Gautam
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Lol and aliens lived in those civilisations?
nope - Indians lived there as this land was not called pakistan at that time.
Pakistani Identity's Claim On Indian Heritage
- Thread starter Joe Shearer
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nope - Indians lived there as this land was not called pakistan at that time.
Sadly I wish the first part of your statement was correct.. although the gap is shortening.
But "liberals" of which I am accused of being part of dont think along these lines.. they have slightly more secular approaches.
indushek
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I wish you and your country god speed in bridging this gap you talk, and i know that my country needs it too.
A more secular approach ?? I would love to know what that is. And let me say some thing, not many people think like you and certain others here (Muse for one and some others) where i mean introspection and the courage to call spade a spade. So whatever people accuse you of, you are doing fine in thinking and i expect in personal life too.
Don't take this as flattery i think only few can think like this, and i mean from all sides.
Pakistan's heritage is perfectly clear to me, but Santro's post was not alluding to heritage, but other things which I responded to.
There is no doubt that there was a period of "Islamic extremism" that was instituted into Pakistani society during the end 70s, starting 80s during Zia ul-Haq's time in the Afghan Soviet War. I am only debating on his sequence of events, & the flawed arguments he made. Pakistan had never used Islam or "Jihadism" as a "political instrument" in the region before the Afghan-Soviet war, & the movement in Kashmir became militant in the 90s. But that's a different matter.
How did Urdu become the national language of Pakistan, even though it is native to only 7-8% of the Pakistani population? Jinnah wanted a secular Pakistan, because he thought India would not be a secular state, he envisaged that India would eventually become a Hindu dominant state. But as India tried to embrace secularism, the Deobandis thought that if Pakistan did the same, there would have been no reason for the creation of Pakistan in the first place. The Pakistani Establishment started accepting this idea, to have a distinct identity from India, as it would not jeopardize Pakistan's existence in the long run. I am not trying to justify this thought process, neither do I agree with it, but this is what they thought. . If you listen to the Deobandis in India speak, you will see that the reason they opposed the creation of Pakistan was because it would end their chances of making India a "Muslim/Islamic state". They have always wanted to convert India into a "Muslim/Islamic state", where the majority of the population would be Muslims, & that is why they opposed the creation of Pakistan, which Jinnah wanted to build along secular lines.
There are multiple interpretations of the exact timeline mentioned in the Abrahamic religions. So it is not a good gauge or a subject for an analogy.
Pfpilot
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May I add, as another who is constantly labelled as a liberal, any divergence of opinion from the concept of the Islamic Republic puts a person in the liberal camp according to many. It is not the religion I oppose, considering myself a proud Muslim, but its the involvement of that religion in every facet of Pakistani life and bureaucracy that is deeply disturbing.
Our conflicts are based in religion, our laws are based in religion, our allegiances are based in religion, our economics at the grass roots level is based in religion, our education is based in religion. As far as the government of Pakistan representing Pakistanis is concerned; well depending on what culture they belong to, different portions of the masses identify with them...a losing cause for any government that wants to do real good (were we lucky enough to gain a leader with foresight and selflessness), since they will always come across as overlooking the interests of certain regions. People see what they want to see; it's only if we recognize ourselves as Pakistanis first, will we see a Pakistani government that reflects us all. Until then, it is a merely a vehicle for Punjabi, Balochi, Sindhi, Mohajir interests...the hypocrisy of the regional and narrow minded viewpoint of our people.
rajnikant
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jealous my...my..do u hav anything to get jealous...lol..troll..acche khase thread ki laga di isne.true....indians think we are claiming what physically existed in kerala or mumbai..
Pakistanis only claim what existed in their hometowns 5 years ago or 5 thousand years ago...and since everything famous was present in Pakistan....indians are jealous and in a mood to troll.
i was reading and was amused from some comments..but as soon as he landed..thats it ..party over..@OP nice thread...with good to read comments..thx
The land of Pakistan is centuries old, & just because the name of Pakistan wasn't adopted till about half a century ago, it does not mean that Pakistan does not have its ancient heritage. For heaven's sake, there was no one nation called India prior to 1947, it was called the Indian subcontinent, which extended from present day Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, parts of Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar; not the same as India today. They have as much right to the ancient heritage of the Indian subcontinent as present day India has. Just because the 64 year old country adopted the name "India" (& others didn't) does not mean they are the sole owners of the heritage of the entire region.
Yes, & we have the people of Pakistan who do not want to make themselves heard that play a big part in that. The silent majority.
But it was not institutionalized the way it has been during Zia ul-Haq's time & after that. Please read my Post # 127 carefully, & think about it, & you'll see why Pakistan "Islamized" the way it did post 1947. Just see the kind of liberal & secular crowds Pakistan had in the 50s & 60s to see what I am talking about.
I am a Bihari, with my father (& his entire family & relatives) who spent his entire childhood & youth in Bangladesh, I know exactly what happened. The people in West Pakistan were not aware of the ground conditions & the realities in the East, & were cut off from them.
They are more comfortable speaking their own languages, but they don't have a problem speaking Urdu, or understanding it.
I've worked in Jamshoro & other parts of Sindh, I've traveled all over the country as well. I'm a "Mohajir" from Karachi that was raised in Punjabi, & traveled to NWFP excessively as well. I've even been to Balochistan a few times as well going for Ziarat in Iran, as well as the Northern Areas. Sindhis are proud of their ethnic identity, which you refer as "Sindhi nationalism", but as long as they don't have any secessionist tendencies, there is no problem with that. It shows that they place their national identity over their ethnic one. They are Pashtuns in KP & elsewhere that are proud of their ethnic identity, but there is no secessionist movement from them. I have already quoted you the Pew Global poll that polled thousands of Pakistanis from all over the country, & determined that 90% of the population gives precedence to their national identity over their ethnic one. Period.
I wasn't planning to post anything but I had to counter some preposterous statements made here.
Allama Iqbal never went to Saudi Arabia first of all, he didn't even go for Hajj. He on the other hand did travel to Europe and Turkey. And he was very much inclined towards sufi and tasawwuf tariqahs something that salafis absolutely are against.
Iqbal never advocated a creation of a seperate soverign country like Pakistan. Infact, there are numerous letters were he emphatically denies that the Pakistan scheme (advocated by Chaudary Rahmat Ali). Even his 1930 speech if read in its entirety is very clear on how he treats India as a single entity and calls himself an Indian Muslim. And given that he passed away in 1938 even before the name of Pakistan became an agenda point for the Muslim League itself in the 1940s, it is hard to say where this allegation of Iqbal rather than Jinnah or Chaudary Rahmat Ali being the originator of this idea comes from.
And mind you both of them were British educated and Chaudary Rahmat Ali came up with the idea sitting in London, not Saudi Arabia.
Jinnah's Muslim League and Saravarkar's Hindu Mahasabha were the two sides of the same coin. Both were "Secular" in the sense that they gave no regards to their religion itself. Jinnah would partake of alcohol and pork. While Sarvakar advocated Hindus to eat cow meat and refused cremation and Hindu rites for his wife calling it superstition.
For them, the core idea was using religion as a tool to gain political power. And now we know that this is the worst possible use of religion. The tags Hindu or Muslim for political markers with no human faces behind it. And this is precisely why both of these leaders eventually became pawns in the Hands of the British when the power struggles started in the 40s. Is it any surprise that both were emphatic supporters of the Two Nation Theory as well?
On the other hand, people like Gandhi or Maulana Azad or Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan imbibed religion in their lives. Religion was a deeply personal matter to them and in this sense they were honest. And of course opposed, out of religious conviction, against the Two Nation theory.
Jinnah represented mainly the Muslim landlords. For example, in NWFP, it was Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and the Congress party that actually won int he 1946 elections. And this was an election where people were told that if you are Muslim vote for League! Almost the entire ulema class had opposed the partition on religious grounds as well saying that dividing or demanding a country in the name of Islam is wrong. Infact, Maulana Azad or Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan would probably had a higher claim for being a representative given that both were grass roots leaders who had spent long years in British jails.
I suggest you spend some time reading two books that are very important when it comes to the partition history.
The first is "In the Shadow of the Great Game" by Narindra Singh Sarila who was also the ADC to Mountbatten.
The other is " Facts are Sacred" by Wali Khan, Gaffar Khan's son
Both books are extensively based on archives of the India office in Britain and an overarching view is very clearly formed that the region comprising Pakistan today was always in the British crown's mind to be kept under British control remote because of its strategic location. By 1942, Lord Wavell had already fine tuned his partition plan (all before even the CMP) down to the district level.
To read records by the IB that directed local police to arrest INC leaders but release Muslim League goons or Hindu Mahasabha and RSS workers is instructive on communal anarchy was being engineered in the 1940s to weaken the freedom movement. And more recently we know that Jinnah was in secret communication with Churchill thought out the post war period after 1945.
Pakistan was to be a strategic prize that would help the allies keep a check on the USSR and also protect the "Wells of power" or oil from its expansion. And in that sense, the creation of Pakistan served its purpose brilliantly. It played its role in propping up Arab client monarchies in the gulf region when needed and played a crucial if not seminal role in bringing down the USSR during Soviet-Afghan war.
And Partitions' so called intended purpose? That it would be the solution to the Hindu-Muslim conflict? A failure in that given the hostility between the two countries. That Muslims would prosper because of it? Again questionable given that Indian Muslims on average currently have a higher indicators like literacy, per capita income and life expectancy than Pakistani or even Bangladeshi Muslims.
Some people have the mistake assumption that for people to exploit political Islam, you have to have some religious mulla with a long beard doing so. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Religious scholars, at least those who have been graduates of proper institutions can inference easily how political Islam is against traditional Islam.
The people who have used Islam for political purposes have also been those with clean shaven faces and those who have not had formal religious training themselves but who had a strong inclination of consolidating or acquiring political power. You had Syed Qutb in Egypt, Zia in Pakistan and even Musharraf didn't shy from using Islam to bolster his rule. So did Saddam in Iraq. And people may not like this but the fact is that Jinnah did so in the 1940s as well of which Two Nation theory was just a manifestation of this.
Something that is common to other religions as well.
Your first paragraph is stating the same thing I am, just more openly.
So does the second sentence.. But how long Bilal.. how long must this silent majority allow such fiends to control our religion and twist it into a monster?
The 50's and 60's were the most peaceful era's in Pakistan when it came to religion.
The liberal and secular crowds were involved in the elite class, but that did not deter the rest of Pakistani society from being extremely tolerant. What I refer to is the tolerance that has disappeared. I too am from Karachi with a UP heritage.. and only see a semblance of religious tolerance in our city. It wanes away as you move into smaller and smaller population center's.
Yet even in karachi and you should be witness to it, igniting a flame based on religion can be very easy.
Now.. on the subject of languages.. yes they are more comfortable speaking their own language.. but Urdu cannot be forces upon them. They have resisted it more than once.
the Gallup poll is one online... the educated middle class in Pakistan are the new hope, but the rural areas of both Sindh and larger sectors of Balochistan are still easily swayed.
That "sway" is not baseless, what is needed is removing or ameliorating the basis for that "sway".
Everybody should be proud of their ethnic identity.. ask any Indian who is not.
But nobody should be able to shape your ethnic identity against your fellow citizen.
the recent drama in India for the dam I think shows that.
You are Pakistani first.. your ethnic identity is your culture, is should have NOTHING to do with your political leaning.
Sadly this is not the case.
It is time to end this.. and leave the actual topic (which has been discussed before) to a stalemate.
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