The Meaning of Pakistan

PM

To the best of my knowledge seperate electorates as far as General Elections goes is a recent phenomenon. My Ahmadi relatives were forbidden from voting in the 1997 election only... similarly my Christian Teachers at Bloomfield Hall like Miss John, and Mr Felix didnot get to vote in that election.

Now, if you have information to the contrary present it but dont ridicule me.

Harimau,

That is exactly what you Indian Chaps want anyway, ... I am not going to give you the satisfaction.

Back to the discussion of Communalism,

Qaid e Azam stepped down as the Muslim League president in December 1947, saying that ``As the Governor General I cant hold Highest office in a

avowedly communal organization`` Ayesha Jalaal State of Martial Rule...

It is also found in the Muslim League records.

Yasser Hamdani

Ref ylh #: 854

[And most Pakistanis are unconcerned about the fate of Allahabad... we dont care. There is no outcry.

The only Pea brained people in the subcontinent are your people, which evident in the quality of

Computer Engineers you fools are churning out.]

Weeks ago, I had said on another board:

[The Kumbh mela takes place about 15 kilometers fropm the Allahabad city center. The name of the place is Prayag. If today the name gets changed, all of you pigs will be up in arms, claiming an insult to Allah. The pathetic Indian Muslim League will lead the frenzy, the Congress Party will join in to ensure it gets the Muslim votes, the Pakistani newspapers will have a field day, and the rest of the Islamic world wouldn`t give a hoot.]

YLH, it doesn`t take too much to figure out your behavior. You have a Pavlovian response to anything that happens in India, Just as I predicted, you have made the statement that the name of Allah is not good enough for a city which is holy to Hindus.

Why don`t you find yourself a local girl for amusement? You keep getting beat up here and you keep bleating like a bakra on Eid. Maybe you can instead ask her to tie you up and beat you.

Re: ylh #854

The only Pea brained people in the subcontinent are your people, which evident in the quality of

Computer Engineers you fools are churning out.

Computer World

http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO59083,00.html

Lessons From India Inc.

Strict attention to quality standards

by Indian programmers is delivering valuable project management lessons to U.S. IT managers.

By GARY H. ANTHES AND JAIKUMAR VIJAYAN

(April 02, 2001) Bangalore, India

Once a sleepy pensioners` paradise, this city today is choked with traffic. Much of the greenery that gave Bangalore the nickname ``Garden City`` has been hacked away to make room for office towers, and people on the street cover their mouths and noses against the pollution. Telephones, water and electricity remain unreliable, and the roads and airports are decrepit, by Western standards.

Indeed, software developers in India have made quality something of an obsession. Most developers here pursue and win the International Standards Organization (ISO) 9000 certification for excellence and then go on to climb the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) ladder. CMM is a product of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), run by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It describes the practices that make for effective software development, and it lays out a five-level progression from ad hoc, chaotic processes to mature, disciplined approaches.

Of the 42 organizations worldwide that have reached Level 5 on the CMM scale, 25 are based in India, according to the SEI.

Yasser:

Yo write ``And most Pakistanis are unconcerned about the fate of Allahabad... we dont care. There is no outcry.``

Then why all this ruckus here? Didn`t you bring it up in the first place.

``The only Pea brained people in the subcontinent are your people, which evident in the quality of Computer Engineers you fools are churning out.``

Now you really need to get a grip young man! Whatever you say about the Indian programmers (coconut smelling hair, sambarreeking shirts, elbow eaters.... whatever!) they are not just being imported as cheap labour. Many of them make the local talent here seem quite ordinary. Not all-- not even most; but quite a few. Give credit where due.

And yes, I was surprised that someone of your breadth of reading should think that separate electorates was introduced in Pakistan only in `97.

Do you get out at all?? :-)

re # 850

It would have been good to give the source of that article. That said, I`ll assure you that both water and electricity are available in Geneva Camp; I grew up in the sight of that place.

But lets not fudge around the issue. There is only one party to blame for the misery of these unfortunate thousands of Muslims. It is the country which calls itself an Islamic Republic, cuts off hands and stones people, but cannot step up to provide the very basic duty of a country to its citizens. Don`t blame Bangladesh. This poor country has housed and fed these refugees for thirty years,not in luxury but in no manner different from its own citizens. She offered them citizenship twice, once in 1972 and again during the time of the martyred President Ziaur Rahman.It is not their(the refugees) or the Bangladesh govt`s fault that such an offer was not accepted. These people, the ones who have sacrifised the most for Pakistan, deserve to be able to go home. The guilt lies squarely at the doorstep of people starting from the late Z A Bhutto to the general in power now.

re ylh

``It is an ugly word which you misused in the context of the Pakistan Movement.``

I used it in the context of Pakistan not the Pakistan Movement. As an educated man I am sure you realise the significant difference between those two terms. And, please, don`t lecture me on the Pakistan movement and its sacrifises: you go back two generations and you`ll find all my ancestry in today`s India-why do you think they left it all?

Pakistan`s electoral system (you`re wrong about the 1997 cutoff date), since its inception as a Republic to this very day, has been based on religion based electorates(and absolute nonfranchise for the Northern Areas and appointments in FATA) with the exception of the election of 1970 that was carried out under the LFO of Yahya Khan. In South Africa, when they did it on the basis of colour, it was called apartheid. In Pakistan, when they do it on the basis of religion, it is still aprtheid.

The difference between the pre-1947 days and today is the fact that the Muslim League was fighting a foreign colonial power when insisting on separate electorates. If separate electorates in post-1947 Pakistan does not go against everything in the famous speech of the Quaid-e-Azam, I don`t know what does.

I agree, the word apatheid is ugly. But so is the discrimination that it denotes.

And most Pakistanis are unconcerned about the fate of Allahabad... we dont care. There is no outcry.

The only Pea brained people in the subcontinent are your people, which evident in the quality of

Computer Engineers you fools are churning out.

I was ofcourse referring to the objection by Truth

to the name Pakistan.

It is indeed, a tragedy that we named Lyallpur, Faisalabad. Inshallah, stupidity of this sort will be reversed by coming generations.. The point ofcourse was to show the shortcomings of the so called secular Democracy in India, not to bring out a comparison with Pakistan.

-YLH

Ref ylh #: 790

[As for our renaming those areas, kindly read more about the naming procedure. Nevertheless, dont point fingers at us, the truth is well known. Allahabad`s name is not being changed for any other reason but simply that Allah`s name is not pure enough for a holy Hindu City.]

The procedure for re-naming a city is to take a couple of billion dollars from an Arab monarch and name your city after him.

Indians should ask Saudi Arabia for a couple of billion dollars and re-name Allahabad Faisalabad. Then there would be no outcry from pea-brained Pakistanis on whether Faisal is bigger than Allah. They would happily dump Allah for a few bucks.

DHAKA, Bangladesh celebrated 30th anniversary of its establishment last week.

An enthusiastic atmosphere was witnessed throughout the country but there were some people who stayed away from these celebrations.

They took part in such celebrations neither this year nor during the past 30 years.

These are the people who do live in Bangladesh but do not enjoy its citizenship.

Let`s say there are not the citizens of any country of the world.

They are generally called as Biharis (Muslims from Indian state Bihar) but they still like to be called as stranded Pakistanis.

Bangladesh came into being after Pak-India war in 1971 but seven lakh citizens of ``occupied East Pakistan`` suddenly realised that neither Pakistan wants to take them back nor Bangladesh is prepared to keep them in the country.

A BBC correspondent after visiting the camp, revealed, ``There is a Bihari camp in Dhaka, called Geneva Camp.

But whoever gave it this name did a big joke with stranded Pakistanis.

As I entered the camp, a stinking smell made it difficult for me to breath.

The camp, littered with garbage, was extremely narrow. I have seen the stable of swine but believe me that this camp was worse than that place. The lanes were so narrow that it was difficult to take out the funeral

procession``.

Yasmeen, 20, daughter of Chairman of the camp, was born here, married here and gave birth to her child in the same camp.

Her whole world is a small room.

Her brothers, sisters, parents and husband also live in the same one room.

``If one dies, we feel extremely difficulty in taking him out of his house and the camp.

There is a permanent queue in front of the bathroom.

There are 8-12 people on one house of single room.

We cook and sleep in the same room.

It is very difficult to observe ``pardah``.

Reporters visit here but they publish nothing in their papers in favour of us``, she tells her horrendous story.

No doubt, there is nothing in the camp.

Neither there is drinking water nor electricity.

Medical facilities are negligible and there is a one-room school, where students have no facilities.

And if any body tries to live outside the camp, the Bengali society is not prepared to accept them.

Majority of these people want to got to Pakistan.

The headmaster of the only school of the camp Muhammad Shaukat Ali says, ``These people were given option in 1994 to got to Pakistan but later

there was no progress.

Our documents are with the Pak embassy in Bangladesh.

Under the agreement signed between Khalida Zia and Nawaz Sharif on August 12, 1992, a flight carried stranded Pakistanis consisting of 56

families to Pakistan in Mian Channu.

Although the documents of 1000 families are complete but only 56 families were repatriated to Pakistan``.

Dr. Robert Pradue of School of Oriental and African Studies in London has a deep knowledge of the issue.

He says, ``The successive governments in Pakistan have been compelled by the fear of the annoyance of the people not to take them back whose

family roots are not in Pakistan``.

Pakistan has its own compulsions and it is not interested in repatriation of another 3 lakh Biharis.

And the residents of Bihari camps in Bangladesh are well aware of it.

However, Shaukat says, ``We want to go to Pakistan, as it is our ideological motherland.

We speak Urdu and Pakistan is our motherland, therefore, we want to go there.`` Bangladesh is not ready to keep them in the country.

Owing to this argument of the Biharis, the stand of Bangladesh is getting tougher.

Deputy Foreign Minister of Bangladesh Abul Hassan Chaudhry says, ``We want that the Pakistanis who are stranded here and want to go back,

should got to Pakistan as according to their wishes, as early as possible.

We will provide them all facilities so that they could go to Pakistan as they call themselves as Pakistani citizens``.

Several youth want to leave the camps to begin a new life.

Deputy Foreign Minister of Bangladesh said, ``If some people express loyalty with some other country, it is not in my or any other body`s jurisdiction to stop them.

It is their desire, which must be fulfilled``.

It is very clear from the statement of Mr. Chaudhry that this country is not ready to accept and grant citizenship to these refugees at any cost.

The refugees complain that Pakistan, Bangladesh and India have forgotten them for good and they have become such a tragedy of the contemporary ear at which no body is there to mourn.

The question that who is responsible for the situation is tself a big tragedy as no body is directly responsible for that.

India does not want to accept its responsibility because it says that they and their elders had willingly left India.

And the next generation had no like with India.

Bangladesh says when it was struggling for independence, they had refused to recognize Bangladesh and claimed to be citizens of Pakistan.

They want to show themselves as Pakistanis.

And according to Islamabad, they have no connection with Pakistan.

The real cause of the issue is that none of these three countries feels responsible for this issue.

Perhaps all these three countries are responsible for the tragedy.

These refugees hold Pakistan responsible for the situation but also bank on the same country for their future.

Pakistan is their dream.

Former Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif had kindled their hopes when he was Chief minister of Punjab.

``When Nawaz Sharif won the elections with thumping majority, it was so enthusiastically celebrated here that the sweet shops were not able to meet demand for the sweet.

The people distributed sweets in a huge quantity.

When he was Chief Minister Punjab, he had promised that when he will become Prime Minister, he will repatriate all the stranded Pakistanis.

So this was the reason of our celebrations.

The people also offered `nawafil` in mosques.

But it is regretted that when he assumed power, he forgot us.

As a result of this breach of promise, he was removed form power today``, Shaukat revealed.

The stranded Pakistanis have made an organization and photographs of all those Pakistani leaders have been pasted on walls of the office of this

organization who have promised to repatriate them to Pakistan.

The photographs of Nawaz Sharif and Ziaul Haq are also there.

The photograph of the present military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf has also been prominently pasted on the wall with the hopes that the voice of the Biharis will be heard by him.

Yasser,

Thanks for taking the time to reply at lenght. Will give it a re-read tomorrow. God how I regret not taking Pol Sci in College. :-)

rgds,

PM

re. Urstruly #838

``PM has done that before. She actually changed her whole name.``

It`s called a nick. N-I-C-K.

Fuzair

I think you too have misused the word apartheid. The claim that only Muslim League was the representative organization of the Muslims, doesnot fit the definition of the apartheid.

The only place where one can argue that AIML adopted a policy which can be loosely argued to be apartheid, or let us say argued as, is when they argued that was there to be a plebiscite deciding the fate of the Muslim Majority provinces only Muslims should be allowed. This again was because, in case of an open plebscite, there were bound to be the Muslim voters who would choose a Union over Pakistan, which might have taken away the narrow majority had they voted in block with other communities.

As it turns out, Muslim League won 75% of the Muslim vote and virtually swept the Muslim seats, to ensure Majority in Punjab and Bengal in 1946.

1) Two things are often forgotten however, that by 1945 Muslim League had opened its doors to Non Muslims especially Dalits and depressed classes and a great majority joined the League as they had done so in 1939 also, when they also joined League processions on the day of deliverance, which prompted Mr Gandhi to write that famous letter in Young India in which he said, that Mr Jinnah had opened a new door in Nationalist Politics by embracing under the League Banner all Communities anti-Congress, thereby creating a two party system in India, Congress and Anti-Congress. This overture was snubbed ofcourse by Qaid e Azam.

Indeed, the nomination of Jogindranath Mandal on a Muslim Seat, as a Muslim League representative in the Interim Govt makes it abundantly clear how much of the policy of apartheid was followed by the ML.

-Yasser Hamdani

In response to Fuzair (Reply # 845)
Dear Fuzair:
Your statement: “I do second your views on humanization but, alas, I fear that they may founder on the simple fact that we have an inherent tendency to demonize the enemy, especially when the conflict is couched in ``us or them`` terms. When demonization is the norm, then humanization can hardly be expected to flourish. I think a necessary first step might be to realize that the Truth we think we know is merely one facet of the greater Truth. Now, how do you go about convincing people of that?”

My reply: I agree with you. I think, you have yourself answered the question, when you wrote that “the Truth we think we know is merely one facet of the greater Truth”.
Now, as far as the history of pre-Partition India is concerned, both Indian and Pakistani scholars need to provide a more balanced and critical accounts of the role of various key political actors, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, within the context of various visions, ideologies, discourses, and social relations and practices.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Re: Bahmad #102

Thank you, Professor, but you embarrass me. I do second your views on humanization but, alas, I fear that they may founder on the simple fact that we have an inherent tendency to demonize the enemy, especially when the conflict is couched in ``us or them`` terms. When demonization is the norm, then humanization can hardly be expected to flourish. I think a necessary first step might be to realize that the Truth we think we know is merely one facet of the greater Truth. Now, how do you go about convincing people of that?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Re the discussion on the Muslim League and Jinnah

I think that Mr. Jinnah, certainly the League, did insist on de facto apartheid when in 1937 they argued that only the ML had the right to nominate Muslims to the provincial seats/ministries. I certainly do agree that Jinnah`s ethnic politics--distasteful as they may be--were clearly in response to the Congress Party`s earlier adoption of Gandhian tactics: the appeal to a greater Hindu vision of India and the absorption of all minority groups into a greater Hindu India.

Certainly, any majoritarian system of government would require such an absorption. Jinnah was simply arguing for much greater constititutional safeguards than the Congress was willing to concede. There is also no doubt that the ML did not have a mass base or any popular support UNTIL it resorted to the ``Islam is in danger`` ploy. In this case, (ethnic) patriotism is indeed the last refuge of the scoundrel since it is a patently political ploy designed to garner votes from simple peasants and workers. However, I would again like to point out that Mr. Jinnah did not start this type of distasteful ethnic politics and he really had no choice but to follow suit in it. It was Gandhi and the Congress who uncorked this particular genie. Where was the Congress Party without Gandhi? Nowhere at all on the political scene. Without Gandhi`s ability to mobilize the masses by using Hindu popular imagery , the Congress would still be Hume`s debating society.

What we Pakistanis must realize is that our leaders do not have to alabaster saints for them to be great men. Neither Jinnah nor Gandhi (or Nehru or Patel, for that matter) were as virulently bigoted on a personal belief level as the RSS, JUH, JI types but the political path these men followed allowed the more communal/ethnic groups to flourish. In Pakistan, we have spent half a century defining ourselves as ``Not Hindus.`` Is it any wonder that the obscurants are in the ascendancy?

Regards to all.

Dear PM

``I think that this sort of paternalistic, protective attitude towards Minorites is not consistent with true democratic principles. ``

You have a good understanding of the actual functioning of a democracy. In democracy, state should not differentiate between groups of people. It should restrict itself to providing a level playing ground ie enforce rule of law and order without providing special privileges to a group of people. The checks should be built in system in such a way that it provides equal opportunity to any person irrespective of his group affiliation. It should be left to the people make good use of those opportunities. I am using the word ``group`` in a general sense. If Govt provides special privileges to one group, sooner or later reactionary forces may develop in the other groups generating friction that may undermine democracy.

Dear Arun

You are condemned to burn in the fire of hell for all the sins you did as a Hindu( being hindu itself is a sin). Someone here has assumed the position of demi-God passing his judgement upon the entire one billion of God`s creation. You heathen, you surely deserve the fire of hell. Better make some amends for your sins by joining Hindu bashing chorus.(who knows you may even be rewarded by jannat ki (w)hore) I have already decided to join Hindu bashing in the upcomming great Hindu bashing week.(Hey I love beautiful women. I will do anything to get one, even in heaven). Tauba kar, jahil hindu.

Cheers