Elsewhere on this page we carry an article outlining, among other things, the general Pakistani view on the two-nation theory which the Muslim League in united India had formulated to justify its demand for partition. This discussion exposes, on the one hand, the fear and the calculation which compel the Pakistani ruling and intellectual elites to stick to this theory and. on the other, the complications it creates for them. The fear is that without this ”ideological” support Pakistan would lose its raison d’etre and elan and face the threat of being sucked into the Indian orbit, if not the Indian Union itself. The calculation is that adherence to the theory would continue to justify Pakistan’s claim to Jammu and Kashmir. The fear is irrational at least on two counts. Though India helped liberate Bangladesh, it did not seek to absorb the latter or abridge its sovereignty. And predominantly Hindu India can have no interest in bringing another 70 million Muslims into its fold when it has not yet been able to resolve the problem of its existing Muslim minority.
If the Pakistanis take the worst view of India’s intention, they may be justified in fearing that it would wish to dismember their country. But surely the two-nation theory is no protection against that kind of threat. The appeal to Islam may be more relevant in that connection and that need not be rooted in the two-nation theory. This is especially so in view of the strong Pakistani desire to detach themselves as it were from the sub-continent and seek their fulfilment in close association with fellow Muslims in West Asia. Why then the fear? The answer is obvious, The Pakistanis suffer from an intense feeling of inner insecurity arising out of the fact that Islam has not served as a strong enough adhesive – witness the emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign nation and the continuing dissidence in Baluchistan – and that they have not been able to create for themselves a democratic polity of which they could be proud. They suffer in their own esteem when they contrast their failure with India’s success as a democracy. General Zia is trying to meet this problem by establishing what he calls nizam-e-mustafa. But so far this ploy has not worked and it does not look as if it is going to work.
The Pakistani calculation regarding Jammu and Kashmir is equally misplaced. The rulers in Islamabad must know that it is beyond their capacity to change the status quo either through negotiations or force. They have tried both without any success beyond the initial one when within weeks of partition they managed to take India by surprise and seize a part of the state by force. The Pakistanis violated in Junagadh and Hyderabad the principles they invoke in respect of Jammu and Kashmir and they have failed to comply with the UN commission’s resolution requiring them to withdraw their troops from the so-called Azad Kashmir. All this is history which we recall only in order to tell the Pakistanis that their case is not all that fool-proof. But even if it were, India could not have behaved differently from the way it has for the simple reason that it has not accepted and cannot accept the two-nation theory in view of the presence of 70 million Muslims among its populace. For it to accept that theory is to destroy the very basis of its secular order which alone can assure equality and justice for the Muslim and other minorities.
At least some Pakistani scholars recognise that the two-nation theory cannot apply to post-partition India. Implicit in it is the acceptance of the proposition that religious differences are not an insuperable barrier to the triumph of the concept of territorial nationalism in India. This is a mercy for which we should be grateful to the Pakistanis. But it places them in an awkward position. If the two-nation theory does not apply to present-day India, why should it have been valid for India under the British Raj? There are, apart from its status, two differences between the two Indias. Unlike before, India today does not have Muslim majority states with the exception of the “disputed” Jammu and Kashmir; and the Muslims now constitute around 10 per cent of the population against 25 before partition. But these are quantitative differences, not qualitative ones and cannot sustain the two-nation theory. The Pakistanis face another awkward problem in that the Islamic concept of the ummah (the Prophet’s community) does not admit of nationalism. But that is their headache. All that we are interested in is to point out the weaknesses of their position and advise them to accept the reality and not try either to alter it or justify it on the basis of an untenable theory. A state does not need an ideological justification. It prospers in peace if it is internally coherent; it survives if its apparatus is strong and untied enough to suppress rebellions; and it perishes if it is incoherent and incapable of establishing and maintaining a strong enough coercive machine.