Pahalgam tragedy: Are unresolved questions of Partition reflected in attack, asks Mani Shankar Aiyar

Veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Saturday (April 26, 2025) wondered whether the Pahalgam terror attack was a result of unresolved questions of the Partition. Addressing a book release function in New Delhi, the former Union Minister said the question that was posed to the country then and faced it today was whether Muslims in India felt accepted, cherished and celebrated.

"Many people almost prevented Partition, but it happened because there were differences in value systems and assessments of the nature of India's nationhood and its civilisational inheritance between people such as Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Jinnah and many other Muslims who did not agree with Jinnah. But the fact is that the Partition happened and till today we are living with the consequences of that Partition. Is this how we should be living? Is that the unresolved questions of the Partition reflected in the terrible tragedy... in Pahalgam on April 22," he said.

“There was the partition of 1971, when more than half of Pakistan’s population and a very important part of its territory deliberately moved away from it on the ground that it was not enough to be Muslim and it was also necessary to be Bengali,” the Congress leader said.