Partition

Subject: Partition 

I'm reading a fascinating account of the chaos when hasty decisions were made by the British to leave their governing role in India and hand over power to the Indian/Pakistan people. The assumptions made and the ridiculous time scale to implement the withdrawal speaks volumes of the decisions made by leaders and the bureaucracies which support them. In Indias case the demands made by local politicians for a separate political entitlement based on religious observance meant that people were uprooted and shifted from where they had lived their lives to a place designated in West Punjab and East Bengal where the Muslims, from all over India were made to settle with the Muslim population in these areas. Bureaucratic attempts to split the assets asserted to belong to the Muslim and those belonging to the Hindu resulted in lists of petty items, typewriters, table lamps, ink pot stands, paperweights all the paraphernalia of an office broken down and allocated. The mind boggles to imagine the task and the petty way that the act of Partition was viewed especially the segregation of human beings into two camps one to be transported away into what was to them the unknown. The blame for the mayhem and bloodshed which followed with millions losing their lives as communities learnt to look for the differences and label them after generations of getting alone was traumatic and the British and particularly Mountbatten the Viceroy charged with the job came in for much of the blame. But really the political/religious forces on the subcontinent, Muslims led by Mr Jinnah, the Hindu led by Mr Nehru were the local leadership which pushed the ideological program forward. The local enmity which flared up within communities was governed by that thin tread of acceptance humans are prone to, to make life work. The differences are accepted for what they are but they are always differences rooted in religion and culture. These forces of identification are what lie embedded in our psych and it takes much more than a political fiat to irradiate.
All countries across the globe are experiencing, to different degrees, this force of a mixed culture rebelling and wishing to emphasise who specific individuals are outside the bureaucratic straitjacket allocated by political diktat. The rise of far rights political strength is evident in Italy, Germany, France the USA and also in this country under Boris Johnson. The natant nationalism is born of identity and a realisation that the globalised multicultural mix, whilst economically acceptable, even necessary, given the present day mix of our various populations it's a thin line to tread since the customs and religiosity which is fundamental in one section of our community isn't in the other. The demands made for the respect of customs and beliefs places a huge pressure on the people who see these customs and beliefs as alien to their own and in some cases directly in opposition to the traditions in what could be assumed the host country. Even the term 'host country' becomes obscured by the rights of a second and even third generations growing up with their strong alignment to their community and its values.
The Partition of India should teach us a salutary lesson. Ideological contempt, particularly when it is politically driven is fraught with a potential backlash when people's allegiance is assumed