Dividing Ethnicities

Few ethnicities inhabit an area that matches the territory of a nationality. Ethnicities are sometimes divided among more than one nationality. Two examples can be found in South Asia and western Asia.

Ethnicities in South Asia

South Asia provides vivid examples of what happens when independence comes to colonies that contain two major ethnicities. When the British ended their colonial rule of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, they divided the colony into two irregularly shaped countries—India and Pakistan (Figure 7-35). Pakistan comprised two noncontiguous areas, West Pakistan and East Pakistan, 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) apart, separated by India. East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh in 1971. An eastern region of India was also practically cut off from the rest of the country, attached only by a narrow corridor north of Bangladesh that is less than 13 kilometers (8 miles) wide in some places.

Ethnic Division of South Asia

In 1947, British India was partitioned into two independent states, India and Pakistan, which resulted in the forced migration of an estimated 17 million people. The creation of Pakistan as two territories nearly 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) apart proved unstable, and in 1971 East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh.

The basis for separating West and East Pakistan from India was ethnicity and religion. The people living in the two areas of Pakistan were predominantly Muslim; those in India were predominantly Hindu. Antagonism between the two religious groups was so great that the British decided to place the Hindus and Muslims in separate states. Hinduism has become a great source of national unity in India. In modern India, with its hundreds of languages and ethnic groups, Hinduism has become the cultural trait shared by the largest percentage of the population.

Muslims have long fought with Hindus for control of territory, especially in South Asia. After the British took over India in the early 1800s, a three-way struggle began, with the Hindus and Muslims fighting each other as well as the British rulers. Mahatma Gandhi, the leading Hindu advocate of nonviolence and reconciliation with Muslims, was assassinated in 1948, ending the possibility of creating a single state in which Muslims and Hindus could live together peacefully.

The partition of South Asia into two states resulted in massive migration because the two boundaries did not correspond precisely to the territory inhabited by the two ethnicities. Approximately 17 million people caught on the wrong side of a boundary felt compelled to migrate during the late 1940s. Some 6 million Muslims moved from India to West Pakistan and about 1 million from India to East Pakistan. Hindus who migrated to India included approximately 6 million from West Pakistan and 3.5 million from East Pakistan. As they attempted to reach the other side of the new border, some Hindus in Pakistan and Muslims in India were killed by people from the rival religion. Extremists attacked small groups of refugees traveling by road and halted trains to massacre the passengers.

Pakistan and India never agreed on the location of the boundary separating the two countries in the northern region of Kashmir. Since 1972, the two countries have maintained a “line of control” through the region, with Pakistan administering the northwestern portion and India the southeastern portion. Muslims, who comprise a majority in both portions, have fought a guerrilla war to secure reunification of Kashmir, either as part of Pakistan or as an independent country. India blames Pakistan for the unrest and vows to retain its portion of Kashmir. Pakistan argues that Kashmiris on both sides of the border should choose their own future in a vote, confident that the majority Muslim population would break away from India.

Kashmir

India and Pakistan dispute the location of their border in the Kashmir region.

India’s religious unrest is further complicated by the presence of 23 million Sikhs, who have long resented that they were not given their own independent country when India was partitioned (see Distribution of Other Religions in Chapter 6). Although they constitute only 2 percent of India’s total population, Sikhs comprise a majority in the Indian state of Punjab, situated south of Kashmir along the border with Pakistan. Sikh extremists have fought for more control over the Punjab or even complete independence from India.

Dividing the Kurds

A prominent example of an ethnicity divided among several countries in western Asia is the Kurds, who live in an area comprising parts of eastern Turkey, western Iran, and northern Syria and Iraq. The Kurds are Sunni Muslims who speak a language in the Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European and have distinctive literature, dress, and other cultural traditions.

When the victorious European allies carved up the Ottoman Empire after World War I, they created an independent state of Kurdistan to the south and west of Van Gölü (Lake Van) under the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres. Before the treaty was ratified, however, the Turks, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (later known as Kemal Ataturk), fought successfully to expand the territory under their control beyond the small area the allies had allocated to them. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 established the modern state of Turkey, and three years later the League of Nations determined that much of Kurdistan would become part of Turkey.

Today around 35 million Kurds are split among several countries; 15 million live in eastern Turkey, 8 million in western Iran, 7 million in northern Iraq, 2 million in Syria, and 2 million in other countries (primarily Germany). Kurds comprise 18 percent of the population in Turkey, 17 percent in Iraq, 9 percent in Syria, and 10 percent in Iran.

Kurdistan

The area on the map is the territory that Kurds wish to consolidate into an independent Kurdistan.

To foster the development of Turkish nationalism, the Turks have tried repeatedly to suppress Kurdish culture. Use of the Kurdish language was illegal in Turkey until 1991, and laws banning its use in broadcasts and classrooms remain in force. Kurdish nationalists, for their part, have waged a guerrilla war since 1984 against the Turkish army.

Iraq’s Kurds have made several unsuccessful attempts to gain independence, including in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1970s. A few days after Iraq was defeated in the 1991 Gulf War, the country’s Kurds launched another unsuccessful rebellion. The United States and its allies decided not to resume their recently concluded fight against Iraq on behalf of the Kurdish rebels, but after the revolt was crushed, they sent troops to protect the Kurds from further attacks by the Iraqi army. After the United States attacked Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqi Kurds achieved even more autonomy. The Kurdistan Regional Parliament governs northern Iraq, with little control exercised by the Iraqi national government. However, a 2017 referendum calling for independence of Iraqi Kurdistan was rejected by Iraq’s national government, even though 93 percent of Kurdish voters supported it.

Kurds rally for independent Kurdistan, 2017

Pause & Reflect 7.2.4

Explain why an independent state of Kurdistan would be opposed by the governments of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.