According to Winston Churchill: “India is no more a country than the Equator”.
India is purely a British creation. The British conquered the various nations/kingdoms of South Asia and for the ease of administration consolidated them into a single unit called India. No country with such size or name existed prior to its British invention.
The fact is India is more like a continent.
Northwest India is linguistically Indo-Aryan, Northeast India is Sino-Tibetan, South India is Dravidian, and Central/East India is Austric.
There are many different religions in India. Shaivism is more popular in South India, Kali-worship more popular in W. Bengal, Northeast Indians are either Animists or Christians, Keralans/Goans are mostly Christian, East Punjabis are mostly Sikhs, Kashmiris are mostly Muslim, Rajasthanis are mostly Saur-worshippers, etc etc
The various nations in India are Guajaratis, Bengalis, Tamils, Rajasthanis, Nagas, Manipurans, Assamese, Andhras, Maharashtans, etc. with their own unique languages, cultures, and identities.
Then Northwest Indians tend to have more of the Caucasoid racial element, Northeast Indians have more of the Mongoloid racial element, and South/East/Central Indians have more of the Australoid-Dravidoid racial element.
All of these facts is also true for the Muslims in these regions.
There is NO commonality among Indians except for being former British colonies!
On the other hand, Pakistanis have much more commonality with each other. All Pakistanis (Pashtuns, Punjabis, Baluchis, Kashmiris, Seraikis, and Sindhis) are:
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Geographically based around Indus river and its tributaries
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Linguistically Indo-Iranian
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Common Harappan-Aryan-Scythic-Turkic-etc heritage
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Mostly racially Caucasoid mixed with others
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Culturally a blend of Muslim and Indo-Iranian roots
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Followers of the religion of Islam
So this notion of “only” Islam uniting Pakistanis is false.
If only Islam had united Muslims of British Raj then there would be no Bangladesh today (separation of East Pakistan … since Bengalis are racially, linguistically, culturally, etc. different from Pakistanis).
Also, Pakistan was never created for “all” Muslims of British India, an impossible task to accomplish. Exchange of population was never suppose to happen but occured any way to some extent because of communalism on both sides.
Pakistan was created as a federation of Muslim-majority states of the British Raj. In fact, two prominant leaders of Pakistan movement, Muhammad Iqbal and Rehmat Ali proposed creation of Pakistan as only a federation of Punjab, NWFP, Sindh, Baluchistan, and Kashmir… based on their common history, geography, culture, language, race, defense, religion, and economics.