Pakistan would become Bangladesh in 1971. At the time of the partition,
many families, Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh, voluntarily or involuntarily, left
behind the lands of their foreparents, afraid they would be living in a nation
unsympathetic to their faith. Some 10 million persons are said to have moved
from their ancestral homes in 1947, of whom at least a million are estimated
to have died in the violence that ensued. Many Hindus from Sind or East
Bengal, for example, were cut off from their family roots, as were Sikhs who
had lived for generations in northern Panja ̄b. While many Muslim families
also moved, millions of others opted to stay in the new nation-state of India,
preferring to keep their businesses and lands.
From its inception, Pakistan was engaged in debates as to what it meant
to be an “Islamic state.” Its more liberal leadership, including Muhammad
Ali Jinnah, who had fought for the creation of the state, and Liaquat Ali
Khan, its first prime minister, wanted to assure a democratic republic which
offered opportunity for all. The more conservative ‘ulama ̄‘, as voiced by
Syed Abu’l-ala Maududi, wanted to be sure the country was in every respect
run on the principles of the Islamic sharı ̄‘a. After the death of Jinnah in 1948
and, especially, after the assassination of Ali Khan, in 1951, considerable
turbulence ensued, leading, in 1958, General Ayub Khanto seize control as
a military governor. Since then, the military has assumed political dominance
in Pakistan, with the ‘ulama ̄‘and more liberal Muslim intellectuals variously
seeking to exercise power.^1
Fortunately for India, those in power led it to become a rapidly developing
democracy. Within two decades of independence and especially in the years
whenJawarhalal Nehruwas India’s first prime minister (1947–64), the young
country had made rapid strides toward an industrialized democracy. States
which had remained autonomous under the British were incorporated
into the new nation (whether by accession or force). By January 26, 1950,
the country had a constitution, thanks to a drafting committee chaired by
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, which enfranchised all its citizens, including those once
known as “untouchables.” A series of five-year economic plans initiated
in the first fifteen years, led to attempts to develop village economies, and
increased production of food and industry. Indeed, by 1966, India was
the seventh most industrially advanced nation in the world and by 1989,
thanks to the so-called Green Revolution, food production had increased
several fold.
The legal status of women was elevated significantly through a series of
laws: one removing inter-caste barriers to marriage (1949); another giving
Hindu women the right to divorce and raising the minimum age for mar-
riage for males to eighteen and females to fifteen (1955); yet another gave
female children equal rights as males to inherit property (1956). By 1957
some 40 percent of the 92 million women qualified to vote cast ballots,
194 Religion in Contemporary India