With growth of china and rise in technology, I would be very interested in thoughts of people as to how they are all connected to each other.And how do they see the future . over 20-50 yrs, over 50-100 yrs, over 100-150 yrs. what new ideological forces will come to be , etc.
Final word
I just checked brown pundits after a nice night out to see that a comment I had deleted been excerpted. Regardless of any spat we may have or have not had that is a shocking violation of my own words and my right to expression especially after I had removed the comment.
I initially deleted the post but instead decided to let it stand (I tried reading it but frankly the only interesting thing in it was my excerpt).
This will be my last post/comment on Brown Pundits (I’ve deleted my account) since a irreparable line has been crossed.
End of an era for me at least. Persian pride and Pakistani passion have always been my vices.
Freedom leads to freedom, not anything else
Since posts are being deleted, thought this response would be necessary.
Ambedkar himself admired ramanuja , advaita . He said in his annhilation of caste ” no foreign ideology is necessary…” . So, no, he didnt see Hinduism as without hope. As for moral development in India is concerned, Coming of Islam was a big factor in all round under development altogether. There are many more people in Hinduism who stood up on issues of caste and they were allowed to criticise religion in its entirety. Ambedkar was made chairman of constitution by Gandhi and congress whom he criticised a lot. He visited and praised rss in its service as well. One cant say that of Islam. Islam kills its critics. so, no, I dont hold the same degree of hope for thee. As for borg, that is more apt for christianity and islam. It is not Hinduism that seeks converts.
With this in mind consider this.
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girmitsays:
You can convert someone by appealing to their conscience, as christianity or islam do, or you can claim that a people belong to your fold (and they just don’t realize it), as brahminical hindus and their affiliates do, both are strategies to strengthen one’s identity group. The latter isn’t more compassionate. And if shudras criticize the hinduism of brahmins, it is not something that is permitted to them through enlightened reasoning, it is something that no one can do anything about and must endure. Weakness is not tolerance.
In some parts of India we are seeing shudras and others (who have force of numbers and willingness to take personal risk) aligning behind brahmins, and we are now seeing the so-called tolerance to criticize hinduism. Targeted assassination of writers, ransacking history departments, its all happening. Hindu exceptionalism is dangerous, the idea that we are uniquely peaceful and open to a multiplicity of viewpoints, and the Abrahamics are violent logocentric absolutists.
I’m not drawing a complete equivalence between all faith communities, there ARE qualitative differences, but we don’t know the history of dissent in hinduism. The people who used to get flogged for casting a shadow in the wrong direction or drawing from the wrong well, it doesn’t occur to me that their dissenting opinions on theological matters would be well received.”
This person cant seem to recognize, that west made strides of progress because of this very reason.Even if you were to credit this new progress in India due to enlightenment values in west, it would amount to the same idea. As for history of dissent in hinduism, one can count the success of buddhism, ajivika, jainism, atheism in Indian history along with ramanuja, bhakti movement, veera shaivas among others, eventual displacement from India of buddhism, atheism was not due to Hinduism either.
And one is infact thankful and should be thankful that people to a large degree are obeying laws of the land, constitution introduced under chairmanship of Ambedkar, with An atheist like Nehru being the Prime .This happened because Gandhi built the social capital and entrusted it to them. The chap seems to not realize, without this social capital won and entrusted, which is what actually happened, the constitution remains but a piece of paper no one read. A formality. Without this trust if people had taken it upon them to destroy the social contract, massive amounts of damage could have been done . Especially if those people are the elites. So, yes, everyone must be thankful for combined cooperation that keeps the society working.To try to explain this away by calling it “so called tolerance ” is outrightly moronic. It is a form of leftist delusion that has become all to common to see all progress as a product of forcible extraction. There is such a thing as win win deal or one earned through trust. One makes progress by making it so, otherwise, degree of fighting would lead to civil war as it happens in real failed states. People who make the above arguments live under delusion that things could not have been worse. No, they could have and could go south in future as well. One must make sure it doesnt happen so. And be appreciative therefore of progress made and one continues to keep making. The assembly that passed important bill on hindu code bill had many hindus of upper castes origin.
And one must look only across the borders to realize what freedom really means. And one shouldnt make false equivalence even in partial way. And it is indeed right to praise polytheism to be better than monotheism on this issue. As for allowing dissent, it is the only freedom that counts, everything else is product of this one freedom. So, yes polytheism is most certainly more open for allowance of criticism. Infact I would argue that a world without monotheism would have developed far faster. Even the success of the west is under girded on the knowledge and practices of hellenic and roman civilizations.
White presenting, women presenting, person defends Dharmic terminology from white people
Not sure if I would have believed this tweet existed if it didn’t. But it does.
But wait, it gets better! More white presenting people defending the cultural sensitivities of people of the Dharmic persuasion.
Now, I do think it is true that Dharmic religious perspectives tend to be made light of on occasion. For example, Hindus have “mythologies.” As opposed to the presumably real Abrahamic “God of history”?
But I don’t think this is going to help the situation. In fact, these sorts of public posturings are more about the person posturing than about what they are posturing about.
From the entry on Newspeak:
In “The Principles of Newspeak”, the appendix to the novel, George Orwell explains that Newspeak usage follows most of the English grammar, yet is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary; complete thoughts reduced to simple terms of simplistic meaning.
Moneylenders & Indian farmers
I’ve edited a fairly interesting passage about Indian agriculture on sorghum written by my Father in Law, Ramesh Lalchand, in the course of some import-export correspondence (we work together on Raef LLC):
I must inform you that Indian agriculture is extremely fragmented. Unlike the US or Europe, farming in India is carried out by small and medium scale farmers.
Except of course for rice and wheat, which is an entirely different ball game altogether. Rice and Wheat is consumed by the entire Indian population, hence realising the importance of this we had a Green Revolution organised by the then Indian Prime Minister in 1974, Indira Gandhi. From 1974 and for the next 5 years; the focus was on rice and wheat. This Green Revolution was so successful that from a net importer of Rice and Wheat, we are today one of the exporting forces in the world.
Due to the Green Revolution in rice and wheat other agri-products were neglected. Though we are now self sufficent in most agri-commodities; our other cereals and pulses never received the importance they deserved. As a result of this most other commodities, including sugar cane, is produced by small and medium farmers who not only sell to wholesalers but also to the government.
Sorghum in particular is grown in Maharastra state , Karnataka state and Andhara state, which amounts to 70% of the sorghum. The balance 30% is grown in various different parts of the country but not in very large quantities
The grains market are normally organised once a week. All farmers literally bring their produce to a huge playground where brokers, wholesalers and other interested parties attend. They bring it in Bullock carts!!! And some have tractors with a trailer attached but mostly it is Bullock carts.
But in the case of rice and wheat is not traded like this. The growers are given govenment warehouses where the grains are given floor space and then it is sold to the government. The biggest buyer of Rice and Wheat is the FOOD CORPORATION OF INDIA, which is a govenment undertaking. What goes on there is another story. That will be discussed some time later. Let us for now focus on sorghum.
These small farmers bring in as little as one ton to max 10 to 15 tons . And payments are on the spot cash payments only.
The suppliers are the farmers, their forefathers were farmers and so are they in farming too. They only have their past performance of growing sorghum and nothing else.
You must also know that the Indian farmers is born in debt, lives in debt and dies in debt. So even he would have to get concurrence from his money lender. Let us say hypothetically even if we are ready to pay the money lender off, he will refuse to let go. Because of this thousands of farmers commit suicide every year due to the abuse they have to tolerate from money lenders. The government knows that and is desperately trying to rectify this problem . That is why over USD 2 Billion dollars in Indian currency loaned to the farmers by the Indian government is written off year after year as bad loans.
India got its independence in the year 1947 . At that time our food grain imports was the biggest bill on our heads in spite of the fact our population was much much smaller then. Today with 1.2 Billion people to feed we export food and food related products including seafood to the tune of 60 billion dollars !!!!!!
China on the other hand with a population of 1.5 billion has a much smaller export of food grains but a very large import bill on its head.
The Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case
(Originally published in The Friday Times)
History is an ensemble of memorable events and it is the job of historians to unweave the mystery of those events. Some historical events can be classified as outliers or turning points, altering the course of history. In Pakistan’s context, the first decade after partition held important pointers for things to come. One of the more significant events taking place soon after partition was the scramble for Kashmir. From the embers of the first Kashmir war arose the roots of a conspiracy to overthrow the incumbent civilian government. The conspiracy, known as the ‘Rawalpindi Conspiracy’ was hatched by military officials, all of whom had taken active part in the war for Kashmir. It was one of the first attempts in Pakistan’s history, by members of the armed forces, to stage a coup d’état. It can be argued that seeds of discontent (with civilian rule) among the military were sown during this conspiracy.
The conspiracy and principal actors involved in it have received scant attention during the last few decades. Hassan Zaheer, a retired civil servant, has written an excellent book detailing the conspiracy and its background. What distinguishes the book, titled ‘The Times and Trial of The Rawalpindi Conspiracy 1951’, is the attention to detail by the author who narrates the contemporary history of Kashmir in great detail, providing a platform for the reader to understand subsequent actions after partition.
The Muslim-majority princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh, a Hindu Dogra Rajput. The Muslim population was not comfortable with Maharaja Hari Singh’s regime and its repressive policies. In July 1931, a commotion erupted in the Kashmir valley when Abdul Qadeer, employee of a British Officer visiting Kashmir, delivered an inflammatory speech about the sacrilege of mosques and restrictions on performance of religious rituals by the Dogra administration. In the agitation that followed Qadeer’s arrest and trial, one policeman and twenty-two demonstrators were killed. Srinagar city was placed under martial law and the agitation was suppressed brutally.
The All-India Kashmir Committee was formed in June 1933 by concerned Indian Muslims to highlight the plight of their Kashmiri brethren. The British government had to take note of the situation and the Maharaja appointed an official commission of Inquiry. The commission recommended granting a constitution to the State and safeguarding civil liberties. In the aftermath of the Qadeer agitation, two young leaders emerged to take over the leadership of popular protests.
Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas from Jammu and Sheikh Abdullah from Kashmir joined hands to organize people and in October 1932, the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference was established. Sheikh Abdullah had become the undisputed leader of the vale, but had no influence in Jammu while Ghulam Abbas’s leadership was confined to the Muslims of Jammu. In a few years, Abdullah gained power in the ranks of the Muslim Conference and changed its name to All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference to bring Hindus into the party’s fold, as advised by his idol, Pandit Nehru. Ghulam Abbas formed another party named Muslim Conference, with exclusive membership for Muslims.
In May 1944, Mr. Jinnah visited Kashmir in order to bring about a compromise between the National Conference and the Muslim Conference. In June 1944, after failure of the talks, addressing its annual session, Jinnah fully supported the Muslim Conference as the representative body of the Muslims of the State and criticized the National Conference for having opened its doors to non-Muslims.
The future of India after withdrawal was to be decided by the Cabinet Mission that arrived in 1946. The Mission presented a memorandum regarding the fate of more than 500 Princely states in India. The 3rd June Plan reaffirmed the plan discussed in the memorandum. It stipulated that states had to join either India or Pakistan after partition, there was no option of Independence. In the run-up to the partition, All India Congress took an active interest in Kashmir and wooed the Maharaja, forcing him to change his pro-Pakistan Prime Minister at one point.
All India Muslim League had a policy of non-intervention in matters of Princely States, summarized in a letter written by a Muslim Conference leader from Jail. M. Shaukat Ali wrote, “What we are surprised about is the complete indifference and nonchalant attitude of the League vis-à-vis Kashmir. Nothing should prevent the League from taking an active and positive interest in our affairs. Why can’t the League send two top ranking members, like Nishtar and Daultana, to pay a visit to Jammu?” During the same period, Patel and other Congress Leaders were cultivating high level contacts with State authorities, whereas the Muslim league had no communication with any of them.
On the eve of partition, the Maharaja tried to impose a wide range of oppressive taxes on the Muslims of Poonch. It was a Muslim-majority area and many veterans of Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) hailed from this district. The refusal to pay these new taxes by villagers and landlords in June began to take the shape of a guerrilla movement, a command structure, and a network of communication between the villages and communities. In the last week of August 1947, a series of public meetings were organized by Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan and other local leaders in Bagh Tehsil of Poonch district. From the meeting at Neelabutt on 23rd August, an armed revolt against the state was launched. By the second week of September, the armed revolt had spread to whole of Poonch, as well as to the adjacent regions of Mirpur and Bhimber. Volunteers and tribesmen from Punjab and NWFP joined their kinsmen in the fighting that was going on in the Poonch areas. Most of the Muslim Conference’s top brass had managed to land themselves in jail because of a costly error of judgment. In the immediate post-independence days, the Muslim Conference failed to mobilize people and demonstrate their strength in favor of Pakistan.
An ‘Azad’ force comprising of tribesmen from FATA and Balochistan, under the command of veteran soldiers, was sent to Kashmir by the ruling government. Due to lack of discipline and training, the irregular force failed to advance upon Srinagar, having reached within a few miles of the State capital. Fearing the approaching tribals, Maharaja Hari Singh signed a document of accession to India, resulting in an influx of the Indian army to Kashmir. Mr. Jinnah ordered General Douglas Gracey (C-in-C, Pakistan Army) to move troops immediately ‘to seize the pass on Rawalpindi-Srinagar Road, and then to proceed through Srinagar, occupy Banihal Pass on the road to Jammu, isolating Srinagar and nullifying Indian intervention’. Mr. Jinnah was convinced by General Auchinlek to reconsider his orders and resolve this matter by talking to Nehru and Mountbatten. Failure of talks led to open confrontation between India and Pakistan. Brigadier Akbar Khan, a distinguished member of the British Army, had been appointed Director of Weapons and Equipment Directorate at the General Headquarters (GHQ) after Partition. He played an active role in providing arms to ‘Azad’ forces and returned to Kashmir during the first Indo-Pakistan war, which ended in a stalemate due to UN intervention. He was openly critical of the way the whole Kashmir operation was conducted. Akbar Khan’s Wife, Nasim Akbar, was inspired by communism and distributed communist literature among officers visiting their residence. The couple used to argue that ‘After the death of Quaid-i-Azam, there was no leader of his caliber to run the state, and that civil servants and police were corrupt. The people were not fully ready for a democratic state, but they had great faith in the army and there was no reason why it should not take over the government to run it honestly and efficiently’. Akbar Khan laid the blame of ‘failure’ in Kashmir squarely upon the civilian government.
During 1949, the initial planning of a coup was finalized and it was decided to arrest the Prime Minister (Liaquat Ali Khan) while he was visiting Peshawar in December 1949. Akbar Khan’s unit was based in Kohat and his co-conspirators included Major General Nazir, Bridagier Habibullah, Brigadier Latif Khan, Brigadier Sadiq Khan and Lt.Colonel Siddique Raja. It was planned that Governor General would be arrested in Lahore while the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Chief of Staff, All British Generals and Adjutant General would be arrested from Rawalpindi. All Divisional Commanders were to be summoned to GHQ, relieved of their duties and arrested. Akbar Khan gave three reasons for military action, including the economic plight of the country, weakness of government during the Kashmir issue and incompetence of government in internal and external affairs. The Prime Minister was to be forced to announce his resignation and a military council was supposed to take over the reins of power.
Due to the unavailability of one of the conspirators, the plan didn’t materialize in 1949 and was postponed. In February 1951, the plan was revised and help was sought from members of the nascent Communist Party of Pakistan. The conspirators were arrested before they could seize power and the event was perhaps one of the first attempts to undermine the civilian government. It was, unfortunately, not to be the last one.
I recently recorded a podcast on this topic, which can be heard here:
https://patari.pk/home/song/Understanding-Pakistan-Episode-2-The-Rawalpindi-Consiracy-Case-Ft-Abdul-Majeed-Abid
Kashmiri man weds Dalit woman
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/remember-tina-dabi-the-2015-ias-topper-she-married-atha-aamir-khan-2nd-rank-holder-from-kashmir-1834585?fb
She topped the civil service exam and he came number 2.
The untouchables strike back..
The trend is Indian is Hindu girls & Muslim boys and also for boys to marry upward in the class/caste hierarchy.
Arabic and Koran lessons after school in Sri Lanka
This was a comment I made on a post in an online news paper. Probably caters to less than 5% of Sri Lanka.
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In the village I live (North West Province of SL), the young Muslim male children spend two hours after school at the Mosque learning Arabic and the Koran. Apparently funded by the Mid East.
No Science, Math or English. They can barely speak Sinhalese.
I dread to think what opportunities these children will have when they are adults.
A century or more ago, the English/American Christian Missionary Schools were similar. Missionary Schools pushed Christianity, while at the same time an education in Science and Math. Literature and History was limited to Europe, as an agenda.
There is one large difference between the students of the Christian Missionary Schools and the village students attending Islamic studies. That is class and economic status.
The Missionary School graduates were assured of senior administrative positions in govt or able to enter into professions such as Lawyers, Engineers, Doctors and Surveyors.
What is going to happen to the children in this Village. No science and math skills, not fluent in English or Sinhalese. What is their future?
To be done: Translate into Tamil and hand out in Village.
Early Indian Islamists (An Overview)
Part 1
Islamism or Political Islam are ideas that emerged in the early twentieth century and were formulated in different parts of the world mainly in response to fall of the Ottoman Caliphate. Two major figures that contributed to this debate immensely were Syed Qutb from Egypt and Abul Ala Maududi from India. The practical expression of this ideology came to fore in the later part of twentieth century and at the start of the twenty first. Browsing through the archives of history, one encounters figures that have been all but forgotten for the roles they played in the grand scheme of things. One such character that needs to be resurrected or at least identified for his role in popularising Islamism is that of Raja of Mahmudabad.
Amir Ahmad Khan (his given name) was a prominent landlord from United Provinces (U.P.). He received education from Lucknow and later from England. He was the youngest member of the Central Working Committee of All India Muslim League and its National Treasurer. He was the chief organizer of the Muslim League National Guard (till 1944) and the chief patron of the All India Muslim Students Federation (AIMSF) formed by Muslim students till August 1946. Despite his aristocratic background, he cultivated an austere personal style. He habitually wore khaddar, was known for his generosity towards his tenants, and his piety as a practicing Shia.
He was ultimately sold on the idea of Pakistan, but he chose to see the future state in a different light than Mr. Jinnah. He claimed that the Lahore resolution possessed global—and not just regional—significance. He exclaimed in a speech that it had been passed not just for Muslims in India but for Muslims in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan and indeed the whole Islamic world. He held half-baked ideas about democracy and an ‘Islamic political system’ which he articulated in the following words: “When we speak of democracy in Islam it is not democracy in the government but in the cultural and social aspects of life. Islam is totalitarian — there is no denying about it. It is the Quran that we should turn to. It is the dictatorship of the Quranic laws that we want — and that we will have — but not through non-violence and Gandhian truth”.
He outlined some features of ‘Pakistan’ as he envisioned it in his Presidential address to Bombay Muslim League in May 1940: “There will be prohibition, absolute and rigorous, with no chance for its ever being withdrawn. Usury will be banished. Zakat will be levied. Why should not we be all allowed to make this experiment? In treading this path, we will not be crossing the path of any right-minded individual”.
Among contemporary ideologies, he found socialism to be compatible with Islam by and claimed that socialism was first inaugurated by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Arabia long before it came into existence in Russia under the Bolsheviks. To the Raja, socialism just like Islam was based on a new vision of the world where there would be no discrimination based on colour, class, sect, region, or language. Before the Peoples’ Party of Zulfikar Bhutto appropriated the slogan of ‘Islamic Socialism’, Raja of Mahmudabad (and even Liaqat Ali Khan) had blown this trumpet.
Mr. Jinnah was not in favour of an overt theocracy at any time in his career and was irked by the frequent outbursts of Raja of Mahmudabad. An anecdote from Isha’at Habibullah’s unpublished autobiography demonstrates this attitude perfectly: “The Raja started the conversation by saying that since the Lahore resolution had been passed earlier that year, if and when Pakistan was formed, it was undoubtedly to be an Islamic State with the Sunna and Sharia as its bedrock. The Quaid’s face went red and he turned to ask Raja whether he had taken leave of his senses?
Mr. Jinnah added: Did you realize that there are over seventy sects and differences of opinion regarding the Islamic faith, and if what the Raja was suggesting was to be followed, the consequences would be a struggle of religious opinion from the very inception of the State leading to its very dissolution. Mr. Jinnah banged his hands on the table and said: We shall not be an Islamic State but a Liberal Democratic Muslim State.”
Major differences between Mr. Jinnah and Raja of Mahmudabad developed in 1946, due to the Raja’s espousal of violence in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and his opposition to the Third June Plan that laid the way for partition of India. On the eve of the Partition, the Raja was in Hyderabad but refused to visit Karachi for the 14th August Independence ceremony.
He was appalled by the violence that accompanied the Partition and left for Iran with his family soon after India was divided.
They travelled from there to Mashhad, then Tehran and finally to Karbala. The Raja and his family stayed in Iraq for ten years. In 1957, the Raja went to Pakistan and changed his Indian passport for a Pakistani one. He had thought of going into politics but then Pakistan was a different country. He was a Mohajir, a refugee in Pakistan, a Shia in a predominantly Sunni country. The Raja left Pakistan again and travelled to London where he finally settled down and passed away in 1973.
Part 2
Browsing through the archives of history, one encounters figures that have been all but forgotten for the roles they played in the grand scheme of things. One such character that needs to be credited for Islamist tendencies was Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, a political figure from United Provinces (UP).
Early in his political career, he had visited Turkey as part of Red Crescent Society’s medical mission to Turkey led to Dr. M.A. Ansari during the Balkan Wars (1912-13). During the First World War, Ottoman Turkey (ruled by Pashas) decided to side with Kaiser Wilhem’s Germany (part of the Central Powers). Following the defeat of Central Powers, Ottoman Turkey was deprived of its territories and this sparked a furious reaction amongst Muslims in India. A ‘Khilafat Movement’ was led by clerics from India to pressurise the British Government into restoring the Ottoman territories. Khaliq was actively involved in the movement during the early 1920s and led Indian Muslim delegations in the 1930s to international conventions organised to defend Palestinian Arab rights in the face of the Zionist movement and the perceived British attempt to appease world Jewry.
In 1935, British Government introduced the ‘Government of India Act’ which proposed a Federal Structure for running the country under limited Indian rule and elections in provinces. Khaliquzzaman was a member of All India Congress for many years before officially joining All India Muslim League (AIML). He was the Secretary of Muslim Unity Board (MUB) comprising mostly of Muslim politicians with close links to the Congress party, and Ulema belonging to the Jamiatul Ulama-i-Hind. He was involved in a power struggle for leading the Muslim League Parliamentary Board in UP with Raja of Salempur. Before the 1937 Elections, Khaliquzzaman, was parleying with the Congress leadership over ministry making, against Mr. Jinnah’s wishes. He started an Urdu newspaper named Tanveer for propagating pro-AIML’s message.
Speaking at the Pakistan session of the Punjab Muslim Students Federation conference in March 1941, Khaliq said that, “Just as the Prophet had created the first Pakistan in the Arabian Peninsula the ML now wanted to create another Pakistan in a part of India.”
Addressing a gathering in his hometown of Lucknow, he explored the relationship between territorial nationalism and Islam. The Hindus, he noted, saw nationalism as a Hindu Goddess (Devi) that needed to be worshipped. This practice was abhorrent to a Muslim for even though he loved his nation, he could never worship this Devi and become a slave of nationalism. In May 1942, he stated his Islamist goals in following words, “Pakistan is not the final goal of the Muslims. We want more. Pakistan is only the jumping off ground. The time is not far distant when the Muslim countries will have to stand in line with Pakistan and then only the jumping ground will have reached its fruition.”
Soon after the Lahore Resolution, Nawab Ismail Khan convened a conference of Ulema and prominent Muslim intellectuals to draft a blueprint for an Islamic Constitution that would inaugurate an Islamic state in Pakistan. The first meeting was held at the Nadwatul Ulama, Lucknow and was attended by Ismail Khan, Khaliquzzaman, Syed Sulaiman Nadwi, Azad Subhani and Abdul Majid Daryabadi. He firmly believed that a solution to the communal problem can be found by use of force. At a public meeting at Fyzabad, he said: “If the Musalmans of India pursue the policy of tooth for tooth, eye for an eye, nail for a nail, no power on earth can dominate them.” On the question of the Muslims in the ‘minority provinces’ such as the U.P., Khaliq subscribed to the ‘Hostage population theory’ which he explained in the following words: “After Pakistan is established, the Hindu majority provinces will think a hundred times before they resort to any tyrannical act. They know the Indian Muslim who can shed his blood for his Muslim brethren of Turkey can also do something to save his Indian Muslim brethren of the minority provinces.”
He was fond of recalling past Muslim victories in the subcontinent for furthering political causes. Before the 1946 Elections to the UP Assembly, Khaliq asked Muslims to win the fourth and fifth battles of Panipat corresponding to the central and provincial assembly elections, by casting their votes in favour of the All India Muslim League. After the elections, Khaliquzzaman joined the Constituent Assembly as the leader of the opposition and pledged his loyalty to the Indian Union (although he resigned and left for Pakistan after Partition. Once in Pakistan, he resumed his Islamist activities. He was a founding member of the ‘Islamic World Brotherhood’ alongside Molana Shabbir Usmani. They convened a ‘World Muslim Conference’ in January 1949. A brochure at the conference titled ‘Muslims of the World Unite’ stated that ‘it was but natural that such an effort is made by Muslims of a country who do not subscribe to the theory that a nation is based on geography or race, but whose country’s very foundation is laid on a theory of religious nationality.’
Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman was appointed the President of Pakistan Muslim League a year after he moved from UP. Khaliq affirmed the World Muslim Conference promoted by Shabbir Usmani, as the first step in the creation of a permanent world organization, which would have branches not only in Muslim countries of the world but also in countries with Muslim minorities. It could soon be extended to become an organization similar to the Organization of American States. Expressing the long term aims of the Conference, he noted that in the context of the failure of the Arab League and Arab racial sentiment, he expected the ‘natural reaction’ of Muslims in Arab countries to work for the creation of a ‘central authority for Muslim States which can protect them against further political and economic inroads of other powerful States.’ He conceived this supervening authority in terms of the ‘Quranic State’, which he believed could be brought about through ‘political associations, social contacts, economic co-operation, and linguistic changes.’ This state would embrace any and all Muslim countries that wished to join and would be structured as ‘a loose federation of autonomous states bound together alike by adherence to the principles of Islam and mutuality of interests.’
His last political appointment was to the Governorship of East Pakistan. He passed away in 1973, two years after East Pakistan seceded. Religion did not play the role of ‘glue’ between the two halves of Pakistan, despite the claims of Islamists from UP.
A Tale of Two countries
It has been 70 years since the Partition of India. The separation was an ugly affair, with both sides holding grievances against each other. After living side by side for more than a thousand years, Hindus and Muslims were declared separate nations by the All India Muslim League which used religion as the primary reason to demand a separate state. When Pakistan came into being, Mr Muhammad Ali Jinnah tried to be inclusive in his August 11th speech at the Constituent Assembly. But his was a lone voice in a chamber full of proto-Islamists. Debates over the Objectives Resolution brought this issue to the fore when all the non-Muslim members of the Assembly voted against it. The Islamic identity that was chosen by the ruling elite, was propped up in opposition to secular India. Pakistan’s attitude towards India has steered its foreign policy and at times, domestic policy, throughout the last seven decades.
Former Pakistani Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani has had a ringside seat to developments in this arena since the late 1980s. His latest book, India vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends, tries to capture this unique relationship by focussing on four key areas: History, Kashmir conflict, Nuclear Bombs, and Terrorism. His analysis is peppered with interesting anecdotes that shed a new light on how politicians from the two countries have interacted over the years. It is also a concise history of different efforts by both countries and the International community (United Nations, the United States, and China) to reach a settlement on bilateral issues, especially the Kashmir dispute. Another book that sheds light on recent milestones in India-Pakistan relationship is Myra Macdonald’s ‘Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War’. Based on her reporting experience in South Asia for more than a decade, MacDonald has penned a magisterial account of events that underpin the current relationship between the two countries.
On Kashmir, Ambassador Haqqani mentions the 1962-63 Indo-Pak talks when India was willing to give up 1500 square kilometres of territory but then Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto stuck to a maximalist position, rejecting the offer out of hand. Both sides have stuck to their guns since then and neither side is willing to consider a middle-of-the-road compromise anymore. Pakistan has tried using non-state actors and direct intervention, worsening its own case. India neglected the Kashmiris — despite Kashmir’s state assembly ratifying the accession of state to India in the 1950s — and tried manipulating election results in 1987, resulting in a full-scale insurgency that was later supported by Pakistan. After 9/11 attacks, when the insurgency in Kashmir died off, India failed to sell its multicultural and liberal democratic dream to the Kashmiris. In a recent interview with Indian Express, former chief of India’s Research & Analysis wing (RAW) A.S. Dulat spoke about the failure of Indian government to try rapprochement with Kashmiri leadership, resulting in the current unrest in the Valley.
I have heard similar anecdotes first-hand from people who had a chance to interact with military top-brass in Pakistan. Pakistan remains the only state among the nuclear-capable countries to publicly say that its nukes exist as a defence against another country (India) but it has not yet stated a ‘No First Use’ policy. Nuclear weapons have thus become an integral part of Pakistani nationalism and identity, according to analyst Feroz Hassan Khan. India started its nuclear programme ostensibly to obtain nuclear energy but changed course after the 1962 Indo-China war. Macdonald has mentioned at least three instances when India was ready to display its nuclear capability (before 1998) but was restrained by International pressure. The spectre of a nuclear war hangs over India and Pakistan and remains the biggest threat to humanity in this region. Unlike Nuclear scientists elsewhere in the world, many of Pakistan’s scientists have gone ‘rogue’ in recent years. These include the megalomaniac Dr AQ Khan indulging in a global nuke trade and others who are known to have visited Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
The year 2016 saw three different events that will define the broader contours of Indo-Pak relations in the 21st century. On Christmas day in 2015, also the birthday of Pakistan’s current prime minister, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made an unexpected visit to Lahore, raising hopes for improvement in relations and opening of a dialogue. Exactly a week after that, terrorists attacked India’s Pathankot airbase. Investigations by Indian authorities revealed a Pakistani connection and Pakistan’s government publicly agreed to cooperate with the investigation. In March 2016, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser called his Indian counterpart and alerted him about a possible attack during the Shivartari celebrations in Gujarat. As a result, security was beefed up and nothing untoward took place. In April of the same year, Pakistan arrested a suspected Indian spy from Balochistan. The arrest was presented as evidence of Indian meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs and ended any hope of a dialogue with India.
In the last few years, India has started treading the path that Pakistan has taken since the beginning: a path of intolerance, jingoistic nationalism and a visceral hatred for secular values. Pakistan’s political class has lately been trying to change course but the immovable force known as the ‘establishment’ stands in the way. Without improvement of relations between the two countries, the future of South Asia is bleak.
Islam comes into it just as british are brought into it to explain harmful effects of colonialism to understand the relative under development. Europe succeeded because of 3 things, science, printing and freedom to criticize, India was the pre eminent place for new math and astronomy, it allowed freedom to criticize, atheists existed in India till the coming of Islam. Ramanuja , was the second greatest theologian in last 1500 yrs possibly and he stood against caste discrimination and so did many others in past 1000 years. Without Islam to worry about, people would have possibly be worried about these issues instead. Atheists existed in India for longer period than entire history of christianity thus far or the entire peak period of greeko roman civilization. To understand the influence of Islam, one only needs to wonder, what would have happened to western civilization had it been occupied, its universities destroyed, oxford and Cambridge being replaced with taj mahal and qutb minar. It was knowledge that changed the west and it would have been knowledge that would have changed India too, and knowledge production under Islam in India was bad.
The extraction under mughals was one of the highest, this point with evidence was already made here before. There seem to be many people out there who seem to fail the most basic test of understanding how progress whether it be in science or moral issues are made.
There is only one rule that leads to progress. Disagreement. Allowing critics to live and voice their opinion . This freedom is of course not absolute anywhere in the world. But is the bedrock of all progress. With this freedom, all other progress can be captured with time, but without this, it isnt sure how much progress can even be made. Freedom leads to freedom, not anything else.