In August 1947, India and Pakistan gained their independence, and the process took place ostensibly without violence and in cooperation with the colonial state, but the differences that colonialism sowed after 75 years are still poisoning the relations between them.
With this sentence, the Swiss newspaper Lotan (LeTemps) summarized a report by Etienne Mayer Facheran, in which he said that the countries of the Indian continent gained their independence by fighting on the battlefields, noting that the saying of a senior politician at the time that India showed the world that peoples can achieve independence without resorting to To force, it was an attempt to disguise the opposing visions tearing apart the movement for the independence of the British colony.
The newspaper's report indicated that the provincial elections in January of that year did indeed result in the disintegration of the British Indian Empire, with the Muslim League winning the provinces that would become Pakistan and East Pakistan, while the Congress Party won the other provinces, with the partition taking effect after more than one year. A little general.
hasty breakup
In an effort to preserve their interests in a region where they could no longer assert control, the British agreed to decolonize after World War II, and the process was quickly completed under pressure from the Indian National Congress, which launched the Quit India movement for immediate independence.
As for the British representative, he saw achieving independence as soon as possible to avoid civil war, at a time when violent tensions between Muslims and Hindus began to erupt, exacerbated for years by colonial policy that drew the line in a few weeks.
A seemingly peaceful transition
It seemed that the transition was peaceful and independence was declared, but thorny issues to be settled remained outstanding, such as the separation between India and Pakistan in the provinces of Punjab and Bengal, as well as the merger of princely states that are not owned by Britain, and from these issues arose the conflicts that are still open today.
The division of the Indian empire has led to the displacement of more than 12 million people, and violence between Muslims and Hindus has killed 200,000 according to some sources, and even now, after 75 years, Hindu minorities in Pakistan and Muslim minorities in India are still subject to regular violence, especially that The right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in India turns a blind eye to this violence and even participates in it.
An open front and a nuclear weapon
In 1998, the two countries conducted nuclear tests, and today they are still in a state of lurking armed conflict in the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, whose Hindu leader joined India, which helped him militarily against the Pakistani-backed insurgency, which led to the outbreak of the First Indo-Pakistan War, and the division of the region between The two countries a few months after independence.
The newspaper concluded that these tensions are not about to end, as evidenced by the attack on an Indian camp a few days ago, and by India's glorification of Hindu independence figures and criticism of Gandhi or Nehru, because of their conciliatory stance towards the Muslim population and the British authorities.