What's new

Pakistan, Bharat, British India - What came first, what came after?

. .
If we continue to use India to refer to the sub-continent at one level and at another level to mean the Indian Republic we can create all sort of misunderstanding.

If you really wanted the Dharmic heritage, what India calls itself should not stop you, any more than it stops the Nepalese.

When you say that India's name is a problem, you are putting the cart before the horse.

What came first is the Islamization process, under the shadow of invasions. Over some generations, it led to weakening of civilizational memories and a hostile rejection of Dharma. Possibly, the hostile rejection was a psychological response to the trauma suffered.

The hostile rejection in turn led to the partition of 1947, wherein half of Punjab, half of Bengal and Sindh joined Pakistan. The newly created nation quickly became enmeshed in conflicts with its neighbour.

In 2012, there may be, in a very very small segment of the population, a sense of dissatisfaction with Islamization and Islamic nationalism, and an openness to the ancestral heritage that was rejected.

But even for these people, conflict with India may have become an end in itself, which is why the Dharmic heritage is hard to accept if it is linked with the name India.

I say unto these people - let not what India calls itself stop you from embracing your heritage. It was the rejection of that heritage that led to the conflict with India, and your rediscovery of that heritage will facilitate peace.
 
.
...... Continued.

*In the previous post I stated the four main groups in Pakistan as Pashtun, Punjabi, Baloch, Sindhi, I realise there are more for example the Indian migrants ( Mohajir's ) but for sake of simplicity and that those four make some 92% of the country I excluded others.

So instead of letting the Pashtun, Sindhi, Baloch and Punjabi feel proud of their identity and at the same time subsuming that under the Indus Valley narrative - In that all these communities have lived in proximate to the Indus Valley in Pakistan we tried to take that way and instead introduce a one faceted sterile nationalism based around Islam. The framers of this idea never considered to think that if this Islamic identity was comprehensive then there would be no Pakistan. Every single Muslim country from the Atlantic west, Morrocco all 3,000 miles and dozens countries to Pakistan on the east would be one nation, one country. How preposterous.

Even the 1971 rupture did not awake our leadership, instead they increased the dosage even more. Well we know what that led to. A member in these forums perfectly epitomozed the distress we are in by stating in another thread "I would help Saudia Arabia even if my house [Pakistan] was on fire". Sadly this is a sentiment that is often found in Pakistan. There are at least 30 Arab countries in the world, not one was prepared to give refuge to another Arab, OBL because you would be buying American wrath. In Pakistan clearly there were people who were more then prepared to do their bit for the Ummah, so what if their house burn down.

Abdul Qadeer Khan of the nuclear bazaar one level did not do anything wrong which is why he still has strong support within the country. He was just a being a pious Muslim. All AQK did was to "help fellow brothers from the Ummah to withstand the infidels" and why not make a few dollars whilst your pleasing Allah? The fact that he risked Pakistan from being wiped off from the map which is what would have happened if one of his fellow Ummah brothers had managed to develop a nuclear device and god forbid used it against a western target. Pakistan would have been toasted in retaliation. This man put the lives of 180 million Pakistani's at risk but he is a hero in Pakistan. Perverse. But then as I said some here have said they would let their house burn to help the Ummah and sadly this is a common sentiment in Pakistan. There is a thread here by somebozo about the ummah that tackles this phenomenon.

This is what we have built up. I would like to look at how we ended up at this sorry state in another thread. Had we gone in for a proud Pashtun's, Punjabi's, Baloch and Sindh's making these four Muslim groups equal in a synthesised Indus Valley whole branded as Pakistan I have no doubt we would have succeeded by now.

I recall stories of Tipu Sultan. This chap no doubt did lot opf heroics against the British but he was not friom anywhere near the present day Pakistan. Mysore is probably over a thousand miles from Pakistan. So what gives with Tipu? Because he was a Muslim, a member of ummah. But wait if that is your model what stops Muslim heroes from Tataristan,Morocco, Indonesia, Mauritania being included. If you follow the Muslim line you can't then apply secular dividers in place. This is why Pakistan today is a international schizoid nutcase today. Ummah or Pakistan? Pakistan or Unmmah?

My view is rest of the Muslim's are making use of the schizoid. When sh*t happens we are the ummah brothers. When sharing the fruit on the table then it is we are Saudi, Kuwaiti, Omani and you are Pakistani so go way. I am not blaming the 'ummah brothers' but trying to awake Pakistani's to this curse. I remember as a young kid nobody ever my managed to give a satisfactory question to something that bothered me. If Pakistan was a Muslim homeland in theory could all billion Muslim's move to Pakistan? I was never convinced by the 'Muslims of sub continent' thing because there is contradiction in that statement. If you invoke Islam then you can't restrict it with secular division of humanity and 'sub continent' is not a religious Islamic construct but a temporal man made idea. This inherant contradiction created a dynamic and that is biting us in the posterior today.

To be continued .......


bro u have great intellect...... pakistan needs more ppl like u... for me religion is something personal and nationalism is what matters more... nationalism is something which can unite all faiths, tribes.... u very well understand that... great
 
. .
........... Continued.

There might be people here who might be thinking 'What about the 2NT'. Although I have addressed that before but my view is who the flying flick gives a toss anyway in 2012. Except for the Mullah and his victims because it gives him justification to get involved in the running of the state. The Mullah brings up the 'Pakistan ka Matlab' to stick his snout into the trough.

Look guy's the area that is today Pakistan was NOT part of the British India in 1840. If British greed had been satiated by what they had conquered upto 1840, Indus Valley [todays Pakistan] would never have been part of British India and the events of 1947.
So if you guy's think that the 1947 divorce needed some 'ground shaking rational', I ask of you this. How did the marriage of Indus Valley take place with British India in the first place?

Well Jinnah can thank Sir Charles Napier for giving him his finest moment. Napier and a few British gun's were behind the marriage of Sindh to British India in 1843. The Talpur Mir's of Sindh rule ended and she found herself lumped with Bombay Presidency.Why was that FORCED MARRIAGE of Sindh to British India by a Englishman at gunpoint so SACROSANCT? What was the justification in that forced marriage?

All Jinnah did in 1947 was to arrange a divorce settlement exactly 104 years later. Why do people expect a justification for the 1947 divorce but ignore the forced, cruel marriage in 1843 by Napier which cost many Sindhi's their lives? At least the divorce of 1947 was one of choice.

The exact same applies to Punjab, which as we know was ruled by the Sikhs. Sikh rule extended from Punjab well into west all the way to Frontier on the present Afghan border and on the north it included Kashmir. So between the Sikh rule and Talpur Mir's most of Indus Valley [Pakistan] was covered. Again the marriage of Punjab to British India came about because of British greed and done so at gun point. Both Punjab and Sindh saw bloody batles fought and only once defeated did they get annexed. In Punjab's case( that would be all of present day north half of Pakistan ) the forced marruage took place in 1849 exactly 98 years later that marriage was again annuled by Jinnah. Again this annulment was by choice. The 1849 ACTION had a REACTION in 1947.

I go in to detail about this because there is too much pontificating about 1947. Well we don't need to. It happened like 1849 happened. Maybe there was no good reason for 1947 but who cares,. Do we pontificate about the forced marriages of 1840s? Do peole think those forced marriages were good?

More to the point is that we have had some bad luck, dearth of good leaders. I would argue that a good leader is somebody who does the right thing not because at that point in time he may curry some advantage with the electorate. Such a person is not a leader, he is rabble rouser who instead of moulding public opinion to a higher level instead becomes a purveyor of their base desires. An example of this is bhutto who to gain poltical traction outlawed Ahmedi's.

So today I have to admit that with the Mullah in the ascendancy, quarter of the population brain dead it is going to take time to change course but change will happen. It is inevitable, llike tide this also will wash away and the country will reconnect with the land of it's forefathers. Books like the Indus Journey by Aitzaz Ahsan would never have been published by 40 or even 30 years ago. Of course there is going considerable opposition becausde of the lobby that has come about in the last 60 odd yeatrs.
 
.
........... Continued.

There might be people here who might be thinking 'What about the 2NT'. Although I have addressed that before but my view is who the flying flick gives a toss anyway in 2012. Except for the Mullah and his victims because it gives him justification to get involved in the running of the state. The Mullah brings up the 'Pakistan ka Matlab' to stick his snout into the trough.

Look guy's the area that is today Pakistan was NOT part of the British India in 1840. If British greed had been satiated by what they had conquered upto 1840, Indus Valley [todays Pakistan] would never have been part of British India and the events of 1947.
So if you guy's think that the 1947 divorce needed some 'ground shaking rational', I ask of you this. How did the marriage of Indus Valley take place with British India in the first place?

Well Jinnah can thank Sir Charles Napier for giving him his finest moment. Napier and a few British gun's were behind the marriage of Sindh to British India in 1843. The Talpur Mir's of Sindh rule ended and she found herself lumped with Bombay Presidency.Why was that FORCED MARRIAGE of Sindh to British India by a Englishman at gunpoint so SACROSANCT? What was the justification in that forced marriage?

All Jinnah did in 1947 was to arrange a divorce settlement exactly 104 years later. Why do people expect a justification for the 1947 divorce but ignore the forced, cruel marriage in 1843 by Napier which cost many Sindhi's their lives? At least the divorce of 1947 was one of choice.

The exact same applies to Punjab, which as we know was ruled by the Sikhs. Sikh rule extended from Punjab well into west all the way to Frontier on the present Afghan border and on the north it included Kashmir. So between the Sikh rule and Talpur Mir's most of Indus Valley [Pakistan] was covered. Again the marriage of Punjab to British India came about because of British greed and done so at gun point. Both Punjab and Sindh saw bloody batles fought and only once defeated did they get annexed. In Punjab's case( that would be all of present day north half of Pakistan ) the forced marruage took place in 1849 exactly 98 years later that marriage was again annuled by Jinnah. Again this annulment was by choice. The 1849 ACTION had a REACTION in 1947.

I go in to detail about this because there is too much pontificating about 1947. Well we don't need to. It happened like 1849 happened. Maybe there was no good reason for 1947 but who cares,. Do we pontificate about the forced marriages of 1840s? Do peole think those forced marriages were good?

More to the point is that we have had some bad luck, dearth of good leaders. I would argue that a good leader is somebody who does the right thing not because at that point in time he may curry some advantage with the electorate. Such a person is not a leader, he is rabble rouser who instead of moulding public opinion to a higher level instead becomes a purveyor of their base desires. An example of this is bhutto who to gain poltical traction outlawed Ahmedi's.

So today I have to admit that with the Mullah in the ascendancy, quarter of the population brain dead it is going to take time to change course but change will happen. It is inevitable, llike tide this also will wash away and the country will reconnect with the land of it's forefathers. Books like the Indus Journey by Aitzaz Ahsan would never have been published by 40 or even 30 years ago. Of course there is going considerable opposition becausde of the lobby that has come about in the last 60 odd yeatrs.

Excellent thesis, my friend - the Indus man/women is an historical fact - we were and are a unique society, with varying influences and heritages, because of our nearness to Persia and the middle east on one side, central asia and the various stans on the other, and south asia to the east, we have some similarities to all, but are a clone of none.
 
.
Of course everything and anything within the Republic of India is and belongs exclusively to India. I for sure don't expect to make a claim on Taj Mahal for example. ....

In the same way that India has exclusive right to everything within her border we ask in equal measure that you extend that right to our republic, Pakistan.

We shouldn't think in this artificially segmented way. We feel a sense of ownership for Tagore's poetry, Bharatnatyam and Bhangra all at once.

While Chanakya is primarily associated with the establishment of the Mauryan Empire, with its capital in present-day Bihar, we know that he was a Professor at Taksha-shila (Taxila) University for some time. Taxila is also part of our Dharmic heritage.

When you connect with your own ancestral roots, you will begin to recognize your links with art and culture from all parts of the Indic civilizational sphere.
 
.
What needs to be understood, is that we are unique - because we are at the crossroads where different cultures and worlds collide, we are the product of this melting pot, and are an amalgamation of these various influences. Our history needs to be respected as Pakistani history.
 
.
What needs to be understood, is that we are unique - because we are at the crossroads where different cultures and worlds collide, we are the product of this melting pot, and are an amalgamation of these various influences. Our history needs to be respected as Pakistani history.

It is not static.

At one time you were Dharmic, then you went through Islamization.

Your narrative today has evolved from the narrative that was being put forward in 1947.

The evolutionary process will continue.
 
.
If you really wanted the Dharmic heritage, what India calls itself should not stop you, any more than it stops the Nepalese.

When you say that India's name is a problem, you are putting the cart before the horse.

What came first is the Islamization process, under the shadow of invasions. Over some generations, it led to weakening of civilizational memories and a hostile rejection of Dharma. Possibly, the hostile rejection was a psychological response to the trauma suffered.

The hostile rejection in turn led to the partition of 1947, wherein half of Punjab, half of Bengal and Sindh joined Pakistan. The newly created nation quickly became enmeshed in conflicts with its neighbour.

In 2012, there may be, in a very very small segment of the population, a sense of dissatisfaction with Islamization and Islamic nationalism, and an openness to the ancestral heritage that was rejected.

But even for these people, conflict with India may have become an end in itself, which is why the Dharmic heritage is hard to accept if it is linked with the name India.

I say unto these people - let not what India calls itself stop you from embracing your heritage. It was the rejection of that heritage that led to the conflict with India, and your rediscovery of that heritage will facilitate peace.

In fact, if it helps, go ahead and call our political entity Bharat, by all means. Nobody will object, certainly not the saffron crowd. It is a legitimate constituted alternative to India, after all.

Only don't call us Bharati, as some guttersnipes do, in order to provoke. After the 100th such, we will retaliate, with the P word, and your Mods will then wake up, ignore the prior insults and hand out infractions.
 
.
........... Continued.

There might be people here who might be thinking 'What about the 2NT'. Although I have addressed that before but my view is who the flying flick gives a toss anyway in 2012. Except for the Mullah and his victims because it gives him justification to get involved in the running of the state. The Mullah brings up the 'Pakistan ka Matlab' to stick his snout into the trough.

Look guy's the area that is today Pakistan was NOT part of the British India in 1840. If British greed had been satiated by what they had conquered upto 1840, Indus Valley [todays Pakistan] would never have been part of British India and the events of 1947.
So if you guy's think that the 1947 divorce needed some 'ground shaking rational', I ask of you this. How did the marriage of Indus Valley take place with British India in the first place?

Well Jinnah can thank Sir Charles Napier for giving him his finest moment. Napier and a few British gun's were behind the marriage of Sindh to British India in 1843. The Talpur Mir's of Sindh rule ended and she found herself lumped with Bombay Presidency.Why was that FORCED MARRIAGE of Sindh to British India by a Englishman at gunpoint so SACROSANCT? What was the justification in that forced marriage?

All Jinnah did in 1947 was to arrange a divorce settlement exactly 104 years later. Why do people expect a justification for the 1947 divorce but ignore the forced, cruel marriage in 1843 by Napier which cost many Sindhi's their lives? At least the divorce of 1947 was one of choice.

The exact same applies to Punjab, which as we know was ruled by the Sikhs. Sikh rule extended from Punjab well into west all the way to Frontier on the present Afghan border and on the north it included Kashmir. So between the Sikh rule and Talpur Mir's most of Indus Valley [Pakistan] was covered. Again the marriage of Punjab to British India came about because of British greed and done so at gun point. Both Punjab and Sindh saw bloody batles fought and only once defeated did they get annexed. In Punjab's case( that would be all of present day north half of Pakistan ) the forced marruage took place in 1849 exactly 98 years later that marriage was again annuled by Jinnah. Again this annulment was by choice. The 1849 ACTION had a REACTION in 1947.

I go in to detail about this because there is too much pontificating about 1947. Well we don't need to. It happened like 1849 happened. Maybe there was no good reason for 1947 but who cares,. Do we pontificate about the forced marriages of 1840s? Do peole think those forced marriages were good?

More to the point is that we have had some bad luck, dearth of good leaders. I would argue that a good leader is somebody who does the right thing not because at that point in time he may curry some advantage with the electorate. Such a person is not a leader, he is rabble rouser who instead of moulding public opinion to a higher level instead becomes a purveyor of their base desires. An example of this is bhutto who to gain poltical traction outlawed Ahmedi's.

So today I have to admit that with the Mullah in the ascendancy, quarter of the population brain dead it is going to take time to change course but change will happen. It is inevitable, llike tide this also will wash away and the country will reconnect with the land of it's forefathers. Books like the Indus Journey by Aitzaz Ahsan would never have been published by 40 or even 30 years ago. Of course there is going considerable opposition becausde of the lobby that has come about in the last 60 odd yeatrs.

My disagreement with what you have written above is your careful selection of dates along which to cut. Before 1757, and the bribery, forgery of each other's signatures, and multiple betrayals by our own ruling aristocracy, Bengal was not British. Nor was Assam, nor Bihar nor Odisha, nor Rohilkhand, heavens, not Delhi itself, not the hinterland from which Napier marched on Sind, not Rajasthan, not Gwalior, nor Indore nor Baroda......

Select a spot even 20 years earlier and the position changes even more dramatically. Other than three specks on the wall, the British held nothing. What would they have had to do in 1947 if they were dealing with either of these two situations?

Excellent thesis, my friend - the Indus man/women is an historical fact - we were and are a unique society, with varying influences and heritages, because of our nearness to Persia and the middle east on one side, central asia and the various stans on the other, and south asia to the east, we have some similarities to all, but are a clone of none.

And the same can be said of a half-dozen other river-valleys where south Asian civilization flourished. So what? Each had unique characteristics, each also shared characteristics with other sub-cultures in the group.

We shouldn't think in this artificially segmented way. We feel a sense of ownership for Tagore's poetry, Bharatnatyam and Bhangra all at once.

While Chanakya is primarily associated with the establishment of the Mauryan Empire, with its capital in present-day Bihar, we know that he was a Professor at Taksha-shila (Taxila) University for some time. Taxila is also part of our Dharmic heritage.

When you connect with your own ancestral roots, you will begin to recognize your links with art and culture from all parts of the Indic civilizational sphere.

We have Sankaracharya from Kerala tramping all over India the geography, preaching against the heretics, and shepherding the intellectuals back into Saivism; we have Atish Dipankar in the 13th century moving from his remote east Bengal village to proselytize all over again in Tibet. We have a Karnataka princeling with nothing much to do in his own land migrate to Bengal (look at the map to see the distances involved) and set up an imperial dynasty. We have the most brilliant theologian of the Buddhists, Nagarjuna, emerging in the Deccan.

I'm not convinced that a feel for the huge similarities have really got home to the Indus Men.
 
.
and if we wanna put in order ........ bharat came first .... then came british india.... and then pakistan... i dont intend to hurt any of my pakistani brothers.... this is the order in which these words came to existense... and no doubt todays pakistan was the region where rig veda had been first written. i wanna say we all share common heritage... and this can mark a new beginning in indo-pakistan relations
 
.
.
OT - Different chapters of the Rig Veda appear to be have been written in different places and at different times. The oldest ones were written in the Yamuna-Saraswati region. Some chapters do appear to have been written in today's Pakistan.

See Koenraad Elst: A great book about the Great Book

May I disagree?

There is enough evidence to prove that parts of the Rg Veda were written when linguistically Vedic Sanskrit, or the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-Iranian was in a state of linguistic proximity with central Iranian. Certainly far from the Yamuna-Saraswati belt, if the Saraswati actually existed. Following from that, later portions may have been written in the northern part of the Indus Valley.

Koenraad Elst is an arch-Druid from the OOI faction and far from universally acceptable as an objective analyst.
 
.

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom