I'd like to point out one small point that articles like these either forget, get wrong or simply side-step:
ere the rulers of the country. The rulers and their chiefs were Muslims, so were the great landlords and officials. The court language was their own (Persian was the official language of India till 1842) The Hindus were in awe of them. By a stroke of misfortune, the Muslims had to abdicate their position and descend to the level of their Hindu fellow-countrymen. The Muslims resented the treatment."
In my opinion, this is a rude caricature of real history. It ignores the ebbs and tides of the fortunes of the great empires, immigration and emigration by common people, and generally, tries to treat history as a two-dimensional entity.
First of all, phrases like "the Hindus", "the Muslims", "the rulers" or "the chiefs", or for that matter, "the court language"; the first question that comes to my mind is _which_ - _which_ Hindus or Muslims are we talking about? Do you include the Sikhs in this sweeping "the" Hindus, for example?
There have always been striations in society, most of which have nothing to do with religion. There have been the Hindu Rajas, and the Muslim Nawabs, the Brahmin Pandits and the Maulavis, and at the same time, the tenant farmers and labourers of both (and other) religions, who would hardly know the difference, except that they prayed for rains. So, _which_ Hindus and _which_ Muslims are "the" Hindus and "the" Muslims? I, for one, find it hard to believe that the _entire_ body of Hindus or Muslims were involved in any of this, especially when you say "...the Muslims had to abdicate their position...", or "the Hindus were in awe of them".
Second, let's take a look at the map of India from about the founding of the Delhi Sultanate (which I will very conveniently take as the starting point of Muslim rule in India - by which I mean Muslims ruling somewhere in the subcontinent - even though there was a longer presence before this also).
The extents of empires are based on the number of local chieftains swearing allegiance to the Emperor, not on real control of these areas. This is especially true of empires like the Mughals, and the Delhi sultanate. It's inconceivable that either the Sultanate or the Mughals could have exercised any kind of practical control over the vast areas they ruled.
Except, they weren't really vast areas for very long. Every other Sultan/emperor had to win back territories that had declared their independence on the deaths of their predecessors, and so, the maximum extent of these empires beyond their traditional borders lasted mostly only for a few years at most.
Equally, the order of the day was always Hindu vassals serving under Muslim rulers, and Muslims being vassals of Hindu rulers. Even Aurangzeb, the other bogeyman besides Jinnah, had a large number of Rajputs and other Hindus serving as high officials, even during the height of his religious fervour, while Akbar is even more well known for it. As such, the number of Hindu (local) rulers would have been high even in the most Islam-dominated periods.
And all this is to say nothing of the many Hindu dynasties, like Vijayanagar and the Rajputs, ruling independently of either the Delhi Sultans or the Mughals. I'd particularly like to point to the Mahrattas who, from the death of Aurangezeb to the third battle of Panipat, pretty much dominated the subcontinent.
All this points to a very complex social system that has existed for a millennium, mostly with no more bad blood than between the constituents of any society of the time - if you think India was divided into too many princedoms, take a look at Central Europe during and after the Holy Roman Empire, and the Middle East and the Balkans after the collapse of Turkey.
Given all this, I don't see how anyone can point to Hindus or Muslims as either separate communities, or ascribe such simplistic "causes" for partition, and I wish people would stop doing that.
> > I'd like to point out one small point that articles like these either forget, > > get wrong or simply side-step: > > ms were > > the rulers of the country. The rulers and their chiefs were Muslims, so were > > the great landlords and officials. The court language was their own (Persian > > was the official language of India till 1842) The Hindus were in awe of them. > > By a stroke of misfortune, the Muslims had to abdicate their position and > > descend to the level of their Hindu fellow-countrymen. The Muslims resented > > the treatment."
Hi
not that the article hasnt got some truth. in 1857 the british forcibly evicted all muslims whether they sided with the rebellion or not. families of poor muslims were thrown out of the walls of delhi and at he mercy of maruading jats. the muslim properties were auctioned and most became properties of hindu punjabis.delhi became a hindu town overnight. i am sure this one act led to india becoming a hindu dominated society. darymple writres all this with ample documentary evidence.