Accustomed Meaning in Tamil and - Ideal Dictionary

Disclaimer: I'm not a particularly smart man, and most of my post in just a wild conjecture based on my understanding of the Political and Intellectual discourse done in this country as it happened in the past year. If I do any injustice to any part of our history, then I apologize. I will read more as I grow older, and will form better, more thoughtful responses then. As of right now, this is my post on the nature of Politics done in this country (as I understand), and how most, if not all people, get it very wrong. Without further delay, let's Start:
The General tone of Discussions held in this sub-reddit, and mostly anywhere in India:

BJP, described as a "hindutva political party" by itself (vaguely) and by leftists (very explicitly) has recently risen in popularity. Under their PM candidate, who is seen as a threat to the rights of the Abrahamic minorities due to real or imagined reasons, acts as their leader.
While the agenda of PM Modi is exclusively development and "pride in motherland", the political history of his party and his personal history can't be ignored or wished away. He is seen as a controversial figure even though the exact nature of his past or the party's is NOT well established. Every person has their own version of the story.
Because Religion is important to people, therefore in a Democracy it gets exploited to get votes. BJP vaguely caters to the Hindu Right fringe groups, and Congress caters to the Muslim minority, hoping to unite their votes in the threat of a common enemy vastly more in numbers than their own minority. The Idea is only if 20% of the 70% of Hindu-majority are religiously motivated to get BJP into Power, then the Congress must counter it by catering to the 20% muslim-minority. To level the playing field.

Eventually it boils down to the Hindu-vs-Muslim debates with historic events (some going back to 100's of years) taken as some sort of a justification to explain the modern-day political scene.
So far so good, but it gets even messier.

Muslims are thought of as conquerors or barbarians if you prefer. Somewhere down the line, the Brits start getting mentioned. The scope of debate is increased. People start to use terms like "Maculay Putra" or "Kulcha Warrior" depending on which side of the debate you are.
Even further, the caste-system as it is in play today irrespective of who created it, starts getting mentioned.
Before long there are debates held on the true meaning of Hinduism.
And eventually, every debate boils down to the vaguely defined and often misunderstood term "The Idea of India". Left claims it is synonymous with the idea of "secularism". Right claims it is synonymous with the idea of "hindutva" which they define as "claiming loyalty to your motherland irrespective of religion". Rightist definition of religion is also different.

These debates end with no clear winner in sight. The rightist is convinced he is right. Similarly the Leftist is convinced he is. I have lurked on this sub-reddit for more than 2 years, and I have yet to see a winner.
Here's My Take on our Discourse:
I will start with the BRITISH-RAJ period, and will jump back and forth in time as per to my convenience. Hopefully it will all make sense once seen as a single piece.

• The British Raj & Gandhi: What was it all about?

Take a look at this guy, Madan Lal Dhingra. Particularly this passage:
And I maintain that if it is patriotic in an Englishman to fight against the Germans if they were to occupy this country, it is much more justifiable and patriotic in my case to fight against the English.
And This:
also hold them responsible for the hanging and deportation of my patriotic countrymen, who did just the same as the English people here are advising their countrymen to do...... Just as the Germans have no right to occupy this country, so the English people have no right to occupy India, and it is perfectly justifiable on our part to kill the Englishman who is polluting our sacred land. I am surprised at the terrible hypocrisy, the farce, and the mockery of the English people.
You heard the guy. And he makes sense. The British, who shared no historical connection with the people of India before colonization, didn't belong here no matter what they say. In this case, killing is justified and indeed righteous. Considering he was the protege of Veer Savarkar, his line of thought must be a fairly popular one.
But what does Gandhi, the poster boy for non-violence, have to say about this? This:
Even should the British leave in consequence of such murderous acts, who will rule in their place? Is the Englishman bad because he is an Englishman? Is it that everyone with an Indian skin is good? If that is so, there should be [no] angry protest against oppression by Indian princes. India can gain nothing from the rule of murderers—no matter whether they are black or white. Under such a rule, India will be utterly ruined and laid waste
These few lines by Gandhi are PURE GOLD. Every word is extremely important and therefore I left all of it highlighted. The Entire Political Philosophy of Gandhi (as per my understanding) stems from these few lines. And it's pure brilliance.
Now here I'm assuming that if the Indians so had wished, they could have kicked out the British long before 1947 if they were willing to use violence. I have no hard numbers with me to support this claim [paging evanRWT to shed some light here]. I can only assume this because the Indian subcontinent is fairly large, and the ratio of british to Indian in India must have been ridiculous. Like 10000:1 (made up number).
So establishing that we, Indians, could have got our freedom decades before 1947 (take case of Mohan lal, happened in 1909) if we had used violence against the Brits under a common cause and a common leader. Gandhi could have been the supremo-leader with several regional leaders giving him counsel. With numbers on our side, we had win and get independence.
Simple, right? WRONG. Let's go back and look at Gandhi's quote:

Is the Englishman bad because he is an Englishman? Is it that everyone with an Indian skin is good?

I think here Gandhi means to tell us that, even if we use violence against the Brits, we MUST first DEFINE the Brits.For why exactly is the Brit evil? Is he evil simply because he is British? Extrapolating then it must mean every Indian is Good because he is Indian. But then:

Is it that everyone with an Indian skin is good? If that is so, there should be [no] angry protest against oppression by Indian princes.

So that's not it. So what does Gandhi mean here? Next part of quote:

India can gain nothing from the rule of murderers—no matter whether they are black or white. Under such a rule, India will be utterly ruined and laid waste.

Interesting. Here Gandhi is telling us that he actually believes the Brits are evil and murderers. And so would the Indians be if we kill and chase them away. None of them would be good for India. But million dollar question is, What is the Idea of India according to Gandhi?

India will be utterly ruined and laid waste.

So even if India is administered by Indians AFTER chasing and killing the Brits away, INDIA IS STILL RUINED. How? What does he mean?
Here We come to my Second Point:

• Idea of Indian Subcontinent

I think when Gandhi says 'India will be utterly ruined and laid waste', the term "India" means the Indian Subcontinent. Which includes modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh with the nation-state I live in, India. So how would all of this be ruined?
When we look at the Indian Subcontinent [IS], it becomes obvious that if we had start to divide this piece of land on religious and cultural fault-lines then this land can easily be divided into 50-odd countries. The diversity is simply overwhelming.
Once the british are gone, and with no singular narrative to bind all of the people of the IS together, according to Gandhi, the subcontinent would had simply shift into a time before the arrival of British. And what was happening before the time of the British?

People of IS killing each other over religious and cultural fault-lines. The usual Aurangzeb (muslim) kind of battles. The usual maratha/telegu land cultural battles.

Now we move back to the Idea of Killing the British and chasing them away from IS. Why are we killing the Brit? Because He is evil. Why exactly is he evil? There can be several explanations:

1. He is white. He looks different.
   
2. He speaks in a language that is foreign to your land.
   
3. He subscribes to a foreign culture/religion.
   
4. He is accountable only to the power, whose headquarters are set in a foreign land.
   
5. He has illegally occupied our lands and refuses to give away his administrative control to us, the rightful owners.
   

Now lets have a thought exercise: we have 2 people:

Person S: A Punjabi Sikh.
Person T: A Tamil.

Now let us assume, we Indians would have united, killed, and chased the Brits away. So what happens next? Let's see one-by-one in our contrived thought exercise, as to what happens JUST AFTER the Sikh and a Tamil have joined hands to chase the Brits away. What happens to their "unity".

1. An average Punjabi is the "white guy" to your average Tamil (take the Kashmiri-Tamil divide if it's easier to picture). The Reason they had hate the Brit, would now be the reason they had hate each other.
   
2. Punjabi language is foreign to Telegu-speaking population and vice-versa.
   
3. Punjabi culture is foreign to Tamil Nadu.
   
4. If a Punjabi is in administrative control of services in Tami Nadu, then it can be claimed that he is a traitor only answerable to his own people. That is the punjabis.
   
5. Every proud region/culture in IS has an "idea" of their own territory. If the claimed territory by 2 different cultures overlaps, you can be sure there would be a huge conflict resulting in blood.
   

In short, if we had used voilence against the Brit for whatever reason, the next step would be we using voilence against each-other. Therego IS divides into 50 different countries with national interests that can go against each other.
According to Gandhi, if IS breaks into 50 countries then the "idea of India" as a singular entity is RUINED. We will fight each-other for all eternity and thus, the subcontinent is laid waste.
Now what does Gandhi do to solve this problem? It's very simple.

Let's practice Non-Violence and through planned Non-Cooperation eventually make the control of IS by Brits economically unsustainable! The Brits will eventually leave if they realized the juice was NOT worth the squeeze. And because we overwhelm them in sheer numbers, they can't kill all of us! They must leave, sooner or later.

The plan is brilliant. Gandhi's political mind was decades ahead of his time. The future for the IS was very simple:
When controlling and maintaining IS was too troublesome for the Brits [done by constant demand by Indians of Swaraj (pseudo-independence), and marches by Gandhi to Grow our own salt and weave our own clothes], then they had leave. Meanwhiles Gandhi becomes the Messiah of Indians. Now because of Non-Violence, the Indian people are not fighting or killing each other. The "if someone slaps on your 1 cheek, put the seond cheek forward was not meant for us when we thought of the British, it was meant when we thought of each other. When a tamil slaps you (a sikh), you let it go. Gandhi was conditioning us to behave in a new India, when complete control was with Indians. Cultural and religious differences will definitely cause friction, but you suck it up and let it go! A true genius, Gandhi is.
Now when the Brits leave, the power vacancy at the top level is filled with Indians. Gandhi continues to condition Indians not to fight, so the structure of the state is stable. Eventually with multi-party democracy, it is ensured that the voice of every minority in India is heard. Therego we usher in a future with UNITED INDIAN SUBCONTINENT. Because of our vast numbers and resources, we can fight better for our interest when together. THE IS PROSPERS.
TL:DR; Gandhi essentially traded our few decades of Colonization with the possibility of IS acting as a SINGLE nation-state in all the future to come.
It was the right and smart thing to do. BUT it didn't go down as planned. So what happened:

PAKISTAN HAPPENED.

Now we come to the Partition-era:

• The Idea of Pakistan, as it was originally conceived:

The Idea of Pakistan is simple. Jinnah, listening to poetry by Iqbal, with the support from the Muslim League, convinced a large majority of the Muslims in the IS that the religious differences between them and rest are simply too great to be ignored. When that didn't work out quite as planned, he started to deliver anti-hindu (the majority religion) rhetoric to shape the opinion of the lowest common denominator.
To Jinnah's defense, he was a very confused man. Spouting anti-hindu rhetoric for a good part of his later-day political life, he immediately after the creation of Pakistan says, (I'm paraphrasing) 'every person in Pakistan, irrespective of religion will have a single vote. Pakistan would be established on Islamic Principles (which in his mind supports democracy) BUT won't held an antagonistic attitude towards people of other faith'.
He wanted Pakistan to act like the modern-day Turkey.
So essentially the demand of Pakistan can be summarized as:

The Muslims of that decade believed the religious differences they had with the rest of the population (primarily Hindus), far outweighed the cultural similarities they shared with them. Therefore muslims must have a fairly autonomous social and political state (a demand when refused by Indian National Congress, led to the Creation of a completely separate nation-state) to ensure the survival and prosperity of their community.

A decent Idea. Not a good idea, but not a bad idea either. Abrahamic and Dharmic religions function very differently as noted by Jinnah.
The entire future of the subcontinent was to be decided on the "execution of this Idea". The execution would have been everything. But the execution fucking sucked ass.
Continued in Part-2.
Every bit of this connects to the way the Indian Subcontinent behaves now. I promise, there is not a irrelevant detail here.