Pak Tea House » Media » Are We Caving in?
Are We Caving in?
By Shafaat Bokhari:
Having gotten up early in the morning after a tiresome struggle with the hourly load shedding of electricity at night I planned the day during which I had to buy a Pakistan International Airlines’ ticket for my wife. I had earlier promised her visit to our relatives abroad to celebrate Eid with them; my mind was relentlessly getting back to the last night TV talk show on the PTV where some intellectuals were very seriously discussing Muslim carnage in Myanmar. The discussion seemed quite unreasonable and embarrassing as none of them was referring to even more bloodshed of Muslims at the hands of fellow Muslims in our own country almost on daily basis. I was surprised to note that none of them was referring to Shia genocide in Baluchistan or the killings of our soldiers and civilians in FATA and elsewhere while they were shamelessly questioning the apathy of the rest of world which was not taking notice of Myanmar incident and that too at least at the United Nations’ level . I do not know whether the UN has suo moto powers to take up such cases on its own. The modified lyrics of the Qawwali originally sung by the country’s most well-known Sabri brothers , “Bhar do jholi mere Ya Mohammad “ were also making me upset although I had no religious or ideological differences with what had been produced by one of the Sabri’s son last evening on a private TV channel. Was it an obvious message to majority of Muslims of our unfortunate country to start thinking in a particular mode or face the consequences?
My wife was however in very high spirits to avail this occasion to revive the treasure of memories of her early childhood which she had spent in the then East Pakistan. The same night she had shown me the beautiful black and white photographs of a colonial bungalow in which she was born as a first child of a young civil engineer in late 50s. She fondly narrated one of her childhood ferry cruises on a full moon night when she was insisting to have “that football “ , the full moon, in her lap which was travelling alongside her in the deep waters of river Karnafuli. She also told me in quite detail about a theatrical play, watched with her parents, in which live characters were playing as puppets. I was though lost in praising secretly the sagacity of the Bengalis who quite bravely and against all odds had declared their country as a People’s Republic and secular instead of insisting to be Islamic republic like us which is neither Islamic nor even being allowed to be a republic. By the way , has there ever been an Islamic state in modern history?
Just when I was about to leave the house, I was told that the driver was out the last night with my son and came back home at about 2 a.m. after his little master had played a day and night cricket match. I did not think it appropriate to disturb him from his sleep as he was fasting. I was told to go to the ATM and the Bank too, to deposit the utilities’ bills of my home before taking up the rest of the planned days’ assignments.
To my surprise, when I reached the Bank, there was a notice announcing the closure of not only the Bank but ATM as well on account of deduction of Zakat. I got back to the car thinking how our elders used to pay the ZAKAT before the rise and enforcement of this specific brand of Islam introduced by one of the most remembered martyrs of our country. I will not dilate upon the different ways in which his memories haunt the people of this land. While on my way to the Airline office, I took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it. Halfway down, I realized that it was Ramadan and I could be tried, if caught, under some obscure offences but I took the chance and successfully provided the nicotine my old and tired body was craving for. I trembled in my pants when I recalled how those bigots had just last week burnt alive an insane for some blasphemous act in Bahawalpur. I thanked God for his kindness for not getting me caught. There is no dearth of pious people who are in abundance in our streets inflicting punishments without any holds barred in the presence of our police for the sins, the punishment or exoneration of which rests with the God himself. I recalled those beautiful winter Ramazans of my childhood when there used to be very few changes in lifestyle. The month used to pass with equal reverence without much ado on the media or even in the mosques except very quiet taraveehs and loudspeakers announcing the Sehar and Iftar. I reached the Airline offices reminiscing those calm, peaceful and tolerant days. I had to tell the security people that I was unable to walk comfortably because of a recent illness so I may be allowed to take my vehicle inside. They did not agree even on being shown the stick I was carrying to help me walk. I, however, instantly referred to an acquaintance, a high official of the same office, when they obediently opened the gates without even counter–checking my identity from him or his staff. I found out after getting into the office that he was on a tour to Karachi for the last fortnight. So much for the security. I got the booking process completed very quickly because of lack of the usual rush our national airline used to have in the bygone days. One thing however which was constantly flashing into my mind was the changed version of the qawwali . This Qawwali actually had been a source of inspiration for me during my teens and later. I am in my mid fifties now. The lyrics were modified in such a way that the name of the prophet and the mention of his grandsons had been out rightly deleted. I was thinking how the poor chap must have been convinced to do this as I had read just last week comments of a columnist turned politician, the hesitation of the Punjab khadime aala to change the name of famous liberty chowk to Noor Jehan Chowk ostensibly in the wake of an NOC to be obtained from the powers that be. I was quite disheartened by now so I decided to visit a friend in an outdoor of a public hospital. By the way she happens to be a lady doctor but thank God, visiting lady doctors by men has not yet been declared un-Islamic and turned into a cognizable offence under some penal code. I knew I would be able to share the pain. On my entry to her outdoor clinic, I found out that she was accompanied by her 6 year old young son who was enjoying the cola drink and some potato crisps while playing games on the Laptop. In the meanwhile, a female member of her staff brought some eatables with a different brand of cold drink to the delight of the young chap. The doctor had been like minded for more than two decades but I kept waiting for the routine offer of a glass of water which I needed badly but it never came. Even then I kept sharing with her my thoughts whatever way they came into my mind, in between the intervals, when she did not have a patient. We discussed the latest comments of our independent righteous judges and the way the people and the Bars had stood behind them, the possibility of Pakistan’s ouster from the Olympics, the events of the first Ramadan in far flung areas of KPK , FATA and Baluchistan which did not affect our lives but of course added into the fears, usage of the phrase Ramazan circus about the media by a brave journalist in an English newspaper and of course the qawwali too.
Towards the end of her day and our meeting, a flabby young man, clad in a shalwar qamees and clean shaven, entered into the outdoor room. She introduced him as a local leader of the ruling party in Punjab. I was horrified to listen when he started with the comments that there was no ehtram-e-ramzan . She explained him sheepishly that it was just a 6 year old but he commented that there were two different brands of the cold drinks which meant one of you must be taking it. That was enough for me from the self created moral police constable of the holy land. As I wanted to get back home alive I excused myself. She followed me to the jdoor of her clinic and whispered that I had called him to explain why he had tried to bribe her staff last week. I reached home safely unlike the more fortunate ones.
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Mythbuster, Fingolfin, Dronacharya ,
Very good analysis by all of you on partition and Jinah’s role in that. Loved reading posts by all three of you. Thanks gentlemen.
thank you Mohan
“at heart Jinnah was a gem of a man who was honest, secular, intelligent and forthright in everything he did”
Fingolfin, although no one ought to waste his or her time either supporting or opposing that view, you might consider being a little cautious when interacting with those entire frame of reference is based on myth-making and personalization of all events and causation. They will take innocuous remarks like that and run with them to places you never imagined existed.
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Drone Sheikh ji,
Dear friend, you don’t have to wait, unless you do so out of pure ignorance. Answers to your questions can be given today, as the path of Pakistan could have been predicted with perfect clarity at the time of its formation.
No, it makes no sense for Muslims to give ‘mutual respect’ – that much you should know. You can sit in India – blaming Nehru and Gandhi in the safety of a non-Muslim majority, but in Pakistan that ‘mutual respect’ will NOT happen. If you wish, you and I can come back here after ten years and compare notes. So modify your sincere hopes for that great nation.
Bloody revolution? You wooly-headed Islamists with little knowledge of Islam don’t get it – bloody revolution of Iran-kind is NOT going to happen in Pakistan. The revolution in Pakistan is already afoot. It has been since 1947. If one can’t see the dramatic impact of that revolution, then that is not Pakistan’s fault. By the way, Pakistan is already a powerhouse in a very significant sense, and will continue to be.
As to your ‘history’, Indian Muslims hurt themselves terribly in the long run if they continue to adhere to Pakistani narratives that many Pakistanis themselves have begun to abandon. But the cost of nursing those narratives is much lower in India than in Pakistan – where theoretical absurdity has begun to show up as physical consequences. So, yes, the ‘communal’ Gandhi-Nehru protect you as sing paens to the delusion of Jinnah’s secularism and denounce Gandhi-Nehru communalism and the bossism of Patel.
By the way, we know that many who had agitated for Pakistan stayed back in India and joined the ‘communal’ Nehru’s government, but Master Tara Singh – did he go over to Pakistan?
Dronacharya
i said Khan Abdul JABBAR Khan which was Dr Khan Sahib’s real name not Gaffar Khan. it does not matter whether it was a mess or not. Jinnah never gave any reason for its dismissal and everyone knew exactly why it was being dismissed and that is because he was pro-congress. many faults do lie with Jinnah as far as Pakistan’s fate is concerned and not initiating the democratic process is a big one.
to say that there was no one to take his place as a justification for not initiating the democratic process is not correct. either ways, whether there was someone to fill his shoes or not, someone had to rule after him through some due process right? it would have done Pakistan a whole world of good had Jinnah defined the importance of democracy in electing the leaders(however incapable) as compared to initiate dictatorships. you would rather have incapable leaders through the process of democracy than have incapable leaders through dictatorships.
Jinnah should have defined the army civilian government dynamic and he should have made the plenipotentiary powers of the civilian government very clear to the people and the institutions. it might not have prevented dictatorships but at least voices for democracy would have had the comfort of knowing that the are undoubtedly following in the footsteps of Jinnah. this would have been a massive boost and justification for pro=democracy voices. a justification they now do not have.
the only other exception i make to your well written post is to paint Gandhi with the same brush as Nehru and Patel.
you might find some little justification in saying that Nehru and Patel wanted partition to some extent. but to say that of Gandhi is doing blase injustice to the man who forever fought for Hindu-Muslim peace and unity. there is nothing to suggest even among conspiracy theorists, that Gandhi ever wanted partition. he said to Jinnah,”Hindus and Muslims are the two eyes of India”.
it was Gandhi who came up with the last minute attempt of making Jinnah the prime minister of independent India if that would keep India united. when Jinnah heard this he said,”wily Gandhi. but not everyone is a Mahatma”. Jinnah knew what Gandhi was. both men from Kathiawar in Gujrat understood that Nehru and Patel saw some incentive in partition.
which is why even after independence, Gandhi remained a desperately unhappy man. for him, Hindu Muslim unity was in many ways, more important than freedom. it had been his life’s aim to maintain that and at the climax of his achievements, he had failed. he was broken. during the midnight our when India awoke to life and freedom, Gandhi was not there. he was not beside Nehru enjoying the moment that fruits of his success because to him, he had not succeeded. it was to give the remainder of his life some meaning and direction that he was at that time, in a decrepit and torn village in Noakhali trying to ensure peace in the smoldering fires of post partition communalism.
it was Gandhi who ensured that Pakistan received its fair share of resources from India something that both Patel and Nehru were loath to do. he thought that this would ensure good ties between the two new neighbours. he paid for it with his life.
Godse said that the reason he shot Gandhi was because he was forever siding with the Muslims. and after all this when i see people paint Gandhi as a communal individual who wanted to see Hinduism in India, then it pains me deeply. it is a gross injustice to his memory and to his life’s work. back at home the sad truth is that he is hated by everybody.
Nehru might have wanted partition to some extent, but i will never ever doubt his secular credentials. it is just that he might have thought heart of heart that partition makes the best administrative sense and more importantly, he might have trusted Hindus to be more secular than Muslims. so he was confident of protecting minority rights in a Hindu majority India. Nehru was a scholar and thinker par excellence. Jinnah could never hope to match Nehru’s grasp of culture and perspicacity. a man like Nehru would have made an outstanding academician. if you have not, you must read his books. they are regarded as the gateway to understanding south east Asia. when you consider that he wrote most of his work in prison where he had no reference, then you are left astounded by the breath of the mans sheer range and intelligence. Glimpses of World History is a tome that is admired everywhere and so is his discovery of India.
Nehru’s secularism cannot be doubted because the man had his chance of so-called Hindu cultural hegemony right after partition when he had no opposition. but he sculpted a secular future for India. another instance was when the Somnath Temple had been rebuilt. the president Dr Rajendra Prasad went for the opening ceremony and dedicated it to the country. Nehru had asked him not to go and was furious. he accosted Rajendra Prasad for being the head of a secular country and yet aligning himself with a religion in public!! you cannot get more secular than that.
Nehru was a man of vision. his non-aligned policy, emphasis on self reliance, overhauling and thus ameliorating the education system, creating linguistic states is what kept India going. a large reason India succeeded where Pakistan failed is because of a man like Nehru at the helm and an administrator like Patel.
they may draw some criticism for wanting partition deep down, but for nothing else. the minorities of India owe them such a great deal and so do we all, for some reason or another.
in your admiration of Jinnah i only hope you don’t end up seeing the rest of the leaders from a myopic lens. Jinnah was not the white knight and the rest were not Dark knights, they were all grey with different priorities and circumstances pulling them.
as far as solutions to Pakistan’s problems are concerned, i agree with all the points you have raised.
elsewhere i have said that Pakistan must see it’s Ataturk soon and the sooner the better.
i am eagerly anticipating such an individual for if we do not see him/her come, then i am afraid my outlook for Pakistan too is going to be very bleak. the direction they are headed in now only leads to accelerated anarchy.
Kaalchakra
Fingolfin
Good post. But let’s be wary of arguments that refer to ‘deep-down’ feelings and intentions of leader – when one leader says X, he is argued to mean Y, and when another leader says P he is argued to mean Q. Such are the protestations of demagogues and crooks – unless these gentlemen (and ladies) can prove to us that they have divine insight into the minds of leaders gone by.
The argument that ‘deep-down’ Nehru wanted partition and deep-down Jinnah didn’t want partition – is both foolish and dishonest (again, in absence of either real supporting evidence or divine insight). ANYTHING is theoretically possible, but perhaps not if there are people who will take anything-is-theoretically-possible to paint whatever history they like. Best.
Fingolfin
Brother, Jinnah is no enigma at all. He was a liberal Muslim in a land where he had not yet been able to implement his Islamic vision. Many such people truly (I mean, truly) believe – all at the same time – the many wildly different things that seem contradictory to the rest of us. He was a liberal. He was an Islamist. He was Hindu-Muslim ambassasor. He was convinced Islam was a far superior civilization, and a natural democracy and a secular system. One can go on and on, but it is not worth the time and effort – except to know that such beliefs exist, and they are firm and strong, even today. Once you understand that mindset, Jinnah becomes an open book.
to drona the drone
Jinnah was basically a hindu and of hindu origin. He was not arab. His good character was formed by non-muslims in his early days. That is why he disliked (and did not practise) islam for a long time. It was only after his megalomania and envy were awakened that he jumped on the ML bandwagon. He grew up in an environment where hindus were not hated as in Pakistan. Many muslims learnt relaxedness and morality from hindus and their mythologies.
Question therefore is:
Was Jinnah’s character formed by islamic or hindu influence. He was advocate of hindu-muslim unity (and may be even amity?) so long islam did not craze him up. After that he became a hater and a tricky lawyer for the pakistan fascist ideology in which history-writing had been changed to vilify hindus, make muslims appear as victims and hindus as evil banias.
Develop some analytic thinking in spite of the fact that your islam prevents you from doing that.
Kaalchakra
of course that is my perspective and reading of the issue(the deep down argument).
what you are saying would be true of there were no events to support what i think. but i have already said that to me, Jinnah’s acceptance of the Cabinet Mission plan is very very significant. and Nehru’s and Patel’s acceptance of partition is also very suggestive. Nehru and Patel would wield much more power in the event of partition so there exists a clear incentive too.
my reading is based on events rather than a wish to paint a certain history. but as it is it remains my perspective and so is obviously open to any scrutiny and debate.
as far as Jinnah is concerned, he is an enigma to me because he is all those things you mentioned. the enigma part of it to me is why he was each of those things, when and what circumstances led to them.
Fingolfin : you write with such emotion. But facts are always cold and infact boring ! Statistics do not make for a charming read. You have quoted from the movie Gandhi.. and from J. Nehru’s writings. I have read all of Nehru’s writings (everything.. infact more than what Rajiv/Sanjay/Rahul/Priyanka may have read !). Nehru was good “on paper”.
I repeat (bear with me): The real decision – maker was Patel. Not Gandhi and/or Nehru. Patel had decided as early as 1920s.. that India had to be partitioned to get rid of Muslim areas ! (Base-line of this thought provided by Lal-Bal-Pal, and of course Savarkar). These were the Think Tanks of their times. The prospect of getting rid of all (if not most) Muslims from Indian soil appealed to the Hindu Heart. A new avenue / possibility had opened up in front of their eyes. I try to comprehend the Hindu Aspiration. That was definitely anti-Islam.
If you have time, please read Sri Aurobindo, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and the literature they produced (all in the garb of philosophy). It was pure politics presented as “philosophy”. To this day, they air Ramayana in the garb of “culture”. There is nothing wrong with that., but why call cheese as honey ? The presence of Indian Muslims (the 2nd largest community) was a sore sight in the eyes of PATEL.
You completely IGNORE PATEL’S role in the whole drama. Mountbatten is on record to say that Patel was the Man ! The decision maker. Have you researched Patel ? Have you read his life.. his writings.. speeches.. utterances.. You will understand the CASE when you READ Patel’s mind. Patel’s mind holds the key. Indira Gandhi was Patel in a Saree., and P.V. Narasimha Rao was a re-incarnation of Patel. I am afraid but i have to say this : Rahul Gandhi seems to be a re-incarnation of PV Narasimha Rao (with +/- 5% variance). You have to understand the PSYCHE of Patel’s mind., to understand the Hindu Perspective.
Sri Aurobindo, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Annie Besant (The Irish Lady who is one of the founders of Benaras Hindu University !!) S. Radhakrishnan… these people laid the MENTAL FRAMEWORK. Patel acted upon their impulse.
to drone
Islam was created in Makkah and not in the indian subcontinent. Hence islam and its agents and quislings have no right to determine anything in the indian subcontinent. Similarly hindus have no right to determine anything any Makkah – and they in deed are not intervening in Makkah.
So the muslim position is unjustified, anti-human and one of treachery.
If a hindu says that muslims belong to Arabia and not to India then he is perfectly right. That the hindus are too weak, divided, tolerant, timid, leaderless or careless means that hindus will not get justice and the agents and quislings of islam will keep robbing them and ridiculing and insulting them. Muslims are using even their pregnant women and new-born children to commit (demographic) aggression against hindus (or non-muslims in general).
Islam’s long-term goal is the extermination of hindus. As the muslims come nearer to this goal the hindus will be on the run soon. After that there will be more bloodshed since muslim majority means more violence and lies.
This is the age of kali (kaliyuga). In this era the violent, the deceitful and the scoundrels will win. But no one really knows what the future will bring.
Muslims are taught that only muslims have the right to defend themselves or to write history or take revenge (as per convenience of islam). When a muslim does that then he is blessed by the arab allah and when a non-muslim does that he is cursed by that same allah.
Dronacharya (August 1, 2012 at 5:53 pm)
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Assuming all you wrote is correct, can you please answer the following two questions:
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1. How did this Hindu cabal of yours (Bal-Pal-Lal, Savakar, Aurobindo, Patel etc.) get Jinnah to execute their plan and how did all these gentlemen get the Muslims of Central provinces to advocate for a Pakistan and Hindus for a United India in the 1946 elections?
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2. If Patel was the real man (and Nehru the front) why are there 140 million Muslims still living in India?
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(In 1948 Nehru was asked pointed questions by a young IAS trainee on this topic. I will try to find an interview; and post it if I can..)
Dear Dronacharya,
Read below and see how it fits with your Hindu conspiracy theories. Even if the interviewee may be biased, the questions he asked point out the facts (for example about the Leaguers left behind in India unmolested inspite of your favorite villian, Patel being a home minister then…)
Enjoy.
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Shri Yuvaraj Karan, a former IAS Officer, who is also one of the escapees from Pakistan has written a book – ‘Understanding Partition’ published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. When he was at the IAS training institute in Dehradun, in the first batch IAS trainees, Jawaharlal Nehru was invited to address them.
(We reproduce below a conversation between Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and an IAS probationer, Shri Yuvaraj Karan in 1950)
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Y. Krishna{quoting} (YK): Well, Sir, those who have brought about partition have been left behind in the partitioned India. The Muslim League had declared that the Hindus and Muslims were two nations and had asked for partition because they feared that the Muslims being a minority, would suffer oppression and atrocities at the hands of Hindu majority. Pakistan was to be their homeland where they could live in freedom from the tyranny of the Non-Muslim majority. But lo and behold! The vast majority of Muslims of UP, Bihar, Central provinces, Bombay etc remained behind in India and did not migrate to the homeland (Pakistan) created for them. We never accepted the two-nation theory though we were driven to accept partition to avoid bloodshed and to achieve Independence.
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Prime minister (PM)– We are not a communal state. The Muslims, who have decided to stay in India, are as much honorable citizens of the country as the members of the majority community. They cannot be victimized in the new situation for their actions and conduct before and at the time of partition. We cannot and must not live in the past
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YK : True Sir, but the immense suffering the people have undergone and the problems; only it has created new ones.
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PM: You are too young to understand. The overwhelming majority of the Indian Muslims are politically backward and have been misled by the pernicious and poisonous propaganda of the Muslim league. So it will be wrong to treat the vast majority of Indian Muslims as being responsible for the ills of our country
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YK: True Sir, the vast majority has been misled by the two-nation theory. But this does not absolve the Muslim League leadership; they are the authors of partition, and yet, the majority of this leadership has also stayed back in India. The Muslims of Pakistan, West Punjab, NWFP, Sindh and Baluchistan as such never wanted or asked for Pakistan, in fact that they did not need to.
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There was a pause and silence for a couple of minutes.
The Raja of Mahamudabad, Begum Aizaz Rasul, Raja of Pirpur, Maulana Hasrat Mohanti etc, from UP, Syed Hussain Imam from Bihar, M.Mod.Ismail from Madras etc to name a few of the host of Muslim League leaders, have stayed back in India though they had actively worked for the creation of Pakistan as the homeland for the Indian Muslims. There is not an iota of justification for such leaders being allowed to stay in India after having got the country partitioned on the basis of the two-Nation theory. They ought to have gone to the homeland they asked for and obtained
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There was again a pause
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PM Nehru’s face was flushed. After a brief silence, he resumed
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PM: We cannot abandon the nationalist Muslims who had fought and sacrificed for India™s independence.
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YK: But the congress has already abandoned the khidmatgars led by the Frontier Gandhi
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PM: This was a most (unfortunate) decision forced on us by the geo-political realities
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YK: I am not sure of the loyalty of the so-called Nationalist Muslims, after the creation of Pakistan. Considering the speeches (mischievous and rabble rousing) of the National Muslim leaders (those who were opposed to partition) like Dr Syed Mahmud, Maulana Hafizur Rahman(of Jamiat-ul-ulema-e-Hind)etc at the Lucknow conference of Mussalman, Hind(Dec 1947)
PM: This is false, mischievous, a canard intended to defame and denigrate the Nationalist Muslims who have played a glorious role in India,s independence.
YK: The PM must be correct on this point. I have perhaps been wrongly informed. But the basic fact remains that the Muslim League leaders and worked from Western UP”Meerut, Moradabad, Aligarh, Saharanpur, etc “organised the riots in Rawalpindi in March 1947 which set the Punjab ablaze. It was not the work of the local Muslims of Rawalpindi in the initial stages but the Muslim League leaders from UP. Is it also not shocking that the Muslim League leaders of Rampur State in UP should have launched a violent agitation by setting on fire several Government buildings demanding accession of Rampur State (to) Pakistan?
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The face of the Prime Minister turned red in anger. He started puffing at his silver cigarette-holder….
Some liberal Muslims believe in the esoteric Hindu concept of Maya. To them what is obvious is not true, truth lies in what is hidden from the eye! The communal politics of AIML post ’37 does not matter to them, the mobilization post ’40 also does not matter, that communal politics finally reached a crescendo in the ’46 elections that the AIML won on the promise of a sovereign land of the pure (“Without Pakistan Islam will be annihilated from India”) is also of no consequence, what only matters is that Jinnah, even if reluctantly, accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan. That AIML and Congress both accepted the CMP with reservations is forgotten, that AIML members themselves were strongly against the CMP is forgotten, that Jinnah (reluctant himself but finally persuaded by the Cabinet Mission) could only convince the AIML of its utility arguing that it would in time lead to a sovereign independent Pakistan is also ignored; a view is propagated that the CMP was all that Jinnah wanted in the first place. In reality of course this thesis is a piece of creative writing masquerading as history. Ayesha Jalal, working under the tutelage of Cambridge Professor Anil Seal (if it’s creative writing can a Bengali Bhadralok be far behind!) tells us that a sovereign independent Pakistan was not what Jinnah ever wanted. It was thrust upon him by Congress, by the triumvirate of Nehru, Gandhi, and Patel. In other words, the esoteric Hindu concept of Maya is not irrelevant to correctly interpret the history of our subcontinent.
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Fingolfin, read below an article that came out in London’s “The Spectator” some time ago. As you will see the writer Woodrow Wyatt, an eyewitness to the CMP deliberations, is considerably more sympathetic to Jinnah. Please read carefully his last two paragraphs paraphrased below (skip it to go directly to the article).
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Jinnah “furiously inveighed against the plan”. Wyatt tried to convince him by arguing that , “the Muslim League should say that, though the Statement ruled out Pakistan, it was the first step on the road to it..”. Wyatt spoke at length. Finally, Jinnah’s “face lit up. He hit the table with his hand: `That’s it. You’ve got it.’” (This clearly refers to the following clause in the CMP, “The Constitutions of the Union and of the groups should contain a provision whereby any Province could by majority vote of its Legislative Assembly could call for a reconsideration of the terms of the Constitution after an initial period of ten years and at ten-yearly intervals thereafter.” )
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Wyatt continues, “And that is exactly what he made the Muslim League do.” (This clearly refers to AIML CMP resolution, “…the Muslim League is accepting the scheme, and will join the constitution-making body, and it will keep in view the opportunity and right of secession of Provinces or groups from the Union, which have been provided in the Mission’s plan by implication.” )
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Nothing wrong in any of this. Jinnah was within his rights to insist on a sovereign Pakistan. That’s how AIML won the ’46 elections and a sovereign Pakistan was their mandate. But the claim that they really wanted a united India with some terms and conditions is made spurious by the accounts of an important eyewitness. An witness who is considerably pro-Jinnah and nurtures a strong dislike for Gandhi (and in fact holds him responsible for partition). This settles if Jinnah wanted a sovereign Pakistan or it was thrust upon him.
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*****************************************************************
Even his fasts were a fraud
Woodrow Wyatt, The Spectator, Aug. 9, 1997
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I FIRST met Gandhi in January 1946, when I was one of the ten members of the All Party Delegation of MPs sent to India to sound out the mood. He asked how old I was. The answer, 27, provoked one of his high-pitched giggles: `Hee, hee, hee! Younger than my grandsons but old enough to be one of the rulers of India.’
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I instantly recognised Gandhi as a great humorous character whom P.G. Wodehouse would have been delighted to develop in the genre of Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle. His interview with the ten MPs lasted two-and-a-half hours, during which they asked serious questions and he gave no serious answers, other than to repeat, `Get off our backs. We can’t walk.’ At the end I asked Agatha Harrison, an English Quaker member of Gandhi’s court, why all Gandhi’s answers to sensible questions had been nonsense. The answer she gave was that Gandhi had been testing our sincerity. Gandhi was always testing other people’s sincerity but was indignant if anyone tried to test his.
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I was told to come back by myself at 6 a.m. the next morning. We walked up and down the flat-roof top of the sweepers’ quarters from which the Untouchables had been removed by Gandhi’s great friend, the multimillionaire G.D. Birla, who had rendered the premises spotlessly clean. Mrs Naidu, who became a provincial governor after independence, remarked, `It costs a great deal of money to keep Gandhi in poverty.’
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In our early morning talk he made more sense. The time for further discussions and conferences was over. It was too late for Dominion status with full self-government – only complete separation and full independence with no special links would do: ‘A slave clings to his chains and he must have them struck from him.’ If we did not want to hand over to Indian National Congress we must hand over to Jinnah and his Muslim League. Britain was not to divide India. It must be handed over intact.
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When I returned to India in March, as Stafford Cripps’s personal assistant in the Cabinet Mission which he led, I was to have many more meetings with Gandhi. I liked him enormously and he must have liked me because I would often get messages such as: `Don’t you like me any more? You haven’t been to see me lately.’ He believed in cottage industries, though his friend Birla thought that they were tosh. Once Gandhi said to me that the famines had all been our fault. The British had built the railway system but, before they did so, each locality had granaries with reserves of food. They were abandoned because food could always be rushed in by train. `But then there were times when there was not enough food anywhere to be rushed in and the people starved.’
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When I told him that if we just disappeared the Muslims would march through the land destroying the Hindus because he would enjoin on them the policy of nonviolence, he replied, ‘I would certainly tell Congress to adopt non-violence.’ His eyes twinkled mischievously. `But I would expect them to take one eye for one eye and one tooth for one tooth. Not like the British, who take one hundred eyes for one eye and one hundred teeth for one tooth.’
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Gandhi was part fraud and part saint, as I daresay many Roman Catholic saints have been. His worst sin was unquenchable vanity. There had to be a struggle for independence with him as its great leader. This was absurd. No struggle was ever required, as Professor Coupland points out in his masterly threepart work on the Indian constitution with particular reference to the 1936 Government of India Act. This provided for elections in all the provinces and for the government at the centre. To begin with Gandhi let the elected Congress govern in eight out of the 11 provinces. When he saw that self-government without his making was so close, he made Congress withdraw from governing where they had been elected, using our ‘imperialist’ war as an excuse.
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Stafford was sent by the War Cabinet to India to tell Congress that if they stopped frustrating the war effort with their nonviolent obstruction, India would have full independence de facto now and by statute at the end of the war. Congress delightedly accepted this. As Stafford was about to board the aeroplane home he was halted by Nehru, Patel and the other Congress leaders: `Gandhi says we cannot accept the offer. It’s a post-dated cheque on a failing bank.’ (The war was not going well for us.)
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At the London conference leading to the Indian Act, Gandhi spoke for Congress and fought against the Act, especially against that part which allowed the Scheduled Castes (the Untouchables) to have separate voting rights. He said he would fast unto death unless this was removed. He regarded himself, not Ambedkar whom he hated, as the leader of the Untouchables. Somehow a compromise was reached and Gandhi abandoned his fast.
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I asked, `What would you have done if the British, whenever you threatened to fast unto death, had let you die?’ Out came the high-pitched giggle: `Hee, hee, hee! There was never any chance of that. I drank orange juice and other fruit juices. I could have lived that way for years. Very healthy.’ He looked at me, already too fat, and said, `You look as though you could do with a good fast.’
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As he sat in his little loincloth Gandhi’s tiny body was hairless and shone like a polished betel nut. He would have been horrified, as I was, to see Ben Kingsley masquerading as Gandhi in the grotesque anti-British Attenborough film, largely paid for by the Indian government. Kingsley had a furry chest.
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When the All Party Delegation reported to the Cabinet, as the youngest I was the last to be asked my views: `The official records show the situation is slipping fast, and a group of senior ministers should be sent out to negotiate independence.’ Attlee, who had been in India with the Simon Commission, thought it a good idea. Stafford was determined that Gandhi must take part from the start. He did not want another `failing bank’ repudiation.
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At first, Gandhi said he would not come to Delhi. After much persuasion he appointed himself `Adviser to the British nation through the Cabinet Mission’. He would stay in the sweepers’ quarters. The valiant Birla at once bought a large section, turning the unfortunate inhabitants out. Everything was as spruce and cheerful as the quarters he occupied were when I last saw him.
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When the Cabinet Mission talks with Congress and the Muslim League were getting nowhere, Gandhi was invited to see the Cabinet Mission. He said he would come on a Monday at 6 a.m. He squatted on the comfortable sofa in the Englishstyle Lutyens drawing-room and looked at the British ministers. They started asking questions and making suggestions. No reply. After a while he handed them a note: `This is my day of silence, but please go on.’
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Stafford had asked me to go with him because Wavell, the Viceroy, had told Attlee I had got on specially well with Jinnah. Stafford could not abide to be in the same room with him. Jinnah said I was the only Englishman he had ever trusted. He proved it by not removing his own whisky whenever I visited him, but offering me one as well. Alcohol was anathema to the Muslim League and there would have been real trouble if I had given him away. Also if I had repeated his solution, which was that, as the British were the heirs to Muslim rule in India, it should be handed back to the Muslims. Together with the British they could rule India indefinitely `and stop all this nonsense about independence’. Wavell at the end was unwisely taken by Jinnah’s suggestion.
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In his early days, Jinnah had been an ardent member of Congress. He left it because the majority Hindu membership insisted on expressing everything in a Hindu way. He feared that the Muslims, though brave, would be swamped in a united India and lose their property and identity and succumb to the wiles of the clever Hindu moneylenders and merchants (Gandhi belonged to that caste). Rather like what most of us feel about a federal Europe.
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Jinnah was erect and impressive, usually wearing English-style suits. He was gaunt but I did not realise then that he was dying of cancer. He kept it secret lest it damage his efforts to get Pakistan. Correctly he knew that Stafford and the Cabinet Mission, apart from A.V. Alexander, were pro-Congress. Wavell and myself were more or less neutral but saw the force of Jinnah’s position. We both thought that Jinnah was the straightest of all the Indian politicians and, unlike the others, always kept his word. Unlike Gandhi, Jinnah was no showman, `that little man behind the scenes pulling all the strings’.
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Stafford was the cleverest man I ever knew. He was my hero but he had his flaws. He wrote a brilliant first draft of the Cabinet Mission Plan between 4 a.m. and breakfast. He showed it to me. I said, `You can’t make the Chamber of Princes the arbiter of the Plan to keep a united India. It’s not practical.’ `Why not?’ he asked.
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I replied, `It’s also immoral. The Princes and the Princes’ Chamber are not elected.’ An appeal to reason would never defeat Stafford, but an appeal to morality could. He tore the draft up.
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The second draft, finally adopted by the Cabinet Mission, began with a violent attack on Jinnah and the Muslim League. I tried to get it watered down. However, it did provide for Muslim rule in all areas where they were in the majority. The unitary elements retained were defence, with an undivided army, and foreign affairs, with sufficient central powers to raise money to fund them. Gandhi said initially that the Cabinet Mission `could be proud of their plan’. So Congress accepted it.
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I was sent to Simla, where the Muslim League Working Committee and its All India Council were meeting, to persuade Jinnah to accept the Plan. I told Jinnah the Congress leaders were not being allowed to alter the Statement. He was less pleased when I said that meant he could not alter it either. He furiously inveighed against the Plan. He talked to me as he might to a sympathetic colleague. I heard him out. Then I put to him that the Muslim League should say that, though the Statement ruled out Pakistan, it was the first step on the road to it and they should give it a trial. I spoke at length. When I finished his face lit up. He hit the table with his hand: `That’s it. You’ve got it.’ And that is exactly what he made the Muslim League do.
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For a glorious moment it looked as if both Gandhi and Jinnah had accepted the verdict of the Cabinet Mission, but then an urgent message came to me from Gandhi. He needed to talk: ‘I have been examining the Mission’s Statement with my aged lawyer’s mind. Now the Cabinet Mission have put out their document they no longer have the right to interpret it. The lawgiver cannot interpret his own laws. That is for the courts. The Cabinet Mission’s Plan doesn’t mean what they think it means.’ I pleaded with him not to make Congress withdraw their acceptance, but he was adamant. What was more, the British should go quickly. We were back to slaves and their chains again. Pakistan had been created by Gandhi’s own vanity and obstinacy.
Dronacharya
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“There is some weight in the argument of “strategic depth” vis-a-vis Afghanistan. Ideally Pakistan and Afghanistan have to be one country – but regionalism proved to be far stronger a force than Religion…”
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Reading your posts I may be wrong but you sound very much like an Indian Muslim still trapped in the Leaguer mindset of Muslim grandiosity but who still picks and chooses snippets from history to rationalize the actions of the Indian Muslim League supporters in 1946. They were let down royally by Jinnah but choose to blame every one else, Nehru, Patel, long dead Lajput Rai etc. instead of placing the blame where it belongs.
For example you wrote:
“Jawaharlal’s pre-1947 language was very arrogant and similar to Narendra Modi’s….”
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Can you give some examples please?
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Now let me give you examples of Jinnah speaking like Modi that you chose to ignore the other day. I will repost some of them. Bear with me:
“in order to liberate 7 crores of Muslims where they were in a majority, I am willing to perform the last ceremony of martyrdom if necessary and let two crores of Muslims be smashed” (MAJ declared in Kanpur on March 30, 1941)
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Smashed!! Did he ask those who were to be ‘smashed’ how they felt? Were they his property to be ‘smashed’?
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On another occasions he cited William Gladstone. He told the Legislators Convention: “If Britain in Gladstone’s time could intervene in Armenia in the name of protection of minorities, why should it not be right for us to do so in the case of our minorities in Hindustan, if they are oppressed?” (Ahmad, Volume 2, page 286).
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So Jinnah labelled the Indian Muslims ‘his minorities’ Isn’t that what Modi supporters call the Indian Muslims; Pakistanis?
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Then in a BBC interview on April 3, 1946, (before the Cabinet Mission plan) “these areas, like Madras, for instance, will have a Hindu government and the Muslim minorities there will have three courses open to them. They may accept citizenship in the state in which they are. They can remain there as foreigners, or they can come to Pakistan. I will welcome them. There is plenty of room” (Ahmad, Volume 2, page 282)..
So MAJ again declared the Indian Muslims, living there for hundreds of years as ‘foreigners’!!
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How blind or biased can you be??
Do you have a single Nehru quote, either before 1947 of after that maches such silliness?
The whole topic is so weird.
Creator god is a sadist. He enjoys torturing and tormenting human beings, especially when they do it themselves to each other. Some humans are designed to carry that out.
Pakistan, India, their fates, this cabinet mission plan, islam’s fascism and imperialism, the self-deceit by those who praise or defend islam – is is all a theater of the absurd, the weird, the crazy, the hypocrites.
Islam wants to exterminate/enslave non-muslims. Then why do they need so much time to do it? 1400 years? Still not done? They have so much money, weapons, terrorists, fascsits, hate preachers … all that is needed. They have almost the same ideology/intention as Hitler, but not his efficiency and technological ability.
Sufism was and is the non-violent and spiritual victory of hinduism over islam (that too at a time when islam had the overwhelming political and military power). That is why sufism is being (has been) eliminated from islamic life. After that the efficiency of the muslims to kill or convert the non-muslims (through bribery and intimidations) will increase dramatically.
All religions are full of lies and the most dangerous and perverse case is islam. religions are creator god’s instruments of sadism and cynicism.
Pakistan was not cretaed by Gandhi or Jinnah – it is a product of and a bloody tribute to creator god’s sadism and cynicism.
So stop blaming human beings.
If you wish to blame human beings then blame the arabs and turks. Not Jinnah. M A Jinnah was a descendant of hindus. His good characteristics (before he became crazy for islam) were a result of his being descended from hindus and having grown up among hindus. After this worm of “I-will-be-saviour-muslims-and-thus-reserve-a-place-for-myself-in-allah’s-heaven” began to itch and twitch in his mind and brain he became crazy. Why blame Jinnah, a man mentally destroyed by an ideology created by arabs?
If liberals seriously want to reform Islam, they need to break the indoctrination cycle of the kids. 2-3 generations raised normally without feeding religion – will make liberals stronger and safer.
to milestogo
Liberal muslims don’t exist. Liberal means non-muslim. Muslim is one who is a mental slave of a totalitarian-finalist, arab-tribal god concept. There is no place for liberal views or practices in that. They want to escape islam, but dare not do so, cannot do so. Born in prison to die in prison.
What we have to worry about is how to protect ourselves against islamic violence, lies and fascism. We can’t be worried about those who are in prison. We have to worry abut those who are not in the islamic prison and how to safeguard them.
CM:
“Some liberal Muslims believe in the esoteric Hindu concept of Maya…”
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You have a sense of humor. Interesting that you say that for I too suspect Dronacharya took much more than just a name from the epic?
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Dronacharya is here, discussing the partition of India with a name assumed from the Mahabharta.
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In the epic, Duryodhana like (Jinnah) took an adamant stand and refused to yield an inch. When asked by Lord Krishna to part with only five villages for the Pandavas he gave his famous answer; “I will not part with even that bit of land that sits on the tip of the needle”.
In spite of dire warnings of elders, mediators, interlocutors etc. he remained adamant and his family, including his brothers, stood behind him firmly, even egging him onwards, thus leading to the famous war and destruction.
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Then once all that was predicted came about exactly, Duryodhana’s mother Gandhari confronted Lord Krishna and cursed him instead, blaming Krishna for the bloodshed her son’s actions had caused; accusing Krishna for not stopping Duryodhana firmly enough……
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Now you, like Gandhari, people like him still refuse to call Jinnah’s politics to account and choose to blame the Nehrus and the Patels instead.
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NC
thank you very much. apart from the fact that he was an Englishmen and prone to be biased one way or another, the basic facts cannot be disregarded.
this forces me to rethink my entire premise. that Jinnah’s megalomania was actually much larger than it is made out to be and he did in fact want partition.
very illuminating piece. thanks again.
Dronacharya
it is really unfortunate that you are a conspiracy theorist.
Mythbuster
when you say that they blame Nehru and Patel for it, you are starting with the assumption that they think partition was wrong. such peoples numbers in Pakistan is minuscule and i think that it is, as you point out, the narrative of the Indian malcontent Muslim.
but i wanted to ask you what you would say if you look at it entirely objectively. if you were in Nehru’s and Patel’s shoes, would not the cold logic of partition and its demographic rearrangements appeal to you on some level as an administrator?
this is not to say that they are to blame. they are not at all and that blame lies with Jinnah mostly. but this is the question of what they wanted. because i can see now that united India would have been an administrative nightmare that too with hawkish Jinnah around. they had a hard time of it anyway in the inchoate stages of Indian independence handling today’s India.
the cold logic of it appeals to me now in some small way despite the fact that i am a Punjabi and it was my state that went under the knife apart from Bengal.
maybe Pakistan’s present situation has spawned the thought. i really cannot tell.
Mythbuster
Nehru could not answer the questions by young man as he knew that Muslamans staying back in India after partition have no moral, legal or civilizational standing. But still, more than Nehru and his ilks, the blame is on the Cow belt people who let this happen and did not insist upon the transfer of Muslamans of that are to Pakistan. The same Dhimmi behaviour is still present as bane to indian society, econonic progress and national security. As a norm, Muslaman cannot eveolve beyond certain rituals and medieval reasoning. Only solution is the civilizational revival of cow belt.
Sachbol,
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I don’t subscribe to the tit for tat ethnic cleansing that you seem to imply. I leave that up to Jinnah and his hostage theories.
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To be fair to him, Jinnah lived in the mid 20th century and fascist and non-fascist totalarian regimes controlled much of the world. Such regimes thought in terms of groups rights; of the majorities etc. and thought nothing of sacrificing individuals; even millions of individuals, in the interests of the groups. I believe Jinnah influenced by such ideologies was neither an Islamist or a secular; he was a majoritarian; who thought in terms of groups. In his scheme of things it was perfectly OK to ask large numbers of people to move (or be moved involuntarily) in the name of majority rights.
Pakistan today still is a living proof of that legacy; for them democracy means the majority can take away the rights of the minorities at will like they did to the Ahmedyias.
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India was concieved differently not just because of Nehru alone but because the entire constituent assembly, made up of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Women etc. and headed by Ambedkar decided that here individual rights should form the basis of the nationhood. Thus one may be a Hindu, Muslim Sikh etc. they would had a direct equation with the state and could not be asked to answer for the crimes of another.
Time has shown that this was a wise decision other wise by Jinnah’s logic it was perfectly right for the Delhi rioters to punish the Sikhs as a hostage minority for the actions of the few and vice-versa.
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I have nothing against the Indian Muslims who can claim India as much as I do if they believe in it and its laws like all others. The sole purpose of my posts above are to compare Nehru’s (and Indian) tolerance when faced with intolerance on the other side and Jinnah’s cold almost ruthless attitude towards sacrificing lives in the pursuit of his cherished goals.
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Unbelievably even here his statements are taken as a proof that Pakistan demand was just a bargaining chip (I read elsewhere a comment by one hagiographer historian that obviously Jinnah could not have meant what he said about sacrificing 2 crores to ‘save 7 crores’ so he must have obviously been bluffing…!!
My apologies to No Communal, the 10:14 pm post is addressed to you not CM. also kindly overlook the typos etc. if you can
No problem, Mythbuster. Your analogy with the epic war is very good. You may be aware that Shashi Tharoor wrote a book on this theme; if I remember correctly he likened MAJ to the valiant but tragic hero Karna.
NC
I have not read Shahi Tharoor’s book but I am not surprised. Jinnah has been compared with several other tragic/flawed heroes. One can see the comparison with Karna (incidentally my personal favorite). One can see shades of others; a Hamlet at times and Macbeth at others. His life story has even been compared to Anaken turned Darth Vader; an uncanny comparison that comes complete with a loss of young lady love.
I am not unsympathetic to Jinnah the intellectual and patriot; who for most of his life yearned for a free and secular India but feel that for the Indian Pakistani dialogue to occur in earnest we have to break free of the toxic rhetoric he introduced in our body politic in his later years that still haunts us all today.
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For example Sachbol’s comments, taken to their logical conclusion, would be the first step that would eventually tear apart our multicultural nation yet his words echo Jinnah’s own as I have shown. Jinnah’s thoughtless use of the divisive TNT vocabulary in support of the Pakistan movement, his pronouncements on minority rights (or lack thereof) have come to haunt the very Muslim minorities of India whose case he supposedly was pleading, and for all times to come.
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Jinnah’s fans immediately start highlighting his personal sterling qualities, his honesty, his incorruptibility and quote other leaders’ words of high praise in his defense the moment someone brings up the effect of his words and actions.
Partisan debaters pick their favorite heroes and villains first and then try to justify there biases using bits and pieces of data little appreciating how ideas and personalities were inter wined across the political lines in those times.
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Above here, Drona vilified Savakar and glorified Jinnah yet other, more impartial observers would realize how much alike they were.
Both represented the westernising, urban middle classes dreaming of European-style nation-states—homogenised, secular, backed by modern science and technology. Both wanted their compatriots to move out of their traditional, community-based self-definitions and get reborn as European-style nations.
Yet their rationalist, anti-clerical selves had concluded that only religion could be an efficacious building block for nation- and state-formation in South Asia and they did not know where to stop. Their aloof ruthlessness came packaged in an arrogant trust in their own cleverness and strategising skills and their own interpretation of history.
Neither seemed terribly disturbed by the death of more than a million people in the violence of 1946-48. Like European colonialism and racism, both drew upon modern knowledge systems, and saw themselves as responsible for doing the dirty work of history.
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Secular Indians understand that the nation can only be at peace if we learn to honor the heroic urges of Savakar even as we distance ourselves from his politics. Unless the Muslims of South Asia learn to do the same with Jinnah, the ghosts of TNT let loose by his politics will haunt them.
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A long time Jinnah admirer (who is often quoted in his defense here on the PTH), the Indian Muslim scholar, AG Noorani recently wrote a more soul searching article on Jinnah and the effect of his politics on the Indian Muslims. He quoted another writer on Jinnah, Wilfred Cantwell Smith who had dared to ask:
“Is it not perhaps time to bring into question his statesmanship, his political sagacity, in view of his apparent failure to foresee – apparently even to try to foresee – the concrete outworking of his proposals?
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Noorani then wrote his own opinion:
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The harsh truth is that the concept of Pakistan was inherently flawed. It was evolved in response to queries as to what Jinnah had to offer as an alternative to a federation. Jinnah hoped to negotiate. Jinnah’s rhetoric and tactics, no less than the two-nation theory, rendered that difficult, if not impossible. In March 1947, he rejected the Congress’ offer of talks. An arrogant reliance on his tactical skills led him astray. The exodus of the minorities in West Punjab and the travel curbs imposed by India in 1948 robbed the basics of his scheme of real content. The concept of Pakistan was gravely and inherently flawed…..
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It is time that Jinnah’s supporters stop for a moment to think in terms of India-Pakistan of today but honestly think in terms of the minority rights their hero was espousing in 1947. Thanks to his shortsightedness, it is the minorities that suffered the most; everywhere.
In his birth state of Gujarat; in his electoral base in UP; well as his two creations, both Pakistan as well as in Bangladesh…..
Mythbuster,
Thank you for the honest mistake. I would gladly take credit for such eloquence.
Jinnah was driven by a heroic “hero-worship-ideology”, with himself as the hero, the central point of adulation.
“I want to leave behind me an eternally glorious name”. That kind of a thing. “I am far better than my rivals. Glory must come to kiss my knees”.
Once this worm drills into the brain, there is no turning back.
A muslim guarantees a place for himself (so his misled belief) in the arab god’s (faked) heaven by increasing the number of humans and the amount of land-and-political-power under the boot of islam. This worm-egg is laid in the brain (or soul) of every muslim child or new-convert. In some cases the egg incubates and hatches quickly and in some cases it takes time. In Jinnah’s brain it took almost 50 years time.
ALL heroes of islam are those, who brought more land, political power and humans under the boot of islam, who brought glory to islam by quoting from the kuran to justify/inspire their thoughts and actions. Islam does not have any other “hero model” of any significance.
The worst of islam is yet to come. Formerly islam did not have the technology and money to let loose its fascism fully. But now jews and christians have given a huge lot of money and technology to muslims. Even China is doing this foolishness now. Hence: the worst of islam is yet to come.
@ ahem
Have you seen that ”faked’ heaven that it makes you sure about it it is ‘fake’??
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You are a bigot and a rascist….to hell with you!
@ ahem
Jinnah screwed Hind Maata who gave birth to Pakistan baby! You ought to be proud of Mr Jinnah, he stood above his contemporaries and in fact eroded them all!!
MB
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I agree with you. Those who want Pakistan to progress need to move beyond the partition rhetoric and TNT. Indians, or at least the majority of them, have never believed in it anyway, but that must not be construed as a repudiation of Pakistan. Pakistan will exist, but the Pakistanis need to move beyond Jinnah and TNT.
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In response to Fingolfin Kaalchakra made an important point. Jinnah, or rather the born again Jinnah, “believed – all at the same time – the many wildly different things that seem contradictory to the rest of us. He was a liberal. He was an Islamist. He was Hindu-Muslim ambassasor. He was convinced Islam was a far superior civilization, and a natural democracy and a secular system.”
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Unfortunately, such people are very common in the Muslim world. With education and exposure to liberal values the contradictions shoot up. The natural tendency is to absorb everything one finds noble and commendable in some artificial mental construct of Islam. We have some such characters right here in PTH. They believe, in all sincerity, that Islam prohibits polygamy, forbids killing another human being, encourages secularism, treats everyone equal, and provides a model form of governance and democracy. They model Islam, and the Muslims along with it, in the frame of their own values and self-image. This then becomes a justification for believing in the grand superiority of Islam and Muslims. Clearly the Islam on the ground (for that matter religion in general) has no connection with this artificial and imagined construct. The secular Islam of Jinnah doesn’t exist. Neither does the “Islam” of the Ahmedis; in real life one has Ilam Din and Qadri. The born again Jinnah believed that Islam provided for the perfect democratic system 1400 years ago. In reality of course Islam did no such thing. Today’s Pakistan suffers from the absence of a workable vision at its inception. This is a result of the vague flawed belief among its founders in the superiority of Islam and of Muslim civilization.
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Folks like Dronacharyya are the followers of A. G. Noorani and his umpteen articles in Frontline. It’s not difficult for Noorani to construct a contrary view by picking and choosing events and selective quotes. What this type of scholarship hides is what Nehru once called the “force of history” (on being accused by Azad for providing Jinnah the excuse to wiggle out of the CMP). The fact is, even if not to Jinnah, the attraction of an Islamic state modeled on the Koran and Sunnah was too big for the ordinary Muslims in Bengal and Punjab. By the time the CMP arrived the die had already been cast. Much of it by Jinnah himself by his rhetoric and the rest by the 1946 elections (Azad and his friend Humauyn Kabir, an Oxford graduate, later called the election in Bengal not really an election but a call for jihad for the creation of an islamic state).
It’s unfortunate that people like Noorani and his followers continue to blame Nehru Patel Gandhi (going as far back as Aurobindo Ghosh!!) but fail to see the elephant in the room, a belief in the superiority of Islam and an irresistible urge among Muslims to organize life according to Koran and Sunnah.
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Of course if the experiment turned out to be successful none of these questions wouldn’t even have arisen. But, who knows, the mischievous Hindus/Sikhs, with their inferior culture and religion, would then have been blamed for trying to prevent partition, depriving the Muslims their right to order their lives according to the grand religion on earth! To the TNT apologists, whichever way you go, the blame never sticks to the chosen people on earth!
on the PTH
on the non-muslim side we have excellent well-informed argumenters.
on the muslim side just shrieking drones using filthy language and abuse and hero-worshipping the various “uncriticizable heroic” Mohammads.
Among muslims there is a compulsion to lie, deceive and self-deceive in order to glorify or defend islam and muslims.
What kind of a debate is that here on the PTH?
“Of course if the experiment turned out to be successful none of these questions wouldn’t even have arisen.”
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“Of course if the experiment turned out to be successful none of these questions would even have arisen.”
ahem partition was another brhmncl evilness.population transfer was not mentioned anywhere.idea was to weaken muslims so that remaning indians and india can be fkd easily(without putting a drop of grease)by brhmn -bania axis headed by nehru(brhmn) secretly supported by ghandhi(bania).presence of 35%muslims with ruling experience of 800 years was the only hurdle.
this is short and true story of partition.presence of muslims is a shield against the anger of victims.that is why expertize in instigating communal riots was mastered by brhmn-bania axis.
tajender concocts his version of history to hate brahmins. Same thing again and again.
tajender concocts his version of history to hate brahmins. Same thing again and again.
challenge if anything wrong.
tajender
You should yourself have the intelligence and honesty to realize what is wrong in your self-made hate-oriented narrative.
history which i am writing is totally based on truth.chal,kapat zhoot ,deceit treachory is base of chankyaniti not islam.u can see its application in recent murder of anuradha balialias,fiza.same u are doing in assam.u mascared 250000 innocent indians on 6th nov.1947,available on internet.did not even regret loss of human life like modi.brhmnsm need war and voilence to survive.u call ur spiritual fascism and intellectual gondaism as non voilence.
u are the victim of history rewritten by british.
i dont see any paper or underground movement run br ur ancestors against muslim rule.u were licking the boots of muslims same way as u are licking the a$$ of american imperialism now.
leave india to flourish.if u are true indian,why u have offices all over world.
to tajender
Everything that you write and the way you write confirms that islam has caused you to be become mentally imbalanced, fascistic and zombified.
Even if all that you write about history and historical causes is true and correct (which it is not), it still does not free you from your imbalanced anger, hate and craziness. It is not just what you wtite but how you write which reveals a lot about your mental disturbance.
You use the word “you” and we do not know to whom you are referring. You make accusations (very wild ugly accusation) and we do not know whom you are accusing, at whom they are aimed.
You exemplify an islam which is very evil and dangerous. I know that not all muslims are like you – but it is muslims like you who dominate islamic societies and destroy human-ness.
All the criticism which you aim at brahmins and jews is applicable even more so to islam and the muslims.
tajender is actually a pork eating Jew, who wants to infiltrate Islamic ranks and as such puts up this show here!
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But tajender, the stone behind which you hide is calling out your name!
INDIA BECAME FREE IN 1935. It took Gandhi another 12 years to get rid of Muslims (if not fully, atleast substantially). That is the CORE of the matter. Why did Muslims fall into this suicidal trap ? Didnt they see the trap ? Didnt they see their longer interests would suffer thereby ? There was no time for that. Riots were unleashed. It was not an environment to think calmnly. RSS (established with Gandhiji’s blessings in 1928) was a wing of the Congress Parivaar (then), did its dirty job… It needs 2 hands to clap. And Gandhi showed his CLENCHED FIST. Naturally the other party had to leave.. everyone has self respect.. Pakistan was fought and came into existence.. when Gandhi denied Indian Muslims the self respect they deserved. He started hurting their ego.. deliberately.. because to construct the India of his flavour., Islamic symbols, language, etc. had to be demolished. Gandhi ki bhee majboori thee.. (for/towards His cause..i.e.)
to drona
The muslims were demanding more than their numbers. They were saying clearly that sooner or later we will and must have the partition no matter which concessions the hindus make. That is all well documented. Even in the PTH.
Muslim population in India has grown from 6.5% to 18% – and what slander are you carrying out against hindus?
Imagine 2% hindus in Pakistan (down from 20%) demand 50 % representation in govt etc. so that they are not a permanent minority. Are the muslims conceding that? Why not create a Hinduland (Hindubhumi) with 20% territory taken out of Pakistan for hindus in Pakistan?
They belong associated with realm of royal families free music.
The history of Japan music is extraordinarily old
just prefer the nation’s history.