Talk:Opposition to the Partition of India

What qualifies as "Opposition to Partition"?

This needs to be decided that what qualifies as Opposition to Partition since many individuals here are mentioned as the ones who opposed the partition, however they never did so in actual. Grief, sadness over migration and leaving homeland of ancestors, violence, riots during partition, dissatisfaction and disagreement with the direction of Pakistani government later on cannot be counted as opposition to partition. USaamo ^(t@lk) 18:12, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I support this view. Also, the article has no substance. Only a bunch of quotes. Kautilya3 can help out, probably. TrangaBellam (talk) 13:56, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I think everything can be counted as opposition. I agree that the article is not exactly readable, but it is a hard topic to write about. If people can at least see that the partition was a stupid idea, maybe they will refrain from doing more stupid stuff. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:14, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

That it was a "stupid idea" is of course entirely subjective, as is the bulk of this "article"... Mar4d (talk) 16:30, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 the real problem is that most Pakistanis don't see it as a stupid idea; it is just your opinion, and is baseless. Meluhacentrist (talk) 02:36, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Edit

Kautilya3 Can you explain this edit? The long quote given in the source shows that, according to the author, partition was opposed for many reasons, not just one.VR _talk 20:00, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

The quote said "Furthermore, cleaving India into independent Muslim and Hindu states would be geographically inconvenient for millions of Muslims." That is not a description of the partition. The partition only cleaved India into Muslim-majority and Hindu-majority regions. India was never a "Hindu state".

In general, your summarisation was off the mark, trying to highlight the least important parts of the quote and omitting the more important parts at the front. The fact they believed that India should a "secular, unified state" is nowhere in your description. I don't see you acknowledging that Indian Muslims are secularists. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:08, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

The source says "Furthermore, cleaving India into independent Muslim and Hindu states would be geographically inconvenient for millions of Muslims. Those living in the middle and southern regions of India could not conveniently move to the new Muslim state because it required travel over long distances and considerable financial resources. In particular, many lower-class Muslims opposed partition because they felt that a Muslim state would benefit only upper-class Muslims." I agree that "lower-class Muslims opposed partition because they felt that a Muslim state would benefit only upper-class Muslims" is one reason given by the source. But "geographical inconvenience" (which the source explains as "[Muslims] living in the middle and southern regions of India could not conveniently move to the new Muslim state because it required travel over long distances and considerable financial resources") is another reason. Why not give both of these reasons?

Another major problem with your edit is you have generalized this to "the common Indian Muslims", whereas the source clearly says "many Indian Muslims". In fact, Indian Muslims are a diverse group and you can't stereotype them.VR _talk 01:05, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Vice regent, I am not the author of this content and neither did I find this source. Personally, I don't believe this is a WP:HISTRS anyway. It is just some random policy report written decades after the event for some other random purpose.

Those Muslims who might have supported the "Pakistan" idea in 1946 elections did not expect that Pakistan would be somewhere else and they would be asked to move there. They rather expected a Pakistan to happen wherever they lived. I remember reading a comment from Aligarh to the effect, "how can Pakistan happen and Aligarh not be in it?". So they never had any intention of "going" to Pakistan. Rather they expected Pakistan to "come to them". Theirs was a completely different idea of Pakistan, which the Muslim elites neither understood nor paid any attention to.

But the Muslim elites never expected that the Indian Muslims would pack up and move to Pakistan anyway. If they did, Pakistan would have collapsed immediately. They knew that fully well. The whole Pakistan thing became feasible only because India was secular and the Indian Muslims were comfortable with that secularism. Pakistan found it difficult to accommodate even the Muslims of Punjab who were being driven out as part of the partition trauma. They repeatedly accused India of deliberately driving out those Muslims in order to "bring down Pakistan". So the idea of all of India's Muslims moving to Pakistan is so absurd that we cannot suggest that it was even a remote possibility. It never was. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:26, 17 July 2021 (UTC)