Creating a new Medina

[Joe Shearer]

A humble request: please let us not allow this to degenerate into an India vs. Pakistan thread. It is about a review in one of our most decent newspapers on the sub-continent of a book which seeks to illuminate the motives and intentions of the founding father of Pakistan about his partition of Pakistan. It would have been so nice if Indian members had written about the parallel idea of the future, independent India as a Ram Rajya, which was the vision that a great Indian leader had, whether right or wrong (I think he was wrong); it would have been nice if some Pakistani member had written about that electrifying document the constitution of Madina. Sadly, we have people like @Oye Natta; a thread is doomed to roll about in the gutter whenever such kinds of internet denizens get involved.

Just once can we discuss a topic without losing our dignity? After all, we have had enlightening contributions from @Aeronaut @Chak Bamu @scorpionx @Contrarian @nair the other nair - I forget his nick - and my indefatigable friend, @INDIC ; why not continue?

 

[nair]

Just once can we discuss a topic without losing our dignity?

I hate when people ask me difficult questions, especially when i know the answer

 

[Joe Shearer]

I hate when people ask me difficult questions, especially when i know the answer

LOL.

No, seriously, this is only a B-, best case a B. We really need to pull up our socks.

 

[Armstrong]

A humble request: please let us not allow this to degenerate into an India vs. Pakistan thread. It is about a review in one of our most decent newspapers on the sub-continent of a book which seeks to illuminate the motives and intentions of the founding father of Pakistan about his partition of Pakistan. It would have been so nice if Indian members had written about the parallel idea of the future, independent India as a Ram Rajya, which was the vision that a great Indian leader had, whether right or wrong (I think he was wrong); it would have been nice if some Pakistani member had written about that electrifying document the constitution of Madina. Sadly, we have people like @Oye Natta; a thread is doomed to roll about in the gutter whenever such kinds of internet denizens get involved.

Just once can we discuss a topic without losing our dignity? After all, we have had enlightening contributions from @Aeronaut @Chak Bamu @scorpionx @Contrarian @nair the other nair - I forget his nick - and my indefatigable friend, @INDIC ; why not continue?

No mention of me ?

I feel so unloved right now !

I think most members - enlightened or not - are just weary of such threads popping up every few weeks & if one goes back & sees the contributions of some of the more well-read members on this forum - they've said what they wanted to say a few years back when this issue or issues like this came up to their notice the first few times !

 

[Joe Shearer]

Eik hi pal mein paraya kar diyaaa ?

Waisee do you know how to tie a full windsor knot - I can't seem to figure it out !

You are welcome to visit - visa regulations have been relaxed, and I had the pleasure of the company of YLH last Sunday - and stay with me. Kahaan ke paraaya? We saw Humayun's Tomb, then the chilla of Sheikh Nizamuddin Auliya, then lunch at Karim's. I left him to his all night parties; at 64, I'm not up to those things any more.

Full Windsor knot? You have to have a broad collar - the fork must be generously cut.

No mention of me ?

I feel so unloved right now !

I think most members - enlightened or not - are just weary of such threads popping up every few weeks & if one goes back & sees the contributions of some of the more well-read members on this forum - they've said what they wanted to say a few years back when this issue or issues like this came up to their notice the first few times !

You have a point. I suppose prosing on and on about the same damn' thing is an occupational hazard for old farts.

 

[Armstrong]

You have a point. I suppose prosing on and on about the same damn' thing is an occupational hazard for old farts.

Well I wouldn't call you an old fart !

Old age doesn't begin till 80 !

But you do remember how I used to write long paragraphs on these topics as well ? You must've remembered our conversations on the anthropological basis of nationhood ?

Maybe that was utter crap coming from me but I did like what I was saying & it made sense to me....I just hope it made some sense to others as well !

But even I grow weary of some zealot Indian or Pakistani reading the occasional article or watching a video & having a 'eureka' moment whereby hes now in possession of incontrovertible evidence as to why Pakistan shouldn't have been created or why India is evil incarnate or something similar ? I'm just tired....very....very tired of it all !

 

[Qaiser Ali Khan]

Nehru, Patel, Menon all were worried about the future of princely states but Sardar Patel and VP Menon worked on it. The Muslim League always saw princely states joining India creating a stronger India and thus creating more challenges for Pakistan and they also tried to get hold on many Hindu majority princely states. Read this Pakistani site what were they upto with princely states even trying to get Hindu majority princely states deep inside India and usual grumbling how India spoiled it.


You are wrong, Pakistanis believe India-Pakistan enmity started with the war between Raja Dahir and Muhammad Bin Qasim and sometime even taking it back to demonizing Chanakya in Pakistan since he is considered as a hero by Indians. Kashmir or any other territory even if they not existed, Pakistan would have still considered India as an enemy. Its about ideology , not Kashmir.

What you are telling now was exactly in the minds of Muslims and Jinnah, .that's why they thought for a separate country. This ideological segregation was not made by him, it was and is in our blood. How much we have gained in the last 60+ years, being in separate countries, is i think an understanding of being a nation. Our fresh blood now call themselves indians and pakistanies who share some cultural values but are poles apart in respect of religious and social principles. Hinduism is rapidly giving way to modernism by including and adopting western culture and way of thinking (ignoring their radicalism so symbolically represented by the BJP, RSS etc ). In paksitan this cultural invasion is slow as compared to india, in fact indian culture is showing more of its impact on ours in punjab and sindh (because of the shared values) as compared to the western culture which is devouring indian culture. Pakistan was made as an Islamic country, we cannot afford to lose our identity. India is a secular state (though i am afraid it is turning out to be a Hindu state) and is badly affected by the western culture until now. In future, i see a more of a Maha Bharat istead of India.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Well I wouldn't call you an old fart !

Old age doesn't begin till 80 !

But you do remember how I used to write long paragraphs on these topics as well ? You must've remembered our conversations on the anthropological basis of nationhood ?

Maybe that was utter crap coming from me but I did like what I was saying & it made sense to me....I just hope it made some sense to others as well !

But even I grow weary of some zealot Indian or Pakistani reading the occasional article or watching a video & having a 'eureka' moment whereby hes now in possession of incontrovertible evidence as to why Pakistan shouldn't have been created or why India is evil incarnate or something similar ? I'm just tired....very....very tired of it all !

You've been going through this experience from - 2012? Think of me!

 

[Amaa'n]

Allot has been said, and i dont think there is much left for me to say. Jinnah had a vision, he gave his best to fulfill it. He wanted a state where people with different identity, culture and belief could everybody their way less life.
Where he had a vision for majority of the state, he also had a vision for the minorities of the state.
I believe the idea was that once the independent states were formed, both will emerge as a strong force in the region, but then we both messed it up.....
Both are still very far from the ideas our leaders have envisioned.

We need to compare where each entity was standing in the past and where we stand today, and it necessarily does not mean economy and development, but the culture, the ideology, the thinking and welfare of the public....

 

[INDIC]

What you are telling now was exactly in the minds of Muslims and Jinnah, .that's why they thought for a separate country. This ideological segregation was not made by him, it was and is in our blood. How much we have gained in the last 60+ years, being in separate countries, is i think an understanding of being a nation. Our fresh blood now call themselves indians and pakistanies who share some cultural values but are poles apart in respect of religious and social principles. Hinduism is rapidly giving way to modernism by including and adopting western culture and way of thinking (ignoring their radicalism so symbolically represented by the BJP, RSS etc ). In paksitan this cultural invasion is slow as compared to india, in fact indian culture is showing more of its impact on ours in punjab and sindh (because of the shared values) as compared to the western culture which is devouring indian culture. Pakistan was made as an Islamic country, we cannot afford to lose our identity. India is a secular state (though i am afraid it is turning out to be a Hindu state) and is badly affected by the western culture until now. In future, i see a more of a Maha Bharat istead of India.

So you agree it goes beyond Kashmir, so there is no need to blame Hindus, Kashmir or anything else to justify the partition and creation of Pakistan. The Western culture is also changing Pakistan's culture with everyone have obsession of speaking polished English and copying the foreigners, why talking about India alone. Infact, even the neo-Arab culture is changing Pakistan Muslims culture which was the mix of native South Asian and Persian culture developed in medieval Muslim sultanates of India and you are losing your culture both to the influence from the Arabs and Western countries.

 

[omegalamba7XL9]

Pakistan the land of rugged people. The people who face all the problems you can name and still wake and are still chanting Pakistan Zindabad. Pakistan who at one time had one super power advancing from west and arch enemy who is bigger and was stronger than us to the east and still we survived. Pakistan the country faced dictatorship and corrupt politican through out its history so far but guess what dictators come and go, corrupt polticans come and go but Pakistan still here. In the burning neighborhood we are still focus of the world. Some people 10 years ago were of opinion that Pakistan will be divided, will be taken over by terrorist but we still here. Pakistani people saw wars, drone attacks, suiciders and lots of other trying their utmost best to divide us and destroy us but we surprise them.
Our problems are our problems all we need is good decade and we will be on our way to better future but until then we just have to keep moving forward. I thank Almighty Allah for giving us Pakistan and Jinnah as its founding father. We are not Saudi Arabia or any Arab country but we are not Iran Syria either. We are nothing like North Korea nor Ukraine. We are Pakistan and will be Pakistan thats our belief and a lesson we learned. We have faith and success will be here soon. Until then we will keep marching taking hits from left and right getting hammered from top and walk on fire but you bet we will keep marching.

This is what Jinnah gave us my Indian friends and i am proud to inherit that treasure.

 

[Qaiser Ali Khan]

So you agree it goes beyond Kashmir, so there is no need to blame Hindus, Kashmir or anything else to justify the partition and creation of Pakistan. The Western culture is also changing Pakistan's culture with everyone have obsession of speaking polished English and copying the foreigners, why talking about India alone. Infact, even the neo-Arab culture is changing Pakistan Muslims culture which was the mix of native South Asian and Persian culture developed in medieval Muslim sultanates of India and you are losing your culture both to the influence from the Arabs and Western countries.

we are one with the arabs and persians, as for as english is concerned, it is an international language which is essential in modern times. What i am saying is that this identity of being a pakistani or indian is the true outcome of partition. Cultural invasion is a global and non-static phenomena. Yes its advent is slow in pakistan as compared to india. Look at the media, we dont have bikinis, x-factors, naked dance competitions and female sex oriented objectification here in paksitan. If it is at all present, it is to be seen in Karachi and lahore which are prone to and similar to indian culture(invasion).

Pakistan the land of rugged people. The people who face all the problems you can name and still wake and are still chanting Pakistan Zindabad. Pakistan who at one time had one super power advancing from west and arch enemy who is bigger and was stronger than us to the east and still we survived. Pakistan the country faced dictatorship and corrupt politican through out its history so far but guess what dictators come and go, corrupt polticans come and go but Pakistan still here. In the burning neighborhood we are still focus of the world. Some people 10 years ago were of opinion that Pakistan will be divided, will be taken over by terrorist but we still here. Pakistani people saw wars, drone attacks, suiciders and lots of other trying their utmost best to divide us and destroy us but we surprise them.
Our problems are our problems all we need is good decade and we will be on our way to better future but until then we just have to keep moving forward. I thank Almighty Allah for giving us Pakistan and Jinnah as its founding father. We are not Saudi Arabia or any Arab country but we are not Iran Syria either. We are nothing like North Korea nor Ukraine. We are Pakistan and will be Pakistan thats our belief and a lesson we learned. We have faith and success will be here soon. Until then we will keep marching taking hits from left and right getting hammered from top and walk on fire but you bet we will keep marching.

This is what Jinnah gave us my Indian friends and i am proud to inherit that treasure.

bravo brother

 

[INDIC]

we are one with the arabs and persians, as for as english is concerned, it is an international language which is essential in modern times. What i am saying is that this identity of being a pakistani or indian is the true outcome of partition. Cultural invasion is a global and non-static phenomena. Yes its advent is slow in pakistan as compared to india. Look at the media, we dont have bikinis, x-factors, naked dance competitions and female sex oriented objectification here in paksitan. If it is at all present, it is to be seen in Karachi and lahore which are prone to and similar to indian culture(invasion).


bravo brother

That is happening to Pakistan and moreover you are losing South Asian and Persian mixed Muslim culture to the culture to Arabia. Your dress is Shalwaz-Kameez but many of you can still be seen copycating Arab style tunic to look like Arabs.

 

[Qaiser Ali Khan]

That is happening to Pakistan and moreover you are losing South Asian and Persian mixed Muslim culture to the culture to Arabia. Your dress is Shalwaz-Kameez but many of you can still be seen copycating Arab style tunic to look like Arabs.

lolz ostrich reaction

 

[Multani]

Creating a new Medina

The Hindu ArchivesHISTORIC MEETING: The only solution to India’s problem, Jinnah asserted, was ‘to partition India so that both Hindus and Muslims could develop freely and fully according to their own genius.’ (From left) Picture shows Jawaharlal Nehru, the Adviser to the Viceroy, Lord Ismay, Lord Mountbatten, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the historic conference in New Delhi in 1947 in which Lord Mountbatten disclosed Britain’s partition plan for India.

(In his forthcoming book on the idea of Pakistan, the historian Venkat Dhulipala argues that Pakistan was not simply a vague idea that serendipitously emerged as a nation-state, but was popularly imagined as a sovereign Islamic state, a new Medina, as some called it. In this regard, it was envisaged as the harbinger of Islam’s revival and rise in the twentieth century, the new leader and protector of the global community of Muslims, and a worthy successor to the defunct Turkish Caliphate. The following article has been excerpted from the book)

The basic reasoning behind the assumption that Pakistan was Jinnah’s bargaining counter and not a demand for a separate sovereign state is that such a state would have been disastrous for the Muslim minority in Hindu India. As the argument goes, Jinnah as the Qaid of all of the Indian Muslims was hardly going to abandon the ‘minority provinces’ Muslims. However, his own public utterances on the matter seem to point to a different idea regarding the place of minorities. Never the abstract theoretician, the meticulous constitutional lawyer gave concrete examples to clarify what he meant by nations, sub-national groups or minorities. For Jinnah, Muslims in the ‘majority provinces’ were a nation with concomitant rights to self-determination and statehood since they constituted a numerical majority in a contiguous piece of territory. On the other hand, Sikhs, though distinct enough to be a nation, did not fulfill either of these criteria and hence were a sub-national group with no option but to seek minority safeguards in Pakistan. Jinnah specifically compared the position of Sikhs to that of U.P. Muslims. The U.P. Muslims, though constituting 14 per cent of the province’s population, could not be granted a separate state because

“Muslims in the United Provinces are not a national group; they are scattered. Therefore, in constitutional language, they are characterized as a sub-national group who cannot expect anything more than what is due from any civilized government to a minority. I hope I have made the position clear.”

Jinnah held out further hope for the Muslim minority in Hindu India by declaring that they could yet belong to Pakistan since they had the option of migrating to the new nation state.

The Qaid was aware that his public utterances had created not just a slippage, but a cleavage between the purported Muslim nation and Pakistan. He therefore tried to bridge this crucial gap in a few ways. To begin with he lauded the great sacrifices made by ‘minority provinces’ Muslims for selflessly demanding liberation for their 60 million majority provinces brethren from Hindu Raj. They had readily supported the Lahore Resolution since they realized that they would remain a minority ‘in perpetuity’ and therefore did not want to reduce their brethren to the same fate. Indeed, Jinnah would call them ‘the pioneers and first soldiers of Pakistan.’ He further pointed out that he himself belonged to a minority province and that “as a self-respecting people, we in the Muslim minority provinces say boldly that we are prepared to undergo every suffering and sacrifice for the emancipation and liberation of our brethren in regions of Muslim majority. By standing in their way and dragging them along with us into a united India we do not in any way improve our position. Instead, we reduce them also to the position of a minority. But we are determined that, whatever happens to us, we are not going to allow our brethren to be vassalised by the Hindu majority.”

Jinnah’s speech to the Muslim Students Federation at Kanpur a few weeks later went a little further causing a furore in the Urdu press in U.P. He declared that in order to liberate 7 crore Muslims of the majority provinces, ‘he was willing to perform the last ceremony of martyrdom if necessary, and let 2 crore Muslims of the minority provinces be smashed.’ At the same time though, Jinnah tried to soften the blow for them by arguing that Pakistan’s creation would entail a reciprocal treaty with Hindu India to safeguard rights and interests of minorities in both states. He pointed to the presence of large Hindu and Sikh minorities in Pakistan who too would require similar protection and asserted that ‘when the time for consultation and negotiations comes, the case of Muslims of the minority provinces will certainly not go by default.’ ...

Safeguards for Hindu minorities

At the same time, Jinnah assured adequate safeguards for Hindu minorities in Pakistan. He was quick to reject the argument that Hindus in Pakistan could not trust these assurances since Muslims themselves had refused to accept them at an all-India level. Such reasoning was fallacious since it assumed that the whole of India belonged to the Hindus. As Jinnah noted, “Are the Muslim minorities in the Hindu majority provinces entitled to enforce their verdict that there should be no union of any kind just as the Congress puts forward the plea that the Muslim majority provinces should be forced into the union because of the Hindu minority verdict in these provinces? And it is quite obvious that the Muslim minorities in the Hindu provinces will be under the double yoke of Hindu raj both in Hindu majority provinces as well as in the centre under the proposed central government. Is the view or opinion of Muslim minority in the Hindu provinces to prevail? Is similarly the opinion of Hindu minorities in the Muslim provinces to prevail? In that case it will be the minority that will be dictating to the majority both in Hindustan and Pakistan which reduces the whole position to absurdity.”

Jinnah also quelled any talk of a loose federation or a confederation between Pakistan and Hindu India.

Finally, if these assurances were not enough, Jinnah held out further hope for the Muslim minority in Hindu India by declaring that they could yet belong to Pakistan since they had the option of migrating to the new nation state. As he noted soon after the Lahore resolution, ‘exchange of population, on the physical division of India as far as practicable would have to be considered.’ It was a theme that he repeated over the next few years. In a later interview, he spelled out three courses available to the Muslim minorities in Hindu India. ‘They may accept the citizenship in the state in which they are. They can remain there as foreigners; or they can come to Pakistan. I will welcome them. There is plenty of room. But it is for them to decide. Jinnah however recognized the limits of such a scheme which still entailed a substantial number of these Muslims being excluded from Pakistan. He therefore made it a point to repeatedly laud sacrifices made by the ‘minority provinces’ Muslims and their selfless support for Pakistan. As he declared in his Presidential Address to the annual session of the AIML held at Karachi in 1943, “Don’t forget the minority provinces. It is they who have spread the light when there was darkness in the majority provinces. It is they who were the spearheads that the Congress wanted to crush with their overwhelming majority in the Muslim minority provinces, for your sake, for your benefit, and for your advantage. But never mind, it is all in the role of a minority to suffer.”

Defence and economic concerns

If the creation of Pakistan was to provide the ‘authoritative sanction’ for the fulfilment of Muslim minority rights in Hindu India, Pakistan needed to be a viable and powerful entity. Jinnah squarely addressed questions regarding Pakistan’s feasibility in terms of its defence capabilities as well as economic sustainability echoing the arguments adduced by ML propaganda. He first repudiated the charge that creating Pakistan would lead to a worsening security environment in the subcontinent, declaring that on the contrary it would improve the situation as Hindus and Muslims would settle down in their respective national states. He also rejected the argument that if Pakistan were to become a separate sovereign state it would soon overrun all of India. He found it ridiculous that a country of 200 million could fear being overrun by their neighbour with a population of 70 million. Jinnah also tried to damp down on fears of a pan-Islamic threat to Hindu India due to an alliance of Pakistan and Muslim states of the Middle East by rejecting the idea that Pakistan would harbour such extra-territorial affinities...

On sovereignty

Jinnah’s unequivocal stance on Pakistan’s sovereignty is brought out in his exchange with the Mahatma in 1942. Gandhi in response to a question as to whether he regarded the Andhra bid for separation from Madras province in the same light as Pakistan declared that “there can be no comparison between Pakistan and Andhra separation. The Andhra separation is a re-distribution on a linguistic basis. The Andhras do not claim to be a separate nation claiming nothing in common with the rest of India. Pakistan on the other hand is a demand for carving out of India a portion to be treated as a wholly independent state. Thus, there seems to be nothing in common between the two.”

To emphasize Pakistan’s separate territorial entity, Jinnah repeatedly dismissed the idea that India constituted a geographical unity.

Jinnah in response declared that Gandhi ‘has himself put the Muslim demand in a nutshell.’ The Qaid therefore had no difficulty in dismissing the plural ‘states’ in the Lahore Resolution as a typographical error when the convention of ML legislators was held in 1946. Even during the 1945-46 elections, he clearly stated that “geographically, Pakistan will embrace all of NWFP, Baluchistan, Sind, and Punjab provinces in northwestern India. On the eastern side would be the other portion of Pakistan comprising Bengal and Assam…. [The provinces would] have all the autonomy that you will find in the constitutions of U.S., Canada, and Australia. But certain vital powers will remain vested in the central government such as the monetary system, national defence, and other federal responsibilities.”

A separate territorial entity

To emphasize Pakistan’s separate territorial entity, Jinnah repeatedly dismissed the idea that India constituted a geographical unity. India, he insisted, was divided and partitioned by nature and Muslim India and Hindu existed on the ‘physical map of India.’ Besides, ‘geography had been altered in the case of the Suez canal, the Panama canal, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Ulster in Eire, and Sudan in Egypt’ and there was no reason why the same could not be done in the case of British India. There was thus no unified country that was being divided, no nation that was being denationalized, for India was composed of different nationalities and the singular nation existed only in the imagination of Congress leaders who were ‘recklessly indulging in such mental luxuries.’ It was only such critics, he derisively observed, who called Pakistan an impractical idea. Pakistan on the contrary, was indeed more practical than Ram Raj or Swaraj that Gandhi was advocating for India. Jinnah therefore had no trouble in dismissing Gandhi’s warning about a civil war breaking out in India in the event of a Partition. He insisted that there would be no conflict unless the Congress and its peace-loving Mahatma desired it.

Jinnah also quelled any talk of a loose federation or a confederation between Pakistan and Hindu India. As he noted, the question had been put forth by some constitutional pundits as to“why there cannot be some sort of loose federation or confederation? People talk like that. I shall read out to you what I have written on this point, because it is important. There are people who talk of some sort of loose federation. There are people who talk of giving the widest freedom to the federating units and residuary powers resting with the units. But they forget the entire constitutional history of the various parts of the world. Federation in whatever terms it is described and in whatever terms it is put, must ultimately deprive the federating units of authority in all vital matters. The units despite themselves, would be compelled to grant more and more powers to the central authority, until in the end the strong central government will have been established by the units themselves- they will be driven to do so by absolute necessity, if the basis of federal government is accepted. Taking for instance the United States and her history, the Dominion of Canada and Australia, the Union of South Africa and Germany, and of other lands where federal or confederal systems have been in existence, necessity has driven the component members and obliged them to increase and delegate their power and authority to the connecting link, namely the central government. These ideas are based entirely on a wrong footing… Therefore remove from your mind any idea of some form of such loose federation.”

The only solution to India’s problem, he asserted, was ‘to partition India so that both the communities could develop freely and fully according to their own genius.’

(Venkat Dhulipala’s book , Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India, will be published by Cambridge University Press.)

I saw this interesting article in "The Hindu",

no one can create a New Medina. There will always be only ONE Medina, and that is Medina Munawarah in Hijaz today