My Hero! Your Hero! Our Hero! Whose Hero?

Re: # 7

Tvarad Sahib,

While it is true Babasaheb is a manufactured Hero for some for some others like me and a couple of million upper castes he is a genuine hero (despite at times his critical though not totally uncharitable view of our religion {i.e his and mine}).

Shri Prabhodankar Thakre Balasaheb`s father and a genuine patriot Took a delegation to him (along with Master Tara Singh) protesting against making the tricolor India`s flag they wanted the Bhagwa. But Balasaheb said that due to the present situation that when even he wanted the Bhagwa he was sorry he could not help them. At this Shri Prabhodankar was crestfallen and said it is a sad day when a man like you has to plead helplessness what about lesser mortals like us. Hearing this Babasaheb said I will redouble my efforts to secure the same for you.

Read Dominion papaers to see how the great man was defeated in his purpose.

P.S. An interesting footnote in Pakland MA Jinnah over the teeth of opposition of Liaqat and the league got the white stripe for the ``minorities`` in the otherwise Islamic flag. What does one make out of this anyone care to comment?

Regards
Sanatani

Re: # 18

``the Afghan Minsiter must be out of his mind. He has no sense of history and this moron should be forgiven for oozing out such funny ideas.``

It is not a question of history but a more subtle innuendo about the moral depravity associated with the modern WMDs which the Afghan Minister, a Syed, perhaps wanted to highlight indirectly. I wonder why they don`t use the name of AQ Khan, the most befitting one for the purpose, as he used to brag off and on about the use of his atom bomb against India which meant indiscriminate killing of lakhs of human beings, including of cource those who are called Muslims. Compared to him, Ghouri, Abdali, etc. , were brave marauders, at their worst, never bragging about massacring humans indiscriminately. In fact they treated war as a sport, often deciding the match in the battlefield of Pani Pat. How civilised! Are not the modern WMDs no weapons of war but of indiscriminate massacre of human beings by the coward barbarians? So not to speak of Ghouri and Abdali, even Changez Khan and Halaku Khan would perhaps had objected to associate their names with the nuclear missiles. But our `brave` colonols are happy that they will not have to fight any war now and face the risk of meeting the fate of the defeated army of Ghouri.

Thank you all for your compliments, much appreciated. I understand the comments made about making it a bit more concise or some idiosyncrasies. Call it a hangover from being a professor, have to keep on banging on :).

I realise that once we go back into history, at that time, there was no Pakistan and Afghanistan, it was one geography. Unfortunately, for the purposes of this article, I did pick up on that small point and well, made an essay out of it. But pulling and pushing between 2 countries is quite unique to make it funny or sad (depending upon how you look at it).

Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav, yes, I could have mentioned the latter as well, but oh! Well, India has far too many scoundrels to count.

cheers

bd

Very true.

the Afghan Minsiter must be out of his mind. He has no sense of history and this moron should be forgiven for oozing out such funny ideas.

Does he know that their are more people, descending from Areas comprising the present Afghanistan, living in Pakistan than Afghanistan itself.

Does he knows that their are more Pashtuns living in Pakistan than whole of Afghanistan.

At some point in history the true heros (not local heros) and relics rise above the subtelities of national and ethnic bonds and become a mankind heritage. Does any one care what was the nationality of Newton, Archimedous or Aristotle.

Indeed the Afghanistan has a history of freaks ruling that unfortuncate land. The persent minister is no different than the rascals who blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas (another mankind heritage) and declared that it was their property and they could do anything with it.

Goongaji...

Both Raja Dahir and Muhammad Bin Qasim are individuals who led opposing sides in the field of battle... if Raja Dahir was defending our land, he did a poor job of it losing Sindh to a kid... Who does one choose between Alexandar and Porus ? What should be discouraged is the unnecessary demonisation of historical figures...

Maharaja Ranjit Singh for example was a great a Punjabi sovereign- probably the best Punjab had... Syed Ahmed Shaheed on the other hand was a great rebel... who was the hero and the villain? Who the hell cares?

Hilarious. Pakistan wants to turn its back on its Nobel heroes. Meanwhile India wants to call all and sundry its own. Apart from Gurudev and CV Raman, all other Indian Nobel heroes surely deserve a footnote of a disclaimer.

I dont know a lot about history but I guess Raja Dahir was the one who defended or tried to defend this piece of land where I live. May be Manto would like to tell me more...
So my hero is my land`s defender(hero) against any intruder(hero).

[......Afghanistan vociferously complained to Pakistan that all of Afghanistan`s old heroes, like Mahmud Ghaznawi, Ahmad Shah Abdali and Shahabuddin Ghauri, were used to name various Pakistani missiles.]

Maybe India can follow that up with a protest note about a Pakistani naval ship being named ``Tipu Sultan``!

Sheesh, couldn`t they name it ``The Nizam of Hyderabad`` or ``The Maharajah of Kashmir`` or even ``The Nawab of Junagadh``?

Afghan attitudes

THE AFGHAN government should realize that conditions in their own country have led Pakistan into the mess that it is in today. Before the Afghan war most Pakistanis did not even know the word ‘Kalashnikov’. Heroin was introduced into Pakistan by the Afghans.

The Afghan government should respect Pakistan for giving shelter to millions of Afghan refugees, helping to liberate them from Russia and glorify some past Afghan figures by naming our missiles after them.

IMRAN MOHAMMED KHAN
Pennsylvania, USA

very good article.

as for Pak heroes....is it really true Afghans wrote that letter to Pak Gov?? that is funniest thing ever heard.

hmm, nice piece, I do agree with the originality of the writing and witty idea. Good work!

Salam,

Indeed, Dr. Abdus Salam was the greatest scientific hero of not only Pakistan but the entire Muslim world. But ofcourse in Pakistan, to qualify as a hero, one has to be a PR and propaganda expert, not a genuine and down to earth scientist or engineer whose work will speak for itself. Another hero that a whole generation of Pakistanis has failed to recognize or appreciate is Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan, a long time contemporary and friend of Dr. Salam and Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission for 19 long years, from 1972-1991, who indeed is the architect of nuclear Pakistan. But again, he like Salam, was not into the business of PR campaigns, but worked silently along with his team at the PAEC to give Pakistan a deterrent capability. Time however is a great equalizer, and the imposter and hijacker of the nuclear program and a principal architect of character assasination of Munir, Salam and the PAEC stands exposed. It is high time that the people of Pakistan should recognize and honor its real heroes, who unfortunately do have the respect and and recognition of the scientific community, but not the media or the press in Pakistan. Pakistan`s nuclear history has been completely falsified and fabricated to support a myth that does not have a leg to stand on. Eventually the truth will come out one day and the people of Pakistan will again be caught by disbelief simply because a whole generation has been brainwashed into believing lies and half truths.

Regards.

Beads, I like your articles. You have a somewhat different way of looking at things - at least in the ones that I have read.

I sometimes think of ``heroes`` as clouds or plumes of smoke - as time passes they diffuse and lose their sharp outlines - eventually becoming simple myths - or perhaps simply melting away. It is for us as individuals to draw positive lessons from those outlines - but not everyone is capable of doing that. Most Pakistani leaders have a God-given ability to draw exactly the wrong lessons.

When people have accomplishments to their own credit, they take pride in those accomplishments and have little need for heroes - especially of the mythical variety. I look at Pakistani desires to name destructive devices after killers of bygone ages the same way - the current crop of leaders had come out a cropper (except domestically) - so they NEEDED those ``larger than life`` figures - even though they were aware of the inherent dishonesty.

(In my view, this website, in a similar dishonest manner, keeps trying to build up certain well-known villains from the recent past too as ``misunderstood`` souls, but keeps bumping into that ``inconvenient`` reality!)

I feel bad that you singled Mulayam Singh Yadav for your variety of ``hero worship`` but left his last-namesake next door unmentioned. Just kidding! It is a sad fact that some of the most disposable creatures - some of the worst villains - are absolutely convinced of their own indispensibility - that`s what makes a dictator - who hero-worship only themselves!

Your organization can be improved a bit to make the point a bit sharper - you tend to ramble on a tiny bit more than necessary.

Again, I think you have original ideas - a rare trait in these waters!