Malang:
First off - I have not argued that Pakistan is a nation while India is not. I have argued that there was no such thing as a "One India nation" prior to 1947.
What is your definition of a nation?
AM you are venturing into a philosophical realm...
All descriptive names given by historians to a region. Nothing that validates a single nation. The Roman, Greek, Mongol and Islamic empires stretched far as well - but that cannot be used as justification for "one nation" constituting the lands that one comprised those empires, unless the people of those lands agree to such unions.
again Nationalism and nation are concepts which are ambiguous and open to critique...
For me India was always a nation.
Provinces do not have their own kings emperors and Armies that go to war with each other to destroy the other and expand an empire. The British created adminsitrative units and sub-units just like teh Greeks did. Neither of the two empires is justification of any single nation on the lands they encompassed.
Why is that? It was always the Kings who wanted to expand power, even today the provinces and the regional leaders try to assert themselves.
Nationalism, Regionalism etc. are all very abstract concepts and apply to each individual selectively.
Like you cannot fathom India to have been a nation using your intellect the same way an Indian possibly cannot fathom why Hindus on conversion to Islam felt themselves to be a different nationality?
That is the logic you are using to justify "one historical India". I am arguing that Pakistan and India were created out of the union of many peoples, combined into two large entities. Empire or colonial administrative units do not define "one nation" in my book - they merely constitute the occupation and subjugation of a people through force.
as I have said Nationalism as a doctrine is open to interpretation what makes Pakistanis Pakistani? what makes Indian Indians? why an Indian is more attached to his motherland though he may be born somewhere else?
These are abstract concepts and have subjective application even on an individual level.
Rubbish - if there were no Muslims in the sub-continent then who knows what shape history would have taken. What if there were no Hindus in the subcontinent? You cannot merely remove one enormous chain of events from history and come to whatever fanciful conclusion fits your whims.
Let me rephrase it, Partition happened because of religious affiliation/loyalty.
Cultures and people evolve - there is nothing unnatural about it, it is how the world works, and in the subcontinent this led to its own set of events.
Agreed but the unique thing about India is that it is able to assimilate foreign influences, modernity yet retain an Indian character. (Famous authors say this line often).
And I clarified at the beginning that my reference to the non-existence of an Indian nation only refers to the subcontinent pre 1947.
Please refer to above. Nation, Nationalism are philosophical doctrines fundamentally.
The provinces of Pakistan represent different peoples - when they chose to join Pakistan they became part of one nation.
Different peoples? I think not there is a similarity of tribes, castes, cultures.. there may be variations in language and a few customs but they have a lot of similarity.
I have discussed a few quotes posted by Samudra elsewhere - they constitute nothing more than pandering to a ruling elite and providing divine justification for conquest and enlargement of empire to me.
?
Muslim philosophers and thinkers also postulate Ummah and a pan-Islamic State on similar grounds - both ideas are flawed, so long as the people of the nations concerned do not agree.
The fundamental question is, is religious loyalty/affiliation enought to unite people irresp of their origin in totality.
Rubbish again, so now any community that acts to protect its interests is "elitist" and "egoist". The elitists I see are the ones who come up with fantastical arguments in support of a mythical "one nation" to justify expansionist ideas and land grabbing.
I still don't see poverty being eradicated in any country and the demographic profile suggests that Mohajirs belonged to elite classes even supporters of Pakistan were the Muslim elites.
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan couldn't believe that the subcontinent would not be ruled by Muslims.
Even in the movie Khuda Kay Liye, the actor said we built Taj Mahal, We ruled India for 1000 years, we ruled spain..
who is we? I don't think his ancestors were monglo-turkic.... His identity is Islam and not the land of Pakistan, Pakistan could be anywhere for him.
I would actually look at France, Italy, Germany etc. representing the nations that comprised the subcontinent. The Punjabis, Pashtun, Baluchi, Sindhi, Tamils and Bengalis represent the European States. And these people united to form two large entities of India and Pakistan.
Even in France and Germany you have further subdivisions of peoples.. Punjabis, Sindhis, Mohajirs, Pashtuns and Baluchis are ethno-linguistic groups..
Logic here was making a case earlier of an Indian nation stretching to Indonesia, so he may definitely have shed some tears.
That is his opinion... but that was never the Indian nation..
India to me geologically is all landmass under the Indian tectonic plate(aka the Indian subcontinet) which is different from Eurasian tectonic plate