Peace in South Asia Dear Ana,

Don`t waste your time with you know who. There is no point in arguing with someone who believes himself to be the gospel of the truth. Many in history have been afflicted with this cursed ailment.

Shammi,

I just read your post about secularism, Islam and muslim countries... incidentally I just completed a small article on the same or some what same topic... hopefuly chowk will publish it.

romair,

Elections are unpredictable things... on the face of it PPP(P) has the biggest vote bank... but PML(Q) and the GNA are considered to be the King`s Party... Tehreek e Insaaf and other new faces haven`t got a chance of winning though Tehreek might win some seats this time around given that the election symbol allotted to them is the `Cricket Bat` and Imran Khan`s fans have grown up and are of voting age.

Ofcourse fans like myself will not vote for him given his latest flirtations with the Mullahs of the Jamaat e Islami. I am myself might moving in a week or so to Jauharabad/Khushab temporarily to assist my Uncle in the election. He was awarded the PPP(P) ticket from Khushab region for the Provincial parliament.

From my constituency, Aitezaz Ahsan will probably be the candidate fielded by the PPP(P) who is a brilliant lawyer. Therefore my own vote will be for PPP.

Peace in South Asia Origins of the word HINDUSTAN

I suppose a movie like ‘Raja Hindustani’ would be taken up by an Indian Muslim like Aamir Khan because he wanted to insult India… the Song ‘Dil Hai hindustani’ was Raj Kapoor’s treason against the great Republic of India… or were they all Mughals ? Please enlighten Mr. Shammi. Or is it just Pakistanis you make the object of your wrath?

The whole argument from the opposing side is contradictory. According to them ‘Hindustan’ means the land of the Hindus but only the land under Muslim rule was called Hindustan… I believe some amount of clarity when arguing on academic facts. What Shammi has forgotten is that the word ‘Hindustan’ doesn’t take root in ‘Hinduism’ but the other way around… Hindustan was the persian word for ‘Hind’ and it simply meant ‘Hind Country’. The word is not the same as ‘Uzbekistan’ or ‘Afghanistan’ or ‘Turkistan’. It did not mean the land of the Hindus. Infact the word Hindu probably wasn’t specific to one faith or religion but simply the people of Hind. Hind is also an Arabic word but this ‘Hind’ comes from the now Pakistani River Indus or Dirya-e-Sind as we call it. Hindu-ism as well as Hindustan comes from the word ‘Hind’. Hindu-ism was the name given to the heterogeneous religion of the people of ‘Hind’ or the ‘Hindus’. Hindustan like I said simply meant ‘Hind Country’. Now if ‘Hind Country’ is an insult to India, then I suppose all the Indian Army wallahs, Indian chief ministers, the prime Ministers etc are ALL insulting India by saying ‘Jai Hind’…. And perhaps the greatest insult was unleashed by India’s Maulana Azad who called for unifying Hindi and Urdu into ‘Hindustani’. Right? Oh but then all of them are sacred cows aren’t they?

Perhaps Mr. Shammi can have it put in the constitution of India to Ban ‘Jai Hind’. Believe me no one in Pakistan will protest… once the matter had been settled in mid-August of 1947, even Jinnah started calling your country the ‘Dominion of India’. Eversince then Pakistan has officially referred to India as simply India or Bharat… never Hindustan..

I have been rude, but I have kept my patience for a very long time. I don’t know why people like Shammi have to be such sanctimonious sour pusses?

-YLH

Peace in South Asia Bapsi Sidhwa`s interview

http://versa.paknews.com/rm_files/bapsi_sidhwa.htm

Interview of Bapsi Sidhwa, the primary important novelist of Pakistan`s formative days in English Fiction work. This is a production of Pakistan News Service. (8/14th/`02) This interview is conducted by Aisha Fayyazi Sarwari. The real audio interview is available at www.versa.paknews.com

(PNS)-- Talking about reality, fiction and art in History, Bapsi Sidhwa, weaves the tale of how characters become meaningful.

Aisha Sarwari: What made you first decide to put words to paper and write. How did the process of being sensitive to your surroundings manifest itself in a literary form.

Bapsi Sidhwa: Aisha, The first time I did write consciously, was when I took a trip on my second honeymoon into the Kharakhoram Mountains. I was about twenty-six at that time. The Pakistani Army was building a road along the old silk route, along the Indus, linking Pakistan to Kashmir. And there I visited a very remote camp at Dubair. This had been quiet an experience. Seeing those mountains. Seeing the gorgeous scenery. And there I heard this story of a young run away bride. I’d seen these tribals, their natural milieu, I’d heard stories about them. So that when I came back to Lahore, I was just very anxious to talk about this girl. What had befallen her. What my imagination thought had befallen her. I wanted to describe these beautiful people who were locked in by these mountains and forgotten. Who led incredibly poor lives. I was just bubbling over to narrate their stories. And I guess I just must have an innate desire to write. To tell stories and to communicate.

So then I sat down to write what I thought was a short story. And it became my first novel: The Bride. I didn’t have any apprenticeship that I wrote a short story and then I progressed to a novel. No I sat down and wrote a novel.

Aisha Sarwari: First novels usually mirror the author. I don’t see that in The Bride, then I do in Ice Candy Man, for example. Do you think that’s true?

Bapsi Sidhwa: That’s I think very true. Because The Bride is a very distanced novel. Of course you know in every book every character contains the author. So in that sense it is not distances. But it is a story of a totally different background than mine. And people who are very different from me. Its is not autobiographical in any sense. Its ironically my third book, Ice Candy Man which is closest, the first part at least, to an autobiographical element.

Aisha Sarwari: When you are writing something that comes across as too autobiographical, for example, do you get scared? What do you feel at that time?

Bapsi Sidhwa: I think to do that you have to be a bit narcissistic, a bit of a show off about yourself. That’s not the right term. Anyway. Or you have to be in full control. So I think by the time I wrote my third novel, I was enough of a writer to be in control of handling it. When I say autobiographical. Its self-fiction. I am using incidents from my life and converting them into fiction. It was pure autobiography. I would have been too self conscious. I would have never been able to write. So in fiction you can distance yourself from events and then write about them. Otherwise you are being too confessional and that is not what a fiction writer wants to be. They would sit and write and their whole bench would be different. They would be spinning personal essays and memoirs and I am not that type of a writer.

Aisha Sarwari: In terms of how you come up with ideas and new plots or a seed of a new book, for example, do you first get a very vivid image and then proceed with that? How does it really begin? Does it root directly out of your experience?

Bapsi Sidhwa: I think to begin with it has been some sort of vivid little image. Or incidence in each of my books. Like in The Bride I heard this little girl got married across the river and then she ran away and she was killed subsequently. There was this curdle of a story and I wanted to tell her story. But I didn’t know anything about the girl. So without knowing, I had to create a background for her. How did she come across the old tribals. What kind of life did she lead till she reached the mountain. So by the time I came to what I wanted to write about I sort of invented a whole life for her. Each novel has a different way of starting.

In Cracking India, I thought vividly of a scene with a bunch of gundas (thugs) had driven into a house, shouting slogans, wanting to loot our house. That came to mind and that became a pivotal scene. It was the center and I totally fictionalized it and made it into Ayah’s kidnapping scene. But you do have one little point on which you anchor the novel. Your subconscious works out everything for you. The very first sentence, once I have written it, I feel contains the whole DNA of the novel. The genetic structure of the novel. the tone, the voice, what’s going to happen. Its all there on the first page of the novel. So by the time you have red the first page or two, your mind has, your unconscious has almost handled the novel. At least that is the way it works for me.

Aisha Sarwari: Lets talk about Pakistan now. You were one of the first English fiction writers in Pakistan. I think you were one of the first in South Asia. How do you see the evolution of what people perceive of Pakistan?

First of all, just let me say one thing. I am not the first in that sense, because after all there were Khushwant Singh and Narain, (inaudible), and even Anita Desai was before me. I would be in that Rushdi group, just before Rushdi. In that new group I would be among the first. So that would not place me among the abstract, but in Pakistan there was Ahmed Ali before me. Who had written one or two novels which had some international recognition. But I had been the first as far as Pakistan is concerned, the primary important novelist.

Perceptions of places don’t change so rapidly. After all, History goes on and on and a country maintains its integrity its sprit. You know its there. It doesn’t change so fast. The perception of Pakistan, of Lahore has not changed that much. After all Pakistan is a very young country. It has had a certain patters of military rule, a little bit of democracy and followed by more military rule. But it has developed its own momentum. Its always been very political as a country. It literally touches everybody’s life. Everyone is very interested in it. In that respect it is so different from America. Every two minutes we’d be out on the streets. We as women. We’d be protesting. Which I never see in America: people going out and protesting. Except once in a while in Berkeley campuses. But people in all cities spontaneously bursting on to the streets. That is sort of a characteristic of Pakistan.

The poverty is still there, the greed is still there. the feudalism is still there. Nothing very much has changed. The American influence is still there. History evolves very slowly in our part of the world. Not much has changed.

Aisha Sarwari: I want to go back for a moment to The Ice Candy Man. It’s really a brilliant novel that has a bitter sweet time of partition engraved in it. Bitter because I think of, obviously the bloodshed. But also sweet because you have a wide array of conflicting emotions and human triumphs and weaknesses, which make good novel-material.

Bapsi Sidhwa: Of course, if you don’t engage the emotions. You have to engage emotions. There is a sweetness in the book because there is a sweet little love story, there is a sweet little girl there. That sweetness also comes through I guess.

Tell me how your childhood, your community and how your experiences translated into this book?

As I told you, the earlier part of this book has an autobiographical element. In all my books starting with the Crow Eaters I’ve used my parents in that book, then I have used the same parents in Ice Candy Man and the characters are based on my real parents. Of course I have taken liberties with them. I’ve made them go through all kinds of antics and all kinds of situations. They become my own individual characters because of that. People like Godmother, Slave Sister, Dr. Baroocha, that part of the Parsee milieu are real people and they are an amalgam of real people. I have again mixed fact and fiction in creating their characters.

I do feel as a writer, I like to base characters on people I know well. Now, for example Ayah, Ice Candy Man, Cousin: a lot of these characters are not based on people I know. They are probably born out of my subconscious knowledge of certain people, of memories. You know it has to be that way. Nothing is just created out of the blue. That is how it goes I guess.

But with certain incidents like my illness in childhood, my having polio. All those things I felt were great help to the novel. This gave this child a chance to be around adults, to be around servants. To overhear adult conversation. Now this is a writerly ploy. This doesn’t happen in real life.

I was a lonesome child. I was alone most of the time, but I was not hearing political discourse from the servants or from the adults. But this is a ploy I have used in the novel. I mix fact and fiction. You use certain incidents of your life to embroider your story around.

Aisha Sarwari: Before I ask you to read a certain part of the novel I just want you to briefly talk about the Parsee community. How did the Parsee community maintain its neutrality at a time such as the partition in 1947?

Bapsi Sidhwa: It’s not a question of neutrality. The Parsees are such a tiny community, there are about a hundred and twenty thousand in the whole world. They won’t even fit in a little pocket of Huston. There is no question of neutrality. They always adopt.

You know the Parsees have no land, no country of their own, so they adopt to whatever country they belong to. The customs of that country. Its so important that we belong to a piece of land, that we have loyalty to a piece of land, that the adoptive country becomes our home and our country in which all our emotions are invested.

So there is no question of taking sides. The Pakistani Parsees are adamantly gong ho Pakistani and the Indian Parsees are gung ho Indian. And that remains so. No one can remain that neutral. Though Parsees do consider themselves Parsees first and that sort of thing.

Again this is a perception that you see it’s a very united community. From where I sit I see them as a very argumentative and non-stop contentious community. This is a joke amongst us, that if there are three Parsees there are bound to be four arguments because the forth Parsee will be arguing with himself in the mirror. So this perception of unity is there because we are so small. If we were larger we would be fighting like mad with each other too.

Aisha Sarwari: Please read for us a part in Ice Candy Man that talks about Cracking India.

Bapsi Sidhwa: Sure. This is where the girl knows Ice Candy Man as Ice Candy Man. She doesn’t even know his name or Ayah’s. And suddenly she discovers that people not only have names but they also have religions. Here is a passage which I think is very crucial to the book.

There is much disturbing talk. India is going to be broken. Can one break a country? And what happens if they break it where our house is? Or crack it further up on Warris Road? How will I ever get to Godmother`s then?

I ask Cousin.

``Rubbish,`` he says, ``no one`s going to break India. It`s not made of glass!``

I ask Ayah.

``They`ll dig a canal...`` she ventures. ``This side for Hindustan and this side for Pakistan. If they want two countries, that`s what they`ll have to do -- crack India with a long, long canal.``

Gandhi, Jinnah, Tara Singh, Mountbatten are names I hear.

And I become aware of religious differences.

It is sudden. One day everybody is themselves -- and the next day they are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian. People shrink, dwindling into symbols. Ayah is no longer just my all-encompassing Ayah -- she is also a token. A Hindu. Carried away by a renewed devotional fervour she expends a small fortune in joss-sticks, flowers and sweets on the gods and goddesses in the temples.

Imam Deen and Yousuf, turning into religious zealots, warned mother they will take Friday afternoons off for the jummah prayers.



I think that’s about enough.

Aisha Sarwari: Thank you. Lets talk about Amercian Brat. In an essence, it is about a girl form Lahore who comes to America and falls in love with a Jewish guy. But there is more to it obviously. What do you most like about the characters and the plots and what do you want the readers to walk away with?

Bapsi Sidhwa: In American Brat, my landscape has changed, so now what is closest to me is American landscape and what is happening around me not only about the Diaspora but about the young people and the friends they make. This was a semi-conscious effort. Before I wrote the American Brat. Not a lot had been written by the Indians about fiction in America. The little that had come out was about Indians about India or about only Indians in America. So you could just transpose the story and put it anywhere.

I also wanted to write about American characters and about the interaction with American characters. And show America through the eyes of someone who is a new person in America. And in that way sort of reflect America to the Americans. To respect the Pakistani perspective. And also show, a young person who has moved to America and the problems of adjustment that are made. Basically it’s about adjusting to a new country and the perception of the country, of yourself and the world around you changing because of the changed geographical and cultural landscape.

Aisha Sarwari: If I am not mistaken, you actually do mention, there is a lot of politics frozen at that time because you mention Bhutto and you talk about the processes that were going on back home.

Bapsi Sidhwa: I think every novel must be written in the context of a certain time and time is defined by Politics and by History. So in all my work, I will have a political background. I will not write in a void. I know a lot of people do, and that I cannot do. Because I do think it’s important to fix a story in a certain span of time.

In the Crow Eaters, The framework is far before Partition. The time period is long before even I was even born. Whereas in American Brat it is contemporary. Or comparatively, because it is in the eighties. So it deals with that time frame. And that is why it was extremely important for Pakistan. What happened to Bhutto. This man who was such an icon in a way, so popular and turned out to be a demagogue. you know he is a complex man. After he was hanged the country was put through another siege and consequently the Hudood ordinance. These are parts of what I do need to mention. Because the girl belongs to Pakistan. She does not just come out of the air. She has certain influences shaping her life and her way of thinking. This is what has made her what she is and she brings this baggage to America.

You know, it’s so different how an American reads this book and how a Pakistani reads this book. The young people who read it in America tend to only see what is happening in America, and seem to gloss over what happens in Pakistan. or read not so acutely the passages that are written about Pakistan. I find that Pakistanis tend to read the book much more consciously, Indians, Pakistanis both.

Aisha Sarwari: After September 11th happened, we experienced a change in everything. how did it change you?

Bapsi Sidhwa: It made me more cynical, I should think. It made me believe things that I would hate to believe, such as ‘might is right’, and that ‘politics is very very hypocritical’ and ‘greed is very very cruel’ people will do anything, kill any number of people to satisfy their lust for power, their lust for oil, their lust for money, their lust for revenge. All these things I figured in such a big way, and of course it disillusioned me with American democracy. It seems that it is not as much a democracy as it is a sort of an organization held together by those who can lobby most, pay the most money to lobby. So these things are quiet different form my initial perceptions.

September 11th has changed my perceptions that way. of course you know whatever has happens in India and Pakistan reverberate for me very strongly. And what ever happened in Afghanistan is so close to home, you know. I have been to Afghanistan several times and I was horrified, and am still horrified with what took place there. And I have written a lot about it. Of course it changes our perceptions.

Aisha Sarwari: What do you miss most about Pakistan since you have come here to the US?

Bapsi Sidhwa: I miss, I don’t know why, the simplicity of the people. The innocence of the people. In spite of us being corrupt, gundas, this, that, we are never cynical, we are very credulous. That is a trait I find more and more enduring, the more I roam in other parts of the world.

Even in America there is the common person’s innocence, one can’t really generalize. I miss my friends sometimes, a certain aspect of life, yet, I will not be happy living there again. Because I have become used to certain freedoms which I have here which I would not have in Pakistan. So it’s a compromise all the way.

Aisha Sarwari: I want to thank you for your time. Is there any message that you’d like to give again?

Bapsi Sidhwa: The only message I have considering today’s word is one should bend over backwards to make friends, to be tolerant of each other’s ways and to do whatever one can to prevent war and bloodshed.

Peace in South Asia PM,

As always I agree with you on the status of FSC. One has to keep in mind that this did not come into being through Popular will but at the whim of a dictator aka Zia. However this morning I was really excited to read this verdict... because if you look closely it practically does away with the Hudood Ordinance in the name of Islam itself...

After all if you apply the law of evidence required for adultery ... almost all `adulterers` will go scot free, except ofcourse those who are stupid enough fornicate infront of 4 `pious Muslims`... That kind of leaves orgies out in the open too, because those involved in orgies would not qualify as `Pious Muslims` anyway... and even if they did, they would risk a counter-suit... so all in all this decision by our brilliant federal shariat court has paved the way for the `Sexual revolution` in Pakistan :).

Maybe Rafay Alam, our Chowk Barrister, will like to comment.

-YLH

Peace in South Asia More on the Federal Shariat Court`s `Landmark decision`

Disclaimer: As a secularist I am opposed to any parallel legal systems, and therefore I believe in the supremacy of secular law.

However If someone is confused by my last post... here is what I was referring to:

http://www.dawn.com/2002/08/20/top9.htm

`The FSC, established during the period of Gen Ziaul Haq, quoted two Ahadees of the holy Prophet whose English translation is as under:

a) ``Avoid enforcing Hudood as much as you can.``

b) ``Keep Hudood away from Muslims as much as possible. If there is any way to spare people from punishment let them go. For it is much better that an Imam (judge) should) err in acquitting someone rather than he should err in punishing someone (who is not guilty)`` - Tirmidhi.`

and

`The court stated that some misinformed or disinformed individuals, while looking at the severity and gravity of some of the punishments, raised objections. ``Such individuals fail to appreciate the strict standard of evidence required to prove the offences,`` the court observed. `

As a secularist I would rather have our jurists appealing to Reason instead of religion... but my point is that the abovementioned does away with the Hudood Ordinance in practical terms.

-YLH

Peace in South Asia Urstruly,

Growing up in an extremely Pro-PPP and staunchly anti-Zia household, I was repeatedly told that Zia never visited Jinnah`s Mausoleum. The reason that my father offered was that Zia belonged to a family which was very involved in the fanatical Majlis e Ahrar which denounced Mohammed Ali Jinnah as the greatest infidel. Maybe you are right about your claim (please share the dates)...

However I read the following article on the Independence Day by Hafiz ur Rahman who had participated in Jinnah`s funeral back in 1947

http://www.dawn.com/2002/08/14/op.htm#4

``One can now understand why General Ziaul Haq did not offer fateha at his mazar during any visit to Karachi. Maybe he tried to imagine how the ultra democrat in Mr Jinnah would receive the homage of a military dictator and that kept him away.``

-YLH

Peace in South Asia Ladies and gentlemen,

Some of my statements have been misconstrued... when I spoke of free-thinking, I was not very clear. It is true that we have our fair share... After all Faiz Ahmed Faiz was a Pakistani, and the first editor of Pakistan Times a newspaper founded by the Muslim League`s Socialist bloc led by Mian Iftikhar ud din in Feb 1947.

Then there have been such great writers as Pitras, Najam Sethi, and Ardeshir Cowasjee who have spoken their mind time and again... We have Asma Jahangir as pointed out by Nasah, and rsaxena seems to hold the opinion that she is an even greater an activist than Arundhati which might be true. Sac mentioned Tariq Ali... there are many others in Pakistan...

What I meant and I am sorry about not being very clear was that when Najam Sethi spoke out against the horrible Nawaz Sharif Government, he was charged with sedition and speaking against the ideology of Pakistan (whatever that may be). This will not happen in India. An Indian can come to Pakistan, an enemy country, and speak his mind against India and yet go back without anyone starting up a court case against him. This is what I meant by free thinking.

I am sorry if I hurt someone.

aNny (Sorry I misplaced the capital N),

The details of the seminar can be found else where... this was not supposed to be a write up of the event... I am sorry if I misled you. My intention was to show what I got of it and not what the conference was about.

I don`t believe in `write ups` on conferences you see... I am not a journalist.

As far as my `maturity` is concerned, I have explained before that as an Expatriate it was my duty to defend Pakistan as vehemently as possible and in the future when I will visit any foreign country, you will see the passionate supposedly ultra-nationalist YLH born again. That ultra-nationalism is misplaced in an environment where I don`t need to defend Pakistan, so you can see that my priorities have changed...

Shankar

thankyou for the post and kind words. Please read the paragraph above.

Sarwari

Please read the last paragraph of my response to aNny.



Harimau, Shammi,

Won`t it be better if we didn`t seek confrontation for the sake of confrontation...

It is true that Jinnah felt `Hindustan + Pakistan` = India. However he referred to India as `Dominion of India` after the matter was settled. The subject was controversial because of the location of river Indus. Hindustan`s historical origins can be questioned... however it might also kept in mind that the usage of the word Hindustan didn`t necessarily mean the `Land of the Hindus` as the word might indicate, just like Pakistan is not the `Land of Paks`. Instead the word used was `Hindustani` or `Pakistani`... (An interesting twist to this is that all immigrants from South Asia to the US were supposed to fill in `Hindu` in the Census forms uptil the 1960s, and the Arabs still call all Muslims from India and even Pakistan `Hindi Muslims`)...

As the famous Raj Kapoor Song goes:

`Mera Joota Hai Japani`

`Mera Kot Inglistani`

`Sir peh Lal topi Roosi`

`Phir Bhee Dil Hai Hindustani`

Now are you telling me that too was a reference to Mughals? or are movies like those also the expression of a private citizen like Nirmala Deshpande? The point is that you are trying to create mountain out of a mole hill ... I have covered a lot of distance to reach out to you... the least you can do is show some magnanimity and apologize for attributing malicious intent to me.

Whatever we Pakistanis do, we are evil.. that seems to be your point of view collectively as Indians .. when Prem Bodagala (aka Kabuliwallah) came to Pakistan 2 years ago, he was upset at the PTV for using `Bharat` in Urdu Bulletins ... PTV uses India in the English Bulletin. When I asked him for a suitable Urdu name for India ... he immediately said `Hindustan`. Please don`t make me regret anything by persisting with your stubborn and baseless allegations.

Ras, rsidhar, maharana, and others

Thankyou for your positive feedback.

dostmittar,

What I have in common with Arundhati Roy is:

1) Desire for peace

2) Opposition to Nukes

3) Pro-Democracy

4) Pro-Human Rights

and ofcourse our passion for our own respective convictions... perhaps more than that I admire Arundhati for I can agree to disagree with someone like her, and still admire her.

Omar R Qureshi,

Are you the same Omar R Qureshi who writes in `The Review`... I loved your diatribe against the Hijab.

-YLH

Happy 56th Anniversary, Pakistan and India

`multi religious and indeed multi-religious`

should read:

`multi-religious and indeed multi-national`

Reference is to a devolved and confederal South Asia which was the ultimate aim of the Pakistan Movement...

Peace in South Asia PS to Anil I meant `thankyou for your kind post`.

Sameerjb,

Somebody (Indian) from the panel at the Lahore lecture said in jest ofcourse : `Maybe South India should secede and become its own country`.

You are right ofcourse... Arundhati said in her speech:

`The cultural journey I took from Kerala to Dehli was far greater than the journey I took from Dehli to Lahore`.

PM,

I think you can name my recent articles `Sobering up phase`. Actually that is exactly what it is.. When one is an expatriate far away from one`s country, one is hypersensitive about everything said about it... When one is there at home (Pakistan for me) the sense of security allows one to be more openly reflective of one`s own mistakes and the mistakes of one`s nation.

The greatest nation and the greatest individual for that matter is one which constantly reflects on its mistakes and improves. Pakistan has too many to learn from ... but if we do, we will become `one of the greatest nations on earth whose ideal is peace within and peace without`....

Urstruly,

You are very right about losing credibility. The same thing I fear happened to Najam Sethi, who is a true patriot of Pakistan.

-YLH

Peace in South Asia Anil,

Thankyou for your kind email.

I don`t think it is so much as my personal maturity but the fact that the environment has changed... I am no longer an International student from Pakistan anxious to explain his identity, his country and his people to Non-Pakistanis (and Pakistanis alike).

Today I am in Pakistan and my thoughts are reflective of the security I have because of being here.

Hobbes,

Thanks for the sentiments. I agree with you about the extent of influence people like Arundhati have in India. However, I believe in appreciating whatever good where ever.

Shammi and Veeresh,

Shammi Thanks for SA Tribune site. As for the Dams, if they are well planned they can be a positive thing... after all the hoo haa the obscurantists have made about the Kalabagh Dam, I personally have come to a point where I am suspicious of everyone out there looking for a movement... however Arundhati has much to offer other than that...



By the way Shammi I am still waiting for a reply to my post to you on the other board. A few days ago the famous peace activist and gandhian Kumari Nirmala Deshpande visited Pakistan (I think she spoke at the Islamabad event of Arundhati`s).. Deshpande`s interviews were on PTV, Indus News, and Indus TV... She referred to India as `Hindustan`. Many Indian Movies call India `Hindustan`(including block busters such as ddlj, khuda gawah, mughal-e-azam) the famous Indian national song by Allama Iqbal is `Saray jahan say acha hai Hindustan hamara`...

So why did you write such a sanctimonious and bitter post to me on the other board? or is it that God speaks to you as to exactly what I (or for that matter Jinnah on 7th August 1947) meant?

Don`t you think an apology is in order?

-YLH

Happy 56th Anniversary, Pakistan and India

Dear Mateen,

I am glad that you and I are in agreement and I agree with the part about national self esteem etc. That is why I am so adamant in maintaining my Pakistani identity.

However as far as the creation of Pakistan is concerned, I subscribe to the view that Ayesha Jalal takes which is that the ultimate objective of the Pakistan Movement was the creation of a Confederal, and Devolved South Asia/India which would be multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious and indeed multi-religious. Pakistan would have been a part of such an arrangement.

However a fully sovereign and truncated Pakistan was the result of the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan. So now that Pakistan has come into being, it would make more sense to atleast apply the same formula on a smaller level within Pakistan. This perhaps best explains the apparent contradiction in Jinnah`s pre-Independence and post Independence stances.

Hope that helps...

Pakwolf Bhaijaan,

How are you? Thanks for finally acknowledging that you actually know me. I am in Lahore... Why don`t you drop me an email.

pakistanigreywolf@hotmail.com

Fawad bhai,

I agree with you mostly.

Others,

Thanks for reading this ... I will now be responding on the other article that I wrote.

:)

Yasser

Happy 56th Anniversary, Pakistan and India semipreciousme,

So you were there? Wow! I loved Shekhar Gupta`s frank and candid speech... and also Najam Sethi`s... I also liked the mission statement of the Daily Times that the moderator read out.. you know the whole thing about making a liberal freethinking Pakistan of the founding father`s dreams... I finally realized that the people around me were people I could belong to... As for Assef Ahmed Ali.. he didn`t deserve to be up there... his presence was an insult to our guests from India and ofcourse that great `citizen of the world` and the `lioness of literature`.

I might not agree with all that Arundhati Roy says, and you probably can guess what the points of difference are, but she and I stand for the same ultimate result, Peace and Democratization in our respective countries and in South Asia.

tafaheim,

I`ll give you a short answer:

I came back to Pakistan, because I discovered the dream the founders of our country had dreamt there so far away from home. That dream of an egalitarian and successful Pakistan at peace within and at peace without... a Pakistan which would be a bridge between civilizations, a Pakistan which would be the celebrated part of Human diversity, a foward looking progressive Pakistan....

In you I have discovered the bigot who is hell bent on sabotaging the dream that Pakistan was... People like you are a black spot, a dhabba on our name... Pakistan doesn`t need fanatics like you. Pakistan needs young men and women of vision who can build up the country as a bulwark of peace and freedom.

-YLH

Happy 56th Anniversary, Pakistan and India tahmed321,

``As long as we progress in Pakistan as a win-win situation for our neighbors and for the world at large, then clearly there is no conflict.``

Precisely why I believe striving for equality, fraternity, justice, freedom, democracy and all other such things mentioned in that famous address of the man I seem obsessed with will be a win win situation for both Pakistan and its neighbors... My world view is very simple: I think we live in the age of globalization... where world is one, unitary, despite all the different governments and the states... the states are merely devolved authorities working towards a collective good, accountable no doubt for their own people...



To further explain my own emotional attachment: I love Pakistan, I will not hide this. I love it because I was born here, I spent my childhood here, I have seen captivating beauty in its people and their hospitality, I have seen their courage, and resillience in face of adversity, I have seen Imran Khan lift the 1992 world cup after being practically knocked out of the tournament...

Keeping with your post... Do I have a view on History? I don`t know.. I think I know the facts... I think a confederal and devolved South Asia would have been a better solution... I think if there was to be a Pakistan to change the balance out the majority-minority ratios, it should have made on a cry other than that of the Two Nation Theory... perhaps the cry could have been simply the federation of Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP which would then eliminate the entire argument of religious divisions and then Punjab wouldn`t have to be partitioned... but whatever the case, I believe Pakistan is a brilliant idea... it has the potential, the size, the composition, and human resource to become one of most successful and forward-looking states in the world... only and only if it dumps the excess baggage: The allegely `Islamic` ideology...

-YLH

Happy 56th Anniversary, Pakistan and India

People I have just come back from Arundhati Roy`s lecture, and will write about it in detail.

tahmed,

Who knows... You and I might agree on even more than what my public stances permit me to admit... Thanks for your response. Perhaps we can pick and choose from our inspiration... like the virtues you mention moral courage, integrity, respect for law, firm character and honesty might as well be the pages we would wanna take out of the Jinnah book as well as perhaps that famous speech which I quote too often for the liking of the philistines (mullahs) here in Pakistan...

Jinnah or Ataturk are just as dead as Muhammad, Buddha, Jesus or Gandhi. The challenges of the future will be faced by their followers in their own personal capacities... and there too I believe you will agree with me. The nation-state is not important... I don`t know what this word `nation` means... what is important however is contract between the state and its citizens... to provide law and order, to govern impartially without regard for religion caste or creed etc.. that is sacred and holier than any concept of the nation-state, nationalism or other such nuisances... hence my attachment to that fine speech I talk so often of.

So if anything, I believe in `Pakistani Citizenism` as my key cornerstone ideology... I believe that through the accident of History I was destined to be a Citizen of Pakistan, and God has made it my duty to do whatever I can to make it a better place, a place worthy of our collective humanity...

Sigalph,

You are right ... Jinnah`s vision that he espoused after Pakistan was a reality is at the heart of my desire to reform Pakistan... He is inspiration... perhaps a major part of the reason I came back to Pakistan... However, the way Pakistanis murder him, making a mere idol or a national symbol out of him, attributing to him things he never would have imagined saying, tempts me to actually jump at

Part `c` of tahmed`s eloquent advice in #57...

-YLH

Happy 56th Anniversary, Pakistan and India

I am sorry but I am really pissed off right now at Shammi... he gave me a whole sanctimonious lecture about how `Hindustan` is an insult word for India...

Only a few minutes ago an old gandhian lady belonging to the Congress Party, Kumari Nirmala Deshpande was on PTV`s Encounter programme and she continuously referred to India as `Hindustan`.

Why is it that even I wish to do something positive I am singled out for criticism by people like Shammi? This is what I call baseless allegations...

-YLH

Happy 56th Anniversary, Pakistan and India Sarwari,

Thankyou

Veeresh,

Thanks. `Tilak and Gokhale` is my favorite article out of my own articles as well...

Dear Shankar,

Agreed. Thanks for responding to Jay.

Shammi,

One I don`t ascribe to `Love thy neighbor` policy. My thoughts are very clear on the matter. About the `Hindustan` issue.. Jinnah`s conception of the whole thing was that Pakistan + Hindustan = India ... As an Indian, you can understand why he would want to have it so. Today there is no question that I would say India. Infact when I was writing, I wrote India but then I changed it because I was quoting Jinnah... Today PTV uses India in English and Bharat in Urdu.

So to improve on what Jinnah said:

‘The past must be buried and let us start afresh. I wish India prosperity and peace’

However Hindustan is also one of the many names of India... Hindustan finds mention in the writings of Gandhi, A K Azad, Nehru etc. It was the name under which Mughals ruled India and was the name commonly used... whoever will construe `Hindustan` as an insult, I am sorry to say, is not very well read in history.

Secondly I don`t think all of you agree on the issue. 2 years ago when Prem Bodagala aka Kabuliwallah came to Pakistan, he was upset at PTV`s reference to India as `Bharat`, calling it a sinister Pakistani attempt to make India look bad. So make up your mind ok? Please.

Arjunm,

I apologize if I offended you by daring to create some sort of moral equivalency with the great Indian republic.

sac,

Very true for the most part. However as far as the two nation theory is concerned, I personally don`t think it could be equated with Islamic militancy or militancy done in its name... This is not to suggest that I am a big fan of the theory, which has its strong and weak points, but I don`t believe ideologies can be blamed for those who misuse them.

Nagnatheswar,

Do you think it is possible to create a pre-Islamic nationalist past vis a vis Pakistan? I am very interested in finding out more. Personally I feel Pakistan`s relatively young age can be of tremendous advantage.

Ana, Mateen, Sameerjb, studebaker, nasah, dost mittar, Ras Siddiqui, temporal, rsaxena, tvarad, layman, aamir, Zakk, glen, ashok, and all others who read it:

Thanks for the feedback.

-YLH