The Protracted Conflict

The current scrimmage between India and Pakistan should surely be the least surprising of wars. The major premise for inevitable war was laid down by the terms of the 1947 partition. Britain, frantic to get the independence business over with, traced on the subcontinental map the boundaries of a theocratic state without geographical, historical, ethnic or economic roots, a state that could not survive. Between the two blobs labeled “Pakistan” (“Land of the Pure” in Urdu, official but not prevailing language of the assigned population), there lay a thousand miles of India. The predominantly Bengali people of the eastern segment, ethnically identical to the Bengalis of eastern India, differed in language, style, custom and occupation from the diverse and conflicting races of the western segment. The common though not identical Islamic faith of most of the citizens was a cement of sorts, but not more able to withstand the multiple forces of division in the subcontinent than elsewhere in the modern world.

An East Pakistan politically linked to an unfriendly Islamic West Pakistan government was a lump in India’s throat. Geopolitically West Pakistan, Kashmir apart, is tolerable from the point of view of most Indian interests except her enduring imperial inclinations; in fact, West Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran are a useful buffer between India and her too big brother to the north. But East Pakistan is (or was) a wedge driven smack into Indian land. Moreover, India’s own volatile Bengalis are exceedingly sensitive to what the Bengalis in East Pakistan think and feel and do, so that the New Delhi government cannot ignore what goes on across the formal border.

JB

About the Author

James Burnham

Featured Tags

The current scrimmage between India and Pakistan should surely be the least surprising of wars. The major premise for inevitable war was laid down by the terms of the 1947 partition. Britain, frantic to get the independence business over with, traced on the subcontinental map the boundaries of a theocratic state without geographical, historical, ethnic or economic roots, a state that could not survive. Between the two blobs labeled “Pakistan” (“Land of the Pure” in Urdu, official but not prevailing language of the assigned population), there lay a thousand miles of India. The predominantly Bengali people of the eastern segment, ethnically identical to the Bengalis of eastern India, differed in language, style, custom and occupation from the diverse and conflicting races of the western segment. The common though not identical Islamic faith of most of the citizens was a cement of sorts, but not more able to withstand the multiple forces of division in the subcontinent than elsewhere in the modern world.

An East Pakistan politically linked to an unfriendly Islamic West Pakistan government was a lump in India’s throat. Geopolitically West Pakistan, Kashmir apart, is tolerable from the point of view of most Indian interests except her enduring imperial inclinations; in fact, West Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran are a useful buffer between India and her too big brother to the north. But East Pakistan is (or was) a wedge driven smack into Indian land. Moreover, India’s own volatile Bengalis are exceedingly sensitive to what the Bengalis in East Pakistan think and feel and do, so that the New Delhi government cannot ignore what goes on across the formal border.