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History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 02-20-2008
Pakistan and violence
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=18660
Mourner at Bhutto protest (Siobhán SilkeFlickr)
Image: Siobhán Silke, Flickr
Why is Pakistan so violent? Furhan Iqbal seeks the roots of a problem that has been with the state since its formation in 1947. From openDemocracy.
By Furhan Iqbal for openDemocracy (19/02/08)
The general election of 18 February 2008 in Pakistan takes place amid violence. The campaign has been marked by numerous assaults on authorities and civilians, and frequent suicide-bomb attacks on political rallies, which have exacted great loss of life; the nearest estimate is that in total around 150 people have been killed. The bombing of a Pakistan People's Party meeting on 16 February which killed 47 people and wounded 110 in Parachinar, in the Kurram district of northern Pakistan, is only the most bloody of such incidents.
Such attacks represent the continuation of a pattern that has been evident for much of the last year. In May 2007, for example, violent clashes between supporters of the deposed chief justice of Pakistan's supreme court (Iftikhar Mohammad Choudhry) and those of the country's general-president Pervez Musharraf (who had suspended Choudhry on 8 March) resulted in the death of forty people and injuries to many more. On 12 July, the Pakistani army raided the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad to break the control of the groups that was holding it, resulting in the death of eight soldiers and fifty militants. On 17 July, a suicide-bomber struck Islamabad, killing twelve people and wounding many more. In October, three days of heavy fighting in the troubled North Waziristan province took the lives of 250 people. The year ended with a further paroxysm of violence, when former prime minister Benazir Bhutto (whose return from exile on 18 October was met by a suicide- bomb attack on a convoy that killed 126 and wounded many more) was assassinated on 27 December in Rawalpindi.
This melancholy list could be extended almost indefinitely - and indeed encompass most of Pakistan's six decades of existence. For the last year of violence in Pakistan, though it evidently is connected to current problems of authoritarian rule and extremist ideology, is only part of a much larger problem of a country plagued by violence since its formation in 1947.
My purpose in this article is to stand back from the immediate issues of politics and the election to ask: what are the deeper roots of Pakistan's problem of violence?
The place of violence
<b>
Pakistan's sixty-year history has been characterized by frequent moments when civilian rule is abruptly ended by the premature intervention of the military. The army's purported aim, like that of most dictatorial regimes, has been to defend national sovereignty, honour and interests.</b> The latest such occasion was 3 November 2007, when General Musharraf declared a state of emergency in anticipation of an unfavorable decision by the supreme court regarding his re-election as president. In effect, Musharraf's action expressed the reality of such military interventions: that they are an attack on the country that holds the constitution and the rights of its citizens in abeyance. This also is violence: not the sort where people are killed, maimed and tortured (though that too is often the effect of military rule) but violence of a social and psychological nature.
The role of the military - and its counterpart, political extremism - have been central to analyses of Pakistan. But they fail to explain the centrality of violence in Pakistani politics and consequently how to deal with this seemingly insurmountable challenge. The place of violence in the history of Pakistan needs to be considered as a problem in its own right; this can in principle provide a framework in which events in Pakistan are seen as part of a larger story of history and its denial, one where the people and the state are engaged in a sort of neurotic dance - forever repeating that which can neither be fully remembered nor completely forgotten.
The acts of Pervez Musharraf in seeking to curb the independent judiciary and media are of especial interest here - since these agencies have sought to bring to conscious awareness the horrors of the past and the present. The general has thus sought here to repress what both the military regimes and the people have colluded in repressing: their perverse relationship with violence. The implication of this analysis is that should the horrors of what has been inflicted and suffered be made conscious, then the floodgates of psychic repression will be broken and memories released - with incalculable and unsettling consequences.
The repression of memory
<span style='color:red'>
The notion of Pakistan, conceived as a homeland for the Muslims, owes its existence to acts of violence; social and psychological as well as physical, and often committed against one another by members of communities that had in the main coexisted peacefully for centuries in pre-partition India. Pakistan initially received only lukewarm support as a homeland for the Muslims of India. It was only when communal violence in all its forms erupted in the sub-continent that the concept of Pakistan became their aspiration and eventual creation. The development of the idea of Pakistan acquired a life of its own alongside the massacres and excesses both against and by members of Muslim communities.
</span>
A combination of factors - including lack of political foresight, incompetence and narrow self-interest on the part of the major parties of the time, the Muslim League and the Congress - allowed a cycle of orchestrated violence to take hold. There were perpetrators and victims of violence on both sides. This violence tore the social fabric and destroyed assumptions about life. The violence connected the two newborn countries of India and Pakistan at the time of their partition; yet for those fleeing to safety on the other side, the cost of survival was the removal of this experience from memory. In Pakistan, this pressure was particularly acute since the myths of "purity" and of the "land of the pure" could not be made compatible with acknowledgment of responsibility for great violence.
Those who crossed the border to join their Muslim brethren in the "land of the pure" continued to carry with them both the shame of being a refugee and the shame of believing in a notion that was never to be. Those who documented the horrors of the period were sidelined or sometimes even prosecuted, for "the people" as well as the authorities did not want to know, could not bear to know. An effect of this collusion between the people and the state was that much of the violence perpetrated in the past and present was projected into others, against whom people and state need to remain prepared. The military, the repository of violent urges disowned and a symbol of readiness to meet external and internal threats, became all powerful, both feared and revered. The people signed a covenant with the military: to sanction eternal engagement in violence, but never to be reminded of it.
The burden of shame
<span style='color:red'>
States and people use various means to ensure that what cannot be tolerated remains unthinkable and unspeakable: among them languages and narratives that facilitate the process of forgetting, ensuring that intolerable memories remain buried. In the official narrative of Pakistan, the massacres of the Muslims at the hands of the Hindus and Sikhs are remembered, the massacres of the Hindus and Sikhs by the Muslims are forgotten; those who chose death over dishonor are remembered, those who were dishonored but survived are forgotten; the arrival of the refugees in the "land of the pure" is remembered, the horrors that welcomed them are forgotten; the victories of the leaders are remembered, their incompetence and acts of self-interest are forgotten.</span>
Conflicts and inconvenient truths find no language where they can exist; obsessive attempts are made to expunge from memory any trace of violence (perpetrated and endured) that evokes feelings of shame. The necessary place of the hated "other" in this neurotic dance is to act as the eternally needed repository of all disavowed feelings.
This is the context too in which the saga of Bangladesh unfolded in 1970-71, when the military of the "land of the pure" acted with impunity, committing terrible atrocities in an attempt to prevent a breakaway from Pakistan. Yet the responsibility belongs also to the people and politicians who remained silent in face of atrocity. The thousands who came onto the streets to protest against the rule of General Ayub Khan did not protest against the atrocities committed by the military against the civilian population of Bangladesh. The people did not know, chose not to know, could not bear to know, what heinous crimes were being perpetrated.
The secret of narrative
<span style='color:red'>
Pakistan was created in the name of Islam - according to the official myth. The "Muslims", God's people, created a state of their own and duly named it the "Islamic Republic of Pakistan". At a single stroke the divine was conflated with the state, the acts of which - however brutal - were thus viewed as being sanctioned by the divine. This gave people permission not to think and not to remember. Violence against others is in the name of the divine; violence endured is divinely ordained fate. In this context, thinking is unacceptable as it equates to a challenge to the divine, ensuring that what has been forgotten is never recalled to memory.
But a nation that fails to remember its past has no future. The forgotten haunts it, endlessly repeating itself through violent acts that are both denied and vociferously repressed. This is not merely a matter of repression being unleashed on innocent people, but of an active act of forgetting the shame of being party to such acts, having tacitly supported such acts, and having endured such acts. If there is hope for Pakistan beyond politics, then the people need to be given and to acquire a language in which their pain and shame can be acknowledged and explored.
</span>
The election of 18 February 2008 is also the culmination of weeks of activism by those - including the independent judiciary, journalists and many citizens - who at great cost to themselves have sought to affirm democratic values in face of violence both from the state and from militants and extremists. <b>The logic of their efforts is to expose the collusive enterprise of repression and forgetting in which the military and the people of Pakistan have been engaged. The way forward for Pakistan is to build on these efforts, through making conscious what has been actively repressed as a ground from which solutions may emerge. For Pakistanis this means to acknowledge and accept the trauma and shame of their past, to acknowledge and accept the violence committed in their name and endured by them and their others. It is through such a process - including the creation through dialogue of alternative, open, honest narratives of themselves and their past - that the violence which has disfigured Pakistan can be overcome.
</b>
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 02-24-2008
BOOK REVIEW: Living in âThe Age of Burkiâ by Khaled Ahmed
Changing Perceptions, Altered Reality: Pakistanâs Economy under Musharraf 1999-2006; OUP 2007
Pp373; Price Rs 595
Available in bookstores in Pakistan
If the education sector is with the provinces, and the provinces donât know how to collect and spend money, making big allocations for education could be an extravagance, as happened in Sindh in 2007 when the chief minister left office, like his predecessor, without meeting primary education targets
No other economist has responded to the challenge of interpreting Pakistanâs economic life the way Shahid Javed Burki has. If you read his column in Dawn on the latest crisis and marvel at the depth of his knowledge about anything to do with Pakistan, you should know that you are living in The Age of Burki, so alone does he stand in the field of comment on the countryâs economic health. Donât compare him with columnists. He has written too many books to deserve the evanescent title of those who flourish only on the newsprint.
His books on Pakistan validate his credentials: Pakistan Under Bhutto, 1980; Pakistan under the Military: Eleven Years of Zia-ul-Haq (with Craig Baxter), 1991; Pakistan: Fifty Years of Nationhood, 1999; A Historical Dictionary of Pakistan, 1999. The book under review was first conceived as Stepping Back from the Abyss: Pakistan under Pervez Musharraf, but his recurring Rostowian hope of another âtake-offâ stage in the life of Pakistanâs economy was somewhat dampened by the reaction he received from prime minister Shaukat Aziz when he delivered him his first warning on Islamabadâs laissez-faire treatment of the consumer economy.
The reaction was in fact a threat. Shocked, Burki changed the title to Changing Perceptions, Altered Reality of what became a book on the trot to coincide with the events that unfolded towards the end of 2007. The conclusion of the book under review was written in the winter of 2006-2007, which should give you the depth of Burkiâs predictive grasp of the events that unfolded twelve months later.
At a seminar in Washington in 2006 he had told Pakistanâs governor of the State Bank, Ms Shamshad Akhtar, that Pakistanâs was a âcasino economyâ where âinflation had increased, trade deficit had grown to a point where balance of payments was becoming a burden on the health of the economy; a number of commercial banks exposed to a wide variety of consumer loans had a weak and weakening asset base; and investments were being made in the more speculative parts of the economyâ (p.31).
The epithet âcasino economyâ he had first employed when telling Mexico in 1994 that its economy was being reared on the sands of a gigantic trade deficit and foreign borrowings. Casino would mean people strolling in, putting in their money for short term gains at the stock exchange, and then taking it out quickly as if walking out of a night club. But that doesnât mean that Burki was blind to the achievements under Musharraf; even after being the Cassandra that riled Shaukat Aziz into issuing a threat, his verdict is that the glass of the national economy is half full, not half empty.
Days before the 2008 elections, Pakistanâs political parties ended up giving top priority to the education sector in their election manifestoes, promising to lavish astronomical amounts of the national wealth on educating the people of Pakistan, without any experience in the past of handling national education. Burki goes to the crux of the problem, saying education is a Muslim problem because the sector is backward in the entire Islamic world, and pinpointing that âthe study of Islam was introduced as a compulsory part of the curriculum in Pakistan in the 1970s and the 1980s...in order to placate a small but influential segment of societyâ (p.177).
Throwing money at education therefore will not solve Pakistanâs crisis of the quality of homo pakistanicus. As John Dewey said, what you think is education could be something that human society could be better off not having. And if the education sector is with the provinces, and the provinces donât know how to collect and spend money, making big allocations for education could be an extravagance, as happened in Sindh in 2007 when the chief minister left office, like his predecessor, without meeting primary education targets. Education budgets are usually returned unspent, which may be just as well because the poisoned âcurriculum wingâ at Islamabad was not changed even by an enlightened Musharraf riding the reluctant mule of the âchaudhryâ PML.
<b>
(A speaker at Burkiâs book launch in Lahore this month spoke critically about there being three systems of education in operation in Pakistan â the same as in India, the rising Muslim madrassa included - that produced three different minds. He seemed to recommend the cultivation of uniformity in the national psyche, little realising that levelling the three systems in operation through an ideological stateâs apriorism would produce nothing but indoctrinated mediocrity. It is remarkable how threateningly uniform the Pakistani studentsâ mind already is today, thanks to Islamabadâs âcurriculum wingâ, while the infamous âthree systemsâ are in operation. According to linguist-scholar Dr Tariq Rehman, the most pluralist mind is being produced by the market-driven English medium system through an undermining of the ideological state.)</b>
Burki calls in question Musharrafâs sincerity in insisting on the primacy of the economy when he blames him for not moving on the question of trade with India, not granting it the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status under WTO, and perversely not ratifying the free trade agreement with India by attaching the impossible conditionality of Kashmir issue to it (p.130). Pakistan understands geopolitics as politics of obstruction of trade lest it convert Pakistanis from warriors to a nation of traders. Burki believes that free trade with India would benefit Pakistan more than India.
Although a confessed advocate of the âtwo-nation theoryâ - which has done so much harm to Pakistanâs human rights map - he thinks Pakistan should free-trade with India, and let Kashmir wither on the bough, through his internationally financed $25 billion economic uplift programme in the two Kashmirs. Musharraf, by using trade as an instrument of pressure on India, displayed his ignorance of what had really happened during jihad. Burki writes: âThe Kashmir problem continues to create uncertainty about Pakistanâs future and adversely affects its ability to attract foreign capital and foreign businesses into the countryâ (p.290).
There are arguments that Pakistanis just donât pay attention to and one is that of poverty reduction. Burki calls it the problem of ârelative deprivationâ where comparisons with India become irrelevant. He quotes Samuel Huntington from Political Order in Changing Societies (1968): âIncrease in inequality, even if it is perceived and not real, can be politically and socially destabilisingâ (p.46). He talks again about his statistical analysis proving that there was poverty reduction under military rulers simply because they removed the political instability that the politicians tended to bring in with democracy.
In the case of Kalabagh Dam, he thinks Musharraf should have realised that the universally admired Indus Basin Treaty of 1960 with India was signed by General Ayub against the wishes of the people of Pakistan; Musharraf was simply not tough enough on Kalabagh Dam on which two World Bank studies were ignored by the anti-dam sub-nationalists of the smaller provinces. Musharraf doesnât know what harm his backing off in the case of the dam - as also his misplaced bravado vis-Ã -vis India on the question of free trade - has done to Pakistan. Unfortunately, Shaukat Aziz was no Burki, but had he been, he could have at least tried to persuade Musharraf to do the right thing by Pakistan. *
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 03-28-2008
Itâs the leadership, stupid
By Samia Altaf
THERE is a fascinating article by Andrew Roth âJinnahâs new republicâ in an American weekly (The Nation) datelined Dec 13, 1947 (http://www.thenation.com/ doc/19471213/pakistan) that puts its finger on Pakistanâs most critical weakness â the quality of its leadership.
Reporting from Karachi, the author comments on the countryâs first cabinet: âWith enormous problems, Pakistan has only a very ordinary set of leaders to cope with themâ, barring a few âthe other members of the cabinet are all mediocrities.â The exceptions identified by the author were the âbrilliantâ Mr Jinnah, the prime minister and the finance minister.
In 2008, the problems have become much more enormous and the leadership has become much more mediocre. Even the exceptions at the very top are conspicuous by their absence.
The quality of political leadership went into a steep decline after Mr Jinnah. This was exacerbated by the militaryâs interruption of the political process that serves as the training ground for new leaders. Instead, military leaders found it in their interest to pick pliable political faces to front for them. And political leaders, in turn, promoted military leaders whom they deemed safe. A process in which incumbents picked others less clever than themselves assured a rapid race to the bottom.
Insecure political leaders, civil or military, are also prone to choosing their key bureaucrats on the basis of loyalty. Mr Ziaul Haq added to a secular decline in critical thinking by making the social sciences subservient to an ideological education in Pakistan Studies. It was no surprise to read Strobe Talbottâs comparison of South Asian bureaucrats in his book Engaging India: âIn general, our sessions with the Pakistanis, while occasionally more exciting than those with the Indians, lacked a comparable degree of intellectual engagementâ¦. While Jaswant [Singhâs] team was highly disciplined in every respect, some of Shamshad Ahmadâs colleagues tended to be querulous, surly, and sometimes abusive.â
By way of contrast, Ramachandra Guhaâs new book India after Gandhi includes a description of Indiaâs first cabinet in 1947. The 13-member cabinet included three who were not from the Congress party and three who had been lifelong adversaries of the Congress and had collaborated with the British, including the virulently anti-upper-caste Dr B.R. Ambedkar. Gandhi reminded his supporters that freedom had come to India, not to Congress, and urged âthe formation of a cabinet that included the ablest men regardless of party affiliation.â
Since then, Indian educational institutions including the globally competitive IITs and IIMs have produced many generations of very competent personnel. The calibre of the key Indian political and technical leaders can be gauged by a review of the CVs of the prime minister, the finance minister and the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, all made available to the public on the web.
The gap with their Pakistani counterparts is revealing and a pointer to Pakistanâs problems of governance and management at every level.
In an increasingly complex, globally linked knowledge economy and with the magnitude of social issues facing the country, it is no longer enough to be very clever and street-smart. Competence and training matter. Granted it is not possible to manufacture a new political leadership overnight but it is possible for the leadership to recognise its handicap.
It should search for the most competent Pakistanis available to head all key institutions and agencies that have a bearing on national development including universities, public enterprises and advisory boards. And this selection should be assigned to a professional recruitment agency subject to the approval of an independent Citizens Commission.
It is time for the political leadership to be humble and it is time to repair the decline of competence that has condemned the majority of Pakistanis to a life of unspeakable misery and degradation.
The writer is the 2007-2008 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars in Washington, DC. She writes for:
www.thesouthasianidea.wordpress.com
http://www.dawn.com/2008/03/27/op.htm
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 03-28-2008
Jinnah's Republic, as it appeared on Dec. 13, 1947 - Andrew Roth
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Karachi, November 15
ITS creator and governor general, M. A. Jinnah, has described Pakistan as "the biggest Moslem state... and the fifth biggest sovereign state in the world." Though the second point might be disputed, Pakistan is unquestionably worthy of attention, for it is situated just where the Anglo-American and Soviet orbits touch in the strategic Central Asian theater.
Seldom has a new state been created under such contradictory pressures or with such a load of full-grown problems. Control of the government is vested in a few top officials, supported by a powerful bureaucracy, but Britain has a say in matters of defense, finance, and foreign policy. Already the government is shot through with corruption and nepotism. Social life is dominated by Mohammedan concepts, including the subjection of women. The structure of the state, however, has not yet had time to harden, and internal strains may reshape it in another image.
Although Mr. Jinnah exaggerates when he describes his dominion as "blessed with enormous resources and potentialities," Pakistan is undoubtedly "workable" economically. With an: area of 230,000 square miles, one-fourth larger than 1933 Germany, it has a population of 70,000,000, about the same number as 1933 Germany. It produces an agricultural surplus and can export part of its wheat and rice and a good deal of its valuable jute crop. It also has some oil and chromite and considerable potential water power. Industrially it is the most backward part of the whole under-industrialized subcontinent. There are scattered woolen, cement, sugar, and cotton mills, but cloth and most other manufactured goods must be imported; some 85 per cent of the raw jute of all India is grown in Pakistan, but the jute mills are in Calcutta. Pakistan has no known coal or iron and only one modern port, Karachi. The people are largely illiterate; only 4 per cent can read as against 12 per cent in India. Among the well-educated, here as in India, are too many lawyers and too few engineers.
Close and friendly relations with the Indian dominion seem essential to the development of Pakistan's potentialities. <b>The Congress Party, indeed, finally agreed to partition, after years of deadlock, partly in the belief that Pakistan could not exist as a separate state. "Let them have their Pakistan," it was argued, "if they'll take it without the eastern Punjab and without Calcutta and western Bengal. They won't have any coal, capital, or industries, and we can throttle them economically. After a few years they'll come crawling back!" This attitude, although not shared by the entire Congress high command, has certainly pervaded the partition operations. </b>In the division of assets the Moslems have had to make a separate fight for virtually every typewriter and ream of paper. Difficulties have even been raised over the handling of mail.
Pakistan's economic troubles have been immeasurably increased by the bloody communal conflicts and the resulting influx of refugees.<b> Almost every Moslem League leader from Mr. Jinnah down believes that this refugee inundation was part of a plot to swamp the Pakistan government before it could get established. "I'm sure that Nehru isn't a party to this plot," one declared, "but I'm just as sure that it is the backing of Patel [India's Home Minister] and Baldev Singh [the Defense Minister and a Sikh]."</b>
With enormous problems, Pakistan has only a very ordinary set of leaders to cope with them. The brilliant Mr. Jinnah, of course, must be excepted, but he is over seventy and has been in poor health since a severe pneumonia attack two years ago. His voice can barely be heard ten feet away, and he chose to become governor general rather than premier partly because it was an easier post. He has repeatedly told subordinates, "I have done my part of the job; I've given you Pakistan. It is up to you to build it."
Premier Liaqat Ali Khan is a competent administrator with the conservative social views of a typical feudal landlord and a strong belief in a political and economic alliance with Great Britain. He had to chose a man of technical ability for his Finance Minister but the other members of his Cabinet are all mediocrities. So farfetched was the appointment of the Calcutta hide merchant, Faziur Rahman, as Minister of the Interior and Education that an old friend, seeing him in a front seat at the Independence Day celebrations, cried out, "You're in the wrong row; that's for the Cabinet!" Top officials are in the main from the landlord class, with a sprinkling of lawyers and merchants. The sole modern-minded industrialist in the dominion, Hassan Ispahani, is being sent out of the way as ambassador to the United States. Provincial officials are of the same kind: the Punjab Premier is the Khan of Mamdot, the province's largest landholder.
Considerable opposition to this leadership is manifesting itself, although it is still unorganized. After 1944, when the Moslem League became a mass movement, clerks, small shopkeepers, mechanics, and poor peasants thronged to its meetings, and it was they who finally obtained partition. Many of them were recruited through religious appeals; others through the promise of better living conditions. The economic discontent formerly directed against the commercially dominant Hindus and Sikhs--it still provides much of the fuel for the Moslem arson gangs--is gradually being turned against the wealthy Moslem League leaders. The story is told that when Mumtaz Daultana, the brains of the West Punjab ministry, went to his huge Multan estate in August, his Moslem tenants, all staunch League members, congratulated him on the achievement of Pakistan, and landlord and tenants feasted together. But a pall was thrown over the festivities when a peasant asked, "When will the land be given to us?" This question is being asked repeatedly, for agrarian reforms have been promised by the League.
Similar resentment against the rich is voiced in the towns. A Moslem clerk who is the local secretary of the League in his ward is made conscious of social differences when he goes from his filthy, overcrowded tenement home to the palatial residence of the provincial leader. At a recent meeting in Lahore a fervent young Leaguer exclaimed, "The rich are finished! Let us shoot them!"
Some of this radicalism is spontaneous; some of it is the work of the progressives in the League, who are influential throughout Pakistan but especially in the Punjab. These agitators are usually well-educated, modernminded young people with a war-gained knowledge of foreign countries, a strongly nationalist point of view, and a liberal approach to social problems, including the position of women. One of the most prominent is Mian Iftikharud-Din, known as "Ifti," a wealthy, radical Moslem who was formerly president of the Congress Party in the Punjab and twice jailed by the British. Now publisher of the Pakistan Times and a member of the Constituent Assembly, he is looked up to by young, progressive Moslems but kept at a distance by League leaders. The tactics of the young progressives have reached a stratum of Moslems never before interested, and at Lahore and Peshawar there have been mass demonstrations of Moslem women clad in the ghostly looking white burqas, a cover-all garment with a net eye-slit which enables orthodox Moslem women to appear in public without being seen. The League leaders welcomed such mass support in fighting for Pakistan--although many had prejudices against women in politics--but now they are embarrassed by the claims of the awakened and demanding millions.
During the Lahore riots some of the inflamed young Moslems asked the League progressives for guidance. "We tried to slow them down," a leftist Moslem leader said, "but we couldn't oppose them openly. The Communists attacked us for this, saying we could not be considered progressive if we did not openly fight Moslem communalism, but we know that would have meant isolating ourselves from our people."
A major conflict is now looming over the question of how closely Pakistan should be tied to Britain. Nationalist-minded Pakistanis, among whom are most of the young people and the new League rank and file, are dismayed by the number of Britons in the administration. Three of the five provincial governors, five of the nine departmental secretaries, and all the high officers of the armed forces are British. Informed nationalists think it necessary to keep certain Britons for their technical skills but do not want this to be carried too far. Army officers do not object to serving under British generals temporarily, but are concerned that the army should continue to be equipped solely with British materiel and indignant that promotions have been left in British hands. Some nationalists charge that when Premier Liaqat Ali Khan was in London a year ago he committed Pakistan to remaining within the British economic sphere.
In the Punjab even the League right-wingers are anti-British, because the British governor there kept the League out of office for over a year and because the boundary award is considered unfair. In consequence a substantial number of Britons have been dismissed, but many of these have turned up with the central government at Karachi. The railway specialist, A. G. Hall, for example, was put out by the Punjab government but is now director general of railways for all Pakistan. To protests about the great number of Britons in the Pakistan service, the Premier is reported to have replied: "Before the transfer of power Lord Mountbatten had both the League and the Congress members of the interim government promise to keep on all British officials who wanted to stay and against whom we could not make a specific case." It is interesting to note that of those who have stayed, the great majority have chosen to serve in Pakistan. While this may be due in part to the fact that opportunities are greater in the less-advanced state, there is certainly a feeling among the British that although India will probably declare its independence, Pakistan may be kept within the empire. The likelihood is enhanced by the character of the League leaders, almost none of whom are known for militant nationalism.
Since Pakistan's establishment, League officers have been cautious about declaring where they stand with respect to the conflict between Russia and the West. Pakistan is nearer to the Soviet border than to either Britain or the United States, and substantial segments of public opinion show an interest in the U. S. S. R. Even orthodox Moslems are watching developments in the Soviet Moslem areas, such as Bokhara, which are close to Pakistan culturally as well as geographically. Not all the League progressives are pro-Communist, but many seem to feel that some sort of socialism, usually referred to as "Islamic socialism," is necessary to make Pakistan a strong modern state. There would certainly be overwhelming opposition to allowing Britain and the United States to use Pakistan's military strength or strategic position to further their own designs.
The future of the Moslem League is already a subject of dispute. Old League officers, fearing that the impoverished Moslems will follow the progressives if the government does not soon grant their demands, are tending to abandon the organization which brought them to power and to rely increasingly on the bureaucracy which they inherited from the British and on their new powers of bribery through job distribution. Moslem religious leaders are attacking young, modern-minded progressives as "anti-Islamic," and telling the women to forget about politics and go back into purdah. But it is not easy to turn back the clock. "We have learned that even women have power, and they can't make us forget it," said a Lahore housewife to me. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 03-30-2008
Somebody has taken lot of pains here
http://rupeenews.com/moins-articles/india-...iraq-burma-etc/
<img src='http://moinansari.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/blk-occ-kashmir-writing.png' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<img src='http://moinansari.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/occupied-kashmir-muslim-pop.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rupee News: Editorâs Disquisitions and Fulminations
Entries RSS | Comments RSS
  Â
âIndiaâ is a misnomer: The British Indian Empire included parts of the Subcontinent, Iraq, Burma etc. The French âIndianâ Empire included parts of the Subcontinent plus Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam. The Dutch âIndianâ Empire included Indonesia and parts of the Subcontinent.
OFFICIAL CONSTITUTIONAL NAME:Â BHARAT
âIndia is no more a country than the Equatorâ.Winston Churchill
âIndiaâ is as much a country as the Equator: Sir Winston Churchill
Real name âHindustanââ¦too hard for British to pronounce
The origins of the word Anglacized âIndiaâ Come from Hind
Sindhuâ¦Hindhuâ¦
Sindhâ¦.Hindhâ¦
Sindhâ¦Sindhi..
Hindhi â¦Indusâ¦India..
The monkier âSindhiâ or âHindiâ categorized those living on the banks of the Indusâ¦.not those who live on the Ganges
Pakistanis live on the banks of the Indus. Indians donât..they live on the banks of the Ganges..
Ganges residents should be called âGanghansâ
Lord Mintos SubcontinentHow many states can you count?â the differences in India, between the two major nations, the Hindus and the Muslims are a thousand times greater when compared with the continent of Europe.
(answer is not â1â³, it is more than 570)
This article lists the more than 570 states that comprise the Subcontinent. Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh are only the major players. A discussion of the more than 570 states explains the Subcontinent.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 04-14-2008
Mountbatten's role in the partition
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/Apr-2008/13/columns3.php
M. ASGHAR KHAN
A recently published book, The Secret History of the end of an Empire, by Alex Von Tunzelmann, published in America, throws new light on the intrigues of Lord Louis Mountbatten and the role of Lady Mountbatten during the partition of India. In this book, the author writes about the relations between Jawaharlal Nehru and Lady Mountbatten and the resultant denial to Pakistan of the Muslim majority District of Gurdaspur, providing India with a contiguous border with Kashmir. Pakistan was also thus denied control of major irrigation headworks which created another dispute with India and seriously affected Pakistan's agricultural economy.
The book also throws light on Mountbatten's Naval career when during World War II, he had proved incompetent and during which, as a result, the British Naval force he had commanded, suffered severe losses. He had developed close relationship with the Prince of Wales, Later King Edward VIII and with the British Royal family and thus inspite of his professional incompetence rose to prominence. The author writes that Mountbatten encouraged his wife to develop close relationship with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who persuaded her to play a big role in getting Mountbatten and thus the British government to agree to many of Pandit Nehru's unjustified demands.
As a result of this disgraceful behaviour of Lord Mountbatten and his wife, Pakistan suffered grievously. Pakistan lost Kashmir, many Muslims all over Indian lost their lives and property and Pakistan was denied control of a large share of its water. A long time has now passed but our suffering continues.
Secret and confidential documents are made available to the public by the British government after a lapse of 50 years and some of the evidence of the role of the Viceroy and his wife should be available from a scrutiny of these papers. The Pakistan government should constitute a Committee to scrutinise these documents and collect evidence to substantiate the injustice that was done to Pakistan by mishandling of the partition of India. Much of this is available in London, where these documents can be seen and valuable historical information obtained.
It would be unwise if the government of Pakistan in a misguided desire not to embarrass the British government shies away from taking this step which will put the record straight. Having collected this evidence, we owe it to the millions who suffered because of the role of Britain's Viceroy and his wife, that Pakistan should seek an apology from the British government for the scandalous conduct of her viceroy.
<span style='color:red'>
The accession of Kashmir to India which was facilitated by Mountbatten not only caused Pakistan the loss of thousands of lives and deprived it of water; it also involved India and Pakistan in an endless strife and suffering. In the 60 years that have passed, no end to this problem appears to be in sight and it appears that Pakistan and the Kashmiris will continue to suffer. </span>
Even if we do not get an apology, we would have recorded for posterity, a monumental injustice and the misconduct of the last representative of the British government on the Indian subcontinent. In this the British government has a responsibility and it would be proper if it cooperates in this venture and accepts the misdemeanour of its last representative charged with the responsibility of the peaceful transfer of power to the people of the subcontinent.
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 04-14-2008
Conspiracies galore?
Ikramullah
History keeps on repeating itself, but most of us in Pakistan remain determined to ignore it and refuse to learn any lesson to avoid future disasters and national tragedies. From the assassination of Liaqat Ali in 1951 to the assassination of BB, it is the same sad saga of undiscovered conspiracies. Almost four decades have passed since the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971, but the responsibility for this national tragedy has still not been fixed at state level.
As a nation, we seem to enjoy conspiracy theories of all sorts. More disasters and national tragedies follow suit and meet the same fate. The constant casualty has been 'Democracy'. Has Pakistan's civil society and our political leadership learnt any lessons as how to protect and sustain it while passing through the rough the critical phase of transition from the old order to the new one? The process of transfer of power is not completed by a simple oath taking ceremony. It requires a change of mindset by the new leadership, including the opposition. There are no foes in a democratic order.
Having said that, it is unfortunate that the picture presented by responsible elements of our civil society and our political leadership is not very encouraging, to say the least, in the context of the ugly incidents at Karachi, Lahore and again at Karachi from April 7 to 9. Former CM Arbab Rahim was roughed up and 'given shoe lashing' the worst humiliation in the subcontinent. There is no room for any arguments over this serious crime, as visual evidence regarding the identity of the culprits is available. Was it an isolated act of madness or a conspiracy by design? The mastermind behind the conspiracy must be identified and sternly dealt with according to law. There is no sign of it so for.
The very next day after the scene of another shoe beating shifts to Lahore, which may be a mere co-incidence. This time the target was Dr. Sher Afgan Niazi, who had to face the 'lawyers wrath'. Niazi was besieged for hours by angry and hostile lawyers. They all hated Niazi for his past role.
According to their concept of democracy, the defeat of the old regime at the ballot, resulting in a change of regime of their own choice, is not enough. They want something more. In the meantime the political stalwarts of the past regime must learn a lesson and the new government now in place, must be kept under constant pressure and even threats like street agitation and Long March to Islamabad, in case of any dilly dallying by the PM, who belongs to the other partner of the coalition, than the one in the Punjab which is fully supportive of the urgency to meet the lawyers demands within 30 days of the new regime at Islamabad, out of which 10 days have already passed. Hence only 20 days are left to build the maximum pressure to achieve the target of restoration of the superior judiciary.
The incident of Dr Niazi's manhandling has also been labelled as conspiracy without elaborating as to who are the conspirators. There have been accusations and counter accusations. Some have involved the PML(Q), MQM and even the presidency, while others are accusing the PML (N) and yet others feel that the lawyers have politicised the issue of the restoration of the judges. However, this sparked riots, in which nine innocent citizens were killed, six including two women were burnt to death, more than 50 vehicles torched and dozens of chambers set ablaze (The Nation, April 10).
However, the president and PM have expressed a similar resolve in a joint statement. At the heart of the present situation lies the complex issue of the restoration of the CJ Chaudhry, on which an agreed solution is yet to emerge. Any dead lock could be disastrous. Time is running out. Conspiracies, resignations and their withdrawals are out of date. The fate of 'Democracy' in Pakistan is in the hands of the ruling coalition and the civil society.
E-mail: ikramullah@nation.com.pk
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 04-30-2008
Pakistan has always existed in the subcontinent even though it was known by a different name then. In fact the need for a Pakistan was acutely felt by the Indus Valley People specially after heavy meals.
A casual study of Indus Valley architecture will reveal that most individual houses had attached "pakistans"(usually to the west) in them and there were quite a few community Pakistans as well.
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 04-30-2008
THE GEOGRAPHIC TWO NATION THEORY:
âPakistanâ existed 5000 years ago: What was it called 5000 years ago?
Pakistan exsited 5000 Years ago as the IVCThe 5000 year old ancient trade routes between Pakistan and China are being revived with modern freeways that were ocnstructed 20 years ago. 5000 years ago the Harrappan Pakistanis were trading with the ChineseThe ancient trade routes between Pakistan and China are being revived with modern freeways that were ocnstructed 20 years ago.These maps clearly show the existance of Pakistan 5000 years ago as the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC).
The ancient trade routes between Pakistan and China are being revived with modern freewaysThe IVC traded with areas contiguous to it and to places as far as Hawaii.
the-526-states-in-the-subcontinent.gifThis map shows more than 570 states in the Subcontinent. At this particular stage of the British Raj over the hundreds of states, most of Pakistan is not part of the Raj.
Obviously the tug of war continues. Indiaâs attempts to destabilize Pakistan will continue. The solution is to absorb all the Pashtun areas into Pakistan and then combine Afghansitan as Afghania into PakistanThese maps tell us about the Pakistan the people of the Subcontinent struggled for, and asked for. It shows the Muslim majority areas of the Subcontinent.
now-or-never-ch-rehmat-ali-pakistan.jpgPakistan map.Pakistan exsited 5000 Years ago as the IVCThis is the Indus Valley Civilization (Pakistan) which we have right now. Compared to the map of the IVC 5000 years ago, it is very similar. The Indus Valley Civilization is a living and thriving civilization and it exists today as Pakistan, just like Pakistan existed as the IVC thousands of years ago.
The first Pakistani implements have been discovered in Soan River valley dating back 150,000 years. Mehergarh in Baluchistan is the oldest arable land dating back 7000 years ago. This frame by frame evolution of Pakistan begining 4000BC. From the Indus Valley the Pakistani civilization helped evolve the Gangetic civilizaiton in India which came hundreds of years later. During the British reign the Subcontinent was broken up into more than 570 states. When the British left the states on the Indus banded together to form Paksitan, and those on the Gangetic vally got together to from âBharatâ (official name in the constitution).
Pakistan exsited 5000 Years ago as the IVCPakistan map.The Indus valley Civilization existed in what is today Pakistan. Pakistan is the natural inheritor of the Indus Valley Civilization, just like modern day China is the natural inheritor of the Chinese civilization (not called China then), and modern day Egypt in the natural inheritor of the Egyptian civilization (not called Egypt then). âIndus-valley-istanâ existed 5000 years ago. Pakistan existed 5000 years ago, even though it was not called Pakistan. This is the geographic two nation theory.
This map of 1853 âIndiaâ does not show half of Pakistan.Long before the Crescent and Star flew atop Islamabad, long before Mohammed Bin Qasim invaded Sind, and long before the Mughals spread prosperity in all the nooks and corners of the subcontinent, long before the Sikh dynasty briefly controlled Kashmir, and long before the Chundra Gupta Vikramadatya ruled India, the people of Punjab, Sindh, Sarhad, and Kashmir were tied together as the people of Pakistan.
Harappan GateIVC existed only in the Western part of the subcontinent, almost exclusively on the banks of the Indus (current day Pakistan). Therefore current day Pakistanis are inheritors of the IVC. There was a civilization in present day Pakistan. âIndiaâ did not exist 5000 years ago. The Sumerians called it Meluhha and Mekan. We donât know what they called it. No one can be sure. âPakistanâ existed 5000 years ago in the IVC, even though the IVC probably did not call it Pakistan.
Harappan coastil city SokhataOne cannot accept the Lebanese, and the Syrian, and Cypriotic claim to the Egyptian civilization, and one cannot accept the Japanese claim to the original Chinese civilization. Similarly once cannot accept the âIndianâ claim to the IVC. The âIndianâ claim to the IVC is by association. The Egyptian claim to the âEgyptianâ civilization is by geography.
The beliefs of the IVC are totally irrelevant to the inheritors of the IVC. There is no conclusive proof of the beliefs of the IVC. Bainerjee and Sir Edmund Hill, the two founding archeologists on the IVC clearly state in their writings, that the IVC people did not have any organized religion. No âTemplesâ have been discovered either in Moenjadaro or in Harappa or in Taxila. The ancient IVC culture, whether they worshipped anything or nothing is besides the point. The current day Egyptians are the inheritors of the ancient Egyptian civilization. The current day Egyptians are also Muslim. Are they going to be denied the right to claim the Egyptian civilization, just because they are Muslim? If one denies the Pakistanis the inheritance to the IVC, then you should go and challenge the Egyptians also. The ancient Egyptians ALSO participated in rituals that were Un-Islamic.
Harappan sealsPAKISTAN AS INHERITOR OF THE IVCHarappan seal
Let us see what the encyclopedias says about the Indus Valley and Pakistan:
Present-day Pakistan shares the 5,000-year history of the India-Pakistan Subntinent. At present day Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, the Indus Valley Civilization, with large cities and elaborate irrigation systems, flourished c. 4,000-2,500 BC. Beginning with the Persians in the 6th century BC, and continuing with Alexander the Great and with the Sassanians, successive nations to the west ruled or influenced Pakistan, eventually separating the area from the Indian cultural sphere.The World Almanac® and Book of Facts 1994
History. The area that is now Pakistan was the site of the INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION, the earliest known culture on the Indian subcontinent. Press. Copyright © 1991 by Columbia University Press.
Pakistan (pà k´î-stà n´, pä´kî-stän´) Abbr. Pak.
A country of southern Asia. Occupying land crisscrossed by ancient invasion paths, Pakistan was the home of the prehistoric Indus Valley civilization, which flourished until overrun by Aryans c. 1500 B.C. After being conquered by numerous rulers and powers, it passed to the British as part of India and became a separate Moslem state in 1947. The country originally included what is now Bangladesh, which declared its independence in 1971. Islamabad is the capital and Karachi the largest city. Population, 83,782,000. - Pak´istan´i (-stà n´ê, -stä´nê) adjective & noun
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
Indus valley civilization, c.2500-c.1500 B.C., ancient civilization that flourished along the Indus R. in present-day Pakistan. Its chief cities were Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, where archaeologists have unearthed impressive public and private buildings that are evidence of a complex society based on a highly organized agriculture supplemented by active commerce. The arts flourished, and examples in copper, bronze, and pottery have been uncovered. Also found were examples of a pictograph script that long baffled archaeologists but was finally deciphered in 1969. The fate of the Indus valley civilization remains a mystery, but it is believed that it fell victim to invading Aryans.
The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia
An urban civilization with a so-far-undeciphered writing system stretched across the Indus Valley and along the Arabian Sea c3000-1500 BC. Major sites are Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan, well-planned geometric cities with underground sewers and vast granaries. The entire region (600,000 sq. mi.) may have been ruled as a single state. Bronze was used, and arts and crafts were highly developed. Religious life apparently took the form of fertility cults.
Indus civilization was probably in decline when it was destroyed by Aryan invaders from the northwest, speaking an Indo-European language from which all the languages of Pakistan, north India and Bangladesh descend. Led by a warrior aristocracy whose legendary deeds are recorded in the Rig Veda, the Aryans spread east and south, bringing their pantheon of sky gods, elaborate priestly (Brahmin) ritual, and the beginnings of the caste system; local customs and beliefs were assimilated by the conquerors.
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 05-01-2008
WHY WE CREATED PAKISTAN?
http://rupeenews.com/2007/11/27/why-we-cre...istan-ideology/
Pakistan exsited 5000 Years ago as the IVCOn 16th of October, the Turkish Prime Minster went to the Turkish nation and asked them âwhen we needed them, the Pakistani Muslims were there for the Ottoman âkhilafatâ, today your brothers and sisters need you in their hour or needâ. From across the great nation of Turkey, school girls, and old men, student and professionals gave and gave and gave. Turkey became the largest donor for the Earthquake relief.The 5000 year old ancient trade routes between Pakistan and China are being revived with modern freeways that were ocnstructed 20 years ago. 5000 years ago the Harrappan Pakistanis were trading with the Chinese
The Pakistan Ideology
âPakistanâ existed 5000 years ago. It was not called âPakistanâ. China 5000 years ago was also called something else. Egypt 5000 years ago was called something else.Pakistan//www.moinansari.wordpress.com
by
Moin-Ansari
Updated on March 16th, 1996 and Reformatted March 23rd, 2008
When there are problems in Pakistan many look at the government and think of the present administration in power as the state. While the head of every government boldly declares âLe etat câest moiâ (I am the state), all of us who are disenfranchised, suppressed, and repressed need to take a cold hard look at the government. We should understand the difference between he government and the state. The government could be evil but the state of Pakistan does not belong to the government, the state of Pakistan belongs to the people of Pakistan, it belongs to us.
Neither the strife in FATA, nor the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, nor the externally sponsored hooliganism and killings in Swat that have become the hallmark of todayâs news, nor the band of marauders and mercenaries that infiltrate our borders to create malaise and mayhem in our land, can detract us from remembering the anniversary of the day that we decided to create a land for the Muslims of the subcontinentâa land we later named Pakistan.
This salute is dedicated to the 1200 men and women who died defending our borders as well as the thousands who were innocent victims of aggression on our shores. In-spite of the murders, and in-spite of the bombs, life in Pakistan goes on, and the Crescent and the Star flutters high on our sky scrapers and pulsates proud in our hearts. Let this anniversary of our Lahore resolution be a lesson to our enemies, that we remember our dedication to our cause, and promise to keep the dream of our fathers of our nation, Jinnah, Liaqat-Ali Khan and Iqbal alive.
We remember the 1 million lives lost in creating a country, and also rededicate ourselves to the fact that âPakistan manzil nahin, Nishan e Manzil haiâ. Thatmanzil was defined by Iqbal, Liaqat, Jinnah and many others who carry the banner in the land of the Crescent and Star. Despite some impediments we have not lost track of the âmanzilâ.
\'India is no more a country than the Equator\'.Winston Churchill
âIndia is no more a country than the Equatorâ.Winston Churchill
British Empire The British Indian Empire included Iraq, Aden, Somalia, Burma, and more than 500 states of the Subcontinent
British Indian EmpireThe British Empire spanning continentsSubcontinent in 1857Pre Sepeartion map of the Subcontinent
The Muslim majority areas of the Subcontinent should have been part of Pakistan. Many Muslims wanted to stay and fight in the âDarul Harbâ âtill it was changed to âDarul islamâ. (notice islam with lower case âiâ which depicts islam=peace). The Quaidâs vision was to separate based on demographics. Separation should have been based on this map
Patel and others cheated us out of a real separation.
The more then 500 independent princely states of the Subcontinent
The more than 500 states in the Subcontinent Princely states
The State of Hyderabad wanted to stay independent after 1948 but was run over by Patel
Hydrabad state wanted to stay independent
The Princely state of Bombay PresidencyBaroda state
The Princely state of BarodaBombay Presidency
Before separationchaudhy-rehmat-alis-pakistan-plan-1940.jpg
Map of India and Pakistan After separation
Pakistani flagTHE PAKISTAN RESOLUTION OF 1940: The Lahore Resolution (later known as the Pakistan Resolution) The Lahore resolution moved by Fazlul Haq at the 27th Session of the All India Muslim League, at Lahore on March 23, 1940 stated:
Lahore Resolution Minar e Pakistan or Yaadgar e Qarardad e pakistanâthat geographically contagious units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial adjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are in a majority, as in the north-west and eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.â
AIML session 1936The All India Muslim League session of 1936
1938 RESOLUTION ASKED FOR SEPARATION:Even earlier in 1938 Sir Abdullah Haroon moved a resolution for establishing independent Muslim states in the north-west and eastern zones. The word states continued to be used in subsequent sessions of the All India Muslim League till about 1943. Originally the two zones were meant to be autonomous and sovereign and it was only when the British and the Hindus insisted that Punjab and Bengal were to be partitioned that Pakistan began to be talked about as one state.
What is the Two Nation Theory exactly? The moniker ââtwoâ ânationâ âtheoryââ is a misnomer. The theory of nationalities states that âIndia does not have a homogeneous populationâ. There are many racial, ethnic and linguistic groups in India. India is not a national state, India is not a country, but a sub-continent composed of ânationalitiesâ. The two nation theory clearly states that that there are several nationalities in the subcontinent, and the Hindus and the Muslims are the largest of the two nations. Hindus and Muslims are different therefore Muslim majority areas must exist separately. Chaudry Rehmat Aliâs âPakistan proposal asked for SEVERAL MUSLIM STATES in the subcontinent.â
Chaudhry rehmat Ali asked for the Muslim majority areas to be seperated from the rest of states.Chaudhry rehmat Ali Now or NeverThis is what we asked for.
We were cheated out of this.The two nation theory enunciates that the subcontinent is made of several nationalities, the Hindus and the Muslims being the largest of the two. India is as big as Western Europe and contains many many racial, religious, linguistic, and ethnic groups. The Hindus and the Muslims are two separate nations, in terms of diet, attitude, social behavior, economic tendencies, social interaction, behaviors, and attitude.
ANALYSIS OF THE TWO NATION THEORY:
The two nation theory enunciates that the subcontinent is made of several nationalities, the Hindus and the Muslims being the largest of the two. India is as big as Western Europe and contains many many racial, religious, linguistic, and ethnic groups. The Hindus and the Muslims are two separate nations, in terms of diet, attitude, social behavior, economic tendencies, social interaction, behaviors, and attitude.
According to many Pakistanis âThe two nation theory did not solve all the problems of the subcontinent. However it did save 200 million Muslims (those emancipated in Pakistan and Bangladesh) from social economic and political servitude. The servitude is proven by the decadent condition of Indian Muslims in a âsecularâ Indian state. Perhaps it sacrifices 150 million Indian Muslims. But the alternative was 450 million Muslims in servitude.â âSecularismâ in âIndiaâ means âHinduism Light.â
Nationhood is defined as the tendency of a nation to exist. No two nations have the same reason to exist. USA and Canada exist separately, though you may think that both nations have English speaking population, with similar accents, similar religions, similar culture, similar economic structures, and similar racial and ethnic backgrounds. Do you hear America question the validity of Canada to exist. I believe that the USA has the power to take over Canada, if it really wanted to. BUT the USA recognizes the right of the Canadians to exist separately.
Pakistan before separationTHE TWO NATION THEORY & THREE STATES: The Two Nation theory cannot be debunked because there are more then one Muslim country in the subcontinent. The Hindu nation lives in more than one country (India, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Burma, Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Bangladesh). The Chinese nation lives in several states (Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia). Similarly the Muslim nation (transcending all racial, ethnic, caste and linguistic boundaries) can live in several states. There are several Arab Muslim countries too. The country of Pakistan as a unified Muslim country in the subcontinent was actually asked for the Bengali nationalists. Jinnah acquiesced.
The âNationalisticâ Indian attitude towards the TNT: Many modern Indians have a what Pakistanis consider a âstrangeâ attitude. Pakistan should not exist, because it would be better for Indian Muslims, better for Indian Hindus, better for Pakistanis. Pakistanis ask âHow do they know it would be better for us?â And who are they to judge our feelings, and tell us what is better for our nation?â If a nation is defined âas a tendency of a people to seek a countryâthen the Muslims of the Subcontinent are a nation. They point out to one insignificant point or the other in Pakistan to devalue the âraisan dâetreâ of Pakistani nationhood. This attitude spell perpetual warfare.
PAKISTANI NATIONHOOD: Pakistanis justify the existence of the country by explaining that âIndia was never ONE NATION. India is as big as Western Europe and has more nationalities than Europe. The subcontinent has always been a conglomeration of states and nationalities. If one looks at the âIndianâ map during the Mughal era, or during Vikramadatyaâs era, one will see dozens, sometimes hundreds of STATES. Pakistanis believe that âAkhand Bharatâ was a figment of the imagination of Gandhi and the Jan Sangh. Just because the British called it India, does not mean that it was one nation ever or will be one nation ever.â
Plutarch expressed this sentiment well some centuries ago: âA conqueror is always a lover of peace. He would like to make his entry into your cities unopposed.â Does India talk peace in the Plutarchian sense?
SUMMARY AND ABSTRACT ON SOUTH ASIAN SCHISMS
This article presents the arguments of political stratification and nation forming that were in the air in the Forties. The arguments against the Subcontinental nationhood are discussed at length. The arguments for a Pakistani nation are analyzed in depth. Arguments from both sides are presented and refuted.
The history of the creation of India and Pakistan is not always in teleological progression. We have lost a lot of history by tracing our history by traveling through chronological diaries and self aggrandizing biographies. Neither Pakistani nor Indian history books have done an adequate job of tracing our roots. Neither explain âpartitionâ properly.
The Pakistani text books ignore Hindu contributions to our common struggle against colonialism, and seem ashamed of the common lineage with Hindusâ(Indus Valley, Buddhism), Pakistani historical narratives underplay the role of the nationalist Indian Muslim leadership, Jauhar, Azad and Suhrawardi, and over emphasize the importance of the RSS and Jan Sangh. Pakistani textbooks ignore the Sufi contributions to our struggle of independence and restrict discussion of Sufiism to Shah Waliullah and a few others.
The Indian textbooks fail to see the Pakistan movement as a provincial and minority rebellion against the Nehruite Marxist-Leninist Federalism that was the hall mark of the INC. The Indian textbooks fail to mention the three wings of Congress, the Nehruite secular wing led by Nehru, the fundamentalist and communal wing led by Rai, the religious wing led by Gandhi, and the extreme nationalist wing led by Patel. The Bharat text books fail to recognize that fact that Gandhi was and was seen as a religious leader by the minorities and by a large section of the Hindu populace. The Indian text books over glorify many Hindu periods, fail to mention the Hindu Buddhist wars, diminish Brahamanism and Brahamanic cruelties towards non-Brahmans, relegate the Mughal era to the greatness of Akbar, ignore the Hindu communal organizations, demonize Muslim leaders who differed with Gandhi, brand secular and moderate Muslim leadership of the Muslim League as communal leaders, overlook the frailties of the INC leadership that led to the Hindu-Muslim schism, and fail to recognize the radical non-secular part of the Congress that scared the minorities.
The Indian textbooks neglect to mention the accomplishments of the Muslim League Muslim leadership that tried to safeguard the interests of the Indian Muslim minorities by fighting for separate electorates for the Muslims, and tried to guarantee the rights of the minorities through the Cabinet Mission Plan and by demanding one third of the representation in parliament. This ingenious plan would have guaranteed a fair and equitable settlement. However vested interests in the INC would not allow this.
The article has some in-bred biases towards the Pakistani point of view. No apologies are given for this slant. The purpose of the article is not convince people, simply to present facts and analysis.
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 05-02-2008
Kashmir - an inside scoop
SAFEER AHMAD KHAN
In the sixty odd years of their turbulent existence, India and Pakistan have fought three bloody wars and countless border encounters, some so serious that they pushed both countries almost to the brink of war, over a disputed piece of rugged land, notched up in the Himalayas, called 'Kashmir'. With national pride tied to the issue, and governments hostage to the popular sentiment on both sides of the border, the least expected of politicians, irrespective of their political philosophy, is to declare the former Himalyan Kingdom as part and parcel of their whole being. Just like the opposition to the Palestinian nationhood is an integral part of any Israeli leadership, the 'claim to Kashmir' is a holy ritual every aspiring leader in the Subcontinent must perform.
With such a conflicting stand on an inflammable issue, and no hope of breaking away from the conventional thinking by either party, the road to Kashmir problem looks as bumpy as ever before. With the continuance of the present stalemate and the obstinacy of the Indian stand on the issue, it seems almost inevitable that this never ending dilemma will be left over as a legacy for the future generations to wrestle with. Scary scenario!
India and Pakistan inherited the Kashmir issue as a sidekick from their British masters after the division of the Subcontinent into the two belligerent nations came into effect in August 1947. With their characteristic 'divide and rule' tactics, the British left Kashmir as a bleeding wound in the battered body of the Subcontinent.
Notwithstanding the silent mass misinformation campaign launched by the more vibrant Indian propaganda machine behind diplomatic closed doors, to mask the blatant injustice and sway the public opinion to their side, here are some of the facts about the case for the seeker of the truth.
The division of the Subcontinent took place on the basis of religion.
The 'thumb rule' agreed upon by the Muslim and Hindu leadership of the time under British tutelage was, that Muslim majority areas would become Pakistan and the Hindu majority areas would form India.
An overwhelming 90% of the population of Kashmir was Muslim, ruled by a Hindu Raja, and wanted to join Pakistan, but was given away to India defying all norms of justice and fair play.
Hyderabad Deccan was a Hindu majority state ruled by a Muslim Nawab (a princely title given to a ruler). Though the population divide was only 65% to 35% in favour of the Hindus, which was not as clear-cut as in the case of Kashmir, where the demographics were 90% to 10% in favour of the Muslims, but the thumb rule of division was judiciously applied in this instance and Hyderabad was declared part of India.
The twin Muslim states of Junagarh and Manavadar having predominantly Muslim population and a Muslim ruler were simply annexed by force by the Indian Army while the British Viceroy conveniently looked the other way. The weak physical opposition put up by the ruler of the tiny states was easily crushed by the advancing Indian tanks, never to be heard again. It is difficult to believe that all this would happen under the aegis of a man of the calibre of Lord Mountbatten.
In this backdrop, life began in the two newly independent, extremely poor, enormously overpopulated, feverishly religious, insanely illiterate and dangerously belligerent nations of South Asia. To comprehend the underlying bellicosity between these neighbours it is absolutely imperative to understand their historical background in brief.
Hindu rule in the Subcontinent came to an end with the passing away of the Gupta Dynasty from 320 A.D. to 540 A.D. This was followed by a period of political instability extending from 540 A.D. to 1001 A.D., during which no particular group exerted full dominance over the other. At best it was a period of turmoil with short- term military and political alliances forged between local warlords in the absence of a central authority.
The Subcontinent was then to pass on to a succession of Muslim rulers from Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey, whose armies stormed into India through the fabled Khyber Pass, starting with Mahmud of Ghazni from 1001AD all the way to the imprisonment of Bahadur Shah Zafar in 1857 A.D., which saw the end of the Mughal Dynasty and the passing of India to the British Crown as a result of some high intrigue and war by the British, a game in which they have no peers.
Therefore, for almost 856 years (from 1001 to 1857AD) a handful of Muslim minority ruled a predominantly Hindu majority of the undivided India. Thus, generation after generation, Hindu nation grew up in an atmosphere of Muslim dominance and awe. This factor was to have a very deep-rooted impact on the psyche of the Hindu population, who remained serfs to their more talented and warlike rulers. Thus, self-rule returned to 'Hindu India' after a lapse of almost a thousand years from 1001to 1947, when India and Pakistan gained their independence from Great Britain.
By now a question may instigate the mind of the reader as to why on earth Kashmir was given away to India when its population was overwhelmingly Muslim? Let us see how moral turpitude and infidelity on the part of a leader can change the very course of history, and bring upon a nation untold suffering, which unfortunately continues to this day.
At the core of the Kashmir episode is rooted a high drama and a historical tryst between Lord Louis Mountbatten and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and somehow, soon after his arrival in India the dashing Admiral struck a very personal chord with the larger Nehru family. Let this be clearly understood that Pandit Nehru his father Pandit Motilal Nehru were Kashmiri Brahmans who were born in Srinagar and had strong emotional ties to Kashmir, as the land of their ancestors. Lord Louis Mountbatten was a handsome Admiral in his mid forties, with an open tendency to flirt and an unhappy marriage when he descended on the Subcontinent in the capacity of its last Viceroy, with the envious responsibility of division of India thrust upon his shoulders by a sheer stroke of destiny. From the events that followed, this was to prove a deadly combination.
As the tumultuous events of the division of India started in right earnest under the scrutiny of the international media, a more subtle and rarely known and discreetly mentioned phenomenon developed between the Mountbattens and Nehrus whose families developed a very cosy relationship, so much so that important state matters were decided in the comfort of their living rooms. I would like to apologize to a section of my audience, if these lines may hurt their sentiments, but you know truth is always bitter.
On the other hand, the Muslims lost British favour as early as 1857 when they rose in revolt to their British masters to regain control of India, which failed, resulting in earning a deep distrust from the British. They knew that if somebody would challenge their authority, it would be the Muslims, whereas, they had nothing to fear from the docile Hindu population who had lived as serfs for the last eight and a half centuries under the Muslims. Hindu docility and cunning, coupled with the Muslim rebellion and disunity proved as the other decisive factors in the posture adopted by Lord Mountbatten.
Incidentally, Lord Mountbatten and Indira Gandhi both were to die tragically. The former dying of suspected IRA bomb blast in his yacht while vacationing and the later gunned down by her own security guards right in the Prime Minister's residence. The famous idiom 'what goes around comes around' comes to mind.
With the passage of six decades, three bloody wars, martyrdom of quarter million Kashmiri freedom fighters at the hands of the Indian occupation forces, passing of dozens of United Nations resolutions asking India to honour its promise of holding a plebiscite in Kashmir and holding innumerable international conferences and debates, the saga of Kashmir continues unabated. If all this is not good enough to awaken the conscience of the civilized world, then suffering of Kashmir must continue indefinitely.
It is ironic that the U.N. gives the look of a teething child in the company of thugs when it is confronted with a Muslim tragedy, but looks like a thug itself when it is time to satisfy the will of the strong and the ruthless. Time and again United Nations has proved to be a lame body standing helplessly as an onlooker to tragedies like Bosnia, Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq and now Afghanistan.
Let it be clearly understood by the strong and the ruthless alike, that there will be no peace.... if there is no justice.
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 06-02-2008
1206-1526
The Delhi Sultanate
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2439104/History-...a_related_doc=1
Some of the earliest relics of Stone Age man were found in the Soan valley near Rawalpindi, dating back to at least 50,000 years. Predominantly an agricultural region, its inhabitants learned to tame and husband animals and cultivate crops some 9,000 years ago. Farming villages dating from 6000 BC have been excavated in Baluchistan, the North West Frontier Province and Punjab.
The Indus Valley Civilization is considered to have evolved around 2600 BC. Built on the ruins of fortified towns near Kot Diji, it is now believed to have emerged from farming communities of the area. The Civilization boasted immense cities like Moenjodaro and Harappa. These towns were well planned, with paved main roads, multistoried houses, watchtowers, food warehouses, and assembly halls. Their people developed an advanced script that still remains un-deciphered. The Indus Civilization's decline around 1700 BC is attributed to foreign invaders, who at some sites violently destroyed the cities. But with recent research, historians have become unsure as to the exact causes of decline of the Indus Civilization.
Aryans, who were rough cattle breeders, came from Central Asia around 1700 BC, seeking grazing land for their herds. Their religion was well developed, with gods identified from elements of nature. They followed a strict caste system, which later became Hinduism. They wrote the first book of Hindu scripture, the Rig Veda, which was a collection of hymns remembered through several generations. Some anthropologists believe that there is no real historical evidence to prove the coming of Aryans, and consider their coming as a myth.
In sixth century BC, the people of the region were getting increasingly dissatisfied with the Hindu caste system. When Buddha, son of a Kshatriya king preached equality in men, his teachings were quickly accepted throughout the northern part of the Sub-continent. Around the same time Gandhara, being the easternmost province of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, became a major power in the region. Its two cities - Pushkalavati, or present day Charsadda near Peshawar, and the capital Taxila, were the center of civilization and culture.
Alexander the Great invaded the Sub-continent in 327 BC. Conquering the Kalash valley, he crossed the mighty Indus at Ohind, sixteen miles north of Attock. He then defeated the mighty elephant army of Porus at Jhelum, and began his march towards the long Ganges plain. However, he was forced to plan for homeward sailing when his war-wary troops refused to advance further. On his way back, a serious wound, received while battling the Malloi people at Multan, finally took its toll, and Alexander died in 323 BC, leaving his conquests for grab among his own officers.
Chandragupta Maurya was an exiled member of the royal family of Magadha, a kingdom flourishing since 700 BC on the bank of river Ganges. After Alexander's death, Chandragupta captured Punjab with his allies, and later overthrew the king of Magadha in 321 BC to form the Mauryan Empire. After twenty-four years of kingship, his son, Bindusara, who added Deccan to the Mauryan rule, succeeded Chandragupta.
Ashoka, son of Bindusara, was one of the greatest rulers the world has ever known. Not only did he rule a vast empire; he also tried to rule it compassionately. After initially causing thousands of lives during his conquest of Kalinga, he decided to rule by the law of piety. He was instrumental in spreading Buddhism within and outside the Sub-continent by building Buddhist monasteries and stupas, and sending out missionaries to foreign lands.
The Greek king of Bactria, Demetrius, conquered the Kabul River Valley around 195 BC. The Greeks re-built Taxila and Pushkalavati as their twin capital cities in Gandhara. They were followed in 75 BC by the Scythians, Iranian nomads from Central Asia, and in about 50 BC by the powerful Parthians, from east of the Caspian Sea.
After defeating the Greeks in 53 BC, the Parthians ruled the northern Pakistan area. During their era of trade and economic prosperity, the Parthians promoted art and religion. The Gandhara School of art developed, which reflected the glory of Greek, Syrian, Persian and Indian art traditions. The Kushana king, Kujula, ruler of nomad tribes from Central Asia, overthrew the Parthians in 64 AD and took over Gandhara. The Kushans further extended their rule into northwest India and Bay of Bengal, south into Bahawalpur and short of Gujrat, and north till Kashghar and Yarkand, into the Chinese frontier. They made their winter capital at Purushapura, the City of Flowers, now called Peshawar, and their summer capital north of Kabul.
Kanishka, the greatest of Kushans, ruled from the year 128 to 151. Trade flourished during his rule, with the Romans trading in gold for jewelry, perfumes, dyes, spices and textiles. Progress was made in medicine and literature. Thousands of Buddhist monasteries and stupas were built and the best pieces of sculpture in the Gandhara School of art were produced. He was killed in his sleep when his own people resisted his unending expansionist pursuits.
The Kushans Empire was usurped both from the North, where the Sassanian Empire of Persia eroded their rule. and the South where the Gupta Empire took hold. In the fourth century, due to decline in prosperity and trade, the Kushans Empire was reduced to a new dynasty of Kidar (Little) Kushans, with the capital now at Peshawar.
Coming from Central Asia, the White Huns, originally the horse-riding nomads from China, invaded Gandhara during the fifth century. With declining prosperity, and the sun and fire-worshipping Huns ruling the land, Buddhism gradually disappeared from northern Pakistan, taking the glory of the Gandhara School of art with it.
After the defeat of Huns by Sassanians and Turks in 565, the area was mostly left to be ruled by small Hindu kingdoms, with the Turki Shahi rulers controlling the area till Gandhara from Afghanistan, and the raja of Kashmir ruling northern Punjab, and the areas east of the Indus. Buddhism's decline continued as more people were converted to Brahman Hindus.
Overthrowing the Turki Shahis, the Central Asian Hindu Shahis ruled from 870 till the year 1008. With their capital established at Hund on the Indus, their rule extended from Jalalabad in Afghanistan to Multan, and covered as far north as Kashmir.
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 07-06-2008
Pakistan needs independent historians: Mubarik
ISLAMABAD: Famous historian Dr Mubarik Ali on Saturday said a prosperous Pakistan needed independent historians so that the recent past mistakes were not repeated. The Lahore-based historian said this while delivering a lecture on âProblems of Writing History in Pakistanâ at South Asia Free Media Association (Safma) media center here. âNo nation could prosper unless professional and independent historians and not government servants recorded its history,â Dr Ali said, adding that all politico-economic and other policies should be framed after taking the recent history into account to avoid a repeat of past mistakes. âThose who control the past also control the present and future,â he said Mubarik said that the history recording was controlled in government institutions and if the nation wanted an independent history for future reference, it must develop its institutions where independent researchers were produced and groomed. He said dictatorship was fatal to research and history recording, as new ideology or views could not be nurtured and resultantly an independent and unbiased history could not be recorded. Pointing out defects in the countryâs ongoing history recording process, he said neither the educational institutions were producing professional historians nor independent research methodologies were being developed. âDue to absence of professional historians we are still unable to decide whether ancient Indian history should be made part of the countryâs history or it should be started after 1947 or from the Indus Valley civilisation. staff report
âWhile recording history, we have subtracted Emperor Akbar only because of religious politics,â he said. He was of the view that history recording must be independent and above all biases and prejudices.
He discarded the famous Two-Nation Theory and said there was not much difference in Hindu and Muslim societies as a whole. He said cast system existed both in Hindu and Muslim cultures. In recent history we do talk anti-Hindu but donât talk anti colonialism or anti-British, he added.
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 10-15-2008
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-new...aphical-grounds
<b>
No, it was not on geographical grounds</b>
By DR SARFARAZ HUSSAIN MIRZA submitted 1 day ago
This refers to an untimely and unrealistic article titled The Idea of Pakistan authored by Mr Shahid Javed Burki, published in Dawn of September 16, 2008. This seems to be a totally sponsored, untrue story which has been intentionally published to damage the personality of the father of the nation and to give vent to the real spirit of the creation of Pakistan.
I vehemently condemn such stray writings of those biased-intellectuals who are bent upon creating doubts in the rank and file of the Pakistanis, especially the younger generation. O' Lord! It is easy to make every body understand the spirit of the ideology of Pakistan and the meanings of the Two-Nation Theory but it is hard to make such pseudo intellectuals understand (though at heart they very well understand it) as to what actually meant when the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah so categorically said: "Hindus and Muslims can never evolve a common nationality since they belong to two different religious philosophies and social customs. They stand poles apart (and even today they stand poles apart). They don't interdine together nor do they intermarry because they belong to two different civilisations which are based on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Not only this, their concepts on life and of life are different. They have different epics, their heroes are different, and they have different episodes. Very often the hero of one is the foe of other."
The above historically logical statement is a very clear answer to Mr Burki's argument regarding Two-Nation Theory and it is also enough proof to prove that there was least possibility of the two nations to live side by side peacefully in this vast subcontinent of South Asia after the end of the British rule.
Should Mr Burki and his cunning discussant Anil Khilmani of John Hopkin's School believe that it was one hundred percent correct 70 years ago and, even now in the 21st century. It is more than one hundred percent correct that both the nations still have the same bitter feelings for each other which they had in the decades of thirties and forties. Since then the Pakistani nation has experienced Hindu enmity thrice in 1948, 1965 and 1971 respectively.
It is a vicious fact that it was the same Hindu animosity and planned Indian military intervention in Eastern part of Pakistan which was responsible for its separation from its Western wing. At this point, it would be essential to mention that Pakistan was a viable state from the very beginning from every possible angle.
Is it not true that it has made tremendous advances in various sectors and has proved that it was a sustainable political creation which had its century-long deep roots not only in the subcontinent but the world at large too. It may be clarified that creation of Pakistan was not a product of colonial heritage. It derives its origin from Islam which is a guiding principle for Muslims the world over. Hence, it cannot be co-joined with the example of the idea of Nigeria, South Africa or an idea of Malaysia. Likewise, it cannot be compared with Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and other countries of the Middle East which are all products of colonial division of the Muslim nation.
It would be a historic fallacy to predict that Pakistani identity and Pakistani idea need to be defined on the basis of geography and not on the basis of culture and religion. Let me correct it by saying that it should not be forgotten that geographical division of the subcontinent was made on the basis of the Two-Nation Theory which clearly defines that this division took place on the basis of separate religions and cultures of Hindus and Muslims.
The 3rd June Plan of 1947 was a clear-cut outcome of the Two-Nation Theory. There is no ambiguity in assessing this fact that the division of the subcontinent was made between the two major nations struggling for self-determination. Both of them were given their share as envisaged in the Plan as two separate nations.
Let there be no doubt that both these nations are sovereign and independent and derive their guidance from their own concepts which are still different in nature as they were 70 years back. There should be least doubt that Pakistan was created on the solid ground of Pakistan Ideology.
It was a hectic and heroic struggle of the Muslims in India who fought under the dynamic leadership of the unmatched Muslim leader in the person of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah who advocated the cause of Muslim India for many years. Hence can we afford to part with the Quaid's philosophy?
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 10-22-2008
WASHINGTON DIARY: <b>History misrepresented </b>âDr Manzur Ejaz
The path we chose sixty years ago has brought us to where we are today. The violent and dark forces of history idealised and imposed through our textbooks could well be responsible for cultivating the minds of suicide bombers
It may seem rather abstract and presumptive to claim that the state has promoted a culture of hatred and violence by including warriors and invaders as heroes, and excluding real indigenous thinkers and anti-fundamentalism intellectuals in the educational curriculum. Therefore, the rise of religious fundamentalism, as embodied by the Jamaâat-e Islami and the Taliban among others, should be examined objectively.
For this purpose, I have picked up three points in history where we can rely on authentic facts without depending on mere folk mythology. Most of the information is taken from Fawaid al-Fuad, memoirs of Nizamuddin Aulia, Babar Bani of Kalam Nank; and Maqabees-ul Majalis, memoirs of Khawaja Farid.
To start with, the Muslim rule by the Salateen or the Slave Dynasty in the 12th century resulted in booming slave markets, with the largest centres in Delhi and Lahore. The Salateen conquered new areas and most of the conquered population was supplied to the slave markets. Slaves were so plentiful that a common soldier or lower class immigrant from Central Asia could easily afford a few.
According to Irfan Habib, the maximum price of the best slave was equal to the value of a buffalo. Nizamuddin Aulia, who was nominated by Farid to lead the Chishtias after him, acknowledges that his family was so poor that they could not afford two meals a day and yet his mother had a slave woman. He has given vivid details of how his disciples used to own slaves and how they freed them on his prodding. Even renowned qazis (Islamic jurists) were involved in the slave trade.
In addition, the Muslim converts were from lower castes of India. They were called julahas (weavers) irrespective of their occupation. They were banned from state jobs and were treated, at best, like converts to Christianity were treated by the British.
On the contrary, Baba Farid, head of the anti-establishment Chishtia Sufi formation and a well known scholar and linguist of his time, opposed the institution of slavery and its ideological allies: the qazis, the mullahs and the rulers.
Khawaja Nizamuddin Aulia narrates that due to ideological conflicts, the qazi and the city rulers joined hands and killed Baba Faridâs youngest son. They then made the lives of his other sons miserable as well. The qazi of Pakpattan (then called Ajodhan) sent a petition to Multanâs leading religious figures, alleging that Baba Farid was violating Islam by listening to music and dancing in the mosque.
Baba Farid and his followers contested the role of mosque in the community. For them, the mosque was not merely for religious rituals but for other social needs of the community as well.
Followers of all religions, including Hindu jogis, used to visit Baba Farid and discuss various matters with him. He never put restrictions on anyone except the king and his men to see him. Once Sultan Giasuddin Balbanâs army was passing through Pakpattan and many soldiers wanted to pay homage to Baba Farid, but he declined to meet them. Baba Faridâs shirtsleeve was hanged from the wall instead. By the time the army had passed, the entire sleeve vanished because of the kissing and snatching.
A cleaner from the army forced himself in and told Baba Farid that the people should not be deprived of him as God has given him special honour. Baba Farid hugged the cleaner and said that he does not stop people like him, but the king and his men are not permitted in his house.
We choose the kings as our heroes and push individuals like Baba Farid aside.
Let us take the second point in history, Babarâs invasion of India. We adore him and proudly quote his Tuzk-e Babari as a piece of literature and history, despite it being full of hatred for people of the subcontinent. He is presented as a hero even though a detailed account of his indiscriminate killing of Muslims and Hindus has been written by Baba Guru Nanak. He dishonoured women of Turks (every foreigner was called Turk then) and artisans. He even destroyed mosques and temples with the same zeal, writes Baba Nanak.
Baba Nanak propounds that historical processes cannot be altered by performing certain rituals. Lamenting Babarâs heavy levies imposed on the peasantry, he describes them as alms squeezed by coercion. Probably, these are the reasons that Urdu poets like Nazir Akbarabadi portrayed Baba Nanak as a liberator.
We forget that when Babar invaded India, it was ruled by Muslims (Ibrahim Lodhi was the Sultan at the time), and many of his targets were Muslims as well. Yet we present him as a hero.
Similarly, we praise Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali, who were seasonal invaders and annihilators of Muslims and other innocent people. Once Nadir Shah ordered a three-day massacre of the people of Delhi and slaughtered thousands of Muslims and Hindus before he was persuaded to halt.
Waris Shah and Bulleh Shah have dwelt a lot on the destruction that these invaders brought to Punjab. Waris Shah also revisits the mosque issue, initially taken up by Baba Farid, for which his family had to pay dearly. By interjecting a flutist in the mosque â Ranjha â thus questioning fundamentalist religion and debating the mullah, Waris Shah tries to continue the struggle that his predecessor Sufis had undertaken.
We preferred to preserve Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah Abdali and the mullahs, but banished Waris Shah and Bulleh Shah from our educational curriculum.
The third point in history is during the British era, when Khawaja Farid was trying to spread enlightenment. Following Baba Farid and Waris Shahâs tradition, Khawaja Farid was defying the imposition of mullah in the mosque. On several occasions he has been told to be listening to music in the mosque. His followers have altered the story, claiming that when Khawaja Sahib was inside, the musicians were outside the mosque.
Khawaja Farid used to quote from different chronicles that Plato and Aristotle were placed at the highest level of heaven. He used to acknowledge openly that Hindu deities like Krishna and Ram were genuine prophets. He had followers who believed that both the Gita and the Quran are revealed books. This enlightened man was banned from our textbooks, and instead we chose to honour the bigots of history.
The path we chose sixty years ago has brought us to where we are today. The violent and dark forces of history idealised and imposed through our textbooks could well be responsible for cultivating the minds of suicide bombers. In the long run, things will not change unless we provide factual representation of the villains of history and promote those who were fighting for moderation, tolerance and humanist values.
The writer can be reached at manzurejaz@yahoo.com
History Taught In Pakistan - Husky - 12-14-2008
Islamic dawaganda. Not that the truth can ever be expected from christoislamism...
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2008/12/wha...y-learn-it.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>what kids learn - where they learn it</b>
guess where are children taught this - and no - it is not in a madarssah
Class V - Urdu text book - Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam
Class V - Topics for a lessons in Urdu (note: not religion but Urdu which is a compulsory subject) should include Simple stories to urge for Jehad
Class IV textbook - The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things -- Hindus did not respect women
Class IV - Social Studies - The Hindus in Pakistan were treated very nicely when they were migrating as opposed to the inhuman treatment meted out to the Muslim migrants from India
Class V - Social Studies - We worship in mosques. Our mosques are open, spacious, clean and well-lit. Hindus worship inside their temples. These temples are extremely narrow, enclosed and dark. Inside these the Hindus worship idols. Only one man at a time can enter these temples. On the other hand inside our mosques all the Muslims can pray to God together
Class VI textbook - Hindus tried to please their Devi Kali by slaughtering innocent people of other faiths at her feet
Class VIII - Social Studies - The British confiscated all lands [from the Muslims] and gave them to Hindus
Class VIII - Social Studies - Hindu pundits were jealous of Al Beruni. Since they could not compete against Al Beruni in knowledge, they started calling him a magician
read this report to find out where this is taught - the first correct answer gets a special mention in my next blog post
http://www.sdpi.org/whats_new/reporton/Sta...r&TextBooks.pdf
Posted by Ghost Writer at 12/12/2008 02:54:00 PM 8 comments
Labels: pakistan<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The title of the document is:
http://www.sdpi.org/whats_new/reporton/Sta...r&TextBooks.pdf
The Subtle Subversion: The state of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan
Urdu, English, Social Studies and Civics
Editors: A. H. Nayyar and Ahmad Salim
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 04-15-2009
Hindu Origins of the Two Nation Theory
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs...ion-theory.html
Last December when the Mumbai Militancy had unleashed the Bharti media into a tizzy fit. Even sane journalists were throwing out everything Pakistani, even the kitchen sink. It was then that the Two Nation Theory and the origns of Pakistan was challenged. Rupee News would is reproducing the Hindu Origins of the Two Nation Theory from Pakistan Historian
HINDU ORIGINS OF THE TNT IN THE SUBCONTINENT
Quote:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Contrary to the common belief that Jinnah originated the two-nation theory, actually it was Savarkar who propounded the theory years before the Muslim League embraced the idea. Savarkar had commanded all the Muslims to leave âBharatâ to pave the way for the establishment of Hindu Rashtra. When Jinnah introduced his two-nation theory, Savarkar announced, âI have no quarrel with Mr. Jinnahâs two-nation theory⦠It is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations.â
âHis (Savarkarâs) doctrine was Hindutva, the doctrine of Hindu racial supremacy, and his dream was of rebuilding a great Hindu empire from the sources of the Indus to those of the Brahmaputra. He hated Muslims. There was no place for them in the Hindu society he envisioned.â (Freedom at Midnight, by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins).
So the hate campaign against Muslims was well in place even before the partition of erstwhile British India. This and many other significant factors forced Jinnah to demand a separate nation for Muslims as he believed that Muslims would not be safe in India â a prophetic declaration indeed! There is no denying the fact that Jinnah was secular to the marrow and would never have wished to cut ties with India, but circumstances compelled him to do so. However, he had not harbored grudges against India or its leaders. He had kept his house on Malabar Hill, thinking he could weekend there, while running his country from Karachi on weekdays, but destiny had something else in store for the estranged neighbors of the Asia Partition.
When Nathuram Godse pumped three bullets into Gandhi, a section of the Hindu community compared him with Judas. The writing was on the wall. The divide was evident. In some areas people mourned the death of Gandhi, and in other areas they distributed sweets, held celebrations, and demanded the release of Godse. Gandhiâs crime was that he had demanded security for Muslims.
The seeds of partition were actually sown by the stalwarts of Hindu Mahasabha, primarily the quartet of Savarkar, Gawarikar, Apte, and Nathuram Godse. Independent Indiaâs history is testimony to the fact that in a conflict between the forces of secular nationalism and religious communalism, the latter has always ruled the roost. Secular forces have more often than not ended up playing into the hands of communal forces. Such has been the history of independent India, and it is again on display in Jammu. Syed Alvi Teheran Times<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Rupee News has written several articles on the Two Nation Theory, its origins and its development. Dr. Naveed Tajammal reminds us about the RSS.
The prelude is primarily covering the background of the historical records now forgotten by our new generations. It also gives a brief background and a rebuttal to the fake map of a balkanized Pakistan floating on the net for the last over a year or so. The other objective is to revive the memory of the butchered Muslims whom we have forgotten in the present act of appeasement perpetuated to please the Indians and the powers to be.
The Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh,( RSSS ), was the brain child of a Dr. Keshar Rao Bali Ram Hedgewar, a doctor of Nagpur in 1925.
The ideology, was based on a belief that the whole of British Indian sub-continent,was a land of the Hinduâs,who had lived in it for the last thousands of years,and that Muslims where but a recent intruder.
This doctrine was further developed by a Madho Rao Golwalkar, who had been a lecturer of science.and had succeeded the doctor, in the leadership, in 1940.
Golwalkar propagated that it was wrong to state that the Hinduâs had migrated to the Subcontinent only 3000 years back. According to his calculations the Hindu had been here over the last 10,000.years and to substantiate the old theory of a movement from a cold zone he stated that âThe cradle of Hindu civilization, was Bihar and Orissa,and that this was the old Arctic region of the past.or the old north pole ?
Apparently, geography, had never been a subject of this man. Nor had he read anything on the movement of continental Masses.or the plates. Anyway the man was an excellent organizer,as the structure of the organization shows, each unit was composed of 50 men,under a cell leader, a branch leader controlled, a number of cells, varying in each area. a provincial controller over each.
The area of the provincial commander was based on old mythical Hindu administrative, provincial boundaries.
Sikhs too, where allowed in this setup,as they said Sikhism was an offshoot of Hinduism, the supreme commander was no other but, Golwalkar, himself.
In the British Punjab,the organization was under,âDharam Virâ, the editor, of the newspaper, âHinduâ.
In all the major Muslim majority, Tehsils,ââstabbing squadsâ had been made,Lahore alone had a 50 member squad.who had a directive to stab only solitary Muslims.
Outwardly, the RSS, claimed it was a non-violent body,and A R.B.Badri, had also issued a public,disclaimer in the âtribuneâ newspaper on 14 June 1947.the crux being that it was a peace loving set up, with no violent aims or objectives at all.
However, the British c.i.d and special branch reports and the F.I.Râs,the bomb blasts which killed and injured hundreds told a different story,as well the recoveries from the safe houseâs, of RSS,which were time bombs,acids,explosives and rifles.
The congress pro government in the frontier too, was a major supplier of the weapons.to the RSS.
The general target areaâs, of the RSS, used to be,fruit markets, cinema halls,running omnibuses,and the best, the Muslim congregations in the mosques.
A report of an attempt to bomb the Badshahi, Mosque on a Eid morning by chartering a plane also exists in the files of the C.I.D.naturally by the RSS.
The futuristic map of the proposed Pakistan had also been worked out to the limits.
Baluchistan and NWFP, where to be Indian satellites linked with India through the northern areas,with Kashmir.
Pakistan, according to RSS, was to be Hazara division or the CIS-Indus of NWFP,Sind Bahawalpur, and upwards through a narrow belt,Karachi, was, to be, Zahir shahâs,personal fief.
The Rechana Doaba,and the Bari Doaba,was to be excluded from Pakistan,as this was a very fertile canal irrigation area.
The 1941 census was the bench mark on which the demographic working had been done by the RSS.
The districts, of Lahore, Shiekupura, Lyallpur, Montgomery & parts of Multan, had to be engineered to fall in with India,and further more,if the above could be achieved,then the
contiguous areaâs,of Gujranwala,Sialkot and part of Jhang are left out.
However not to be out witted from this prize too,it was decided to work out a new strategy so that,because of the contiguous boundaries, and the geographical features,they too could fall if a proper planning was done.
Here came the demographic, placement of a majority of Muslim population.which was a major hurdle in the plan, to circumvent this a new idea was proposed.
Shahdara, Shiekupura,Jaranwala, Lyallpur and Nankana, had a total excess Muslim population of 63,539, that is over 50 %.thus according to the RSS,if this figure could be replaced, by the same of Non-Muslims,the objective could be achieved.
Chunian, Okara, Pakpattan, in the Bari Doaba,had an excess of 148,369 Muslims.
The RSS, worked on the principle of encirclement,as they stated, that these areaâs, of the Bari Doaba, adjoined proposed India and the Bikaner state.and so tighten the grip around Lahore, Kasur,Dipalpur,Tehsils,which linked Gujaranwala and Sialkot districts.and had the main canal networks.which was the root of the prosperity of the Doaba.
The third. encirclement was to squeeze out, the excess,Muslims from Narowal, Pasrur and Gujaranwala.who were 106,711. The fourth stage covered Khanewal, Kabirwala and Shorekot Tehsils.which again had a excess, of 168,343.Muslims.
The outflanks of the remaining portion of Rechana Doaba,Sumandari, Toba Tek Singh and Montgomery.drove a wedge in the Multan district.Tehsils.which left out Shujabad,lodhran mailsi,and the multan tehsil itself.
Mailsi,toba tek singh, and sumandari the most productive, and fertile had an excess muslim number of 212,885.
In other words,in the first stage, an excess Muslim number of 318,619 had to be handled.
(63,539+148,369+106,711 ).
in the second ,168,343 +212,885 = 381,228.
in the last , the excess Muslim number in, Lahore, Dipalpur, Kasur, Montgomery and daska,came to,347,681.
The answer, to all this was a massive transportation of muslims from these areaâs, and an influx of non-muslim from the east.
It was proposed that;
The post war re settlement of the, to be, demobilised british indian army was to take place, the british punjab alone had provide 800,000. men.for the 2nd world war .here it was proposed that,the muslim soldiers of areaâs which where to be part of india to remain in india,while the muslim soldiers of lands between chianab and beas to be settled west of chinab. or in the bahawalpur area.whereas, all non muslim soldiers be settled in the area between chinab and beas.it was, further suggested that, the state had some 150,000 acres of land in betwwen chinab and beas,under the âbaqayaâ category,here a new scheme of 5 acre sink well , farm units(30,000) , be established, this way 120,000 non muslims could be adjusted. the colonization of thal and haveli area was on the table.as well establishment of new industerial areaâs, to use the local raw materials.
-In the colonization of thal only, the proposed area was 2,053,096 acres.which included.an area of 380,686 acres,which were the crown lands.
however, the canal irrigated came to be only,831.000 acres,the mathematical working of rsss, was that a unit of 8 acre be made,for a family of 4 persons.in this way 415,500 persons could be fixed up. but when the full 1.2 million acres came under the canal irrigation as was expected.in the thal,the extra 369,000 acres could accomodate a further,184,500 more.a total of 600,000.
Hence it was suggested,that in the first three stage areaâs, the major landowners where,
non muslims,all muslim tentants be turned out, in lieu of which on each square of land 10 non muslims be allowed to immigrate from east of sutlej regions,the land held by these land lords numbered 31,860 squares, or 796,500 acres. Hence 318,600 non muslims could be adjusted.from the various hindu and sikh states, east punjab or the united provinces. Besides this, a land grant of 78,000 acres only in the haveli project had been ear marked for the returning army men,it was requested by rsss,to the british to allow only hinduâ soldiers this grant.as in the same grant in a different catagory, 51,200 non muslims had just been granted lands in this scheme. It had been also suggested, to the british that,all muslim tentants,in nilli bar,haveli and bari doab canal colonies,be uprooted, and sent packing to,bahawalpur state in the vaccum, 150,000 non muslims could be adjusted.
As the majority of industrialist where non Muslim they too had been requested to immediately, set up colonies of 15,000 labour/workers in the new industerial zones and bring in non muslim labour,it was estimated that 100,000 men could easily come.
This was the solution to over come the one million strong Muslim majority factor in these areaâs. It was hoped that only in one year all these changes could be done provided, the state cooperated with the RSSS. The point to note is, even after the ban on RSSS, the members of RSSS thrived in india. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was one of them, as were other statesmen of India, which shows in their policies and the statecraft,as well the forward policy of the indian government since 4th febuary 1948âthe date RSSS was officially banned in India.
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 04-16-2009
http://ishakhan.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/t...ose-not-gandhi/
The British left South Asia becuase of Jinnah & Bose not Gandhi
October 7, 2008, 10:09 am
Filed under: SubContinent
The British left South Asia becuase of Jinnah & Bose not Gandhi
On the Transfer of Power from Britain to India from âThe Freedom Struggle and the Dravidian Movementâ by P.Ramamurti, Orient Longman, 1987
âWe have seen that no non-violent struggle conducted in the course of the freedom struggle had achieved its objective. In 1921, the non-cooperation movement was withdrawn before it was started by Mohandas Gandhi. In 1930 the Civil Disobedience Movement was withdrawn without achieving its limited objective. In 1932, the Civil Disobedience Movement was suspended at Gandhiâs instance and was never revived. In 1941 individual satyagraha for the right of freedom of speech ended in six months without achieving its aim. The 1942 countrywide struggle for freedom was never started by Gandhi.
How is it then that the British Government transferred power to the Congress and Muslim League leaders in 1947?
For an answer to this question, one must look into the countrywide upsurge in which military personnel also participated en masse, as anticipated by the communists at the end of the war.
First, there was the trial of the Indian National Army. Consequent to the surrender of Japan, the Government arrested the sepoys of the Indian National Army and started a trial on charges of attempting to overthrow the Government established by Law in the Red Fort at New Delhi.
The Communist Party of India gave a call for countrywide hartals and strikes. The call was responded to in cities, towns and in big villages. In Calcutta the hartals and strikes lasted a week and the people took to the streets demanding the unconditional release of the I.N.A. prisoners. The Government was forced to release them unconditionally. When Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru set foot in Jammu and Kashmir, he was arrested by the Princely Raj. Immediately the Communist Party called for countrywide protest demonstrations. The Kashmir Government was forced to release him.
Next came the strikes of police personnel in many provinces, supported by the Communist Party. This was followed by strikes in military cantonments all over the country. The Indian soldiers and air force personnel left the barracks, and held massive rallies in nearby towns shouting slogans like `Down with British Governmentâ `Down with Imperialismâ and `Inquilab Zindabadâ.
From Kashmir to Travancore, the people of the princely states were fighting to end princely rule. The crowning event of these struggles was the strike by the navymen of the naval ship `Talwarâ stationed near Bombay on 19th February 1946. The British Union Jack was removed and in its place the Congress-League and Communist Partyâs flags fluttered proudly.
The naval ship `Hindustanâ was ordered to proceed to Bombay to quell the revolt. On reaching Bombay, the navymen of `Hindustanâ refused to fire on their brothers. Then Admiral Godfrey through a radio broadcast ordered the navymen of `Talwarâ and `Hindustanâ to surrender within 24 hours, failing which, he said, `The entire might of the British Royal Navy would be used to crush the revolt; it does not matter if the entire Indian navy is destroyed in the proces.â
Sardar Patel, on behalf of the Congress, supported Admiral Godfrey and said, `Discipline in the Navy is of utmost importance and the men should obey the orders of the officers without questioning.â The fighting navymen had formed a struggle committee which appealed to the Congress, Muslim League and the Communist Party to lend their support. The Communist Party appealed to the people all over the country to demonstrate in support of the struggle; demonstrations and strikes took place all over the country. In Karachi, Cochin, Madras, Calcutta and Chittagong, there was complete strike in all naval establishments.
Sardar Patel, on behalf of the Congress, issued an order to the working class of Bombay not to respond to the call of the Communist Party .
The people ignored Sardar Patelâs call, struck work, observed hartal, demonstrated with the tri-colour flags of the Congress, the green flag of the Muslim League and the red flag of the Communist Party shouting slogans like `Hindus and Muslims Unite; down, down the British Governmentâ, `Down with imperialismâ, `Inquilab Zindabadâ, etc.
Sardar Patel lamented in a statement that the Congress prestige was sinking. Troops manned by British soldiers were sent to Bombay to quell the demonstrators. They started shooting at unarmed demonstrators indiscriminately. Yet the demonstrations lasted for many days. The official statement of the Central Legislature was that 130 people were killed, which was a conservative estimate. No one knows how many died and how many were wounded since most of the people were not taken to hospitals.
Gandhiji, who was quiet during the struggle, later issued a statement: âI can understand if there was unity from top to bottom in this struggle. Only the people at the lower levels were united. This will only lead the country into the hands of the rabble; I would prefer to die in the fire than to live for hundred and twenty five years.â
Four days after the naval revolt started, on the night of the 23rd February 1946, the British Cabinet held an emergency meeting and decided to transfer political power to the Congress and League leaders.
The British Prime Minister Attlee announced the decision the next day in the House of Commons. The former Prime Minister Churchill and his conservative colleagues bitterly opposed the decision. While replying to the debate, Prime Minister Attlee said: âIn the conditions prevailing in India today, old remedies are of no use. It is meaningless to talk about them now. The heat in 1946 is not the same as that of 1920 (non-cooperation movement), 1930 (first civil disobedience movement) or 1942 (when the Quit India resolution was passed). (Emphasis mine.)
âNothing intensifies the national feelings and aspirations of a colonial people like a great war. Those who have had anything to do with the two wars, know what effect the 1914-18 a world war had on the feelings and aspirations of the Indian people. National waves which rise slowly or are accelerated during wartime. and rise very high after the war. During the war, they are controlled to some extent; but after the war, they break all shackles and rise very high. Today, in India, no, in the whole Asian continent, they are dashing against the stones and, rocks, breaking them to pieces. I have no doubt about it.
âIndia alone has to decide what its future will be and what its status will be in the world. I hope that India will decide to stay in the Commonwealth. Instead, if it decides to be an independent country, it is our duty to work for peaceful transfer of power in the interim period and make it easy. India has a right to he a sovereign independent country.â
Sir Stafford Cripps, intervening in the debate made the position crystal clear. He said:
ââ¦The Indian Army in India is not obeying the British officers. We have recruited our workers for the war; they have been demobilised after the war. They are required to repair the factories damaged by Hitlerâs bombers. Moreover, they want to join their kith and kin after five and a half years of separation. Their kith and kin also want to join them. In these conditions if we have to rule India for a long time, we have to keep a permanent British army for a long time in a vast country of four hundred millions. We have no such armyâ¦.â
The countrywide opposition to British rule in which the Indian personnel of the three armies participated, crowned by the naval mutiny , was the direct cause of the decision to transfer power.
The Congress had nothing to do with the entire upsurge. These facts are obscured by Congressmen today. Subsequently, a cabinet mission arrived in India and held talks with both Congress and League leaders. It used the differences between the Congress and the Muslims; Lord Wavel was replaced as Viceroy by Lord Mountbatten, and an interim Government dominated by the Congress and the League was formed.
Riots were engineered between Hindus and Sikhs on the one hand, and Hindus and Muslims on the other. On August 15th, United India was divided into India and Pakistan, and power was tranferred to the Congress in India, and the League in Pakistan. India and Pakistan attained independence in the midst of the worst instance in history of mutual killing by two communities.â
http://rupeenews.com/2008/10/06/the-britis...ose-not-gandhi/
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History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 04-16-2009
http://www.pakistanpaedia.com/hist/hist3.html
History Taught In Pakistan - acharya - 04-16-2009
This article appeared in the December 13, 1947 edition of The Nation.
John Trumpbour: Remembering a historian of the left, an ideological warrior against empire, witness to India's anticolonial struggles and a persuasive critic of torture and government oppression.
ITS creator and governor general, M. A. Jinnah, has described Pakistan as "the biggest Moslem state... and the fifth biggest sovereign state in the world." Though the second point might be disputed, Pakistan is unquestionably worthy of attention, for it is situated just where the Anglo-American and Soviet orbits touch in the strategic Central Asian theater.
Seldom has a new state been created under such contradictory pressures or with such a load of full-grown problems. Control of the government is vested in a few top officials, supported by a powerful bureaucracy, but Britain has a say in matters of defense, finance, and foreign policy. Already the government is shot through with corruption and nepotism. Social life is dominated by Mohammedan concepts, including the subjection of women. The structure of the state, however, has not yet had time to harden, and internal strains may reshape it in another image.
Although Mr. Jinnah exaggerates when he describes his dominion as "blessed with enormous resources and potentialities," Pakistan is undoubtedly "workable" economically. With an: area of 230,000 square miles, one-fourth larger than 1933 Germany, it has a population of 70,000,000, about the same number as 1933 Germany. It produces an agricultural surplus and can export part of its wheat and rice and a good deal of its valuable jute crop. It also has some oil and chromite and considerable potential water power. Industrially it is the most backward part of the whole under-industrialized subcontinent. There are scattered woolen, cement, sugar, and cotton mills, but cloth and most other manufactured goods must be imported; some 85 per cent of the raw jute of all India is grown in Pakistan, but the jute mills are in Calcutta. Pakistan has no known coal or iron and only one modern port, Karachi. The people are largely illiterate; only 4 per cent can read as against 12 per cent in India. Among the well-educated, here as in India, are too many lawyers and too few engineers.
Close and friendly relations with the Indian dominion seem essential to the development of Pakistan's potentialities. The Congress Party, indeed, finally agreed to partition, after years of deadlock, partly in the belief that Pakistan could not exist as a separate state. "Let them have their Pakistan," it was argued, "if they'll take it without the eastern Punjab and without Calcutta and western Bengal. They won't have any coal, capital, or industries, and we can throttle them economically. After a few years they'll come crawling back!" This attitude, although not shared by the entire Congress high command, has certainly pervaded the partition operations. In the division of assets the Moslems have had to make a separate fight for virtually every typewriter and ream of paper. Difficulties have even been raised over the handling of mail.
Pakistan's economic troubles have been immeasurably increased by the bloody communal conflicts and the resulting influx of refugees. Almost every Moslem League leader from Mr. Jinnah down believes that this refugee inundation was part of a plot to swamp the Pakistan government before it could get established. "I'm sure that Nehru isn't a party to this plot," one declared, "but I'm just as sure that it is the backing of Patel [India's Home Minister] and Baldev Singh [the Defense Minister and a Sikh]."
With enormous problems, Pakistan has only a very ordinary set of leaders to cope with them. The brilliant Mr. Jinnah, of course, must be excepted, but he is over seventy and has been in poor health since a severe pneumonia attack two years ago. His voice can barely be heard ten feet away, and he chose to become governor general rather than premier partly because it was an easier post. He has repeatedly told subordinates, "I have done my part of the job; I've given you Pakistan. It is up to you to build it."
Premier Liaqat Ali Khan is a competent administrator with the conservative social views of a typical feudal landlord and a strong belief in a political and economic alliance with Great Britain. He had to chose a man of technical ability for his Finance Minister but the other members of his Cabinet are all mediocrities. So farfetched was the appointment of the Calcutta hide merchant, Faziur Rahman, as Minister of the Interior and Education that an old friend, seeing him in a front seat at the Independence Day celebrations, cried out, "You're in the wrong row; that's for the Cabinet!" Top officials are in the main from the landlord class, with a sprinkling of lawyers and merchants. The sole modern-minded industrialist in the dominion, Hassan Ispahani, is being sent out of the way as ambassador to the United States. Provincial officials are of the same kind: the Punjab Premier is the Khan of Mamdot, the province's largest landholder.
Considerable opposition to this leadership is manifesting itself, although it is still unorganized. After 1944, when the Moslem League became a mass movement, clerks, small shopkeepers, mechanics, and poor peasants thronged to its meetings, and it was they who finally obtained partition. Many of them were recruited through religious appeals; others through the promise of better living conditions. The economic discontent formerly directed against the commercially dominant Hindus and Sikhs--it still provides much of the fuel for the Moslem arson gangs--is gradually being turned against the wealthy Moslem League leaders. The story is told that when Mumtaz Daultana, the brains of the West Punjab ministry, went to his huge Multan estate in August, his Moslem tenants, all staunch League members, congratulated him on the achievement of Pakistan, and landlord and tenants feasted together. But a pall was thrown over the festivities when a peasant asked, "When will the land be given to us?" This question is being asked repeatedly, for agrarian reforms have been promised by the League.
Similar resentment against the rich is voiced in the towns. A Moslem clerk who is the local secretary of the League in his ward is made conscious of social differences when he goes from his filthy, overcrowded tenement home to the palatial residence of the provincial leader. At a recent meeting in Lahore a fervent young Leaguer exclaimed, "The rich are finished! Let us shoot them!"
Some of this radicalism is spontaneous; some of it is the work of the progressives in the League, who are influential throughout Pakistan but especially in the Punjab. These agitators are usually well-educated, modernminded young people with a war-gained knowledge of foreign countries, a strongly nationalist point of view, and a liberal approach to social problems, including the position of women. One of the most prominent is Mian Iftikharud-Din, known as "Ifti," a wealthy, radical Moslem who was formerly president of the Congress Party in the Punjab and twice jailed by the British. Now publisher of the Pakistan Times and a member of the Constituent Assembly, he is looked up to by young, progressive Moslems but kept at a distance by League leaders. The tactics of the young progressives have reached a stratum of Moslems never before interested, and at Lahore and Peshawar there have been mass demonstrations of Moslem women clad in the ghostly looking white burqas, a cover-all garment with a net eye-slit which enables orthodox Moslem women to appear in public without being seen. The League leaders welcomed such mass support in fighting for Pakistan--although many had prejudices against women in politics--but now they are embarrassed by the claims of the awakened and demanding millions.
During the Lahore riots some of the inflamed young Moslems asked the League progressives for guidance. "We tried to slow them down," a leftist Moslem leader said, "but we couldn't oppose them openly. The Communists attacked us for this, saying we could not be considered progressive if we did not openly fight Moslem communalism, but we know that would have meant isolating ourselves from our people."
A major conflict is now looming over the question of how closely Pakistan should be tied to Britain. Nationalist-minded Pakistanis, among whom are most of the young people and the new League rank and file, are dismayed by the number of Britons in the administration. Three of the five provincial governors, five of the nine departmental secretaries, and all the high officers of the armed forces are British. Informed nationalists think it necessary to keep certain Britons for their technical skills but do not want this to be carried too far. Army officers do not object to serving under British generals temporarily, but are concerned that the army should continue to be equipped solely with British materiel and indignant that promotions have been left in British hands. Some nationalists charge that when Premier Liaqat Ali Khan was in London a year ago he committed Pakistan to remaining within the British economic sphere.
In the Punjab even the League right-wingers are anti-British, because the British governor there kept the League out of office for over a year and because the boundary award is considered unfair. In consequence a substantial number of Britons have been dismissed, but many of these have turned up with the central government at Karachi. The railway specialist, A. G. Hall, for example, was put out by the Punjab government but is now director general of railways for all Pakistan. To protests about the great number of Britons in the Pakistan service, the Premier is reported to have replied: "Before the transfer of power Lord Mountbatten had both the League and the Congress members of the interim government promise to keep on all British officials who wanted to stay and against whom we could not make a specific case." It is interesting to note that of those who have stayed, the great majority have chosen to serve in Pakistan. While this may be due in part to the fact that opportunities are greater in the less-advanced state, there is certainly a feeling among the British that although India will probably declare its independence, Pakistan may be kept within the empire. The likelihood is enhanced by the character of the League leaders, almost none of whom are known for militant nationalism.
Since Pakistan's establishment, League officers have been cautious about declaring where they stand with respect to the conflict between Russia and the West. Pakistan is nearer to the Soviet border than to either Britain or the United States, and substantial segments of public opinion show an interest in the U. S. S. R. Even orthodox Moslems are watching developments in the Soviet Moslem areas, such as Bokhara, which are close to Pakistan culturally as well as geographically. Not all the League progressives are pro-Communist, but many seem to feel that some sort of socialism, usually referred to as "Islamic socialism," is necessary to make Pakistan a strong modern state. There would certainly be overwhelming opposition to allowing Britain and the United States to use Pakistan's military strength or strategic position to further their own designs.
The future of the Moslem League is already a subject of dispute. Old League officers, fearing that the impoverished Moslems will follow the progressives if the government does not soon grant their demands, are tending to abandon the organization which brought them to power and to rely increasingly on the bureaucracy which they inherited from the British and on their new powers of bribery through job distribution. Moslem religious leaders are attacking young, modern-minded progressives as "anti-Islamic," and telling the women to forget about politics and go back into purdah. But it is not easy to turn back the clock. "We have learned that even women have power, and they can't make us forget it," said a Lahore housewife to me.