The story of India-Pakistan relations has often been told as one of hatred—the animosity often nurtured prior to the partition and its aftermath. It is argued that the woes of the bloody partition, which culminated in the massacre of over a million people and displacement of over another ten million across borders, continue to haunt the two postcolonial nations. And in that sense, added to other contentious things—such as the issue of Kashmir—the two countries have found it difficult to trust each other since independence. Pallavi Raghavan proposes a rather unconventional take on India-Pakistan relations in her book Animosity at Bay: An Alternative History of India-Pakistan Relationship, 1947-1952.[1]
Raghavan’s book argues that at the heart of India-Pakistan relations lies an element of collaboration between the two countries in the aftermath of partition. Unlike the conventional reading of partition as the cause of mistrust between the two, Raghavan argues that partition itself assumes a central role in everyday governance between two countries. It becomes an important element of “mutual acknowledgement of the validity of both states”.[2]
Pallavi Raghavan writes: “In the aftermath of the partition, the central leadership in both countries were aware of the intense fragility of the nation-state project in South Asia. The legitimacy of their existence could be called into question in any number of ways—citizenship in both India and Pakistan could not be defined on the basis of religion, or race, or ethnicity, or language…Collaborative exercises in bilateral relations were thus carried out as part of the exercise of willing the post-colonial state of India and Pakistan into existence”.[3]
Therefore, this book looks at an “alternative history” of the India-Pakistan relations premised on bilateral engagement and cooperation in the years following the partition. In doing so, it thinks of understanding the legacy of a partition itself as a productive space in which nation-state legitimation was carried out. The argument suggests further that India-Pakistan relations in the initial years were based on “acknowledging the finality and validity of partition as an administrative solution, and creating frameworks for the viable co-existence of successor states.”[4]
In the chapters that follow this book, Raghavan looks at how the Foreign Ministry or the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)—and specifically the High Commissions—played a constructive role in structuring the state in the initial years. In post-partition India and Pakistan, the offices of High Commissioners engaged in dealing with minute everyday elements of citizens’ lives—helping them secure passports and visas, obtain marriage and death certificates for their spouses and kin, and even authorise educational declarations.
All these aspects required both India and Pakistan to engage closely and work together to resolve the problems people faced. In allaying the rules of engagements—in these quotidian tasks—Raghavan suggests that the partition itself became a condition through which both the states could assert their sovereign existence in people’s lives.
Pallavi Raghavan’s book details important bilateral engagements between India and Pakistan to substantiate her claims. The chapter discusses the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950, signed at the time of heightened tensions between communities in East Pakistan, the refugee problem, and violent riots that destabilised the communities and, in turn, the newly independent postcolonial states. The agreement proposed to allow for greater engagement of High Commissions to seek out the welfare of minorities in both countries. Through her extensive reading of the inter-dominion conference on minorities held in 1948, Raghavan details the ways in which both countries established mechanisms to resolve the minority problem.
Raghavan writes: “The Pact was quite specifically based on the acknowledgement and their implementation of the fact of partition… [But, more importantly], the role of the governments, having now come into existence, lay in trying to protect the position of minorities in the other dominion—and not necessarily in trying to convince those minorities that they ought to come across the border.”[5]
In another chapter on “evacuee property”—the property left behind by the migrants on both sides—Raghavan highlights how the principle of reciprocity helped both countries deal with refugees in both countries. After the partition, the Government of India became the custodian of the properties left behind by those who migrated to Pakistan, and vice-versa. Against the backdrop of resolving property issues with migrants, both countries instituted a “principle of reciprocity” through evacuee property conferences held in India and Pakistan, with both countries cooperating, bargaining and engaging over the property distributions.
Raghavan also devotes two chapters to discussing the “No War Pact” that ultimately did not come through and the “Indus-Water Treaty” that came through.
In the deliberation on the “No War Pact”, there were efforts to outlaw conflicts escalating into full-blown wars and establishing principles of engagement through dialogue. Through a detailed study of correspondences between Nehru and Liaquat that spanned over eleven months, containing hundreds of telegrams and letters, Raghavan details how the two countries tried to work out a way through which war could be averted at inception—except, it was too late and too difficult for both countries to agree on things, like Kashmir.
The Indus-Water Treaty of 1960 had been extensively deliberated in the aftermath of partition—and the desire to finalise the Treaty itself was an effort to finalise the repercussions of partition. While the book does not wholly engage with the treaty’s finalising itself, it nonetheless provides a detailed discussion on how water-sharing was deliberated between both countries (with substantive help from the World Bank, of course).
Besides these discussions, there are also discussions about how India and Pakistan relations depend on how the international system itself would look at them. In some senses, it was “performing” the International in their relations. There were efforts to engage each other on the international stage jointly. There is a discussion about the commonwealth. Finally, there is also some discussion about the financial relations between India and Pakistan.
I have already alluded at the start that the historiography of India-Pakistan relationships takes conflict for granted—and discusses the narrative of India and Pakistan as two enemy nations always in throes with one another.[6] In these readings, there is barely any space for discussion of collaboration. In that sense, Pallavi Raghavan’s book Animosity at Bay provides an interesting perspective on understanding partition as the mechanism for everyday state construction. Therefore, students of South Asia must read this important book.
References:
[1] Pallavi Raghavan, Animosity at Bay: An Alternative History of the India-Pakistan Relationship, 1947-1952 (London: Hurst & Company, 2020).
[2] Raghavan, Animosity at Bay, 2.
[3] Raghavan, Animosity at Bay, 3.
[4] Raghavan, Animosity at Bay, 25.
[5] Raghavan, Animosity at Bay, 67–68.
[6] Adarsh Badri, “Review of T.C.A. Raghavan’s The People Next Door: The Curious History of India’s Relations with Pakistan – Adarsh Badri,” November 20, 2023, https://adarshbadri.me/book-review/raghavan-india-pakistan-relations/.