Do Pakistanis deserve a democratic system?

Re: # 195 Tahmed32
``I think you should be looking towards the future``

Well said and yes, indeed!

`` - and I think the future is very exciting indeed!! The progress in peace talks between the Indian and Pakistani governments gives one hope of better days ahead in India-Pakistan relations. That is what is going to be relevant to future generations, while the events of 1947 will steadily recede as just another historical event.``

I am not so sure that there will be much progress in the days ahead unless Pakistan gives up its irredentist position over the `K-word` territory. Ditto for using Afghanistan for `strategic depth`. I would like to think that Musharraf is a strategic thinker, but unfortunately, he is not. In a long list of Pakistani generals, he is a tactician, but not a strategist. The objective evidence points towards no fundamental change in Musharraf/Pakistan`s positions on these basic issues. If you don`t believe me how critical these are to Pakistan`s successful emergence as a viable state, then check out this remarkable recent set of interviews on PBS` Frontline site (2006)*. Specifically, read the interview by Christian Fair at the US Institute for Peace (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/pakistan/fair.html):

``QUES: Do they (ISI) want to (dump Taliban and militant assets)?

ANSWER: I don`t think they want to. If you look at Pakistan`s strategic compulsions, it has no other set of options but to support militancy in Afghanistan and in India. … Pakistan likes to call India its peer. India is not its peer. India is a vastly larger state with far more national assets that can be converted into national powers than Pakistan will ever have. Pakistan needs to resign itself that it`s not India`s peer and it`s going to be, over the near term, a significantly less important player in South Asia.

Pakistan cannot resign itself to that fact. Nor can it resign itself to the fact that Afghanistan can be a neighbor. Instead, Pakistan wants Afghanistan to be a client state. So until Pakistan can resign itself to its geographic realities, it`s going to continue to face incentives to engage in this, I guess what you can call proxy misadventures. …``


Also read this interview by Peter Tomsen who served as President George H.W. Bush`s special envoy and ambassador to the Afghan resistance from 1989 to 1992:

EXCERPTS

QUES:So that all of Afghanistan would be a client state of Pakistan, a large Muslim resistance to Indian encroachment?

ANS. Hindu Indians, that`s right. And that has been, of course, the major geopolitical goal of Pakistan since partition is to confront India.


Also read this interview excerpt by Pulitzer prize winning -Steve Coll of The New Yorker

EXCERPTS
`Musharraf belongs to a generation of officers in the Pakistan army who remember the frontier as a problem because of its leftist Awami League, secular tribal leaders, some of whom were subsidized by the Soviet Union. He has an, in my view, irrational fear of secular politics in some of these parties. But he needs these parties even if they`re going to make his life more difficult in Islamabad. He needs them to consolidate unity in Pakistan and to control the frontier. He can`t do it without them.

QUES: Is he going to allow political organizing in (NWFP,Pakistan)?--

ANS. No, he shows no signs of having a political strategy that would advance these goals.

So the mullah stays in power?

The mullah stays in power, and he continues to try to manage that equation as best he can by some combination of force, cooption and negotiation. But he has been trying this approach since 2002. Here we are in 2006. It ain`t working.


*for the overall site http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/


In short, I am not suggesting at all that Musharraf alone is the issue (even if Musharraf goes, his replacement is unlikely to budge from the above stance). For these reasons, unless there is a FUNDAMENTAL re-evaluation of Pakistan`s national strategy with regards to India and Afghanistan and in turn how the Pakistani leaders allow political breathing room within the country, I do not have hopes for the future. I would like to hope for the better, but the objective evidence is simply not there. Even the Americans are now losing confidence in Musharraf and publicly calling out Pakistan`s double game in the GWOT (last week DNI Negroponte told Congress that Al Qaeda is regrouping and re-strenghthening in Pakistan. That only drew loud howls of official protest from Islamabad). Unwillingness to confront the inconvenient truth is not a recipe for a turnaround. Good luck!

#202 by VRV

Yeah but Congress agreed too on the appointment PLUS his award being final ... i.e. agreed to whatever Radcliffe`s award eventually turned out to be IN ADVANCE!

Therefore my comment on UP that Jinnah appears to have been outwitted by Nehru and Patel, to which Manto`s opinion is that Jinnah was an upright and principled person, and not wily like the above two.

Still it is a mystery to me as to what was all the hurry in this boundary award business, why the job was given to someone who had never been to India before, and why his award was agreed to be final by both parties in advance.

As for Jinnah`s wish to live in Bombay after retirement, that is true. He never sold his mansion in Bombay precisely for that reason upon which Dina Wadia now has claim.

ranjit/devkant: In your eagerness to deny any interest in having anything common with pakistan, you overlooked that bjkumar wasnt saying that to begin with!! re-read carefully the question i mention in #195 i had for him to see what bjkumar was saying before condemning him for not keeping up with the herd.

I have one interesting news for you though: Based on what you two write, using ranjit`s Excel (enhanced model) calculations and the fine reasoning by devkant, 99.9999999 % Indians now agree that Jinnah was right all along!! And by the same token, that Indian Congress and muslim maulvis and others who were opposing Jinnah were wrong. It took you people 60 years, but I am glad that you have finally seen the wisdom behind what we Pakistanis have been saying all along. :-)

Re: # 154

The Sole Spokesman,

``I am afraid you are wrong. Jinnah had retired from politics in June 1947 and was planning on living in Bombay. All his biographers mention this. ``

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You are famous for falsehoods. Show the proof in the form of statements by Jinnah.

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``Jinnah did not change the adaptation orders ``

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He did. The change gave his the powers of a Dictator.

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(As they say, `to kill a dog u shud call it mad first`. This constitutional/legal thing comes under similar category. Bend the Orders to do waht u like).

``BJKumar is spreading on this board. He even called you- his mini-me- dense. ``

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I dont believe that good will come to India when Pakistan reunites with India again. That reunion wud ruin India forever. India wud become Dinia. BJ wants to destroy India by taking all raddi back, I believe.

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P.S: I am calling u the Sole Spokesman as u seem to be the ONLY person defending ur Pakistan`s bigoted version of history. Jinnah the Donkey-cum-Hyena was also given this name by Dr. Jalal.

Zee,

Why Radcliffe was given the job, who never came to India b4?

Exactly, his ignorance of India was his plus. His job was to stick to the Terms of Reference without being passionate abt the places he`s going to torn asunder.

Dost Mittar,

Actually it was the other way around. By 1944, Muslim League had ditched the Unionists which was the main feudal party. The shortlived agreement referred in history to Sikandar-Jinnah pact in 1938 was Muslim League`s need of the hour... as Sikandar and the feudals were thought to be key to Punjab. Sikandar had entered into the pact because it was the only way he thought he could keep the main League leadership out. Congress mind you was never a threat to the Unionists. The Unionist Ministry thus carried the Muslim League banner during Sikandar Hayat`s regime. However... Sajjad Zaheer and the Communist Party were thrilled to find the Muslim League in its corner... after Unionist betrayal.

The point is not whether Congress had in its ranks the feudals... but who did it support in Punjab i.e. the true mass movement of the people aka League-Communist alliance or the British bureaucracy and Unionist conservatives. The answer was the latter and it significantly dents the tall claims made by Congress vis a vis ``anti-imperialism``. In 1947 was the situation was completely reverse of the situation in 1944. BTW your speculation that in 1947 ML-Unionists might have been together actually goes against the evidence that you`ve posted as evidence of Muslim communalism trying to bring down the Khizer Ministry.

-YLH

BTW the joke of the century: BJKumar, the follower of hindu supremacist exclusivist racist casteist fascist and misogynist Gandhi preaching about liberalism and calling people like Jinnah who dedicated most of their lives to Hindu Muslim Unity names. Wah bhai. Enough said.

``#199 by ranjit on January 16, 2007 0:01am PT
Since BJ is so infatuated with Pakistan these days, and the pakis like Manto are howling about 1947, how about we take BJ and his state Bihar and present it to Pakistan as a compensation for Nehru`s perfidy? It would be our humble gesture of goodwill and a confidence building measure. Who know, it might even raise the average IQ on both sides!! He He!!``

there was a joke on this i had heard in my college days in pune. it went like this....

gen mushy comes to india for kashmir negotiations with AB Vajpayee. gen mushy being a tough guy, none of the indian politicians know how to deal with him. laloo comes in and says that he is willing to talk to mushy.

laloo and mushy go into a room for discussions. 15 mins later mushy runs out and declares to the world press.....it is confirmed. kashmir stays with india. pakistan will vacate the occupied parts of kashmir too. pakistan demands nothing in return except for return of peace and friendship with india.

everyone is shocked with this reaction. laloo is asked about what he discussed with him that mushy had such a change of heart.

Simple....says laloo....all i said was that if you want kashmir, you will have to take bihar too!!!!!

rgds,

devkant.

Re:devkant#198

[..bj, are you nuts. have you taken leave of your senses...]

I think he has decided to formally become a chela of Laloo Prasad Yadav. Now that Laloo has turned around Indian Railways, I guess all biharis have decided to make him their role model.

Since BJ is so infatuated with Pakistan these days, and the pakis like Manto are howling about 1947, how about we take BJ and his state Bihar and present it to Pakistan as a compensation for Nehru`s perfidy? It would be our humble gesture of goodwill and a confidence building measure. Who know, it might even raise the average IQ on both sides!! He He!!

#190 by bjkumar on January 15, 2007 4:37pm PT

bj, are you nuts. have you taken leave of your senses.

i was one of those fools that used to think that the partition of india was the biggest mistake of the 20th century. but looking back, i think it was the best thing to happen in the 20th century.

without partition, we would have become something like lebanon or nigeria where the govt cannot make any policy without christian and muslim agreement. they cannot even hire a peon without looking over at quotas of muslims and christians. in undivided india, muslims would have held a similar gun on the govts head.

plus if india would not have been divided, there would have been a civil war far worse than lebanon or any other country has seen. even though partition was sad, it was good and necessary because it saved more lives than it killed. jinnah, nehru, gandhi and patel should be thanked for it.

monto...why are you crying over partition. we indians accept you guys as citizens of the soverign state of pakistan. isn`t that enough. why are you digging graves of dead people. we are happy the way we are, please try and be happy the way you are. if you have any problems, address it your leaders, why are u dragging indian leaders in all this. they did what was best for india.

rgds,

devkant.

Re:tahmed32#196

[..Did you use some enhanced version of MS Excel (i.e. the one that comes equipped with the Mind Scanner) to achieve this level of precision? :-)...]

Not exactly.To date, BJ seems to be the only Indian I have seen who openly pines for Akhand Bharat. Even the hardcore anti-pakis like arjun2 or mohars have zero interest in that. That means a 1 out of 1000 interactors. Assuming that the Indian crowd on chowk is many orders of magnitude more jingoistic than regular Indian population, a phenomenon that is acknowledged by everyone, my estimate is not too far off the mark. :-)

ranjit #191 I am glad to see that you have measured the innermost feelings of 1 billion people in India to the 7th place of the decimal. Did you use some enhanced version of MS Excel (i.e. the one that comes equipped with the Mind Scanner) to achieve this level of precision? :-)

bj #190 Thank you sir for your considered response. In response to my question on why you think future generations of Pakistanis will consider Pakistan to have been a folly, you response and my comments to your response are as follows:


1. You say: Because its cost was tremendous!

Agreed that the cost was tremendous. But for future generations this is a ``sunk cost``, and so not relevant to them. This is not to belittle the terrible cost of partition (see my post to ylh below).

2. You say: And because it was fully avoidable! The person who was most in position to avoid it was the (vamp) Jinnah.

Strong words generally reflect a weak argument, and by calling historical figures names and affixing labels to them you are not impressing anyone (ylh calls gandhi casteist, you call jinnah evil - and both of you merely make your posts seem insubstantial as a result.

On the substance: Is there any certainty that if there had been no Pakistan law and order would not have broken down anyway, and a hindu-muslim struggle for supremacy started? As I note to ylh - a good deal of carnage took place at railway stations where, if either government had a will, they could have easily prevented some of the worst excesses.

In any case, this point is irrelevant to the specific question I had for the same reason as in 1.

3. You write: The act of partition drove an irreversible wedge among people who are essentially the same people (but are now saddled with the baggage dumped by recent history).

This is not the reality today - as can be seen in the warmth with which Indian visitors to Pakistan have been received. As for being the ``same people`` - that is a meaningless thing I think. All of mankind is quite similar, and any other basis for similarity is very superficial and temporary (when measured in generations). Language, ethnicity, economic status, language, race, nationality may seem permanent, but are in fact rendered washed away and replaced by new structures within just a few generations. Hamidm`s Herrenvolk relatives notwithstanding.

There is some truth to what you say in points (a) through (d), but they do not add up to any convincing response to my above-mentioned question. I think the reason is that you assume that the average joe cares for the glory of belonging to a large empire rather than a smaller nation. These things are important only to the the glory-seeking jokers of history (Alexander the Grape, Hitler the Herrenvolk Guy, and so forth. Do belgians envy indians because india is a gazzilion times bigger than belgium? i dont think so. 1947 is already history for Pakistanis and Indians. Water under the bridge. All that remains is to pin down some lose ends, most notably the great human tragedy of 1947 where the justice of history remains to be served (per my post to ylh below).

I think you should be looking towards the future - and I think the future is very exciting indeed!! The progress in peace talks between the Indian and Pakistani governments gives one hope of better days ahead in India-Pakistan relations. That is what is going to be relevant to future generations, while the events of 1947 will steadily recede as just another historical event.

ylh #177
I had not heard of Francis Mudie, and only vaguely recall the name Iftikharuddin Ahmed before reading your post - so obviously your knowledge of the details in 1947 greatly exceeds mine. I think though that you have not discussed all the issues I raised, nor addressed convincingly the ones you did discuss. So, let me try to restate a bit more clearly:

1. During the round table conferences, to the best of my knowledge, no one anticipated the massive dislocations and bloodshed of 1947. Muslim League, Congress and the British Government were all party to those conferences. Are you aware of the question of maintaining law and order during this transition period being discussed. In retrospect, the brits should have borne the responsibility of maintaining law and order while the new governments came up to speed.

2. Is there any written record of Francis Mudie coming to the conclusion that he had to send all Hindus to East Punjab after a certain point to save their lives... but even this he reported to Jinnah would be a temporary situation and they would be allowed to come back once the dust settles..`` Wouldnt a more practical way to save lives have been to offer police/military protection, have curfews, shoot curfew violaters on sight? Some of the worst carnage was done on railway stations in both India and Pakistan, where fleeing refugee families provided easy targets to bastards on both sides. Was it really that hard for the Indian or Pakistani government to put a small detachment of police in key railway stations where the killings took place? Shouldnt people like you who are experts on that era be persuing such questions and bringing them to light ?

Re: # 32

bjkumar

Good Idea: West India or West Bang la Desh! It is the Paki name which stinks. But the Paki-mullah shall stink by whatever name you may call him.

Re: # 189

bj,

..... you really are a very tormented man ! .......... get over your delusion that there ever was a united india - there never was .......... first the muslim rulers from persia and central asia and wherever kept it `together` and then the british took over to create an administrative unit for their own convenience ........ if the british hadn`t shown up on the scene ,your india would have been fifty independent states and principalities run by fat little hindu rajas and even fatter (but bigger) muslim nawabs .......... so please give up on this notion of the mythical indian (hindu) empire and accept reality for what it is ............. all we are asking is that you fulfill nehru`s promise to the kashmiris - is that too much ?

Re:bjkumar#190

Tahmed, before you lash out at BJ and roast his sorry as$ for his `akhand bharat` delusions, let me assure you that BJ is not just in a minority, he is in a micrority for those absurd views.

99.9999999% Indians are quite happy with the way things turned out to be.

#170 by tahmed32

[bjkumar: I await patiently, bj, for the answer to my question on why exactly the creation of Pakistan was a folly.]

Note: I am saying very few things here which I have not said before!

Tauheed Sahib, thank you for your patience. Here are my (simple) views on why the creation of Pakistan (i.e., the partition of India) was a mistake.

Because its cost was tremendous!

And because it was fully avoidable! The person who was most in position to avoid it was the (vamp) Jinnah. But he chose not to. Which makes him, in my view, nothing other than sheer evil – hence the term “vamp” that I use to describe him!

I am of the view that if pre-partition India had stayed united, things would have worked out – not necessarily smoothly – but they would have worked out nevertheless – just like they appear to keep working out for the remaining parts – of what is currently called India.

The act of partition drove an irreversible wedge among people who are essentially the same people (but are now saddled with the baggage dumped by recent history).

It is my opinion that – in a United India:

(a) There could have been a relatively strong minority presence in several present-day Pakistani provinces – perhaps obtaining a voting clout similar to the way Muslims do in certain Indian ``heartland`` states. Because there would not have been a ``transfer`` of populations.

(b) There would have been a more liberal Muslim general population in present-day Pakistani provinces due to (1) exposure to ``minorities``, (2) absence of indoctrination by state, (3) better system of checks and balances, (3) more stability and fewer unstable regimes, (4) less room for demagogues to operate through cultivating the psychology of fear.

(c) There would have been virtually zero chances of the armed forces stepping in and grabbing power, partly because of the size of the country and partly because the British Army psychology would have prevailed like in India, and partly because there would not have been a power vacuum due to the death of any single individual political leader! (Remember, Pakistan used to be a relatively secular country (in practice) until General Zia got into the act! And Mullahs by themselves can never do any damage until the army empowers them!)

(d) There would not have been many of the post partition events that widened the gulf further – imagine (1) no Kashmir problem, (2) no Bangladesh problem, (3) no war-1, no war-2, no war-3, no Kargil, no ISI – none of that ``exciting`` stuff.

Use that imagination a bit! Imagine the most populous country in the world! Also, the most diverse country in the world – multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-languages, multi-talented, multi-you-name-it! Do you think ANYBODY would even ask silly questions like the eligibility for a permanent seat at the UN security council?

We – the victims – can only imagine what it would have been like! Would it really have worked out? Could it really have worked out? My own guess – based on little more than common sense and gut feeling is that it would have.

But unfortunately, we shall never know. Because those same leaders – led by the vamp Jinnah – never gave us a chance to try to live together.

Perhaps many of us do not see the folly of our ways. Many in the present generation certainly don`t. The poison of indoctrination – especially of the religious kind – and the type that fanatics enjoy – it goes very deep and numbs the senses and it numbs better judgement!

Perhaps someday, our children will be able to see that folly! Those who are left in the old country, that is!

I am done with this board.