The creation of Pakistan is a direct result of the long history, and withdrawal,
of British imperial colonialism in India. The ideologies concerning creating
such a state were divided between those who “sympathized with the idea of a
distinct Muslim identity and the need to protect and preserve it” and “those who
either stood for a united India or did not see the need for a separate state for
Muslims” [1] Another very important international event occurring at this period
in history which shared similarities to, and added international support to the
creation of a Pakistani-Muslim state, was the partitioning of Palestine and the
creation of the modern nation-state of Israel.
While Pakistan was
established as a religious state, based on a Muslim population, the creation of
the nation-state of Israel was a state created for an ethnic group with a
religion attached to it. Both partitions and state creations caused violence and
displacement. Interesting enough, “Pakistan celebrated its independence on 14
August and India on 15 August 1947” [2].
One of the strongest individual
proponents of the two-state solution was Muhammad Ali Jinnah, known in Muslim
circles as Quaid-e-Azam or ‘great leader’, who “organized the campaign that
compelled both the British and the Indian National Congress to concede to the
demand for the state of Pakistan” [3]. After the partitioning and independence,
after the British withdrawal, of India and Pakistan there was a wave of bloody
violence which “was accompanied by the largest mass migration in human history
of some 10 million. As many as one million civilians died in the accompanying
riots and local-level fighting, particularly in the western region of Punjab
which was cut in two by the border” [4].
One of the largest issues was
the problem of heavy populations of Muslims left outside of the newly created
Pakistani state borders after the partition. Many more Muslim people “were left
behind in India than were incorporated into the new state of Pakistan - a state
created in two halves, one in the east (formerly East Bengal, now Bangladesh)
and the other 1,700 kilometres away on the western side of the subcontinent”
[5]. The exact numbers of casualties caused by the mass violence that erupted in
the aftermath of the partitions are debatable, but “Estimates range from around
200,000 to one-and-a-half million” with “at least 13 million refugees, out of
which 10 million from Punjab alone, comprising four and half million non-Muslims
and five and half million Muslims” [6]. The history books also show a great
amount of rape and violence against woman during this time period:
“Approximately 75,000 women have been raped and/or abducted across the two sides
of the new border, placing them as the first victims of the Partition Massacres”
[7].
While the history of Pakistan is one of the bloodiest examples, the
emergence of violence in the political vacuum left by British colonial
withdrawal was not a single phenomenon during the 20th century as Imperialism
shifted from colonialism to globalization.
[1] Abdullah Adnan,
“Pakistan: Creation and Genesis,” Muslim World 96, no. 2 (2006): 201.
[2] Crispen Bates, “”The Hidden Story of Partition and its Legacies”,
BBC, March 3, 2011,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/partition1947_01.shtml
[3]
Abdullah Adnan, “Pakistan: Creation and Genesis,” Muslim World 96, no. 2 (2006):
204.
[4] Crispen Bates, “”The Hidden Story of Partition and its
Legacies”, BBC, March 3, 2011,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/partition1947_01.shtml
[5]
Crispen Bates, “”The Hidden Story of Partition and its Legacies”, BBC, March 3,
2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/partition1947_01.shtml
[6] Lionel Baixas, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, Chronological
Index: Thematic Chronology of Mass Violence in Pakistan, 1947-200, Accessed on
June 4, 2013 from
http://www.massviolence.org/Thematic-Chronology-of-Mass-Violence-in-Pakistan-1947-2007
[7] Lionel Baixas, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, Chronological
Index: Thematic Chronology of Mass Violence in Pakistan, 1947-200, Accessed on
June 4, 2013 from
http://www.massviolence.org/Thematic-Chronology-of-Mass-Violence-in-Pakistan-1947-2007
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