Partition: An International History

Abstract

In trying to assemble the structure through which bilateral relations between India and Pakistan could be conducted, policy makers drew heavily from European models of inter-state peace-making evolved in the inter-war decades. The aftermath of the break-up of large multinational empires along ethnic-majoritarian lines posed administrative questions that were, in many ways, also similar to the aftermath of the partition of the subcontinent along religious lines. In this article, I attempt to relate these developments with the signing of the Nehru–Liaquat Pact of 1950, between the governments of India and Pakistan. According to this Pact, both governments would now be accountable to one another for the protection of their minorities in the Bengal province. I argue that this approach to dealing with the question of minority populations after a partition, had been initially developed by the League of Nations, and that emulating these models were part of an attempt by India and Pakistan to borrow from, but also further refine models of European statehood for their own purposes after their partition. This article attempts to evaluate the extent to which these expectations were met in the making of a ‘minorities’ regime’ in South Asia.