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A very eloquent Pakistani speaker, and very eloquently wrong.
He said that while no Pakistani speaker questioned the rationale of India, he was disappointed by Indian speakers who questioned the rationale of Pakistan.//So far so good// He said that India was made independent for the first time as a country in that form, as a country that had never existed before. Earlier, he said, India was a region, never a country. He said that there were 562 states, and that none of them had in themselves encompassed the entire area that India as she achieved independence. Therefore he said, it was wrong to say that Pakistan was carved out of India. It was wrong because there was no India for Pakistan to be carved out of. Pakistan and India were therefore two states created simultaneously, and with equal rationale.
This is something that has been put forward with great conviction by Pakistani statesmen, diplomats and now debating politicians through the many decades that Pakistan has existed. It was wrong when it was first put forward; it is wrong today and it will be wrong in future as well.
Whether India existed in the past or not in the form that she exists today is one question, and whether Pakistan is a successor state to the former British Crown Colony or not is a different question. The second, Pakistan's successor status, does not depend on whether or not there was exactly the same formation of territory known as India before the Dominion of India was created by the British act of Parliament that brought the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan into existence.
As far as the first argument is concerned, there was no country in exactly the same shape as modern Austria at any time in history. By the honourable Senator's logic, there is nothing to link this Austria with the former territories or states that took the name of Austria. There was no country that was in exactly the same shape as Hungary exists today. Here, too, we should then conclude that there is no legitimacy and no link between Hungary today and the historical Hungary that existed at various times in the past, The most extreme example would be the state of Poland; it was, by various treaties at various times in history, shifted physically a few hundred miles from east to west, and occupies nothing like the territory that she occupied at different times in the past when she was known as Poland.
I hope that these will answer the good Senator's point at least partially. I could go on in this vein, and give you examples a plenty, including, just for the heck of it, ANY state in the so-called Middle East. NONE of them existed with the same dimensions as they occupy today, with the possible exceptions of Iraq and Iran. So exactly what? This argument is so shallow and so silly that it is tiresome to see somebody so apparently mature and balanced as the Senator resorting to it to make a point, any point. He should ponder on one last example that explodes his smug little thesis into a zillion fragments, the example of Pakistan's all-weather friends. Did the people's republic of China exist in this form ever before in her history?
With this, perhaps we can move on to the second question, of whether or not Pakistan was an equal successor state as India. It is not. There is no point in the Senator waxing eloquent; that is as good a proof as an eminent - a pre-eminent - minister in India who got up the other day and informed a stunned audience of medical practitioners that the story of Karna, the mythical character from the Mahabharata, proved the existence of test tube babies and of artificial insemination in that ancient hoary time. Let us return from the land of fairy tale and creation myth to law and its interpretation.
The simple fact that legal authorities take into consideration when asked on this point, as they have been asked not once but many times before, is the fact that is contained within the India Independence Act. It will be rewarding for those pondering this question to glance rapidly through it. It states there, clearly, without ambiguity, without the possibility of doubt, that British India was being given independence as the Dominion of India, except for defined parts that were separated out as the Dominion of Pakistan.
Didn't get it?
The UNO did. Using the same logic as the Senator, Zafarullah Khan put it to the UNO that Pakistan should get the same privileges and rights as India, as these were both equal successor states (India the British Crown Colony was a separate member of the UNO from Great Britain, and this seat in the UN was the subject of discussion - Pakistan was being told that she would have to apply for membership and the Pakistani delegation felt that she had already acquired membership by being created on the same day as India). The UN disagreed. Much to Zafarullah Khan's dismay, the ruling was that the Dominion of India was the sole successor state of the British Crown Colony; the Dominion of Pakistan was a new creation formed out of the territory of the British Crown Colony, therefore not an automatic successor to the UN seat. Pakistan had to apply again and got her membership with effortless ease. The point about successor state was set right at that time itself, and there is no need for us to re-visit every decade or so in the hope that this time around the facts might miraculously re-align themselves in Pakistan's favour.
Sorry, Javed Jabbar. Nothing personal.
PS: @FaujHistorian : what I said in no way affects Pakistan's right to exist. Pakistan's strongest right to exist is the will of the people of Pakistan to stay as a country, the country of Pakistan. All the rest is legal quibbling. However, within these legal quibbles, the India Independence Act is as good a starting point as another; it very clearly and definitely defines the territory of Pakistan and makes it clear that it is a state with all the responsibility and privileges of a state, at that time, a Dominion under the Crown. There is no quibble about that.