Gandhi as the founder of both contemporary Pakistan and India

The following is a consideration of the view that Gandhi was a founder of India, and not India and Pakistan. It was posted as a comment on Imran’s site. It's been slightly elaborated upon for clarity below.

Just a thought. Gandhi wasn't the founder of modern India. Rather, he was the founder of both modern India and Pakistan.

The division between either was the work of Jinnah, amongst others. But it was Gandhi, amongst others, who sought and acquired the independence of the land later divided as India and Pakistan. The division was a technicality, and wasn't necessary for independence to be acquired. That's an important point. You could say that Jinnah et al basically claimed possession of a portion of that which Gandhi et al had acquired for ALL of the peoples of India.

The partition should never have been. They should have learnt to live together. Well, that's India for you. My mom always thought it ridiculous that the partition was allowed to happen.

India was always a federation of difference since before the time of Christ or Confucius and which accounts for the relative superiority of Indians in a number of intellectual aptitudes compared to their Chinese counterparts - monoculturalism (one way/traditional way of doing things) never bred great minds be it in the family or the state. Contending with - as opposed to ignoring/marginalising/laughing at - difference is that which trains the mind to be quick in reformulating its formulae for comprehending things. With that, one is in a better position to generate detailed and various ways to appreciate things. Evicting the brits, and the partition later, was the first major deviation from an otherwise extremely laudable multicultural history. India, in its ancient essence, ceased to be from thereon - and i did write once that the macaques in India were more indian than the indians.

I personally don't recognise pakistanis as pakistanis, or bangladeshis as bangladeshis. All are Indian. But, given time, and separate development, the difference could widen. Development can take an untoward direction when it is done whilst mindful that one is not of a particular race or nationality. People tend to discount quite a bit of ideas when that happens as their objective appreciation of things is clouded by racial/cultural/national bias. I'd rather a federation of difference as opposed to development by superficial contradistinction.


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