Secularism and Liberal Democracy
Bhaskar Dasgupta November 28, 2005
#75 Posted by MantoLives on November 30, 2005 9:37:07 pm
``Pakistan was meant for better things which it can still reach provided we stop making a mess of our politics``
Hear hear... Ayaz Amir is brilliant.
Rsridhar,
Having read the whole thing, I see his article a brilliant critique of how Pakistanis have let down Pakistan and its founder...
I am not sure why it has gladdened a hindu fanatic like yourself.
Hear hear... Ayaz Amir is brilliant.
Rsridhar,
Having read the whole thing, I see his article a brilliant critique of how Pakistanis have let down Pakistan and its founder...
I am not sure why it has gladdened a hindu fanatic like yourself.
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#74 Posted by rsridhar on November 30, 2005 8:47:05 pm
re:#59 by harimau
I say: amen to that!
Look at these natins bordering India. They do not just seem to govern themselves. Pakistan is knee deep in debt but that does not deter it from buying F16s and other military gizmos. Nepal has trouble brewing and Bangladesh is fast becoming a mirror image of Pakistan, another jehadi factory. Only, Srilanka has retained some sanity.
Sridhar
I say: amen to that!
Look at these natins bordering India. They do not just seem to govern themselves. Pakistan is knee deep in debt but that does not deter it from buying F16s and other military gizmos. Nepal has trouble brewing and Bangladesh is fast becoming a mirror image of Pakistan, another jehadi factory. Only, Srilanka has retained some sanity.
Sridhar
#73 Posted by rsridhar on November 30, 2005 8:39:56 pm
re:Pak, a failed state?
My mohajir friend often used to say (about Pak): (Yeh sudharney walee kaum nahin hai).
Ayaz Amir seems to see the light when rest of the pakees live in darkness:
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/20040813.htm
(What, then, was partition all about?
By Ayaz Amir
As another independence day is about to be commemorated with fake sentiment and false speeches — we having fine-honed the talent of turning national holidays into the most boring events imaginable — the toughest question our history throws up can no longer be shirked: if Pakistan was to be a country dedicated to permanent dictatorship, what was the point of it all?
Did we go through the blood-drenching and mass migration accompanying partition — more than a million people killed and about 8-10 million people uprooted from their homes — so that Pakistan should be a country dedicated to the permanent usurpation of power?
Was Pakistani independence meant to be a synonym for authoritarianism?
Harsh questions? Not if you consider the mess our history has been or, more to the point, if you consider our apparently unshakeable determination to keep making a mess of it.
Pakistan was created for the people of Pakistan. This at least is the orthodox line turned into cruel myth by the steady march of authority figures on the Pakistani stage, our consistent specialty, the extra-constitutional takeover. It bears branding into our collective consciousness that not a single peaceful transition of power marks the 57 tempestuous years of our history.
Yet, and savour the paradox, the bonds of nationhood (the sense of belonging to a nation) remain strong. Not because of Pakistan’s rulers who constitute a dismal club but because of the Pakistani people, most of whom, although not all, have nowhere else to go, no place else to call home. If the flame of patriotism still burns in Pakistani breasts, and it does, it is a tribute not to blinkered and often downright stupid leadership but to the resilience and fortitude of the Pakistani people.
So, is there still something that we can call the Pakistani dream? There is but in the minds of the poor and the defenceless, not in the passions or pocketbooks of the rich and well-placed who long ago made a virtue of swimming with the tide and, in the process, exchanging the power of hope and striving for the armour of an all-weather cynicism.
But to recap the usual factors held responsible for the founding of Pakistan, Islam was not in danger in pre-1947 India. Indeed, considering the sectarian violence and religious bigotry we face today, it was in better health then. Nor was democracy the issue because even if partition had not happened, India was getting democracy once the British left. The Indian Independence Act promised that.
So what was the compelling reason for the Muslims to insist on a separate homeland especially when there was no going around the uncomfortable fact that, no matter how generously the frontiers of the new state were drawn, an uncomfortably large number of Muslims would remain in India?
The purpose of Pakistan, transcending anything to do with safeguarding Islam or promoting democracy, was to create conditions for the Muslims of India, or those who found themselves in the new state, to recreate the days of their lost glory.
For eight centuries Muslim warriors — lured by tales of India’s wealth and, I daresay, the beauty of its women, and crossing the same Hindukush passes through which, centuries before, Aryan hordes had marched — invaded, conquered and ruled India, putting the impress of their culture and thought upon the land they colonized and receiving something from that land in return.
In the process, both invader and invaded were transformed. After eight centuries of intermingling and assimilation the Muslim in India, however hard he clung to his historical memories, was no longer a Turk, a Persian or an Arab but something else: an Indian Muslim. The land was transformed too, post-Muslim India not being the same as pre-Muslim India.
With the coming of the British, however, another transformation was also underway. Muslims lost their pre-eminent status, a process beginning with the disintegration of the Mughal Empire but carried much further as the British consolidated their hold on India. Knocked off their pedestal, Muslims were now amongst the subjugated. But another discovery awaited them too. Outnumbered by the Hindu population, even amongst the subjugated they were not of the first rank. Their overall position in India was thus relegated to number three, after the British and the Hindus, this being a measure of the shift in the historical calculus.
From mid-19th Century onwards, beginning with the first stirrings of a modern Muslim consciousness as expressed by the Aligarh school, Muslims may have agitated for jobs and special safeguards, such as separate electorates, but informing and indeed fuelling their quest was a vision of the past when they were great and the whole of India, not just a part, was their happy hunting ground.
At odds with the reality of Muslim impotence, this vision, this harking back to the past, reduced the Indian Muslim leadership to fighting a rearguard action: seeking to play the new game, of which the British were now the umpires, not across the entire field, because they felt it not in their power to do so, but asking that a patch be reserved for them so that in that reserved patch they should be able to ride unchallenged.
In a crucial sense, then, the Pakistan movement signalled a retreat from the heartland of empire to its outer edges, the final evacuation from Delhi and Agra to new centres of power in Punjab and Bengal. But even then it was for the new state, Pakistan, to create a historical justification for itself by emulating and rivalling, in achievement and glory, even if on a reduced scale, the success of its historical model, the Mughal Empire (in a 20th Century setting, it goes without saying).
In other words, breaking away from India, for that’s what partition did, the justification for Pakistan lay not in merely existing but in showing the spark, vitality and vigour of a new organism, like America to the old world, Israel to its decadent surroundings, the breakaway part, in short, proving better in all that qualifies for civilized achievement than the erstwhile whole.
Against this scale of measurement how on earth do you place the kind of farce regularly staged in Pakistan: mediocre figures (no successors to Babar or Akbar, excuse me), meddling in politics when it is not their business to do so, adept neither at peace nor war, not understanding their own business or that of others, a succession of hopeless figures conspiring to make a mockery of a not-so-bad country? Mughal Empire indeed. Islamabad seems more like a replay of the last days of the Oudh dynasty.
The principal strengths of Muslim rule in the subcontinent were war, the consolidation of conquest, politics and administration. In all these fields Pakistan has not distinguished itself. Wars that should never have been fought started and then lost. About politics the less said the better.
It’s not as if Pakistan lacked promise or potential. It did not. But it has been betrayed by its stars and a succession of cardboard figures who would have received short shrift at Akbar’s court.
Is it all hopeless? Of course not. It’s not too late to turn the ship around. But we’ll have to go back to the drawing boards and, instead of taking Pakistan for granted which we often do, try to understand why this country was created. For rule by a few? To be lorded over by an oligarchy at once inept and corrupt, heedless of history and out of sync with the times? Come off it. Pakistan was meant for better things which it can still reach provided we stop making a mess of our politics.)
This man Ayaz Amir must have a better I.Q than the founder of that benighted nation who died thinking he has done something great.
Sridhar
My mohajir friend often used to say (about Pak): (Yeh sudharney walee kaum nahin hai).
Ayaz Amir seems to see the light when rest of the pakees live in darkness:
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/20040813.htm
(What, then, was partition all about?
By Ayaz Amir
As another independence day is about to be commemorated with fake sentiment and false speeches — we having fine-honed the talent of turning national holidays into the most boring events imaginable — the toughest question our history throws up can no longer be shirked: if Pakistan was to be a country dedicated to permanent dictatorship, what was the point of it all?
Did we go through the blood-drenching and mass migration accompanying partition — more than a million people killed and about 8-10 million people uprooted from their homes — so that Pakistan should be a country dedicated to the permanent usurpation of power?
Was Pakistani independence meant to be a synonym for authoritarianism?
Harsh questions? Not if you consider the mess our history has been or, more to the point, if you consider our apparently unshakeable determination to keep making a mess of it.
Pakistan was created for the people of Pakistan. This at least is the orthodox line turned into cruel myth by the steady march of authority figures on the Pakistani stage, our consistent specialty, the extra-constitutional takeover. It bears branding into our collective consciousness that not a single peaceful transition of power marks the 57 tempestuous years of our history.
Yet, and savour the paradox, the bonds of nationhood (the sense of belonging to a nation) remain strong. Not because of Pakistan’s rulers who constitute a dismal club but because of the Pakistani people, most of whom, although not all, have nowhere else to go, no place else to call home. If the flame of patriotism still burns in Pakistani breasts, and it does, it is a tribute not to blinkered and often downright stupid leadership but to the resilience and fortitude of the Pakistani people.
So, is there still something that we can call the Pakistani dream? There is but in the minds of the poor and the defenceless, not in the passions or pocketbooks of the rich and well-placed who long ago made a virtue of swimming with the tide and, in the process, exchanging the power of hope and striving for the armour of an all-weather cynicism.
But to recap the usual factors held responsible for the founding of Pakistan, Islam was not in danger in pre-1947 India. Indeed, considering the sectarian violence and religious bigotry we face today, it was in better health then. Nor was democracy the issue because even if partition had not happened, India was getting democracy once the British left. The Indian Independence Act promised that.
So what was the compelling reason for the Muslims to insist on a separate homeland especially when there was no going around the uncomfortable fact that, no matter how generously the frontiers of the new state were drawn, an uncomfortably large number of Muslims would remain in India?
The purpose of Pakistan, transcending anything to do with safeguarding Islam or promoting democracy, was to create conditions for the Muslims of India, or those who found themselves in the new state, to recreate the days of their lost glory.
For eight centuries Muslim warriors — lured by tales of India’s wealth and, I daresay, the beauty of its women, and crossing the same Hindukush passes through which, centuries before, Aryan hordes had marched — invaded, conquered and ruled India, putting the impress of their culture and thought upon the land they colonized and receiving something from that land in return.
In the process, both invader and invaded were transformed. After eight centuries of intermingling and assimilation the Muslim in India, however hard he clung to his historical memories, was no longer a Turk, a Persian or an Arab but something else: an Indian Muslim. The land was transformed too, post-Muslim India not being the same as pre-Muslim India.
With the coming of the British, however, another transformation was also underway. Muslims lost their pre-eminent status, a process beginning with the disintegration of the Mughal Empire but carried much further as the British consolidated their hold on India. Knocked off their pedestal, Muslims were now amongst the subjugated. But another discovery awaited them too. Outnumbered by the Hindu population, even amongst the subjugated they were not of the first rank. Their overall position in India was thus relegated to number three, after the British and the Hindus, this being a measure of the shift in the historical calculus.
From mid-19th Century onwards, beginning with the first stirrings of a modern Muslim consciousness as expressed by the Aligarh school, Muslims may have agitated for jobs and special safeguards, such as separate electorates, but informing and indeed fuelling their quest was a vision of the past when they were great and the whole of India, not just a part, was their happy hunting ground.
At odds with the reality of Muslim impotence, this vision, this harking back to the past, reduced the Indian Muslim leadership to fighting a rearguard action: seeking to play the new game, of which the British were now the umpires, not across the entire field, because they felt it not in their power to do so, but asking that a patch be reserved for them so that in that reserved patch they should be able to ride unchallenged.
In a crucial sense, then, the Pakistan movement signalled a retreat from the heartland of empire to its outer edges, the final evacuation from Delhi and Agra to new centres of power in Punjab and Bengal. But even then it was for the new state, Pakistan, to create a historical justification for itself by emulating and rivalling, in achievement and glory, even if on a reduced scale, the success of its historical model, the Mughal Empire (in a 20th Century setting, it goes without saying).
In other words, breaking away from India, for that’s what partition did, the justification for Pakistan lay not in merely existing but in showing the spark, vitality and vigour of a new organism, like America to the old world, Israel to its decadent surroundings, the breakaway part, in short, proving better in all that qualifies for civilized achievement than the erstwhile whole.
Against this scale of measurement how on earth do you place the kind of farce regularly staged in Pakistan: mediocre figures (no successors to Babar or Akbar, excuse me), meddling in politics when it is not their business to do so, adept neither at peace nor war, not understanding their own business or that of others, a succession of hopeless figures conspiring to make a mockery of a not-so-bad country? Mughal Empire indeed. Islamabad seems more like a replay of the last days of the Oudh dynasty.
The principal strengths of Muslim rule in the subcontinent were war, the consolidation of conquest, politics and administration. In all these fields Pakistan has not distinguished itself. Wars that should never have been fought started and then lost. About politics the less said the better.
It’s not as if Pakistan lacked promise or potential. It did not. But it has been betrayed by its stars and a succession of cardboard figures who would have received short shrift at Akbar’s court.
Is it all hopeless? Of course not. It’s not too late to turn the ship around. But we’ll have to go back to the drawing boards and, instead of taking Pakistan for granted which we often do, try to understand why this country was created. For rule by a few? To be lorded over by an oligarchy at once inept and corrupt, heedless of history and out of sync with the times? Come off it. Pakistan was meant for better things which it can still reach provided we stop making a mess of our politics.)
This man Ayaz Amir must have a better I.Q than the founder of that benighted nation who died thinking he has done something great.
Sridhar
#72 Posted by rsridhar on November 30, 2005 8:24:23 pm
re:#31 by HP
Looks like u are a khalistani sympathiser, a really endagered species today!
Even Dan Burton, after his recent visit to India, would be loath to take that issue publicly.
You are quoting what some idiot ranted 50 years ago!
In India, constitution is supreme. Period. Akali Dal`s leaders can scratch their heads or pull their turbans off for all i care but the reality is that they too are bound by the same constitution. That constitution guarantees them religious freedom which they apply within the bounds of laws.
Indian state, in its formative years (and even today) has gone through many turbulent times. The seperatist agitation by Dravidian party, the khalistan issue, the bodoland issue so on and so forth. Most were amicably resolved. That is the strength of democracy in my view. Who could have imagined India would have a sikh PM and a sikh Chief of Army!
Sridhar
Looks like u are a khalistani sympathiser, a really endagered species today!
Even Dan Burton, after his recent visit to India, would be loath to take that issue publicly.
You are quoting what some idiot ranted 50 years ago!
In India, constitution is supreme. Period. Akali Dal`s leaders can scratch their heads or pull their turbans off for all i care but the reality is that they too are bound by the same constitution. That constitution guarantees them religious freedom which they apply within the bounds of laws.
Indian state, in its formative years (and even today) has gone through many turbulent times. The seperatist agitation by Dravidian party, the khalistan issue, the bodoland issue so on and so forth. Most were amicably resolved. That is the strength of democracy in my view. Who could have imagined India would have a sikh PM and a sikh Chief of Army!
Sridhar
#71 Posted by rsridhar on November 30, 2005 8:10:33 pm
re: HPs post
(Haryana is Hindu and Punjab is Sikh....)
I would argue that Punjab (Indian) is both hindu and sikh. States were divided to fulfil aspiratons of people who wanted to preserve their unique language, culture. Madras state was divided into present day TN, Andhra pradesh. Both are hindu states.
Come out of your hatred and u will see the light.
Sridhar
(Haryana is Hindu and Punjab is Sikh....)
I would argue that Punjab (Indian) is both hindu and sikh. States were divided to fulfil aspiratons of people who wanted to preserve their unique language, culture. Madras state was divided into present day TN, Andhra pradesh. Both are hindu states.
Come out of your hatred and u will see the light.
Sridhar
#70 Posted by rsridhar on November 30, 2005 8:04:42 pm
re: HP`s post
(entry in the Indian constitution does not make India a secular state. It appears to be just political gamesmanship to pull a fast one. Looking at the last 58 years of history, no Indian government has taken a single step in changing anything that would make the country a secular country. Even the education system is not geared towards establishing secularism as the creed of the State of India. How Indian constitution would be different if it did not have the word secularism in it?)
India is pretty secular. Your or anybody`s denying it wont change the reality. Your above para is total gibberish. You are just saying some things just because u are either jealous or have nothing better to say. I think u need to learn to argue more logically.
Sridhar
(entry in the Indian constitution does not make India a secular state. It appears to be just political gamesmanship to pull a fast one. Looking at the last 58 years of history, no Indian government has taken a single step in changing anything that would make the country a secular country. Even the education system is not geared towards establishing secularism as the creed of the State of India. How Indian constitution would be different if it did not have the word secularism in it?)
India is pretty secular. Your or anybody`s denying it wont change the reality. Your above para is total gibberish. You are just saying some things just because u are either jealous or have nothing better to say. I think u need to learn to argue more logically.
Sridhar
#69 Posted by rsridhar on November 30, 2005 7:59:16 pm
re: the article
Interesting article.
I wish the language was not so pedantic.
Secularism is no doubt a good concept but then secularism as a concept is embraced from personal or collective experience. The early settlers in American Colonies were fleeing oppression and religious persecution and wanted to build a society where they could live freely. Great men like Jefferson put their aspirations into proper constitutional framework.
India too embraced secularism out of sheer necessity. There was no other way to have a consitution that would govern a land with diverse religions, castes etc. The bloodshed that followed partition must have also convinced the makers of constitution that secularism was the only way. It also helped to have a secular minded democrat (and an atheist to boot!) leading the nation in its formative years.
Does secularism work for muslim nations? I wish i could emphatically say yes, it does but i do not know of a single secular muslim nation except Turkey where the Army tilts the fine balance when needed towards preserving the secular credentials.
You quoted M.A. JInnah: (``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.``).
Fine words but spoken invain. That nation is wavering between religious extremism and military dictatorship, not knowing which way to go. Bangladesh seems to have decided of late that religious fundamentalism is the way to go.
Truly, India is a beacon in that part of the world.
Sridhar
Interesting article.
I wish the language was not so pedantic.
Secularism is no doubt a good concept but then secularism as a concept is embraced from personal or collective experience. The early settlers in American Colonies were fleeing oppression and religious persecution and wanted to build a society where they could live freely. Great men like Jefferson put their aspirations into proper constitutional framework.
India too embraced secularism out of sheer necessity. There was no other way to have a consitution that would govern a land with diverse religions, castes etc. The bloodshed that followed partition must have also convinced the makers of constitution that secularism was the only way. It also helped to have a secular minded democrat (and an atheist to boot!) leading the nation in its formative years.
Does secularism work for muslim nations? I wish i could emphatically say yes, it does but i do not know of a single secular muslim nation except Turkey where the Army tilts the fine balance when needed towards preserving the secular credentials.
You quoted M.A. JInnah: (``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.``).
Fine words but spoken invain. That nation is wavering between religious extremism and military dictatorship, not knowing which way to go. Bangladesh seems to have decided of late that religious fundamentalism is the way to go.
Truly, India is a beacon in that part of the world.
Sridhar
#68 Posted by MantoLives on November 29, 2005 10:57:03 pm
For the want of space I am cataloguing Ambedkar`s exposition of the Muslim case, the Hindu Case and his view of partition in my ilogs.
#67 Posted by MantoLives on November 29, 2005 10:46:22 pm
Look.. don`t confuse issues...
You asked who else ascribes to Ayesha Jalal and H M Seervai view... I produced 11 different authors. There are atleast 10 more.. which are so hackneyed that I haven`t mentioned them... You could let this be the end of it but no... so let us now delve into this debate.
You ask..
What of his ``record theon`` (I produced 11 authors who would tell you that his record thereon 1939-1947, was still much more accomodating than the Congress leadership...
To quote A G Noorani writes:
``If Jinnah, the partitionist, had a latent sense of an India above the two states, Jawaharlal Nehru, the ardent Unionist, not only contributed to the collapse of the 1946 plan but adopted a policy that would congeal the partition: Congress leaders demonised him systematically. So did Indian academics and the press. Jinnah yet awaits a fair assessment, warts and all. That must include his own mistakes and grave lapses as well. The Congress spurned him in 1937-39. But he went overboard and did much harm by his miscalculations. Indians and Pakistanis must reflect on all aspects of his life, not selectively as they do.
By any test Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a truly great man. In personal integrity this tragic figure had no peers. His political record from 1906 to 1939 reveals a spirit of conciliation and statesmanship, which Congress leaders did not reciprocate. Indians must begin to acknowledge his greatness and the grave injustice the Congress leaders did to him. Pakistanis must begin to acknowledge the ones he did not only to himself but to the infant state he founded.``
Then you ask...
``Again, if the Congress leaders didn`t reciprocate, does that mean you tear the country apart? What kind of a man other than someone who is insane or possessed by a murderous rage does that?``
So ... a single individual can tear apart a country? The Congress leaders did not reciprocate ... means that they did not see that Jinnah was not the be all end all but the spokesperson/lawyer/representative of a significant chunk of the people. Isn`t modern democratic government based on compromise? Congress leaders refused to compromise... Jinnah tried till the last year ... even in May of 1947... to talk sense to them. No doubt this simplistic logic arises from an unwillingness to see the facts as they are...
As for Ambedkar.. please feel free to reproduce the ``uncharitable`` remarks he has ``reserved`` for Jinnah... We are talking about Pakistan or Partitiion of India mind you... Clearly you haven`t read the book... had you read it, you would know that he presents the case from both sides... and then leaves the conclusion...
``In the same vein that he praises Jinnah, he castigates him for doing injustice to himself and the state he founded. This paragraph alone is worth a million words and should tell you something about the man. Thanks for reproducing it here.``
So your point is? Did you not ask for examples of people who agreed with the Ayesha Jalal and H M Seervai`s view of history... namely that Jinnah tried to compromise and Congress leadership`s unaccomodated pigheadedness (with the exception of Azad, who literally authored the Cabinet Mission Plan)... led to partition?
H M Seervai references Azad`s ``India wins freedom`` a lot ... now we know Azad is extremely critical of Jinnah, being his opponent... but in a very revealing paragraph towards the end of his book... he also says that Patel and Nehru had become ardently pro-partition than Jinnah.
-YLH
You asked who else ascribes to Ayesha Jalal and H M Seervai view... I produced 11 different authors. There are atleast 10 more.. which are so hackneyed that I haven`t mentioned them... You could let this be the end of it but no... so let us now delve into this debate.
You ask..
What of his ``record theon`` (I produced 11 authors who would tell you that his record thereon 1939-1947, was still much more accomodating than the Congress leadership...
To quote A G Noorani writes:
``If Jinnah, the partitionist, had a latent sense of an India above the two states, Jawaharlal Nehru, the ardent Unionist, not only contributed to the collapse of the 1946 plan but adopted a policy that would congeal the partition: Congress leaders demonised him systematically. So did Indian academics and the press. Jinnah yet awaits a fair assessment, warts and all. That must include his own mistakes and grave lapses as well. The Congress spurned him in 1937-39. But he went overboard and did much harm by his miscalculations. Indians and Pakistanis must reflect on all aspects of his life, not selectively as they do.
By any test Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a truly great man. In personal integrity this tragic figure had no peers. His political record from 1906 to 1939 reveals a spirit of conciliation and statesmanship, which Congress leaders did not reciprocate. Indians must begin to acknowledge his greatness and the grave injustice the Congress leaders did to him. Pakistanis must begin to acknowledge the ones he did not only to himself but to the infant state he founded.``
Then you ask...
``Again, if the Congress leaders didn`t reciprocate, does that mean you tear the country apart? What kind of a man other than someone who is insane or possessed by a murderous rage does that?``
So ... a single individual can tear apart a country? The Congress leaders did not reciprocate ... means that they did not see that Jinnah was not the be all end all but the spokesperson/lawyer/representative of a significant chunk of the people. Isn`t modern democratic government based on compromise? Congress leaders refused to compromise... Jinnah tried till the last year ... even in May of 1947... to talk sense to them. No doubt this simplistic logic arises from an unwillingness to see the facts as they are...
As for Ambedkar.. please feel free to reproduce the ``uncharitable`` remarks he has ``reserved`` for Jinnah... We are talking about Pakistan or Partitiion of India mind you... Clearly you haven`t read the book... had you read it, you would know that he presents the case from both sides... and then leaves the conclusion...
``In the same vein that he praises Jinnah, he castigates him for doing injustice to himself and the state he founded. This paragraph alone is worth a million words and should tell you something about the man. Thanks for reproducing it here.``
So your point is? Did you not ask for examples of people who agreed with the Ayesha Jalal and H M Seervai`s view of history... namely that Jinnah tried to compromise and Congress leadership`s unaccomodated pigheadedness (with the exception of Azad, who literally authored the Cabinet Mission Plan)... led to partition?
H M Seervai references Azad`s ``India wins freedom`` a lot ... now we know Azad is extremely critical of Jinnah, being his opponent... but in a very revealing paragraph towards the end of his book... he also says that Patel and Nehru had become ardently pro-partition than Jinnah.
-YLH
#66 Posted by harish_hyd on November 29, 2005 10:05:38 pm
#65 by Mantolives
[Please read the preface of Ambedkar`s book and read the book in its entirety. He said that he would argue the Muslim case and the Hindu case and then leave the conclusions to the reader... Why don`t you read the whole thing? Are you afraid? Did you know that Ambedkar`s book ``Pakistan or Partition of India`` was widely used by the Muslim League leadership in references?]
Hold your horses there! I have read the book (in its entirety as you say) which is why I could so confidently challenge you to quote Ambedkar on Jinnah`s ridiculous demands. Why don`t you cut and paste the uncharitable remarks Ambedkar reserves for Jinnah?
His political record from 1906 to 1939 reveals a spirit of conciliation and statesmanship, which Congress leaders did not reciprocate.
The fact that Noorani says his political record was stellar ``from 1906-39`` is telling. What about his record from thereon? Wasn`t it the exact opposite of the ``spirit of conciliation and statesmanship``?
Again, if the Congress leaders didn`t reciprocate, does that mean you tear the country apart? What kind of a man other than someone who is insane or possessed by a murderous rage does that? To cause death and misery to millions of people just because the Congress leaders didn`t reciprocate? Doesn`t get more ridiculous than that.
It is time you started understanding the real meaning behind the words than merely swallowing them without questioning them and then quoting them verbatim.
``Indians must begin to acknowledge his greatness and the grave injustice the Congress leaders did to him. Pakistanis must begin to acknowledge the ones he did not only to himself but to the infant state he founded.``
What about this statement? In the same vein that he praises Jinnah, he castigates him for doing injustice to himself and the state he founded. This paragraph alone is worth a million words and should tell you something about the man. Thanks for reproducing it here.
[Please read the preface of Ambedkar`s book and read the book in its entirety. He said that he would argue the Muslim case and the Hindu case and then leave the conclusions to the reader... Why don`t you read the whole thing? Are you afraid? Did you know that Ambedkar`s book ``Pakistan or Partition of India`` was widely used by the Muslim League leadership in references?]
Hold your horses there! I have read the book (in its entirety as you say) which is why I could so confidently challenge you to quote Ambedkar on Jinnah`s ridiculous demands. Why don`t you cut and paste the uncharitable remarks Ambedkar reserves for Jinnah?
His political record from 1906 to 1939 reveals a spirit of conciliation and statesmanship, which Congress leaders did not reciprocate.
The fact that Noorani says his political record was stellar ``from 1906-39`` is telling. What about his record from thereon? Wasn`t it the exact opposite of the ``spirit of conciliation and statesmanship``?
Again, if the Congress leaders didn`t reciprocate, does that mean you tear the country apart? What kind of a man other than someone who is insane or possessed by a murderous rage does that? To cause death and misery to millions of people just because the Congress leaders didn`t reciprocate? Doesn`t get more ridiculous than that.
It is time you started understanding the real meaning behind the words than merely swallowing them without questioning them and then quoting them verbatim.
``Indians must begin to acknowledge his greatness and the grave injustice the Congress leaders did to him. Pakistanis must begin to acknowledge the ones he did not only to himself but to the infant state he founded.``
What about this statement? In the same vein that he praises Jinnah, he castigates him for doing injustice to himself and the state he founded. This paragraph alone is worth a million words and should tell you something about the man. Thanks for reproducing it here.
#65 Posted by MantoLives on November 29, 2005 9:44:42 pm
Harish-hyd,
How long are you going to keep jumping in without reading the context. According to Harimau, it was a Pakistani claim... I merely telling him that no it was an Indian who wrote this.
However thank you for according me this opportunity to drive the dagger home once more.
Please read the preface of Ambedkar`s book and read the book in its entirety. He said that he would argue the Muslim case and the Hindu case and then leave the conclusions to the reader... Why don`t you read the whole thing? Are you afraid? Did you know that Ambedkar`s book ``Pakistan or Partition of India`` was widely used by the Muslim League leadership in references?
As for hundreds of books...
Here are some other authors who take more or less the same view as H M Seervai:
1- Patrick French (Liberty or Death)
2- Asiananda (Jinnah: a corrective reading of Indian history)
3- Ajeet Javed ( Secular and Nationalist Jinnah)
4- Anil Seal
5- Irfan Habib
6- Mukul Kesavan
7- Rajmohan Gandhi (8 Muslim lives)
8- Stephen Cohen (Idea of Pakistan)
9- Beverly Nichols (Verdict on India)
10- M J Akbar
11- A G Noorani (Read his recent two part article on Jinnah) ...
0
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2213/stories/20050701004602300.htm
I quote his conclusion: ``By any test Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a truly great man. In personal integrity this tragic figure had no peers. His political record from 1906 to 1939 reveals a spirit of conciliation and statesmanship, which Congress leaders did not reciprocate. Indians must begin to acknowledge his greatness and the grave injustice the Congress leaders did to him. Pakistanis must begin to acknowledge the ones he did not only to himself but to the infant state he founded.``
None of the ladies and gentlemen mentioned above are Pakistanis... neither is H M Seervai.
So Ayesha Jalal is a Pakistani- but what about all the above?
-YLH
How long are you going to keep jumping in without reading the context. According to Harimau, it was a Pakistani claim... I merely telling him that no it was an Indian who wrote this.
However thank you for according me this opportunity to drive the dagger home once more.
Please read the preface of Ambedkar`s book and read the book in its entirety. He said that he would argue the Muslim case and the Hindu case and then leave the conclusions to the reader... Why don`t you read the whole thing? Are you afraid? Did you know that Ambedkar`s book ``Pakistan or Partition of India`` was widely used by the Muslim League leadership in references?
As for hundreds of books...
Here are some other authors who take more or less the same view as H M Seervai:
1- Patrick French (Liberty or Death)
2- Asiananda (Jinnah: a corrective reading of Indian history)
3- Ajeet Javed ( Secular and Nationalist Jinnah)
4- Anil Seal
5- Irfan Habib
6- Mukul Kesavan
7- Rajmohan Gandhi (8 Muslim lives)
8- Stephen Cohen (Idea of Pakistan)
9- Beverly Nichols (Verdict on India)
10- M J Akbar
11- A G Noorani (Read his recent two part article on Jinnah) ...
0
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2213/stories/20050701004602300.htm
I quote his conclusion: ``By any test Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a truly great man. In personal integrity this tragic figure had no peers. His political record from 1906 to 1939 reveals a spirit of conciliation and statesmanship, which Congress leaders did not reciprocate. Indians must begin to acknowledge his greatness and the grave injustice the Congress leaders did to him. Pakistanis must begin to acknowledge the ones he did not only to himself but to the infant state he founded.``
None of the ladies and gentlemen mentioned above are Pakistanis... neither is H M Seervai.
So Ayesha Jalal is a Pakistani- but what about all the above?
-YLH
#64 Posted by harish_hyd on November 29, 2005 9:14:51 pm
#63 by Mantolives
Yaar Yasser,
How long will you go on bandying about Seervai and Ayesha Jalal? Are these the only authors who have written on partition? It is obvious that being a Paki, Ayesha Jalal`s sympathy would lie with Jinnah. Is Seervai the non-Paki to have written on partition? There have been hundreds of books written on the subject? Can you point out any other author to have had a favorable opinion of Jinnah`s demands?
You love to quote Ambedkar when you want to validate your hatred for Gandhi (casteist and all), but why don`t you quote him on what his views were about Jinnah`s ridiculous demands?
Yaar Yasser,
How long will you go on bandying about Seervai and Ayesha Jalal? Are these the only authors who have written on partition? It is obvious that being a Paki, Ayesha Jalal`s sympathy would lie with Jinnah. Is Seervai the non-Paki to have written on partition? There have been hundreds of books written on the subject? Can you point out any other author to have had a favorable opinion of Jinnah`s demands?
You love to quote Ambedkar when you want to validate your hatred for Gandhi (casteist and all), but why don`t you quote him on what his views were about Jinnah`s ridiculous demands?
#63 Posted by MantoLives on November 29, 2005 6:42:14 pm
Harimau also writes about Pakistanis...
``You are the guys who go around claiming that Jinnah didn`t want Partition but it was forced on him.``
Last I checked H M Seervai was Indian and his book (Partition of India: Legend and Reality) was written in India. The official Pakistani view as well as the majority one is that Jinnah wanted Pakistan .. Jinnah got Pakistan...
``You are the guys who go around claiming that Jinnah didn`t want Partition but it was forced on him.``
Last I checked H M Seervai was Indian and his book (Partition of India: Legend and Reality) was written in India. The official Pakistani view as well as the majority one is that Jinnah wanted Pakistan .. Jinnah got Pakistan...
#62 Posted by mohar11 on November 29, 2005 6:31:53 pm
Yet another paki is b!tching and moaning how India is NOT secular... and the entire hinud brigrade here are falling over each other to convince him that it is..... come on fellas - get a life....
I mean - as if it really matters what a paki believes anything on india or secularism or whatever..... Or as if you can really convince a paki about secualrism anyway .... decades of k for kafir education - you can`t beat that...
I mean - as if it really matters what a paki believes anything on india or secularism or whatever..... Or as if you can really convince a paki about secualrism anyway .... decades of k for kafir education - you can`t beat that...
#61 Posted by masadi on November 29, 2005 3:58:18 pm
#24, According to the Nov 2005 Gallup poll on religiosity, 66% of the inhabitants of the world describe themselves as religious- the breakdown has Asians as less religious than Europeans and Americans, which doesn`t fit too will with you reborn ``Social Darwinism``- neither does the increased militarism associated with the developed world. You describe religion as a ``useless`` appendage using an idiotic analogy of the tail, yet religion is the oldest institution of humankind and has been around for more than the ``few hundred years`` that you mention, also you forget that the institutional setup you consider ``evolved`` at one time or another differentiated from religion, i.e. it was born within religion and then became a secular system- Islam laid the roots of your European rennaissance, and protestantism, according to Max Weber led through various institutional mechanisms to the development of modern capitalism.
Social Darwinists present bigotry disguised as weak claims backed by superficial biological analogies and little else. Good day to you all.
Social Darwinists present bigotry disguised as weak claims backed by superficial biological analogies and little else. Good day to you all.
#60 Posted by samosa on November 29, 2005 3:45:57 pm
Re: # 53
You are posting just for argument sake and you do not have any valid point as you dont know what would be different if the data is collected via organization or people.
Though including religion in census does not make a government secular or otherwise.
Sticking to this article and in particular this discussion thread, Indian consititution is not purely secular as it defines Hindus and there are separate laws for separate religion. Indian constitution will be truly secular in words and spirit if and only if its has same law for everyone irrespective of their religion.
Regarding Gay Marriage, I think marriage is a religious concept but after getting married one needs to register the ``contract`` with the government. Thus gay union can be legalized i.e. they can register the ``contract`` and its upon the couple to call it a union or a marriage or anything else they want to call it.
You are posting just for argument sake and you do not have any valid point as you dont know what would be different if the data is collected via organization or people.
Though including religion in census does not make a government secular or otherwise.
Sticking to this article and in particular this discussion thread, Indian consititution is not purely secular as it defines Hindus and there are separate laws for separate religion. Indian constitution will be truly secular in words and spirit if and only if its has same law for everyone irrespective of their religion.
Regarding Gay Marriage, I think marriage is a religious concept but after getting married one needs to register the ``contract`` with the government. Thus gay union can be legalized i.e. they can register the ``contract`` and its upon the couple to call it a union or a marriage or anything else they want to call it.
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