Last Rites in Kashmir or a New Journey?

Netizen #59 Perhaps it is the truth that too many Indians are not at peace with - and the truth is that the mullahs opposed Jinnah in the creation of Pakistan. Their head-mullah Maudoodi came to Pakistan only after a few years had passed after partition when he some political opportunities for mullahism in Pakistan.

So clearly Jinnah was not one of the mullahs. And the truth is he had the moral character to not pay any hypocritical homage to mullah fetishes: he openly drank, didnt make a big deal about pork, and dressed in western clothes. And the truth is that he changed from being the ``Ambassador of hindu-muslim friendship`` to being the worst nightmare of the Congress only after he saw the realities of hindu chauvinists.

Advani was doing nothing more than belatedly recognizing this reality about Jinnah. And, like ideologues of all stripes (hindu, muslim, neo-conservative, commuist), the BJP ideologues are as scared of the light of truth as dracula is scared of the light of the sun.

jang #64 i see hindu animosity every day on chowk - not hindu perfidy. so, i am quite correct in what i said.

shishapa #60 Thank you for inadvertantly illustrating the point i made earlier about the demeaning of muslims and of islam. Thankfully, it doesnt matter what indians like to think about islam and about muslims. You are only deluding yourself - Pakistan is here to stay, and Islam is considered in the west as being one of the world`s great religions.

But dont let that stop you from re-inforcing my point by providing live illustrations of your animus to islam. :-)

Re: # 65

``Perhaps it is the truth that too many Indians are not at peace with ``

Trust me. almost everybody is. Forget about Pakistan, no one even cares about PoK, its a lost cause. Only VHP/Bajrang Dal will make noise about it. But they are known for their rhetoric, no one takes them seriously.

Regarding Jinnah, I am glad that pak was created. Only regret is that millions stayed back in india. I think people/gov of pak should work on his dream and should open its door for muslims from india. People like you should work on it.

tahmed

article from rediff.com. Just an opinion from B.Raman

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Jinnah was not a fundamentalist Muslim. He did not want the Muslim clerics to have any say in the governance of an independent Pakistan or in the formulation and implementation of the laws of the country. However, he was not secular. He was responsible for the polarisation between the Muslims and the Hindus, the consequences of which the Indian subcontinent continues to witness even today.

Anyone, who had studied the British archives of the period before 1947, would have known how Jinnah let himself be used by the British colonial administration before 1947 in order to divide and weaken the independence struggle of Mahatma Gandhi. Periodic Hindu-Muslim riots in different parts of India were not the creation of Jinnah. They were an unfortunate occurrence even before Jinnah made its appearance in Indian politics.

But Jinnah, with the quite encouragement of the British, imparted to them a virulence which they did not have before he started demanding the Partition of India on the basis of his two-nation theory that the Hindus and the Muslims could not live together in the same nation. The British used the aggravated communal tension and violence as a result of Jinnah`s policies to try to deny independence to India on the ground that the Indians would not be able to govern themselves and that the people belonging to different religions would be at each other`s throat if they left the country.

When, despite their machinations with the help of Jinnah, Gandhi`s independence struggle continued to gather momentum, they cunningly encouraged Jinnah`s demand for the partition of India. After having opposed it initially, Gandhi had to ultimately agree to it. It was the British fear that a largely Hindu India might not serve the Western interests that led them to encourage Jinnah`s demand for Partition. Their calculation that an independent Muslim nation would serve the Western interests proved right.

Jinnah`s two-nation theory was supported by the Punjabi, Bengali and Sindhi Muslims, but not by the Pashtuns and the Balochs. The Pashtuns led by Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, who came to be known as the Frontier Gandhi, and the Balochs led by their tribal sardars, strongly opposed the policies of Jinnah and supported Gandhi. There was a time when Jinnah could not set foot in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan because of the strong local support to Gandhi and opposition to him.

Even the Muslims in other parts of India refused to support Jinnah. The Jamaat-e-Islami Hind strongly opposed the demand of the Indian Muslim League headed by Jinnah for the partition of India on the basis of the two-nation theory because it feared that the coming into existence of Pakistan could endanger the position of the Muslims in the rest of India.

Gandhi believed in a non-violent independence struggle. Non-violence had no appeal for Jinnah. He used violence to push forward his struggle for a separate Muslim nation. He instigated communal clashes, which resulted in bloody massacres of Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and other Congress leaders condemned these massacres, Gandhi went on a fast unto death and they repeatedly toured the affected areas in order to calm the communal passions.

Jinnah rarely condemned the communal riots and used them to advance his cause for an independent Pakistan. His first statement calling for inter-religious amity, from which Advani has quoted, came after Jinnah had achieved Pakistan and felt that continuing his communal politics in an independent Pakistan could prove counter-productive.

But, by then, it was too late. The communal poison injected by him into the civil society of the areas which now constitute Pakistan and Bangladesh acquired a virulence which could not be eradicated. He found himself marginalised by his colleagues in the Muslim League. The Jamaat-e-Islami and other religious parties came to the forefront.

This set in motion the train of events, which ultimately led to the proclamation of Pakistan as a theocratic state and an Islamic republic and the inclusion in the preamble to its constitution of the principle that the State shall be governed according to the will of Allah. This gave an exalted position to the mullahs as the only people competent to interpret the will of Allah.

Jinnah has always been a controversial leader in the subcontinent`s history and he does not command even today much respect among the Sindhis, the Balochs and large sections of the Pashtuns. While the Balochs and the Pashtuns opposed the creation of Pakistan, the Sindhis supported it and their leader the late G M Syed was a co-sponsor of the famous Lahore Resolution, calling for the creation of Pakistan. Even he got disillusioned by the post-1947 evolution of Pakistan as a nation dominated by the Punjabi Muslims. Before his death in the 1990s, he admitted that he had committed a Himalayan blunder by co-sponsoring the Lahore Resolution.........

Netizen #68 Thanks for further illustrating my point about ``hindu animosity`` (the point some Indian posters objected to earlier on) by indicating in your post what you think of your fellow Indians who happen to be muslim.

Even the great artist Toulouse-Lautrec could not have done a better job of illustrating my posts than the job you and Shipshapa have done (albeit inadvertantly).

Netizen #69 Your rediff writer is quite confused, I am sorry to say. ``Secular`` does not mean ``Tree hugger``. Jinnah was secular in the sense that he was not driven by any religious ideology. He created Pakistan as a solution to the practical problems for muslims that he saw would be created by unrelenting hindu hostility to muslims combined with hindu majority.

As the victorian brits used to say, small hearts and big empires do not go well together. Congress dreams of a vast nation spanning the sub-continent were simply unachievable in the face of hindu nationalism. They could have one or the other - not both. Jinnah made sure of that!!

The rest of the rediff article indicates a delusional mentality bordering on the insane - the writer seriously thinks that brits were afraid of a united hindu India and so they pushed Jinnah to create Pakistan.

#57 Tahmed

Okay, so you consider the ``cost`` was too high considering the ``benefits``? (``Yes`` or ``No``, please. Again, don`t go fuzzy, please!)

Now, if the answer is ``Yes`` (and #57 indicates that inspite of all the fighting and screaming that you have put up, that`s what it is) considering the magnitude of the cost - how is it NOT a blunder?

Explain, please, O slippery one!

Re: # 70

``Even the great artist Toulouse-Lautrec could not have done a better job of illustrating my posts than the job you and Shipshapa have done (albeit inadvertantly).``

It was done deliberately.

You still havn`t answered my questions. let me rephrase it. Just as Jinnah wanted to protect muslims interest, isn`t it a fair question to ask what about those who were left behind? Shouldn`t Pak go the Israel way and open its door for indian muslims (which according to Jinnahs TNT are living in an incompatible surrounding).

Re # 67

I am totally aghast here. You can accuse me of ignorance but not animosity for saying
all I said? You are so sensitive.

All I am saying is Hindus and Muslims should have stayed together in United India. Now if I have animosity towards muslims, would I be saying that? I do not wish destruction of Pakistan, I do not advocate muslims in India to leave India for Pakistan or Bangladesh, I would never denigrate Islam or Quran, I do not advocate destroying places of worship to restore some lost glory of place of birth. I would oppose organizations like VHP, ShivSena, Bajrang Dal. Yet I am an example of Hindu Animosity to Muslims.

I really give up. There is really no point in discussion here. Last post on this topic.

Re: # 71

``Netizen #69 Your rediff writer is quite confused, I am sorry to say. ``Secular`` does not mean ``Tree hugger``. Jinnah was secular in the sense that he was not driven by any religious ideology. ``

thats what he has written:
`Jinnah was not a fundamentalist Muslim. He did not want the Muslim clerics to have any say in the governance of an independent Pakistan or in the formulation and implementation of the laws of the country.``


``He created Pakistan as a solution to the practical problems for muslims that he saw would be created by unrelenting hindu hostility to muslims combined with hindu majority. ``

I have no problem with that. but i am back to the earlier question, what about those who are left behind? Moreover last year, many muslims died in shia-sunni clashes in pak than hindu-muslim riots in india.

``Congress dreams of a vast nation spanning the sub-continent were simply unachievable in the face of hindu nationalism. ``

Hindu nationalism in 47? could you please elaborate a bit more.

``The rest of the rediff article indicates a delusional mentality bordering on the insane - the writer seriously thinks that brits were afraid of a united hindu India and so they pushed Jinnah to create Pakistan. ``

Why are you putting words on the writers mouth. He didn`t said ``afraid`` but ``a largely Hindu India might not serve the Western interests ``
when the citizens themselves are bent on destroying the country you don`t need external enemies. it has happened many times in the sub-continent.

I wanted you to read about Jinnah and muslim politics before and after the creation of pak. Why islamic parties opposed creation of pak and then how the mullahs became more powerful after its creation.

shishapa #60 This is what you had written ``So when Muslims consider theirs is the only true religion, Allah is the only god, Quran is the final and only book, rest are all false books and god, non-believers are Kafirs, non-muslims are just suppoed to take it. I think there are enough i.e. majority of the muslims who believe in this. ``

This does not indicate any great respect for muslims or their religion. I will agree that this is milder than some of the things written about Islam or muslims by your fellow Indians, but that is not saying much. Nor is ignorance of a religion or a community any excuse for painting them in negative colors.

Anyway, thanks for a civilized discussion, even though we are obviously not in agreement.

BJ #72 I said the creation of Pakistan was a blunder on the part of the Congress that allowed hindu extremists and RSS etc. to influence its attitude. As I said in #71 below, what neither the RSS nor the Congress leadership understood was they they could either have a secular India spanning the sub-continent or the could have a hindu-dominated India, but not both.

Jinnah - under the circumstances - found a practical solution to this problem of hindu extremism, i.e. Pakistan. While hindsight is 20-20, no one back then could have predicted the terrible human cost (hindu, sikh, muslim) of 1947. And I have already noted in #37 that there is plenty of blame to go around for what happened then.

btw, I am not being merely slippery or clever as you indicate - rather, I am trying to give you an honest response. I hope you will grant me that.

Netizen #73 You say you deliberately (and not unintentionally, as I assumed) illustrated my point (thus reinforcing it) even as you were trying to argue against it.

ha! ha! I dont need to say anything then - and let you prove and disprove yourself at the same time. All in one post.

#75 by Netizen

I have read that article at rediff.com too. Raman is just recycling what many Indians writer have been saying for a long time and w/o any relevant fact to prove their theories.

I am personally an admirer of Khan Ghaffar Khan but the fact is that he lost referendum over Pakistan issue in 1946. So if Raman claims that NWFP was against the creation of Pakistan than that is not a fact. In today’s NWFP, nobody even talks about that referendum. Politics has moved way beyond 1947. I am afraid today Jinnah would win any referendum in NWFP with a 90% majority much to the consternation of Wali Khan s/o Ghaffar Khan. Balochistan had two areas one under the princely state of Qalat did haggle over it.
Both Khan Ghaffar Khan and the Khan of Qalat were looking to have their own independent areas and were not talking about staying with India any way.

The British role in India and their allege support of Jinnah has not been proven by any document so far available at British India library and it is just a theory. Like the one currently being discussed on Sulekha.com that Gandhi Ji was a British agent and loyalist.

If somebody talks about a country serving or not serving western interests, he first have to define what western interests were that the British wanted India or Pakistan to serve. By the time Brits left India, they were pretty much past their prime and after that, they have just followed the US lead in the international affairs.

Once India and Pakistan became independent countries, Brits had no control over the direction they took and if the attempted coup had not failed in the early 50s, Pakistan would have been a communist state today. What guarantees British had that Nehru or Gandhi would always lead India?

So talking about Western interests is just hogwash and there is no substance to it.

This whole thing is just off topic and has been beaten to death on this site already. If you are interested in that debate, please search the archives.

Watch the indian establishment quietly close ranks and clamp down on Kashmir.Especially after Babu Singh`s mouth-off about J and K.To top it off, India has an ultra-nationalist President who is the Commander-in-Chief and he is the presiding deity of the indian system of government.Singh has no option but to backtrack and soft-peddle on this ``CBM initiative`` mess.Singh also has a July 18 summit with Bush in DC.He will have a chance to explain things in person to Bush about why he has to backtrack a bit.We indians are an ultranationalistic lot, despite our diversity.