Great divide 75 years on, the scars of Partition are yet to heal

Last Friday’s attack on Salman Rushdie shone a light on where Pakistan and India, both now 75 years old, share common ground. Amid worldwide outrage, both governments were conspicuous by their silence.

- Julian Borger

The silence came from different roots. Some of the first riots after the publication of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses were in Pakistan, and violent extremism is still very much part of the country’s political life.

In India’s case, it was because Rushdie has been a critic of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and annoyed his supporters, who the author himself had dubbed the “Modi toadies”.

Intolerance of free speech is an area in which India is coming to be more like Pakistan as both countries celebrate their 75th birthdays. Under Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), political opponents are increasingly likely to be arrested and beaten, and the press and judiciary are under political pressure. India’s democracy has been downgraded to “partly free” by the democratic advocacy group Freedom House , a category India now shares with Pakistan.

“There are those including me who have expressed concern about the Pakistanisation of India,” said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and now director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

Pakistan has suffered three military coups since independence, and the army is still a kingmaker in politics. The current shaky government under Shehbaz Sharif came to power after the generals turned against his predecessor, Imran Khan, in April .