srirangan
September 4th, 2005, 01:38 PM
Architects of Pakistan (http://www.india-defence.com/reports/281)
URL: http://www.india-defence.com/reports/281
Date: 4/9/2005
Author: Balbir K. Punj
On August 11 Pakistan test fired its first cruise missile named Babur (Hatf 7). Though Pakistan has rejected the suggestion that the name has a specific Islamic connotations (as much as its Chinese connection) the choice of names for its ballistic missiles like Abdali (Hatf 2), Ghaznavi (Hatf 3), and Ghauri (Hatf 5) and even the name Hatf itself (Sword of Prophet Mohammed) are indeed suggestive.
While Indian missiles are named after five elements, Agni (Fire), Prithvi (Earth), Akash (Sky), or Brahmos (which is a combination of names of rivers Brahmaputra and Moscova to signify Indo-Russian cooperation), Pakistani missiles are named after Ghazis - champions of Islam who swore to extirpate Hindu idolatry, and establish the rule of Islam.
Herein lies the key to understanding the convoluted mindset that succeeded in partitioning the country in 1947. Some blame Jinnah for it, while others accuse the British for playing the 'divide and rule' game. Still others arraign themselves against the Indian National Congress for giving in to the secessionist demand. The Leftists censure Veer Savarkar and the Hindu Mahasabha for provoking Muslim separatism by encouraging the Hindus to unite. No doubt there is a consensus that the Muslim League had always been in the good books of the British. The British surely had an interest in keeping the 'divide and rule' game alive to mitigate the challenge that the united communities would have posed to their empire. However, once their empire came to an end, they had no credible geopolitical or commercial interest in dividing India.
In 1973, Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins went to meet Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, who then lived a retired life in his country home person in Romsey in south of England. Lapierre and Collins showed Mountbatten a medical report of Jinnah, detailing an X-ray of his chest taken in the spring of 1947, that revealed that his days were numbered because of tuberculosis. Lapierre describes in his book, A Thousand Suns, how Mountbatten reacted: "When we looked up again, the blue eyes that were usually so calm were shining with intense emotion. He swiped the air several times with our sheets of paper. (he said) 'If I'd only known all this at the time, the course of history would have been different. I would have delayed granting of independence for several months. There would have been no partition. Pakistan would not have existed. India would have remained united. Three wars would have been avoided."
Mountbatten had to actually advance the date of Independence of India from June 1948 to August 15, 1947, when he saw that the pro-Pakistan riots were spiralling out of control. He (in fact no body except Jinnah and Dr Parekh) did not know that Jinnah was living on borrowed time. He naively felt, with the benefit of hindsight, that Pakistan would have been prevented had Jinnah died a natural death. After all, Mountbatten was a soldier and not a scholar who just spent a year in India in his distinguished naval career that took him to various places ranging from Burma and Greece.
But Babasaheb Ambedkar, within one year of Resolution for Pakistan at Lahore (1940), released his book Thoughts on Pakistan. Armed with facts and figures on history, geopolitics, distribution of finances, and military he argued in favour of partition accompanied by exchange of population along communal lines. Ambedkar said, "I don't think the demand for Pakistan is the result of mere political distemper, which will pass away with the efflux of time. As I read the situation, it seems to me that it is characteristic in the biological sense of the term, which the Muslim body politic has developed in the same manner as an organism develops a characteristic."
A debate on Jinnah's secular or communal credentials, I am afraid, is of no relevance. Jinnah, an expert advocate, felt he was not the leader but the pleader of the demand for Pakistan. He was saying precisely what his clientele wanted him to articulate. Jinnah, as he remained a die-hard constitutionalist, commanded little mass following.
In the 1937 provincial elections his party fared miserably even in Muslim majority provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Bengal, which after 10 years joined Pakistan. In 1937, Muslim League had still not formally demanded Pakistan. However, fortunes of Jinnah and Muslim League changed in 1940 once Pakistan resolution was adopted. Jinnah became the uncrowned king of Indian Muslims and Muslim League swept reserved constituencies in 1946 elections.
What motivated 90 per cent of Indian Muslims to pitch for Pakistan in the last days of the British Raj? At the time Muslims were ruling large parts of India for 600 years (1195 being the year of establishment of Delhi Sultanate), such a demand had not seemed necessary. Muslims even though a minority, had created a Darul Islam in India.
But after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 the Mughal Empire, which was the standard bearer of Islam in the country, began to disintegrate. The Marathas, Rajputs, Jats and Sikhs were on rise first at the cost of Mughals, and then of the Afghans.
As if this was not enough, the British began to extend their power across India. Muslims lost power, prestige and privilege and many evinced signs of returning to original Hindu fold. Cleric Shah Waliullah (1703-1763) initiated the Wahabi movement for reviving puritan Islam and to reestablish Islamic supremacy in India. In 1761, he invited Ahmed Shah Abdali to storm India and reestablish Darul Islam.
His son Shah Abdul Aziz (1746-1824) around 1810 declared India a Darul Harb since Muslims had practicality lost all political power. He declared that Muslims should either fight back against the Marathas, Sikhs and British or emigrate from India. Abdul Aziz's disciple Syed Ahmed 'Shaheed' (1768-1831) died in a jihad against Maharaja Ranjit Singh's forces at Balakot (NWFP).
The Muslim League conducted a propaganda that Muslims could not expect to be treated as equals in free India. Actually, Muslims were not looking for equality with Hindus. They were in search of supremacy over the majority community like they enjoyed during the Islamic rule. They realised that it was no longer possible in the era of one man, one vote.
Moreover, Muslims were fully aware of the atrocities they had committed on Hindus and Sikhs during Islamic rule. They were afraid of a possible Hindu retribution. Both these factors motivated them to strongly ask for the creation of Pakistan.
Most Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, including those in Pakistan, are converted from Hinduism and Buddhism. However, under the influence of Islam, they have disregarded, disowned and denied the faith and history of their forefathers. VS Naipaul says in the prologue of his book, Beyond Belief, "A convert's world view alters... idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story.
The convert has to turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is immense, and even after a thousand years can remain unresolved; the turning away has to be done again and again. People develop fantasies about who and what they are; and in the Islam of converted countries there is an element of neurosis and nihilism."
The territory that bounds Pakistan today was in the frontline of the attacks launched by Mohammed Ghazni, Mohammed Ghauri, Babur and Ahmed Shah Abdali. The inhabitants of that region suffered most heavily under their military campaigns that bristled with intolerance for idolatry and infidels. How many people in Pakistan are of foreign extraction viz Turks, Uzbek, Afghan? certainly not Mr Pervez Musharraf, who is a Mohajir.
Or for that matter Mr Nawaz Sharif who is a Punjabi, or Benazir Bhutto and her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who were Rajputs. This is the phenomenal influence of Islam where sufferers espouse the cause of those who tormented their forefathers and defiled their temples. This is the conceptual underpinning of Pakistan. The rest are merely incidental details.
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A so very true article. Pakistan said they would be discriminated as muslim in India. But today, hindu population in Pak & Bangladesh is 0.1% while India muslim population is 11%.
URL: http://www.india-defence.com/reports/281
Date: 4/9/2005
Author: Balbir K. Punj
On August 11 Pakistan test fired its first cruise missile named Babur (Hatf 7). Though Pakistan has rejected the suggestion that the name has a specific Islamic connotations (as much as its Chinese connection) the choice of names for its ballistic missiles like Abdali (Hatf 2), Ghaznavi (Hatf 3), and Ghauri (Hatf 5) and even the name Hatf itself (Sword of Prophet Mohammed) are indeed suggestive.
While Indian missiles are named after five elements, Agni (Fire), Prithvi (Earth), Akash (Sky), or Brahmos (which is a combination of names of rivers Brahmaputra and Moscova to signify Indo-Russian cooperation), Pakistani missiles are named after Ghazis - champions of Islam who swore to extirpate Hindu idolatry, and establish the rule of Islam.
Herein lies the key to understanding the convoluted mindset that succeeded in partitioning the country in 1947. Some blame Jinnah for it, while others accuse the British for playing the 'divide and rule' game. Still others arraign themselves against the Indian National Congress for giving in to the secessionist demand. The Leftists censure Veer Savarkar and the Hindu Mahasabha for provoking Muslim separatism by encouraging the Hindus to unite. No doubt there is a consensus that the Muslim League had always been in the good books of the British. The British surely had an interest in keeping the 'divide and rule' game alive to mitigate the challenge that the united communities would have posed to their empire. However, once their empire came to an end, they had no credible geopolitical or commercial interest in dividing India.
In 1973, Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins went to meet Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, who then lived a retired life in his country home person in Romsey in south of England. Lapierre and Collins showed Mountbatten a medical report of Jinnah, detailing an X-ray of his chest taken in the spring of 1947, that revealed that his days were numbered because of tuberculosis. Lapierre describes in his book, A Thousand Suns, how Mountbatten reacted: "When we looked up again, the blue eyes that were usually so calm were shining with intense emotion. He swiped the air several times with our sheets of paper. (he said) 'If I'd only known all this at the time, the course of history would have been different. I would have delayed granting of independence for several months. There would have been no partition. Pakistan would not have existed. India would have remained united. Three wars would have been avoided."
Mountbatten had to actually advance the date of Independence of India from June 1948 to August 15, 1947, when he saw that the pro-Pakistan riots were spiralling out of control. He (in fact no body except Jinnah and Dr Parekh) did not know that Jinnah was living on borrowed time. He naively felt, with the benefit of hindsight, that Pakistan would have been prevented had Jinnah died a natural death. After all, Mountbatten was a soldier and not a scholar who just spent a year in India in his distinguished naval career that took him to various places ranging from Burma and Greece.
But Babasaheb Ambedkar, within one year of Resolution for Pakistan at Lahore (1940), released his book Thoughts on Pakistan. Armed with facts and figures on history, geopolitics, distribution of finances, and military he argued in favour of partition accompanied by exchange of population along communal lines. Ambedkar said, "I don't think the demand for Pakistan is the result of mere political distemper, which will pass away with the efflux of time. As I read the situation, it seems to me that it is characteristic in the biological sense of the term, which the Muslim body politic has developed in the same manner as an organism develops a characteristic."
A debate on Jinnah's secular or communal credentials, I am afraid, is of no relevance. Jinnah, an expert advocate, felt he was not the leader but the pleader of the demand for Pakistan. He was saying precisely what his clientele wanted him to articulate. Jinnah, as he remained a die-hard constitutionalist, commanded little mass following.
In the 1937 provincial elections his party fared miserably even in Muslim majority provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Bengal, which after 10 years joined Pakistan. In 1937, Muslim League had still not formally demanded Pakistan. However, fortunes of Jinnah and Muslim League changed in 1940 once Pakistan resolution was adopted. Jinnah became the uncrowned king of Indian Muslims and Muslim League swept reserved constituencies in 1946 elections.
What motivated 90 per cent of Indian Muslims to pitch for Pakistan in the last days of the British Raj? At the time Muslims were ruling large parts of India for 600 years (1195 being the year of establishment of Delhi Sultanate), such a demand had not seemed necessary. Muslims even though a minority, had created a Darul Islam in India.
But after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 the Mughal Empire, which was the standard bearer of Islam in the country, began to disintegrate. The Marathas, Rajputs, Jats and Sikhs were on rise first at the cost of Mughals, and then of the Afghans.
As if this was not enough, the British began to extend their power across India. Muslims lost power, prestige and privilege and many evinced signs of returning to original Hindu fold. Cleric Shah Waliullah (1703-1763) initiated the Wahabi movement for reviving puritan Islam and to reestablish Islamic supremacy in India. In 1761, he invited Ahmed Shah Abdali to storm India and reestablish Darul Islam.
His son Shah Abdul Aziz (1746-1824) around 1810 declared India a Darul Harb since Muslims had practicality lost all political power. He declared that Muslims should either fight back against the Marathas, Sikhs and British or emigrate from India. Abdul Aziz's disciple Syed Ahmed 'Shaheed' (1768-1831) died in a jihad against Maharaja Ranjit Singh's forces at Balakot (NWFP).
The Muslim League conducted a propaganda that Muslims could not expect to be treated as equals in free India. Actually, Muslims were not looking for equality with Hindus. They were in search of supremacy over the majority community like they enjoyed during the Islamic rule. They realised that it was no longer possible in the era of one man, one vote.
Moreover, Muslims were fully aware of the atrocities they had committed on Hindus and Sikhs during Islamic rule. They were afraid of a possible Hindu retribution. Both these factors motivated them to strongly ask for the creation of Pakistan.
Most Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, including those in Pakistan, are converted from Hinduism and Buddhism. However, under the influence of Islam, they have disregarded, disowned and denied the faith and history of their forefathers. VS Naipaul says in the prologue of his book, Beyond Belief, "A convert's world view alters... idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story.
The convert has to turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is immense, and even after a thousand years can remain unresolved; the turning away has to be done again and again. People develop fantasies about who and what they are; and in the Islam of converted countries there is an element of neurosis and nihilism."
The territory that bounds Pakistan today was in the frontline of the attacks launched by Mohammed Ghazni, Mohammed Ghauri, Babur and Ahmed Shah Abdali. The inhabitants of that region suffered most heavily under their military campaigns that bristled with intolerance for idolatry and infidels. How many people in Pakistan are of foreign extraction viz Turks, Uzbek, Afghan? certainly not Mr Pervez Musharraf, who is a Mohajir.
Or for that matter Mr Nawaz Sharif who is a Punjabi, or Benazir Bhutto and her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who were Rajputs. This is the phenomenal influence of Islam where sufferers espouse the cause of those who tormented their forefathers and defiled their temples. This is the conceptual underpinning of Pakistan. The rest are merely incidental details.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
A so very true article. Pakistan said they would be discriminated as muslim in India. But today, hindu population in Pak & Bangladesh is 0.1% while India muslim population is 11%.