Can Pakistan Work?

Thank you echoboom for your kind words.

---

dost_mittar


Events in history are hardly ever due to a single causative stimulus. It is a combination of factors that become a process and precipitate an event. This is true as much of the Moplah revolts as of any other occurence anywhere anytime.

Religion, I observed very early on, plays a divisive role in society, and as such its influence in exacerbating and overlaying tensions due to quite different causes can neither be underestimated nor discounted.

I do not know whether Dr. Pannikar is a Marxist or not -- my habit is to take every thought served up to me with a pinch of salt, no matter who the author is.

---

Harimau

I am in the knowledge that forced conversions have always been attempted, and carried out by adherents of different religions. Such conversions are a loathsome practice, whosoever practices them.

I have always held, and do hold, that belief (religion) is an entirely individual matter and society and the state as the formation that society creates to order itself, should have absolutely nothing to do with belief (religion).

It has happened in the past, and it is quite likely to happen again, that certain sections within a larger society can become homogenous, cohesive and powerful enough to run a parallel ``state`` within a state. The tribal areas in the northwest of Pakistan are one such example, where the writ of the Pakistan government is enforced only when the people of that area are preceived to be acting against the interests of the government by the government of the day.

---

The advent of Islam in India and its influence on Indian society, is itself the subject of a very vast study.

The first contacts of Islam with India were probably through the newly converted Arab traders, who used to stop by at South Indian ports on their voyages to Indonesia and Mallacca.

It is interesting to note that the better know Sufis, such as Ali Hajweri, Moinuddin Chisti, Fareeduddin Masud Ganj Shakar, Nizamuddin Auliya, Sharfuddin Boo Ali Qalandar, Osman Al Marwandi (Lal ShahBaz Qalandar) etc. etc., are all to be found in the northwesterly parts of India, and their coming to India dates far later than the Arab invasion and conquest of Sindh etc., by Mohammad bin Qasim.

After the death of the Prophet of Islam in AD 632, very soon the Byzantine and Persian empires were conquered. The claim that Islam had become Imperial soon after the demise of its Prophet holds plenty of water.

A certain school of historians justifies or explains the Arab invasion of Sindh with various versions of a story about atrocities perpetrated by Raja Dahir`s officials on the crew(s) of a boat(s) carrying Muslim pilgrims. W`Allah Aalim! But Empire has its own logic and internal dynamism, expansion and constant hegemonization being key components of that dynamism. The Eastward and Westward thrusts of the Islamic Empire merely illustrate that.
The state of Hajjaj bin Yousaf`s suzerainty at the time that the Arab invasion of Sindh occurred required new sources of revenue, and Sindh, seemed what we in Urdu call a ``Tarr Nawalah.`` -- an easy bite to be gobbled up.

The question, however, remains that there were substantial conversions to Islam in the wake of the Arab conquest. Some of them, undoubtedly, may have been under duress or fear.

But let us not forget that the religion of the ruling blocs of the time espoused an elaborate exclusivist caste system. Islam, it would seem, presented an alternate to those exclude from social acceptance.

When Mahmad of Ghazni (or Ghazna) invaded India, there already were Musulmaans there, though the ruler of the Punjab was Jaipal. Mahmud may have been a very good general and administrator, but he is remembered justly as a vandal and a plunderer by history, and his repeated invasions were merely so many pillaging forays, no more, no less.

Siddiqua Haqnawaa

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Hey - all you guys posting your cra@ppy urdu/hindi/vernacular poems - Would you mind putting a English translation - so that rest of us can understand what`s going on here .... please ???

dost-mitter sahib -- meiN Adha Hindu hooN -- magar subzee naheeN khataa....:-)

teshah#116
Voh bhooli daastaaN lo phir yaad aa gayee
Nazar ke saamnay ghataa si chhaa gayee!

That was truly touching, shahji! I must have passed near your place on my way from Taxila to Peshawar earlier this year. Your post is a pointer to one of the great ``What ifs`` of history. Hopefully, the borders will once again become open with people free to meet and greet old friends.
A gentleman I know in Ottawa is of your age and from your area and might have gone to the same high school. His name is Roshan Lal. If you know him, I would be glad to get him in touch with you. He once told me the story of how his headmaster, a muslim, treated him with special affection for being a bright student and he, in turn, used to tutor the headmaster`s son.

SameerJB:
``I am of the opinion that locals had no love, yearning or desire to be part of a big because being part of the big one throughout long history (under Guptas, Mauryas, Scythians, Bactrians, Parthians and then Muslims did them no god). They accepted to be part of big with no fond memories of any of the above.``

You may be right from a historical perspective. But I think that the anti-colonial movement did unite Punjabis with Bengalis and others; of course it also gave rise to the concepts of the hindu and muslim nationhoods. As far as I am aware, there was no significant movement to split Panjab from the rest of the subcontinent in the last century, except the Khalistan movement. You reminded me of those who claim that the separatist movement in Kashmir is about Kashmiriyat even though it is supported only by the people of one faith.

nasah:
Thank you, bhaijaan. If I am the doosri aankh, then you must be the pehli. But then, you have already been tagged ``aadha hindu``, and I a cultural muslim. Both rightly so:-).

``#116 by teshah on October 23, 2004 5:44pm PT
99 by dost_mittar

Oh my dear dost_mittar you touched my heart when you mentioned the ‘enemy’ that once was.``(tshah)

dost-mitter is one of those Hindus about whom some one in old India had said -- Hindu hai ek aankh mussalman doosree

tshah your tribute to dost touched MY heart.....as well

in the same veins tshah sahib -- let me recite to you a couplet of mine:

-- Dair ko Hindu kee, mssjid ko mussalmaN kee talaash
-- Kho gaiee iss khoj meiN insaaN ko insaaN kee talaash

dost-mittar:

You are right, that is why I carefully used the term ``monumental temples`` like Somnath, Ram Mandir and like those in Tamil Nadu. Of course there were worship places for Hindus but they mostly tended to local needs. The worshippers themselves sometime torn down old one to build a new one, sometime on top of old one and other times at a new place. The holyness of temple in temple traditions (post Vedic and post Epic) which originated in, I believe, in central and south India did not arrive in Punjab, NWFP and Afghanistan for some reason. History does record a temple in Multan where diwali celebration is supposed to have originated. Additionally moumental temples require servicing, which is only available in decent size cities. In Punjab, NWFP and Afghanistan, other than Lahore, Multan and Kandhar, no major cities existed to afford servicing a large size temple. Villages do not need big mosques, temples or gurdwaras.

re: teshah

That was a moving piece and in itself a tribute to your friends from pre-Independent days. Many people have resorted to writing about these experiences, which is sort of therapeutic from the feeling of recording the feelings of long lost friends. There is a shopkeeper of sweets in London, who has been doing Punjabi poety with half of his poems mention the name of his childhood friend Mohan somewhere in Indian Punjab. All Punjabi radio stations in London love him and give him free and live air time to read out his poems. His name is Akhtar something...

re: creation of Pakistan or partition of british Indian empire

There are really four or five factors one can concentrate in this respect. They are: TNT, ML, Jinnah, British and locals. Different people order them differently based on their own reading and interest. Most Indians put TNT and Jinnah above the rest. Yasser (MAntolives) gives most credit to Jinnah. Official Pakistani ideology also puts TNT very high along with Jinnah followed by ML. Some well educated people give credit to British for wanting to do a favor to the area providing them with soldiers, remaining loyal and also belonging to one of the middle eastern based sister religion. The old leftists and commies credit it to feudals who saw more safety of their dominance under Pakistan than socialistic Nehru dominated Congress.

I am of the opinion that locals had no love, yearning or desire to be part of a big because being part of the big one throughout long history (under Guptas, Mauryas, Scythians, Bactrians, Parthians and then Muslims did them no god). They accepted to be part of big with no fond memories of any of the above. The five most famous people in Punjab to this day (among intellectuals) are: Pouros, Ranjit Singh, Dullabhatti, Ahmed Khan Kharal and Waris Shah). Notice none of them represents any of the major empire. To them, smaller was the better option and Pakistan was not exactly what they had in mind but at least it was smaller with hope for more power to ethnicities. TNT was only a factor in Muslim minority areas during municipal and other elections before 1946 referendum type elections. Muslim majority regions currently in Pakistan did not buy TNT and TNT remained to the east of Jamuna river.

Basically, the frontier and tribal mentality of these people, fighting and compromising within local environment for centuries, remaining outside power corridors throughout history of empires finally won the day.

SameerJB:
Good observations!
It is ironic that the descendants of those who suffered most of the atrocities are now the defendants of the perpetrators while the descendants of those who escaped the worst atrocities, including Panjabi Hindus and Sikhs, claim to be the worst victims.
I am not sure that there were no temples or monastries in Panjab at the time of the invasions. When I travelled in himachal pradesh last year I was struck by the number of old temples there. Remember, this is an area of old panjab which remained relatively unaffected by invasions and remained more or less completely hindu throughout the muslim rule. My hunch (no more!) is that North India was largely shaivite at that time. The muslims referred to the temples generally as `shivalas`. Most of the old temples in the north are dedicated to shiva or various forms of his shakti, including the famous temple of vaishno devi near Jammu. Incidentally, the famous Ketas Raj in Chakwal is also dedicated to Shiva. And the Kashmiri pandits are also shaivites and meat eaters.

Yes, people were not very religious but I think that this was true of all of India before the advent of Islam. Faith was an individual matter and people probably changed religions much like they change political parties. I suspect that the situation was like the old japanese joke about the number of buddhists and christians adding up to 150% of the population.

siddiqua#109:
I am not very knowledgeable about the mopla rebellion/riots. But Mr. Pannikar`s description sounds suspiciously like the typical Marxist historian`s approach. These historians discount the influence of religion as a motivating factor, overlook the obvious and try to find the root cause in class struggle. My own humble opinion is that it is generally not a matter of one or the other but a multiplicity of factors operating at any given time, with religion, economics and politics all playing their roles.

Incidentally, the first communal riots in India took place in the late 19th century after the hindu and muslim nationalism sfirst reared their (ugly?) heads.

99 by dost_mittar

Oh my dear dost_mittar you touched my heart when you mentioned the ‘enemy’ that once was. I quote you: -

“P.S. I am writing this to you because you belong to an earlier generation which presumably had the actual experience of living with the `enemy` and know that he was not as big a monster as he is sometimes made out to be in the textbooks now found in many of your schools``.

This reminds me of Ghalib’s famous couplet: -

Kalkutta ka jo zikr kia tu ne hamnasheen
Ik teer mere seena pih mara kih haae haae
You asked me how were those ‘enemies’ who might have been my class fellows in the pre-partition days.
Dear Mittar (How I wish you were one), I am 74 now but I still remember my Hindu and Sikh class-fellows with whom I studied over 60 years ago, first in the Sanatan Dharam High School, Jand, District Cambellpur upto 7th and then in Government High School, Campbellpur (Now Attock City), upto 10th which I cleared in 1946. In the morning school prayer in the Hindu school we used to sing Bhajan ‘Jagdeesh hare, Jagdeesh hare, nirbal ke puran pukar rahe’ and saluted our teachers with ‘OM’ in typical Hindu fashion. It was a predominantly Muslim area but nobody ever objected to our studying in a Hindu School and adopting Hindu culture. These were the most beautiful days of my boyhood. In that S.D. High School, Jand, I had a class fellow named Gian Chand. We loved each other so much that I used to weep when I missed to see him due to closure of the school. Gian usually reached school first in the morning and when he would see me coming he would run for about a furlong to greet me with a ‘japhi’. What an innocent and pure love it was between a Hindu and a Muslim boy no body could imagine today. Gian chand migrated to India on partition and joined Indian Army. We exchanged correspondence for some time, but a crisis that overwhelmed my life for some time made me forget everything, even Gian, my beloved friend. I had also good Hindu and Sikh friends at the G.H.S., Campbellpur but lost contact with all of them. At this fag end of my life I would love to have contact with any of them. I tried to get a visa for India but failed. I was born in a part of India which later came to be renamed as Pakistan, read ‘Mother India’ by Minu Massani in Matric and sang the ‘Tarana’ of Iqbal ‘ Hindi hein ham watan he Hindostan hamara, ham bulbulein hein iski yih gulsitan hamara’. But what a pity I could not get a visa to visit India, which was once my “Motherland” and now “Grandmotherland” or “Sub-continent”. What a play of words but how it separated the loved ones never to see each other again, perhaps.

Ref Siddiqua #109

[The Moplah revolts have been characterized as ``communal violence`` by some, but they need to be examined more deeply than they have been. They were in the nature of spontaneous uprisings of the havenots against the haves, it being being an accident of birth that the majorities of the havenots and haves were also divided on religious lines.

And we are to presume that the thousands of Hindus who were converted to Islam and ate dishes of cooked to beef to seal their conversion did so voluntarily when they saw the correctness of the socio-economic beliefs of the proletariat. The fact that their family members had their throats slit or were raped had no impact at all on them. We are to presume further that the same ideological fervor motivates the killing of Hindus in Kerala today.

[Interesting details can be found in article by Dr. K. N. Pannikar......]

I was going to write that one of the interesting details about Dr. KN Panikkar`s life would be that he got his PhD in History at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Unfortunately, Google didn`t provide an answer in my limited search. However, the jackpot that I found was that KN Panikkar was Professor of History at JNU. Now, why am I NOT surprised?

For those who want to know more about self-loathing Hindus who are wringing their hands that they didn`t have enough females in their families to offer to the Islamic thugs for rape, here is what else I found on Googling KN Panikkar. I think it is rather funny.

[http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/dec2002/msg00215.html



Top: nukkad: archive: Thread Index

echoboom #110

Good to see you welcome a new entrant.

Mr. Jinnah would have been proud of you. You are an unabased admirer of Urstruly. You have sung praises of every half-baked Islamist on Chowk. You find western education to be a curse for the Islamic world. You have abused Muslim women for their `liberal views.`

``Islam khatre mai hai,`` and ``Pakistan Khatre mai hai`` have been your pet songs. It will be interesting to see how long this age-old strategy will continue to work for you.

The mass scale conversion to Islam was a synergy affair between Islamic Empires, ground made fertile by the jizya and other advantages for convertng and Sufis. Sufis came on the heels of and with the invaders. They settled in the conquered territories with the blessings and support of the invaders-rulers. Out of thousands of Sufis, just like pirs of today, most were nothing but ascetics, monastics, mystics, half naked dervishes along with crooked, cunning, selfish and cheat Sufis. Thanks to the work of few - mostly literary and theoretical - Sufism and Sufis get good marks in history of subcontinent. The biggest proof of synergy is total failure of proselytizing efforts for almost 200 years preceeding the invasion of Mahmud Ghaznavi. These efforts were mostly done by preachers from Ismaili and Shia branches of Islam, originating from Multan which was under Arabs for 200 years prior to invasion of Mahmud Ghaznavi. People of the region would not accept the conservative, dry, tasteless and rituals heavy in unintelligible language against their fun loving, jovial, liberal and non-religious nature.

The teachings of brotherly love and peace were necessary for conversions and they favored the minority converts much more than the majority non-Muslims. Who benefits more if 90 are non-Muslims and 10 are Muslims out of 100 in an isolated environment with little protection for the minority from rulers?

re: Gandiv post

While most of your post is true except the spin on the description by using word Hindu for the victims. The population of the area comprising Pakistan was mostly non-religious and irreligious for most of history until Sikhs coalesced and fought for and later in the last 100-200 years both Muslims and Hindus also made religion most important part of their identity.
It is lot better and objective to call the victims as locals and non-Muslims than Hindus, given the current definition and political implications of one nation concept in subcontinent.

While Raja Jaipal and Raja Dahir were no doubt Hindus, but most of the population hardly did anything religious. The caste system was negligible and irrelevent, men drank, women danced and mixed with men freely and all ate meat. All the demolition of temples took place in current India because there were no monumental temples in Punjab and Sindh except of course if you consider Somnath at the southern tip of Sindh. People did not take religion as important as today and easily converted to Hinduism, then to Buddhism, back to Hinduism, to Islam, to Sikhism and to Christianity in the last.

There were no towns or cities dominated by either Brahmins or Untouchables - Shudras. Tribalism, local culture and politics dominated the minds of people. The words Tamil, Gujratis or Bengalis did not appear in Punjabi, Pashtun or Sindhi literature before or after Islamic invasions.

However, calling these people Hindu brings a kind of bonding, angry feelings and victimization by current Hindus of Tamil Nadu as well as Bengalis and takes the victimization and sufferings away from people who actually suffered but are no longer Hindus. It also makes India as the sole inheritor of all the history of sufferings, victimization and civilization which produce beautiful cultures from Indic civilizations as our languages represent.

The fact of the matter is that most people were perfectly happy and satisfied with local culture without the theology and phhilosophy of any religion. Please note that I have great respect for the philosophical basis of Hinduism (minus caste system and vegetarianism) and actually consider it superior to Islamic philosophy for the reasons that it has the input of countless people spread over centuries or millenia than one man devising philosophy and codes of living for the rest of human history everywhere, in addition to relying and respecting on psyche of human mind much more than submission as is the case with middle eastern religions.

Just because the current breed of Pakistani Muslims disown this painful history in favor of the history of invaders - rulers for the religious reason does not mean that India and Hindus rightfully own it. They can sympathize with it but can`t own it. Similarly the demolition of temples in central and south India and other vagaries of Islamic rule there are rightfully owned by the Indians and Pakistanis should not own Babri Masjid type issues. The forefathers of Pakistanis neither demolished Ram temple or any other temple and they did not erect Babri Mosque on top of ruins.

Manto,

Your Country is there to stay. When you lied, we made two out of one. Bangladesh.

Why should we want any part of it?? Keep it buddy. No matter what.

We do Hav FV and Dost who you like. Let her write what are driving rights in Saudi. All her oppolo... like Dost.. and others will go sleeping.....


There are NO rights for a woman. NONE.

DOST????? write trave...?? Go Saudi Born liar.

Born bull sh?? My Mother just happened to be at Durdga Puja in Kolkatta. Go and lick shoes if sardars. They killed my mother??

Could you ever explain. Never. All you do is for Muslims...

Yogiraj

# 101 dost_mittar

The Moplah revolts have been characterized as ``communal violence`` by some, but they need to be examined more deeply than they have been. They were in the nature of spontaneous uprisings of the havenots against the haves, it being being an accident of birth that the majorities of the havenots and haves were also divided on religious lines.

These outbreaks were not confined to the 1920-21 occurence. In fact, between 1836 and 1921, there were many such outbreaks, which the British labeled as ``Moplah outrages``. Apart from the 1921 outbreak, almost all were limited in scope and extent. The 1921 outbreak was a major conflict, where according to official figures there were 3,989 casualties and 45,404 surrendered/arrested.

Interesting details can be found in article by Dr. K. N. Pannikar at
www.e-malabar.net/kerala/revolts.htm from which the following quote has been taken.

``The influence of agrarian grievances in shaping the nature of rebel activity was quite clear. The reaction of the Pukkottur Mappilas, when the rebellion broke out on the 20th August, is a good example. Although disturbed by the desecration of the mosque at Tirurangadi, the Mappilas of Pukkottur chose to proceed to Nilambur where their landlord resided. Moreover, they did not harm anybody on the way. Even in the landlord`s family they did not injure any one; their sole aim appeared to be the destruction of land records.``

Siddiqua:

True to your profile announcement, You did conquer CHOWK.

Welcome Siddiqua. Your arrival has checked the stalemate here. Now only a cursory visitor to the front-page articles, I intend to visit more often now just to read your posts and those of a handful others here. The rest I never read anymore because:
`` MeiN jaantaa hooN kyaa voh likhaiN gey javaab meiN``.

CHOWK is really an ``akhhaRRA`` where the umpires too get ,sometimes, excited. They, pretending to be friends, hold your hands in a firm grip while Islam, muslim and Pakistan bashers are having a field-day pummelling you.

What they know not (or perhaps do and are fifth-columnists) is that they are heating, tempering, and annealing the steely-resolve of a nation to get back on its feet again.

The miasma emanating from the rot of colonialism and westernism has been identified. Even the ``educated`` ones know how they were duped by the western ``education``.

Gulaa tO ghoont diyaa ahl-e madressa* ney tiraa
kahaaN sey aaey sadaa ``La ila ha il al-Allah``

* the westernised schooling.

Welcome again.

P.S: Your reply to Ijaz-Gul about profile was apt. Please retain full ``anonymity``. It is not wise to exchange e-mails. There are a few pathological junkies and losers here who try to establish contacts outside this cyberspace. Shun them.