Since I don’t see colonialism as an all-encompassing, overriding excuse and don’t hide myself behind that, my analysis focuses on the evolution of the institution of the state in the subcontinent and how that institution of the state was co-opted by the (Muslim) Ashrafiya and how the Ashrafiya took hold of a constitutional state after the partition.
My work on the theory of Riyasati Ashrafiya actually dwells on the theory of state, … and what type of state evolved in Pakistan?
In India, that didn’t happen. Because there was no taking hold of a constitutional state by a Hindu Ashrafiya. The constitutional state kept evolving there.
So far as the anti-colonialists’ love for natural evolution is concerned, Afghanistan is one of the most prominent examples.
Take Afghanistan as an ideal and romanticized country the anti-colonialists must love, where, ‘colonialism didn’t interfere with societal development; it actually didn’t erase an entire strata of society (indigenous strategic thought), which has still not resurfaced.’
So, in the case of Afghanistan, what’s the strata of society and what’s its indigenous strategic thought that was not interfered with and erased by colonialism, as upheld by anti-colonialists?