Reddit reviews The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of Indias Partition

You can start by learning about the history of The great game. The anglo-russian rivalry in central asia and afghanistan started way back in the 1800's and continued at least till the fall of the soviet union. If you see this as a series of events across the whole region then it all makes sense. The India-pakistan angle is mostly glossed over though so I recommend you doing some original research in this domain. You may also read the book, The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of Indias Partition, written by Narendra Singh Sarila, the former ADC to the last Viceroy of British India, Lord Mountbatten. This book provides a different perspective than usually put forth. Here is a short review of the book. There is more material on the internet and in british archives but you will have to dig it out.

Atleast we agree on the middle east issue (Big image file). The fact that "muslims" are the most alienated and divided community today has more to do with imperialism than it is understood. One cannot just bunch together all the population in a common basket of muslim ideals, it would always be inaccurate.

You may want to look beyond the history of India to see how it played out. Middle east is a oil rich region, an essential commodity for fuelling the industry and modern economy. However Middle east is the most divided region among the world powers. America and Russia(Soviet Union) and Europeans have competing interests over there.

The same does not apply for India because India of more of a market and provider of services for cheap labour. Geography, demographics and the politics have more profound effect than ideologies. Having a dictator does not help market economy. Most economies which provide essential raw materials just need a dictatorial state even in Africa. It is not out of some virtue of hinduism that hindu fundamentalism does not exist. The agricultural sector of India is yet to consolidate/collapse in India, in Afghanistan it gave rise to guerilla force called Taliban. Indonesia has much more moderate muslims because they too are a market and cheap labouring house. An industrial capitalist's who manufactures goods historically fought for people out of slavery to have wage labour to consume his goods, the fact that slavery exists under capitalism is only because the capitalist expects that there some other capitalist is paying wages to consume his goods. It all can come down to looking at which stage of capitalism that region serves.

> That is a very defeatist attitude.

What is your solution ? A religious state ? We all know how zionism has ended up betraying the genuine jewish victims of holocoust and jewish working people today while Israel is serving as a garrison for western powers in the middle east. It was known that Israel was a death trap for jews. We know how Pakistan has become a perpetual rogue state competing in an arms race, training radicals etc. had more to do with "the great game" than religion.

The point is looking beyond the lines of religion. How most lefties look is by their class interest. I agree that there are many "comrades" out there who pander religious nonsense. You are clearly annoyed at them, so am I. Atleast don't bunch them together in one basket like muslims and make gross generalisations.

The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of Indias Partition
by Narendra Singh Sarila

Also makes a case for this and provides evidence in greater detail.