'Ranjeet Singh's rise led to creation of Pakistan'
CHANDIGARH: Maharaja Ranjeet Singh's rise was one of the factors for creation of Pakistan, which was a product of Muslims' fear after the fall of Mughal Empire. This was disclosed here on Sunday by the author of the recently released book, 'Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan', MJ Akbar, while talking to the intelligentsia of the city, which he rates high in intellectual circles.
Akbar quoted a Taliban commander saying, 'Jihad is not very recent, we have been fighting for 200 years', indicating the regime of Ranjeet Singh that stretched up to Afghanistan.
Pakistan was a product of the fear of Muslims, who could not forget the glory of Mughals and years of their rule over India. The author said due to the accommodative culture of Punjab, which had Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, the Muslim League had to taste defeat, but the same region became the bloodiest place when Pakistan's founder Mohmmed Ali Jinnah exploited these fears.
Akbar said his book quotes letters of Jinnah to Muslim clerics of Punjab expressing fear for community, which earlier gave just 10% votes in the 1936 election and supported a pro-peasant and secular Unionist party with 101 seats out of a total of 175 seats in the Punjab assembly.
The Muslim League won just two seats and Akalis won only 10 seats. Akbar accepted the role of the Unionist Party when an IAS officer HIS Garewal pointed it out showing a gazette notification of the election. The author said Mahatma Gandhi was so sure of Punjab's cultural harmony that he chose to stay put in East Bengal to stop any communal flare up. Because of his influence there was no communal violence in the region in the East. Gandhi miscalculated the scene in Punjab, vitiated after Jinnah turned communal from secular, when he rejected a separate vote for Muslims in 1936 polls.
'Creation of Pakistan was the most stupid decision a section of Muslims could have taken for even the growth of the community,' he said. He explained that due to fear factor, Pakistanis behave in the manner they do at the negotiations with India.
Expressing happiness over the developments unfolding in the world with Gandhian non-violent protest becoming a tool in the recent Arab world uprisings, he said the ideology of India was stronger and that of Pakistan self-defeating.
When asked how to deal with Pakistan, he said there was no answer to this. 'One of the lessons that we can learn from this is how America dealt with the Communist Soviet Union, they economically isolated USSR for the Left ideology to die its own death. We can leave Pakistan in the same state, but as we share borders, this option may not be viable,' he remarked.
Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh said Pakistan seems to have become a hopeless case since the Islamization of Army in Pakistan during the period of General Zia Ul Haq.
'Ranjeet Singh's rise led to creation of Pakistan' - The Times of India
CHANDIGARH: Maharaja Ranjeet Singh's rise was one of the factors for creation of Pakistan, which was a product of Muslims' fear after the fall of Mughal Empire. This was disclosed here on Sunday by the author of the recently released book, 'Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan', MJ Akbar, while talking to the intelligentsia of the city, which he rates high in intellectual circles.
Akbar quoted a Taliban commander saying, 'Jihad is not very recent, we have been fighting for 200 years', indicating the regime of Ranjeet Singh that stretched up to Afghanistan.
Pakistan was a product of the fear of Muslims, who could not forget the glory of Mughals and years of their rule over India. The author said due to the accommodative culture of Punjab, which had Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, the Muslim League had to taste defeat, but the same region became the bloodiest place when Pakistan's founder Mohmmed Ali Jinnah exploited these fears.
Akbar said his book quotes letters of Jinnah to Muslim clerics of Punjab expressing fear for community, which earlier gave just 10% votes in the 1936 election and supported a pro-peasant and secular Unionist party with 101 seats out of a total of 175 seats in the Punjab assembly.
The Muslim League won just two seats and Akalis won only 10 seats. Akbar accepted the role of the Unionist Party when an IAS officer HIS Garewal pointed it out showing a gazette notification of the election. The author said Mahatma Gandhi was so sure of Punjab's cultural harmony that he chose to stay put in East Bengal to stop any communal flare up. Because of his influence there was no communal violence in the region in the East. Gandhi miscalculated the scene in Punjab, vitiated after Jinnah turned communal from secular, when he rejected a separate vote for Muslims in 1936 polls.
'Creation of Pakistan was the most stupid decision a section of Muslims could have taken for even the growth of the community,' he said. He explained that due to fear factor, Pakistanis behave in the manner they do at the negotiations with India.
Expressing happiness over the developments unfolding in the world with Gandhian non-violent protest becoming a tool in the recent Arab world uprisings, he said the ideology of India was stronger and that of Pakistan self-defeating.
When asked how to deal with Pakistan, he said there was no answer to this. 'One of the lessons that we can learn from this is how America dealt with the Communist Soviet Union, they economically isolated USSR for the Left ideology to die its own death. We can leave Pakistan in the same state, but as we share borders, this option may not be viable,' he remarked.
Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh said Pakistan seems to have become a hopeless case since the Islamization of Army in Pakistan during the period of General Zia Ul Haq.
'Ranjeet Singh's rise led to creation of Pakistan' - The Times of India
because they are still licking their wounds they got in shape of hundred of years rule by outsider Muslims .
