A considerable amount of people in Midnight's Children are staunchly opposed to the Partitioning of India. Many of them seem to view it as fracturing their country, dividing their people. However, judging by the events of the book, it seems India's people were already actively dividing themselves. In the novel, one petulant little girl with a unibrow was all it took to incite a murderous mob against a Hindi street vendor, Lifafa Das, in a predominately Muslim neighborhood. The Country was already fiercely divided between Sindhi and Bengali, Hindu and Muslim, "Darklings" and "Pinkies." The violent, warring execution of this idea aside, could it be that the partitioning didn't divide a unified India, but instead transformed a divided India and transformed it into a more unified India and Pakistan? Or did the partitioning accomplish nothing but hundreds of thousands of deaths and an attack against India's diversity? Perhaps the idea would have worked out better if it hadn't been so violent and forced. Although, to play my own devil's advocate, if it weren't forced, it may not have happened at all. It's kind of a lose-lose situation, in that before the partition, there was rampant hate crime and civil unrest, but the partition itself caused widespread death and loss. It's tough to say whether or not the partition was for the best, since we can't try both ways to compare, but as the tension between India and Pakistan has lessened (haltingly) in recent years, it might turn out alright.
