Indo-Pak History via Mail

Ali,

People choose the ideology and they live in a geographical location. Whatever the geography or ideology if the people have heritage they need not be ashamed to admit it. May be your heritage comes with your location.

Indonesians don’t forget the Ramayan now they are Muslim.Bangladeshi’s don’t forget Bengali and adapt Urdu now that there is Bangladesh.Iranians feel proud of their Aryan heritage and also Muslim religion. Ask any Iranian they say they are not Arabs and they are Prussians.Indians respect Akbar whatever the religion they belong to because it is part of our history.
I heard Pakistani punjabis speaks punjabi and celebrate some festivals predating to start of Muslim era.

I agree Pakistan is trying to create an identity but you cannot hide your heritage. Pakistan can be proud of it’s historical greatness. You can proudly talk about Kushans and Vedas because they are part of your history and also proudly say they are old now we are not following as per our religion and can be a sincere muslim. and can be proud of your muslim religion. I don’t think you need sub continent history for this.

You are totally wrong about Palestine. Palestines and Israelites are from the same region and they have an ancient history before ottoman empire even existed. The name is as old as it can be.

History can not start with a problem. I don’t know what logic you are saying.

The current problem is the creation of people and vested interests. Whatever current Indian Govt. is doing Indian people’s sympathies are with Palestinian’s cause.

If a government, whether it is Indian or Pakistan, is trying to distort history. It is like Nazis and Communists distorting history

One more point from your earlier mail: Muslims are indigenous Indians or Pakistanis or Punjabi’s or Bangladeshi’s or Afghans or whatever( in those places) . They are indigenous. Only small fraction of them came from Iran or Saudi Arabia.

History/people/land/culture existed or evolved before religion was even there whether it is hindu/buddhist/muslim/jain/sikh/christian.

Amal

Asghar Ali wrote:

I am simply trying to make a distinction between a country’s ideological and geographical bases.

Geoghraphically, Pakistan has history. Ideologically, Pakistan’s history as a distinct identity begins after 1947. This is not easy to understand as both of them go hand in hand. It is not easy to separate the two.

Same is the case with history of Palestine. Palestine as a separate and distinct nation is fairly new but the land that it is situated on definitely has a lot more history. There was no country in history with the name Palestine but the land that falls under modern palestine was governed by Ottomon Empire once. So, the land itself has history. But if the history of palestine is written, it should logically speaking, start from the day Isreal was created. Since that conflict resulted in the creation of Palestine.

If one wants to study the history of this piece of land which comprises of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh now, don’t you think one would study the history of whole of India( or sub-continent or whatever you wanna call it )?

Anyways, It is definitely confusing. And I understand the difficulty policy makers must be facing in defining the identity of Pakistan and for that matter Palestine.

Ali

What you are saying is
No Kushan Kings ever existed in Pakistan (Kanishka is one of them )
No Taxasila(Taxila) university existed in Pakistan.
No Lahore and it’s history in Pakistan
No Gandhar and it’s history in Pakistan.
No Balochi Kings and their history in Pakistan.

Do You need sub-continent history for all these?.

Amal


Asghar Ali wrote:

Yes, it does since Egypt, Iran, Iraq and India have been there from the time immemorial(almost). Therefore, a course on History of Egypt should discuss Pharoahs, Pyramids, Mummies and Children of Israel, and similarly a course on Indian History should include Aryan invaders besides talking about Alexandarian, Muslims and British invaders.

Whereas Pakistan is a fairly new country which is formed not on geographical/racial basis but on an ideology which is based on two nation theory. So, History of Pakistan starts really from the day 1st Muslims landed in India and how things developed after that which eventually lead to the formation of Pakistan.

Pakistani attempts to align Pakistani History with her ideology are no different than Indian attempts to Indianize India. Renaming of Bombay/Madras to Mumbai/Chinnai and rebuilding of Ram Janam Bhomi over Babri Masjid are all manifestations of the same thought.

It would be considered fabrication of history if Pakistan tries to deny history ie prove that Alexandar did not invade India or that Muslims are actually the indigenous Indians.However, things will be different if one wants to major in the history of subcontinent. In that case purposefully ignoring everything about ancient India and only focusing on Muslim contribution would be construed as prejudice and misinformation.

Asghar Ali

Subba Rao wrote:

Interesting. By the same token does it make sense to talk about
Pharoahs, Pyramids, Mummies, Tutankhamen in Egypt,
Nebuchadnizzar in Babylon/Iraq Cyrus/Darius in Iran and host of other historical characters.


Asghar Ali wrote:


What is going on in Pakistan probably is an attempt to align the history books of Pakistan with Pakistani ideology on which it was formed. Pakistan was created so that Muslims of the sub-continent can live there according to the values and teachings of their religion. It doesn’t make much sense to talk about Chandra Gupta Mauriya, for example.

It would make a lot of sense to study the same person if one wants to educate oneself about the history of the "sub-continent".