Heidentweet@todon.euThis was a very impressive episode: The story of how a Greater India was shattered into 12 modern states
Conversation with historian Sam Dalrymple on his book Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
I liked how Dalrymple speaks about people, like the fallible politicians and the torn communities seeking ways to meet again, about other researchers who have done work to recover this history, that has been laying in archives in places that have no present day connection but did have a strong historical one, or in people's attics in grandmother's diaries.
His research also shows that present day oppositions of religion or ethnicity in Asia are also based on historical amnesia of the much longer time of people living together, before the politics and violence of nationalism tore them apart. And that so much hangs on luck or the relationships between people with the power to make decisions.
His conclusion at the end, that this present reality was not inevitable, is IMO a good one to keep in mind about our own time and actions in the world.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SLxYD9Rs5k4&list=PLMyaP73Ho1ySmZCDwUxqccJkdFSC27TTI&index=5
#Partition #India #Yemen #Bangladesh #Kashmir #Pakistan #Qatar #Oman #Burma #Arabia #Hyderabad #Jinnah #nationalism #Empire #HistoricalAmnesia
@Heidentweet
I'm not really in the mood for a 2 hour recap of the British retreat, but the flip side of the question is that empires aren't natural units of humanity, either. Nationalism is bad history, but imperialism is a pragmatic mess at best.
Secular democracy with universal citizenship and strong rights protections is the best outcome, and for a while it seemed like modern India was moving in the right direction, but chauvinism is too easy to sell.