Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

This article focuses on analysing the ways and means the concept of religious exceptionalism has been used to undermine rapprochements between India and Pakistan, which, also, deeply impacts Kashmir’s quest for self-determination. It begins by deconstructing the various ways in which the serious assumptions form the very basis of the “partition industry” including falsification of history, “othering,” and “demonizing,” hegemony and identity usurpation. Precisely, it is in these false narratives of “oneness” exemplified implicitly in the discourses surrounding “partition” in which contested identities, false narratives and seemingly “humanitarian” discourses feed a war mentality. All of which prevent a durable and sustainable peace in the former British Raj in South Asia. In fact, as controversial as it may seem, there was no partition, not in the way it is marketed as affecting all. India was not divided; the British Raj was. This massive smokescreen, behind the “partition” myth, is utilized to perpetuate Hindutva hegemony in a carefully constructed narrative for the purposes of identity usurpation. This paper, then, wishes to expose those deeper assumptions and falsifications including on migration numbers, the reality of a multi-nation empire with 562 independent principalities, and dangers posed by ignoring a major consequence of these false narratives, which is the Kashmiri dispute. The conflict has led to three wars between India and Pakistan and nearly led both countries to a catastrophic fourth nuclear war.