The Partition That Never Ended: Three Nations, One Unfinished Past

This August, the anniversary of independence was viewed and celebrated in rather different ways in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the son of Sheikh Hasina, has warned the Indian government that Bangladesh is becoming another Pakistan. This brings to mind a statement attributed to former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi: “We have drowned Jinnah’s two-nation theory in the Bay of Bengal.” Yet, just fifty-five years after the fall of Dhaka, we appear to be witnessing Pakistan emerging once again from the Bay of Bengal.

The new Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Tarique Rahman son of General Zia ur Rehman, is rapidly extending a friendly hand towards Pakistan and its allies rather than towards India. Let me explain this seemingly difficult phenomenon through an unusual example. Einstein described a similarly strange phenomenon as “spooky action at a distance”. Something resembling this kind of quantum entanglement appears to be unfolding between Pakistan and Bangladesh. In such circumstances, Sajeeb Wazed Joy’s warning to the Indian government about a “new Pakistan” begins to make sense.

While another Pakistan appears to be emerging from the Bay of Bengal, on the other side, seventy-nine years after independence, “India” is moving towards the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra.

On August 13, 2026, Vande Mataram, a song viewed by many Muslims as anti-Muslim in its ideological associations, was sung in the Indian Parliament under the leadership of the BJP government.

In 1882, Anandamath, a Bengali novel steeped in rebellion and devotional Hindu nationalism, was written and published by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, a Bengali nationalist novelist. In this novel, Bankim Chandra, for the first time, presented the Bharat Varsha of Bharata, the brother of Ram, through the imagery of a goddess. Soon afterwards, this goddess evolved from the Mother of Bengal into the incarnation of Bharat Mata.

It was in the same novel that Bankim Chandra wrote the song Vande Mataram, venerating Bharat Mata alongside the goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. It was this very song, Vande Mataram, that Rabindranath Tagore sang with great grandeur at a session of the Indian National Congress in 1896.

The Hindu leaders of the Indian National Congress were secular within the Congress while, at the same time, some were associated with the Hindu Mahasabha. Moreover, they were also influenced by the Shuddhi movement, or the Arya Samaj movement. Muslims of that era knew this very well.

I cannot help but imagine Azad’s spirit standing before Jinnah’s in the hereafter, with the weight of history hanging heavily between them. Seventy years on, secular India has failed to safeguard the very idea of secular India and is now marching towards a Hindu Rashtra, proudly thumping Modi’s famous “56-inch ka seena.”

Now, those who refuse to sing Vande Mataram may face a sentence of three years in prison. Jinnah Sahib must be telling Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: “Didn’t I tell you that if Pakistan was not created, the Muslims of India would never be able to practise Islam — Tawheed — freely?” Pakistan ka matlab kya? La ilaha illallah.

In a secular country, the cow has been declared divine at the state level. It is even being said that if Indian Muslims do not respect the cow, then Hindus will not respect Muhammad either.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that Indian Muslims have suffered an ideological defeat. The Babri Mosque has become the Ram Temple, and it is possible that in the coming years the Taj Mahal, too, may be transformed into Tejo Mahalaya. Indian Muslims have been reduced to mere keepers of the ashes of their own past, guarding the remnants of a heritage whose living flame has been extinguished.

In a Hindu Rashtra, their safety lies in one of two choices: either undergo Ghar Wapsi and become Hindus, or become Sanatani Muslims and join in chanting Jai Jai to Mahadev alongside Muhammad PBUH.

This year, the election campaigns in West Bengal and Assam were based almost entirely on hostility towards Muslims, particularly Bengali Muslims. The chief ministers of the two states, Himanta Biswa Sarma and Suvendu Adhikari, engaged in unabashed vitriol against Muslims both before and after the elections.

The BJP government has repeatedly accused former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of settling Bangladeshi Muslims in West Bengal. Yet it was Mamata Banerjee herself who provided support to India’s pro-Sheikh Hasina policies

Demographics of Assam and West Bengal have begun to haunt the Hindutva establishment. At present, Assamese Muslims constitute 34 percent of Assam’s population in relation to the Hindu population, while Muslims constitute 27 percent of West Bengal’s population. The proportion of Muslims in West Bengal and Assam has reached figures that have become alarming for Hindutva-oriented parties.

Bangladeshi Muslims, by influencing the demography of Assam and West Bengal, could once again create an atmosphere resembling Partition. This is the spectre now looming over India. — and one that also drives the BJP towards the use of force against Muslims. These are also precisely the regions that possess the potential, in the near future, to expand the territory of Bangladesh.

In Pakistan, meanwhile, The history of Bengal and the making of Bangladesh resurface in the rhetoric of Pakistani politicians whenever the spectre of accountability begins to loom over them.

Sindhi nationalist leaders, including Bilawal Bhutto, the grandson of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, repeatedly issue the warning in threatening tones: “kal bana tha Bangladesh ajj banega Sindhudesh.”

Yet their own grandfather’s political shortsightedness also played a major role in the creation of Bangladesh. Instead of learning from his grandfather’s mistake, Bilawal too sometimes appears to be standing in the camp of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

We have also seen the Akhter Mengal from Balochistan recounting the history of Bangladesh before the establishment and warning them of what could happen.

But our politicians do not have particularly good memories when it comes to Bangladesh. They remember the creation of Bangladesh, but they do not remember the fate of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh after its separation from Pakistan. And even if they do remember it, an effort is made to obscure it by claiming that, like Pakistan’s dictators, General Ziaur Rahman had assassinated Mujibur Rahman in order to seize power.

“Bangabandhu” (friend of Bangladesh) became the target of hatred and revenge at the hands of his devoted heart Bengal Regiment within just five years of the creation of Bangladesh, because all the dreams he had presented to his nation turned out to be a nightmare.

The pride of Sonar Bangla and the prejudice of  their “golden fibre economy” proved to be a mirage for the newly born Bangladesh. Immediately after separating from Pakistan, Bangladesh found itself confronted by a three-pronged crisis: natural disasters, a devastating economic crisis, and the authoritarian policies of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had come to power through an electoral victory under the Awami League, attempted to suppress Bangladesh’s political voices by creating the BAKSAL party.

The same Mujibur Rahman who had stood against the dictatorship of West Pakistan and earned the votes of Bengalis soon became the autocrat of Bangladesh. Nepotism reached its limits, The poor Bengalis found their fortunes sinking from bad to worse, even as the non-Bengalis blamed for their deprivation had already been confined to camps across the newly created Bangladesh..

These were the same poor Bengalis whose exploitation Mujibur Rahman had accused us of, and the same accusation that Pakistani nationalist leaders happily picked up and continue to carry around with them to this day, using it to make inroads against Pakistan for their own personal interests.

It was the very accusation that Bengalis themselves disproved — first at the time of Mujibur Rahman’s assassination and, more recently, last year, when Sheikh Hasina’s government fell and Bengalis also tore ذdown and destroyed statues of Mujibur Rahman.

Yet Pakistan’s self-serving politicians continue to carry that same accusation around in their political bag of tricks.

Time, however, has rendered their firecrackers little more than damp squibs. And today, Bangladesh appears to have come back to Pakistan on a silver platter, ripe for the taking.

A good ending can redeem all that came before; but when the ending is yet to come, the story is not over.The same may be said of Partition: the story of Partition is not over yet.