Advani in Karachi

Re: # 496 Name a country that satisfies your criteria of nation. Maybe Swaziland. Maybe Timbuctu. We did not want to occupy Kashmir. I am sure somebody can tell you historical facts on this one. Nor we want to occupy any part or whole of Pakistan. Lay your fears to rest. We are talking about the only road open to us. Realistically, there is no other way. We should never have been hostile to each other. Even brothers fight and make the worst of enemies sometimes. I don`t and can`t speak for the government. People to people is the way to go.

Re: # 498 southasian `` Name a country that satisfies your criteria of nation. Maybe Swaziland. Maybe Timbuctu.``

ummmm..how about England, Germany, France, Japan...even to this day after so much immigration the United States has a 83% population that is racially and culturally Western Europeanm specifically Anglo-American.

``We did not want to occupy Kashmir.``

You are pulling my freekin` leg, aren`t you???

``Even brothers fight and make the worst of enemies sometimes.``

We are not your brothers. Get this into your head and we might one day have peace. Pakistanis are not the brothers of Tamils, Bengalis, Gujaratis and Keralites.

Re # 466

``The only problem for Shias is a tiny, but very lethal, sectarian terrorist organization, which is targeting them. It is on the govts.` hit list. However, even such terrorism never causes any Shia Sunni riots in Pakistan. The only Shia-Sunni rioting, and that too at very small levels, have been the recent ones in Gilgit........... ``

Precautions, precautions, precautions. Are not these incidents enough to forewarn what
it is to come? Why do you want to wait for something like ``BJP style handling of Muslims which your visionary leaders saw happening`` to happen to Shias?

You mean this organization is as lethal or more as RSS (remember that strawman/boogeyman) was in pre-partition India, the organization which exemplified ``Hindu Animosity`` and was reason enough to partition India?

Re: # 480

Still shedding crocodile tears eh?

Shia-Sunni violence is of recent origin and continues on both sides. Officially Shiites are well placed in society and are the makers of Pakistan. They don`t consider themselves a persecuted minority. The official discrimination Ahmadis indeed, when they were actively involved in the creation of Pakistan, is very sad and unfortunate... but that shows how far Pakistan has moved away from the ideal of a modern democratic and tolerant state... not to mention Jinnah`s clear pronouncements that no one can decide what the religion of another individual is.

However... the world has not come to an end.. and one day this discrimination will reversed... and Pakistan will be restored the egalitarian, democratic and secular vision of the Quaid-e-Azam.

#478 southasian `` In 1947 we had the opportunity, a unique one, of living under on state under a democratic dispensation.``

An opportunity to be a Hindustani slave more like. The Indian Union can never be anything more than a Hindustani empire with a Hindustani language, Hindustani capital, Hindustani name. and Hindustani indentity where Bengalis, Sindhis and all the other nations of the subcontionet are colonized subjects. Maybe when India and Pakistan break up there can be some kind of economic unity among the nations of South Asia, but not before then.

Re: # 479 This is precisely the kind of apprehension that mutual interaction allays. Slavery, colonialism and stuff are passe`. We are talking democracy, a truly participatory democracy with a federal polity. Federal polity would ensure there are no colonies and no slaves. This is a new age. As of now though, as I said we need to live as two independent neighboring countries with porous borders, maybe no visas. More trade, perhaps joint or co-ordinated defence and foreign policy. Give India and Pakistan a joint veto in security council. Must emphasise that modern equivalents of slavery and subjugation do not work in long term.

Re: # 482 southasian ``This is a new age. As of now though, as I said we need to live as two independent neighboring countries with porous borders, maybe no visas``

This is a recipe for disaster - just look at what`s happening in East Punjab. Bihari Hindustani migrants are pouring in at such an enormous rate than within a generation they will be the majority in East Punjab and hence its political masters. With huge numbers of Bangladehis also looking to get into India and Pakistan, open borders will the end of the nations within Pakistan and the beginning of Hindustani mastery over the entire subcontinent.

Re: # 486 Even though I don`t see any problem of this sort in East Punjab (I am quite near), I think a double citizenship will solve the problem. Not my ideal solution though. A more uniform economic development is more what we need. Even in America double citizenship has practically become irrelevant after a reasonably uniform distribution of wealth and resources.They have a term for it. I think it is ``economic democracy``.

Re # 463

This is even more amazing.
So Mr. Jinnah, a shia, could visualize what Hindus would do
to the Muslims, but he could not visualize what Sunnis would do to Shias.
And Sir Zafarullah Khan could visualize need to protect muslims from Hindus but could
not visualize need to protect Ahmadiyas from Shias and Sunnis.
So when it comes to Hindus, all these Muslim League leaders were sooooo visionary.
I would call their behaviour/leadership bigoted or opportunistic, they certainly were not visionary. No sir.

And personalities like Mr. Jinnah, had no room for such noble sentiments as displayed by you. Do not you think pre-partition India had families whose father was Hindu and mother was Muslim or vice versa? They must have agonized and questioned need for divisivness displayed by Muslim League leaders during those times with similar thoughts you have displayed.

Re: # 476

I told you not to shed crocodile tears for Ahmadis and Shias. I, a product of those two streams, am doing just fine in Pakistan. Please stop derailing the discussion to suit your own ends. I think Romair has answered your question well. Your comments would be valid if indeed Jinnah did want a complete partition. Events prove that he did not.

Read 473 by South Asian.

Having said this it becomes all the more credible that Jinnah was for a united or unified India. Given a century or so of independent existence we would have become a true one nation even on Jinnah`s own scale of measurement. What prevents us now from living peacefully. We have new generations who are not burdened with the baggage of partition. More exchange, porous borders and an honest reappraisal of historical events, rewriting text books on either side and so on and we can reclaim something out of the ashes.

Re: # 473

Agreed...

Romair....

Here is something you can use to further your claims.

Re: The partition of Bengal and Punjab :


``Muslim League cannot agree to the partition of Bengal and the Punjab. It cannot be justified historically, economically, geographically, politically or morally. These provinces have built up their respective lives for nearly a century``

(M.A. Jinnah, the President of the Muslim League, Mid May 1947, in a letter to Lord Mountbatten)


It was at this time that he also endorsed the demand for Independent United Bengal, which was shot down by Nehru who said that if there has to be a division it has to be between Pakistan and India ... and there could be only one Pakistan.

In 1971 Indira bibi undid the work of her father and claimed rather ironically that TNT (Which was wholely irrelevant since 14th August 1947) had been drowned in the Bay of Bengal.

This is what happens when you have ignorant idiots as Prime Ministers.

Re: # 471 She did not create Bangladesh out of vacuum. This is what a divisive doctrine always was bound to throw up. Division unto the last tiniest political entity.

Punjab and Bengal should not have been divided because of their century old existence. Why the same did not apply to a 5000 year old coexistence. That would require more of idiocy than intelligence.

Re: # 472

Again you jump contexts. Indira Gandhi was wrong historically since it was her father who insisted on making Bengal part of Pakistan... Lahore resolution calls for independent states. Now... I`ve shown before that Jinnah stood for a confederal India... but what you`ve raised is a separate issue and needs to be dealt with on its merit.

``Coexistence`` didn`t necessarily mean ``one state``. In ``5000`` years there are 3 instances where there was one state or one superstructure that united the subcontinent... those three instances were:

1) Later part of Asoka`s rule

2) Some 5-10 years of Aurangzeb`s last years and that too without the Southern most tip.

3) British rule from 1857-1947


Other than these 110 or so years... for more than 4890 years South Asia was never one state or under one empire .... so co-existence is good... we can coexist as Pakistanis and Indians as well, but the land of the Indus has a primordial identity that cannot be denied ... as that fine barrister Aitzaz Ahsan of Pakistan Peoples` Party proved in his book the ``Indus Saga``.

The idea of Pakistan as expressed by the Lahore Resolution is in no contradiction to 5000 years of coexistence... but by quirk of fate, it reaffirms the primordial Sindhu identity which is historically well documented. Ofcourse I am sure the politics in that crucial decade had nothing to do with it.

Re: # 474 In 1947 we had the opportunity, a unique one, of living under on state under a democratic dispensation. For all its faults democracy is one big crucible. All it required was a century or two of coexistence and of course a couple of people with intent in that crucial decade. That opportunity is lost. Yet another may shape up though. One feels a strong undercurrent to this effect.