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President Asif Zardari caught many Indians and all Pakistanis by surprise when he made the strange and weird claim that “there was a Indian in every Pakistani”. Many thinking Pakistanis have spent the best part of the week searching for the Indian in them. Almost all have come empty handed on this internal sojourn.
Mr President, I have searched intensely within myself to discover a little Indian within my Baloch, Punjabi, Seraiki and Pathan heritage, but all I see is an intense Pakistani, born in the sovereign state of Pakistan. For me India is as foreign a country as any other. Sorry Mr President, but you are wrong on this count too. Shireen Mazari
Why we created Pakistan? The Pakistan Ideology. ONT vs TNT. Expressing his views on Hindu-Muslim relations in the twentieth century Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah observed:
“The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literature. They neither intermarry, nor interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilizations which are based on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of life are different
Pakistanis love meat, and cannot survive without beef. Pakistanis hate urine, one drop will force them to change clothes and they dont’ drink it. Paksitanis bury their dead, marry sitting up and not walking about, dont kill their dauhgers at birth. Pakistanis hate idols, and shun pornographic movies. Pakistanis write right to left and are Perso-Arab in stock. They live in an unstratified society and there is no untouchability in their society. Pakistanis hunt and sacrifice animals on Eid. They pray to the same one diety. They don’t sing and and dance during worship and many dont sing at all.
Pakistanis remember the 1 million lives lost in creating a country, and also rededicate ourselves to the fact that “Pakistan manzil nahin, Nishan e Manzil hai”. Thatmanzil was defined by Iqbal, Liaqat, Jinnah and many others who carry the banner in the land of the Crescent and Star. Despite some impediments we have not lost track of the “manzil“. Pakistan as it existed 5000 years ago.
An Indian in every Pakistani? Wednesday, November 26, 2008 Shireen M Mazari The writer is a defence analyst
Lack of formal education and sheer ignorance does not by definition imply an innate sense of stupidity. On the other hand, formal education in itself is no guarantee of an intelligent and rational human being - just look at the American leaders over the years! As for mental stability, that has little to do with formal education or education of any sort whatsoever. What is true is that leaders who are intelligent and not overwhelmed by a sense of their own greatness and the autocratic “I”, realise their limitations and seek guidance. That is why while many commentators attribute President Zardari’s bizarre pronouncements very charitably to a lack of information or knowledge, the reality is that there is an ominous design in it all. After all, he is surrounded by not only his sycophants but also the whole state machinery with its bureaucrats, intelligence networks and so on. So why do statements that damage the nation in the long run continue to pour forth from the present leadership? Does no one dare to advise the president, or does he see himself as all-knowing even as he is all-powerful? Or is the reality that his advice is actually linked to a US agenda targeting Pakistan? Whatever the case, let us see if a pattern can be traced in all his shenanigans, at least in the realm of foreign and security policies where he has managed to reduce us to a collective absurdity and a vile joke.
First, there is suddenly a furore over a truncated map of Pakistan that is only now being examined by a wider Pakistani audience. But the reality is that the map first appeared in the US Armed Forces Journal in July 2006, written by a retired US intelligence officer, Ralph Peters and entitled, “Blood Borders”. Some of us had pointed out at that time that this was now part of the US agenda for the so-called “Greater or Broader Middle East Project”, but at that time few paid notice. This has been part of the problem here in Pakistan - we never see far enough ahead and now the US design is in the midst of being operationalised and we have a leadership that has come with a seeming commitment to aid this nefarious US design of destabilising Pakistan through increasing military incursions through the tribal belt and moving beyond - and we have already had that with the US attacks on Bannu - and multiple efforts to eventually roll back our nuclear capability.
Now let us look at our own leadership’s antics. No one from the presidency has forcefully refuted US media claims that in September this year President Zardari gave the US a nod to continue predator attacks against Pakistan. Meanwhile, we had the “absurdity” of the president claiming that the US had not violated Pakistan’s sovereignty since only aerial attacks were being conducted! Then we had the farce of the parliamentary consensus resolution on terrorism which demanded the government take action against the predator attacks. The government has so far not moved an iota on any of the substantive demands of this resolution. Instead, to make us look even more ridiculous than we already were looking, our leadership hopes that Obama will stop the attacks. Have they looked up Obama’s statements and his potential secretary of state’s viewpoints?
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE HINDUS AND MUSLIMS
Here is a Pakistani patriot arguing about the differences between the two nations:
“Dress codes between Hindus and Non-Hindus are apparent in any gathering, specially among women. Standards of modesty for women are very very different. We speak Urdu, you cleansed Urdu of all Persian and Arabic words and speak Hindi. Your literature consists of Tagore and others, ours of the later stages of Iqbal. Our heroes are your enemies (Auranzeb and Mahmud of Gazni). Our scoundrels are your heroes (Shivajee). Our architecture is Moghal in nature- symmetrical with domes and minars. Yours is stupa shaped and temple-like. Our temples are decorated with writings, yours are pictographic representations abhorrent to Muslims. Our civilization is traced from the deserts of Arabia, the sands of Persia and the fertile valley of the Indus.
Yours is traced from the depths of Somnath, and the war plains of the Ganges. Our names are different than yours. Our value systems are based on Judeo-Christian monothieism and the ten commandments. Yours are based on a conglomerations of books that originated in Hindu mythology. Your laws are based on the Hindu Rashtra (or secularism), ours on the ten commandments . We eat meat and relish beef. For you Sex is religious and requires display and celebration, for us sex is private and a duty for procreation. You are vegetarian and abhor beef . On religious holidays we pray and scrifice animals, you celebrate fire. We pray five times a day and want the aazaan to monitor our day, you go to temples every week. We pray towards Mecca, you go to pilgrimage to the Ganges. We bury our dead, you cremate them. We are all equal, you have a caste system. We share our foods, you cannot share between castes. We revere the widows, you used to burn them.We are required to slap back, you believe in ahmisa. We believe in heaven and hell, you believe in re-incarnation.”
“Remember that ….we shall fight ,and we shall fight for 1,000 years as we have fought for 1,000 years in the past….we can continue ! ” (ZAB at the United Nations )
From any rational perspective, given the manner in which the US is behaving it is now a hostile if not an enemy state for us, but we have that strange minister of defence continuing to state that if the US stays here for three decades it will be good for Pakistan! Does he think we will survive in any viable form after three decades of bombings by the US and the retaliatory lethal and non-discriminatory suicide attacks against this nation? But then so many of the present leadership, in keeping with past tradition, have homes and rich setups abroad. So what do they care?
Parallel to our continuous conceding of ground to the US, we are also now complying with the US agenda of establishing India as the regional hegemon. If we see no threat from India and we want a nuclear-free zone in South Asia, eventually we may have a declaration by this president that he hates nukes and we will renounce ours unilaterally - that is unless the US has created enough instability to seek a UN Security Council intervention regarding control of our nuclear assets! Yes, it may seen far-fetched to some, but look how so many unthinkable developments have hit us in a short space of time - beginning right from the present occupant of the presidency itself.
So when President Zardari offers a “no-first use” (NFU) of nuclear weapons to India, there is a design behind it - a US design. The problem is we have short memories and have forgotten that India has actually reneged on its limited NFU declaration it had made earlier in its overt nuclear life! When India declared its strategic doctrine and stated its intent of using nuclear strikes against any WMD threat from anywhere, it effectively adopted a “first use” doctrine similar to that of the US.
As for Pakistan, given our limited conventional capability, we cannot afford to remove the ambivalence we are maintaining regarding NFU. In this we are no different from the much mightier NATO. Is it not time for our security managers and strategists to inform the president that one does not bandy about NFU offers whimsically or because one hates the idea of nuclear weapons. No one loves nukes and no one loves war - apart from Mr Bush and the neocons - but there are realities that need to be considered; and one does not bandy about strategic doctrines simply as appeasement tools. Our declared posture of nuclear weapons as weapons of last resort and a deliberate ambivalence on NFU must not be compromised.
As for the idea of a South Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ), it is the Indians who have always rejected the idea, just as they rejected the zero missile idea and now with India acquiring Missile Defence from the US, we cannot continue to support notions that we floated before May 1998. Of course, if the Indians had conceded to a NWFZ and renounced their grandiose nuclear weapon programmes, their fears regarding China (or so their pretext goes) could easily have been handled in a protocol attached to the treaty similar to the protocols attached to and an integral part of the Latin American NWFZ treaty - the Tlatelolco Treaty. But all that was in the past - as was the no-war pact which Pakistan kept pushing for with India. Now all that is truly feasible in the nuclear domain with India is joint nuclear power generation and an ongoing strategic dialogue to maintain the nuclear balance. But then that is not part of the nuclear agenda of the US. The US continues to seek a rollback of Pakistan’s nuclear programme as part of its long-term negative agenda towards Pakistan.
The Muslims of South Asia are a nation in the modern sense of the word; The basis of their nationhood is neither territorial, nor racial, nor linguistic nor ethnic; They are a nation because they profess the same faith Islam; They are entitled to self-determination. The areas where they (Muslims) are in dominant majority should be constituted into sovereign states/state; Wherein they should be enabled to order their lives in individual and collective spheres in accord with the teachings and requirements of Islam asset out in Holy Quran and Sunna; and The state should endeavour to strengthen the bonds of unity among Muslim countries. The Ideology of Pakistan stems from the instinct of the Muslim Community of South Asia to maintain its individuality by resisting all attempts to absorb it by the Hindu society. They believe that Islam is incompatible with Hinduism. Historical experience has shown that Islam and Hinduism have two different social orders and given birth to two distinct cultures and that there is no meeting point between the two. Ideology of Pakistan by Prof. Saeeduddin Ahmad Dar
As for the new, more so-called informed US media on Pakistan, it is high time they realised that our suspicions and hostility towards the US have nothing to do with illiteracy or Talibanisation - Jane Perlez’s analysis notwithstanding. Instead, it has everything to do with US policies towards Pakistan. It is that simple. But our greater issue is with our leadership that seems to be hand in glove with the US. After all, we can certainly counter the predator or the impending grim “Reaper” attacks now on the cards. When will our missiles prove their worth? Or, if our military feels insecure with a direct military response, how about more simple actions easier to accomplish? Here are some suggestions: halt the transit logistic supplies; suspend high-level diplomatic relations; opt out of the trilateral commission; reduce the number of US personnel in Pakistan; take back all the bases. That should be enough to send a resolute message of Pakistani intent to the US and its NATO allies.
Finally, Mr President, I have searched intensely within myself to discover a little Indian within my Baloch, Punjabi, Seraiki and Pathan heritage, but all I see is an intense Pakistani, born in the sovereign state of Pakistan. For me India is as foreign a country as any other. Sorry Mr President, but you are wrong on this count too. Email: callstr@hotmail.com
In early eleventh century Al-Biruni observed:
He wrote:“In all matters and usages they (Hindus) differ from us (Muslims).
“They are totally differ from us in religion, as we believe in nothing in which they believe and vice versa.”
According to Beruni:
“the Hindus considered the Muslim “Malachha” i.e. impure and for bid having any connection with them, be it intermarriage or any bond of relations hip, or by sitting, eating and drinking with them, because thereby, they think they be polluted.
Ironically the TNT originated as a result of the parochial writings of major Hindu leaders like Lal Lajpat Rai who were proclaiming that Hindus and Muslims were separate nations and the Muslims should be expunged from the land of the Hindus. When the Muslims saw that the Hindus were targeting them, the Muslims decided to act.
Contrary to the common belief that Jinnah originated the two-nation theory, actually it was Savarkar who propounded the theory years before the Muslim League embraced the idea. Savarkar had commanded all the Muslims to leave ‘Bharat’ to pave the way for the establishment of Hindu Rashtra. When Jinnah introduced his two-nation theory, Savarkar announced, “I have no quarrel with Mr. Jinnah’s two-nation theory… It is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations.”
“His (Savarkar’s) doctrine was Hindutva, the doctrine of Hindu racial supremacy, and his dream was of rebuilding a great Hindu empire from the sources of the Indus to those of the Brahmaputra. He hated Muslims. There was no place for them in the Hindu society he envisioned.” (Freedom at Midnight, by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins).
So the hate campaign against Muslims was well in place even before the partition of erstwhile British India. This and many other significant factors forced Jinnah to demand a separate nation for Muslims as he believed that Muslims would not be safe in India — a prophetic declaration indeed! There is no denying the fact that Jinnah was secular to the marrow and would never have wished to cut ties with India, but circumstances compelled him to do so. However, he had not harbored grudges against India or its leaders. He had kept his house on Malabar Hill, thinking he could weekend there, while running his country from Karachi on weekdays, but destiny had something else in store for the estranged neighbors of the Asia Partition.
When Nathuram Godse pumped three bullets into Gandhi, a section of the Hindu community compared him with Judas. The writing was on the wall. The divide was evident. In some areas people mourned the death of Gandhi, and in other areas they distributed sweets, held celebrations, and demanded the release of Godse. Gandhi’s crime was that he had demanded security for Muslims. Syed Alvi Teheran Times August 17th, 2008
The seeds of partition were actually sown by the stalwarts of Hindu Mahasabha, primarily the quartet of Savarkar, Gawarikar, Apte, and Nathuram Godse. Independent India’s history is testimony to the fact that in a conflict between the forces of secular nationalism and religious communalism, the latter has always ruled the roost. Secular forces have more often than not ended up playing into the hands of communal forces. Such has been the history of independent India, and it is again on display in Jammu.