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

[Rig Vedic]

Austerlitz: If the Sindhi's who live near Mohenjo Daro or the Punjabi's who live next to Harrapa are not the successors to the people who built them, with respect who is? The Eskimos? The Yakuts? Or possibly the inhabitants of Andaman Islands? It is plausible to assume that the people who in live in the Indus Valley ( that would mostly be Paklistan ) at present are the direct descendants of the original people of the Indus Valley unless or otherwise you have irrefutable proof that the the original population was en masse wiped out or moved out.

One can claim cultural inheritance only if you keep the traditions alive.

For example, the Vedic traditions are very much alive in India.

As regards the IVC ... was it Vedic?

The internal evidence of the Rig Veda and the Avesta suggests that there was a westward expansion of the Vedic influence from the Yamuna-Saraswati basin.

The residents of the IVC may have had links with the proto-Elamite, Dravidian, and Vedic peoples.
One Vedic connection that is proved relates to the units of measurement used - the units used in Harappa, as deduced from the dimensions of excavated structures, are the same as the units used for traditional Indic construction across the Indian subcontinent.

See this excellent paper by Michael Danino: The Metrology behind Harappan Town Planning - http://www.ncsm.org.in/science_pdf/The Metrology Behind Harappan Town Michel Dadino.pdf

 

[Rig Vedic]

Yes, but what I meant was local usage of the term. Foreigners had been using it for centuries, but it was only during British rule that we started using it to describe ourselves.

It is similar to how Germany is both Germany and Deutschland. A matter of convenience.

But the point being made by Atanz & Co - that the term India should refer to only the Indus Valley, and that usage of that term amounts to "stealing Pakistan's heritage" is wrong on multiple counts.

 

[KS]

But the point being made by Atanz & Co - that the term India should refer to only the Indus Valley, and that usage of that term amounts to "stealing Pakistan's heritage" is wrong on multiple counts.

BTW Indus flows through Indian territory before even entering Pakistani territory.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

BTW Indus flows through Indian territory before even entering Pakistani territory.

How many times do I have to say I am not ASKING FOR THE NAME INDIA. You keep it. You suck it. It is the claim on our heritage under the banner or pretext of 'India' that I have a issue with.

Rig Vedic: You can stuff that link you gave me up the your posterior. That Michel Danino is a Indophile. The exact type that peddle the Saraswati pipedream by marking dots on a map for a few Rupees.. He is one of those third rate rent a hour academics I described in one of my of previous posts.

KS: I know River Indus goes through Ladakh and do you know that before that it is in China? So? Did you know that Nile flows in Ethiopa or Sudan? So?

I read Joe's post. Now that has me scratching, no worries. I need to do some research and then will post a riposte to Joe. He has had years lead on me. I also need a lapdog like Joe has Austerlitz. Any takers? Ha Ha Ha.

I have had bare 4 hours sleep. Off to work now.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Can people please note the following;

1. I am NOT saying that Pakistan should have got the name 'India'. That was a 5,000 years old brand and fact was Bharat was bigger then us so she obviously deserved to get the name, please refer back my point about some things CAN NOT be apportioned. I gave the example of horse, the UN seat. In the same way the brand 'India' could not be apportioned. Bharat had right to it, simply because it was bigger then Pakistan. So I am NOT fr*gg*n saying 73 years after the fact that we should have got the name. NO. Do I make myself clear? I am trying to remedy the distorted history that has been created by using the name India. END OFF.

We understand that the confusion about identity, according to you, lies in the confusion about nomenclature. You are exercised about the identity confusion alone, and not so much about the nomenclature. Fair enough. Enough of us have addressed that, and it seems to be reasonably well understood what you were driving at.

2. Too many people seem to be missing the wood for the tree. If people bother to read my introduction to this thread and if they have the intellect and more importantly are prepared take their heads out the **** then you will see the where I am trying take this.

This was your introduction

A question arose in another thread thats quite interesting. Which is did Pakistan get partitioned from India? I noticed the majority view amongst the Indian's was their country 'India' was carved up..

I absolutely reject this contention. My view is that a territory was divided into two states from British India which is not the exact same entity as today's Indian Union.

I stated in my previous argument that at the heart of this fallacy is that it was not 'India' as in the present Indian Union that was divided in 1947 and that this misunderstanding rests in the nomenclature. This untruth has been peddled since 1947 and today it's almost accepted as a given.

Your point is well understood.

3. I knew I was going to have problem with this on both sides. On the Bharat side the Indian gov., has been busy trying to construct a national indentity under the brand 'India and I it has succeeded. At heart of this is a fairy tale of IVC, India and differant mumbo jumbo from various Hindu scriptures ( as if these are referance material ) but there is some problems. Like the fact that Indus and most of the IVC sites are in Pakistan. No problem, in almost what can be described as comical some jokers have come up with the mythical 'Saraswati' to justify the existance of IVC in Bharat.

4. This Saraswati appears to be comical attempt to say " Hey the fr*gg*m rivers have changed course so guess what? In the old days this Saraswati River flowed through Bharat into the Arabian Sea and no Indus never flowed through Pakistan. When I came across this mythical river first I laughed till I almost cracked my ribs. I expect any one of these days some dodgy archaeologist from some third rate Western University come to Bharat, do you dodgy research and claim that in the old days apparently the River Indus disgorged into Haryana east of Chandigarh and then rolled down south west towards Rajasthan desert and into Gujrat.

5. Then claim a titanic crack appeared in the Himalyas and Indus flowed west. All he has do then is find some voodoo referance in some voodoo scipture then do a few digs along the way and hey presto publish a book. Such a book would get a better reception in India then a bottle of hard cidar would to some alchoholic. The said archaelogist would make tidy sum out of such a book. Then you would have Wikipedia being jammed with all sort garbage.

It is good that you got a good laugh out of this, although why the subject came up is unclear. The important part is about the Saraswati River and its historical, cultural and political context.

The Saraswati River is still unproven, but the burden of evidence is enormous. There is considerable evidence that the Ghaggar, Ghagra, Hakra or similarly named river flowed into the Rajasthan Desert, and joined the Indus very late in its flow.

The purpose that this re-discovery has been put to is nowhere very clear. Apparently some sections hope to claim that part of the IVC flourished on what is now territory of the Republic of India.

This is so juvenile. Extensive IVC sites are already present in Gujarat, for instance, and in any case, the directly descended from the IVC is primitive and otherwise quite funny.

So no, I was not surprised that my argument would get the Indian's red in the face because it would go against everything thats been pressure stuffed into their heads. Only a few with sufficient calibre of thought and reason might be able to look at my argument, untrammeled by previous conditioning.

It is absolutly pathetic how somebody from Cape Comorin or Shillong can crow on and get all bloated about IVC when they have nothing to crow about.

Why should this be pathetic? How do we surgically slice apart each aspect of Indian culture into geographical slices? Should I be barred from claiming the heritage of the Taj Mahal, or the temples of Varanasi, or the plethora of architectural marvels in the south, just because I am born Bengali?

Incidentally, while born a Bengali, I was born at Bellary, in the south. Does that give me a pre-emptive claim on Hampi and the Chalukya temples of Belur and Halebid?

I reject the attempt at micronising Indian culture, as much as I reject attempts to distance me from the IVC. I am as much an heir as the peasant ploughing his fields next to the IVC remains. In genetic terms, there is no difference betweent that farmer and I. How is he an heir? Simply due to proximity?

I am reminded of Felix Leiter's wisdom, "Nothing propinks like propinquity."

In reality, however, individuals from Cape Comorin, from Shillong and from Sindh or the Punjab have each of them as much, or as little right to the heritage of the IVC as any other.

Yet the Sindhi or the Punjabi farmer ploughing his field in Pakistan within sight of Mohenjo Daro and Harrapa watering their fields from the Indus River have no recognition. Yet they are the direct descendants, it was their forefathers that built those cities with bare hands of IVC. Let us not forget Mehr Garh in Balochistan.

Umm - what recognition is sought, precisely? Could we also put in our bids? Will shawls be given away? A memorial plaque perhaps, something for the mantelpiece?

Don't anybody here dare mention religion. There is such a thing as evolution, yes waves of conquerors have come and they have probably heavily influenced the genetic pool but that is history, continous change, evolution in play. The Ancient Egyptians were not Muslim, the ancient Greeks were not Christians yet nobody can say to them you 'can't' claim that legacy or that your not the direct inheritors of those civilizations.

Again, nobody had dared to mention this; this had occurred to none but you. Just as the quest for Pakistani self-respect is generated entirely within Pakistani breasts.

Amongst the Pakistani's of course I also will have problems in particular the hirsute variety. They of course have had their brains mushed with 73 yeats with garbage about 'my forefathers were sat on the boat from Arabia next to Bin Qasim when he invaded Sindh'.

A quibble. bin Qasim invaded by the land route. His uncle was the governor of Persia.

According to this narrative 180 million Pakistani's dropped from the sky in 1947 on Pakistan or alternatively landed on the Sindh coast from Arabia in 9th century . So we are all Arabs. Great. Bravo. That fr*gg*n figuers.

That is also heap of shite, through and through.

That is why I know my argument would not resonate with many people on both sides of the border because it shakes their worldview. So in summary I am not saying to Bharat give us the brand name 'India'.

NO.

The thrust of my post is that we in Pakistan have the mighty majestic Indus, which is to Pakistan what Nile is to Egypt. Without this river there would be no Pakistan and we should be proud of the ancient civilzation it bore. It is our heritage. It was our forefather's who built IVC 5,000 years ago.

This is complete nonsense. Pakistan as a homeland, as a separation out of India, had NOTHING to do with the Indus or with the Indus Valley Civilisation. What was sought with the creation of Muslim homelands was the preservation of Muslim culture and society, an insulation of these from the impact of majoritarian abrasion in a free India.

If the fears and misgivings of the Muslim community had not crystallised at the time of the first Partition of Bengal, there might have been no Pakistan. Irrespective of the IVC. Irrespective of the Indus.

If the concentration of Muslims had not been high in the north-west in particular, there might have been no Pakistan there, and no effort therefore to sequester whatever cultural heritage and legacy was available in that geography and claim it to be exclusively Pakistani.

By this token, if Pakistan had been constituted in the UP and Bihar, we would now be informed that the temples of Varanasi, the heritage of the Buddha and Mahavira, the Maurya and Gupta Empires were all Pakistani, not Indian. The Ganges and the Yamuna would have then found their true place as icons of Pakistani history, and alien to India.

Does that even begin to sound reasonable to you? If not, what sanctifies the identical posture taken about the IVC and about the river Indus?

Let us take it in our hands, lets us celebrate it, let us go out there and see the wonder that was Mohenjo Daro, Harrapa and Taxila. The Greek remains in the Taxila area just 30 miles east of Islamabad. That is us, that is our identity. Claim it.

I have gone there, I have seen Greek coins. You can almost feel the past come alive there. People you wil be proud. Yes, I know Panini sat there and did his work on the banks of Indus.

Yes, we are Muslims but let us not ignore our forefathers. That was the basic message of my post. Those who can contribute go ahead, if you can't toss off. I am not forcing you to read this.

Honestly speaking, an earnest attempt at forcing open an open door.

Nobody stopped Pakistanis from claiming the heritage of the Indian civilisation as their own. As you have pointed out, most Pakistanis are of indigenous extraction, and physically heirs of those who had built Indian civilisation in eras gone by. Nothing stops you from embracing this legacy except the muddle inside your own heads. If you cannot decide that this is yours, we cannot decide for you. If you decide that it is yours, we cannot deny it.

Joe,

To me, the use of 'India' as the name lies at the core of the debate.

We accept that India legally took the name of British India, but my contention is that, by doing so, it implicitly stole Pakistan's share of the heritage because the world equates that heritage with the word 'India'.

This is amazing.

How can we take your heritage from you? If you were to stand in front of the great fort of Gwalior, or of Chitor, or the great temple at Tanjore, and proclaim that it is part of your heritage, do you think other than Hindutva fringe elements anyone would even raise an eyebrow? Wouldn't that claim be self-evident?

 

[Joe Shearer]

india was not a country till 47

Pakistan attained independence first, and it was from britisher-controlled (OCCUPIED) conglomeration of states, princely states and autonomous self-ruled areas

<sigh>

India was at one and the same time a geographical expression, a civilisation and a culture and a nation. Here you are referring to it as a nation; that does not make the other expressions vanish.

Further, the British called their conglomeration India, and they handed over independence to that India.

Pakistan did not attain independence first, as if that matters. The statutory date of independence was the 15th of August, not the 14th. The celebrations had to be conducted on the 14th, due to Mountbatten's desire to be present at New Delhi the next day. That ceremonial occasion has no statutory validity. You may or may not know that the celebration the next year was planned for the 15th, but kept to the 14th to distinguish the Pakistani Independence Day from the Indian.

 

[karan.1970]

<sigh>

Pakistan did not attain independence first, as if that matters. The statutory date of independence was the 15th of August, not the 14th. The celebrations had to be conducted on the 14th, due to Mountbatten's desire to be present at New Delhi the next day.

Didnt know that.. Does that mean that the 1st independence celebration in Pakistan were done while it was still under British rule ???

 

[Joe Shearer]

Please guy's come on! Can we stay focussed on the title of thread? Does it mention anything about ethnic composition of Pakistan?
I opened a serious thread and I don't have much time. There is ton of garbage on top of the serious posts that I need to handle and it wastes my time going through all the shite.

Joe-S: I will go through to the links and tackle the points you have brought up but I will say the UN is not a court. As you know very well its subject to world politics and things can go anyway as we know how Iraq/WMD was treated. Another example I doubt very much if the vote for or against the establishment of Isreal would go the way it did in 1948.

I would like you to consider that the vote was taken after a detailed investigation by the office of the Secretary General, not a politically driven office at that time. It was not a populist matter, and there were those who backed Zaffrullah Khan's stand, but were persuaded otherwise by the Secretary-General's findings.

And I take it that 'humility' was a dig against me, yeh sure I am a arrogant bastard. Nothing to be ashamed of. Now on the subject of Jinnah (n gonna get killed for this ) we South Asian's have habit of elevating people to some godly status or we flog them. Fact is he was a human, fact is he made mistakes. He was not half as smart as his worshippers claim and not half as bad as his detractors would have us believe. He was right man at the right place at the right time.

The humility was entirely with reference to myself. No digs, no sly ones, none whatever.

Yes, I got annoyed not because I can't deal with anything you or anybody else throws here but because I don't have much time, when I get here I tend to be knackered and then I find pile of crap has been deposited on the thread. It annoys having to sift trough post after post of garbage. I reckon there is only about dozen posts here that are relevant and or making me scratch my head. Rest are just pea headed comments or even relevant. It is like trying to have a serious debate amidst hundreds of nutters continously interjecting.

I may take time but I wil reply to anything that shakes my argument. On another note another Indian mentioned Indian Defence Forum so I checked them out. Must admit it appeared very well organized and I was even thinking of joining asnd putting my ideas there but hell the 'Pakistan' section was full of abuse .......... Pak* this and Pak* that. Por*istan seems to another one. Those mods. there need to get a grip on people. Suddenly I did not feel too guilty about my propensity to be harsh.

If you are talking about Bharat Rakshak, it is loathesome. Technically excellent, but racist and xenophobic to the core. Don't even think about it.

 

[KS]

How can we take your heritage from you? If you were to stand in front of the great fort of Gwalior, or of Chitor, or the great temple at Tanjore, and proclaim that it is part of your heritage, do you think other than Hindutva fringe elements anyone would even raise an eyebrow? Wouldn't that claim be self-evident?

It would be a cold day in hell before a Pakistani Muslim stands in front of the Brihadeeswara Temple and proclaims it as a part of his heritage. Even if some one claims it, he is just out of his mind.

What about the Hindutva fringe elements ? Any person with an iota of common sense will laugh at that attempt. Keep glorifying killers like Abdali, Ghaznavi, Ghori, Babur etc on one side and oh-so-cutely claim the same heritage that those barbarians tried [in vain] to finish off completely.Does anyone see the sense in it..for I don't see any.

Pakistan's identity is Islam. It starts and ends with it. Attempts on latching onto the pre-Islamic heritage that they disowned till now, for valid reason,a heritage that is all but absent in Pakistan, after failed attempts at marketing themselves as an extension of Central Asia or Middle East is nothing but lame.

 

[Joe Shearer]

We've been through this. It's a circular argument: India is a valid name because it's in the Constitution, and it's in the Constitution because it is a valid name.

Not so.

The name came from the colony that gained independence. Some members of the Constituent Assembly protested; they wanted a wholly indigenous name as well, one not tainted with the British legacy or with memories of foreign rule. Additional names were inserted. The only valid name was India, at that time. There was nothing stopping Pakistan from adopting the name Western India, or North West Indial; after all, until the 1956 constitution, the eastern province was known as East Bengal, not East Pakistan.

Islam might be the odd one out, in india - (I pity the hundred million Muslims in your country with that mind set) - but Islam is part and parcel of our identity.



Again stupid assumptions, we are taught to be proud of Porus and the IVC and the thousands of years of OUR history. And they don't belong to india, but us the sons of the soil. What right does a Tamil have to the IVC nothing at all.

That is not at all so evident. There is strong evidence that the language used in the Indus Valley at the time of the IVC was Tamil. Strangely for your argument, the Tamilian might have a better right to claim the IVC as his or her legacy than present residents of the area, who have been descended from several waves of immigrants, including those who later became known as Jats; descendants of the Scythians, Parthians and Kushana, and the White Huns. Others whose descent is traced to these immigrations are the Rajputs and the Gujjars. While their legacy dates back, perhaps, to these immigrants, the original Dravidian speaking inhabitants were pushed back, and converted from Dravidian speech, until they were confined to the lower one-third of India.

You are not a descendant of the son of the soil who built the IVC. The Tamilian might be.

Again people, I opened this thread and I know what my intent was. I am NOT saying that Bharat can't use the the name 'India'. I am NOT saying Pakistan should HAVE got that name in 1947 and I am NOT saying we want the name 'India' now. No sir, it is yours now to keep.

What I am saying ( that was my intent behind the initiating post ) is Bharat stop using thr name 'India' as a cover and excuse to rape our heritage - That is the 5,000 years of the Indus Valley Civilization which today is manifested in the nation state called Pakistan.

Again for those who are deaf and dumb ( or blind ) in bold letters ..........

THIS THREAD IS ABOUT HOW BHARAT HAS USED THE NAME INDIA TO RAPE OUR HERITAGE BASED ON NOTHING BUT A NAME. I USED THE WORD NOMENCLATURE HOAX.

and again I will say by our heritage I mean the Indus Valley, all the 5,000 years of drama played out in the Indus Valley starting from Mohenjo Daro and on and on and on through the millenia to 1947 and today's Pakistan. Lest anybody have issues about where the fr*gg*in Indus Valley is please consult a decent map and you will find Pakistan sits atop the Indus Valley region.

Yes, some incidental zones extend into India or even Afghanistan. EXAMPLE: The Kabul Valley and the River Kabul flow into the Indus Valley but that does not make Afghanistan a Indus Valley state. In the same way some parts of Indian Punjab or extremities of Rajasthan flow into the Indus Valley and even part of Tibet flows into the Indus Valley but that is incidental.Non of them are Indus Valley states.

Why because Indian Punjab is tiny part India ............ therefore it is i-n-c-d-e-n-t-a-l to the Indus Valley.

Therefore PAKISTAN = INDUS VALLEY = PAKISTAN.

So stop spoiling this thread with irrelevant garbage.

Let us address this separately. At the onset of the day, with a dozen other tasks demanding attention, it is not the best time to ponder over the legacy of a lost civilisation from 4,000 years or more ago.

Didnt know that.. Does that mean that the 1st independence celebration in Pakistan were done while it was still under British rule ???

Technically, yes.

It would be a cold day in hell before a Pakistani Muslim stands in front of the Brihadeeswara Temple and proclaims it as a part of his heritage. Even if some one claims it, he is just out of his mind.

What about the Hindutva fringe elements ? Any person with an iota of common sense will laugh at that attempt. Keep glorifying killers like Abdali, Ghaznavi, Ghori, Babur etc on one side and oh-so-cutely claim the same heritage that those barbarians tried [in vain] to finish off completely.Does anyone see the sense in it..for I don't see any.

Pakistan's identity is Islam. It starts and ends with it. Attempts on latching onto the pre-Islamic heritage that they disowned till now, for valid reason,a heritage that is all but absent in Pakistan, after failed attempts at marketing themselves as an extension of Central Asia or Middle East is nothing but lame.

Permit me this quibble - Pakistan's heritage and identity is Islam. It need not be the only facet of a Pakistani's heritage. To an individual, as distinct from an individual, there are several affilliations which need to be acknowledged. A Pakistani, depending on his or her exact circumstances, may be a Muslim, a Sindhi, a Shia, all together. There is no contradiction.

 

[Developereo]

The Vedic civilization that you people claim to have originated somewhere in Pak is all but dead in Pakistan but thrives in India. So in that sense we were the inheritors of not only the name India, but also the civilization, the heritage, the tradition - anything associated with the pre-Islamic events on the land that comprises present day Pakistan.

How is this different from India claiming to be the cradle of Buddhism when there are precious few Buddhists in India today compared to elsewhere?

How can we take your heritage from you? If you were to stand in front of the great fort of Gwalior, or of Chitor, or the great temple at Tanjore, and proclaim that it is part of your heritage, do you think other than Hindutva fringe elements anyone would even raise an eyebrow? Wouldn't that claim be self-evident?

There is a difference. What you are describing is how a Cambodian Hindu or a Chinese Buddhist might act in India.

What we are talking about is removing the misapprehension that Harappa and Mohenjodaro are in "India".

 

[KS]

Permit me this quibble - Pakistan's heritage and identity is Islam. It need not be the only facet of a Pakistani's heritage. To an individual, as distinct from an individual, there are several affilliations which need to be acknowledged. A Pakistani, depending on his or her exact circumstances, may be a Muslim, a Sindhi, a Shia, all together. There is no contradiction.

There is a contradiction in glorifying Hitler and at the same time trying to take ownership of German Jewish achievements. It has to be either one side - not both at the same time.

As long as Pakistanis identify and glorify their present set of heroes, they are glorifying everything that the Indian civilization did NOT stand for and hence their claim of ownership or atleast joint ownership invites nothing but ridicule.

Pakistan was formed in the name of Islam - on the premise Islamic culture is completely different from the native way of life, that they cannot co-exist together and as such it is absolutely foolish for them to even have the cheek to lay a claim on the pre-Islamic heritage. It defeats the very reason of the creation of Pakistan. Anywho Jahilya is something to be ashamed of and not to be looked up with pride.

How is this different from India claiming to be the cradle of Buddhism when there are precious few Buddhists in India today compared to elsewhere?

Indians dont go about glorifying invaders who tried to wipe out Buddhism from India - the likes of Bakthiyar Khilji etc.

We dont glorify or go about naming our missiles, tanks etc after invaders who tried their level best to wipe out the same 'heritage' you try to claim ownership on.

 

[Developereo]

Pakistan's identity is Islam. It starts and ends with it. Attempts on latching onto the pre-Islamic heritage that they disowned till now, for valid reason,a heritage that is all but absent in Pakistan, after failed attempts at marketing themselves as an extension of Central Asia or Middle East is nothing but lame.

The Brits value Stonehenge as well as St. Augustine. The Swedes value Vikings as well as Christian saints.

Why does it have to be either/or?

 

[Developereo]

Indians dont go about glorifying invaders who tried to wipe out Buddhism from India - the likes of Bakthiyar Khilji etc.

We dont glorify or go about naming our missiles, tanks etc after invaders who tried their level best to wipe out the same 'heritage' you try to claim ownership on.

Buddhism was in decline from 2nd century, long before Islam ever set foot in the region. You can no more claim to be hospitable to Buddhism than you can berate Islamic invasions.

It doesn't matter whom one glorifies or not; are you going to administer a litmus test and say only people who don't glorify X and Y can lay claim to IVC?

If Buddhism is all but extinct in India while billions practice it elsewhere, then, by your logic, India cannot lay claim to that heritage.

Maybe they don't have the concept of Jahilya or the Stonehenge civilization is not alive and kicking elsewhere for those people to strip the Britons of their claims ?

So the Chinese can snatch your claims to be the cradle of Buddhism?

Because that is the premise on which your country was formed - that the Islamic way of life and the native way of life cannot co-opt and are different. Because your current set of 'heroes' are the ones who tried to wipe [in vain] the very heritage you now try to claim.

Pakistan's raison d'être is to be a safe haven for Muslims from fear of persecution. It does not imply rejection of pre-Islamic heritage.

 

[KS]

Buddhism was in decline from 2nd century, long before Islam ever set foot in the region. You can no more claim to be hospitable to Buddhism than you can berate Islamic invasions.

The date is wrong as Buddhism was alive and kicking well in the subcontinent atleast till the 8th century till the Bhakti movement of Shri Adi Shankaracharya. Buddhism never faced a organized orgy of violence and carnage in India like it faced at the hands of Islamic invaders like Khilji. Anyway that is different topic.

It doesn't matter whom one glorifies or not;

Oh it does matter - very much. If some one claims to idolize Hitler and at the same time tries to lay claims to the achievements of German Jews like Einstein, then there can nothing more disingenuous than that.

Your heroes -the Abdalis, the Ghaznis, the Ghoris are the absolute opposite of anything the Indian civilization stood for. You cannot treat them as heros and at the same time lay claim over this.

As said Pakistan's raison d' etre and Pakistanis' identity is Islam. Leave the Jahilya and others to us.