Khan Abdul Wali Khan: His Fathers Shadow?

re:#96 by Zeena
(Let us not forget that the separation of East Pakistan would not have taken place, if, it would not have been an Indian military adventure assisted by USSR with the approval of America.)
I would urge Pakis who are deluded enough to think India had a hand in dismemberment of Pak in 1971 to do a little research. Perhaps, they may start by reading the Hamdur-Rehman report.
The following is from a website:
http://banglapedia.search.com.bd/HT/G_0075.HTM
(Genocide, 1971 mass killing of Bangladesh people by Pakistan army and their collaborators during the war of liberation in 1971. No definite survey has yet been made to ascertain the exact number of people killed by the Pakistan army. Immediately after the War of Liberation, it was estimated to be as high as three million. The genocide committed by the Pakistan army is one of the worst holocausts in world history.

The indefitite postponement of the scheduled National Assembly (due to be held on 3 March 1971 at Dhaka) and the failure of the military government of General Yahiya to transfer power to the elected representatives led to widespread public resentment in East Pakistan. Protest demonstrations were held in Dhaka, Chittagong and most other cities. The army resorted to open fire on demonstrating crowds in different cities and towns. The civil disobedience movement was organised all over the country. The government lost grip on the administration.

Genocide started with the army crackdown at midnight of 25 March 1971. The army cordoned Peelkhana, the headquarters of the east pakistan rifles (EPR), Rajarbagh police barracks, and the Ansar headquarters at Khilgaon. More than 800 EPR men were first disarmed and arrested, and many of them were brutally killed. A few hundred of them, however, managed to escape and later joined the liberation forces.

Pakistani forces surrounded Dhaka city with tanks and other military vehicles. Truck loads of army men spread out through the city streets for stamping out all civil resistance. At midnight, the Dhaka University halls of residences and staff quarters were attacked with tanks and armoured vehicles. A number of teachers, students and officials were killed. Many buildings including some newspaper offices were battered with mortar shells. Many people were burnt alive in the houses set on fire. Various parts of old Dhaka, including Hindu majority Mahallas such as Shankhari Patti and Tantibazar came under mortar shells. Hundreds of inmates were gunned down. It was estimated that more than 50,000 men, women and children were killed in Dhaka, Chittagong, Jessore, Mymensingh, Kushtia and other cities within the first three days of the genocide beginning from 25 March 1971. This was termed as Operation Searchlight.

Soon the Pakistan army spread out into the remotest parts of the country. In retaliation the Bangali nationalists began to organise resistance with effect from 26 March following the declaration of independence of Bangladesh. This further intensified the military action of Pakistan government. In effect, the Pakistan army started an undeclared war against the unarmed civilians of Bangladesh. The Pakistan armed forces used warplanes and gunships to contain the nationalist forces. Men, women and children of hundreds of villages, cities, and towns were killed and maimed indiscriminately. Arsoning, raping and looting knew no limit. Out of fear and intimidation millions of Bangalis left their home and took shelter in various refugee camps set up by the Government of India along the border areas.

Initially, the world could hardly know the extent of genocide due to very strong press censorship. However, from July 1971 foreign electronic and print media started reporting various aspects and ramifications of the genocide. The United Nations also expressed their deep concern about the holocaust.

In containing the freedom fighters the Pakistan government had raised paramilitary forces with the designations of razakar, al-badr and al-shams. These forces joined the army in killing and terrorising the people. Many people, including intellectuals of the country were lifted by them for interrogation and only a few of them returned home. All these savageries were resorted to for exterminating the mukti bahini and their supporters. No international action was taken against the perpetrators of this most barbarous genocide according to UNO convention on genocide and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The genocide continued till the surrender of the Pakistan army on 16 December 1971. [Fazlul Quader Quaderi] )
Sridhar

re:#96 by Zeena
Perhaps Badshah Khan knew, more than anybody else, how flawed the creation of pakistan was. Events have only proved him right. Even today, pak is ruled by a dictator. Would u consider anybody opposing this dictator a traitor?
Sridhar

#78, Mantolives {``Manto being against all discrimination on the basis of gender or religion is opposed to the law of 4 male adult Muslim witnesses or any other such Islamic law of evidence. What really hits me is the part about these witnesses being pious... what pious man would go peep in and watch the actual act is beyond me. ``}

Yasser Bhai,
Only three pious old men come to mind - Tahmed Sahib, Temporal, and DM Sahib. Two are non-Muslims and one is very close to being pronounced one. :)

#73, Ranjit {``Salim bhai, so you are saying that Islam is all about having long pleasurable hours of free safe sex with 4 women while enjoying vacations in Las Vegas, feasting on all you can eat buffets at night and replacing any of those 4 women at any time by saying 3 words!! :-) Whoa!! If you put it that way, all desis (and non-desis) will line up to sign-on!! :-) ``}

Ranjit Bhai,
Unlike UBL, I try my best to present Islam in a positive and pleasant light. :) You might say that I have a unique style of tableeghng. :) You, of course, are always welcome, my brother. :)

#102 ranjit
Sir
I am from Pakistan. I believe in Pakistan`s existence. My identity is with Pakistan. If Pakistan is alive, I am alive. I am proud citizen of Pakistan. Just like you are proud citizen of India. If, someone opposes of India`s existence. What will be your reaction? Will you still like his/ her ideology? My ideology ends, when it comes to Pakistan`s existence. All I am saying is, if, you don`t believe in existence of Pakistan, why don`t you pack your bags and leave Pakistan? Why are you still living in a country and scheming it`s existence.

Sir
We are not discussing about people`s feelings here, either to respect or not to respect. All i am asking is, we should adhere to the actual topic, we shouldn`t start personal attacks on each other. I don`t need anybody`s respect or disrespect in any regard. My personal life is not involved here. I hope you are clear, Sir.

Re:Ajeya#84

You are right on the money!! We hindus do not make a big spectacle of victimhood like the jews do. However, if you look at what we had to endure for a 1000 years, our suffering was no worse than those of the jews.

In my opinion, the decline of hindus started a few centuries before the muslims showed up. We started losing our intellectual vigor and became mired in caste and ignorance. The fact that hindus were not allowed to leave the shores (or lose their caste), resulted in an insular mindset focusing only on ourselves. That foolishness cost us immensely in that we were unaware of how the world around us was changing due to Islam. We were not familiar with the advances in military technology like gunpowder and cannons. Hence when muslims did show up at our borders, they literally got a cakewalk. Most of their energy was spent on kiling the millions of hindus like one cuts up vegetables. The saga of muslim invasions and the destruction of hindu culture, civilization and massacares are quite well known. As a result, the hindus bearing the worst of the attacks, who lived in Pakistan area, converted to Islam to save themselves from extinction.

However, as time progressed, hindus were able to come up with a working arrangement with muslims. Muslim rulers intermarried and became more and more desi. As a result, wholesale conversions stopped, but some people converted who wanted material gain from muslim rulers or those who liked sufi mysticism. Muslims made India home and contributed to our economic and cultural development.

All this was shattered when the british ba$tards showed up. In my opinion, they were 10 times worse than muslims. At least the muslims made India their home. The brits just wanted to suck our blood. They never settled in India, never assimiliated, looked down on us on a racial basis and systematically looted us for 200 years. Our grinding poverty and all these famines were a direct result of their policies. India was the richest country before the brits showed up and it was one of the poorest when they left. You do the math. The worst thing is that the brits totally destroyed our self-esteem and self-confidence. Our legacy of weakness, corruption, lack of intellectual/moral vigor are all the result of a systematic degradation of a race due to day in and day out humiliation for 200 years. On top of that the brit ba$tards made hindus and muslims fight with each other resulting in partition. Nirad Chaudhuri simply embodies that extreme level of low self-esteem high self-hate which comes out in his writings.

The only good thing about the british rule was that it finally woke us hindus up. We finally realized that we had reached the bottom of the barrel. We had to clean up our act. That was what resulted in the reform movements of Ram Mohan Roy and others, creating a foundation for the modern India of today. It has taken us a long time to heal the wounds of 1000 years and become healthy again as a race and as a religion. We lost 20% of our territory and millions of our own people are now our enemies in a neighboring country. Still it is to our credit that we have survived and are now succeeding. Thats why when muslims complain about lack of hindu compromise in 1947, it makes me laugh. We were at the worst of conditions at that time. We hardly had the confidence to negotiate with anyone and we wanted to get the brits to leave at any cost before they changed their minds.

Re:Zeena

Madam, you are getting an extreme reaction because you are saying extreme things. If you want people to respect you, please respect their feelings as well. There are many people who respect Ghaffar Khan and Wali Khan - both in India and in Pakistan. It does not mean that they hate Pakistan or anything like that.

As I showed you, Ghaffar Khan represented a significant chunk of political opinion and he served his constituency. Also Ghaffar Khan promoted non-violence and tolerance for other faiths - a very admirable philosophy. Why do you need to demonize him? Just because he didnt support Pakistan? So what? Does it make him a bad person? Cant you agree to disagree with his politics and leave it at that?

Hi_n_Dry
Please, refrain from personally attacking me. Did I attack you personally? No, I have the nerves to take this pressure of discussions with out getting crazy and with out start yapping.
Thank you for being civil and please, stick to the topic of the article. This article is not about my background or about me.

PS:-Though, this article is not about Hamzaad`s article. But, you being crude here , not knowing cyber manners,let me answer your query. There is a difference between (abuse) and ( freedom of expression). What you`re doing here is trying to abuse me by personally attacking me, what I did with Hamzaad was, i condemned Hamzaad`s insanity of humiliating other`s faith and i am so, very proud of myself, that I stood up for my faith, which i always will.

What you are doing here is trying to stop me for my freedom of expression. If, you`re Hindu it makes all sense, b/c I have seen most Indians are in favour of Wali and his father,b/c of obvious reasons. If, you are Pakistani, then that is a big surprise for me to call him a leader, who is not even worth of mentioning and who is/was/ will be a Traitor in the history of Pakistan.

Bibi,
u say,
``Listen Mr, you better stop ordering some one to stop their freedom of expression``
If I recall, You went tooth n nail against hamzaad when he expressed his ``freedom of expression`` on that Eid/Abraham piece..

Guess if the Khans were from Hazara, Then this bullshit venom u r spitting wouldnt have been here..

And oh yes, long live the Jadoons, the Abbassis and the Khassis who never sat in their drawing rooms scheming against Pakistan but minted money whenever they got a chance.

N to sum it all up, all you said reminded me of a popular Punjabi/Hazara proverb
``Jithon di khoti, uthay aan khalotee``

#95 Hi-n-Dry
How dare you told me to stop yapping? Well as a matter of fact, you`re the one who sounded very crude with utter nonsense and of course yapping , when you started personal attack on me by uttering these crude words. This is just a discussion,if, you are unable or if, you are not civilised enough to take the heat or pressure of the discussions, you better refrain these discussions, they can cause you mitral infarction. Better stop uttering such yapped remarks with no sense. Thanks for being civil.

Now, come to the main discussion relevant to the article.
How can any party be strong in any province, when that party failed to get any seat in NWFP?

Then you are not talking about democarcy. If, you speak about democracy, any political party is strong, if, that party gets power through general body elections, which ANP never got.

Re: #85

[India`s salvation of course is in jumping onto the bandwagon of the west - leaving both the good (the philosophy of non-violence) and the bad (hindu revivalists trying to ape the muslim invaders they hate).]


India`s salvation is going the path of the RSS and the VHP. To strengthen the secular tradition that is embedded in the Hindu psyche - ``As all rivers flow to the sea, so do all religions lead to God`` (deduct Communism, Fascism and Islam, for example from ``all religions``), and not to tolerate any evil.

Gandhi`s teachings are centered around the unshakable faith in basic human decency. As an American friend once told me, Gandhi would have been ineffective in Hitler`s Germany. Because, for Gandhi`s principle of non-violence to work, you would need a few good people with conscience among the tormentors who would act as their collective conscience. In Stalin`s Russia, Hitler`s germany, Pol Pot`s Cambodia, and under Islam, TOTAL OBEDIENCE is demanded of the people - therefore non-violence would prove to be a weakness, rather than a strength. The British mounted Police would hesitate before running over the Satyagrahis - but Allah`s servants would not have batted an eyelid hacking off their heads.

So, Gandhi`s principles would be ineffective against Islam.

One needs to impose secularism with an IRON hand where Islam is concerned. France has learnt that lesson. As has China.

So will others. Or they will perish.

Yes, he did compromise on his principles, when Nawaz Sharif had to make his position lil stronger in NWFP, he wanted to have ANP`s votes and he gave Wali Khan real importance, Wali alligned with Nawaz Sharif. Before that no body gave him that much importance,b/c he was not worth it. He was never a leader. To be a leader, you have to be selected by massive population of any country. He never got elected to that extent.
Wali Khan never had any principles. A Traitor can never have any principles. That is the compromse of human`s principles at the stake of the country that you live in, you`re ready to do any harm to the country.

#95 Hi-n_dry
#94 Zakk

Wali Khan and his father, were / are/will be traitors for the rest of Pakistani history. No one can erase this very fact. Ghaffar and his son had been nursing against Pakistan for reasons known to their ancestors long before Pakistan got freedom. They were deadly against of the existence of a country, where they were living their useless lives. Ghaffar went to extreme , just, to please his Indian masters and Russian masters, i admire his sincerety with India and Russia, that he didn`t like to be buried in the Pak land. He opposed the very establishment of Pakistan tooth and nail. This is an open proof that he was traitor. How can you not be traitor and oppose existence of the country you live. If, Ghaffar would have been so, much opposed of Pakistan, he would have left Pakistan. This family always were in ally with Russia(better called Russian agents against Afghanistan and Pakistan). Russia gave them an open authority to select students to send to Russian medical schools, where they were being brain washed by Russia and also by India to use them against the very existence of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Ghaffar, in his own illusion, always thought of himself as king of NWFP and Afghanistan, that is why he always propagated for a new country, called Pukhtoonistan in allignment with Afghanistan with the help of India and Russia, their dream never came true. They lost Russia, they lost Afghanistan and they lost their positions in Pakistan. They never were leaders in any sense. Though, they tried their best to be the ones, but, People of their own province didn`t give them any recognition and rejected them several times in general body elections. So, how come we can even call them leaders? Yes, you are leader, when mass population elect you with great success. Sitting in your drwaing rooms and discussing and scheming against Pakistan, will never take ANP far.

Same way, if, some Indians in India will not accept the very existence of India , they are traitors. This family always spit venom and tried to sabotage existence of Pakistan , they wanted a Pakistan of their own concept. They would not like the prize of a separate independent country for the Muslim Majority of Hindustan to go to Muslim League, but, they wanted Pakistan to be regimned under their control , assisted by India and Russia.

Wali and His father`s actions and views were crystal clear, they were diehard anti Pakistan hardliners. They accepted all negative attitudes and ideology from India and Russia against Pakistan , with open arms, that is surely enough for them to be termed as traitors.
Traitor, not only to the cause of Pakistan but also to sabotage the efforts of the freedom of Pakistan and of Qaid-e Azam , whom they would like to downgrade, just to please their masters to paly more for their self projection to be leaders of the innocent people of NWFP, as a matter of fact, they never were leaders or popular among them.

Let us not forget that the separation of East Pakistan would not have taken place, if, it would not have been an Indian military adventure assisted by USSR with the approval of America. Now, Wali and Ghaffar, always wished the same situation in NWFP and always plotted openly against Pakistan`s existence with the help of India and USSR.

Now, to give honour to traitors by calling them great leaders is a big shame for anyone, who calls him/her Pakistani. Thank you.

HP, Thanks for this piece!

Zeena,
You claim that you know the psyche of the people of NWFP & at the same time you are brandishing these larger than life figures traitors??
Stop yapping woman. `nuff said.

For the interested folks, check out ``The Pathan unarmed`` by Mukulika Banerjee, about the Khudai Khidmatgar movement founded by Baachaa Khan. It attempts to answer how the notoriously violent Pukhtoons were converted to an ethic of non-violence.

Zeena: there is no need to attack the dead, it achieves nothing, especially when the attacks or not fact based and more emotion driven.

Being someone from NWFP as well..I can say if one reads up on the 1990 elections..in Wali Khans home constituency they had Gulbadin hekmatyars people canvassing for support! The rigging that went on in the 1990 election is a historical fact..I agree with you that in numerical terms the ANP has never been enormously popular in NWFP, but it has consistently been there because of a political pphilosophy and it`s workers..that is why it has outlived more strong and effective leaders like Fazle haq and Mehtab Abbassi..but just remember in Pakistans First past the post system no political party has ever polled more than 50% of the vote..except for Fauji refernedums..where you get votes which would embarrass Husni Mubarak.

TA: There was a genuiane hatred for the Soviet invasion and the freedom struggle was totally indigienous although it was later hijacked by the CIA, right wing et al, Wali Khan and other secularists were marginalised by the time martial law was lifted.

My post # 92 is an answer to Wali Khan`s answer to a question to his failed politics, he answered,````When asked his reason for retirement, he said that he had no place in politics “when the mullahs and ISI decide our destiny and politics”.``