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As I said, this book made for more portable reading in my journeys to Boskone. It's now on the back burner -- late fees for interlibrary loan are apparently $2/day -- but I got some stuff out of it.
* India is named for the Indus, which is in Pakistan. I've mentioned that last year, in the History of India sequence, but thought I'd marvel at it again.
* "Pakistan" means land of the pure. The country's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, expected the other country would go with the ancient Sanskrit equivalent, Bharat, and was incensed when they went with British "India" instead, making Pakistan seem like the carved off rump it was.
* Not at all clear why Partition erupted so violently. But it did.
* Muslim purity ideas + Hindu caste purity ideas = Pakistani Muslims will not clean toilets or fix sewers. Karachi went from "Asia's cleanest city" with streets washed daily to, uh, not, with rubbish-lined streets and foul streams. Fortunately there's Hindu and Christian[1] untouchables. But they started leaving, for some odd reason. Naturally Pakistan reacted bypaying them attractive wages urging them to stay and trying to prevent them from leaving. Today the invaluable people who keep civilization from drowning in its own filth live in nice middle class homes a few hours beyond the last reach of domestic electricity.
[1] As I mentioned before, caste transcends religion; converting doesn't stop people from viewing you as low caste, no matter who does the converting. The one exception seems to be Buddhism.
* AFAICT the only people who benefited from Partition were Pakistani elites and Hindu extremists. Otherwise it was a total clusterfuck.
* Jinnah wasn't all that religious, keeping dogs and smoking cigarettes, not that you'd know it from his national hagiography. He also gave speeches promising religious freedom in the new state; this is also censored.
I note that Pakistan was founded in 1947, a year before Israel. Some parallels, founded at similar times for vaguely similar reasons for religious separation and ethnic 'protection'. OTOH Israel is infinitely more democratic and functional, and if you're thinking of the occupied territories, Pakistan has its genocides in Bangladesh.
* India is named for the Indus, which is in Pakistan. I've mentioned that last year, in the History of India sequence, but thought I'd marvel at it again.
* "Pakistan" means land of the pure. The country's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, expected the other country would go with the ancient Sanskrit equivalent, Bharat, and was incensed when they went with British "India" instead, making Pakistan seem like the carved off rump it was.
* Not at all clear why Partition erupted so violently. But it did.
* Muslim purity ideas + Hindu caste purity ideas = Pakistani Muslims will not clean toilets or fix sewers. Karachi went from "Asia's cleanest city" with streets washed daily to, uh, not, with rubbish-lined streets and foul streams. Fortunately there's Hindu and Christian[1] untouchables. But they started leaving, for some odd reason. Naturally Pakistan reacted by
[1] As I mentioned before, caste transcends religion; converting doesn't stop people from viewing you as low caste, no matter who does the converting. The one exception seems to be Buddhism.
* AFAICT the only people who benefited from Partition were Pakistani elites and Hindu extremists. Otherwise it was a total clusterfuck.
* Jinnah wasn't all that religious, keeping dogs and smoking cigarettes, not that you'd know it from his national hagiography. He also gave speeches promising religious freedom in the new state; this is also censored.
I note that Pakistan was founded in 1947, a year before Israel. Some parallels, founded at similar times for vaguely similar reasons for religious separation and ethnic 'protection'. OTOH Israel is infinitely more democratic and functional, and if you're thinking of the occupied territories, Pakistan has its genocides in Bangladesh.