Partition as Political Choice: Rajendra Prasad’s Intellectual Critique of the Two Nations Theory and the Viability of Secular Multinational India

India's independence in August 1947 was the culmination of a sustained historical process. This cannot be said about the creation of Pakistan, founded on the principle of the 'two-nation theory'. True, one can uncover the roots of and unfold the events leading to its birth. But such an exercise cannot lend historical legitimacy to the cause or the movement connected with it. Nor can one view Jinnah's ability to rally round Muslims as a vindication of his theoretical postulates. At best, it reflected his political acumen and vindicated his judgement that the India of the 1940s offered him a God-sent opportunity, denied to him by the obdurate Congress leadership in the mid-1930s, to be the 'sole spokesman' of the Muslim constituency. The new nation he thus created was the result of a process, set in motion by the conjuncture of events in a specific historical context. It was most certainly not embedded in what is described as the 'historical logic' of the 'two-nation theory'. In the 1930s, there was no blueprint of a future Pakistan. Iqbal's scheme, outlined at the Muslim League session in 1930, did not envisage a separate Muslim state: it merely made out a case for provincial autonomy, especially in Muslim-majority areas. Rehmat Ali's vision, nurtured in Cambridge, was dismissed back home as 'chimerical and impracticable'. And Jinnah's own scheme in the 1940s was vague, tentative and open to diverse interpretations. Linlithgow, the viceroy, regarded it 'as very largely in the nature of a bargaining'. He felt that 'half the strength of his (Jinnah's) position is that he has refused to define it'.2 Linlithgow's successor, Wavell, informed London in October 1945 that Jinnah was arguing for something which he 'had not worked out fully'.3

The political science of religion is a relatively young subdiscipline of political science that examines the relationship between religion and politics. Its development was delayed by the dominant secularization narrative in the West, which marginalized the impact of religion on the functioning of states and societies for a long time. However, events such as the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979) and the collapse of communism in Central Europe underscored the necessity of incorporating religious aspects into political science analyses. A key figure in this subdiscipline was Miroljub Jevtić, who was among the first to systematically study the influence of religion on politics and founded the Politics and Religion Journal. In Poland, the pioneer of the political science of religion was Bogumił Grott, who in the 1990s analyzed the relationship between religion and political ideologies. Initially, this subdiscipline was closely linked to historical research, as reflected in the research agenda proposed by Kazimierz Banek and in studies that covered broad historical contexts. Stefan Dudra and Ryszard Michalak also contributed to the development of this field by exploring the intersection of religion and politics in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. It was not until the 21st century that the political science of religion emerged as an independent field of study, significantly shaped by academic conferences organized by the Jagiellonian University, the University of Zielona Góra, and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University. Today, the political science of religion is an interdisciplinary research domain that analyzes the relationship between religious institutions and secular authorities, the impact of religion on nationalism, political ideologies, and international relations. Its relevance continues to grow in the context of contemporary religiously motivated conflicts and dynamic socio-political transformations.

Law is language. It is not solely language, since it is a social institution manifested also in non-linguistic ways, but is profoundly linguistic institution (Gibbons, 2003). Surprisingly enough, little research has examined the use of complex language during these culturally significant trial outcomes especially in the South-Asian context. The analysis of language in judicial verdicts has become a substantial area of inquiry within forensic linguistics and discourse studies, especially where legal decisions coalesce with political interplay. Therefore, the language of verdicts, provides theoretical understanding into how legal institutions express neutrality, assert legitimacy and authority, and represent political participants. Pakistan, having a socio-politically charged context, high-profile judicial verdicts often carry ideological significance and have been a source of sparking immense interest in public. This has created a need for scholarly work that examines judicial discourse through corpus-based, forensic, and critical lenses. The study employs Critical discourse analysis (CDA), Corpus Linguistics (CL) and Appraisal Framework methods for the exploration of hidden linguistics elements in the significant judicial verdicts of Panama Papers Scandal (2017) and Cypher Case (2024), with employment of corpus-assisted tools, Voyant and UAM corpus tool.

According to mainstream policy wisdom, knowledge utilization is a function of both political and scientific consensus. The substantial technical core in environmental policy, and its wide-ranging impacts on decisions and behaviors of firms, households, and consumers, only underscores this double requirement. This chapter argues that the problematic relationship between knowledge use and political choice can be understood as a particular instance of boundary work at the politics-science nexus, that is, the dialectics between the scientization of politics and the politicization of science. Problem structuring, like the idea of quality control through extended peer review, aims at an escape from the potential dilemma between democratic political choice and technocratic use of scientific knowledge. The problem thus appears to be moderately structured. However, there is evidence that the theory fails to grasp the real life situation with respect to Dutch fisheries.

Introduction: Beyond the Anglophone—Comparative South Asian Literatures

The current regulation of insolvency of the deceased person in Russia is named as «bankruptcy of the inheritance estate» in most part of the scientific papers dedicated to this legal topic. Researchers use this naming to justify the restoration of the deceased's legal capacity. This fiction helps recognize the deceased as the subject of bankruptcy before the final distribution of property among creditors. This kind of a «resurrection» of a citizen generates a legal consequence as if a separation of property masses appeared. Basis of such an interpretation might lie in paragraph 4 of Article 223.1 of Federal Law «On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)». The resulting conclusion of this approach leads to competition between creditors of the heir and creditors of the deceased, which makes liability of the legal successor unlimited. From that point of view, the position of the heir is in obvious contradiction with the norm of paragraph 1 of Article 1175 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. This is why the Supreme Court describes the status of the heirs as exclusively procedural. The heir has an interest in the inheritance mass, but a procedural understanding of his status cuts off his material position in the insolvency procedure. By referring to the history of law and comparative case law (English and German law), the status of the heir in the bankruptcy procedure of the deceased person is determined in the research. The author also reviewed the legislation, its scientific understanding, and application in relation to the implementation of the principle of limited liability for the debts of an insolvent citizen. After the examination of the Russian approach in the regulation of bankruptcy of the deceased, the author suggests that the idea of giving the heir the status of a fictitious debtor should be abandoned. The principle of limited liability for the debts of the deceased person proves that there is no automatic «mixing» of property upon inheritance. The heir should be perceived as the owner of two blocs – personal and hereditary – regardless of the fate of the property transferred to him. This understanding imposes the legal successor with the duty to «liquidate» the inheritance, as it happens in insolvency. Isolation of property blocs as an a priori construction serves as the key point of this paper and brings consistency to the interpretation of the current regulation. So, competition between creditors is excluded, grounds for personal liability of the legal successor are proposed, and mutual obligations are preserved. But, most importantly, the figure of the heir is determined as the key one to the process of insolvency of the deceased.

The Plays of Patrick Pearse: A Playwright’s Viewpoint1 Brian McAvera Introduction Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) is not best known for his plays. He is principally remembered in relation to his leadership of the Easter Rising in 1916 (for which he was the first to be executed), and there is as yet no scholarly consensus as to whether his leadership was a triumph or a failure. A bald summary might be: those of a Republican persuasion see it as a triumph whereas those inclined to constitutional nationalism, or scepticism, see it as a failure.2 Pearse wrote a series of plays in both Irish and English, four of which were collected and published, along with stories and poems, by Father P Browne, in the year after Pearse’s death.3 In 2013 the collected plays of Patrick Pearse were published, expertly edited by Róisín Ní Ghairbhí and Eugene McNulty.4 These plays have hardly ever been performed. In the wake of the centenary of 1916, it is not surprising that numerous catalogues, exhibitions and books have emerged, which seek to redefine, in particular, the period between 1912 and 1916, and to re-evaluate the major figures.5 Pearse is a key figure. Whether one views him as an impractical, militaristic and naive idealist, who would have vanished from history if it had not been for the heavy-handed reaction of the British to the Easter Rising, or as a hero, who would later ‘legitimise’ the actions of the Provisional IRA, the accidents of history have ensured that he is a figure with whom we have to come to terms.6 This paper is specifically concerned with the plays of Pearse which were written in English or translated by their author into English. Quite recently, academics have attempted to reframe Pearse. On the basis of a seeming gender variability, he is claimed as a modernist.7 As a playwright in general, we are told that he developed ‘innovative approaches’, that he was a political playwright, that he used theatre to ‘explore the possibilities held out by a properly imagined education system’, that he had ‘a deep understanding of the power and mechanics of theatre’, that he was ‘concerned with exploring Brian McAvera Studies • volume 107 • number 427 356 the limits of dramatic art and its relationship to a wider society’, and that he used ‘contemporary forms and this led Ireland from anglicised backwaters into the European mainstream’.8 It is my contention that none of these statements are true. If he was a Modernist, did he take on board the acting revolution brought about by Stanislavski? Did his staging reflect the experiments of Appia, Craig, Meyerhold and Reinhardt? Was he versed in the latest dramatic theory, be it of Nietzsche or Shaw? As someone whose ‘themes and motifs … [were] embraced in the Irish art world’, one is required to ask of his work: where is the specific evidence for this?9 Is there even any evidence that Pearse was aware of developments in the visual arts, either in a very conservative Ireland or in the rest of Europe?10 Was he aware of impressionism or post-impressionism? Likewise, in relation to contemporary music was he aware of composers like Webern, Schoenberg, Stravinski, Debussy or Ravel?11 I wish to suggest that, in broad terms, Pearse, far from being a modernist, was an arch-conservative, whose closest analogues are to be found in the first half of the nineteenth century. As the American drama critic and historian John Gassner once remarked, ‘We must recognise the breach between ambition and attainment’.12 There are, however, other contexts which need to be considered. How can we evaluate Pearse’s alleged ‘deep understanding of the power and mechanics of theatre’, if he is not placed in relation to, for example, modernist theatrical developments such as Lugné-Poe’s Théâtre de l’Oeuvre and Antoine’s Théâtre Libre in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century, or J T Grein and the Independent Theatre Society (1890f.), William Poel’s Elizabethan Stage Society (1894f.) or Granville-Barker’s Court Theatre (1904–7), all in London? How can we investigate the claim...

This article examines the break-ups of post-communist Czechoslovakia and the Union of Serbia and Montenegro under consociationalism. According to Arend Lijphart, social divisions may be neutralized at the elite level with power-sharing mechanisms. Lijphart's theory has been abundantly criticized, particularly because, while its intention is to induce cooperation, consociationalism does not give leaders actual incentives to cooperate. Czechoslovakia and the Union qualified as consociations; however most favorable factors were absent. The states failed to overcome their divisions and broke apart. Both states were going through a democratization period, experienced differently in each republic. The article argues that the application of consociationalism at this time magnified the divisions. Stirring up the ethnic sensitivity of the population was the most reliable strategy for politicians to secure popular support. In this context, and with the EU enlargement prospect, the consociational structure, instead of bringing elites together, weakened the federal power and provided elites the opportunity to defend republican interests at the expense of the federations. Hence, while a consociation requires certain conditions and favorable factors, the context in which consociationalism is implemented, and particularly democratization periods, may have a decisive influence on the leaders’ ability to cooperate, on their decisions, and thereby on the state.

The issue of collective and multiple property rights in animals, such as cattle, camels or reindeers, among pastoralists has never been a subject of special cross-cultural and comparative study. Focusing on pastoralist societies in East and West Africa, the Far North and Siberia, and the Eurasian steppes, this volume addresses the issue of property rights and the changes these societies have undergone due to the direct or indirect influence of modernization and globalization processes. The contributors also investigate the interplay of older sets of rights and modern marketing policies; political, ecological and economic effects of collectivization and de-collectivization; the existence of collective and private property in the Soviet Union and its successor states; state taxation and destocking measures in African dry lands; and the effects of quarantine, as well as import and export regulations. The rich and well-researched ethnographic, historical, and economic data in these chapters provides new theoretical insights into the matter of property rights in animals.

The issue of collective and multiple property rights in animals, such as cattle, camels or reindeers, among pastoralists has never been a subject of special cross-cultural and comparative study. Focusing on pastoralist societies in East and West Africa, the Far North and Siberia, and the Eurasian steppes, this volume addresses the issue of property rights and the changes these societies have undergone due to the direct or indirect influence of modernization and globalization processes. The contributors also investigate the interplay of older sets of rights and modern marketing policies; political, ecological and economic effects of collectivization and de-collectivization; the existence of collective and private property in the Soviet Union and its successor states; state taxation and destocking measures in African dry lands; and the effects of quarantine, as well as import and export regulations. The rich and well-researched ethnographic, historical, and economic data in these chapters provides new theoretical insights into the matter of property rights in animals.

Reviewed by: Partition's Legacies by Joya Chatterji and David Washbrook Gurharpal Singh Partition's Legacies By Joya Chatterji with an Introduction by David Washbrook. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019. Since the publication of Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism, and Partition 1932-1947 (1994) and The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947-1967 (2007), Joya Chatterji has emerged as one of the foremost historians working on the division of India. These works, which have become the standard texts on the subject, are now complemented by this copious volume, which brings together a collection of essays written over a period of twenty years in which the author examines broader themes that shaped this seminal moment in modern South Asian history. The collection is grouped into four categories: identities, decolonisation and nation-making; refugees, mobility and migration; immobility; and citizenship. It also includes an introduction by the late David Washbrook summarising how Chatterji has both anticipated and has been at the forefront of the changing theoretical landscape of the study of the Partition of India. The common theme that binds the volume is Chatterji's focus on Bengal—its history, people and post-1947 development in South Asia and beyond in the Bengali diaspora. There is much to admire in this rich, voluminous collection. Foremost, it offers an excellent example of how to use comparative political history to re-evaluate the Partition that is so often viewed as sui generis. Most essays in it follow a common structure by challenging existing conventional wisdom, formulating the research question, offering a solid empirical foundation for the arguments outlined, and the need for broader comparative reflection to make sense of Partition and its enduring processes. It is impossible to do justice to this collection, but I highlight four aspects that I found especially noteworthy. Chatterji's understanding of decolonisation with its rushed transfer of power reinforces her earlier readings that it was Congress' pursuit of a downsized India without the Muslim-majority provinces that precipitated the cataclysmic events of 1947. "The Congress party's single-minded Unitarianism," she observes, "forced a de-territorialised, variously imagined, 'Muslim nation' into a 'moth-eaten and truncated'state" (33-4). Related to this, the Congress engineered to control the processes and outcomes of the Boundary Commission, so much so that Mountbatten accepted the party's proposed terms of reference without demure, dismissing Jinnah's suggestion that the whole process should be overseen by the United Nations. Heavily influenced by the Congress, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, according to Chatterji, eventually "carved out Pakistan like an inexpert butcher from those parts of the empire the Congress leaders no longer wanted" (34). The essays on the refugees provide strikingly new insights not only into the reasons and nature of the migratory flows that took place but the complex interplay of government actions and individual and collective social capital. A new reading is offered of the settlement of refugees in West Bengal which is traditionally associated with the rise of the communist movement in the state and substantially explains the subsequent ghettoization of Muslims in a few districts and urban localities. And finally, there is much in the volume of the making of identities—historical, modern and diasporic—in shaping the politics of Bengal and the related contestations around citizenship in South Asia and overseas. A collection of this nature inevitably includes some generalisations that are difficult to sustain. Chatterji's contention that "no one expected the carnage that followed" (34) the British withdrawal is hard to justify because since 1940, if not earlier, the Sikh leadership had consistently warned of the consequences of the partition of Punjab if Sikh interests were marginalised. Throughout the 1940s, intelligence reports recognised the fact but the decision-making leadership was comfortable with dismissing Sikh demands as a "nuisance." In the event, Master Tara Singh's declaration after the Lahore Resolution that any scheme for Pakistan would have to cross an "ocean of blood" was much closer to the mark than the statements of Jinnah or Nehru that a transfer to power to the dominions of India and Pakistan would not be accompanied by mass migration. Similarly, it is difficult to see how the inter...

Foreword by Philip Campbell, Editor of Nature Chronology - a concise week by week summary of the year's major science news Part 1. Millenium Insights - Essays focusing on topical issues in science, written by leading figures in science, politics and economics. Part 2. International organizations - A complete guide to international organizations involved in science, from the United Nations, and the blackbox of the European Union, to radio astronomy and the Antarctic. Key facts and figures, historical data, strategy and events. Part 3. Large scientific facilities - From synchrotrons and neutrons sources, to deep ocean drilling and genome sequencing, the world's major big science facilities and programmes are comprehensively described. Accompanying articles cover the challenges of the increasing need to create infrastructure and programmes to serve the world's scientific community. Part 4. Country guide - Constitution and government - Key political and economic data - Ministries involved in science - Regulatory bodies, and main scientific advisory committees to government - National research agencies - Major research institutes - Main research universities - Medical research centres - Learned societies - Science and Natural History museums - Philanthropic bodies - High technology companies - Main international collaborations - Diplomatic representatives Part 5. Obituaries - Science stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. The yearbook offers reflection on the lives and works of the leading lights who passed away this year. Part 8. Appendices and Index

This paper explores the theological justifications for jihād in contemporary India, focusing on the doctrinal sources utilized by radical Islamist groups to sanction violence. The background to this inquiry lies in the longstanding scholarly consensus among mainstream Indian ʿulamāʾ, who have classified India as Dār al-Amn (Abode of Peace) and rejected armed struggle against the state. The demolition of the Bābrī Masjid and the communal violence that followed provided radical ideologues like Abdul Aleem Islahi with a platform to contest the prevailing consensus, promoting jihādī narratives that reframed India as Dār al-Ḥarb (Abode of War). The study adopts a qualitative methodology, combining historical analysis, textual scrutiny of Urdu-language jihādī literature, interviews with religious scholars and security practitioners, and examination of court case records. Findings reveal that Islahi reframed systemic violence against Muslims as an existential threat, making defensive jihād a personal obligation (farḍ ʿayn). His doctrinal framework dismantles traditional prohibitions, legitimizes targeting Hindu civilians as combatants, and reinterprets classical jurisprudence in a South Asian context. The paper concludes that Islahi’s reinterpretations have reconfigured the ideological foundations of Indian jihādī groups, legitimizing militancy and thus offering critical insights for addressing the doctrinal roots of radicalization in South Asia.

The scientific consensus on the existence, the human origin, the seriousness of the consequences and the urgency of adopting immediate solutions to climate change is growing, as successive reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have shown. The alteration of global climate patterns experienced in recent years confirms the worst prediction models, and yet there are still voices that question these facts. This study proposes to examine the interpretative frameworks underpinning public discussion of climate denialism on the online video platform YouTube. To this end, it presents an analysis of the 50 most popular videos under the label of climate denialism in Spanish, paying attention to the key issues and figures on which the denialist ideology is articulated and the attitude of support, neutrality or rejection on the part of those responsible for the content. The results obtained show the generalized rejection of the denialist discourse among Spanish-speaking content creators, who resort to experienced sources and contrasted resources to refute these arguments, as well as the politicization of scientific knowledge in terms of debate, uncertainty, mistrust and lack of commitment to deal with the consequences.

This chapter demonstrates the weakness of the current scholarly consensus that either the Vision of the Beasts, or the Apocalypse of the Birds, belong to the period of the Maccabean Revolt. Previous scholarship assumed that the entire Animal Apocalypse had to be a Hellenistic-era work because of its Hellenistic-era manuscripts and its purported allusions to the Maccabean Revolt. There is, however, very little consensus on how, exactly, that conversation between text and context took place. Scholarly disagreement on the chronology of the text, the identification of key historical figures, and the importance (or character) of intertextual parallels are all discussed, alongside methodological remarks on the perils of dating texts on internal grounds. It is advanced that neither the Vision of the Beasts nor the Apocalypse of the Birds should be automatically situated amidst the literature and history of the Hellenistic era. The Vision of the Beasts may well belong to the Persian period; the Apocalypse of the Birds could belong to the Roman period (or later). With the impression of scholarly consensus dispelled, considered alongside the lack of Hellenistic-era manuscript attestation for the Apocalypse of the Birds, it is proposed that a new site of composition can be sought for the Apocalypse of the Birds.