The proposed paper imparts a historical institutionalist framework to explain the divergent pathways for accommodating diversity in India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan shared a common history as part of British India and following Partition used the Government of India Act (1935) as the basis of their political system prior to their Constituent Assemblies endorsing an indigenous constitution. Considering partition as a critical juncture, the paper points nonetheless at two favorable conditions that were ameneable to minority accommodation in India than in Pakistan. The first relates to the socialization in conflict management and overall legitimacy of the Congress Party in India which propelled it towards a deeper commitment to accommodation than the more authoritarian and more weakly embedded Muslim League in Pakistan. The window of opportunity for an accommodationist stance was therefore much smaller in Pakistan than in India. The second factor pertains to the different positioning of the army and bureaucracy in relation to the political classes, who quickly asserted their authority in Pakistan in the wake of the Leauge's shallow roots and early demise of its leader. The different regime choices that were made in the period between 1946-1950 had major implications not only for the sustainability of democracy in both countries but relatedly for how they manage ethnic diversity within, the key focus of this paper.
