Talk:Two-nation theory

Request for Comment

Withdrawn by the one requesting RFC based on the policy Mydust (talk) 22:25, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

For the current 'two-nation theory' discussion on the Introductory description, disagreement between two pro-Indian editors and myself, pro-Pakistani, on the leading description for the two-nation theory.

• Opposing version: "The two-nation theory is an ideology of religious nationalism"
• My version: "the two-nation theory is an assertion of a religiously informed cultural identity"

The points in favour of the latter is that this is the primarily phrase used by Ayesha Jalal on the topic, and while the two-nation theory did make use of religion as a symbolic identifier, it primarily emphasized Indian Muslim cultural cultural disputes and autonomy more than any religious, ideological or theological dispute. -Mydust (talk) 12:55, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Please provide a brief and neutral question for those unfamiliar with the dispute, particularly for accessing this RfC through WP:RFCA. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 13:47, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

For the current 'two-nation theory' discussion on the Introductory description, disagreement is on whether it should be used as a descriptor for an ideological "religious nationalism", or the symbolic usage of religion for a cultural identitarianism Mydust (talk) 14:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

You'll want to overwrite the boilerplate for the prompt that will be displayed at WP:RFCA. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:03, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what that means mate Mydust (talk) 15:12, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

About the Third Opinion request: It has been removed (i.e. declined) in light of this RFC. It's impermissible to have more than one form of dispute resolution pending at the same time. Since RFC is the "higher" form, the 3O has been declined. If the RFC does not provide consensus after it has run its normal course - typically 30 days per the instructions at WP:RFC - then some other form of dispute resolution may be considered. — TransporterMan (TALK) 16:33, 23 April 2023 (UTC) (3O volunteer) This is an informational posting only and I am not watching this page; contact me on my user talk page if you wish to communicate with me about this.

• Oppose changing religious nationalism to cultural nationalism: The two-nation theory is an expression of religious nationalism, not cultural nationalism. The text International Conflict Analysis in South Asia that is currently in the article (it is repeatedly being removed by the opener of this RfC), says "The religious nationalism sentiment is based upon the two nation theory that Hindus and Muslims are of two separate religious communities and separate nations." Prior to the partition of India, the urban centers of northwestern and eastern colonial India--what became Pakistan (Lahore, Rawalpindi, Dhaka and Karachi)--had a population that was half Muslim and half Hindu, Jain and Sikh. These people had the same language and culture as they lived side by side for centuries. Jinnah and his All India Muslim League's two-nation theory (which advocated Pakistani separatism) asserted that these people, despite having a common culture/language, were members of different nations due to having a different religion: Sindhi Hindus and Sindhi Muslims, despite having a common language and culture, were members of two different nations, according to this two nation theory, for example; a Sindhi Muslim and Bengali Muslim are part of the same nation due to their common Islamic faith. User:Mydust is introducing historical revisionism into the article by omitting this material and replacing it with a false cultural nationalism narrative. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 21:46, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know why you're repeating the same argument and not even responding to me above. Bengali Muslims weren't even part of the two-nation theory, Iqbal didn't even include it in his proposal for Pakistan-- Mydust (talk) 23:25, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

• Support changing religious nationalism to "religiously informed cultural identity" : I'd rather restructure this page centered on the way Ayesha Jalal articulates in her book "Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850", starting with the introduction. Prior to my edits this page has few reliable sources, mostly just being a collection of random quotes, as well as views of post-partition Indian politicians using the simplistic definition of communalism which doesn't accurately depict what either Syed Ahmed Khan, Jinnah or Iqbal said. Anyone living in India would know Indian Muslims identify primarily as a cultural community, that non-practising Indians like Jinnah and even non-believing Indians with a Muslim name or cultural background would continue to identify with the Indian Muslim community, and the idea that they were arguing for religious nationalism is fallacious and misses the point. Even the rivalry between Indian Muslims and Hindu nationalism isn't a religious or ideological rivalry but an ethnocultural one.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mydust (talk • contribs)
• Oppose changing religious nationalism to cultural nationalism (Summoned by bot) The sources aren't laid out very helpfully to benefit someone like myself, coming to the subject with only limited prior knowledge. But the sources appear to be clear that the defining aspect of each national group in the 'Two-nation theory' is religion. Of course identification went far beyond, religion itself, as it always does in such situations, but "religiously informed cultural identity" sounds like an unhelpful and obfuscatory euphemism and also appears to be WP:OR, SYNTHed from reading sources that make the - fairly obvious - point that identity always rests on a broader framework than merely religion ITSELF. To quote from an early source: "In this case, the writer's rather sophisticated definition of 'common culture' - 'developed manifestations of thought and feeling' - serve to reinforce this distinctiveness. Indian Muslims thought differently, felt differently, had a different and unique history and therefore had a common purpose and interest, Strong sources would need to be brought that this was not mainly 'religious nationalism', whereas at present they seem to be saying that this was not solely 'religious nationalism', which is a point that can be developed in the body without the need to modify the lead. Pincrete (talk) 09:53, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

  Limited prior knowledge isn't a problem, that's the whole point, as long as the sources are followed. "religiously informed cultural identity" isn't WP:OR, it's a direct quote from the source: "In the conventional contours of the debates about ethnic nationalism in the South Asian context, then, the story of ethnic violence - during Partition and after - is often narrated as one of the conflict between communalism and national secularism. Recently, historians have tried to shift the terms of this debate to challenge the simplistic binary division between secularist nationalism and communalism....a move to re-describe communalism as "culturalism" has sought to open up a way to think of religious difference as a modern problem of cultural or ethnic differerence through which identities are mobilized. For example, Ayesha Jalal argues that the gravitation of Muslims in India towards the idea of a Muslim community in the early twentieth century is less "communal" or religious, and more of a "cultural" move - a gravitation towards an assertion of cultural difference and a "religiously informed cultural identity"'....she suggests that what is named Muslim communalism should be seen as an inevitable Muslim cultural nationalism"

  -Kavita Daiya This phrase was coined by Ayesha Jalal but is repeatedly quoted from her by a large number of recent historians in this decade including Christopher Alan Bayly, Sugata Bose, Leila Tarazi Fawaz, Robert Ilbert, Kavita Daiya, Max Weiss:

  "Seeing extra-territorial loyalties as proof of the "pan-Islamic" sentiments of Muslims ignores the myriad other connections that intersected with their religious informed cultural identity." It is for all these reasons that the pejorative term "communalism" cannot explain the attitudes of Indian Muslims who, taking their cues from a Sayyid Ahmad Khan or an Ameer Ali, opted to stay away from the Indian National Congress founded in 1885...Sayyid Ahmad's opposition to the Congress had less to do with the threats it might come to post to the religious identity of Muslims than with the cultural pretensions and different claims of the North Indian ashraf class that he represented."-Robert Ilbert, who quotes Ayesha Jalal

  I don't think anyone here understand what religious nationalism is. Religious nationalism is ideologically driven-where current interpretations of religious ideas inspire political activism and action. Religious nationalism in effect introduces ideological aspects to the question of national identity. The two-nation theory is not ideological, where any of their ideas were ideological or Islamic in a religious sense. The two-nation theory does the reverse; it introduces cultural nationalism to the question of religious identity Religion is relegated to a symbol or a cultural identifier, and their primary dispute is with culture rather than with religious ideas, hence what the two-nation theory introduced was primarily cultural nationalism, while religion itself was a secondary symbol. Could the two-nation theory be described as religious nationalism? Sure, but it was cultural nationalism first and religious nationalism second.

  "The Mohajirs had always thought of the Muslims of South Asia as an ethnic entity on the basis of their culture, and considered Islam to be nothing more than an identifying symbol."-Nukhbah Taj Langah Mydust (talk) 18:23, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose changing religious nationalism to cultural nationalism (I reverted the proposer of this RfC and suggested they seek wider consensus): per Pincrete. And while I disagree also with the proposal that the article (or even the lead) be re-written primarily using Ayesha Jalal, even Jalal’s work doesn’t support “cultural nationalism.” She argues against neatly compartmentalising South Asian Muslim nationalism(s), (Jalal 2000 p.574) and is in fact careful not to call it cultural nationalism. She focuses on the complexities, and that is the context in which she uses religiously informed cultural identity throughout her book. To take it to mean "cultural nationalism" is a flawed reading of sources and uses the term divorced from its context, thus is too close to WP:OR, as @Pincrete: rightly pointed out. UnpetitproleX (talk) 12:07, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

  Consensus is also compromise in editing; in the latest edit 6 days ago in April 22 I did summarize it as 'religously informed cultural nationalism' as an improvement over simply 'cultural nationalism' or just religious nationalism.

  Secondly, I disagree with your reading of Ayesha Jalal. I take it you mean this quote at face value: "while exploring the nexus of culture and political power, the analysis avoids the presuppotiions which unproblematically link a religiously informed cultural identity with the politics of cultural nationalism". What Ayesha Jalal is emphasizing is that the 'religiously informed cultural identity' was not politicized into cultural nationalism before the 1920s; it does not argue against the emergence of cultural nationalism in the 1920s; i.e. "a religiously informd cultural identity certainly did not translate automatically into what came to be understood by the 1920s as communalism and separatism", but it was the introduction of the british construction of nationalism which politicized the identity into a separatist one (Ayesha Jalal,Modern South Asia : history, culture, political economy, page 138). Her argument emphasizes the lack of politicizaiton or the introduction of nationalism before the 1920s, and that a 'religiously informed cultural identity' had already emerged independent of it, "There had been a sense of religiously informed cultural differences in the subcontinent long before the encounter with western colonialism"(page 43). Ayesha Jalal is not 'careful not to call it cultural nationalism', she does not deny its emergence, she simply says it is 'yet to come' before the 1920s, or that "but this patriotism had yet to give rise to a combination which could shore up the spirits of the more irrepressible believers of a religiously informed cultural nationalism, Hindu or Muslim" But once the 1920s did come with the introduction of nationalism, which was a "projection in which religiously informed cultural identifies were deployed for political purposes", (Self and Sovereignty, page 42 ) and if Iqbal is taken as one of the main sources on the Two-Nation Theory, then Ayesha Jalal summarizes Iqbal's viewpoint as follows:"An assertion of territorial sovereignty based on cultural differences, the scheme avoided laying down precisely how adequate safeguards for one largesegment of India’s Muslims would bear upon the interests of their co-religionistsin the rest of India or of those non-Muslims who might end up living in the new state". In her reading of Iqbal, "however one might interpret Iqbal, cannot deny the cultural defence inherent in his proposal", cultural differences and 'religiously informed cultural identity' is used interchangeably, so it is actually fair to label it as cultural nationalism. Ayesha Jalal when she repeats time and again, "Sayyid Ahmad’s opposition to the Congress had less to do with the threats it might come to pose to the religious identity of Muslims than with the cultural pretensions and differential claims of the north Indian ashraf classes."(page 92)

  And by the 1920s and 1937 onwards, the primary picture of South Asian Muslim nationalism was "a viable political strategy for asserting that religiously informed cultural identity of Muslims"(page 384), "The assertion of religiously informed identities and the politics of contested sovereignty in certain regions posed the biggest challenge to Congress' calculations at the all-India Centre; many Muslims were averse to the Nehruvian brand of nationalism"..."In contesting their part in relation to the whole, Indian Muslims like other religious groupings were asserting absolute rights to territories based on religiously informed cultural identities"..."Muslims seeking to wrest their share of political power on grounds of cultural difference were still mainly challenging the Congress's right to indivisible sovereignty"...which only eventually morphed into the Pakistan scheme. This is a long reading but your point about Ayesha Jalal does not negate my assertions at all. Mydust (talk) 19:45, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

  Please don't WP:BLUDGEON your own RFC. —DIYeditor (talk) 09:22, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't know that was a thing. Mydust (talk) 07:51, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

  I won't be replying anymore since Ive said everything at this point Mydust (talk) 07:54, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose all WP:NATIONALIST quibbling and splitting hairs for no apparent reason. If the cultures here are marked by the religion of the people, culture is synonymous with religion. Keep it short and simple and call it religious nationalism. —DIYeditor (talk) 09:28, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  nope, if culture is marked by religion, it doesn't make it religious nationalism, because the dispute with the culture element and not with religion itself. That's just random WP:OR and a poor simplification. 'Keep it short' and use the phrase used by historians i.e. Ayesha Jalal strongly argues against the simplification of south asian politics into religious nationalism. Mydust (talk) 23:39, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

  You continue to WP:BLUDGEON this RFC. You've already said what you think and don't seem to be adding anything new. Deepak Loomba in The Two-Nation Theory And Kashmir: AN ANALYTICAL APPROACH says the division was on purely religious grounds and that it was about separating Muslims from other groups. R. J. Moore in Jinnah and the Pakistan Demand repeatedly uses terms like "Muslim nationalism" and "Muslim nation". I think you are wasting our time by WP:CHERRYPICKING sources to promote some obscure WP:NATIONALIST nuance to meaning here that is important to nobody but you and people who want to promote a certain characterization. Ashutosh Varshney in India, Pakistan, and Kashmir: Antinomies of Nationalism characterizes Pakistani nationalism as religious while Indian is secular. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:37, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

  Firstly, I sincerely doubt Deepak Loomba's " Two-Nation Theory And Kashmir: AN ANALYTICAL APPROACH: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, Vol. 23" is even from a very reputable journal. http://www.worldaffairsjournal.com/ there website shows that they aren't based in or associated with any major universities, but a number of indian law assemblies, army colleges and 'college libraries'. Being biased isn't the problem, it's just that source has no references and any sane person reading this would realize it's a bogus journal; here is an excerpt from the rest of your source.

  "Category 2:Pakistanis who support their establishment (the Pakistani Army and the ISI) but are against terrorism.

  Proposed Action: These naive people should be ignored, as it is well known that the establishment is the womb of terrorism.

  Category 4: Kashmiris who prefer to die for global terrorism than live in India because they believe in the Two-Nation Theory.

  Proposed Action: Many of those are unredeemable cases and must be fought whenever they take action.

  Proposed Action: The Indian state/army knows best how to deal with terrorists and what needs to be done."

  Category 7: Kashmiris who believe in the Two-Nation Theory in earnest but live in Kashmir.

  Proposed Action: They should be offered a voluntary retirement scheme from India. They should be given a certain amount of money to migrate to Pakistan."

  I found it funny but it also reminded me, that the current sources for the introductory statement are also pretty poor, for the statement, I mean "two-nation theory is an ideology of religious nationalism", among the three sources, ignoring the 3rd one written by Ambedkar(neither an accredited historian or political scientist), then comes the 1st source: "New Frontiers of the Capability Approach", where none of the authors, Flavio Comim, ‎Shailaja Fennell, ‎P. B. Anand, are either accredited historians or political scientists, but economists and environmentalists. The 2nd source, International Conflict Analysis in South Asia: A Study of Sectarian Violence in Pakistan, is the only source with an author that's actually relevant to the field, it only mentions the two-nation theory in passing and does not cover the topic extensively, and based on Google Scholar it(1) is nowhere as nearly cited as Ayesha Jalal's Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam(555). So cherrypicking is pretty much what's already been going on, and going by a citation index, Ayesha Jalal is an infinitely more reliable source as a leading historian. You accuse me of cherry picking but Ayesha Jalal is not a fringe source, she is cited by pretty much everyone relevant within the field on the issue especially in recent years which is relevant due to WP:AGE MATTERS. In any case the Ambedkar and those environmentalist sources I'm going to remove as the authors have nothing to do with the field.

  As for this : '"R. J. Moore in Jinnah and the Pakistan Demand repeatedly uses terms like "Muslim nationalism" and "Muslim nation". "'

  "SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN AND MUSLIM NATIONALISM IN INDIA", describes "muslim nationalism in India" in detail, and according to it "Muslim Nationalism" entailed: "Muslim rule had endowed them with a distinct Indo-Muslim identity. Thus Indian Muslims had become a distinct group both in relation to Hindu India and to the rest of the Ummah or Muslim world. Muslim rule had also enabled them to develop a culture of their own, the Indian Muslim culture""

  That's closer to an ethnoreligious conception than a religious nationalist conception.

  "Ashutosh Varshney in India, Pakistan, and Kashmir: Antinomies of Nationalism characterizes Pakistani nationalism as religious while Indian is secular"

  I'm arguing what kind of conception the two-nation theory was, I am not talking about Pakistani nationalism, so that is a moot point. Mydust (talk) 07:14, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose changing religious nationalism to cultural nationalism: Besides little prior knowledge of this topic when summoned by bot for RfC, based on the concise replies and key sources quoted by fellow Wikipedians above, it is clear to me that ‘religious nationalism’ should be used opposed to any other compartmentalisation. waddie96 ★ (talk) 12:49, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose change (Summoned by bot) The idea that two religions could not coexist together is clearly religious nationalism, and that is supported by the sources. Just because someone tried to sugarcoat it does not mean we have to. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 20:43, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

When?

At present there is almost no info in the lead as to when either the theory evolved, or of when any other aspect occurred. I have a reasonable grasp of the historical chronology (as a UK person with a general knowledge of the events leading up to Indian/Pakistani independence), but a reader unfamiliar with the period, would be given few clues.

There may be a conscious decision to use present tense, but: The two-nation theory is an ideology of religious nationalism that purports that Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus are two separate nations, with their own customs, religion, and traditions; consequently, both socially and morally, Muslims should have a separate homeland within a decolonised British India -somewhat implies that Britain still occupies India and that Pakistan and Rep. of India have not yet been formed!

Dates and context would greatly help the reader who comes without prior knowledge IMO, it may be in the body but isn't really present in the lead at present AFAI can see. Pincrete (talk) 10:06, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Different Solution

Rather than using vague statements, changing the introductory statement to specify it as Muslim nationalism in South Asia or as Indian Muslim nationalism, where what that entails can be detailed within that article as one of the several variants of South Asian Muslim nationalism, between Indian Nationalism Muslims, Indian Muslim nationalism, or Islamic universalism. The purpose is that religious nationalism is too vague and can range from anything to Pan-Islamism to Indian Muslim cultural chauvinism. This is not an attempt to sugergoat the article, but an attempt to more accurately specify the political identity of the Indian Muslim community based on the leading historians on the topic.Mydust (talk) 22:43, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Addition to background

IP editor, the anachronism you're adding to the article has no bearing on contributing to the two nation theory. This view is used by some extreme modern Pakistani nationalists to justify the existence of that country. The two nation theory rests in the view that Hindu Indians and Muslims Indians were different nations due to religious dissimilarity. Besides, a huge part of Pakistan included East Bengal, which is not a part of Sindh. You don't have any consensus and per WP:BRD you will need to revert unless others agree with you here. Capitals00 (talk) 18:25, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

All nationalists have a sort of mythology, to put it there doesn't mean you agree but that some Pakistani nationalists adopt such view (including someone as influential as Aitzaz Ahsan) so it's worth the mention. 2A02:A03F:6504:1700:5450:A005:D43D:2973 (talk) 19:48, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

No scholarly text talks about Sind being distinguished from Hind in the context of the two nation theory as propounded by the All India Muslim League, which saw the two nations as being Muslim Indians and Hindu Indians, not Sindhis versus Hindustanis. Wikipedia should read similarly to other encyclopedias, none of which include this anachronism in their discussion of the theory. As such, your addition is quite WP:UNDUE for the article. You have been reverted by more than one editor and will be reported and blocked if you continue. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 02:35, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi I quoted a Western scholar who says that this approach to history was mainstream among the Sindhi leaders associated with the Muslim League, thus pre dating partition and justifying it, please do refer to the source. 2A02:A03F:6504:1700:77C2:220B:6F8:A903 (talk) 18:59, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

What you write still has nothing to do with the two-nation theory, which as you have been told, includes the [eastern] Bengal region as part of Pakistan. Your interpolation is WP:UNDUE to this article and the citations do not mention it. You have consistently reverted against consensus and will be reported if you persist. Two-nation theory#Pre-Modern India already has enough details. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 04:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Post-Partition debate section is loaded.

The section uses language and information that strongly argues against the Two-nation theory without many arguments in support of it. It goes on at length about the issues created as a result of the partition, from bloodshed during the partition to Pakistan's current underdevelopment without stating any counter-arguments, such as poor arrangements by the British administration to facilitate a population exchange, or the longstanding issues Pakistan has faced post-1971. The section simplifies complex issues such as economic development -which is an issue tied strongly to global politics- and claims that the two-nation theory in itself is the cause of these problems. Notwithstanding the lack of supporting arguments, the language arguing against the theory is very partisan and should be revised. 88.243.197.213 (talk) 15:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)