What the Partition of India and Pakistan of Almost 80 Years Ago May Teach About Healing the Wounds of Israel and Pakistan

  

I finished reading the bloodcurdling, mesmerizing, The Great Partition:  The Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan.   I find  many dimensions of this agonizing story which suggest lessons for today, especially for the chasm and carnage coming in the  relationship between Israel and Palestine. 

 

In retrospect, I accept the argument of Khan, that the partition of India and Pakistan and what, 25 years later, would become Bangladesh was not foreordained.  In the beginning, Pakistan “wasn’t even seen as a defined geographical unit, but as a way of expressing freedom for the Muslim population of India.”

 

The incompetence and irresponsibility with which Britain ditched India,  taking no responsibility for the transition, were monstrous.  They just “walked away from the problem,” leaving unformed governments and seething tensions to find their way to what became violence and extreme nationalism growing from differences in religious belief.

 

The primary leaders--Jinnah, Nehru and Ghandi did not foresee anything like the horror that flowed from the partition: the loss of over a million of lives, the uprooting and transfer of tens of millions of people from the north to south (Hindus) and from the south to the north (muslims).   Ghandi's policy of non-violence had already been punctured by violence and antagonism and fear between members of  the Congress party and the Muslim League even before the Partition. Pakistan was being seen and presented not only as a question of territory but as a "total and sweeping threat which risked the whole of Mother India". 

 

People who had lived together, worked together, in relative peace became enemies.  People who had "lived cheek to jowl for so long fell upon each other in 1947 and its aftermath with a ferocity that has few parallels in history", writes one historian.  It reminds me of what happened in the Balkans in the 1990s. 

I read this history with a constant eye on its possible relevance to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its resolution.   What can be learned to inform how to resolve that conflict?  What are the barriers that are going to have to be overcome?  Several shout out at me:

 

1.     It’s vital that the rights of citizenship (equal and premised on dignity for all) be clearly defined for both the majority populations and the minority populations including where Jews and Muslims live together. 

The boundaries of the two states, while nominally already established, need to be confirmed and firmly written into an enforceable covenant.

Travel between the nations needs to be transparent and not bogged down in discrimination or undue bureaucracy. 

 

The Indian-Pakistan history underscores the particular challenge posed by enclaves of the kind that I understand exist on the borders of Bangladesh and that exist now for Hindus in the Western Bank and Muslims in Jerusalem.  (I’m assuming from this experience that it would be impractical and wrong to try to transfer these populations that have already established their homes.) 

 

 Vital that relationships be established between Israel and Palestine that optimize trade, cultural transfers and transportation. Establishing linkages like this between India and Pakistan have taken decades and from what I read are just beginning. Hopefully, we can learn from this experience. 

This will take a great deal of time to build the trust on which such relationships must be based. The fissures are great and will be greater than ever following the humanitarian disaster that has impacted the people of both nations. But I believe the journey needs to begin with the endpoint in mind. And there are several inspiring examples of cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis led by organizations supported by Mehra and David Rimer that give firm credence to the possibility of progress. 

3. But what about the present situation, now and tomorrow? Reading the history of the Partition makes one deeply aware of the lasting deep personal  impact--physical and psychological--of the millions of displaced people. There are as many as 1.5 million people in Gaza who have had to flee their homes;  perhaps half of these have been destroyed. (And tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced too though there homes have not been similarly destroyed). How will these families be helped to move back, how will they be treated medically, how will homes and schools and hospitals be rebuilt? Who will pay for this? What can we learn from post WW II in the decimated cities of Europe? What we do know is that it took years. 

4.     Accomplishing this and more will obviously depend above all on strong leadership in Israel and Palestine committed to the goal of peaceful coexistence and mutual collaboration to make the most of the relationship between Palestine and Israel.  

that leadership  painfully does not now exist. 

It will require the acceptance of a new narrative---namely that peace and a stable, fruitful life for the people of this region will ONLY be possible if Palestine and Israel accept the NEED to live together with mutual respect. 

 All of this I believe will need to be supported in its purpose and financially be an organized consortium (Commission) of leaders from leading Arab countries, the West, the U.S., China, etc. This has to be approached much as the recovery of Europe was after WWII. It is a matter all of the world has a stake in. 

I ask myself  Is there anything to be learned  on HOW to organize to do this from the history of fusing Northern Ireland and Ireland, or the Switzerland or perhaps the creation of Tanzania? Or anything else?

In conclusion, I wonder if lessons growing from the pain and loss of human capacity suffered by the people of India and Pakistan resulting from the Partition can  be leveraged to improve the prospects of defining and implementing a positive, peaceful future for the long suffering peoples of Israel and Palestine.