7.98                                                                   Feature

Languages and cultures of the Indian subcontinent...

While Americans generally consider the United States to be a "melting pot" of many different cultures, in fact India is far more diversified, with more than 200 individual spoken languages and dozens of ethnic origins subtly blended over hundreds of years. Hindi, the fourth most widely spoken language worldwide, is spoken by some 30 percent of the population and is the official language of India. Other languages include Assamese, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Kashmiri, Oriya, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam and Kannada. And English, the language of commerce, education and science, is spoken by a mere three percent of the population. Compare this with our own culture, where English is the common (and predominant) language, with only relatively small portions of our population speaking other languages exclusively.

Lack of a common language creates the opportunity for a government to communicate selectively, dispensing one kind of information to one group and something different to groups with different political/cultural imperatives. Conversely, it can make it difficult to disseminate essential public information about important events.

Though we are lucky to share a common language, we do have several distinct cultures within our own country. I've been lucky enough to share two of those cultures in the US, the Yankee North and the deep South, and can tell you authoritatively that, despite the passage of more than 133 years, when the subject of the war against Northern aggression comes up, especially in conversation with a Yankee, my blood pressure rises and I become, like my Confederate ancestors, slightly irrational. Taking into consideration the fact that India and Pakistan have been involved in three brutal wars in just over 50 years, the nuclear tests of both, while still irrational, become to some degree understandable.

Religions...

Though in this country we have Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans and a number of other religions, we are basically a Judeo-Christian nation, with only very small percentages of Muslims, Buddhists and other religions. And while we may argue over the relative merits of Baptist dunking as compared to Methodist sprinkling, we share a more or less common path to a more or less common destination in the hereafter, based on more or less common rituals centered on a common deity. Compare this to India, the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, each a separate and distinct faith, with separate and distinct routes to separate and distinct destinations in the hereafter.

Religion has probably been at the root of more wars than pure ideology, and is capable of producing hatreds and antagonisms far more intense than those involving mere nationalism. Hardly any war has been free of religious influences. The Crusades (all of them) were about religion, the continuing English/Irish feud is largely about religion, the Second World War, with its persecution of our Jewish brethren, contained elements of religion, and almost all the early European wars centered in one way or another on religion.

Colonies and wars

The post-colonial history of both India and Pakistan began on 15 August, 1947, when the subcontinent was partitioned into separate states, with India becoming a secular state, while Pakistan became the world's first modern Islamic state.

Since then, India and Pakistan have fought three major wars, the first running from 1947 to 1949. After partition, the individual states faced the choice of joining either Hindu India or Muslim Pakistan. In the state of Kashmir (contiguous to both India and then West Pakistan), though the majority of the population was Muslim, the absolute ruler was a Hindu prince, or maharaja. When Pakistani tribesmen invaded the state in support of a peasant uprising, the Maharaja fled to Delhi. He then signed Kashmir over to India, which sent troops to quell the uprising, prompting Pakistan to send in regular troops. The fighting in Kashmir continued into 1949, when a UN truce was arranged along the cease-fire line, giving India approximately two thirds of the state, with Pakistan taking the rest. The fighting has continued periodically since, with the latest conflict occurring just last week.

In 1965, another war broke out in the Rann of Kutch, on the border between West Pakistan and India. This conflict was also ended by UN intervention in January, 1966, a peace partially brokered by the USSR.

Finally, in December, 1971, India intervened in the civil war between East and West Pakistan, an intervention that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.

The May 1998 nuclear tests in India were not without precedent. In fact, India exploded its first nuclear device in 1974.