India vs. Pakistan.

Essay by mahulpatel03University, Bachelor'sA-, December 2005

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Since their birth as independent nations in 1947, India and Pakistan have been at odds with each other. Their first conflict arose over the question of separating the Hindus into India and the Muslims into Pakistan. The Muslims and Hindus had been living in relative harmony in India during the reign of the British Empire, but, when India's independence movement was started, extreme Muslim leaders began to petition for a separate Muslim state. Muhammad Ali Jinna, the leader of these Muslim leaders, was one of the people responsible for organizing the independence movement, along with Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi.

Once the British ceded control of the subcontinent to Nehru and Gandhi, Jinna lobbied them hard for the creation of a separate Muslim state. Nehru and Gandhi reluctantly agreed, and asked the British to have a separate Muslim state founded. Thus, the Islamic state of Pakistan was founded, along with its arch rival Hindu neighbor India.

Many Muslims and Hindus opposed the creation of two separate states, and Nathuram Godse, an Indian Hindu fanatic, was one of these. He believed that Gandhi was wrong in letting Jinna create the Muslim state of Pakistan, and decided to kill him. On the evening of Janurary 30, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic. This brought the whole nation to mourning, and caused the Hindus to hate the Muslims under Jinna even more, because Gandhi had died as a result of the formation of Pakistan by Muhammad Ali Jinna. Another view of the hatred between India and Pakistan is that they have been constantly squabbling over the territories of Jammu and Kashmir. These territories, which both India and Pakistan claim, are located at the northern edge of India, and the easternmost edge of Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir have been mired by...