The division of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan was the result of the interaction of many complex processes within India itself, in Britain as well as the global situation after World War II. Among them according to Marxist analysts was the Congress acceptance of Partition because this gave Hindu capitalists their goal of unrivalled dominance, while Jinnah too was a tool in the hands of their Muslim brethren. Badruddin Umar in his book on the Emergence of Bangladesh makes this his underlying thesis. He goes further to castigate the Communist Party of India for faulty reading of the political situation and their reluctance to use the tools of class struggle properly. He even indicts the international Communist leadership for its inability to give correct guidance. It may still be too early to attempt an objective historical analysis, but other factors must be taken into account and perhaps given higher priority. Yunus Samad’s A Nation in Turmoil gives an analysis of Muslim politics in the subcontinent that provides a complementary picture of the same period.
May 2004, volume 28, No 5