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Pakistan is here to stay
By Yasser Latif Hamdani
It is not uncommon for those afflicted with the “India shining” ailment to speculate from time to time on the demise of Pakistan. Sadly this has been going on for more than 60 years and we in Pakistan are now used to it. Kapil Komireddi’s article “Pakistan’s Demise is Inevitable” therefore is at best an amusing read and more seriously an insight into an Indian mind obsessed with Pakistan to the point of wishful thinking.
Was it really divisive logic that created Pakistan? Revisionist scholarship in the west now holds otherwise. Pakistan’s founding father, Jinnah , in any event was a man who had dedicated his entire life to keeping India united (He was the only Indian leader to be called “The Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity”). So what led to the creation of Pakistan? While almost completely and homogenous white and protestant America in 1789 chose to vest residuary powers in the states, Indian National Congress which claimed to represent the multinational, multiethnic and mutli-religious peoples of India refused to consider this in India. Had Congress in 1931 agreed to the proposal that residuary powers be vested in provinces, like in the United States of America, there would have been no partition of India. There might still have no partition of India, had Congress accepted League’s demand for a confederation or a British cabinet proposal for a watered down three tiered federation in 1946. So the creation of Pakistan was not based on divisive logic but in the time-tested principle of unity in diversity and Congress’ failure to appreciate it.
Whether one agrees with the assertion that Bangladesh in 1971 constituted the largest genocide of Muslims ( Sharmila Bose of Harvard University certainly has given everyone enough reason to question this as a statistical exaggeration) but no one can deny that West Pakistan was unfair to East Pakistan. Yet Pakistan could have been kept united by constitution. In 1965, the Bengalis, including Shaikh Mujeebur Rahman’s party, still voted enmasse for Fatima Jinnah – Jinnah’s sister- in presidential election and had she been allowed to win, Pakistan might well have stayed united. The separation of East Pakistan was not a failure of the Pakistan idea. It was the failure of Pakistan’s military establishment to fully appreciate the genesis of Pakistan. Bengalis did not separate because they did not believe in Pakistan but because they saw in the military establishment’s behavior a betrayal of the idealism that created Pakistan.
Finally, India’s religious diversity does not affect Pakistan- which is itself a religious, ethnically and linguistically a very diverse country. The benefits India itself has derived from partition are well known to all, including Nehru who admitted it, whereby a Hindu majority informs India’s political and social life- without an overriding cultural majority keeping India united would have been impossible. But I am not sure if Kapil Komireddi was trying to make a case for Pakistan’s demise or inform the world of his country’s diversity. Pakistan will not die and will not whittle away as Mr. Komireddi wishes so badly.
This is not to say that we don’t have problems, but foremost is that we have abandoned Mr. Jinnah’s vision of inclusive, secular and pluralistic state in Pakistan. However recent victories of the Pakistan Army against the Taliban will no doubt sour the glee that some of our neighbors across the border have been expressing at the wet dreams of the demise of Pakistan. My response thus is: keep wishing but Pakistan is here to stay.
Filed under: Pakistan · Tags: Democratic, idea of Pakistan, Jinnah, Pakistan, Partition, secular, Taliban, Terrorism
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one more thing – please look at Indian articles through the late 70s to the 90s and you will find nothing about Pak breaking up. Americans started publishing this thesis and Indians are enjoying it..nothing wring..saamney nangi ladki naachegi tau tharki muth tau marega hee.
the correct term, in my view, would be OPT (One Party Theory), and not ONT. that OPT was more than likely to lead to a majoritiarianism is where the term ONT, not entirely directly, comes in.
“Why did India not absorb East Pakistan (Bengal) in 1971 ?”
Because Indians thought we have enough of these bloody Bangladeshis in any case..even without absorbing East Pakistan.
sam:
re. no. 2. the precedent that would have been set was, actually, carrying out a plebiscite in a muslim majority state, instead of merely promising one.
I hope we can find some articles or interviews from the key people involved about “why india did not absorb East Pakistan”.
Until then we can keep guessing and it could be very well be right.
Was plebiscite really required if india and east pakistan became one country in 1971 ?
Does international law require it?
int’l law: hostilities do not justify indefinite occupation, nor colonisation… inter alia.
US army is in Germany, Japan, Korea for almost about 60+ years..
There could be a some clause or some way to keep it absorbed…
under int’l law, east pakistan remained east pakistan. ‘just and reasonable’ is something else.
US Army is there on the invitation of the said countries or with their agreement of their sovereign govts, albeit as part of a surrender agreement. hostilities don’t change sovereignty, or legal entitlement. ‘might is right’ is something else.
Sam:
My question to you; why should they have (Indians absorb BD in 1971) ?
Second question: Given the modern, increasingly interconnected world; what can be achieved by the individual members of a nation-state that absorbs a smaller neighbor that can not be enjoyed if they remain two entities seperate entities?
If you can not find a good answer; don’t feel bad. Neither can I. The best case to reunion in the world is for Canada and the US but no one talks about it since for all practical purposes there is no significant change in the lives of individuals is a US flag flies in Ottawa or a Canadian in Washington DC.
Incidently this should address PMA’s concern also. May be the Indians who write hateful posts on the PTH are a selected sample of a few people but for a vast majority (yours truly included) the only interest we have in Pakistan is that a hateful anti India ideology does not go on creating more 26/11 like massacres. (I don’t blame the Pakistani people at large for this, only the few who hate; yet if they are kept under control I doubt many will poke their noses in another country is they are nor welcome) Certainly no one I know yearns for a geographic reunion.
Regards.
PS. Excuse the typos. Like BC I am in a hurry.
@stuka
I don’t agree with you that PMA wrote a good post.
I think he wrote a brilliant one.
I am really not sure why some people, Indians mainly, including one hiding out in a ranchette in north California, keep bombarding us with this proposition of ‘and they all lived happily ever after.’ They didn’t, and we won’t either.
And thank you by the way for your kind comments about Bangladeshis and Bengalis. Is there any way we can hope and pray that all you Hindi speakers and Urdu speakers will some day get together and relieve the rest of us of your presence?
@Bloody Civilian
I note that you and Sam have taken over. Can you please pin up our duty rosters on the green board, so the rest of us know what to do each day? Your little thrust of the poniard to Sam,…” re. no. 2. the precedent that would have been set was, actually, carrying out a plebiscite in a muslim majority state, instead of merely promising one”, has been noted, and the note sent in septuplicate to the appropriate section for processing and further action. OK, kiddo, you asked for it. Wait’ll I get to you.
@Sam
I can’t get the drift of your question, but by the way, you sound like H + S. Hope you aren’t.
What makes you think that the Bangladeshi, having fought and won his freedom at a huge cost of lives, was going to get absorbed just like that? Or do you think they had nothing to do with the military outcome of 71? Why would anybody concerned want this outcome? Except maybe Pakistan, to teach us a lesson.
“I am really not sure why some people, Indians mainly, including one hiding out in a ranchette in north California, keep bombarding us with this proposition of ‘and they all lived happily ever after.’ They didn’t, and we won’t either.”
Who is the dude in a ranchette in Nor Cal? I live in Nor Cal as well, actually…
“And thank you by the way for your kind comments about Bangladeshis and Bengalis. Is there any way we can hope and pray that all you Hindi speakers and Urdu speakers will some day get together and relieve the rest of us of your presence?”
Arrey, my comments were not meant to be insulting.
Besides, I am a Punjabi speaker by way of Pothwar
bonobashi
that was merely completing the contrast with junagarh. as for you coming to get me, why do i feel like a rabbit in the headlights?
‘and they all lived happily ever after.’ They didn’t, and we won’t either.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What did I do this time?
I was nowhere near that comment!!
(Anyway that is my story and I am sticking to it.)
More like rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.
(Sorry could not resist that one; you left the door wide open.)
Stuka: About North California;
Don’t listen to him.
we need to exchange addresses.
rsbrar@hotmail.com
Gorki
‘geodraphical (re-)union’, at some future date… why not? the principle we’ve accepted is free will. so why say never?
and, now, to return to the frozen state, staring in to the headlights
why do i feel like a rabbit in the headlights.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
More like rabbit in Alice in wonderland.
(Sorry it was too hard to resist; you left the door wide open)
Correction (with an apology):
More like rabbit in Alice in wonderland.
(Sorry it was too hard to resist; you left the door wide open)
‘oh dear! oh dear! it’s too late’
(re-)union’, at some future date… why not? the principle we’ve accepted is free will. so why say never?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is up to the next generation. (or till when we have converted PMA.
to the cause. )
Seriously, IMHO in a hundred or so years, the world will be run very differently and it is quite possible that the entire Eurasian mass will look politically like EU; one could perhaps drive from the Malaysian rainforests to Scottish moors in the same car, using one currency listening to many different FM stations on the way.
….it might well happen if you drive down a magical rabbit hole
no. i see the general idea. as i did kinda agree with you in my post of 2:54am.
BC, Bonobashi;
This is murder!!
I am literally in tears with laughter.
have to take comments of line.
Stuka, I live near Sacramento, would love to make an acquaintance if you are so inclined.
rsbrar@hotmail.com
@Stuka
(if I can get a word in edgewise through BC and Gorki Carrolling away).
Hindi-speaker, Urdu-speaker, Punjabi-speaker; what’s the difference? It’s you guys oppressing SDREs like yours truly.
You don’t have to insult a Bong for a Bong to get insulted. It’s a natural state of being for us, and we feel vaguely incomplete if there’s nobody insulting us to be taken care of. Nothing personal, you understand, it’s just that somebody has to stand up and accept that they have insulted us, and only outright war can resolve things. So where’s Potohar exactly on the map? Need to know where to send the declaration.
About the rich citizen in the ranchette, he has to stand up and raise his hand; can’t let him down. But he’s reading this, guaranteed.
@Bloody Civilian
So now Sam’s vanished and it’s you and Gorki with your stand-up comic turn. Where’ve you buried the body? If there’s space next to it, I might find the information useful. Separately sending you long personal mail I just wrote to a common friend strongly supporting PMA.
@Gorki
Freewill is fine, but if we could have a short interval of 150 years in between with nobody, NOBODY talking of reunification, it would help. Otherwise, so help me Natural Dispensation Amounting To Transcendental Supernatural Presence, I’ll burn everybody advocating reunion at the stake.
Enough already.
PMA: I keep having to clarify my position with you. Once again therefore;
I am not a believer in the one nation theory. I believe India is multi ethnic. multi cultural, multi lingual, multi religious, multi coloured, multi to the nth degree nation.
I am not a Ganges valley Indian. I am an Indus valley Indian.
I do not believe that Pakistan is about to collapse. I have no wish for it to collapse.
My country is a neighbour of yours however, and as a neighbour I wish to have friendly relations with yours. Interest in that up in North India is more than it is in other parts, but Bengalis have an equal interest in opening up with Bangla Desh, without pining for a re-union. The same is true of people like me re Pakistan.
I was asking questions about the idea of Pakistan in the context of what YLH wrote. And I was suggesting sotto voce that it is enough to be a secular democratic republic without having an overarching dominant idea of what the nation is.
You are absolutely right that if the two parts of India were a 1000 miles apart it would have great problems sticking together. The two parts of your country broke apart however not because of the spatial discordance but because of other failures. I could suggest that even a genuine Islamic democracy could have kept the two halves together without being secular, but I wont because I dont believe in religion based governance. There is no reason why Pakistan cannot be one though. The question still is-Is that what YLH had in mind?
As for your desire to ignore India completely, I don’t think it can be done. Between Pakistan and Iran lie Afghanistan and ofcourse the Baluch desert and wastelands on both sides of your common border. As BC said you are far nearer North India culturally than you are to Iran and central Asia or Arabia. Sure we dont want to talk to us, but that state of affairs is not likely to persist for always.
I can say in complete honesty that I have never had this much pun sorry fun in my entire life.
Sorry about my latest last line. Please read “Sure you dont” … for “Sure we dont”.
Well, India’s leaders were predicting Pakistan’s death in 1947. Now these leaders are all dead, Pakistan is still around. Somehow I have a feeling that 50 years later our grandchildren will still be on PTH/chowk and discussing the imminent collapse of Pakistan.
Btw, Yasser mian, who is this Komireddi dude and why did you think that you had to write a PTH article to rebut what this chap has written?
Regards
@Majumdar
Thank you for asking what needed to have been asked years ago. I hope you have read the silly, jejune piece in the Guardian that provoked all this. It is extremely annoying that serious thought and effort is being spent on the effusions of an extremely inept analysis, frankly, one which would get a schoolboy a bad grade from his teacher for immaturity and badly thought through points. I have posted a couple of times myself, and regret having done it; it elevates the original to respectability, worthy of being read and of deserving attention.
I sincerely believe that the most that the article deserved is the least – the least amount of attention, the least amount of serious consideration.
If Pakistan faces problems for the future, and I do not agree that it does, stating this only for the sake of argument, then it faces subtle problems, not the kind of stuff that might be brought up by a blogger who luckily manages to break into the pages of a major newspaper.
hayyer48 (June 18, 2009 at 5:43 am)
H48: I have pretty much said what I had to say. But you keep coming back for more. So that you don’t think that I am ignoring you, let me response to your comments one more time.
The Sub-continent not only contains people of multiple religions, ethnicity, cultures, languages, races etc. etc., considering modern standards as prevalent all over the world it is a land consisting of many Nations as well. Congress for reasons of her own came up with this cacophony theory that the entire Sub-continent was a One-Nation. The Muslim League counter argued that no there are Two-Nations equally occupying this land. Now some one said that why two or more nations can not share the same country. Yes they can. One example being French-Canadians and British-Canadians. But in order for that to take place there has to be a fair and equitable power sharing formula in-place. You will agree with me that in the case of British India the two sides failed to come together on any such formula, so the Empire had to be divided up between the two claimants. My plea to people like you is that accept the division and allow us to get on with the hard task of nation building. In other words ‘get off my back and allow me to concentrate on my own internal problems’. I will come back with the task of nation building at the end. Please stay with me.
You say “I am an Indus valley Indian.” Well in case you have not heard it yet, Indus Valley is now called Pakistan. You ‘Indus Valley Indians’ either come back to the Indus Valley and take an allegiance to the State of Pakistan or get yourself absorbed within India. Take a pity on yourself and get yourself out of your misery. You know what happened to the man who tried to ride in two boats. I respect your desire for India and Pakistan to have friendly relations. So do I. But that will happen only when it is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Remember nations do not have friendships, they only have interests.
Your comment on a desert being between Iran and Pakistan is a silly one. I do not advocate that Pakistan should ignore India as you have alluded to. But my outlook is Pakistan-centric and not India-centric. For Pakistan to be an integrated society which it must, Pakistanis located east of Indus must get out of the Indian mindset and look westward as Pakistanis do not share their culture with East Punjab or Ganges Vally alone. They share their culture with Iran and Afghanistan as well. The twenty six million Pashtuns of Pakistan share their culture with the fourteen million Pashtuns of Afghanistan. The ten million Balochs of Pakistan share their culture with four million Balochs of Afghanistan and Iran. The two million Tajiks of Pakistan share their culture with ten millions Tajiks of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Unless and until Pakistanis located east of Indus include those Pakistanis located west of Indus into the mainstream of Pakistan there will be no national cohesion. And for that to happen, Pakistan must look westward. Pakistan must cultivate greater cultural, economical and political ties with its western neighbors. On their part Indians must leave us alone and stop questioning the basis of Pakistan. They must stop pulling us back into the Indian Matrix.
So any more guesses or possibilities on why India did not absorb East Pakistan in 1971 ?
Indian army was present in most of the country and could have stayed there for long time and controlled in some way or other ?
Why this path was not taken ?
PMA
Why didn’t/couldn’t pak develop better relations with iran/afghanistan? in afghanistan’s case, first we were more interested in giving as good as we were getting, if not beter, instead of rising above all that and relying on and having confidence in not only the shared culture but the real interests afghanistan had tied in with pak, and vice versa.
post-79, something called ‘strategic depth’ came in. we didn’t care how much it pissed off iran. so a country born with a huge hostile neighbour, made sure that its other neighbours also became hostile.
nothing to do with culture, or how much of it howm many of us shared with one neighbour or the other.. or with all three. but if you want to have a ‘security state’ with the relevant institution dominating all…
PMA: All of the Indus valley is not called Pakistan. The Indus valley starts along the geographical line between Nahan in Himachal Pradesh and running down through Haryana in a South Westerly direction.
My original questions were not directed to you. They arose out of YLH’s piece. You need not have responded to them, so I can hardly be accused of pursuing you.
I am sure that no one from India is ‘pulling’ you into its cultural matrix. If you feel the pull of India it is a consequence of your past, and the force is generated autonomously. And certainly Pakistan has been cultivating the western
foundations of its civilization for some decades. Please do not feel impeded by any inconsequential things that Homo Sapien Gangeticus may say on the subject.
Bloody Civilian (June 18, 2009 at 3:48 pm)
BC, you have raised a very important question. A question directly related to the security and stability of Pakistan. There are many reasons why it did not take place in the last sixty years.
First and most. Pre-1971 Pakistan saw itself as a ‘Sub-continental’ state. Most of her energies were spent at the East wing-West wing integration efforts. Those who grew up in Pakistan of fifties and sixties will remember that.
Second. The early ruling elites of Pakistan like LAK and company came out of India and had an India-focus mindset. It is only after Ayub Khan’s take over that that particular group was pushed off the center stage; and for which they never forgave him. You may like to know that even Iskandar Mirza was an ethnic Bihari. You yourself have pointed out some of the reasons why Pakistan failed to cultivate relations with Afghanistan and Iran.
In post-1971 Pakistan the Punjabi and Sindhi elites (which I call East-bankers) took over the helms of the state and totally ignored the needs and ambitions of the West-bankers. They failed to transform the nation from a ‘Sub-continental’ country to a South Central Asian country; which Pakistan is considering its geographic location. While our East-bank belongs to the South Asia, our West-bank belongs to Persia and the Central Asia. A fact to which most East-bankers are ignorant.
Ayub/ZAB had an international vision beyond India. In sixties Pakistan strengthened her strategic ties with China, entered into RCD and took active part in OIC. But our social, economic and cultural decline starts with Zia era. Instead of cultivating strategic relations with Afghanistan and Central Asian republics, we sought ‘strategic depth’ with Afghanistan as if it was some sort of colony. Zia’s religious zeal took us away from from our neighbor Iran into the lap of Saudis. Pakistan’s ethnic makeup requires cultural, political and economic ties with her western neighbors. There is tremendous reservoir of good will between people of Pakistan and people of Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. We share the same Islamic and regional culture. We need to get out of Indian Matrix which culturally, economically and politically will always be dominated by India and place our-self in the Greater Middle East. All we need is a vision and a will to put that vision into practice.
PMA,
Fascinating analysis.
However I don’t think it is about regional matrices or that our membership of Persian-central asian cultural matrix is necessarily mutually exclusive to our Subcontinental heritage.
Pakistan is Pakistan and not India, Iran or Afghanistan because it is – as you’ve put it- a mixture of the three to oversimplify. The early elite- if you look at them closely – saw themselves as the democratized and modernized heirs of the Mughal Empire just as Iran was of the Safavid Empire though they were ruled by Pahlavis and the Republic of Turkey was the modern heir of the Ottoman Empire. It was this mindset that created the disconnect with our Eastern Wing which for the most part could care less about the Mughal Empire and whose struggle for Pakistan informed by peasant nationalism and class struggle.
Ayub changed the orientation of the state only in terms of priorities and not culture. He decisively broke with British traditions and made us part of the American sphere of influence. Infact Pakistan went through a kind of Americanization and de-Anglicization in terms of its institutions.
Bhutto’s rise was in part fuelled by the left which believed in revolution and was closer to Arab causes in the middle east. To this left Persia, pro-West Turkey and indeed pro-American Pakistan’s “Mughal” elite represented the old world order in collaboration with neo-American imperialism.
Bhutto and his politics was thus influenced by Arab world, Palestine, the global left and Pan-Islamic unity which the left supported because it saw the cause of third world unity getting boost through Islam.
The Arabicization of Pakistan started with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto…but this consisted of revolutionary Arabs like Yasser Arafat and Col Qaddhafi. Even the monarch closest to Bhutto was Faisal who was ambitiously anti-American to an extent.
By 79 the position had changed. Pakistan’s constant move towards the Arab world continued but now this was backed by the US and Pakistan’s closest friends were no longer the revolutionary Arabs but rather Emirs of UAE and the pro-American rulers of the Saudi Kingdom. Afghan war further cemented this. Now we see the Persian Khuda hafiz being replaced with the more puritan Allah Hafiz.
YLH: I am not saying that we should exclude any one of our three heritages. What I do say however is that we need to strike a balance here. We owe to our West-bankers a fair share in our national life. This must be done by broadening our regional outlook and opening up our-self to our western neighbors. There must be a continuous cultural and intellectual exchange between us and all points west. Such policies will go long way in the process of our national integration. Iranian and Turkish cinema is much more sophisticated than the vulgar Bollywood garbage!
About the Arabization of Pakistan. It is for sure due to the shortsightedness of our present ruling junta fueled by their personal greed. They are forever ready to sell the nation for the few crumbs thrown at them by the filthy Arab Shaikhs. Arab money has done more harm than good to us. Our sectarian strives could be directly traced to the Arab support to the Arabic religious schools in our country. It is time to change the course.
BTW. I admire you for speaking up for our beloved Pakistan. You have done more in a short time than most do in all their life. Keep it up. We are with you.
PMA:
“I admire you for speaking up for our beloved Pakistan. You have done more in a short time than most do in all their life. Keep it up. We are with you.”
Those words are telling. People may throw big statistics like GNP or growth rates or big words like ‘failed this or that’ in an effort to malign Pakistan but at the end of the day what defines a nation is not these words but its people; first and last, period.
The title of the article was Pakistan is here to stay.
One has only to read the insightful comments by all of you to see how true those words are.
A nation that continues to produce such people as YLH, BC and PMA is a nation on the move.
Not only is it going to stay, it is going to thrive and its best days are still ahead of it.
Keep it up all of you.
From a proud neighbor.
Regards.
Thanks Gorki
the hope is even more true of you and your country.. so double the mutual pride.
PMA, I agree with you, now that you ahve made it clear that the ‘sharing’ is and need not be “mutually exclusive”. for the worst pak can do is to insist ‘friends’ choose between india and pak. and the best way to avoid that would be to choose to have friendly relations with india, if and as far as possible, for the same reasons that pak’s friends won’t appreciate being made to choose between india and pak.
the left awakening, for a short while in the late 60′s, was of course true from chitagong to herat. our indian friends can elnlighten us about the indian part.
i’m waiting for our resident historian to enlighten us about all variety of ‘west-bankers’ in lands as far east as bengal, if not beyond. the west-bankers have a thousand years of history attached to india too.
@BC
If you are referring to me, let me tell you frankly that I wish you hadn’t interrupted one of the finest exchanges of thoughts and some of the finest writing it has been my pleasure to read for a long, long time. If you and Gorki had held still for a while more, who knows what more might have emerged? This was a good moment to have kept dead silence. Now it is too late.
I have seldom read such a lucid outline of a national programme and the idea of a nation. I still can’t believe that I saw it take place.
PMA, I don’t know about you and your background, but I do know that I am reading a genuine scholar, one who is infused with the light of true knowledge and a truly cosmopolitan spirit. Please accept my sincere respects.
I already know YLH for a precociously young thought-leader who sometimes scares me with his abilities. His contribution, it is tempting to say, was not surprising. Then I read the passages again, and realise that is so wrong.
I have nothing to say on this at the moment. Perhaps later, when it has all sunk in. This is so pleasing and uplifting to read, it demands its own space and its own time. Forgive me, but this is not a time when I can contribute in any way. Just now, I just wish to be left alone to ponder over what has been written.
@BC
I am sorry I cut your original communication short. It was maladroit and I shall make amends by doing as you ask, but not just yet, if you don’t mind. Many apologies for the rude and abrupt behaviour.
bonobashi
not at all. i read the passages you mentioned once again. i completely agree with your post of 12:29am.
If you and Gorki had held still for a while more, who knows what more might have emerged? This was a good moment to have kept dead silence. Now it is too late.
bonobashi
not at all. i read the passages you mentioned once again. i completely agree with your post of 12:29am.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Bonobashi, BC:
It is OK; I can take a hint
. The comment was actually directed at me and other Indians to hold our trap shut. 
.
Now that I have held my silence long enough and it appears that YLH and PMA are done for a while I will cautiously crawl out and make the following comments.
I agree with Bonobashi that this above was a singularly exceptional exchange. YLH always has good thoughts but PMA’s ideas; as explained here are one of the few original comments that I have read on the net recently on this topic and are light years ahead of the rehash that people like Komireddy have been doing in these troubled times. Goes on to show how much latent intellectual talent exists.
(Note to Kapil: Duniya mein Sikandar aur bhi hain…;-)..)
Originally PMA appeared almost cold when he kept on asking Hayyer and other Indians to ‘get off his back’ but after reading his expanded views I can understand his POV and can agree with him that the way forward for all of us may be as he outlines; two countries should focus on their own problems rather than stay locked endlessly in the same hopeless love-hate relationship with each other for another 60 years.
As an Indian interested in peace and hoping that the 26/11 kind of tragedies are not repeated, one can not ask for more at this point.
The Indus west bank comment was profound and I can actually appreciate a value in this even for the Gangetic plain people in the long run in terms of a broader awareness of the surrounding countries.
Perhaps PMA (or both YLH and PMA) will care to write a more elaborate essay explaining his much more sophisticated and rational views as a counterpoint to thinly disguised gloating recycled in the articles such one written by Komireddy.
Lastly I hope someone from our side; (I vote for Hayyer48, Majumdar or Bonobashi) can write a similarly thoughtful position paper (for grown ups) outlining what India’s priorities should me.
Regards.
@Gorki
My profuse apologies for the unnecessarily admonitory tone of my response to BC; yes, I was at that time upset that there was an interruption, as it seemed that the dialogue was truly outstanding, and each was inspiring greater lucidity and insight in the other. Nobody appointed me a monitor in these proceedings; it was thoughtless and rude of me, I have already apologised to Bloody Civilian, and have no hesitation in apologising to you either.
Having said that, in the spirit of what was said in that most illuminating exchange, it is time to get off our friends’ backs in certain significant respects. My remarks which follow are unfortunately also the sort of remarks which need to be shunned in future, and they are made with a self-conscious awareness of their awkward placement and positioning. These remarks are made in a spirit of sincere admiration and regard, and with no wish to interfere, and that must serve as their halting defense.
First, our Pakistani friends are in no way obliged to react; in other words, their point of view is not dependent on refuting somebody else’s, it is their point of view, existing on its own, without the need to refer to some trash printed elsewhere. My sincere suggestion is that bad articles written in sensationalist publications – what else would you call The Guardian but a left-wing sensationalist publication? – by authors of doubtful provenance do not require a mature republic’s scholars’ serious consideration. Dogs bark but the caravan passes on.
By that token, they don’t need our approbation either.
Second, they are their own best talent scouts, and don’t need us discovering them, thereafter approving of them. That to me sounds condescending, and I cannot blame them for asking why they need to submit their writings to us for praise or censure. I am uneasily aware that some of us tend to slip into a pleasantly exhortatory mood at the slightest provocation, which may chafe the recipients more than a bit.
Third, I do appreciate your point about the need for elaborating on these pithy, sparse but enormously significant formulations. Perhaps these matters are best left to the natural flow of events and the natural interaction between two outstanding intellects. It is not clear to me that the process needs our midwifery.
Fourth, I thought we were fortunate already in possessing a clearly-defined ‘Idea of the Nation’ already. I will explain some other time, in some other place, but to get back to the present, even if we were not, I am not sure that articulating a vision for India in the columns of PakTeaHouse will play well either in Pathankot or in Peshawar. Perhaps the time has come to go in deputation to Raza Rumi and ask him to make for us a common venue, where we can all of us speak freely of ourselves and of each other and of the way in which the world ought to be ruled, without overburdening the internal discussions and annals of a neighbour.
I have said some things which may seem caustic, but it is important in my opinion for the sake of creating a dialogue among equals that we approach such a dialogue with open minds and a spirit of mutual acceptance of what we are at the moment, and no faint air of condescension or delighted surprise at hearing English being spoken in unexpected places. My criticising my own past interventions may kindly serve as mitigation for these words here.
Two uses of ‘already’ in the same sentence; yes, the words of Samuel begin to apply to me. Oh, well, tell it not in Gath, and the rest of it. Perhaps, in BC’s words, it is time to stop trying my luck in English.
YLH is regurgitating the old lies. First of all YLH, what is your religion? Are you considered an equal citizen to a sunni muslim “pakistani”, under the constitution? can you become President of Pakistan? just curious.
Aren’t you hiding behind delusional fantasies that Indians are obsessed with pakis etc. No WE ARE NOT. We have NO USE for you (1) if you stop terrorism and (2) pathetic anti-India mindset, and hostility.
KOMIREDDY has written a powerful article. Perhaps “Truth alone triumphs” –satyameva jayate–is true and the whole world including some paks are finally accepting the truth .i.e the truth that castle of “Pakistan” was built on lies.
Lies that were uttered more than 70 years ago by Jinnah and company. When their lies are exposed, Pak ideologues desperatly regurgitate more of their old (exposed) lies. Jinnah & the elite who created Pakistan were not leaders of the masses as were Gandhi and Nehru. They sold the lies to the British and the British willingly went along with this mostly as a punishment to Gandhi& co and payback for their Indian nationalistic freedom movement.
It is amusing to read Pakis claiming India has not accepted partition and that’s why there are problems. India cannot accept the ideology behind partition and still be India as it is. If paks had managed to create a country with the territory they got India is done with them. Alas, the 2 nation theorists have not produced a country after 62 years because the castle stood on lies.
There is a fundamental problem if you create a country based on the sole claim if you practice a different religion, you cannot coexist with your neighbours and brothers who speak the same language, eat the same food.After achieving this Jinnah lied, and pretended and made statements to the effect Pakistan will be a tolerant state. The bogus claim was Pakistan was created to help muslims escapte the deceit, lies and oppression of Hindus.
The hilarious aspect of this falsehood is it was muslims who were ruling Hindus until the British came. It was Aurangazeb a muslim emperor who let elephants to trample the Hindus of Delhi when they protested against Islamic jiziya tax.
Paks desperately cling to caste riots, religious violence in India to see justifications for their ideology. The truth is Gandhi and Nehru and the overwhelming majority of Indians cherish the idea of citizenship of India that is not based on any other identity. This includes even large sections of moderate BJP. Islamic heritage is part and parcel of India as are million other things that constitute the mosaic of India.
Where do we go from here? It is impossible to convince TNT ideologues of anything and Indians don’t have to.
India should focus on economic development. However, pakis will continue to sponsor terrorism such as Mumbai attack, fighting it is only a subtext to our larger successful story.
Raj,
What Pakistanis fail to distinguish is, Indians
have accepted Pakistan but Indians will never
accept the priniciple behind Pakistan, TNT,
unless Indians have a leader like Jinnah
(god forbid there is another Jinnah in Inida,
we had one Jinnah wannabe already, Advani).
Raj, Swapnavasavdutta: Schadenfreude is a very fine wine. It is best enjoyed in silence.
@Sharmishtha
Just curious, but wouldn’t a few chosen words in a Haryanvi dialect be more the speed of the gentlemen that you have chosen to address?
@Raj
First, let me acknowledge that you are right on target with your robust assertion that Indians are not obsessed with Pakistanis. It is not very clear to their undoubtedly feeble intellects that our proud aloof characters are in no way compromised by the trivial circumstance of our conducting this discussion on that famous pan-Indian institution the PakTeaHouse.
On the contrary, you have done us proud by demonstrating that until smacked in the face by a fact, any fact, about Pakistan, we can display complete ignorance of it. For instance, by insinuating that YLH is a second-class Muslim, probably from that shadowy category that is not Sunni, and further building on this damning circumstance (never mind that it hasn’t been answered) by questioning his ability to become President of Pakistan, ever. That allows us to react with the outraged dignity of a camel when its testicles are tweaked (without its permission) when those treacherous scuts pretend to look befuddled and point to their present president.
We come to Komireddy and points South. That indication of poor quality is not unintended; his article is so childish that I was taken aback, and let me confess, more than a little disturbed that YLH should have dignified it with an answer. I thought, apparently correctly, as is my wont, that nobody with any sense would subscribe to those half-baked ideas and totally untenable views. How do you define powerful? Does it equate merely to the pejorative content, or is any sprinkling of common sense, credibility or competence a necessary part of the recipe?
But it appears that Komireddy is not really on your agenda. If I might surmise from a quick scrutiny of your subsequent paragraphs, your agenda is as follows:
1. A quick proof that none of the Muslims on the sub-continent existed in the 40s, or if they did, they existed as the elite, thereby proving that the British were truly perfidious, to cast away from themselves a fine nation with such a large elite. This is easily proved; it is clear by definition that Jinnah could not have been a mass leader, because there can be only one mass leader at a time: as we all know, or at any rate, Sharmishtha probably does, Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer! So the League winning landslide victories in Muslim majority regions is in no way any kind of qualification of them as mass leaders. What kind of mass leader speaks English, for heavens’ sakes, with the high-falutin’ accent that Mr. Jinnah did his? If he was a genuine mass leader, he should have spoken in Gujarati. Instead, in a demonstration of his elitism, and unfitness to be a mass leader, he is reported by (Hindu) associates as speaking an excellent variety of the Porbandari dialect.
Now, I ask you: if that is not elitist, what is? And did you get the treacherous underhand implications of his choice of dialect? That he was born in those parts is no defence; he was obviously trying to undermine the Mahatma’s mass leadership qualification by dark hints and insinuations about his parenthood and provenance. Typical Muslim slander.
2. The second point being a rebuff of the Pakistani canard that India cannot accept Partition, and the consequences of Partition, and keeps harping on re-unification to an unwilling 170 million distressed objects of wooing (you need to meet a character called aiims2009 to understand what unwanted wooing really is). This is so not true; we do so accept partition. It’s just the IDEA behind partition that we don’t accept, if you get what I think we mean.
Well, anyway, let’s not go into that definitional crap; this isn’t a courtroom. It isn’t about logic; never was. We KNOW we’re right, and you’re wrong, and when we know it that hard, you’d give in and accept it as true if you were decent human beings, and if you weren’t an unemotional, cold-hearted bunch of grave-robbers, you wouldn’t keep tripping us up on sneaky stuff out of British-Muslim collaboration textbooks.
You sorry shower just need to make a country, any country, with the territory you got (you didn’t get Junagadh and you didn’t get Hyderabad, so nyaah, nyaah).
Now, if only you’d get your country going, with a flag and a government, and a court and people in that court, and an army and an airforce and a navy and a foreign service and membership of the UNO and the World Bank (useful to borrow from, trust us), and passports, and – oh, simple things, like a cricket team, for instance, one that wins something once in a way, you know the kind we mean, or even – forgetting poofy elite games that nobody except Lalit Mody really cares for anyway – hockey, a really manly game for the masses. I mean, where are all these signs of nationhood, you jerks? Ever thought of getting a good national anthem organised? We’ve got two. And that’s all we need to accept partition and sip our Riesling – could you make mine Johannisberger please? It’s amazing how some people can’t get the simplest things, even if it’s S-P-E-L-T out to them.
3. What else? Can I do the rest in a separate post? I’m laughing too hard, and spilling my wine. Sharmishtha, don’t go away; there’s a special bit all for you.
YLH: You don’t need to dignify the two posts above with an answer.
Raj and swapnavasavdutta: Kindly try to understand the following with an open mind.
YLH wrote a rebuttal to an article written by Kommireddy; the kind of which has become a favorite pastime of some lazy authors who write in the western press to polish their resume. First of all, the value of the information provided in this article is essentially zero. For example if for the sake of argument one were to believe everything that Kommireddy wrote is true, it is hard to find anything original in his article that has not been said before by others and that can not be researched on the web in a few hours.
Next, his prediction: “Within the next 20 years, Pakistan as we know it today will probably not exist.”
Here, he provides absolutely nothing; information or analysis wise to back his assertion.
So in summary; his article is a kind of term paper a high school student would write (My apologies to high school students) if he was pressed for time and googled shamelessly to come up with some barely coherent gibberish to avoid an F. In this Kommireddy has done a good job; perhaps he deserves a C minus.
Now check the facts. Kapil writes “…a struggle founded upon the premise that Muslims and Hindus cannot co-exist in one nation”.
I request that you both to spend maybe half an hour on the PTH partition series to read the evidence presented and I can tell you that even if you were not entirely convinced, you will develop enough doubts about the above statement to say that is bogus. That MAJ argued TNT (two nation theory) is not the same as he said Hindus and Muslims could not live in one country. He did not say that till the failure of CMP. It is a big difference.
Then Kapil says “Pakistan cannot justify its existence as long as India accommodates religious diversity.” Now this is the statement that truly upsets me. If one were to read the writings of many Pakistani intellectuals (including that of the young man who wrote the above; YLH) no one can claim there are no secular elements in Pakistan. That there voice has been suppressed is another thing. It is akin to saying that if the RRS protégé BJP had won the elections then all Indians would become believers in the TNT. This kind of generalization is one of the most harmful that we Indians can do.
Suffice to say that we too have enough of the Baitullah Mehsud kind of fanatics in the saffron brigade. No one country has a higher moral ground; the fight against darkness and obscurity is an ongoing battle. Let people like YLH fight their battles while we fight our own.
Now last think as an Indian, and tell me truly what you would want Pakistanis to do?
Remain locked in the anti-India posture of the last 60 years (which is likely to continue if Indians keep needling it with useless analysis such as the one predicting its demise) or try something different for both our sakes?
Specifically tell me how does it hurt India if Pakistanis start to rediscover that MAJ was a secular person and wanted a nation built on secular principles?
Also try to figure out how does it hurt Indian interests if Pakistan (like YLH and PMA have argued) reinvents itself as a separate nation; not hyphenated with India but as a nation confident of its roots which lie equally in India, Iran and Afghanistan and starts looking westwards.
Finally how is it bad for us if this nation of 170 million stands on its feet and then develops into a vibrant successful and prosperous neighbor rather than a sullen enemy?
The very last question I want you (and all other Indians) to ask themselves; how does all this gloating helpful to Indian interests?
Regards.