Think As Historian: THINK AS A HISTORIAN: USE EvIDENCE TO SUPPORT, MODIfY, OR REfUTE A CLAIM
Historical evidence can support, modify, or refute an argument or claim. In fact, evidence that can be used to support one argument might also be used to refute another. That flexibility of the historical record is partly why history is so reliant on interpretation. To appreciate the ways in which historical evidence relates to claims, complete the following activity on the partition of India into two states: India and Pakistan.
Carefully read each of the following statements. Then, for each one, develop a claim or argument that the statement supports. Develop a second claim that the same statement either modifies or refutes.
1. “We are not two nations. Every [Muslim] will have a Hindu name if
he goes back far enough in his family history. Every Muslim is merely
a Hindu who has accepted Islam. That does not create nationality . . .
We in India have a common culture. . . . When communal riots
take place, they are always provoked by incidents over cows and
by religious processions. That means that it is our superstitions that
create the trouble and not our separate nationalities . . . We must not
cease to aspire, in spite of [the] wild talk, to befriend all Muslims and
hold them fast as prisoners of our love.”
Extracts from writings and words of
Mahatma Gandhi as compiled in The Essential
Gandhi: An Anthology, edited by Louis Fischer, 1962.
Reprinted by permission of the Navajivan Trust.
2. “I know there are people who do not quite agree with the division
of India and the partition of the Punjab and Bengal. Much has been
said against it, but now that it has been accepted, it is the duty of every
one of us to loyally abide by it and [honorably] act according to the
agreement.”
Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s first presidential address to
the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, August 11, 1947
3. “Jinnah felt eclipsed by the rise of Gandhi and Nehru, after the
First World War. In December, 1920, he was booed off a Congress
Party stage when he insisted on calling his rival “Mr. Gandhi”
rather than referring to him by his spiritual title, Mahatma—Great
Soul. Throughout the nineteen-twenties and thirties, the mutual
dislike grew, and by 1940 Jinnah had steered the Muslim League
toward demanding a separate homeland for the Muslim minority of
South Asia. This was a position that he had previously opposed. . . .
Even after his demands for the creation of Pakistan were met, he insisted that his new country would guarantee freedom of religious expression. In August, 1947, in his first address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, he said, “You may belong to any religion, or caste, or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the State.” But it was too late: by the time the speech was delivered, violence between Hindus and Muslims had spiralled beyond anyone’s ability to control it.”
William Dalrymple, “The Great Divide:
The Violent Legacy of Indian Partition,”
The New Yorker, June 22, 2015