The Death of Pakistan?
Author: Jaswant Singh
NEW DELHI This is a tipping point for Pakistan. Will it survive the current maelstrom of challenges exemplified by the recent assassination of Governor Salmaan Taseer of Punjab by one of his bodyguards, an Islamic zealot or will it capsize? For the world, Pakistans fate is an urgent, perhaps even an existential, question.
After all, Pakistan is a nuclear-armed, terrorist-spawning regional power. The roots of Pakistans instability run deep. Following World Wars I and II, the European powers and the United States sat around distant tables and fabricated frontiers, giving birth to Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia and thus to most of the of the Middle Easts current ills. The regions new map was based on the assumption that the fundamentals of Muslim Asia could be transformed by introducing the Western nation-state system. Instead, what formed was a region of entities that have largely failed to cohere as nations.
In 1947, the Indian sub-continent, too, was vivisected in much the same way, with a religion-based entity carved out of it: Pakistan. Of course, it is pointless at this stage to re-examine that tragic folly. The consequences of partition, however, remain: Pakistan has not yet been able to evolve an administratively credible government. Indeed, if Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistans founding father, had been right that Muslims are a separate nation, Bangladesh would not have broken away from it, and the countrys relations with its neighbor Afghanistan would be free of intrigue and violence.
Jaswant Singh, a former Indian finance minister, foreign minister, and defense minister, is the author of Jinnah: India Partition Independence.
The Death of Pakistan? - New Europe
This is an amazingly confused article. one sweeping statement after the other. Tipping point, nuclear power, terrorists, history lessons, fate, salman tasser, murder, two nation theory, muslim asia, vivisection of British India, tragic folly, and what not,....... mixing context and jumping from one thing to other with out elaborating any thing.
What to discuss? every thing is jumbled, but I will try to elaborate few things
Indeed, if Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistans founding father, had been right that Muslims are a separate nation, Bangladesh would not have broken away from it, and the countrys relations with its neighbor Afghanistan would be free of intrigue and violence.
So Pakistan should have joined with other Islamic countries in 1947(or should have tried), two muslim countries would never fight or have dispute, ................
From where Mr. Singh has drawn his yardstick to judge the behavior of a separate muslim nation??? ..................
What is the difference between a separate nation and a separate muslim nation?... Nations do have civil wars, internal conflicts, issues and wars with neighbors etc.
Bangladesh broken away, and writer deduces that muslims are not a separate nation, and so we can deduce that bengalis are a separate nation in Bangladesh or/and in india?
Truth of the matter is that nations came into being in different times and different places due to different reasons and circumstances prevailing, for example, Ideology, (Pakistan, Israel, USSR, East Taimor, South Sudan, North South Koreas, East West Germany (Old) etc etc.) ethnicity, racism, capitalism etc etc.
This brings us to the heart of the matter: the question of Islam and statehood. In his book Islam and the Destiny of Man, Gai Eaton put the matter with elegant precision: Islamic society is theocentric
not theocratic. This is an important distinction, for it calls into question the validity of (the) concept of (an) Islamic state as distinct from a Muslim state. The first, Eaton writes, is an ideological proposition that has never materialized in Muslim history because no Muslim state has even been theocratic.
Question raised and itself answered in last line. what Mr. Singh wanted to infer???
For Muslims, all sovereignty vests in God; indeed, nothing whatever exists or can exist outside of Him. As Eaton puts it, the Korans insistence that there is no god but God can also be interpreted to mean that there is no legislator but the Legislator. That is why in Islamic jurisprudence, laws must be derived from the Koran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, not handed down from British or classical philosophy.
It is not elborated that why we must follow British or classical philosopy? which pillars of justice are upheld while following British or classical philosohy and fall when we follow the Koran??
Why a BJP leader is advocating British thoughts ??
Indeed, the issue that now lies at Pakistans core is whether it can become a theocratic state.
theocratice state ? or theocentric?. Writer simply forgot that "because no Muslim state has even been theocratic as asserted by his foreign "source".
Which brings us back to the horror of Taseers assassination and the strange and divided reaction to it in Pakistani civil society. Taseers assassination, unlike that of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards in 1984, was not a retaliatory revenge attack. Instead, the roots of Taseers assassination lay in the dark delusions of fanatical belief, his killing supposedly undertaken to protect the faith. Worse, many citizens, if not most, have reacted by supporting the assassin (some showering him with flower petals), while hundreds of Ulemas (religious leaders) welcomed his killing and called participation in his funeral un-Islamic. According to the chief of the Ja*m*aat*-e-Islami movement, the killed is himself responsible for his killing.
Sorry, right example here will be of Nathuram Godse, killer of Mahaatma Ghandi (Taseer was an ordinary politician in comparison with Ghandi), follower/member of RSS (mother of BJP and numerous other outfits), whose idol was garlanded and showered with rose petals. current status is, revered by numerous hindus.
I am surprised that Mr. Singh quoted that example.
Even if I follow the quoted comparison then, revenge killing by sikh body guard for attack on Golden Temple (Holiest Sikh Site) is a lesser event than a fanatic killing to save his faith?? how so? what is the difference?
Remaining article is western bashing, typical BJP stuff, Islam bashing, typical BJP, blah blah blah....