Political Perspectives
There were two main parties involved in making India's political decisions- the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League.
The Indian National CongressIn favor of a united India, the Indian National Congress was India's dominant ruling party since 1885. Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, was the leader of the Congress.
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The Muslim LeagueThe Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, demanded the division of India into two countries- one for the Hindus and another for the Muslims.
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Why should India remain united?
"The whole idea that India should be divided was based on a fantastic notion that religion constitutes nationality. While I was growing up, the entire national movement [for independence] which had cut across religion, region, caste, class, sex. You know, it had been a truly unifying experience. For a person like me, it was an absurd idea that India should be divided, [it] made no sense of any kind."
~Nayantrara Sahgal, Nehru's niece
Source- BBC Documentary: The Day India Burned
Why is there a need for partition?
"...how is India's problem to be solved if the majority community will neither concede the minimum safeguards necessary for the protection of a minority of 80 million people...but continue to talk of a kind of nationalism which works out only to its own benefit? This position can admit of only two alternatives. Either the Indian majority community will have to accept for itself the permanent position of an agent of British imperialism in the East, or the country will have to be redistributed on a basis of religious, historical and cultural affinities so as to do away with the question of electorates and the communal problem in its present form."
~Muhammed Iqbal, British-India philosopher and politician
Source- Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism, and History in India
What will happen to the minority if India remains united?
"Once the British leave, and there will be a democratic form of government, but in a democratic form of government, Hindus will always be in the majority and the Muslims will always be in the minority- we have no chance. Our minority will never be transformed into a majority, and the Hindu majority will always remain a permanent majority..."
~Rhoedad Khan, Muslim student from Lahore
Source- BBC Documentary: The Day India Burned
"As an all Indian minority, we shall be under the rule of the permanent Hindu majority about three to one, which will virtually mean one nation ruling another by means of ballot box. The gripped and feared of such a government will neither command respect nor acceptance and allegiance, and such a government will therefore be impossible. It can only function by force, but will never secure the willing approval and sanction of the hundred millions of Muslims."
~Muhammed Ali Jinnah
Source: Muhammad Ali Jinnah Speech on the Making of Pakistan