1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:07,650 You, everyone, for joining us today in this week's instalment of the Saturday history seminar. 2 00:00:07,650 --> 00:00:16,740 We are very fortunate today to have found every document with us from Ashoka Universe Digital about the history of a revisionist history, 3 00:00:16,740 --> 00:00:22,950 if you will, of India-Pakistan relations in the early forties and late forties and early fifties. 4 00:00:22,950 --> 00:00:28,020 But of course, Assistant Professor of international relations at Ashoka University. 5 00:00:28,020 --> 00:00:34,410 And she holds a Ph.D. in modern South Asian history from the University of Cambridge and has previously towards 6 00:00:34,410 --> 00:00:42,000 an open Jindal Global University and also been a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. 7 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:50,040 Her work has been published in journals like the Economic and Political Weekly, Modern Asian Studies and International History Review. 8 00:00:50,040 --> 00:00:57,930 She's also a frequent contributor to a lot of the news outlets online that all of us probably read, including the wire and scroll. 9 00:00:57,930 --> 00:01:05,490 And relevant for today's talk is something that she did in 2018, which is that she taught a course on South Asia, 10 00:01:05,490 --> 00:01:11,640 said histories jointly to Indian and Pakistani students as part of an attempt to understand how the 11 00:01:11,640 --> 00:01:18,930 teaching of history can contribute to narratives of commonality and peaceful coexistence in the region. 12 00:01:18,930 --> 00:01:26,850 This is something that she is obviously working her way through in this book that has come out with all up animosity at bay, 13 00:01:26,850 --> 00:01:33,510 and we are very fortunate to have her with us today. And after the talk, 14 00:01:33,510 --> 00:01:41,040 I'm sure we'll all have plenty of questions that we should let her and give that talk first and we'll try and try and hold our horses, 15 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:53,040 Olivia over to you. Thank you so much for hosting this great introduction. 16 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:59,010 I was, you know, I'm really looking forward to your your questions and insights about the book, 17 00:01:59,010 --> 00:02:04,350 as well as to the comments and observations that the audience might have. 18 00:02:04,350 --> 00:02:09,480 You know, I was saying just before that, just before the kind of, you know, we started, 19 00:02:09,480 --> 00:02:14,190 but you know, it's also quite recently that they're going to reopen the book again. 20 00:02:14,190 --> 00:02:21,210 Our faith is published it because, you know, I mean, while I was putting together the presentation of what it is like, 21 00:02:21,210 --> 00:02:26,070 I kind of relived a lot of, you know, the writing of the book and it's like disconcerting. 22 00:02:26,070 --> 00:02:36,510 You're going to see it on the page again. So I hope you can, you know, I mean, I hope you enjoy the talk and I look forward to your questions. 23 00:02:36,510 --> 00:02:43,170 Let me just shared my screen. 24 00:02:43,170 --> 00:02:52,320 What I thought I do, you know, in the time that I have for about half an hour or 40 minutes or so is just to kind of take you through, you know, 25 00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:58,080 the process in which I wrote the book and take you through, you know, 26 00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:05,070 the kinds of questions that it raises and the sorts of issues that it that it looks at. 27 00:03:05,070 --> 00:03:12,300 And what I've done really is just to, you know, I'm going to go to very quickly get or summarise the arguments that the book makes. 28 00:03:12,300 --> 00:03:21,780 And then I'm going to take you through some, you know, a couple of slides that I could, you know, put down quotes from, you know, 29 00:03:21,780 --> 00:03:27,210 a series of kind of fascinating personalities of the time I put down a kind of, 30 00:03:27,210 --> 00:03:32,100 you know, their thoughts on the nature of India-Pakistan relations at the time. 31 00:03:32,100 --> 00:03:36,840 And I'm going to kind of talk you through the argument that the book makes while telling you, 32 00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:42,390 you know, the reasons for why they were saying what they were saying, you know? 33 00:03:42,390 --> 00:03:48,090 So just to, you know, very quickly kind of tell you about how I came to write this book. 34 00:03:48,090 --> 00:03:53,070 I mean, as you were saying that, you know, I wrote the book as it started out as a graduate, 35 00:03:53,070 --> 00:03:59,370 a Ph.D dissertation, which I wrote in Cambridge in a history faculty. 36 00:03:59,370 --> 00:04:08,460 And even at the time, there was this kind of question in the air about how was the how is it that the discipline of history and in my case, 37 00:04:08,460 --> 00:04:14,880 the discipline of modern South Asian history can be relevant or be of use to it? 38 00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:18,210 And how can we kind of come up with, you know, better, 39 00:04:18,210 --> 00:04:29,070 broader and different explanations about the constituting of international relations through a more rigorous 40 00:04:29,070 --> 00:04:37,500 study of history and through a more history sized account of how states come into being and how they behave. 41 00:04:37,500 --> 00:04:45,570 So it was partly, you know, while working with those kinds of questions that I was thinking about my Ph.D. dissertation, 42 00:04:45,570 --> 00:04:54,240 which was about the South Asia and South Asia's partition, and I was thinking about how I could use, you know, 43 00:04:54,240 --> 00:05:04,230 the partition and the historiography around it in a way that would be relevant to the thinking about, you know, 44 00:05:04,230 --> 00:05:10,350 interstate relations in South Asia and South Asia as internationalist thinking, you know, 45 00:05:10,350 --> 00:05:21,240 a sort of Vietnam was one of the things that I was trying to work through in my book was the question often how we think about the 46 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:29,430 India Pakistan relationship and whether there were any other different ways of thinking about the India-Pakistan relationship. 47 00:05:29,430 --> 00:05:41,220 And at the time, you know, the sort of most of the literature on this topic could characterise this as a kind of unrelenting and, 48 00:05:41,220 --> 00:05:49,350 you know, on the boil kind of dangerous brinksmanship that was perpetually prone to warfare. 49 00:05:49,350 --> 00:05:53,430 And you know, and and moreover, 50 00:05:53,430 --> 00:06:03,810 most of the literature had kind of plotted out the project the future of India-Pakistan relationship on to a map of the which, 51 00:06:03,810 --> 00:06:05,670 you know, onto a map that belonged. 52 00:06:05,670 --> 00:06:17,100 That kind of a thought about how I mean European states or Cold War rival states had navigated their hostility and navigated their 53 00:06:17,100 --> 00:06:24,570 enmity and had thought about how the dynamics of the India-Pakistan relationship could be plotted on these kinds of trajectories, 54 00:06:24,570 --> 00:06:30,510 you know, and an explanation about the hostility between India and Pakistan could come from 55 00:06:30,510 --> 00:06:35,760 odd thinking about these three set Eurocentric explanations about how states behave. 56 00:06:35,760 --> 00:06:40,290 And it occurred to me when I was thinking about how the partition was implemented in 57 00:06:40,290 --> 00:06:45,330 India and Pakistan that a different set of explanations would come about would be, 58 00:06:45,330 --> 00:06:57,780 you know, would be forged as to the rationale behind the India-Pakistan dynamic and the way in which they were interacting with one another. 59 00:06:57,780 --> 00:07:07,860 And one of the things that came up, you know, that I realised when I was looking at this was that the experience of partition, 60 00:07:07,860 --> 00:07:12,780 in fact, through a very common challenges to the states, 61 00:07:12,780 --> 00:07:21,270 to the newly formed states of India and Pakistan, and in a sense, along with their many differences between them, 62 00:07:21,270 --> 00:07:27,810 of which there are many and the book doesn't try to, you know, doesn't try to kind of diminish those. 63 00:07:27,810 --> 00:07:37,170 But along with the many differences, there was also this way in which both states were, in a sense, a similar and equally precarious position. 64 00:07:37,170 --> 00:07:42,480 And the way in which that the dialogue between. 65 00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:51,420 Them was forged was an acknowledgement of and recognition of the similarity of the precariousness of their position and an 66 00:07:51,420 --> 00:08:02,130 acknowledgement that a dialogue between them had to go toward how they could both address the challenges that they faced from partition. 67 00:08:02,130 --> 00:08:12,330 And so in a way, there was a kind of a commonality of purpose in the way in which they built the matrix of the India-Pakistan relationship 68 00:08:12,330 --> 00:08:19,410 as a way of trying to finalise the challenges that partition posed and trying to settle the questions of partition. 69 00:08:19,410 --> 00:08:25,380 And this process gave them a kind of common purpose a common object, 70 00:08:25,380 --> 00:08:35,040 and also created a space for collaboration and cooperation to try to address these challenges together. 71 00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:46,260 And you know, that's a way in which there are conversations about how to deal with the legacy of partition and how 72 00:08:46,260 --> 00:08:55,380 to try to sort of forge themselves as complete entities arising from the partition as a way in which 73 00:08:55,380 --> 00:09:01,740 that conversation also plots a longer trajectory of cooperation and collaboration between the two 74 00:09:01,740 --> 00:09:08,970 states that hadn't been kind of acknowledged in a lot of the literature on the topic at the time. 75 00:09:08,970 --> 00:09:15,330 So, you know, it was trying to kind of think about these sorts of questions. 76 00:09:15,330 --> 00:09:18,720 I mean, it was it was trying to think about how partition, in fact, 77 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:24,030 enabled a greater space for cooperation and dialogue between the states of India and Pakistan. 78 00:09:24,030 --> 00:09:30,180 But I started to think about an alternative history of the nature of the India-Pakistan dynamic. 79 00:09:30,180 --> 00:09:33,840 And finally, I just want to, you know, see that, you know, 80 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:39,960 when I was working through these answers also made me think more about, you know, I mean, again, 81 00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:41,010 like even at the time, 82 00:09:41,010 --> 00:09:53,510 there was this kind of jump in the air about the urgency of a less Eurocentric perspective on fire and the importance of trying to arrive at other, 83 00:09:53,510 --> 00:10:00,150 you know, explanations or other dimensions of it that that didn't work with, you know, 84 00:10:00,150 --> 00:10:09,510 a kind of model that had been put in place by European interactions between European states and the West Indian states. 85 00:10:09,510 --> 00:10:16,440 And you know, it occurred to me that when I was writing this book about the nature of the India-Pakistan relationship in 86 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:23,850 the aftermath of the partition that I was also trying to tell a story about how a non Eurocentric west, 87 00:10:23,850 --> 00:10:31,920 west and non-Western states, I've got a go about the task of interacting with one another. 88 00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:41,280 So one, you know, the book kind of starts out with this kind of a quote from this, 89 00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:48,330 from a Deputy High Commissioner who's sort of, you know, who's sitting in Karachi in nineteen forty eight. 90 00:10:48,330 --> 00:11:00,990 And he writes back this kind of irate note to the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi, which was headed at the time by, you know, by by. 91 00:11:00,990 --> 00:11:07,140 It's foreign. You know, it's sort of with the head of the army, the NEA emir. 92 00:11:07,140 --> 00:11:12,600 And he writes that there are no parallels anywhere about the nature of the diplomatic relationship 93 00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:19,350 subsisting between India and Pakistan or the type of system evolve or conducting these relations. 94 00:11:19,350 --> 00:11:24,820 And what he was getting at was this, you know, I think I mean, through this caught it. 95 00:11:24,820 --> 00:11:34,890 It kind of allowed me to explain how you know what he was getting at was that there was this kind of expectation that India and Pakistan would be, 96 00:11:34,890 --> 00:11:38,940 you know, now that they were there and how they were formed and how the partition had happened. 97 00:11:38,940 --> 00:11:47,340 And now that they were independent, self-contained states, they were going to be just like any other state in the international system and 98 00:11:47,340 --> 00:11:53,130 their relationship would be handled according to these pre-existing rules. 99 00:11:53,130 --> 00:12:02,370 And he was saying that the nature of the India-Pakistan relationship is completely different from the nature of the relationship 100 00:12:02,370 --> 00:12:10,350 between any other kind of neighbouring state and the kinds of issues that his office had to look at and the kinds of, 101 00:12:10,350 --> 00:12:21,180 you know, sort of people, you know, the sorts of questions that he was thinking about when we were completely different from those of any, 102 00:12:21,180 --> 00:12:28,710 you know, from what any other diplomat in any other kind of, you know, 103 00:12:28,710 --> 00:12:35,460 location would have done and what in a sense, you know, you know, what he was getting at was that, you know, 104 00:12:35,460 --> 00:12:43,110 this particular relationship, this India-Pakistan relationship can't simply be thought of as kind of, you know, 105 00:12:43,110 --> 00:12:50,010 in the normal frame of reference that existed for international relations, you know, 106 00:12:50,010 --> 00:12:59,940 or it couldn't simply be thought of in terms of like a zero-sum rivalry or a kind of competition or even like, 107 00:12:59,940 --> 00:13:05,880 you know, a kind of a game of brinksmanship between two evolved states. 108 00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:13,560 And what he was saying was that, you know, his office was sort of flooded with requests for visas, permits, you know, 109 00:13:13,560 --> 00:13:25,440 permits to travel of people needing to get a copy of their educational certificates of their marriage, licences of their birth licences. 110 00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:31,050 And he was saying that there was something strangely personal in the way in which he was going about constructing 111 00:13:31,050 --> 00:13:39,690 the international for India and Pakistan for India in the aftermath of partition with regard to Pakistan. 112 00:13:39,690 --> 00:13:43,350 And there was something strange, you know, I mean, because, you know, 113 00:13:43,350 --> 00:13:51,060 it would it would have seemed that when you go about kind of constructing the international, you're kind of busy kind of thinking about kind of, 114 00:13:51,060 --> 00:13:55,410 you know, like a security based and, you know, 115 00:13:55,410 --> 00:14:03,240 strategic kind of a set of considerations about how to plot India's trajectory with regard to the rest of the world. 116 00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:11,130 And he was saying that that aspect of the international simply didn't apply as far as the shaping of the 117 00:14:11,130 --> 00:14:18,630 India-Pakistan relationship in 1948 was concerned because he was really plotting out how the you know, 118 00:14:18,630 --> 00:14:27,990 how the the the nature of the Indian state in Pakistan was to be done with, you know, 119 00:14:27,990 --> 00:14:38,130 through the strangely intimate act of demarcating people's lives and demarcating, you know, people's kind of and dividing people's lives. 120 00:14:38,130 --> 00:14:44,610 And, you know, when the international face of India had to be done in this kind of situation, 121 00:14:44,610 --> 00:14:55,110 then the normal rules of a zero-sum game, what a strategic rivalry I simply couldn't have, you know, wouldn't have applied. 122 00:14:55,110 --> 00:15:07,350 And you know, one of the other questions that he and his I mean him, but also even more prominently, his boss at the time, 123 00:15:07,350 --> 00:15:16,110 a guy called Sleep Prakash was the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan in Karachi in 1948, 124 00:15:16,110 --> 00:15:22,200 even more prominently than what he has said in this report. 125 00:15:22,200 --> 00:15:31,580 Steve Prakash sort of felt that, you know, the India-Pakistan interface has to be completely different from the. 126 00:15:31,580 --> 00:15:37,640 You know, from from what would normally have been used, when did you know of four other states? 127 00:15:37,640 --> 00:15:41,750 And one of the things that he was trying to get at was that, for example, 128 00:15:41,750 --> 00:15:55,100 rules for travel or rules for property exchange are rules put into dominion migration or even, you know, rules for kind of seeking refuge. 129 00:15:55,100 --> 00:16:04,520 These these Pakistan are kind of in the interface had to be drawn with regard to these sorts of considerations. 130 00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:10,430 And so therefore, you know, there was this argument being made that look, you know, 131 00:16:10,430 --> 00:16:20,750 that it should be possible to shape the nature of the India-Pakistan dynamic according to a different set of considerations, 132 00:16:20,750 --> 00:16:23,720 then what has otherwise been done across the world? 133 00:16:23,720 --> 00:16:34,710 And it should be possible for India and Pakistan to basically enable a looser arrangement for travel, at the very least for refugees and migrants. 134 00:16:34,710 --> 00:16:41,180 Were suffering the brunt of the partition and to do to kind of create the Office of the High 135 00:16:41,180 --> 00:16:50,270 Commission of India and Pakistan so that it would be suited to their needs rather than this kind of, 136 00:16:50,270 --> 00:16:58,130 you know, this other set of considerations of how India ought to look to the rest of the world and ought to 137 00:16:58,130 --> 00:17:04,850 define its rules of travel and migration in a way that was commensurate with the rest of the world? 138 00:17:04,850 --> 00:17:12,130 A related quote is actually, you know, I mean, you also find, you know, 139 00:17:12,130 --> 00:17:23,480 the the ping that they were addressing in this other quote that goes from the, you know, from the Partition Council, 140 00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:29,570 which was a sort of put in place to try to divide up the assets of the existing 141 00:17:29,570 --> 00:17:34,220 government of India between the governments of India and Pakistan after the, 142 00:17:34,220 --> 00:17:41,600 you know, in after the May 1947 decision to partition had come into being. 143 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:48,440 And it was interesting that you know that even though they were faced with the 144 00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:55,940 mammoth challenges of partition and migration and death and loss and abduction and, 145 00:17:55,940 --> 00:18:00,050 you know, a total breakdown of law and order, 146 00:18:00,050 --> 00:18:08,150 even in that context, you know, it was important to the members of the steering committee of the Partition Council, 147 00:18:08,150 --> 00:18:12,950 who would both become kind of important bureaucrats in the governments of India and Pakistan. 148 00:18:12,950 --> 00:18:23,330 It was important to them to assert the international of India and Pakistan first, even in the face of this mammoth kind of calamity. 149 00:18:23,330 --> 00:18:28,400 And so one of the first, you know, one of the first few orders that they kind of put into place with the high 150 00:18:28,400 --> 00:18:33,050 commissions of India and Pakistan had to be established immediately and that the, 151 00:18:33,050 --> 00:18:43,190 you know, the regions that now consist of India and Pakistan would interact with each other as a separate sovereign entities. 152 00:18:43,190 --> 00:18:52,550 And, you know, and they're going about dealing with the aftermath of the partition and trying to disentangle, 153 00:18:52,550 --> 00:19:00,380 you know, the erstwhile government of India in India and Pakistan in 1947 and 1948, 154 00:19:00,380 --> 00:19:06,140 and they're dealing with the aftermath of partition was also, in a sense, the shaping of the international, 155 00:19:06,140 --> 00:19:12,350 you know, into the making of their of their internationalist kind of trajectories. 156 00:19:12,350 --> 00:19:16,370 And that it was, you know, it was it was in that kind of context, 157 00:19:16,370 --> 00:19:25,610 the high commissions of India and Pakistan sort of immediately established, you know, in the aftermath of the decision to partition. 158 00:19:25,610 --> 00:19:39,590 And because of this overriding imperative to kind of give an internationalist face and a formalised kind of and finalised phase two, 159 00:19:39,590 --> 00:19:53,840 the government of India and Pakistan, you know, in in in 1947 itself because, you know, and do this even in the in in a situation where you know, 160 00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:59,120 the infrastructure for this simply didn't exist or the officials for counting the number of people 161 00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:04,460 who were going past the military and the reliance of India and Pakistan simply didn't exist or the, 162 00:20:04,460 --> 00:20:14,600 you know, the means to be able to kind of cleanly administer post partition travel weren't necessarily in place. 163 00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:20,900 But it was important to assert, assert a finalised face of India in Pakistan. 164 00:20:20,900 --> 00:20:28,190 And it was this common imperative that kind of shaped the role of a framework in which a lot of India, 165 00:20:28,190 --> 00:20:31,340 Pakistan of the India-Pakistan dialogue in the 90s. 166 00:20:31,340 --> 00:20:38,900 This was done and had this kind of common imperative to kind of create statehood immediately was what 167 00:20:38,900 --> 00:20:53,240 kind of what what is kind of behind the logic of that of their subsequent collaborative efforts. 168 00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:56,420 One kind of issue. 169 00:20:56,420 --> 00:21:06,320 But you know what was also what was also interesting about the thinking about this question is that the kinds of answers that India and Pakistan 170 00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:16,220 come up with to try to about this whole issue of how does one go about creating statehood and sovereignty and international personality, 171 00:21:16,220 --> 00:21:25,820 the kinds of answers that they came up with? Also diverge to some extent from pre-existing, you know, a Westphalian model. 172 00:21:25,820 --> 00:21:32,090 And a particularly good example of this was the shaping of the Nehru Advocate 173 00:21:32,090 --> 00:21:39,140 Agreement and the minorities pact that was signed between the come in April 1950. 174 00:21:39,140 --> 00:21:48,560 I imagine the audience is, you know, more than familiar with the, you know, with the pact and with the recent controversy about this fact. 175 00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,910 But you know, I want to very quickly take them through that. 176 00:21:52,910 --> 00:22:03,740 You know what, what it what it was about. And to very quickly take them through the reasons that I found this interesting and you know, 177 00:22:03,740 --> 00:22:16,580 what this pact was about was was put into place as a response to the alarming refugee crisis in Bengal in 1950, 178 00:22:16,580 --> 00:22:26,360 where the sheer numbers of refugees streaming across the boundary lines of East East and West Bengal, 179 00:22:26,360 --> 00:22:33,560 the sheer numbers of them scared both governments to the extent of, you know, 180 00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:39,170 sort of feeling threatened by a war, you know, of feeling taken that look, 181 00:22:39,170 --> 00:22:47,930 this the numbers are sort of large enough that this can conceivably lead to a war between India and Pakistan because, you know, it's not. 182 00:22:47,930 --> 00:22:48,200 I mean, 183 00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:58,160 there was there was no shortage of politicians in both India and Pakistan who were kind of arguing that it but the other country had been created. 184 00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:05,150 These excluded discriminatory and violent circumstances in which minorities couldn't exist, 185 00:23:05,150 --> 00:23:10,190 and that it was the responsibility of a religiously defined sense of nationalism 186 00:23:10,190 --> 00:23:17,630 to strive to seek revenge or try to seek a redressal for their plight. 187 00:23:17,630 --> 00:23:21,020 And secondly, they were also making the argument that, you know, 188 00:23:21,020 --> 00:23:29,300 the sheer numbers of the refugees placed a heavy burden on the exchequer of provincial governments, of state governments. 189 00:23:29,300 --> 00:23:35,900 And who would, you know, unable to afford to feed these numbers of refugees? 190 00:23:35,900 --> 00:23:45,020 And it was, you know, and and to kind of, you know, sort of provide rehabilitation to these numbers of refugees. 191 00:23:45,020 --> 00:23:49,790 And it's in response to that kind of crisis that may ruin Liaquat. 192 00:23:49,790 --> 00:23:58,820 Ali Khan agreed in 1950 to set up, you know, to, you know, to the minorities back, 193 00:23:58,820 --> 00:24:02,880 according to which both governments would be accountable to one another for the 194 00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:08,870 welfare of minorities in the provinces of in both the provinces of Bengal. 195 00:24:08,870 --> 00:24:18,080 And so theoretically, the government of East Pakistan would be entitled would be legally entitled, according to this agreement. 196 00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:27,410 To seek answers from the government of India and the government of West Bengal about the plight of minority Muslims in Bengal when they were being, 197 00:24:27,410 --> 00:24:33,410 you know, you know, for the persecution and vice versa. 198 00:24:33,410 --> 00:24:40,070 And the reasons I found this arrangement particularly fascinating was also to do with the fact that, you know, 199 00:24:40,070 --> 00:24:51,140 if you think about the question of sovereignty in South Asia and the fact that you have two states who are as notoriously prickly about sovereignty, 200 00:24:51,140 --> 00:25:01,570 about being exclusively exclusively responsible for all the concerns that go on within their boundary lines and, you know, 201 00:25:01,570 --> 00:25:09,260 a kind of intolerant of any institution or authority to kind of intervene in concerns within their boundary line, 202 00:25:09,260 --> 00:25:12,710 that kind of definition of sovereignty in South Asia. 203 00:25:12,710 --> 00:25:22,160 In that kind of context, the contours of this fact, which enabled the governments of India and Pakistan to do to raise concerns vis-a-vis one another, 204 00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:29,030 I found that kind of at each with a quite, you know, wide kind of intriguing. 205 00:25:29,030 --> 00:25:33,110 And you know, I mean, I found it necessary. 206 00:25:33,110 --> 00:25:37,760 I mean, I want you to think about, you know, I found it necessary to explain it. 207 00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,460 And you know what, what this you know, 208 00:25:40,460 --> 00:25:52,380 what they showed me was that there was a way in which this exercise in trying to implement the question of partition and to collaborate. 209 00:25:52,380 --> 00:26:01,080 Kind of come to a settlement on the questions of partition, had opened up a space for collaboration and dialogue in which alternative ways 210 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:11,730 of thinking about sovereignty and and identity could be thought through. 211 00:26:11,730 --> 00:26:19,760 So, you know, and it was, you know, it was about sort of, you know, when this was, you know, when this was, you know, 212 00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:27,960 and I also thought that this was sort of interesting because, you know, it shows us how, 213 00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:33,510 for one thing, in a lot of the literature that existed in the India, Pakistan, in India-Pakistan relations, 214 00:26:33,510 --> 00:26:42,480 it kind of showed us that there was this kind of unthinking sense of hostility toward one another because of the dynamics of a 215 00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:52,650 zero-sum game in which one fully formed state that is sovereign is entitled to act in a hostile way to another fully formed state. 216 00:26:52,650 --> 00:27:01,420 That is something you know, and again, like the the the module for which in which hostility like this is left out, 217 00:27:01,420 --> 00:27:06,930 you know, tends to come from a Eurocentric kind of context. 218 00:27:06,930 --> 00:27:14,730 And it occurred to me that, you know, that this at this fact also shows me that for one thing, 219 00:27:14,730 --> 00:27:25,620 it's not as if there was an unthinking and unrelenting hostility that you know, that both were kind of just compulsively following that. 220 00:27:25,620 --> 00:27:33,810 They were actually quite creative and new ways of thinking about and non-confrontational ways about this, 221 00:27:33,810 --> 00:27:36,420 about the future of India-Pakistan relations. 222 00:27:36,420 --> 00:27:45,480 And there was this sense that, you know, if the, you know, if the kind of processes of partition can be worked out once and for all. 223 00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:55,710 And you know, there's a way in which there is an expectation that the successor states can have a relatively 224 00:27:55,710 --> 00:28:04,110 more stable and plausible and stable kind of can plausibly have a more stable kind of coexistence. 225 00:28:04,110 --> 00:28:09,240 And if you know, the architect was also kind of, you know, 226 00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:18,640 a part of that kind of expectation about the nature of how the India-Pakistan relationship would work. 227 00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:29,710 You know, the other a set of things that was also going on as the Bengal crisis had unfolded over the months of like, 228 00:28:29,710 --> 00:28:39,610 you know, over the kind of 1949 and 1950 as the refugee crisis was unfolding in Bengal. 229 00:28:39,610 --> 00:28:52,630 What had also happened was that at Nehru had written to Liaquat Ali Khan about about a possible no war pact between India and Pakistan, 230 00:28:52,630 --> 00:28:57,970 according to which neither country would declare war on the other in the first instance. 231 00:28:57,970 --> 00:29:06,640 And, you know, and while they were navigating the political challenges from the Bengal crisis, 232 00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:16,630 they were also simultaneously conducting a correspondence about a possible no war pact between these between India and Pakistan. 233 00:29:16,630 --> 00:29:24,130 Now again, the you know, the reasonings reasoning behind the NorBAC is, you know, 234 00:29:24,130 --> 00:29:34,570 is again quite interesting because it showed me, you know, because of what happened. 235 00:29:34,570 --> 00:29:41,140 What happened was that the Hindu knights and says that I should, you know, 236 00:29:41,140 --> 00:29:48,620 one option is that both of us commit to a formal declaration in which neither will declare war on the other in the first instance. 237 00:29:48,620 --> 00:29:55,030 Now, you know, the fact of the thinking about the pact is quite interesting because for one thing, 238 00:29:55,030 --> 00:30:02,410 it was modelled on the Bryant Kellogg pact that had been signed between European countries in the war 239 00:30:02,410 --> 00:30:11,740 period to try to come to a kind of collective security arrangement around the containment of Germany. 240 00:30:11,740 --> 00:30:29,730 And the idea had been that look, if you if one country goes to, you know, I mean, if one country goes to war against another in Europe, then you know, 241 00:30:29,730 --> 00:30:38,620 the the no country was allowed to declare war or the other in Europe, and the United States was going to kind of guarantee that agreement. 242 00:30:38,620 --> 00:30:40,990 Now, for one thing, 243 00:30:40,990 --> 00:30:49,870 the application of this European precedent on the shaping of the India-Pakistan relationship was interesting because it showed me that, 244 00:30:49,870 --> 00:30:54,000 you know, that there was a way in which, 245 00:30:54,000 --> 00:31:00,430 you know, both foreign offices were thinking about the kind of shape that India-Pakistan relations 246 00:31:00,430 --> 00:31:07,000 would be and were quite open to the possibilities that an award back would offer. 247 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,020 And for another thing, it was also interesting because, you know, 248 00:31:11,020 --> 00:31:17,170 it was the other reason that it was also being conducted was that this was also Nehru's 249 00:31:17,170 --> 00:31:24,580 way of trying to stave off his colleagues over the question of policy making in Pakistan. 250 00:31:24,580 --> 00:31:31,370 And it just made me tried to stave off the influence of Sardar Patel or other opposing colleagues within the cabinet who 251 00:31:31,370 --> 00:31:40,070 would offering competing views and who were trying to avoid gaining more traction about why a more violent relationship, 252 00:31:40,070 --> 00:31:46,660 a more hostile relationship with Pakistan shouldn't be undertaken. 253 00:31:46,660 --> 00:31:57,250 And in the face of that kind of challenge. Nehru set up a you know this communication with Ali Khan, which is conducted in public, 254 00:31:57,250 --> 00:32:02,800 which is published in people as it's been carried out at the time and which is a 255 00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:09,040 sort of signalling that he is in charge of policy making with Pakistan as well. 256 00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:19,270 Now the pact itself feels the reason that it fails is because the terms of the clauses within it, as far as you know, 257 00:32:19,270 --> 00:32:28,870 seeking a redressal on issues like the need and Indus waters, those aren't agreed to between India and Pakistan. 258 00:32:28,870 --> 00:32:31,510 And within a narrow bureaucracy, 259 00:32:31,510 --> 00:32:41,260 there was a lot of opposition to India committing itself in writing to a seeking recourse from the International Court of Justice on these issues. 260 00:32:41,260 --> 00:32:47,590 So the fact best deal, but at the same time, what it shows is that there was a sense that, you know, 261 00:32:47,590 --> 00:32:56,050 the political high ground could be digging through a public kind of a declaration that 262 00:32:56,050 --> 00:33:02,200 this pact was being sought and there were there was a way to gain political dividends. 263 00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:10,300 You know, if you were telling everybody that you knew that you were in the midst of this kind of correspondence with with the UPA Ali Khan, 264 00:33:10,300 --> 00:33:18,420 you know, and there was a way in which both sides also understood that it was advantageous to them as far as international opinion was concerned. 265 00:33:18,420 --> 00:33:22,110 To be seen to be carrying out this bag, and again, 266 00:33:22,110 --> 00:33:27,300 it showed to me like the expectation of a slightly different trajectory of the outcome of India-Pakistan 267 00:33:27,300 --> 00:33:35,790 relations than what would have been then you know what a lot of the literature seemed to suggest, 268 00:33:35,790 --> 00:33:39,720 you know, am I up in the I mean, I might. How am I doing? 269 00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:43,950 Have I almost finished? I mean, you can if do you want to continue? 270 00:33:43,950 --> 00:33:49,470 You can continue. If you like how much? How much time do I have left? 271 00:33:49,470 --> 00:33:55,140 You can easily talk to another 10 minutes, 10 minutes. So there's plenty of that. 272 00:33:55,140 --> 00:34:00,630 OK. Um, the you know, the last set of things I want to, you know, 273 00:34:00,630 --> 00:34:06,480 another set of things I want to flag about the shaping of the India Pakistan relationship is, 274 00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:14,550 you know, the making of their international personalities and how you know, this exercise. 275 00:34:14,550 --> 00:34:23,430 Also, could you know how room to fashion identities that are not necessarily confrontational with one another? 276 00:34:23,430 --> 00:34:33,660 And you know, one of the things I looked at, you know, in the book is the way in which India and Pakistan went about kind of, you know, 277 00:34:33,660 --> 00:34:41,340 sort of signalling their internationalist trajectories to the rest of the world in the aftermath of partition and the 278 00:34:41,340 --> 00:34:49,620 way in which their international personalities were called were not simply as a consequence of a product of their, 279 00:34:49,620 --> 00:34:54,210 you know, a compulsive hostility to one another. But the face of their, you know, 280 00:34:54,210 --> 00:35:06,510 their international face was also made in places where they were actually areas of commonality between India and Pakistan. 281 00:35:06,510 --> 00:35:18,480 And a particularly good example of this was, you know, was their position on the question of Indian settlers in South Africa, 282 00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:27,960 who and the question of, you know, and the question of whether or not they were to be given citizenship by the government of South Africa. 283 00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:39,480 And both India and Pakistan had argued on the same side of the United Nations that the settlers in South Africa ought to be, 284 00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:43,320 you know, also be given citizenship in South Africa. 285 00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:49,830 And, you know, and it shouldn't be the responsibility of the governments of India and Pakistan. 286 00:35:49,830 --> 00:36:04,080 Do you know for rehabilitation and the other, you know, a particularly interesting set of commonalities that they had was, in a sense, 287 00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:19,320 the search for, you know, a set of, you know, a language about in which the concerns of decolonisation and state building and developmental aid. 288 00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:24,990 These kinds of concerns took precedence over Cold War rivalries, you know? 289 00:36:24,990 --> 00:36:30,030 And for example, what is particularly interesting about the internationalist trajectories of India 290 00:36:30,030 --> 00:36:36,320 and Pakistan in the early 50s was the similarity of their kind of position, 291 00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:42,180 you know, with regard to the United States and also the similarity of their position 292 00:36:42,180 --> 00:36:47,370 with regard to the United Kingdom and the sterling balance kind of question. 293 00:36:47,370 --> 00:36:48,420 And you know, 294 00:36:48,420 --> 00:36:58,290 there was a way in which this again led the shaping of this kind of internationalist peace wasn't simply being done out of a compulsive hostility, 295 00:36:58,290 --> 00:37:05,160 or it wasn't even necessarily being done because of the dynamics of the Cold War rivalry, but was instead, you know, 296 00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:19,740 being done because of, you know, a common platform that both had that both wanted to be seen to be occupying. 297 00:37:19,740 --> 00:37:26,940 I also found their positions on Palestine to be particularly interesting because, you know, 298 00:37:26,940 --> 00:37:40,130 because although both India and Pakistan had different positions in opposition to the partition of there, you know they were no less. 299 00:37:40,130 --> 00:37:47,040 You know, both of them, but nonetheless keen to be seen to be careful to explain to the rest of the 300 00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:51,120 world about the reasons for their opposition to the partition of Palestine. 301 00:37:51,120 --> 00:38:04,440 And you know, I mean, in a sense, the way in which they were trying to suggest that partition had to be done according to a certain logic and 302 00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:13,380 had to be done in accordance in accordance to the wishes of the people after the election and had to be done, 303 00:38:13,380 --> 00:38:18,440 you know, with the consent of all the parties involved. 304 00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:29,390 There was a way in by making this kind of argument, they were also in a sense signalling that if a partition is done according to these arguments, 305 00:38:29,390 --> 00:38:37,160 then a partition is valid and therefore the coexistence of India and Pakistan on a stable footing. 306 00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:41,870 You know, it is plausible. So there was, you know, I mean, 307 00:38:41,870 --> 00:38:52,220 it was also interesting that you know this this particular moment of the 1950s and this question of how one was to be seen to 308 00:38:52,220 --> 00:39:03,860 be kind of implementing the question of partition had opened up a set of spaces of collaboration and cooperation whereby, 309 00:39:03,860 --> 00:39:09,350 you know, the internationalist identities of India and Pakistan would be like that, you know, 310 00:39:09,350 --> 00:39:17,570 in going to consultation another rather than in, you know, in a framework of hostility with one another. 311 00:39:17,570 --> 00:39:26,990 I also finally wanted to talk a little bit about the Indus Water Treaty and the terms of pre and and, 312 00:39:26,990 --> 00:39:32,990 you know, India, a trade treaty between India and Pakistan that was signed in 1950. 313 00:39:32,990 --> 00:39:37,460 And the reasons that I found this found both of these to be interesting. 314 00:39:37,460 --> 00:39:44,780 I mean, in the book, I don't actually talk about the signing of the treaty in 1962, and there are you can in 1960 by you. 315 00:39:44,780 --> 00:39:50,630 Can I offer a pre-history of the Indus water talks? 316 00:39:50,630 --> 00:40:00,800 And I suggest that, you know, the terms on which the treaty was eventually signed, a treaty that, for all its faults, 317 00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:09,440 continues to be one of the long lasting kind of declarations in India-Pakistan relations 318 00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:15,080 and whose terms are still kind of adhered to by and large by both states today, 319 00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,500 even though there was a lot of opposition to the terms of the treaty as well. 320 00:40:18,500 --> 00:40:30,440 But what I wanted to suggest in on on about the way in which the treaty was conceptualised in 1948 1949 was the sense that acknowledging 321 00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:38,810 the finality of partition and acknowledging the necessity of the division of the waters by both states was the only way it was, 322 00:40:38,810 --> 00:40:52,130 you know, and coming to a settlement about the terms on which this water was to be divided was the only would would provide for a more, 323 00:40:52,130 --> 00:40:57,470 you know, a more stable kind of outcome in the shaping of India-Pakistan relations. 324 00:40:57,470 --> 00:41:03,590 So when collaborative efforts, you know, for dialogue between India and Pakistan were being done, 325 00:41:03,590 --> 00:41:10,430 they were being done with the view to finalising the terms of the partition and to try to settle the terms of the division of the partition, 326 00:41:10,430 --> 00:41:20,030 including the Indus waters. And even though as it happened, I mean, as you know, as as as is also widely known, 327 00:41:20,030 --> 00:41:24,580 the division of the waters was, for one thing, ecologically terrible. 328 00:41:24,580 --> 00:41:35,270 It was for another thing, you know, actually disadvantages in terms of both countries in terms of the share of the water that either would receive, 329 00:41:35,270 --> 00:41:43,730 even though a collaborative attempt at developing the basin together would have yielded more power to both countries. 330 00:41:43,730 --> 00:41:46,940 Even though these facts were true, it was. 331 00:41:46,940 --> 00:41:55,820 Both countries kind of preferred to actually attempt to have a discussion about how the water should be divided and the, 332 00:41:55,820 --> 00:42:00,950 you know, the more constructive and productive parts of the dialogue. 333 00:42:00,950 --> 00:42:03,050 It was over the terms of the division. 334 00:42:03,050 --> 00:42:15,740 And it was this a set of dialogues that that had been undertaken in 1948, in 1949 that was ultimately signed in the treaty by you. 335 00:42:15,740 --> 00:42:25,170 So, you know, and this this way of thinking about the division of, you know, 336 00:42:25,170 --> 00:42:30,950 and the reasons for the signing of the treaty and the way in which the thinking about, 337 00:42:30,950 --> 00:42:40,040 you know, how water was to be organised was also part of the peace with the state building and development list, 338 00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:48,740 ideologies that fit in and sort of widely in place in the 1950s and therefore kind of, again, 339 00:42:48,740 --> 00:42:56,060 you know, prescribed to by both governments in, you know, do it, do it, do it to a heavy extent. 340 00:42:56,060 --> 00:43:04,760 And you know, there's a way in which there's a sense that what is really about what is really kind of encouraging this, 341 00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:11,960 this idea of trying to divide up the waters and trying to come to an agreement on 342 00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:18,160 this basis on the Indus question is a sense that what responsible states should do. 343 00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:27,040 Is to be involved in developmental projects for the populations and to be involved in big, you know, 344 00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:35,890 irrigation, dam making schemes and, you know, infrastructural projects for their population. 345 00:43:35,890 --> 00:43:43,030 And this is the kind of, you know, and it is the responsibility of India and Pakistan to embark on this kind of project. 346 00:43:43,030 --> 00:43:48,430 And again, it's a recognition of this kind of standard or this kind of, you know, 347 00:43:48,430 --> 00:43:55,100 a yardstick for thinking about how states ought to behave that dictated the way in which the, 348 00:43:55,100 --> 00:43:59,980 you know, the way in which they are kind of conducted their relationship and dictated the way 349 00:43:59,980 --> 00:44:05,950 in which they thought about how to come to a settlement on the on the partition. 350 00:44:05,950 --> 00:44:14,720 So I, you know, so and and this was, you know, I mean, I also want to very briefly, I mean, I can come back to this in the in the question, 351 00:44:14,720 --> 00:44:22,120 but also very briefly talk about how this logic of state involvement in infrastructure 352 00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:27,010 development and state involvement in an economic project was also sort 353 00:44:27,010 --> 00:44:32,590 of in place when they were negotiating on trade and negotiating on trade treaties 354 00:44:32,590 --> 00:44:38,140 and negotiating on the terms of how India and Pakistan would would conduct, 355 00:44:38,140 --> 00:44:43,840 you know, a trade relations with one another. And they would, you know, saw what they were. 356 00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:51,130 What they were trying to do was to again. You know, this was a messy process of disentangling in the sense that these were, 357 00:44:51,130 --> 00:44:55,040 you know, communities wanted to trade with one another were usually communities. 358 00:44:55,040 --> 00:45:04,930 We're used to trading with one another. For example, in the Bengal delta, as part of the older and very tightly knit together dense set, 359 00:45:04,930 --> 00:45:14,050 the sets of economic and social connexions and trade had been part of part and parcel of that tradition. 360 00:45:14,050 --> 00:45:26,200 And what you have in 1948 and 1949 is the making of the insertion of the states of India and Pakistan into this tradition and an 361 00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:37,630 insistence by the governments of India and Pakistan that they had to be recognised as such as being a kind of mediators on the street. 362 00:45:37,630 --> 00:45:46,540 And there was an underlining that kind of process of insertion was a sense of commonality with one another. 363 00:45:46,540 --> 00:45:55,630 As far as the, you know, as far as the kind of mutual, you know, objective of each other was understood, as you know, 364 00:45:55,630 --> 00:46:04,090 for the necessity of giving a shape and face to partition and creating the states of India and Pakistan as a consequence of that. 365 00:46:04,090 --> 00:46:13,360 So there was a way in which the nature of the collaborative effort between involvement with collaborative kind of, you know, 366 00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:19,990 Project of India and Pakistan involved an agreement for them to disentangle 367 00:46:19,990 --> 00:46:26,710 from one another and for them to embark on a process of dialogue too about, 368 00:46:26,710 --> 00:46:30,190 you know, thinking about the terms of these, of this disentanglement. 369 00:46:30,190 --> 00:46:40,330 And you know, I mean, although the book doesn't go beyond 1950, I argue that look at to the extent that it applies. 370 00:46:40,330 --> 00:46:46,000 I mean, so it's this kind of necessity to acknowledge, 371 00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:53,230 acknowledge and validate the fact of the partition that lies at the heart of all collaborative 372 00:46:53,230 --> 00:46:59,230 and operative attempts in that dialogue making process between India and Pakistan. 373 00:46:59,230 --> 00:47:02,500 And this, you know, this kind of necessity. 374 00:47:02,500 --> 00:47:09,880 I mean, you know, it sort of appears over and over again in the shaping of the India-Pakistan relationship. 375 00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:16,570 I mean, even if the issues of change, the nature of the question about about, you know, 376 00:47:16,570 --> 00:47:23,410 should the dialogue be kind of based on acknowledgement of the finality of partition or not, 377 00:47:23,410 --> 00:47:25,670 you know that I mean, 378 00:47:25,670 --> 00:47:36,670 the terms on which that question is answered is often responsible for the extent to which the dialogue between India and Pakistan is productive. 379 00:47:36,670 --> 00:47:41,110 So, you know, I mean, what I suggest in the book is that in a sense, 380 00:47:41,110 --> 00:47:49,600 there was this a kind of a parallel strand of a productive of a kind of a productive attempted 381 00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:55,630 cooperation and dialogue between India and Pakistan that also emerged as a consequence of the partition? 382 00:47:55,630 --> 00:48:02,170 And when you know, when we're trying to tell the India-Pakistan story, it's important the kind of track how that strand goes, 383 00:48:02,170 --> 00:48:10,030 as you know, as a as a kind of indicator for the nature of well-being in India-Pakistan relations. 384 00:48:10,030 --> 00:48:18,070 I think I'm going to stop here and, you know, I'm happy to take questions. 385 00:48:18,070 --> 00:48:21,204 Comments about this. Thank you for listening.