Blasphemy

#145 Posted by ferozk on April 18, 2004 7:49:18 am

re: Mantolives, Dost-Mittar and Nooralain

I just wanted to say one thing on this topic. The killings of partition happened in 1947 and many died and where they died and how they died is immaterial. The dead of the partiton know only thing and would care about only one thing and that is; it would be better to have been alive.

Ciao

#144 Posted by dost_mittar on April 18, 2004 7:43:39 am

Manto:
``I find the suggestion that communal violence only happened in Pakistan to be proposterous...``
...and when did I make that suggestion?? My point is that both the countries failed to do their duty in Panjab. If the Indian leadership can claim any credit, it is of preventing the virus from spreading outside Panjab. They did this by stopping all trains at the Panjab border and discouraging the movement of the refugees to U.P. I might add that they were not fully successful in this; some refugees did find their way to western U.P resulting in some killings there as well.
I fully agree with Kuldip Nayar`s article and the British culpability. This is why I am opposed to the US pulling out of Iraq without stabilising the situation there, even though I was one of the most strident opponents of their attack on Iraq.
...and now can we all get back to Mr. Shaikh`s petition?

#143 Posted by MantoLives on April 18, 2004 5:42:41 am

Dost Mittar jee...

Having met you I found you to be generally a fair person. Therefore I would expect a fair minded answer... I find the suggestion that communal violence only happened in Pakistan to be proposterous... either the myth of Gandhi fasting to protect the muslims is untrue or this assertion is untrue then... Which one is it?

This is what your first `education minister` had to say about it:

Unfortunately even before partition had been decided upon, there started a new movement of organizing jathas by non-muslims in East Punjab .... there was outbreak of mass violence on unprecedented scale which threatened all the Muslim population there.

(Azad`s Six point Plan to restore Peace)

Here is a little fact that is often forgotten by people.... Liaqat Ali Khan proposed that the UNO`s observers and supervisors should be brought into ascertain the reality of the situation in East Punjab and West Punjab so that the genocide could be stopped. NEHRU REJECTED THE PROPOSAL To determine this `Ismay`s Note` can be read 3rd October 1947

Whose watch was `East Punjab` under? Why was the Indian Government anxious to sweep the entire Genocide issue under the rug? It was the Pakistani Representative at the UN who spoke of Genocide and not the Indian representative ... why? Jinnah in his interview to Stimson of BBC is quite critical of Mountbatten`s insistence on playing down the communal violence, .... Why if it was going to make him look bad did Jinnah insist on calling it Genocide again and again, while the Indian Government `repeatedly` denied it and used the word `Communal trouble instead.

In which direction was the `exodus` greater? The answer to this is obvious and clear... Close to 5.5 Million Muslims moved to Pakistan.... close to 3 million Hindus moved to India.. I feel ashamed to put it out so bluntly because a human life is a human life, but a great majority of those killed were killed in East Punjab.

Why do people like Sri Prikasa, Atlee and MSM Sharma praise Jinnah for ruthlessly putting an end to communal violence in Pakistan? All of the abovementioned were pro-Congress and Pro-Nehru.

Have you had the opportnity of going through the Transfer of Power papers? They are there for everyone to read. When you talk about `watch` ... then atleast stick to the fairmindedness that you have in the past exhibited? I tell you what comes out of the `Suhrawardy-Gandhi Correspondence`, The Transfer of Power papers, Jinnah Papers, Ismay`s Notes and other papers of the time... The Indian Union was determined to protect its Governor General Mountbatten who was infact guilty of great crimes against humanity and who was really responsible and who was brought in as the Governor General by none other than the Congress Party.

Atleast one Indian had the courage to question the policies of its leaders which led to the genocide in East Punjab ....

The trial of Mountbatten

By Kuldip Nayar

There is a serious proposal in certain academic circles to hold a trial of Lord Mountbatten, inviting scholars from Pakistan and Great Britain to participate in it.

The purpose is not to apportion blame to the last viceroy for India`s division - something which he could not help - but to delineate his role in the murder of more than 10 lakh people and the uprooting of another two crore. The charge against him is that the holocaust was due to Mountbatten`s wrong decision to advance the date of partition from June 3, 1948, to August 15, 1947, some 10 months earlier.

I recall how Mountbatten`s announcement came as a bombshell to us in Sialkot city, now part of Pakistan. There was suddenly a sense of fear and insecurity. The borders of India and Pakistan had yet to be demarcated, and the fate of the entire population of Punjab, Bengal and Assam hung in the balance. Both Hindus and Muslims began to pass anxious moments because they did not know through which area the dividing line would run.

Rumours were so strong that people were willing to believe even the impossible. They were confused. That partition was inevitable was beginning to seep into their mind. But they were not preparing to leave their hearth or home. By advancing the date by 10 months, he had unwittingly caused the murder of one million people. I told this to Mountbatten when I interviewed him at his sprawling mansion in Broadlands near London in October 1971, for my book, Distant Neighbours.

As if I had touched a raw nerve, he felt uncomfortable and lapsed into silence. He admitted that at least one million people died during partition. But his defence was strange: He had saved from starvation three times the numbers during the 1943 Bengal famine by giving 10 per cent of space in his ships for the transport of food grains. This was despite the opposition of Churchill, the then prime minister. Mountbatten was then Chief of the Allies Naval Operations in South Asia.

``Well, before Providence, I can say that the balance is in my favour,`` said Mountbatten. And then he added: ``Wherever colonial rule has ended, bloodshed has been there. This is the price you pay.``

Why did he advance the date? I asked Mountbatten. He said he could not hold the country together. ``Things were slipping from my hands.`` The great Calcutta Killing, one year before partition, had taken place and communal tension prevailed all over. On top of it, there had been the announcement that the British were leaving. ``Therefore, I myself decided to quit sooner,`` said Mountbatten. ``This was not to the liking of Lord Attlee (then the British prime minister) but he had given me full powers.``

The comment by first Indian governor-general, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, was: ``If you had not transferred power when you did, there would have been no power to transfer.`` When I checked with Campbell-Johnson, Mountbatten`s press secretary, the reason for advancing the date, he said that August 15 was the date when Mountbatten had heard for the first time in Churchill`s room the news of the Japanese surrender, which ended the Second World War. However, the impression of some British foreign office men was that Mountbatten was in a hurry to get back to a bigger position in the British navy.

What Mountbatten did not realize was that the pent-up feelings in the hearts of Hindus and Muslims in the wake of communal propaganda and riots were bound to find a vent. At least government servants should not have been allowed to move from one country to another on the basis of their religion. Both Hindus and Muslims in the military, the police and other security forces had got contaminated over the years. To expect them to be impartial and punish the guilty from their own community was to hope for the impossible, particularly when they knew that they would go scot-free in their ``own country.``

Looking back, however, one cannot but blame Mountbatten for doing so little to ensure protection for the minorities. He had assured Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a top leader in the Congress, ``I shall not use merely the armed police, I will order the army and the air force to act and I will use tanks and aeroplanes to suppress anybody who wants to create trouble.`` Not a fraction of that happened. It was a free-for-all.

When Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan`s founder, asked Mountbatten to ``shoot Muslims`` if necessary to stop violence and when Jawaharlal Nehru, India`s first prime minister, suggested handing over the cities to the military, Mountbatten`s response was feeble. It may be an uncharitable remark to make but he appeared more interested in becoming the common governor-general of India and Pakistan - an office that Jinnah did not let him have - than dousing the fire of communalism.

The Punjab Boundary force, which Mountbatten formed on August 1, 1947, to quell the riots, did little to stop the killings of men, women and children. In its report, it said the defence of the force is: ``Throughout, the killing was pre-medieval in its ferocity. Neither age nor sex was spared; mothers with babies in the arms were cut down, speared or shot... both sides were equally merciless.``

In terms of men, the force had strength of 55,000, including Brigadier Mohammad Ayub Khan, who later became Pakistan`s first martial law administrator. The force had a high proportion of British officers. In fact, this proved to be its undoing. The officers were interested in repatriation to Britain, not in an operation that might tie them down to the subcontinent for some more time. The British commander of the force, General Rees, had reportedly instructions not to get involved and to protect only ``European lives.``

The reports of the Boundary Commission, appointed soon after partition, to delineate the borders between the Punjabs, Bengals and the Assam-Sylhet sector, added more fuel to the fire. Cyrill Radcliffe, a British lawyer who chaired the commission, earned the wrath of both the Congress and the Muslim League.

After failing to get the UN to nominate the Boundary Commission`s members, Jinnah had suggested to Mountbatten the name of Radcliffe, whom he had seen arguing intricate cases in London courts. Nehru had also approved his name after consulting ``that sneaky fellow Krishna Menon,`` as Radcliffe put it during his talk with me at his flat in London in October 1971.

Hindus were expecting Lahore to be included in India and Muslims were thinking that Calcutta would go to Pakistan. Both were disappointed. Radcliffe told me that he never had the slightest doubt from the beginning that Calcutta (Jinnah had said earlier it was no use having East Bengal without Calcutta) should go to India and Lahore to Pakistan. ``I had to give them Lahore because they had to have a big city in West Punjab,`` he said.

After deciding that the rest of the job was only to draw the lines, he did what ``came to that much.`` He was so `rushed` that he had `no time` to go into the details, Radcliffe said. ``Even accurate district maps were not there and what material there was, was also inadequate. What could I do in one and a half months?``

True, but what a way to divide the subcontinent and decide the future of millions of people. The trial of Mountbatten may assuage the feelings of people in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. They still believe that the blood of lakhs of people is on Mountbatten`s hands.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in New Delhi.

#142 Posted by MantoLives on April 18, 2004 5:42:41 am

PS: Atleast according to the Indian Government the partition massacres were not as many as what Rwanda has seen...

The Governor General of free and Independent India, that Congress Handpicked british aristocrat, Lord Mountbatten actually assured the Queen that what had happened in Punjab was merely `communal trouble`... the Academics differ on the numbers... somewhere between 180 000 or so estimate of H V Hodson, to `millions` of Akbar S Ahmed and K K Aziz (Both Pakistanis ofcourse).

Pakistan`s Government on the other hand has been screaming genocide genocide since 1947... making an official statement regarding the matter in the UN in late 1947.

#141 Posted by dost_mittar on April 18, 2004 3:29:14 am

noorie#140
I agree that what happened in Rwanda was horrendous and we should not indulge in comparing one genocide with another. Also, it was engineered by the rulers unlike the spontaneous combustion which took place at the time of the partitition; as far as I know, if the top rulers were to blame, it was for their acts of omission rather than of commission.
I also missed interacting with you. I am now writing some articles on Pakistan. If chowk publishes them we would get a chance to interact again.

Mantolives#137
Your knowledge on this subject is based on extensive reading; mine is based on ex-post statistics and anecodts. Also, having gone through this period, I could be biased in my observations. There were genocidal killings on both sides and, as nooralain said, it is perhaps distasteful to compare one genocide with another. The tragedy is that there was plenty of blame to be shared on both sides and neither side has as much as set up a memorial, let alone apologised to its victims even until this day.

#140 Posted by nooralain on April 17, 2004 8:30:45 pm

mittarji,#135
i`ve read quite a bit, and heard quite a bit about the genocide that occurred as the transfer of power was taking place. (for those of you who haven`t read it already, urvashi butalia`s `beyond the silence` is highly recommended), and so i understand what you`re saying to romair. what makes me uncomfortable however is this comparison as to which genocide was the greater. even though there are tutsis still alive (and well?) in rwanda, thousands upon thousands were massacred ten years ago. i know it is not your intention to devalue that by making comparisons, which you did not begin, but romair did. and i just wanted to comment on that.
also it`s been a while since we`ve interacted. and i`ve missed that.

: )

#139 Posted by MantoLives on April 17, 2004 5:54:10 pm

Dear A.Shiraz,

I am not sure entirely what you mean by your statement. Thankyou for welcoming me into the civilized world... From Day 1 on Chowk I have been a secularist (strictly : Separation of Church and State in Pakistan)... though I might not have agreed with all that you have to say about Islam, as I still don`t on some matters. Are you suggesting that anyone who doesn`t believe in what you have to say is a `frothing mullah`. It is true that over time, I have become less bitter against India... or as others would say toned down my anti-India rhetoric (which was more a reaction to the anti-Pakistan garbage than anything else. But I am not sure when I was `frothing like a mullah`...

This is really novel. On the one hand... Romair and his ilk call me a `secular fanatic`... and here is a diametrically opposite view from you.

Please reconsider your statement.

-YLH

#138 Posted by MantoLives on April 17, 2004 5:54:09 pm

Dost Mittar,

Unlike what MaheshG has been putting up, even Atlee, who an unabashed supporter of the Congress, was all Praise for Jinnah`s handling of the communal crisis...The Jinnah Papers, and the `Transfer of Power` papers ... as primary sources have helped undo some of the lies and myths that certan Jinnah-bashers have concocted... A great work that has summarized the Transfer of Power papers is none other than Seerwai`s work... that great Indian Lawyer has totally shattered the myths that some jingoistic Indians like to concoct about Jinnah... I suggest you read these sources as well.

According to Hodson ... Jinnah`s orders were `Shoot to kill` anyone attacking Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan, and these orders helped restore the situation in Pakistan... hence the praise from even Atlee, the Indian High commissioner in Karachi and independent journalists like M S M Sharma.

As for ethnic cleansing... one thing has always evaded me... why is it that the Indian Government was trying to play down the partition massacres in the UN... and the Pakistan Government was repeatedly trying to bring out the partition massacres. I don`t wish to ascribe blame... but when some people talk about the worst ethnic cleansing let us also talk about whose watch was where? If unbiased history is read ... and we want to see how many moved which way... around 5.5 Million muslims moved to Pakistan and some 3 million Hindus and sikhs moved to India... during partition (Source Transfer of Power Papers ) ... and all sources point towards some 70 to80% Muslim deaths at partition. So who killed who.

Let us not second guess history.

Kudos to Seervai ... for telling the truth.

-YLH

#137 Posted by ijaz_gul on April 17, 2004 5:54:09 pm

Mr. Solitude,
in your response to PM you said:

``No thanks to you. What have you done for your people lately? All you do is suck up to the majority Muslim population - what has that gotten you? a little more arse? I hope so and I hope it was worth it.``

Arthur Shiraz with his email as arthurshiraz@yahoo.com. wants to insist that the name has been mis spelled by CHOWK. Ha Ha!!

I wondrer what he with his punny secularism is doing in the land of opportunity. Is he sucking up the anglo saxon americains in the land of the pure- and firing pea shooters at Pakistan?what has that gotten you? a little more arse?

Hats off Noorulain

#136 Posted by teshah on April 16, 2004 4:42:05 pm

I totally agree with Romair at 13. Islamic literature is full of contradictions especially in traditios which can be used to prove that all all this holy literature which goes by the name of hadees is cooked up by the vested interests and is no longer serviceable in the modern world which has become a global village. For example the very hadees which is the main basis for the blasphemy law is itself blasphemic lynch law which contradicts the image of the prophet of islam as a `Rehmatuaalimeen`. I reproduce it here for perusal by the chowkies:-
Sunnan Abudaud:
Book 38, Number 4348:
Narrated Abdullah Ibn Abbas:
A blind man had a slave-mother who used to abuse the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and disparage him. He forbade her but she did not stop. He rebuked her but she did not give up her habit. One night she began to slander the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and abuse him. So he took a dagger, placed it on her belly, pressed it, and killed her. A child who came between her legs was smeared with the blood that was there. When the morning came, the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) was informed about it.
He assembled the people and said: I adjure by Allah the man who has done this action and I adjure him by my right to him that he should stand up. Jumping over the necks of the people and trembling the man stood up.
He sat before the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and said: Apostle of Allah! I am her master; she used to abuse you and disparage you. I forbade her, but she did not stop, and I rebuked her, but she did not abandon her habit. I have two sons like pearls from her, and she was my companion. Last night she began to abuse and disparage you. So I took a dagger, put it on her belly and pressed it till I killed her.
Thereupon the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Oh be witness, no retaliation is payable for her blood.

This Hadees obviously negates all the good things which are said about Islam - human rights, woman rights, in fact any right or law whatsoever which the human civilization has attained so far. But the fanatics, instead of being ashamed of it, bring it forth as an argument for the Blasphemy law. But there are many peoples on the border line who can be neutralized by argument and the fanatics isolated gradually.

#135 Posted by dost_mittar on April 16, 2004 1:12:17 pm

romair#113:
The ethnic cleansing in Rwanda was not worse than in Panjab. Ten years after the horrible massacres in Rwanda there is still no shortage of tutsis in that country.
Regarding the comparison between Jinnah and Gandhi or Nehru, sorry, but I have no desire to revisit that station.

gujjubania#116:
Some questions are best left unanswered, but since you insist, I did not see any donation boxes for jihad in Pakistan, nor did I go looking for them!

#134 Posted by jang on April 16, 2004 7:39:22 am

i suggest a new rite called un-baptism. at the age of 8, you check the stars, get your family and friends together, and ceremonially clense yourself of all religious baggage, so that you may think clearly again. and if the moss grows again, its god-willing.

#133 Posted by jay on April 16, 2004 6:18:53 am

The passport department is requested to appoint a person with neat and good handwriting to enter details in passports. In my own passport, I am not able to read the address of my own house. How will the immigration officer at our airports or at any international airport be able to read it? An illegible entry often embarrasses the passport holder at airports.

Finally, I would like to suggest that when Nadra starts issuing machine-readable passports this September, a provision for blood group should be included in the passport details.

M. RAFIQUE ZAKARIA

Karachi
////////////////

The above is from dawn of today. I understand that romair is a major IT magnate in canada, there seem to be a lot of IT experts from pakistan on this thread talking about blasphemy. Can any of them donate a printer to the pak govt so that passport details are printed, not hand written.

It is hard to find more delusioned human than pakistanis.

#132 Posted by solitude on April 16, 2004 6:18:52 am

``I`d like to sign your little pettition there, however I won`t sign anything with you affiliated with it...you carry too much baggage, son. ``#131 by vertex on April 15, 2004 9:22pm PT

Fine if you don`t like me then its perfectly ok to not sign the petition I created. Just create your own petition by going to http://www.petitiononline.com or click here and ask people to sign it :) ask your friends! your family! etc.

I promise to sign your petition because to me the struggle against ignorance and superstition is more important.

Again I feel unhappy that my flawed self has to get in the way of progress and Pakistanis working together to fight fundamentalism and terrorism.

I don`t have anything against Romair and apologists like him. It is better than having them turn into zombies and terrorists , right? It is a continuum I know on one side is Islamic fundamentalism and Islam of Mohammad as practised in the 6th century and somewhere in there (NOT the middle) is the Islam of the individual (individual interpretations like Romairs) and then on the other side of darkness is human rights, secular and rational thought where the rights of man are above the rights of God. In the end pretending to be an Alim is ok by me even though there are better ways :)

I am asking you to accelerate your move that is all but I know I ask a lot of you. We have so much attached to this religion. Parents, friends and family. This is one advantage of being solitary and always standing by yourself and being independent - you can be true to yourself without cowing to peer pressures and demands of family, friends, wife, parents , clerics etc.

Good luck my beloved country folk :) I am with you in the struggle against Blasphemy Laws and Hudood ordinance I hope you will not be ashamed of seeing me on your side.

#131 Posted by vertex on April 15, 2004 9:22:10 pm

solitude,

Dude, you missed my point...but I suppose I shouldn`t expect any less...romair made some good counter-arguments...indeed, having read the work cited by Naqsh (which you so avidly support for obvious reasons), it`s clear that the general principle reached was inspite of counter-examples of events that clearly contradict the general principle...which were in turn explained away with persumed motivations for these particlar ``exceptions`` ...confused? Sorry...didn`t want to do that...but for someone who touts rationalism and all that, I thought that would be an obvious flaw with that particular line of reasoning used, rather than flawless evidence of how evil Islam is...(no, we have no agendas here!).

Naqsh shows his bravery in his final, unadulterated emotional appeal...which is much more convincing (he`s got me hooked!) than weak attempts at pointing to (contradictory) historical presedence.

I`d like to sign your little pettition there, however I won`t sign anything with you affiliated with it...you carry too much baggage, son.

``The article that Naqshbandi bravely posted was written in a liberal spirit of Islam. It did not go into gory details of the assassinations carried out by the Prophet and his Sahaba. The victims included... geriatrics... ``

...yeah, well ``civilized`` people (justifiably, imho) target geriatrics (okay, 80+ only...and not much of a poet) in WHEELCHAIRS...top that dude...