is more along the "religious" lines, if one can find Islam counts as a religion. The Muslims brought this on themselves with their historic brutality of Infidels.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

The Genocide the U.S. Can’t Remember, But Bangladesh Can’t Forget

I thought genocide was an ethnic cleansing act. My guess is that people in Bangladesh share much of the same genomes found in India. I think the killing is more along the "religious" lines, if one can find Islam counts as a religion. The Muslims brought this on themselves with their historic brutality of Infidels.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

The Genocide the U.S. Can’t Remember, But Bangladesh Can’t Forget

I thought genocide was an ethnic cleansing act. My guess is that people in Bangladesh share much of the same genomes found in India. I think the killing is more along the "religious" lines, if one can find Islam counts as a religion. The Muslims brought this on themselves with their historic brutality of Infidels.

[Chode]

100%

[Sequoyah101]

And Pakistan and India are separated by a huge and very effective border fence, a wall if you will, for the entire length of their borders.

But I guess you already know this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033886/India-Pakistan-border-visible-space.html

[sukhoi-30mki]

I’d have to go with Fred here. Partition, as bad as it was, was inevitable. Look at the kind of trouble India has had with Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim majority state. You’d have to multiply that by a factor of four or five if India stayed undivided (Hyderabad, Bengal, Punjab, Junagadh spring to mind).

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/swaminathan-s-a-aiyar/independence-day-why-partition-was-a-good-thing-for-india/articleshow/15497403.cms

[Cronos]

Interesting In fact, what the U.S. Navy accomplished was to chill U.S.-Indian relations for years.

Kissinger was definitely not the great diplomat he was supposed to be