Advani in Karachi

Re: # 406

So you are buying the fatfetched conspiracy theory that these two Pathans raised? It is ironic because... Wali Khan`s own father was a lackey of the King of Afghanistan late in his life. The secret reports now declassified ``Howard Donovan to George Marshall US National Archives 845.00`` reveal the Ghaffar Khan who was hand in glove with Zahir Shah and trying to incite people in the name of ``Shariat``... ironically with support from Mahatma Gandhi. To the credit of Nehru and Patel... they refused to commit India to the Pathanistan cause.

I have read Wali Khan`s book, which is sadly the worst kind of unsubstantiated and opinionated BS I have come across... hence it has a lot of value for Indians like yourself... but not serious historians like H M Seervai or Rajmohan Gandhi even who is a big fan of Wali Khan otherwise. Dont take my word for it ... read TOPP and compare this to ``Facts are sacred``... and you will discover that if facts are sacred they are certainly not sacred to Wali Khan.

Wali Khan wrote this book before all volumes of ``Transfer of Power Papers`` were declassified. His lies and half truths have been discredited since TOPP were declassified in full. Ofcourse Nakhok will not quote TOP because that discredits such weird views. Wali Khan, the bigot that he is, chose to do what every Pakistani politician today conveniently does.... in order to establish a connection between Lord Linthgow and Jinnah (which was because ML was cooperating with the war effort though not inside the war council) he shamelessly weighs in on Sir Zafrullah Khan as a ``British agent``. This is significant because he was simply playing on the old ``anti-ahmaddiya`` line to prove his point.

Instead of taking as the gospel of the truth one sided accounts... it would be much better to visit a library and consult T.O.P.P.

-YLH

Jinnah had inveighed against the ``tyranny of the majority`` to advance the goals of the Muslim League establishment (primarily the aristocrats of the United Provinces and the mercantile class of the Bombay Presidency). It was ironic and apt that Jinnah`s Pakistan has had to remain wary of the ``majority`` ever since it came into being. First, it was the Hindu-tainted majority in East Pakistan that was the enemy. But even after the 1971 partition of Pakistan, the country remains firmly under the ``tyranny of the minority`` to keep the majority at bay.

Pakistan`s military and the ISI were never representative of the hopes and aspirations of ordinary Pakistanis. It is highly educative to keep in mind the geographical concentration of military personnel - eighty percent of officers, rank and file, come from only five districts: Attock, Rawalpindi, Chakwal, Jhelum and Gujrat in Punjab; and three districts of NWFP: Mardan, Peshawar and Kohat - the ill-gotten wealth of the military funnels prosperity to a very narrow segment in the country (professionally & geographically).

It is this mal-distribution of the military (kept alive artificially by the British propounded ``martial races theory``) that has made it easier for the military`s top brass to manipulate the lower ranking soldiers into upholding the corporate interests of Pakistan`s
military.

It is not surprising that General Tikka Khan who earned infamy as the Butcher of Bengal in 1971 had gone on to earn infamy as the Butcher of Balochistan after the 1971 partition of Pakistan.

Jinnah has left a lasting legacy in the country he sired - today Pakistan remains firmly under the ``tyranny of the minority``, an ironic but unsurprising outcome of the Pakistan Movement that owed its birth to the fear of the majority.

#404 by echoboom on June 9, 2005 3:28pm PT


Jinnah is dead.



He is!! Reading manto`s ramblings, i thought he was alive and running for office....

khokan #405

{{Wali Khan was astounded to discover that Jinnah had been secretly communicating with Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy, and Lord Zetland, the secretary of state for India, over the 1930s to come to an understanding that would be mutually beneficial for Jinnah and the British rulers against their common enemy.}}

Vairy vairy interesting if verifiable in detail. Was the ‘brilliant lawyer’ of ‘unquestioned integrity’ in fact cutting a deal with the judge on the sly in the latter’s private chambers?

I’d speculated along these lines about 9 months ago, on Farzana’s Jinnah article, suggesting that British considerations for their strategic and economic interests must have dictated their desired configuration for the subcontinent after their enforced departure; that the broad outlines of the plan were laid out in Whitehall; and that Jinnah served as a willing lackey for the execution of the plan. May not have gone down well with those for whom Jinnah is a ‘great hero.’

Wali Khan`s book, based on now declassified documents at the India Office in London, provides interesting reading on Jinnah`s secret liasion with the British rulers in pre-independence India. The book has been published as:

Facts Are Sacred by Jaun Publishers (1986)

It was also available in India as:

Facts Are Facts: The Untold Story Of India`s Partition by Vikash Publishing House (1987)

This is what Wali Khan wrote about his research on the now declassified documents, ``Not that I regarded the Congress` and Bacha khan`s charges as wholly without basis. But I had not imagined that the truth was infinitely uglier than their portrayal of it. The evidences were there in black and white, written and signed by the guilty ones themselves, secured for posterity in their own official library - the communications [between] highest British dignitary in India, the Viceroy, and the minister concerned with Indian affairs in Whitehall. Given such authoritative sources where was the room for disbelief? Indeed, when I was going through these documents there were moments when my mind would get boggled. I would take out my glasses and hold my head in my hands bewildered at what I had read. Unable to continue, I would put away the books and go out for a cup of coffee.``

As the imprerial power trying to perpetuate its hold over the colony the British followed a policy of widening the Hindu-Muslim communal/political divide with the aim of

a)countering/nullifying the Congress`s national movement

b)promoting the division of British India into two/more states and thereby to secure a foothold for British strategic interests in a friendly Pakistan/European missionary-controlled NorthEast/etc.

Wali Khan was astounded to discover that Jinnah had been secretly communicating with Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy, and Lord Zetland, the secretary of state for India, over the 1930s to come to an understanding that would be mutually beneficial for Jinnah and the
British rulers against their common enemy.

There is no need to take Khan Abdul Wali Khan`s word, anyone can verify them on their own because these are availble in declassified official records. Here`s from Wali Khan`s preface to the book:

``..In writing the account, I like other writers, have made full use of the diaries and memories of concerned British officials, especially in relation to their attitude and policies towards our movement. Besides that material I have used my own knowledge of facts and political experiences, as also the principles of induction and deduction of offer certain conclusion. We have a saying in Pushto that if we say round, yellow and sour, wise men immediately know that we are referring to orange. Similar was my quest for clues.

After release from Mr. Bhutto`s jail when I went to London and had some free time from medical treatment I came to know about the classified government document in the India Office Library which had now been thrown open to public. They could now be read on the premises and even photocopies of any portion could be obtained. According to British rules all secret official documents are declassified and made available to scholars after a lap[se] of 30 years.

I was keen on collecting all possible historical material on our movement. Readers of this book will see that Bacha khan`s politics and the Khudai Khidmatgar movement became red rags for the colonials for two reasons. First, the British were determined to squash any movement that aimed at Indian independence and thus constituted a threat to their rule. Secondly, they were resolved to crush any activity which in their view would help a hostile outside power against them.

It is known that the independence movement within India was being spearheaded by the Indian National Congress which was representative of all the religious and other creeds, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Parsi-no matter what the persuasion, the party was open to all. The British strategy, as it soon developed, was to somehow weaken the Congress and to aid and abet bodies functioning in opposition to it.

Secondly, India was geographically so placed that it had oceans on three sides and a rampart of a mighty range of mountains on the forth. There were also a few mountain passes in the north-west and the only danger from a hostile foreign power could come through them. Russia was of course considered the main source of that danger. The Khudai Khidmatgars could not become instruments in either of the two thrusts of British policies, so they became an object of harassment from the very start.

In the India Office library I set about looking for documents relating to the external aspects of the British rule in India. I wished to find out the point of time and exact factors that saw basic changes in British policies towards Moscow - the steps if adopted to confront the first ideological state to emerge on the world map in 1917.

The Viceroy of India used to send a weekly report addressed to the Secretary of State for India in London. The latter replied outlining the government`s policy issues of the moment. I decided that I only needed to carefully study this weekly correspondence to get all the material wanted. I began from the time immediately following Lenin`s death.

What I saw and read was beyond anything I had imagined. My object was the British foreign policy in relation to India, but as a bonus I got a close view of how with all[Whitehall] looked on the internal affairs of India.

Our elders used to tell us about how Britain intrigued to get its way in the subcontinent. Their stories, their doubts and suspicions had seemed hard to believe. I used to think that Bacha khan had become unduly embittered with the colonial rulers because of the agonies he and his followers had suffered at their hands. I was particularly skeptical about the Congress charges that the British were responsible for fanning communal passions within the country to further their imperialistic designs. I used to think that such accusations were exercises in finding scapegoat. It is a common human failing to blame others for the consequences of one`s own follies.

Not that I regarded the Congress` and Bacha khan`s charges as wholly without basis. But I had not imagined that the truth was infinitely uglier than their portrayal of it. The evidences were there in black and white, written and signed by the guilty ones themselves, secured for posterity in their own official library - the communications [between] highest British dignitary in India, the Viceroy, and the minister concerned with Indian affairs in Whitehall. Given such authoritative sources where was the room for disbelief? Indeed, when I was going through these documents there were moments when my mind would get boggled. I would take out my glasses and hold my head in my hands bewildered at what I had read. Unable to continue, I would put away the books and go out for a cup of coffee.

It will be unfair not to give full credit to the British. They did whatever good or bad they thought was necessary for their people- they did not hesitate to put all that down with total candour. There was no hypocrisy to oneself, no pulling of veils for anyone else. Everyone is here bared to the last stitch. No friend or relative or colleague is spared. All participants in all conspiracies are named. Even the Indians who played the British game have been exposed with out regard to how their compatriots would be shocked when they would come to know of the secret doings of the idols they had worshipped.

Studying this correspondence of over 20 years, between 1922 and 1942, I realised that all my preceding labour in collecting material from diaries and memories had gone waste. The conclusions that I was collecting the evidence for were all given there as explicitly as one could wish. The government of India`s policies against the Soviet Union was down in cold details.

Those policies were of course no surprise. What did come as a revelation was the shameful role played by certain eminent leaders of India in Indian affairs. The worst was the conduct of certain Muslim leaders. It was an embarrassment reading about them. The accusation of the Congress and Bacha khan were not a fraction of what the highest British officials had unblushingly laid down here.

What pains I had taken to prove that the thing was an orange. I went through hundreds of papers, pursued the trail of countless books to collect the evidence of roundness, yellowness, sourness. All that now was rendered unnecessary. The masters themselves here say: why all this effort; what need for proof; logic, reasoning, political sense to what purpose; we ourselves attest that it is an orange. Once I almost decided to abandon my book and just compile this correspondence in to a book let to show to the nation the other side of the picture and let it decide itself who were really its well-wishes, and who wanted to consign it to perpetual slavery of the British.

But after much thought I decided to stay with my earlier plan. Publishing only the documents, while it would expose Bacha khan`s critics, it would not serve my original purpose of presenting the story of Bacha khan`s political struggle and the khudai khidmatgar`s great endeavors. That would also check the course of disreputable politicking which only aims at misleading simpleminded Muslims and distorting the facts of history through loudmouthed falsehood and slanders. Truth emerges one day. Diamond shines forth even in a pile of ashes...``

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follow up to echoboom #398

Mantolives:
I have a question:
Why Jinnah`s utterances in anyway important ot relevant to mount an argument for a liberal democratic polity in Pakistan? What is this need to sanctify your argument by invoking a higher self-evident source?

Pro-Theocracy guys invoke Quran and Mohammad and you seem to have replaced it with Jinnah.

Re: # 398

Echoboom,

You suffer from reading comprehension problems...Read my post again. All my assertions are based on the Jinnah papers.

Romair,

Nakhok`s rants are typical, repetitive and boring. He doesn`t know enough nor does he back his statements with any real evidence (except other equally ridiculous articles on the web) and more often than not rejects even the US Library of Congress references which I provided him and he rejected shamelessly. There is no point arguing with him. His just opinionated bakwas that he collects over time. What is important is that the truth has come out ... and this should be encouraging enough for all those who had been bothered by the one sided view of history that has perpetuated in the last 58 years.

I`ve dealt with Gandhi`s saintliness elsewhere... but what I am surprised is this extraordinary reverence that our Indian friends give to Azad and Ghaffar Khan. Maulana Azad it must be remembered was responsible for the famous ``Fatwa`` for Muslims to leave India because it was ``Darul-Harb``... and Ghaffar Khan followed the call ironically enough.
Reports sent by US diplomats are replete with incidents of Ghaffar Khan inciting Fakir of Ipi at the onset of partition to rebel against Pakistan because the PCA was not based on ``Sharia`` and Jinnah was too westernised... and Ghaffar Khan is considered ``secular``.

Howard Donovan`s letters to George Marshall US National Archives 845.00 /7-147 exposes how ``secular`` and ``non-violent`` the great Pathan from NWFP really was. He was neither... and the American diplomat seems shocked at his underhandedness in these letters.

Re: # 390

You`re ingorant of indian politics.The Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh , Kerala and Nagaland are christians.Purno Sangma, ex-speaker of the indian parliament is a christian. James Lyngdoh, ex-Chief Election Commissioner is a christian.I could go and on.Muslims too occupy positions across the spectrum of indian society just as hindus, christians,sikhs and what-have-you.Enough said.India is multicultural and diverse, unlike any other nation on this planet.

#390 ...

there are plenty of christian leaders who represent ALL (e.g. George Fernandes). also manmohansingh is a minority

nakhok #395: ``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,``

Just out of curiousity, is this the general view held inside India, by most Indians? Or is this jsut the view you aspire to, personally?

Also, what exactly is this view based on? Are there any facts backing it up? For example, easily the most popular party amongst ethnic Sindhis is PPP. Do you have any statements from its leaders denouncing Jinnah? The most popular party(s) amongst Pushtuns of NWFP are MMA and ANP. Any statements from their leaders? And the most popular parties, running Baluchistan, are PPP and Baluchi tribal parties. Any statements from them........

The only remote statements I have heard are from an odd Baluch tribal leader or two, who have maybe one or two seats in the National Assembly. And even their stance is that they are Muslims first, Baluchis second and Pakistanis third, i.e. their stance is more against Punjabi dominance than anything else..........

I think if one is to comment about the internals of any other country and the behavior of its citizens, one needs to provide facts from inside that country. I am not sure how much validity the comments of a local journalist have about either Pakistan or India............

I would be very interesting if you could piont us to some statements from some leading Pakistani politicians, denouncing Jinnah............

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People like Maulana Azad and Mahatma Gandhi were deeply religious in personal life. But they were not the type who would use religion for political objectives.

Jinnah was a stark contrast to people like Maulana Azad and Mahatma Gandhi. Jinnah was certainly not particularly religious in his personal life. But he was was certainly not above pandering to religious hatred to achieve his political objective. And he did that even after he had seen the massive ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of the partition.

West Pakistan had been cleansed of Sikhs and Hindus within months, nay weeks, of partition. An overwhelming majority of the country`s Hindus were in East Pakistan. The rulers from West Pakistan soon realized that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by demonizing the Hindus left in Pakistan. If nothing else, it was the means to disenfranchise a significant section in East Pakistan and turn East Pakistanis into a minority. It was this evil urge to contain the perceived threat, from Pakistan`s majority wing in any democratic setup, that led rulers in West Pakistan to talk of ``parity`` and of ``separate electorates.``

On March 21, 1948, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and its first Governor-General, while on his first and only visit to East Bengal, declared in Dhaka University convocation that while the language of the province can be Bengali, the ``State language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Any one who tries to mislead you is really an enemy of Pakistan.``

The use of the phrase ``enemy of Pakistan`` was deliberate. It was a loaded phrase, particularly mischievous in view of the massive ethnic cleansing in West Pakistan in the last seven months.

Jinnah`s demagoguery was deplorable but not surprising. He was merely repeating what Liaqat Ali Khan and his cohorts had been saying in the Constituent Assembly for the last one month. On February 23, 1948: Dhirendra Nath Datta, a Bengali opposition member, had moved a resolution in the first session of Pakistan`s Constituent Assembly for recognizing Bengali as a state language along with Urdu and English. Non-Bengali Assembly members, led by Liaqat Ali Khan, had immediately pounded on Mr. Datta`s religion to denounce the claim of Bengali as nothing but a Hindu conspiracy. Many a snide remark was made on the ``Hindu`` character of the language that was the mother tongue of the majority of Pakistanis.

But, fortunately, most East Pakistanis were not fooled. They realized that these non-Bengali members had deliberately chosen to forget that a language may have grammar but it has no religion. Any competent language is capable of expressing a gamut of religious beliefs. It is as easy to translate the Geeta into Arabic as it is to translate the Koran into Sanskrit. There was absolutely no basis for denouncing Bengali as a Hindu language. If anything, it was a Muslim language because a majority of the Bengalis were indeed Muslims.

But the ruling class in West Pakistan had its own agenda. And it certainly did fit that agenda to denounce Bengali as a Hindu language and to look down on East Pakistan`s majority as less than ``good Muslims.``

It is not surprising that, during the genocide in 1971, the Shaheed Minar was one of the first targets of Yahya Khan`s barbaric army. Nor was it surprising what they did to Dhirendra N. Datta. He was an octogenarian by that time. The barbaric soldiers chose to drag this old man out of his house in Comilla and to summarily execute him in front of his neighbors and family. It was, thus, that West Pakistan`s ruling elite punished Mr. Datta for having proposed Bengali as a national language of Pakistan some 23 years ago.

Mantolives #387

While we are on the subject of shades of gray, I would encourage you to take another look at the pre-``hindu mahasabha`` sarvarkar. Sarvarkar wrote the first ``nationalist`` history of the 1857 revolt (which deserves a wider audience and appreciation). He was from a much simpler background then people like Nehru and was treated with extreme brutality by the british. In india, the left-wing historians and the congress party have actively colluded to obscure his contributions from this period.

http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/jun/08raman.htm

..... 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[1].

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 [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. .....

..... 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 [2], 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. .....

---

[1] Churchill doubted that India - which he thought was more of a geographic expression than a country - could achieve good government without the presence of outside and impartial (i.e., British) authority. He believed that as soon as the British left, Hindus and Moslems would begin to slaughter one another - Patrick Garrity in his article ``A Man Of Al Seasons``

[2] Jinnah said in Pakistan`s Constituent Assembly: ``You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in the state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the state ... you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.``

Pai Lateefay, you forceful arguments have slapped the mirasi kala khan silly, bravo!