see another comment by a colleague
> *Two Nations, Two Choices Vir Sanghvi > <http://www.hindustantimes.com/Search/Search.aspx?q=Vir+Sanghvi&nodate=1>* > And yet, there was a complete absence of historical perspective in much of > the analysis. Even a decade ago, I suspect that we would have covered > Pakistan's tragic slide into anarchy very differently. Ramchandra Guha writes (rightly) in his book "India after Gandhi" that Historians in India have stopped writing history after 1947. For Indians history ended in 1947. School books that my son studies now have no mention of India after 1947. And there has been embarrassment to write freely and frankly about Pakistan "lest we hurt the sentiments of our Muslim brothers" - as if Indian Muslims would get up and run en masse to Pakistan or break into furious riots if people spoke freely and frankly about partition and the events therafter. > History is full of ifs and buts. So who knows how things would have turned > out? But just suppose there had been no Partition. Would these same people > have lived a very different life? Would they have been part of the Indian > success story? Partition was good for India in the same manner that the amputation of a gangrenous limb is good and lifesaving for the person who had gangrene of a limb. India may not be the best country in the world, but it would have been torn asunder with all those mad Islamists running amok. Why does no one say the obvious? Pakistan was the first blow stuck in favor of pan-Islamist extremism in the 20th century. This fact will come to be accepted some decads from now. Right now everyone on earth is busy saying "Al Qaeda=extremism", "Pakistan=moderation" This is complete nonsense. Pakistan was formed for Islam, because it was felt that Muslims cannot live and maintain their purity in a nation that had an excess of non Muslims. It is only because they pimped for the US as Sanghvi rightly points out that they were given a "moderate" tag, and allowed to acquire nuclear weapons and proliferate. shiv -- Valsa
