tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56136274497487286952024-03-26T12:06:31.324-07:00Pakistani PatriotsPakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.comBlogger103125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-77503886581589342612024-03-18T04:58:00.000-07:002024-03-18T05:05:16.245-07:00Sir Charles Wilkins: The founder of "Hinduism."<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5SsePa2Fi9VtIun9e1274XUacifP6aZ4FI0IEok8rqHRIT4KSo2xwKw8e9hRcQ2djOJao4akT6GqCHpidc7j2CxIe8V-51UqiCRVWW1FzqJban7F8uW__kHFhXn1B2N_TFyq3K5FnqYcjIn6KW_S2s8MQR5FwXlmkz2XZS1ETX3upKpwUkJ1yleXGrg/s900/The%20founder%20of%20so%20called%20hinduism.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="900" height="703" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5SsePa2Fi9VtIun9e1274XUacifP6aZ4FI0IEok8rqHRIT4KSo2xwKw8e9hRcQ2djOJao4akT6GqCHpidc7j2CxIe8V-51UqiCRVWW1FzqJban7F8uW__kHFhXn1B2N_TFyq3K5FnqYcjIn6KW_S2s8MQR5FwXlmkz2XZS1ETX3upKpwUkJ1yleXGrg/w571-h703/The%20founder%20of%20so%20called%20hinduism.jpg" width="571" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-82231022504649039882023-12-21T12:12:00.000-08:002023-12-21T12:53:28.204-08:00Refutation of anti-Chinese propaganda regarding Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang by the Western and Indian medias<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/skJyIMX5ASI" width="320" youtube-src-id="skJyIMX5ASI"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WjP5Mt4JXm4" width="320" youtube-src-id="WjP5Mt4JXm4"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XaQ2Bq2L76c" width="320" youtube-src-id="XaQ2Bq2L76c"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Wb-MNi8E-TA" width="320" youtube-src-id="Wb-MNi8E-TA"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xh7YDCljCy8" width="320" youtube-src-id="xh7YDCljCy8"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SP5lkFsiG00" width="320" youtube-src-id="SP5lkFsiG00"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/75M6mUl1TXI" width="320" youtube-src-id="75M6mUl1TXI"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/irjtwICEcTw" width="320" youtube-src-id="irjtwICEcTw"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lfzeGMg0Sc4" width="320" youtube-src-id="lfzeGMg0Sc4"></iframe></div><br />Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-17544870105886612712023-08-16T20:42:00.005-07:002023-08-16T20:44:53.519-07:00Is Pakistan the biggest "begger state" as commonly propagated?<p> The purpose of this post is not to insult other countries, but rather question the commonly propagated claims against Pakistan.</p><p><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">IMF
bailouts do not mean that Pakistan always needs them. Efforts are being
made to improve economic stability, attract investment, and implement
long-term structural reforms to reduce the need for repeated bailouts.</span></span></span></p><p><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;">However, other countries have received more foreign aid than Pakistan for multiple decades:</span><span style="background: none; font-style: normal;"> (open link in new tab by right clicking and click to enlrage):</span><span style="background: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-INFoXFdd31iA9rDHZO43RH1TLLhDO4LmTRL9L5pEk3lYqzb686ZLT75tRFI9BgG3t9MY53-Iy4SIra_5C4ln8Af5L8kNVCrjHwwRUcnCUKcQ8ShySypbqZuHq6m5vV_UdBj1sxqfykBgWm4zA94nHEZdJxZVe4UxwWtPJ6vARYbt5vrWvVEkhwxFIw/s8147/which-countries-provide-receive-foreign-aid-6_compressed.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="8147" data-original-width="1667" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-INFoXFdd31iA9rDHZO43RH1TLLhDO4LmTRL9L5pEk3lYqzb686ZLT75tRFI9BgG3t9MY53-Iy4SIra_5C4ln8Af5L8kNVCrjHwwRUcnCUKcQ8ShySypbqZuHq6m5vV_UdBj1sxqfykBgWm4zA94nHEZdJxZVe4UxwWtPJ6vARYbt5vrWvVEkhwxFIw/s320/which-countries-provide-receive-foreign-aid-6_compressed.png" width="65" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPgLsKU79Vb2bkgjy6Lhb6wJT122w2TcM8yP8zr9bfTPXswj7t4heQiW6Ebf_RRiGH8tX3iW4ODLYr6U1sBmM2DlXTK-qxGQEiSv0FrSZ6qiU3mdpE81Cnz7943yoMowSSfThdTRt0n_yy_-lOu3mOdInHRWwfnhKmaPy6O9eT1oRz6zZYibN0L72rJg/s611/Largest%20recepients%20of%20foreign%20aid.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="473" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPgLsKU79Vb2bkgjy6Lhb6wJT122w2TcM8yP8zr9bfTPXswj7t4heQiW6Ebf_RRiGH8tX3iW4ODLYr6U1sBmM2DlXTK-qxGQEiSv0FrSZ6qiU3mdpE81Cnz7943yoMowSSfThdTRt0n_yy_-lOu3mOdInHRWwfnhKmaPy6O9eT1oRz6zZYibN0L72rJg/s320/Largest%20recepients%20of%20foreign%20aid.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-77214367953853229062023-07-25T00:29:00.082-07:002023-07-26T21:51:15.956-07:00We the people of Pakistan, irrespective of religion, are the true Indians<div style="text-align: left;"><h3><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pakistan was created to allow Muslims to live as free citizens without
the fear of being dominated by a resurgent, occasionally hostile, Hindu
majority. However, not feeling secure even in independence, Pakistani
people have driven themselves to a social and historical narrative that
strives to align our genetic origins with our religious roots in the
East.</span> </span></h3></div><p></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In pursuit of
this goal, we have also shed our heritage; the very values and customs
that defined a nation. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Some of these trends to de-link from the
indigenous Indian society started a millennium ago in an atmosphere of
insecurity due to frequent armed incursions from the Western passes. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">After independence, the Pakistani nation should have felt secure enough
to display affinity with this land but then the religious zealots took
us on a confounded and misleading trajectory.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">At the outset, let it be clear that there is no illusion about religion
being an important factor in the lives of people all over the world. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Even in this age of relative atheism, “living together” and secularism
in the liberal Western countries, where people have been estranged from
religion, the church continues to hold a visibly important place in
society.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Irrespective of the level of affinity with religion, births,
deaths and marriages are often solemnized as religious events in the
church by a priest. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Even under the communist regimes, where religion was
officially abolished and legally suppressed for a hundred years, people
continue to find solace in divine convictions.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We in Pakistan have employed religion as a pivot to distance ourselves
from our own land, culture, history and heritage. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">There has been little
realization that in attempting to be what we are not and in rejecting
what we are, we will be lost as a people. Being neither here nor there
implies that we are nowhere. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We have an apt proverb in Lashkari for this
situation that describes a creature as one half partridge and the other
half a quail. That is our true description too.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In trying to move away from being Indians, we have induced ourselves to
be Arabesque or Persianate. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Now, of course, the Arabs, Persians and
especially Turks are our closest social and religious kith and kin, our natural
allies and we feel a natural affinity for them. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">A large section of our
people carries their genes, as well as habits of dress, food, culture
and surnames. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">However, we belong to the South Asian Subcontinent. We are
neither Arabs, nor Turks, nor Persians. Even if we try to be one of
them, we shall become unacceptable intruders and imposters. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Try telling
an Arab that in being a Syed, one is an Arab; or telling a Turk that
one’s surname of Bokhari entitles one to be a Turk; or a Persian that
being a Shirazi by name, one is Persian.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Instead of acceptance, such a
claim can only raise a mocking smirk!</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> One staggering loss in this identity crisis has been a name that has
been appropriated by our Eastern neighbor. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We are children of the
Indus. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Most of the country and its nearly entire grain producing
farmlands are drained by this river and its numerous large and small
tributaries.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> There are three major geographical divisions of the
Subcontinent.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> One of them is the Vindhya Hill ranges that separate North
and South India. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The second is the gentle hump separating the
east-flowing Ganges and its tributaries and the West-flowing Indus and
its tributaries – this distinguishes the modern nations of Pakistan and
Bharat.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Persians called the land Hindush, a Sanskrit equivalent of Sindhu,
which was the historical local reference to the Indus River. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Even the
ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as
“The people of the Indus”. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We, the people of Pakistan were therefore in
error in simply relinquishing the name ‘India’ to our eastern neighbor.
It is our name.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The great Sanskrit poem Mahabharata tells us that Bharat, meaning the
‘Cherished’, was a descendant of the Lunar dynasty and was the ancestor
of Kauravas and Pandavas, two antagonists of that epic battle. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We are
also told that he sacrificed horses on the banks of the Yamuna, the
Saraswati and the Ganges, but none for the Indus. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Bharat, therefore, is
the proper religious, cultural and natural name of a country that
reveres the Mahabharata and the Ganges.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">That the people beyond the Indus were called Indoos or Hindus, who
happened to be of a different religion, is a geographical allusion and
not a religious one. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Nevertheless, we the people of Pakistan,
irrespective of their religion, are the true Indians; the inhabitants of
the land of the Indus. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Of course this cultural loss has now gained
permanence as Bharat and India are the official names of our eastern neighbor but we need to be mindful of our cultural loss in losing our
rightful alternate name.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The second loss is that of historical narrative. This is a great loss
and has multiple dimensions. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Subcontinent was ruled by Sultans of
Turkic and Persian origin for seven hundred years, from the Ghaznavid
raids in or about 1000 AD to Nader Shah’s invasion in 1739 AD. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">These
ruling families, their fellow migrant noble compatriots and their
chroniclers legitimately traced their history to their own lands of
origin. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Unfortunately, this trend, fueled by the religious class, crept
in the psyche of most of the Subcontinent’s Muslims. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">My paternal
grandfather’s great grandfather converted to Islam. He was a migrant
from Kashmir to Amritsar. My family had lived in the valley for
centuries since the Aryan irruption from Central Asia. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">How do I shun or
escape this history and at what point do I cut short my past and
dishonestly develop factitious links to some prominent town or
personality of the erstwhile Abbasid province of Khorasan? </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This is not
to say that those who do so, believing that to be their factual lineage,
are wrong but the question still stands: at what point in time does one
start belonging to the land that has nourished one’s forefathers and
delete the various prefixes and suffixes that indicate them to be
progeny of intruders and raiders of this land?</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">When renouncing the history of our part of the land, we have become
alienated from some of the sons of this soil who should have done us
proud.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The first of these is the dignified Raja Porus who was born in
the Punjab and his kingdom extended over the Chaj Doab – the land
falling between the rivers Jhelum and Chenab. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">His blood descendants are
more likely to be living amongst us rather than across the border. We
should claim him as one of our heroes.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">There is hardly any reason for
repudiating his legacy from our national narratives especially when the
famous battle of the Hydaspes, between the ancient Punjabi armies of
Porus and Greek forces of Alexander the Great was fought in 326BC. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">That
happened 900 years before Islam and 300 hundred years before
Christianity came into being. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We live on an ancient land that was a
thriving concern much before these religions came into existence. We
should be proud of that.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Taxila – Takshashila – of the ancient world- was the centre of a great
civilization. One of its greatest luminaries was Chanakya, also known as
Kautilya. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">He was a philosopher, a political scientist and an economist. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">His <i>Arthasastra </i>is perahps the first ever treatise on politics, statecraft and economics, predating Machiavelli’s <i>The</i> <i>Prince</i>
by 1,800 years. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">He mentored Chandragupta, the architect of the Mauryan
Empire and served as his Chief Minister. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">He was in his 40s when
Alexander traversed from north to south through the land that
constitutes all four provinces of Pakistan. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">He helped in defeating and
expelling the Greeks from Punjab to well across the Indus. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">He is perhaps
the greatest Indian of the ancient world and he was born and raised in
Taxila; on the northern slopes of Islamabad’s Margalla Hills.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">For some reason, we in Pakistan today portray Chanakya as a villain and a
demon whereas he was a realist and understood the complexities of
governing a large empire populated with diverse nationalities.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> He was a
great philosopher of political science and laid the foundations of this
discipline of scholarship. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">His appearance in the sketches available on
the internet casts him as a typical temple priest. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">They are images
conceived by a Brahmanical mindset and may or may not bear any
similarity to the historical Chanakya. However, that is immaterial.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> He,
too, lived much before the advent of Islam or Christianity and
Pakistanis should not hold a religious grudge against persons of
pre-Islamic times.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We should be proud that our land – in the neighborhood of our capital city – gave birth to this sage.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> We could
even establish a department in Taxila university in his name to teach
political science and political economy, the subjects that he conceived.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Among so many others, another local achievement of great significance
that we have neglected to tell our children is the fact that the oldest
mathematical manuscript in the world was found at Bakhshali, a village
north-east of Mardan.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The document, carbon dated to AD 224-383, contains
the first recorded zero in history. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The 70 leaves of birch bark contain
mathematical rules, problems and their solutions in arithmetic, algebra
and geometry, on topics of fractions, square roots, progressions and
equations of linear and quadratic type. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">That is a lot of modern
calculations. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">No wonder that India is acclaimed as the original home of
numerals and mathematics!</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> It flourished in the regions encompassing the
Taxila civilization from where it spread eastwards to the rest of the Subcontinent and westwards to the Iranian plateau and beyond.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The cultural and scientific achievements that are the legacy of the
Gandhara civilization are primarily our heritage and not necessarily
that of the people of the Ganga-Yamuna or trans-Narmada regions who now
take the overwhelming amount of credit for these inventions.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">It is actually the ancestors of modern-day Pakistanis who have given
numerals and mathematics to the world. </span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We should feel that pride and
claim the honor.</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The next part of<span></span> this series will discuss our lost heritage in terms of festivals, names and religious figures.</span></h3><h2><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span><i>Author of the article</i>, </span><i><u>Parvez Mahmood</u>, retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a
software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on social and
historical issues.</i></span></h2><h2><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></h2>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-30149766713861990592023-05-10T21:43:00.000-07:002023-05-10T21:43:39.282-07:00The concept of Pakistan in the Vedas<p> By Koenraad Elst</p><p> Many northwestern tribes were are at war with Vedic kingdoms from the
rest of India, similar to Pakistan's position in today's time.</p><p><u><b>Note</b></u>: <i>Some faulty terminology has been edited but everything else is the same.</i></p><p><i> </i><span style="font-size: 22px;"><b>Introduction</b></span><br />
The three most famous sculptures from Mohenjo Daro, on the Sindhu/Indus
river, seem ill-chosen to represent the Pakistani publicity campaign
“5000 years of Pakistan”. The “king-priest” apparently is an officiant
of a stellar cult, and at any rate of a cult other than Islam, so
according to the Pakistani state ideology, <i>raison d’être</i> for
Pakistan’s very existence, he was a leading figure in a false religion
belonging to Jahiliyya, the “age of ignorance”. Like the seated yogi
surrounded by animals, “Śiva Paśupati”, he must be burning in hell now.
As for the “dancing girl”, stark naked and in a defying pose, in today’s
Pakistan she would be stoned to death right away.<br />
<br />
And yet, that Pakistani slogan does make sense. Bear with me, as I will
take the reader through a convoluted array of scriptural and historical
data, and you will see why this conclusion is anything but far-fetched.
Indeed, it is inevitable.</p><p><span style="font-size: 22px;"><b>Foreign</b></span><br />
The Northwest has always had a negative connotation in the Vedic tradition. Thus, R. Siddhantashastree (1978: <i>History of the Pre-Kali-Yuga India</i>, Delhi: Inter-India Publications, p.11) writes:<br />
<br />
“The valley of the five tributaries of the Indus had always been held as
an unholy region because of its occupation by a non-Aryan tribe
antagonistic to the civilized Aryans until the time of Sambarana, (...)
the king of Hastinapura belonging to the Lunar dynasty. He was the first
Aryan to settle in the valley after driving away the aboriginal
non-Aryans to a considerable distance.”<br />
<br />
The latter sentence suggests a concession to the Aryan Invasion Theory
(AIT) by positing an antagonism between “Aryans” and “aboriginals”,
contrary to the Puranic narrative revaluated by the same author, which
has the Aryans come from inner India to this peripheral zone and then to
Central Asia. This simply exemplifies the confusion regarding Aryan
origins. Then again, perhaps it is the reader who is misled by this
received wisdom while the author has a different scenario in mind: the
Aryans as natives of <i>a part of </i>India, who came as conquerors to subdue the natives of other parts of the Indian subcontinent, notably the Northwest. </p><p> As Shrikant Talageri (<i>The Rigveda, an Historical Analysis</i>, and<i> The Rigveda and the Avesta, the Final Analysis</i>,
Delhi: Aditya Prakashan 2000 c.q. 2008) has argued, the ancient Vedic
suspicion towards the Northwest is a strong argument against the AIT.
Knowing the Brahmanistic veneration for origins, they should have treated the
region of their provenance far more positively. Anyway, we note that
Siddhantashastree situates this anti-Northwest attitude already in the
pre-Vedic age, in the very beginning of Aryan history.</p><p><span style="font-size: 22px;"><b>Battle of the Ten Kings</b></span><br />
By the time the Vedic seers start composing their hymns, though, the
Northwest is already populated by cognate tribes speaking a Eurasian
("Indo-European") dialect: first, the <i>Druhyu</i> tribe, still remembered in the Rg-Veda as a defeated enemy of the Vedic <i>Pūru</i> tribe, but largely already emigrated to Afghanistan and beyond; then the<i> Anu</i>
tribe, the direct enemy confronted by the Vedic people themselves at
the time the hymns were being composed. Though speaking related
dialects, then probably still mutually understandable, they come into
the Vedic horizon as <i>enemies</i>, as harbingers of evil. They add to the region’s negative aura.</p><p>Both the successive enemies, from the <i>Druhyu</i> and the <i>Anu</i> tribe, attack the Vedic <i>Pūru</i> tribe from the Northwest. A confederacy led by the <i>Anu </i>tribe comes to confront the Vedic king <i>Sudās</i>
in the Battle of the Ten Kings, the foremost historical event in the
Ṛg-Veda (7:18-33-83). Unexpectedly, they suffer complete defeat and
relocate to Afghanistan. In the names of the tribes and kings, we
recognize Iranic (and not Dravidian) names, and in their religion, we
recognize the main traits of Mazdeism. The enemies are said to be
“without <i>Indra</i>” and “without the <i>Deva</i>s”, who were indeed
demonized in Mazdeism; and “without fire-sacrifice”, because in
Mazdeism, fire is so sacred that one shouldn’t pollute it by throwing
things into it. It seems that then already, near the beginning of Vedic
history, Mazdeism had its distinctive features.<br />
<br /> This is all the more remarkable because this was even before <i>Zarathuštra</i>,
the supposed reformer who brought these traits into being. Some three
generations later, another battle confirms the division of power and
territory. In that more even battle, <i>Ṛjāśva</i>, descendant of <i>Vṛṣagira</i> (hence the “<i>Vārṣāgira</i> battle”), and <i>Sahadeva</i>, descendent of <i>Sudās</i>, face the Iranic king who is remembered in history through the mentions and praise he receives in his court priest <i>Zarathuštra</i>’s own hymns: <i>Kavi Vištāspa</i>. Both parties are mentioned in the <i>Veda</i> 1:100, 1:122) and the <i>Avestā</i>. </p><p>The proverbial demons, the <i>Asura</i>s (comprehensively discussed in Hale, Wash Edward: <i>Asura in Early Vedic Religion</i>, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1986, and in Krishna, Nanditha: <i>The Book of Demons</i>, Penguin, Delhi 2014 (2007)), originally indicate the class of gods preferentially worshipped by the <i>Anu</i> tribe, but also by the first Vedic seers. <i>Varuṇa</i>, god of the night sky with its orderly succession of constellations, hence god of the world order (<i>ṛta</i>/<i>aša</i>, seen in Persian names like <i>Artaxerxes</i>) is an <i>Asura</i>, a “lord” or “mighty one”. The Iranic, who often replaced /s/ with /h/, called him <i>Ahura Mazda</i>, “Lord Wisdom”. After the Iranic peoples had demonized the <i>Deva</i>s/<i>Daēva</i>s, the Indo-Aryans started to demonize the <i>Asura</i>s, and <i>Varuṇa</i> gradually fell into disuse, even if by no means as steeply demonized as <i>Indra</i>
by the Mazdeans. At any rate, Vedism and Mazdeism conceived of one
another as antagonistic, much as so-called "Hinduism" and Islam do today.</p><p>In theological respect, the Iranic religion Mazdeism has often been
considered monotheistic, and in popular publications this account still
persists. This was not entirely correct (SkjaervØ, Prods Oktor:
“Zarathustra: a Revolutionary Monotheist?”, p. 317-350, in
Pongratz-Leisten, Beate: <i>Reconsidering the Concept of Revolutionary Monotheism</i>, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake IN 2011), it remained a polytheism, and <i>Zarathuštra</i>
with his hyperfocus on one god was strictly speaking a “henotheist”,
and hardly representative for the common religion. But it was
sufficiently close. The Persians became the saviours of the Israelites
with their budding monotheism, their preferred god <i>Varuṇa</i> was the
moralist in the Indo-Iranic pantheon (as is apparent from RV 7:86), a
bit like the Christian god, and the idea of exalting a single god so
much above the others shows a would-be monotheist urge. All this allows
for the conclusion that Islamic monotheism is but a radicalization of <i>Zarathuštra</i>’s
henotheism. His religion, and possibly his personal religious dissent,
was at any rate sufficiently different from the Vedic religion to be
thematized as a factor in the long-drawn-out conflict described in the <i>Ṛg-Veda</i>.</p><p>So, Pakistan, which has a Persianized form of Hindui -Lashkari- as national
language, can really be said to be the heir of the proto-Iranic tribes
living in that same territory in the Vedic age, or at least to fulfil
the same antagonistic role in the Brahmanistic worldview.</p><p><span style="font-size: 22px;"><b>Other considerations</b></span><br />
The epics give even more flesh to this hostile attitude. In the epics,
the troublesome characters typically come from the Northwest. The <i>Rāmāyaṇa</i> intrigue is caused by <i>Kaikeyī</i>, a co-wife of <i>Rāma</i>’s father coming from the northwestern <i>Kaikeya</i> tribe. <i>Gāndhārī</i>, mother of the enemy <i>Kaurava</i>s, and her brother <i>Śakuni</i>, deceiver at dice and evil spirit behind the disrobing of <i>Draupadī</i>, come from <i>Gandhāra</i> in Afghanistan. <i>Mādrī</i>, who triggers the death of king Paṇḍu, cause of the whole war, belongs to the Iranic <i>Madra</i> tribe (apparently related to the Medes).</p><p>The first, to my knowledge, to become aware of this dislike’s relevance
to the Aryan Homeland issue, was Shrikant Talageri. The negative aura of
the Northwest was so consistent and unadulterated that this could not
possibly be the venerated land of their ancestors. To the above and
other considerations, he has added a fact he remembers from his own
Saraswat Brahmin community. When it was time for religious fasting, rice
was not eaten, but wheat products were. They did not consider wheat,
which in the Vedic age came from the Northwest, as real food, and
treated it on a par with foreign foods like potatoes. (Talageri
2008:102-106) The wheat-growing Northwest was a foreign country, as
Pakistan now is to India.<br />
<br />
For another consideration: a negative designation in Sanskrit is <i>Mleccha</i>, “barbarian”. The word is generally taken to come from <i>Meluhha</i>,
the Mesopotamian name for Sindh, now in Pakistan. So, long before
Pakistan existed, proto-Pakistanis were already called “barbarians” by
orthodox Dravidic religions.<br />
</p><p>Another Vedic fact, peripheral but symbolically significant, is this. An enemy of the Pauravas is called the <i>Guṅgu</i> tribe (RV 10:48:8). But <i>Guṅgu</i> in Vedic means the firstly-appearing moon, the crescent. And what country has the crescent in its flag?<br /> </p><p><span style="font-size: 22px;"><b>Territorial claims</b></span><br />
The ancient <i>Ānava</i>s lived in West Panjab where they confronted the Vedic king <i>Sudās</i>
in the Battle of the Ten Kings, the first Indo-Pak war. (Then already,
such wars typically ended in Pakistani defeat.) But where did they come
from? Aha, as per Puranic tradition, they immigrated from Kashmir, after
taking Panjab from their <i>Druhyu</i> cousins. Kashmir was known in the Mazdean <i>Videvdād</i> as the <i>Airiiānām Vaējo</i>,
the “seed of the Iranic peoples”, their intermediary Homeland. It was the
place of their ethnogenesis after having migrated westwards from <i>Prayāga</i> as part of <i>Yayāti</i>’s branch of the Lunar Dynasty; much like in 1947, the Mohajirs migrated from the Ganga-Yamuna plain to Pakistan.<br />
<br />
This proves, as proofs go in irredentism, that Kashmir belongs with
Pakistan. So, if all else fails, Pakistan can justify its separate
existence, its hostility to India and its territorial demands by
invoking Vedic testimony.</p><p><span style="font-size: 22px;"><b>A breakthrough slogan</b></span><br />
The Pakistani government ought to highlight this long-standing Hindu
hostility to the Northwest. It would prove that the negative attitude to
the territories now constituting Afghanistan and Pakistan dates back to
the Vedic or even pre-Vedic age. If that implies shedding the AIT, so
much the better.<br />
<br />
Moreover, all this would validate its slogan for attracting tourists to Mohenjo-Daro: “Five thousand years of Pakistan!”<br />
<br />
<br /> </p><p><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-79427907777245082982023-05-10T20:51:00.003-07:002023-05-10T20:51:35.430-07:00Refuting the claim of 200,000 rapes during the 1971 'liberation' war<p> Lets take a look at what the Bangladeshi journalist Jauhari said soon after the war on the basis of his survey:</p><p>"I have spoken to no less than five hundred peoples of different
districts and have asked them, ‘Has anyone in your family or among your
relatives, friends or acquaintance been raped by Pakistani soldiers?’
None affirmed, everyone said ‘no’. It may be that some of them were
ashamed to disclose. Besides, it is not impossible for the Pakistan Army
to have a few characterless soldiers. But, how could these produce the
figure of two hundred thousand? Moreover’ how was this figure arrived at
within a week of the liberation of the country? Who did the survey?" </p><p> Reference: Tirish Lakher Telesmat (The Riddle of Thirty Lakh), Asha Prokashani, 435 Elephant Road,Dhaka -1217, 1994: 14.<br />
<br />
So its clear that rape was not endemic or the rule in 1971. The Pakistan
Army had to run the civil administration of East Pakistan, feed its
people and fight Indian infiltration as well as Mukti Bahini.<br />
<br />
Its obvious that the number and stories of rapes have been exaggerated,
like the numbers and stories of killings. Dr Sarmila Bose couldn't find
any rape cases in her case studies and field work in Bangladesh. Even
though she had heard from others that there had been rapes in the cases
and villages she was studying, but the on-the-ground witnesses told her
the Army did not harm women and children. That also supports the fact
that rape was not endemic in 1971 and that there are a lot of lies and
exaggerations floating about.<br />
<br />
But where did this 200,000 figure come from?</p><p>It comes from a certain Australian surgeon called Dr Geoffrey Davis who
came to Bangladesh in 1972 for six months to perform abortions. He
estimated that 470,000 women were raped and 200,000 became pregnant.
This medically impossible claim of almost 50% pregnancy rate gives away
his lie. Anyone with a minimum training in female physiognomy would know
that conception rates are 20-25%. He also repeated his absurd
hypothesis of 50% pregnancy rate resulting from the "war rapes" more
than once in his diary "The Changing Face of Genocide - Bangladesh."
Bangladeshi academic Dr M Abdul Mumin Chowdhury in his book "Behind the
Myth of Three Million" cited Davis' medically ludicrous claim of 50%
pregnancy rate to show that Davis was lying. Dr Chowdhury also wondered
where all these women were. Despite being a Bangladeshi, he didn't know
any woman who had been raped.</p><p>In his diary he also claimed that 150,000-170,000 of the 200,000 women had already had abortions by the time he got there.<a class="link link--external" href="https://archive.org/details/War-Babies-1971-Mustafa-Chowdhury/page/n21/mode/2up?q=5000" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[1]</a>
That contradicts his earlier claim in a 1972 New York Times article
that 5,000 pregnancies had already been terminated by "crude" methods.<a class="link link--external" href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/12/archives/dacca-raising-the-status-of-women-while-aiding-rape-victims.html" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[2]</a>
He also made other preposterous claims like the Bangladeshi population
was 90 million (it was actually ~70 million). He claimed in his 2002
interview with Bina D'Costa that he was doing 100 abortions a day while a
"variable number" were happening in other towns.<a class="link link--external" href="https://opinion.bdnews24.com/2010/12/15/1971-rape-and-its-consequences/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[3]</a>
Yet in a New York Times article from 1972 he said he did 100 abortions
in Dhaka in his first month while a "variable number" were happening in
other towns..<a class="link link--external" href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/12/archives/dacca-raising-the-status-of-women-while-aiding-rape-victims.html" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[3]</a></p><p>His self contradictions, medically impossible claims and wrong
statistics completely nullify his value as a credible source for any
claim. His allegations about Tikka Khan also reveal a certain prejudice
against Pakistan. He made a number of wild claims, jumping from one
wildly high figure to the next using faulty methodologies. In one
instance he claimed that since 1.1 million women were of childbearing
age it was fair to assume that a third of them were raped. He also
claimed that there were 1500 pregnancies per thana. This is contradicted
by Jauhuri (a Bangladeshi) who found that he couldn't find anyone in
any district who knew about any rape incident. Its obvious that Geoffrey
Davis (a foreigner to Bangladesh) was lying.</p><p>The National Board of Bangladesh Women's Rehabilitation Program (BWRP)
used the following method. It claimed that two women had gone missing
from each thana (police station) each day between 26 March and 16
December (270 days). Since there were 480 thanas at the time they
multiplied 480 x 270 x 2 to arrive at a figure of 268,200. It then
subtracted 68,000 to allow for women who might have been missing for
"other reasons." This is how it arrived at a figure of 200,000 women
raped.<a class="link link--external" href="https://archive.org/details/War-Babies-1971-Mustafa-Chowdhury/page/n21/mode/2up?q=5000" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[4]</a></p><p> But this is a baseless methodology. It depends on the premise that 2
girls went missing each day from each thana. This premise has no
evidence. How did the Board figure out that 2 women were going missing
each day everywhere? Were the thanas keeping records? Moreover, it
discounts the fact that women would have been going to India as
refugees. As we have seen the Bangladeshi journalist Jauhuri toured the
various districts and couldn't find anyone who knew a case of rape.</p><p>Nevertheless the claim of 200,000 women has been repeated everywhere
just because it was claimed by the Bangladeshi government (with no
proper count). It was mentioned by Susan Brownmiller in her 1975 book
"Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape." That book was important because
it changed how the world viewed rape in general. But she only wrote 7
pages in her book on the 1971 rapes. And she gave no source for her
assertion of 200,000 rapes and 25,000 pregnancies. She also gave no
source for most of her other assertions. The closest reference she gives
to any primary source are some quotations of a couple of girls' cases
mentioned by the journalist Aubrey Menen in her New York Times article
in 1972.<br />
</p><p> The Bengali Hindu academic Bina D'Costa (who confesses in her book that
she abhors Pakistanis) cites Brownmiller for her claim of 25,000
pregnancies. But she cleverly adds the words "Official documents
suggest" to give a veneer of documentation to the unsourced and baseless
claim of "25,000 pregnancies."</p><p>Its also interesting that the Australian feminist Germaine Greer
announced back in 1972 that she was going to Bangladesh to interview
Bengali women raped by Pakistani soldiers. She even wrote an article
called "The Rape of the Bengali Women" for <b>The Sunday Times</b> back
in 1972. Its been cited by feminist scholars such as Nayanika Mookherjee
in their works on the 1971 rapes. Yet the same Germaine Greer now says
that the story of 300,000 raped women in Bangladesh was "not true." She
also says that the idea that the Pakistani commanders used rape in
Bangladesh as a policy "was never stood up" and an "urban myth."<a class="link link--external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xka5qoUWM3E&feature=emb_title" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[5]</a></p><p>Bangladeshis don't know what has happened to most of the "raped women."
There are no records of the rehabilitation centres for the rape victims
or information of how long they lasted or what happened to their
inmates. This shows that the Bangladesh is hiding something. Bangladeshi
academic Dr M Abdul Mumin Chowdhury suggests that all this information
has been hidden/destroyed because the data does not support the claim of
mass rape at the scale which Bangladesh officially alleges. According
to Dr M Abdul Mumin Chowdhury one of the later day "myth-makers" in 1974
could only report that 100 of these women had been given into marriage.
Sarmila Bose also could not find any report from the rehabilitation
centres.</p><p> In her book "Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia" Bina
D'Costa mentions it was extremely difficult for her to find any rape
victim or war baby. Another researcher of the same topic, Yasmin Saikia,
had the same problem finding "rape victims" and "war babies." Both
assumed that this was because rape victims don't want to expose
themselves. However, there is also the explanation that they just do not
exist at the scale which is alleged, which is why they can hardly find
anyone.</p><p>A similar explanation can also be given for why, when ten thousand
Bengali "freedom fighters" came forward to marry these women, hardly any
marriage was reported to have taken place. The Bangladeshi government,
according to this New York Times report, <a class="link link--external" href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/12/archives/dacca-raising-the-status-of-women-while-aiding-rape-victims.html" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[6]</a>
blamed it on high dowries demanded by the grooms. But the true reason
is probably because the women just did not exist, in those numbers at
least.</p><p> There are still some survivors of course who testify to being raped. But
their existence does not in any way support the claim of 200,000 women
raped. With the scale of rape being alleged, one would expect to find
many, many more survivors. Especially in a country like Bangladesh where
the rape of women during war is still more openly talked about than a
more conservative country like Pakistan. In East Punjab we lost an
estimated 50,000 girls during Partition of whom around 20,000 girls came
back yet its more common to hear of their stories in Pakistan than it
is to hear of the supposedly "much larger number" of raped women in
Bangladesh.</p><p>He says his colleague Geoffrey Davis "estimated" that 100,000 women had been raped.<a class="link link--external" href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Sex_and_War/GLVDFYOO5aEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=malcolm+potts+we+offered+them+abortions&pg=PA3&printsec=frontcover" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[9]</a>
Actually, Potts was wrong. His friend Davis had actually estimated at
least 470,000 rapes. But note how much these figures of "100,000" and
"200,000" and "400,000" vary wildly from each other. It shows a lack of
serious accounting and wild estimation. These estimates are all a result
of bias. Its natural that seeing the "sheer human suffering" of the few
girls who actually had abortions, caused these doctors to become overly
emotional and sympathetic for them and start exaggerating the extent of
Bengali suffering. It was the same sort of Western sympathy for Bengali
suffering after the 1970 Bhola cyclone which caused Western journalists
in East Pakistan in March to not fully emphasise in their reports the
Bengali nationalist attacks on West Pakistanis and Biharis before 25
March</p><p> Malcolm Potts is only a reliable source for the knowledge he is an eye
witness of. Not the information he has got and based off hearsay. In his
book he says "we offered them abortions and performed hundreds of the
operations over several months."<a class="link link--external" href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Sex_and_War/GLVDFYOO5aEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=malcolm+potts+we+offered+them+abortions&pg=PA2&printsec=frontcover" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">10</a> Note the word "hundreds." <b>Not </b>"thousands." <b>Not </b>"tens of thousands." But "hundreds" only. And that too "<i>over several months</i>."
Moreover, its unclear how many of these pregnancies were caused by
Pakistani soldiers as opposed to Razakars. For example, he himself in
his book gives an anecdote of a Bengali girl who had been impregnated by
a Bihari.</p><p>In his address to the United States Hearings Before the Subcommittee on
Constitutional Amendments of the Committee on the Judiciary, United
States Senate, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session [-Ninety-fourth
Congress, First Session] (p.582)[<a class="link link--external" href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Abortion/xLIaTEqOymQC?hl=en&gbpv=0" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">see link</a>]
to the US Senate, Leonard Laufe, who was part of the IPPF team which
did abortions in Bangladesh, said that 200,000 women had been raped.
Then he added these were the Bangladesh government figures. Then he says
"of these, 20,000 were pregnant."</p><p>Of course, he didn't count the pregnancies. He was merely repeating one
of the popular estimates, which all differed wildly. For example, the
International Commission of Jurists in its 1972 report on East Pakistan
merely relayed that the Bangladeshi government claimed that there 70,000
pregnancies. Susan Brownmiller says in her book said that "25,000" is
the generally accepted figure of pregnancies. Of course neither counted.
As said earlier when reading Laufe's testimony it is essential to
separate the facts he directly observed from those which he was told
about by others. For instance, he says that the week before his team
arrived "300 new-born babies were found floating down the Ganges River."
In the next paragraph he says that he knows of at least 250 suicides
within the 2 weeks before he arrived.</p><p>The question is, how does Dr Laufe know of these cases. He obviously
does not know these suicide cases personally since he himself admits
they happened before his arrival nor did he himself see or count those
babies in the river. Who told him? And how do we know that whoever told
him were not exaggerating figures and stories like in so many other
things in this conflict? Likewise. Dr Laufe says that "we are aware of
literally thousands of criminal abortions that were performed by
midwives out in the villages in which breen branches or sticks from
trees were cut, inserted through the cervix as a foreign object, and we
saw many who came in with these sticks protruding out of their abdominal
wall, so that its sights were not nice" Now Dr Laufe obviously also did
not see these "literally thousands" of criminal abortions that he
claims to be aware of.</p><p>All we know from his testimony is that many women came to his team's
clinic with sticks protruding out of their abdominal wall. He doesn't
specify how many when he says "many." Meanwhile, an obituary in the Los
Angeles Times by Elaine Woo [<a class="link link--external" href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-may-18-me-karman18-story.html" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">see link</a>]
for Harvey Karman, the other doctor who was part of the IPFF team, says
that he "was part of a humanitarian mission to terminate the
pregnancies of 1,500 Bangladeshi women and girls who had been raped by
Pakistani soldiers." Its obvious that the various statistics on the
number of pregnancies are all wild speculation and lack an accounting
basis. So almost nothing can be reliably said.<br />
<br />
In her journal article "Available Motherhood: Legal technologies, `state
of exception' and the dekinning of `war-babies' in Bangladesh" <a class="link link--external" href="https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1177/0907568207079213" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[11]</a> Nayanioka Mookherjee says: </p><p> ‘Medical help’ was organized under the auspices of International Planned
Parenthood Federation (IPPF London) and USAID. These organizations
donated money, set up abortion clinics, provided medicines and retained
the services of abortion providers and gynaecologists from the US, the
UK and Australia – people who not only provided safe abortions for
thousands of women who had become pregnant through rape, but also
trained local doctors. Notable among them were Harvey Karman, Malcolm
Potts (then the medical director of IPPF), Geoffrey Davis and Leonard
Laufe, who set up ‘industrial scale procedures’ (Murphy, n.d.) of
abortion. These ‘abortion centres’ were set up in middle-class
residential areas in Dhaka. They alone terminated 95 percent of the
pregnancies in Bangladesh occurring as a result of wartime rape. The
centres performed more than 100 abortions in the first month of their
existence, and 2500 overall. </p><p>So overall there were only 2500 abortions? Yet we have been hearing
false claims of 25,000 pregnancies. Going by Mookherjee's word that
these were 95% of the pregnancies resulting from wartime rape in
Bangladesh, that increases the number of abortions/pregnancies to 2632.
Justice Sobhan, who apparently headed War Rehabilitation Organisation in
Bangladesh also gave a figure of overall 2,300-2,500 abortions. (But
keep in mind that Justice Sobhan might be exaggerating. He is an
involved source). The probability of exaggeration even in these figures
of 2,300-2,500 abortions is possible. After all when Marcus Franda did
‘Random checks at the local level’ in 1972 he saw that Awami League
functionaries had ‘invariably’ exaggerated victim numbers between three
and ten times. That was for deaths. It is possible that the same applies
for the number of rape victims. If Awami League officials had a habit
of exaggeration, such that a foreign observer had to say they had
invariably inflated casualty figures, then it is also not far-fetched
that a Bengali judge would do the same. </p><p>Next comes the issue of war babies. There were Western reporters in
early 1972 estimating that 5,000 war babies would be born. However,
foreign couples who came to Bangladesh looking to adopt war babies found
that the number of "war babies" born was way lower.<a class="link link--external" href="https://archive.org/details/War-Babies-1971-Mustafa-Chowdhury/page/n23/mode/2up?q=5000" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">12</a>
For example, there were only 21 "war babies" in Mother Teresa's shelter
of whom 15 were adopted by Canadian couples in July 1972. The remaining
6 were reported to have died later. Its also known that children born
in shelters like Deva Sadan and Shishu Bhavan were not necessarily war
babies, but also included orphans, foundlings, "illegals" (not
necessarily fathered by Pakistani soldiers).<a class="link link--external" href="https://archive.org/details/War-Babies-1971-Mustafa-Chowdhury/page/n23/mode/2up?q=5000" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[13]</a><br />
</p><p> By December 1973 one newspaper article claimed that nearly 200 war
babies had already been adopted abroad and about another 50 were still
awaiting adoption.[<a class="link link--external" href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19731208&id=8HocAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1VEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5628,4791753" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">13</a>]
Its unclear how the paper figured out that these babies were fathered
by Pakistani soldiers (as opposed to others like Razakars). The paper
also mentions what I referred to above; that over 2000 pregnancies were
terminated in the clinics. (Although we can't be sure that all women
seeking abortions were pregnant from soldiers or were seeking abortions
for other reasons).</p><p>The 15 war babies adopted by Canadian couples in 1972 were obviously
part of the 200 "war babies" mentioned above. But it gets fishy when one
reads the accounts, in Mustafa Chowdhury's book,<a class="link link--external" href="https://archive.org/details/War-Babies-1971-Mustafa-Chowdhury/page/n83/mode/2up" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[14]</a>
of how these 15 children were born in Mother Teresa's shelter. Their
mothers who gave birth to them were anonymous women who came to the
shelter to give birth and left. They might not have all been rape
victims. They might just have been poor mothers trying to get rid of
unwanted children or orphans. Could be any reason. Bangladesh did not
exactly have a transparent and accurate recording system. Sarmila Bose
gives an example in her article "Losing the Victims: Problems of Using
Women as Weapons in Recounting the Bangladesh War" of a mental girl
(with no memory or recollection of herself) who we really know nothing
about but she is still paraded around without evidence as a woman "raped
by Pakistan Army."<br /> </p><p> </p><blockquote class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch is-expandable is-expanded" data-attributes="" data-quote="" data-source="">
<div class="bbCodeBlock-content">
<div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent ">
While Champa was supposed to have received treatment at the
rehabilitation centre for two years (the centre was set up in 1972), the
register of the mental hospital showed her admission there to be in
1972. The hospital register noted that Champa "might have been raped by
the Pakistani army", while Champa said she remembered nothing about that
year or how she ended up at the mental hospital. Mookherjee, clearly
worried about the implications of what she has discovered, writes, "I
must hastily add that I draw attention to these minute disjunctions to
explore the assumptions that might have influenced the narrativisation
of Champa's 'story' on the part of the journalist."<br />
<br />
Mookherjee refers more than once to "200,000 women" raped in East
Pakistan with- out questioning the basis for this number, and with
regard to Champa, she argues that if forgetting is her way of expressing
her trauma (of rape by the Pakistan army - which Mookherjee has just
shown is a claim made by others and without evidence), then she should
be allowed to remain silent. In conclusion she writes, "This paper
should not be read as a negation of the violence of sexual violence of
1971". But, of course, Mookherjee's paper is a negation of the sup posed
rape of Champa by the Pakistan army!<br />
<br />
<b>All we really know </b>about Champa after reading Mookherjee's paper
is that she is a mentally ill woman who has spent several decades at the
Pabna Mental Hospital. She says she remembers nothing about 1971 or how
she came to be at the hospital. <b>The available evidence does not
indicate whether she was raped by anyone. Nor is there evidence that she
ever came into contact with the Pakistan army.</b> The elaborate
newspaper story about her "rape" and her "eyes brimming with tears"
written by the journalist was a fabrication, as Mookherjee conclusively
shows. The journalist had not even met Champa. His source was the
non-governmental organisation which was trying to remove Champa from the
only place she knew as home - the mental hospital - <b>and parade her in Dhaka as a rape victim</b>.
</div></div></blockquote><p> In another interesting anecdote mentioned about Mother Teresa, it is
said she went to one of the Pakistan Army's supposed "rape camps" but
she could not find any girls. All she found was hair and coats.<a class="link link--external" href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=ivzKjY5LncIC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=mother+teresa+could+not+find+any+girls+hair+petticoats+bangladesh&source=bl&ots=TOKqUdhQvU&sig=ACfU3U28TaXfVLP6vDDKf1kO4RdzrLaPOw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWvpugg5_sAhWW7HMBHUpiA_oQ6AEwEHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">[15]</a>
But we can't take the hair and coats as evidence of anything, There
were a lot of forgeries in this war. For example, a Bihari author Aquila
Ismail once said in an interview to The Express Tribune newspaper that
she and her mother and sister were put in a refugee camp before
migrating to Pakistan where the camp organisers told Western reporters
that they were Bengali women who had been raped by Pakistani soldiers.[<a class="link link--external" href="https://tribune.com.pk/story/340653/the-other-side-of-hi" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">16</a>]<br />
<br />
In his book Blood and Tears, Qutubuddin Aziz also mentions how Indians
showed some pictures to Western correspondents which "were claimed to be
of the Bengali female victims of the Pakistan Army’s alleged atrocity; a
close look at the physical features and dresses of the pictured females
disclosed that they were West Pakistanis, not Bengalis" God knows how
many more fabrications and misrepresentations are out there. Its a very
poorly documented and misrepresented conflict where a lot of propaganda
went in.<br />
</p><p> <b>Conclusion</b><br />
Assuming that there were 2632 abortions + 250 war babies adopted by 1973
+ (guessing here) an equal number of war babies who were kept that
would bring us to around 3132 pregnancies. Given that the average
conception rate is 20%-25% we arrive at a figure of between 12,000 and
15,000 rapes.<br />
<br />
And this is of course assuming that these figures of two and a half
thousand pregnancies and 200-250 war babies for adoption were not in
themselves forgeries by the government of Bangladesh which has destroyed
all the documents about the women in 1971.<br />
<br />
Moreover, its also known that, especially while the Pakistan Army was
fighting at the border, the Razakars were active inside. There seem to
have been more razakars (135,000?) active than there were Pakistani
soldiers. Much or perhaps even most of these pregnancies may have been a
result of rapes by Razakars and not Pakistani soldiers.
</p><div class="js-selectToQuoteEnd"> </div>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-8723975121445328622023-04-11T21:37:00.001-07:002023-04-11T21:37:26.812-07:00Spotlight on Afghan refugees in Pakistan<p> </p><div class="author-sig-line"> <div class="author-byline "> <div class="author-wrapper" data-authorname="Karin Brulliard"> <div class="author-info"> <span class="by-lbl">By </span>Karin Brulliard</div><div class="author-info"> </div><div class="author-info"> <p> <span class="dateline">NOWSHERA, Pakistan —</span> A few hundred men
took to the streets in a suburb of this city early this month,
furiously chanting for the expulsion of neighbors they described as
interlopers. </p> <p>The objects of their ire were Afghan refugees,
millions of whom reside here in Pakistan. They are hardly newcomers —
many fled war, Soviet occupation or Taliban rule years or even decades
ago. Many were born in Pakistan. </p> <p>But the <a href="http://nowshera.com/?p=1613">recent demonstration</a>
was a sign of bubbling discontent about Afghans in Pakistan, who
comprise the world’s largest refugee population. While their presence
has long been a source of tension, Pakistani politicians and the media
are increasingly exaggerating their numbers and identifying them as a
problem that must be solved as the neighboring nations eye the finale of
the U.S.-led Afghan war, remote as that seems for now. </p><p> On an official visit to Australia last month, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani <a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=9957&amp;Cat=13">called on the international community</a>
to help repatriate Afghans, who he said were “causing numerous
difficulties” and spreading polio. In a recent interview, Interior
Minister Rehman Malik accused the refugees of being “involved in
criminal activities,” and said sending Afghans home was among Pakistan’s
priorities.</p> <p>The spotlight on Afghan refugees comes as the ever-wary neighbors <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tensions-rise-along-afghan-pakistan-border/2011/07/10/gIQARXQr7H_story.html">trade barbs</a> about cross-border violence and a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/afghan-government-seeks-pakistans-help-in-stalled-peace-process/2011/10/08/gIQAxLo0VL_story.html]">potential negotiated settlement </a>to
the war in Afghanistan. Afghan officials, like their U.S. counterparts,
have blamed Pakistan for fueling the Taliban insurgency, a claim
Pakistan denies. But Pakistan wants a key role in reconciliation, and
the refugees — who by most accounts Pakistan has hosted fairly
graciously — could provide leverage. </p><div></div> <p>At the same time, persistent violence has led to a <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/4eaa8ad99.html">decrease in refugee returns</a>
to Afghanistan, and there is scant sign that those remaining will soon
leave. Amid a failing economy and political jockeying ahead of 2013
elections in Pakistan, analysts say Afghans are convenient targets.
Indeed, the argument here echoes the U.S. immigration debate, with
concerns about foreigners who commit crimes, steal jobs and fail to
assimilate. </p><p> “We have been treating them as our brothers,” said Sher Bahadur, 64,
one Nowshera resident who joined the recent demonstration, which took
place after a fight between Pakistanis and Afghans. “Now the situation
is so bad that we fear they have the might, power and resources to
displace us.” </p> <p>The complaints are not new, but the tenor has
alarmed Afghan officials. One senior Afghan official, speaking on the
condition of anonymity, said Pakistan is showing “early signs of new
pressure” over refugees. The official said it was unclear whether the
motivation is a desire to see Afghans leave, win additional refugee aid
or blame Afghans for Taliban activity inside Pakistan. </p> <p>According
to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1.7 million
registered Afghan refugees live in Pakistan; the government says the
figure is around 2 million. Another 1 million are believed to be in
Pakistan illegally, said Habibullah Khan, secretary of the government’s
States and Frontiers Regions Division. In the first 10 months of 2011,
43,000 Afghan refugees returned home, a figure that was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/spotlight-on-afghan-refugees-in-pakistan/2011/11/15/[http://www.unhcr.org/4eaa8ad99.html">59 percent lower </a>than the same period last year, the UNHCR said. </p><p> The majority of refugees are ethnic Pashtuns who have blended into
Pakistan’s Pashtun-dominant belt along the border, which has long been
poorly patrolled and traversed by migrant populations, including
militants. Afghanistan, in fact, does not recognize the border, nor do
many Pashtuns. </p> <p>Originally housed in camps, most refugees now
live in regular neighborhoods, where some have become fixtures in the
transportation, clothing and carpet industries. Most are poorly-paid
laborers. </p> <p>There is little doubt the Afghans’ presence has
affected Pakistan’s weak economy, but just how is debatable. Pakistan
hosts more refugees for every dollar of per capita income than any other
nation, which makes it difficult to absorb and support them, according
to the UNHCR. But Afghans also contribute, said Rustam Shah Mohmand,
Pakistan’s former refugee commissioner. </p><div></div> <p>“Pakistan
gets foreign exchange” from Afghan carpet exporters, Mohmand said. “Many
have relatives in the West who send remittances<span>. . . . </span>They provide cheap farm labor to the landowners in the frontier.” </p><p> </p><p>Yet many Pakistanis depict Afghans as drug- and gun-runners, in part
because they are often arrested after militant attacks and violent
crimes. The accusations are unfair, human rights advocates say. </p> <p>Last
year, the Pakistani government decided that all Afghan refugees would
be “voluntarily” repatriated after the end of 2012. What that means
remains unclear. A plan to offer visas will probably apply to only about
150,000 refugees, Khan said. But Tim Irwin, a UNHCR spokesman, said
“there’s certainly no talk of anyone being forced back.” </p> <p>There
is such talk in Nowshera, however, where thousands of Afghans live. The
recent fight broke out with a quarrel between Afghan and Pakistani
youths, after which adults jumped into the fray, residents said.
Pakistanis — who refer to themselves as “locals” — said Afghans attacked
with rods, wounding several, then followed them to the hospital with
Kalashnikovs.</p><p>Last week, dozens of Pakistani men packed into one elder’s home and
recited grievances: Afghans keep to themselves, and they insulted
Pakistan during the brawl. They are rich and buy off police. They are
bad drivers.</p><p>“<b>We are Pashtun, but we are not Afghan. We are
Pakistani,” said Mohammed Akbar, 31. A man sitting on a sofa
interjected: “The Afghans should go back!</b>”</p><p>Yet a visit to Afghan
elders — at the grand home of a clothing importer — revealed how
indelibly the immigrants have become part of the landscape. Several had
lived in Pakistan for 40 years and held dual citizenship. The fight,
they shrugged, was a mere scuffle being exploited by Pakistani community
leaders for political gain.</p><p>“We are mixing. But whenever such
an incident happens, they label us Kabulis,” or Kabul natives, said
refugee Jamil Khan, 23, who participated in the fight. </p><p> Both sides said the issue would be settled by elders, according to
local tradition. But the Pakistanis said tensions would remain rife. </p> <p>“Nobody believes that they will go,” said Liaqat Gilani, a former district mayor. </p> <p>A
short drive away at a former Afghan refugee camp that is now a squalid
slum, truck owner Watan Khan, 39, said he has no plan to return to the
home town he left in 1978, in Afghanistan’s Taliban-riddled Logar
province. Therefore, he said, he has no right to complain about
Pakistani treatment. </p> <p>“Even if our lives are not as good as locals, we have no choice,” Khan said. “We are living in someone else’s land.”</p><div class="grey-bg" style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247); margin: 32px auto; min-height: calc(298px); padding: 24px 0px; width: 100%;"><div id="google_ads_iframe_/701/wpni.world/asia_pacific_9__container__" style="border: 0pt none;"><div class="grey-bg" style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247); margin: 32px auto; min-height: calc(298px); padding: 24px 0px; width: 100%;"><div id="google_ads_iframe_/701/wpni.world/asia_pacific_11__container__" style="border: 0pt none;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div> </div> </div> </div>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-91305086692013695882023-03-19T18:30:00.028-07:002023-05-10T21:59:27.064-07:00 Did Pakistan cede Kashmiri Territory of Shaksgam valley to China?<p><b> Debunking propaganda from a laymen's perspective</b></p><p><b>By Agnostic Musli</b></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p>Myth: Pakistan ceded the Trans-Karakoram tract or Shaksgam valley to
China in the Trans-Karakoram pact thus showing utter disregard for
Kashmiri sovereignty or its own sovereignty.<br />
<br />
Fact: Pakistan did not ‘gift’ any Kashmiri land to China. In reality, it
actually gained 1942 square kilometres (750 square miles) from the
Chinese in the 1963 Sino-Pakistan boundary agreement. In fact, the
Trans-Karakoram Tract, that Delhi claims has been ‘gifted’ by Islamabad
to Beijing, was never under Pakistani control that they could have
vacated it and given it to China. The Pakistan-China Treaty is in the
public domain, as are the resulting maps with demarcated boundaries that
clearly illustrate Pakistan gaining the aforementioned amount of area
and adding it to Gilgit-Baltistan rather than the other way around.<br />
<br />
So let's get to the root of the issue and understand how it all started.<br />
<br />
The original territorial demarcation issue was between China and British
India, which arose as a result of 1846 Amritsar treaty that left the
border with China unmarked. British authorities assigned W.H. Johnson, a
survey officer, to propose a line which was to be sent to the Chinese
government for negotiations. Authors Christopher Snedden and Alastair
Lamb state that Mr. Johnson was unhappy with the working conditions
under the East India Company and sought to join the court of the
Maharaja of Kashmir instead. To impress the Maharaja, he increased the
size of the state of Kashmir in the map he created by including Aksai
Chin and Shaksgam Valley in Kashmir, both of which were under Chinese
control at that point in time.<br />
<br />
British authorities in Calcutta were annoyed by the decision to
demarcate the border in a manner that showed Chinese controlled
territory as being a part of British India and Johnson was disciplined
by his superiors and his map rejected. The Maharaja, however, thought
that Johnson had magically increased his territory by drawing a few
lines on the map and thus, as a reward, he was offered a job by the
Maharaja and appointed Wazir or Governor of Ladakh in 1872.<br />
<br />
The line he created is called the Johnson Line and, as mentioned above,
was rejected by British India, let alone accepted by China. The East
India Company then appointed Sir Claude MacDonald to create the new
official British line which he did. The new demarcation by Sir Claude
MacDonald did not include the Chinese areas that W.H Johnson had
included in his demarcation to curry favor with the Maharajah. The
British sent it to the Chinese on 14th March 1899 with the following
proposal:<br />
<br />
1. China will withdraw all claims to Hunza valley<br />
2. British India will withdraw all claims to Shaksgam/Raskam and Taghdumbash<br />
<br />
This is the McDonald Line. The Chinese did not respond, prompting the
British to inform them that their silence was taken as assent and
Britain would act accordingly, which Britain did.<br />
<br />
Fast forward, independence happens, Pakistan and India become free, fight a
war and divide Kashmir. But this is where the problem starts. Instead
of taking up the McDonald line, the Indian government officially adopted
the Johnson line because the increased land (Or rather lines on a
paper) impressed Nehru as much as it had impressed the Maharaja. India
made it official in 1954 on their published map.<br />
<br />
Pakistan obviously did not have to tow Mr. Nehru's ridiculous line. Pakistan recognized the McDonald Line......And that's all.<br />
<br />
Actually, that's not all. When Pakistan cited historical evidence and
the historical connection of Gilgit-Baltistan to regions in Hunza, the
Karakoram watershed, K-2 (Half), Shimshal Pass etc, Zhou EnLai (the then
premier of the Peoples Republic of China) acknowledged the validity of
those arguments and Pakistan obtained those territories from China and
made them part of Gilgit-Baltistan.<br />
<br />
Pakistan further asserted that traditional grazing grounds of the Hunza
people be made part of Gligit-Baltistan because their loss would cause
the people of the region huge distress, given the impact on their
traditional way of life. The Chinese Premier, after reviewing the
proposal with Xinjiang province and getting the assent of the Uyghur in
China, agreed with the Pakistani proposal on making these lands a part
of Gilgit Baltistan.<br />
<br />
All this area combined totaled 1942 square kilometres (750 square miles).<br />
<br />
And that's not all, Pakistan also took care to add a provision to secure
Kashmiri sovereignty in the future, pending a resolution of the
dispute. Article 6 of the treaty between China & Pakistan states:<br />
<br />
<i>"The two parties have agreed that after the settlement of the Kashmir
dispute between Pakistan and India, the sovereign authority concerned
will reopen negotiations with the Government of the People’s Republic of
China on the boundary as described in Article. Two of the present
agreement, so as to sign a formal boundary treaty to replace the present
agreement, provided that in the event of the sovereign authority being
Pakistan, the provisions of the present agreement and of the aforesaid
protocol shall be maintained in the formal boundary treaty to be signed
between the People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan"</i><br />
<br />
If you still don't understand how groundbreaking this deal was, imagine
this. China went to all out war against India for this line which they
absolutely refused to change. Whereas for Pakistan and Kashmir, China
ceded 750 square miles and also recognized that a future sovereign
Kashmiri government could renegotiate this border when they were free.<br />
<br />
Noted Indian Lawyer and Author on Kashmir, AG Noorani Noted this in his article, aptly named "Map Fetish".<br />
<br />
<a class="link link--external" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200506231350/https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30164084.ece" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/2020050...e.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30164084.ece</a></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXX9O48U4AAVi5p.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="201" data-original-width="800" height="201" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXX9O48U4AAVi5p.png" width="800" /></a></div><br /> Anwar H Syed in in China and Pakistan: Diplomacy of an Entente Cordiale wrote:<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXX-BitUMAApA1d.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="138" data-original-width="800" height="138" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXX-BitUMAApA1d.png" width="800" /></a></div><br /> George L. Singleton reconfirmed Pakistan’s claim as shown in the excerpt below:<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXX-P63U8AATT0c.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="119" data-original-width="800" height="119" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXX-P63U8AATT0c.png" width="800" /></a></div>Pakistani FM, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto also wiped the floor with the Indian
delegation when they raised this issue in UN Security Council dated 26
March 1963:<br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXX-fiFUEAIOeED.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="97" data-original-width="800" height="97" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXX-fiFUEAIOeED.png" width="800" /></a></div><p></p><p>So, in conclusion. The Indian argument that Pakistan violated the UNSC
Resolutions on the Disputed Territory of Jammu & Kashmir or that it
betrayed/sold out the Kashmiris by 'giving away their land to China' is
invalid and baseless.<br />
<br />
For more details and references used, please see below:<br />
<br />
Question #13 by Kashmiri Academic Dr. Makhdomi</p><p> <a class="link link--external" href="https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/opinion/question-number-13/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/opinion/question-number-13/</a><br />
<br />
Map Fetish by AG Noorani<br />
<a class="link link--external" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200506231350/https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30164084.ece" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/2020050...e.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30164084.ece</a><br />
<br />
Facing the truth by AG Noorani<br />
<a class="link link--external" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200506232116/https://frontline.thehindu.com/world-affairs/article30211220.ece" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/2020050...hehindu.com/world-affairs/article30211220.ece</a><br />
<br />
Who Ceded Land by Dr. Ahmad Rashid Malik Director of the China-Pakistan
Study Centre (CPSC) at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad<br />
<a class="link link--external" href="https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/06/26/who-ceded-the-land/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/06/26/who-ceded-the-land/</a></p><p><br /> </p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-16571363535150947602023-03-19T17:44:00.000-07:002023-03-19T17:44:05.912-07:00Top Indian Myths about Pakistan<p> By Agnostic Muslim<br /></p><div class="message-content js-messageContent">
<div class="message-userContent lbContainer js-lbContainer " data-lb-caption-desc="AgNoStiC MuSliM · May 15, 2009 at 3:31 PM" data-lb-id="post-377155">
<article class="message-body js-selectToQuote" id="js-XFUniqueId282">
<div class="bbWrapper"><b><u> </u></b></div><div class="bbWrapper"><b><u>Myth 1. <br />
Pakistan lost all 3 wars with India.</u></b><br />
<br />
Pakistan and India have fought 3 wars - 1948, 1965 and 1971.<br />
<br />
Barring 1971 (which occurred while a civil war, assisted by India, was
raging in East Pakistan), no war has resulted in a decisive 'victory'
for either side.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Myth 2. <br />
Pakistan fights through proxies</u></b><br />
<br />
Well, this is true. Pakistan has supported Kashmiri Freedom fighters in
Indian Occupied Kashmir, and did support the Mujahideen (with US and
Saudi support) and later the Taliban.<br />
<br />
However, this allegation by Indians completely overlooks India's own long association with proxy groups. <br />
<br />
<ol><li data-xf-list-type="ol">Supported proxies that destabilized East Pakistan for many years leading into 1971</li><li data-xf-list-type="ol">Supported the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) - a terrorist organization in Sri Lanka</li><li data-xf-list-type="ol">Supported the Northern Alliance - a group of warlords and criminals in Afghanistan</li><li data-xf-list-type="ol">Supported Baluch insurgents in Pakistan</li></ol><b><u><br />
Myth 3. <br />
India has never committed aggression against Pakistan, or any other country.</u></b><br />
This is clearly not the case as seen below<br />
<br />
<ol><li data-xf-list-type="ol">Support for insurgents in East Pakistan leding into 1971 and the ensuing war</li><li data-xf-list-type="ol">Support for the LTTE (a terrorist organization in Sri Lanka) against the Sri Lankan State</li><li data-xf-list-type="ol">The invasion of Siachen in 1984 in clear violation of the Simla Accord</li><li data-xf-list-type="ol">Support for the Baluch insurgency</li></ol><b><u><br />
Myth 4. <br />
Pakistan spends 70&#37; (or more, depending upon the Indian) of its budget on Defense.</u></b><br />
<br />
Pakistan's defence budget for 2009 was about 4.4 billion USD. With a GDP
of about 160 billion USD and a budget of 33 billion USD, that works out
to be about 2.75% of GDP and 13.3% of the total budget.<br />
<a class="link link--external" href="http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6607999/PAKISTAN-S-TOTAL-OUTLAY-IN.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">PAKISTAN'S TOTAL OUTLAY IN 2007-08 BUDGET TO BE ABOUT US$33 BLN. | Goliath Business News</a><br />
<br />
This compares with an Indian defence budget of about 26 billion that is
14.4% of the total budget and about 2.3% - so what's the big deal with
Pakistan's defence budget?<br />
<b><u><br />
Myth 5. <br />
Pakistani politics is dominated by Kashmir</u></b><br />
<br />
This argument goes along the lines of 'the Army/leadership makes sure
that the only thing Pakistanis are aware of is Kashmir, and in this way
distracts them from socio-economic issues and avoids investing in
development'.<br />
<br />
No doubt most Pakistanis are aware of Kashmir, but the fact that we have
cutthroat national politics, with political parties that have
significant ideological differences, it is absurd to suggest that the
only issue mentioned during stump speeches is 'Kashmir'. <br />
<br />
Most of the PR and advertisements run by Pakistani political parties in
fact focus on providing development and bringing about prosperity, not
Kashmir. Most politicians talk about providing, jobs, investment etc.
and most Pakistanis vote on that basis - even when voting on biraadri
lines since they believe 'their guy' will provide them with economic
opportunity/favors.<br />
<br />
The political process in Pakistan remains largely driven by issues that
are important to most people elsewhere in the world - jobs, inflation,
development etc.<br />
<br />
----------------------<br />
<br />
Feel free to offer suggestions on changes, additions, improvements and I'll incorporate them if I think they are appropriate.</div>
<div class="js-selectToQuoteEnd"> </div>
</article>
</div>
</div>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-8728784054545249522023-01-19T20:19:00.008-08:002023-02-01T01:06:05.834-08:00The Pre-Muslim Ancestors of Pakistanis and the pre-1947 non-Muslim population <p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span>- Before the
advent of Islam, the majority of people in the region of Pakistan
practised Buddhism, Zoroastrianism (and its derivatives like Mithraism,
Saurism, Manichaeism, etc.), Animism (nature worship), Paganism
(Hellenic and other deities), and Shamanism.
<br />
<br />- Harappans ate beef, buried their dead, and had no "Hindu" temples/idols/deities/texts.
<br />
<br />- RigVedic Aryans forbade idolatry, ate beef, sacrificed cows, had no caste system, and were culturally closer to ancient Iranic Avestan peoples.
<br />
<br />- Under Persian rule, Zoroastrianism started to spread.
<br />
<br />- Similarly, Greek Paganism (Hellenism) spread under the Greeks.
<br />
<br />- Mauryan Ashoka introduced Buddhism.
<br />
<br />- Buddhism was later also propagated along with Zoroastrianism,
Animism, Shamanism, and Hellenism under the Bactrians, Sakas/Scythians,
Parthians, and Kushans for many centuries.
<br />
<br />- Hephthalites/White Huns were not very fond of Buddhism but it still remained popular among the masses.
<br />
<br />- The Hellenized-Iranianized Brahmanist and Shaivite converts were a minority in Pakistan.
<br />
<br />- Kafirs of Kalasha, the only people in Pakistan who have retained
their ancient religion are an example of the non-Hindu religions
practised by the ancestors of Pakistanis.
<br />
<br />- Many different Gangetic holy texts call Pakistan region and its people as "outlandish," "sinful," "outcaste," "mlechas," etc.
<br />
<br />- The pre-Muslim ancestors of most Pakistanis never called themselves "Hindu" nor practised any religion called "Hinduism." Thus, the pre-Muslim ancestors of most Pakistanis had nothing to do with "Hinduism."
<br /><br />- The fact is there is barely any trace of "Hindu" past in
Pakistan region yet there are plentiful of Buddhist and other non-Vedic archeological remains in Pakistan region. The very few "Hindu" temples
found in Pakistan region cannot be dated past the 9th century AD.
<br />
<br />- When Muslims invaded Pakistan region the majority of its people
were Buddhists (as testified in Chachnama), so much so that the word for
idol became "budh".<br />
<br />- The words/terms of Hindu/Hinduism are recent constructs. It were the
Muslim invaders (Ghorids) who for the first time in history imposed the
foreign term Hindu on the many different peoples and religions of South
Asia. The term Hinduism was given by the British colonialists. Not a
single pre-Muslim/British era Vedic, Brahman, Buddhist, Jain, or any
other South Asian scriptures/inscriptions mention the words
Hindu/Hinduism. Similarly, Sanata Dharma was a term invented in the 19th
century AD by Gangetic Brahmans in their desperate attempt to replace
the Muslim/British terms Hindu/Hinduism.
<br />
<br />- Terms such as Hindu/Hinduism/Sanata Dharma are artificial in nature
because of its foreign origins and contradictions in its
beliefs/practices. Just because we call all indigenous peoples of the Americas or their
descendents as "Native Americans" it does not make them one people as they have many
racial, subracial, religious, linguistic, cultural, and historical differences. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span>By
the same token, if the Ghorid Muslim invaders imposed the foreign
word/term "Hindu" on the non-Muslim peoples of South Asia it does not mean
that they were one people since there were/are countless different
religions, cultures, histories, languages, and races in South Asia.
<br />
<br />- Also, by the time of Ghorid invasions (12th century AD), Pakistan
region was already mostly Muslim. Most of Pakistan
region was a part of Arab empires previously (later also ruled by local
Muslim kingdoms). Arabs never called them Hindus. So the Ghorid
imposition of the artificial term Hindu was mostly for present day north
India for their ruled non-Muslim subjects.
<br />
<br />- A significant minority of Pakistanis are descendents of Arab,
Iranian, Turkic/Mughal and Afghan invaders/migrants, who just like the
rest of the ancestors of Pakistanis were Zoroastrians, Animists, Pagans,
Shamanists, and Buddhists before Islam.
<br />
<br />- It was mostly due to Islamic Sufism that the ancestors of Pakistanis converted en masse to Islam.
<br />
<br />- Pre-1947 region of present-day Pakistan only had less than 15%
non-Muslims, out of which half were Sikhs. Many of the "Hindus" were
actual migrants from the region of present day India during the British
rule. For example, most of the "Hindus" in pre-1947 Karachi had migrated
from Gujarat and Rajasthan during British rule because of Karachi's
economic boom then. The other remaining "Hindus" of local origin were
converts due to Shankarcharya's missionaries from India region during
post- 9th century AD period. <br />
<br />- The pre-1947 non-Muslim population in present day region of
Pakistan had: 6% "Hindu" and 10% Sikh in W. Punjab, 9% "Hindu" and 2% Sikh
in Sindh, 1% "Hindu" and 2% Sikh in NWFP, and 2% "Hindu" in Baluchistan.
<br />
<br />- According to the UN and other respected organizations, 12 million
is the total estimate of migrations from both India and Pakistan (East
Pakistan included) of Muslims, "Hindus" and Sikhs combined at the time of independence. So if "Hindus" and Sikhs are taken as 50% of that figure
(although there were much more migrations of "Hindus"/Sikhs than Muslims)
of population, that would make about 6 million "Hindus"-Sikhs in both East
and West Pakistan that migrated to India. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span>Now, we know that there was
almost an equal (50% each) number of migrants leaving East and West
Pakistan (although"Hindu" population in East Pakistan was much higher),
that would make the "Hindu"-Sikh population in West Pakistan about 3
million. Now we know that West Pakistan's population at that time was
about 25-30 million which makes the total "Hindu"-Sikh population about
10-12% (+ add the current 1.5%) in West Pakistan before partition. Also,
it is estimated that out of the non-Muslim population in West Pakistan,
+40% were Sikhs, so that leaves Hindus with even lesser numbers. We
know that Sikhs do not consider themselves as "Hindus" and some of them have been fighting for independence from India. </span></span></span></p><p><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXhBD9KJBo-QCKT0oWGbkWSMx9BV3e-N8WorVuPLAvtXDS8Wfl6n86o5RlAE8dtngWchcFj_A8FQ9tdz_iH7jxSJaLwiVEpcmDeR71wEqx4pND5cEi5EZoqaLBWCFtzJ7JwumNi72Oxg/s1600/Day5shamandrinkbloodfromgoatshd.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410392155733677810" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXhBD9KJBo-QCKT0oWGbkWSMx9BV3e-N8WorVuPLAvtXDS8Wfl6n86o5RlAE8dtngWchcFj_A8FQ9tdz_iH7jxSJaLwiVEpcmDeR71wEqx4pND5cEi5EZoqaLBWCFtzJ7JwumNi72Oxg/s320/Day5shamandrinkbloodfromgoatshd.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 251px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a>
</span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span>A Shaman in the Hunza Valley, Northern Pakistan drinking blood from a beheaded goat.</span></span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUxzGAa4d5JTRYr4fHFpl8GESX4MojVvsK2n5lWvGRA5J7v490litjf1azHpR28pKdhzfuvYcpOB8XznWvCwADV7O8RU-GP7FKQ76jrZWToj9oC-JtfQGEWWjEPXp-4OxtxP8MCmSMZA/s1600/Day5shamanintrance.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410392332826834674" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIUxzGAa4d5JTRYr4fHFpl8GESX4MojVvsK2n5lWvGRA5J7v490litjf1azHpR28pKdhzfuvYcpOB8XznWvCwADV7O8RU-GP7FKQ76jrZWToj9oC-JtfQGEWWjEPXp-4OxtxP8MCmSMZA/s320/Day5shamanintrance.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 250px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span>Shaman from the Hunza Valle, Northern Pakistan y performing a dance. Probably ritualistic.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDwiDZUSG7Gz2pAr4M_IEGoSorTlhPwyX5Jy1CtBR302sRAFw7xrnHBI4JtKpgXAqqkqxLt0h87mxE-BQsNqgbfcW3JGX3qm3rRZ7sRa_2QVK4PEWFENAcpKsWsjncPp1EpuHGzZuFL2E/s1600/Day5shamankarinabad.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410392446331931602" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDwiDZUSG7Gz2pAr4M_IEGoSorTlhPwyX5Jy1CtBR302sRAFw7xrnHBI4JtKpgXAqqkqxLt0h87mxE-BQsNqgbfcW3JGX3qm3rRZ7sRa_2QVK4PEWFENAcpKsWsjncPp1EpuHGzZuFL2E/s320/Day5shamankarinabad.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 233px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a> </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span>Another Shaman form the Hunza Valley, Northern Pakistan performing dance.
</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirV-rSZvWSVQnArJzUMAyGS_s6dZ3PrGltMLg-jpj1H3QVbrcSmc2drGCdQMedOdjSHTNuK8ns7Dj7hRtY_o6323vJ_p-hCMM6smbCtUcXigXBDK-n3T1pls-7aMQJxzsVva97_9U-_CU/s1600/Day5shamanmusic+%282%29.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410392559206974802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirV-rSZvWSVQnArJzUMAyGS_s6dZ3PrGltMLg-jpj1H3QVbrcSmc2drGCdQMedOdjSHTNuK8ns7Dj7hRtY_o6323vJ_p-hCMM6smbCtUcXigXBDK-n3T1pls-7aMQJxzsVva97_9U-_CU/s320/Day5shamanmusic+%282%29.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 226px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a> </span></span></span>Shaman in the Hunza Valley, Northern Pakistan playing a flute.
</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7vpfP8LHwE0d5sbWiWtqWG3E_-OcYMqf2QoITtaqCCd3YrCthYOxNe7OljOAUOc4HkbCjCe2OGAQ8deC24-8Kvo3TIinsYEOwy-3p6CSUujEYi3TodgxjRgbekCTcxxpEGuxsPwM6P4A/s1600/People-Culture-Dance-Kalash.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410393885749756194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7vpfP8LHwE0d5sbWiWtqWG3E_-OcYMqf2QoITtaqCCd3YrCthYOxNe7OljOAUOc4HkbCjCe2OGAQ8deC24-8Kvo3TIinsYEOwy-3p6CSUujEYi3TodgxjRgbekCTcxxpEGuxsPwM6P4A/s320/People-Culture-Dance-Kalash.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a> </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span>Kalash ritualistic dance from the Chitral Valley, Northern Pakistan</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span> ------------Article contributed by Kamran Bhutt</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: 14;"><br /></span></span></p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-82938637864092301402023-01-14T23:07:00.006-08:002023-01-14T23:46:46.037-08:00Ethnicity and Provincialism in Pakistan<p>By Adnan Syed </p><p>Ethnocentrism is wrong, but what is worse is denial of ethnic identity/differences.
As different ethnic groups, we have more than enough commonality to be a
strong nation. Differences between sub-cultures/ethnicities exists in most
countries, but what holds a nation together is basic cultural, linguistic,
religious, historical, and/or geographic commonalities. We should accept and
respect our ethnic differences, after all Pakistan is a federation of such, and be
united as a nation based on our commonality in being linguistically/culturally
Indo-Iranic, racially mostly Caucasoid, geographically based on Indus Valley,
having a common history, and following the religion/culture of Islam. </p><p>All of
these common factors among the different Pakistani ethnic groups makes
them close to each other, yet very different from the Indians. These common
factors defines the Pakistani nationhood, not just religion as many Pakistanis are
made to believe in.
The present-day provincial setup of Pakistan has its origins from the British
era. The British rulers drew boundaries of provinces not based on ethnic
demographics, but the politics of that era for their interersts. As has always been
the case, the ethnic demographics have also evolved since 1947. In reality, the
current provincial setup of Pakistan is artificial. </p><p>The large southern region of
"Punjab" is Seraiki, its southwest is Baluchi, and northwest Hindkowi. The huge
northeast part of "NWFP" is Hindkowi, and the north is Khowari/Shina/etc.
Almost half of "Baluchistan" is Pakhtun (northern part), with pockets of Brauhis
the central region and Jats/etc. in the southeast. Almost half of "Sindh" is Lashkari-speaking (urban areas). </p><p>Not to mention the countless Afghan, Central Asian,
Iranian, Bengladeshi, etc. refugees, and inter-ethnic migrations in various parts
of the country. Though outdated and slightly flawed, here is an article of interest
on this subject by Ahmed Abdalla published in 1973:
For the last few years the question of Pakistan's "nationalities" is being
debated, propagated, supported and contested at various levels and in different
quarters. </p><p>Unfortunately, in these lively discourses some basic issues have been
ignored. We shall make an attempt here to discuss and analyse two most salient
aspects of the problem.
Firstly, are the nationalities, so often spoken of, located in clearly
demarcated and distinct areas to division on regional basis?
Secondly, have the nationalities, whatever regions they are living in, settled
down permanently or, is the population pattern still fluid and changing, yet to
assume a final shape and a stable character? </p><p>Let us address ourselves to the first question province-wise:
NWFP: The province known as NWFP has an area of 39,283 sq. miles with a
population of one crore ten lacs. Its most populous district called Hazara on
the eastern bank of river Indus is inhabited, from Manshera downward, by
non-Pakhtuns, mostly Gujjars and Hindko speaking Pathans of mixed blood. </p><p>In the
regions west of river Indus starting from the north, the people of the (former)
state of Chitral are non-Pakhtuns belonging to the racial stock of
Chinese Turkestan akin to the people of Gilgit, Skardu, Hunza, Yasin and Nagar. </p><p>Next, the majority of the people of the province’s biggest city, Peshawar,
belong to various Iranic and Central Asian stocks and are not Pakhtuns. In the
southern region, half the people od D.I. Khan district are, again, non-Pakhtuns
mostly Awans, Jats, Rajputs and Baluchis.
In this context how would an advocate of four nationalities determine the exact
boundaries of Pakhtunistan which, if scrupulously adhered to on racial and
linguistic considerations, may shrink to very unpalatable proportions. </p><p>This
population complex also explains the limited success in NWFP of Wali Khan (a
protagonist of Pakhtunistan) in the general elections of December 1970.
BALUCHISTAN: The province called Baluchistan has an area of 134,000 sq. miles
with a population of about 24 lacs. Of the ten districts of Baluchistan
province, three districts viz Quetta-Pishin, Zhob and Loralai are
overwhelmingly Pathan; two districts viz Kachchi and Lasbela are inhabited by
Rajputs, Jats and their allied tribes while the remaining five viz Sibi, Chagi,
Kalat, Mahran and Kharan are largely Brohi-Baluchi. </p><p>Even in some of the
tehsils of these five districts non-Baluchis are in majority. For instance,
Sharigh Tehsil (Harnai) of Sibi distric has a fairly large percentage of
Pathans. Population-wise about seven lacs are Pathans; over four lac Rajputs
and Jats and about one lac Punjabis, Muhajirs and Gilgiti labour taking the
total of non-Baluchis to 12 lacs leaving only 12 lac Baluchi and Brohi tribes
in a population of 24 lacs. In this state of affairs how much area
and what percentage of population of Baluchistan will accrue to a province
based on Baluchi-Brohi nationality? Out of ten districts they will, at best,
get five. </p><p>If the Baluchis/Brohis seriously think of having particular areas of
Baluchistan marked on the basis of nationality, they may indeed come to grief.
SIND: Sind has an area of over 54,000 sq. miles and a population of one crore
40 lacs. Of this about 55 lacs are Muhajars, Pathans and Punjabis. Of the
remaining 85 lacs, about 25 lacs are of Baluchi/Brohi origin (Sindhi-speaking), leaving barely 60 lac old Sindhis in a total of 140 lacs. </p><p>Most of the regions west of Indus from Jacobabad to Dadu are inhabited by
Baluchi and Brohi tribes since long before independence. After independence the
population pattern of the province has drastically and basically altered due to
the influx of refugees from India and immigrants from other provinces of
Pakistan. </p><p>These refugees and immigrants, are of different origins. Any
attempt to re-demarcate the boundaries of the province of Sind on the basis of
nationality may diminish the size of the Sindhi nationality province to a
disagreeable size.
PUNJAB: Punjab has an area of 79,542 sq. miles with a population of 3 crores
75 lacs. </p><p>It may be pointed out that the present boundaries of Punjab were
determined by the British more on the basis of political considerations than on
racial or cultural grounds. For instance, the D. G. Khan and Muzaffargarh
districts are overwhelmingly Baluchi, while Multan and Bahawalpur have, all
through history, had closer affinities with Sind than with Punjab.</p><p>Multan was the capital of Sind for a long time so much so that in western India
Sindhis were usually called Multanis.
Even today the spiritual home of the Sindhis is the tomb of Hazrat Bahauddin
Zakaria in Multan. Sindhis have such great veneration for this Saint that they
make it a point to visit his Mazar by walking bare-footed. </p><p>If the Punjabis
think of basing their provincial boundaries on nationality, they may not be
able to retain all the areas that today constitute Punjab.
In view of this background, if the four nationalities concept is accepted, it
would become essential and unavoidable to re-demarcate the present provincial
boundaries which have neither racial nor linguistic basis. </p><p>In case of
re-demarcation of provincial boundaries major portions of Hazara and D. I. Khan
districts of NWFP will go to Punjab; whole of D. G. Khan and part of
Muzaffargarh districts of the Punjab will go to Baluchistan; three districts
of Baluchistan will go to NWFP and two to Sind while Jacobabad and parts of a
few districts of Sind west of Indus will go to Baluchistan. </p><p>If this exercise is resorted to, two problems will crop up: Firstly, several
sub-nationalities with strong historical claims will put up their own demands
for separate provinces which would be difficult to refuse. Whatever the claims
and pretensions of four nationalities, the rights and merits of the
sub-nationalities are much more strong and have a more cogent and powerful
historical backing. As such, further vivisection will become inevitable. </p><p>What is more important is that there is hardly an instance of these so-called
nationalities having a separate, distinct existence in history, Pakhtuns have
never presented a united front. Khushal Khan Khattak bemoans this weakness of
the Pakhtuns throughout his poetry and hurls the most bitter invectives on them
for their failure to forge unity. </p><p>In fact the most outstanding aspect of the
Pakhtun history has been their refusal to act as one nation
or nationality.
As regards Baluchistan, its entire history is replete with struggles, wars and
rivalries between Baluchi and Brohi tribes not to speak of intertribal
conflicts among Baluchis and Brohis themselves.
Northern Punjab being the route of the invading armies from Central Asia into
Gangetic valley, never had any opportunity to have separate nationality. </p><p>As for Sind, it has been expanding and shrinking in size depending upon both
internal and external situations, particularly on the conditions prevailing in
Iran, Central Asia and India. At one time it embraced the whole of the
present-day Pakistan, plus vast portions of Rajputana in the east and Qandhar
in the west. And at another it was confined only of lower Sind with Thatta as
its capital. </p><p>In this process it has been absorbing and shedding the
nationalities living to its north, east and west.
Moreover, even if it is decided to re-demarcate the present provincial
boundaries on the basis of nationalities, will the people living in one
province for generations agree to become part of another? Will the Sindhi-
speaking and Punjabi-speaking Baluchis, playing such important role in the
politics of the provinces of their adoption, consent to join Baluchistan? </p><p>Similarly, would the non-Pushtu-speaking people of D.I. Khan and Hazara wish to
be absorbed by Punjab? Same applies to Quetta Division, Lasbela, Kachchi, etc.,
etc.
Adoption of four nationalities basis and consequent re-drawing of boundaries
will necessitate holding of referendum in various regions of each province.
The result of such a referendum is anybody’s guess. </p><p>Instead of solving the
problem it will open up a pandora’s box and lead to further vivisection.
For instance, once the four nationalities get their provinces strictly on the
basis of regrouping of nationalities, further rivalries inherent in those
nationalities will come up to surface. Clash between Baluchi-Brohi groups in
Baluchistan, between northern-southern Pathans in Pakhtunistan, between
Punjabis-Seraikis in Punjab and between Sindhis-Muhajirs in Sind, will become
inevitable. </p><p>On what basis will the protagonists of four nationalities
theory deny the sub-nationalities their right to have separate status when the
latter have both history and language to back their stand.
Another important factor in this context cannot be overlooked. </p><p>Each one of the
present provinces is multi-lingual. Pushtu, Hindko and Punjabi are the major
languages spoken in the NWFP; Punjabi, Seraiki, Lashkari and Baluchi in the
Punjab; Baluchi, Brohi , Lasi, Kurd and Pushtu in Baluchistan; Sindhi, Lashkari
and Baluchi in Sind.
PROBLEM OF MIGRATION
Next we shall discuss the second factor relating to the concept of nationality
which is as important as the previous one. </p><p>Unlike India where people are
living a settled life in clearly demarcated regions based on various languages
in vogue there, the conditions in Pakistan are quite different, its population
being yet in a fluid state.
Large groups of people living in all the four provinces are still mobile,
constantly migrating from one province to another. </p><p>There has been a regular
flow of Pathans and Baluchis into the Punjab and Sind which continues even
today. Lakhs of Pathans are employed in Karachi and other industrial cities
of Sind and Punjab such as Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Multan, Lyallpur,
Daudkhel, Rawalpindi, etc. Similarly, the flow of Baluch tribes into Sind
has not yet stopped. </p><p>The people of Punjab are also flowing out in small numbers into Sind,
Baluchistan and NWFP. They have either acquired lands or doing business in
other provinces.
Baluchistan and NWFP, in turn, are not free from influx from further west—there
being a constant flow of Powindas and others from Afghanistan.
It is generally believed that the Powindas go back after winter season. But
this is not so; several of them remain behind. </p><p>It would be of interest to note
that many of our distinguished personalities are Powindas and recent
immigrants from Iran and Afghanistan. Maulana Mufti Mahmud, a leader of
Jamiat-ul-ulamai Islam comes from the Naaser tribe of Powindas. Gandapurs of
D. I. Khan are Powindas. From his mother’s side, Mr. Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo,
a leader of National Awmi Party is an Iranian Powinda. Some of his maternal
relations are still in Iran. </p><p> General Mohammad Musa, former C-in-C of the
Pakistan Army belong to the Hazara tribe of Afghanistan; his father had
migrated from Afghanistan and settled in Quetta. General Yahya Khan, former
President of Pakistan is a Qizilbash from northern Iran whose family had
settled in Peshawar. That the process of the settlement of Powinda families
has not yet stopped in NWFP and Baluchistan is proved by the fact that in 1972 the
NAP Government of Baluchistan put restrictions on their permanent settlement in
the Quetta Division. </p><p>This measure was strongly resented by the Pakhtoon
leader, Abdus Samad Khan Achakzai on the ground that it was aimed at the
Pakhtun elements of Baluchistan's population. </p><p>A special personality who deserves mention in this context is the First Lady of
Pakistan, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, wife of President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She is a
'Kurd' from Kirmanshah in Iran and belongs to the tribe which produced the
illustrious Muslim general and monarch Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi. Pakistan is
indeed fortunate to have its first lady from the kith and kin of a soldier of
whom the entire Muslim world is proud. </p><p>There are many other groups and individuals in Pakistan who have recently
arrived from Iran and Afghanistan and the process continues.
In this fluid situation, would the protagonists of four nationalities theory
agree to have the provincial boundaries re-demarcated, with resulting
restrictions on the flow of population from one province to another? It would
not only be impractical but outrageous and harmful to each one of the so-called
nationalities, spelling their economic ruin. </p><p>With the process of migration still in progress and the final population
pattern yet to take definite shape and form; with the so-called nationalities
inter-mingled with each other in every province; and with each nationality
carrying within its fold district sub-nationalities. It has neither historical
background nor geographical roots nor racial or linguistic basis. The idea is
irrational, illogical and anomalous. Its implementation would be
politically tragic and economically disastrous for all the four. </p><p>Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world whose provincial boundaries
cannot be demarcated on the basis of nationalities because of the intermingling
of various racial and linguistic groups with each other. </p><p>In fact nationalities
in the true sense of the word do not exist in Pakistan in clearly demarcated
areas as they do in India, USSR, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Switzerland,
Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Canada, etc.
From Karakoram to Karachi, Pakistan is a solid land mass with distinct
geographical boundaries; inhabited by people of same racial stock, having a
common history, heritage, dress and diet; pursuing the same religion, with Lashkari
understood by all and regional languages having a common script. </p><p>Very few
nations in the world possess such strong uniting factors as the people of
Pakistan. Centrifugal and separatist tendencies that are at present being
highlighted by outside powers in collaboration with a few so-called leaders,
have hardly any roots in the masses. </p><p>The people of Pakistan, irrespective of
the province they belong to, think and act alike. Separatist tendencies have
not even touched them; they are simple, religious-minded, hard-working innocent
folk. They commonly regard themselves firstly Muslims, secondly, Pakistanis and
thirdly, their allegiance is to the tribe they belong to. Four
nationalities concept does not form part of their thought-pattern. </p><p>Published in 1973 by A. Abdalla</p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-31601382447980632692022-05-10T14:48:00.002-07:002022-05-10T14:49:07.886-07:00Controlled food supply could stop human overpopulationPublishing credit: Daily Kent Stater, Volume 32, Number 52, Kent State University, 1998. Fair use.
Click in images to enlarge:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3tGmqMpJjjV84QV0ZHQi3y1S-WWs7hUASpmLnUeuk7QLv6l02ALJL9H69AH5yFuvCANerCuuOidrO30fmw7NZKilmIOv9NrwCr4iIb01zon6HOCpVjSTpQYBRoCOh1-XgEIRgmWrL1On5aJO2eVi0qFeHi3U1GGqQXjyYYB4IuKXb1y-aHK-GLkA/s1501/Controlled%20food%20suppply%20could%20stop%20overpopulation.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="1501" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3tGmqMpJjjV84QV0ZHQi3y1S-WWs7hUASpmLnUeuk7QLv6l02ALJL9H69AH5yFuvCANerCuuOidrO30fmw7NZKilmIOv9NrwCr4iIb01zon6HOCpVjSTpQYBRoCOh1-XgEIRgmWrL1On5aJO2eVi0qFeHi3U1GGqQXjyYYB4IuKXb1y-aHK-GLkA/s320/Controlled%20food%20suppply%20could%20stop%20overpopulation.png"/></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8G1OaXWncGKQu71dXXIUnybu1LgqfAuzGzSF0U4qYPM5GHWGovRxB9PjVRJl6FsnGx5rjOuCN9_4FPvYyCZxqyEgdQHYcHFpgQkODWSoPN6YZYY-99WBSHbXctjaK7uUvFc0yqQCeLX6lc7_7_yljXMIH05u84cp6Zxh0Kw4cXBasE3KBMGAbeaQ/s2137/Screenshot_2020-12-02%20Soher%20Husseinshah%27s%20answer%20to%20Do%20you%20regret%20moving%20to%20Germany%20-%20Quora%281%29.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2137" data-original-width="693" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8G1OaXWncGKQu71dXXIUnybu1LgqfAuzGzSF0U4qYPM5GHWGovRxB9PjVRJl6FsnGx5rjOuCN9_4FPvYyCZxqyEgdQHYcHFpgQkODWSoPN6YZYY-99WBSHbXctjaK7uUvFc0yqQCeLX6lc7_7_yljXMIH05u84cp6Zxh0Kw4cXBasE3KBMGAbeaQ/s320/Screenshot_2020-12-02%20Soher%20Husseinshah%27s%20answer%20to%20Do%20you%20regret%20moving%20to%20Germany%20-%20Quora%281%29.jpg"/></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqL3c-dvqLGdGTzLt52rECtMcCA2Oz4Gpdg19c2rW5VWEp2wF3jKbbGAcXrtl63rxrpCAuTOL14pwL6t351weTf79gLWyxYAanskgCEBDf-o7jtWZ7XqqnNQ1f8MdLQhsqvJas61i7F2tAH3xoclxIrpw4NtZkCcE1pzcBrtDEozEoyKpXjZWChcg/s2183/Screenshot_2020-12-02%20Soher%20Husseinshah%27s%20answer%20to%20Do%20you%20regret%20moving%20to%20Germany%20-%20Quora.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2183" data-original-width="703" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqL3c-dvqLGdGTzLt52rECtMcCA2Oz4Gpdg19c2rW5VWEp2wF3jKbbGAcXrtl63rxrpCAuTOL14pwL6t351weTf79gLWyxYAanskgCEBDf-o7jtWZ7XqqnNQ1f8MdLQhsqvJas61i7F2tAH3xoclxIrpw4NtZkCcE1pzcBrtDEozEoyKpXjZWChcg/s320/Screenshot_2020-12-02%20Soher%20Husseinshah%27s%20answer%20to%20Do%20you%20regret%20moving%20to%20Germany%20-%20Quora.jpg"/></a></div>
Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-2859731599222694712021-11-08T13:50:00.002-08:002021-11-08T18:36:50.080-08:00Dispelling myths about the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war<p> The purpose of this post is not to advocate war. All issues between countries should be sorted peacefully, including India & Pakistan. War should be a last resort.</p><p>However, no matter how regretful the 1965 war was as well as other wars were, a common myth persists on it being a major loss for Pakistan as well as other wars. The purpose of this post is <i>not</i> to advocate further wars, but to dispel myths of previous wars. </p><p>Some press publications from the 1965 war:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg0eNL_xfz0clabIJHRp3nIdLzxJnGr0EuduR_R5e3yuwHIgI6nJUWWcSvKYCirX67SVUOpNsf19aaOyVzZGnHY1m-aGREwVqBfmoiqGT-94h3eSqOvKWIYydaTM-dy16I-hGr6du4hu0/s328/India+Admits+that+Troops+have+Fallen+Back.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="328" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg0eNL_xfz0clabIJHRp3nIdLzxJnGr0EuduR_R5e3yuwHIgI6nJUWWcSvKYCirX67SVUOpNsf19aaOyVzZGnHY1m-aGREwVqBfmoiqGT-94h3eSqOvKWIYydaTM-dy16I-hGr6du4hu0/s320/India+Admits+that+Troops+have+Fallen+Back.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIEh2vGQicnKy0_jJUH6boH8IBewGwc2-4uSqBCc8mIDhEqSLBaaU7LdpO_mJaVSkGEkjeLJiX_INR-durslMVw5pRzlHQWqkDVH7USC3CKMc-5eYbrFOO2LC2qeAfFZDf0uYGW44dcPs/s602/India+troops+thrown+back+by+Pakistan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="602" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIEh2vGQicnKy0_jJUH6boH8IBewGwc2-4uSqBCc8mIDhEqSLBaaU7LdpO_mJaVSkGEkjeLJiX_INR-durslMVw5pRzlHQWqkDVH7USC3CKMc-5eYbrFOO2LC2qeAfFZDf0uYGW44dcPs/s320/India+troops+thrown+back+by+Pakistan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLN6nFZwArL93crXJeWtv6xHELWcOT8JdA2Bvd2d9nzJREDNtR12HVSCYzmOry8wEpBI7QBSTHKM6H91MzHBqDu2TXtvcP8LiAEwJqaJNfCair9z9mj1u9edzedoT3AG6HZXnPhjvDsc/s247/Indians+Forced+to+Retreat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="204" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLN6nFZwArL93crXJeWtv6xHELWcOT8JdA2Bvd2d9nzJREDNtR12HVSCYzmOry8wEpBI7QBSTHKM6H91MzHBqDu2TXtvcP8LiAEwJqaJNfCair9z9mj1u9edzedoT3AG6HZXnPhjvDsc/s0/Indians+Forced+to+Retreat.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJj2VVikDB__nmWCSK-vC_38YKApGAClKIMU54P6mBHtSk5vbn9c5CmlOJk0K5pWxUXxiUSA2dxKB5PMVxC-y3pxkKmQKqMmMv5cJLGpUBJU-M0xa_S2m9c5Ho27PpiVqjlHI3Gw_UK6k/s257/Pakistan+Pushes+Back+Indian+Units.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="196" data-original-width="257" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJj2VVikDB__nmWCSK-vC_38YKApGAClKIMU54P6mBHtSk5vbn9c5CmlOJk0K5pWxUXxiUSA2dxKB5PMVxC-y3pxkKmQKqMmMv5cJLGpUBJU-M0xa_S2m9c5Ho27PpiVqjlHI3Gw_UK6k/s0/Pakistan+Pushes+Back+Indian+Units.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLuthPhXV0QaNYoDZLPwrSYMmzBnBh1A-ReHGmDqiWBvv40LvgE1DiiIrNf-4xafYIzJf8NNeQN_LbzlhyphenhyphenjJm9vjqXmDCFDk9OiftGpWKvZhHS0fuzGTP-SAwzfCDjKP6r_Yv_SWj8dpY/s600/Pakistani+Victory.+Huge+losses+on+Both+sides.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="600" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLuthPhXV0QaNYoDZLPwrSYMmzBnBh1A-ReHGmDqiWBvv40LvgE1DiiIrNf-4xafYIzJf8NNeQN_LbzlhyphenhyphenjJm9vjqXmDCFDk9OiftGpWKvZhHS0fuzGTP-SAwzfCDjKP6r_Yv_SWj8dpY/s320/Pakistani+Victory.+Huge+losses+on+Both+sides.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Indian tanks captured by Pakistani forces:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixFDukui8RQ5mVAmKg888fKRXUIGbZAsRIU8WyHy5igxe7dEefVPhgWlEKKgXGrrXtNhUjzdQMbNbkqALLiR8TBXJfl-wkvcPPHkJVyTPiZ_dU02hWIa6fCRUNrXWRYiRsbreZrSJYlgE/s281/Captured+Indian+tanks.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="179" data-original-width="281" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixFDukui8RQ5mVAmKg888fKRXUIGbZAsRIU8WyHy5igxe7dEefVPhgWlEKKgXGrrXtNhUjzdQMbNbkqALLiR8TBXJfl-wkvcPPHkJVyTPiZ_dU02hWIa6fCRUNrXWRYiRsbreZrSJYlgE/s0/Captured+Indian+tanks.jpg" width="281" /></a></div><p> </p><p>Pakistani troops advancing on the front lines:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQr-dQoUi6YMldq9wRhTTW_8llvxOmglLWVppakxbAmBx6_L43blA1n4mCkkAoK_IIgPTBq5mHfwunvuHKVrIyhsgxFUKPfbHVXvKL_rQ7-u1sZcrxg57kXdYcQ_hwjqH8hiDjTZvfHII/s273/Pakistani+troops+advancing+on+the+front+lines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="273" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQr-dQoUi6YMldq9wRhTTW_8llvxOmglLWVppakxbAmBx6_L43blA1n4mCkkAoK_IIgPTBq5mHfwunvuHKVrIyhsgxFUKPfbHVXvKL_rQ7-u1sZcrxg57kXdYcQ_hwjqH8hiDjTZvfHII/s0/Pakistani+troops+advancing+on+the+front+lines.jpg" width="273" /></a></div><br />Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-17670620629348981062021-10-13T23:38:00.005-07:002021-11-08T14:25:04.318-08:00Unforgettable tweet on the subcontinent before the so-called "'partition' of 'India'"<p> An unforgettable tweet by an educated and well-informed Pakistani on twitter. Well done:<br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC2fq4fJP94lMnoVQa44kCrtqdzJX21PPwmSe-9MQmbZdn2WAM7zx-rgLo8FQglBgxLeMiFo3Kxu6j0CqwHLDyYKC49ljLw7yQjuc_IBt-xpY7f1hhyZ_Bmi6Yhprxh4MXSqNu5EECxw8/s854/179478992_544627939851470_8481621056781822960_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="854" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC2fq4fJP94lMnoVQa44kCrtqdzJX21PPwmSe-9MQmbZdn2WAM7zx-rgLo8FQglBgxLeMiFo3Kxu6j0CqwHLDyYKC49ljLw7yQjuc_IBt-xpY7f1hhyZ_Bmi6Yhprxh4MXSqNu5EECxw8/w543-h414/179478992_544627939851470_8481621056781822960_n.jpg" width="543" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-16090026528098674652021-06-25T22:04:00.001-07:002021-10-13T23:43:45.639-07:00Quotes on Hindu and Hinduism<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20051218230932/http://www.axess.se/english/archive/2004/nr2/currentissue/theme_inventionhindu.php"></a><p><span style="font-size: 14;"> </span>“"Hinduism" is largely a fiction, formulated in the 18th and 19th
centuries out of a multiplicity of sub-continental religions, and
enthusiastically endorsed by Indian modernisers. Unlike Muslims, "Hindus"
have tended to borrow more than reject, and it has now been reconfigured
as a global rival to the big three monotheisms. In the process, it has
abandoned the tradition of toleration which lie in its true origins.” -Pankaj Mishra<br /></p><p><span style="font-size: 14;"> "The term Hinduism ... [ was ] introduced in about 1830 AD by
<br />British writers. " [Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 `Hinduism' 519 ]
<br />
<br />"The term Hindu was first imposed on south Asian nations by the
<br />Afghan dynasty of Ghori in the 12th century; this term was never
<br />used in south Asia prior to the Muslim era and is not even found in
<br />early (pre-12th century AD) Brahmanical or Buddhist texts. Such a
<br />term and concept has no historical depth in any social, religious,
<br />ethnic or national sense past the 12th century when Mohammed Ghori
<br />for the first time named his conquered subjects Hindus." [G. Singh,
<br />Sakasthan and India, Toronto, 1999, p. 20]
<br />
<br />"Hinduism, as a faith, is vague, amorphous, many-sided, all things
<br />to all men. It is hardly possible to define it, or indeed to say
<br />definitely whether it is a religion or not, in the usual sense of
<br />the word." [Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, New Delhi,
<br />1983, p.75]
<br />
<br />"Frankly speaking, it is not possible to say definitely who is a
<br />Hindu and what Hinduism is. These questions have been considered
<br />again and again by eminent scholars, and so far no satisfactory
<br />answer has been given." [Swami Dharma Theertha, History of Hindu
<br />Imperialism, Madras, 1992, p. 178]
<br />
<br />"Hinduism defies definition... It has no specific creed." [Khushwant
<br />Singh, India: An Introduction, New Delhi, 1990, p. 19]
<br />
<br />"The more Hinduism is considered, the more difficult it becomes to
<br />define it in a single phrase... A Hindu may have any religious
<br />belief or none." [Percival Spear, India: A Modern History, Michigan,
<br />1961, p.40]</span></p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-51855111391712351692021-04-16T17:38:00.009-07:002023-07-01T21:18:12.888-07:00Quotes on the history of Lashkari or "urdu" -Pakistan's national language<p> <br /> <b><i>Note</i></b>: <i>India the historical region needs to be distinguished from the modern country founded in 1947 of a seperate geography taking up the name</i>.<br /></p><p>*"The very word Urdu came into being as the original Lashkari dialect, in other words, the language of the army."</p><p>-<b>Geography of the South Asian Subcontinent: A Critical Approach</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"> “The Punjab presumably felt the
impact of Persian before any other part of India, starting in
the Ghaznavid period. Bailey believes that “the formation of Urdu began
as soon as the Ghaznavi forces settled in Lahore in 1027”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">-Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“As
we have seen , Mahmud Shirani places the origin of Urdu in the eleventh
century, relating it to the Ghaznavi rule over the Panjab”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">- A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Grahame
Bailey , after analysing them , came to the conclusion that "the
formation of Urdu began as soon as the Ghaznavi forces settled in Lahore
, i . e . in 1027 ”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">-Rise of Muslims in Indian Politics An Analysis of Developments from 1885 to 1906</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“Mahmud Shirani places the origin of Urdu in the eleventh century, relating it to the Ghaznavi rule over the Punjab”.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">- History of Printing and Publishing in India: Origins of printing and publishing in the Hindi heartland</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“Urdu begins
, as it must as a matter of commonsense have begun , as soon as
the Ghaznavi armies got to Lahore in 1027 - and Lahore was nowhere near
the area of Khari ( and still less that of Braj and Avadhi)”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">- Central Asian Review Volume 15 1967</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“The
language in which these texts were written was similar to Urdu, which
was to develop much later. The assertion is based on the premise that
this early Urdu-like language was derived from Ghaznavid Persian”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">- A Comprehensive History of Medieval India Twelfth to the Mid-eighteenth Century</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“The origins of Urdu date back to the period of Ghaznavid rule in the Panjāb in the sixth / twelfth century .”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">-The Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 2B, Islamic Society and Civilisation Volume 2, Part 2 1977</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“its early
development took place in Punjab following the Ghaznavid
conquest of Punjab whence Punjabi language came to be influenced by
Turko-Persian language”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">- Early Urdu Historiography By Javed Ali Khan · 2005</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“The origin of Urdu dates back to the period of the Ghaznavid rule in the Punjab”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">- History of Islam: Classical period, 1206-1900 C.E</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">"It
is generally agreed that the early Muslim invasions of the Punjab (from
1027) fused Persian with its heavy Arabic content with Old Punjabi"</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">-The Sufis of Bijapur, 1300-1700 Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">"The
formation of Urdu began in 1027 when Mahmud ' s armies were stationed
at Lahore."</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">- Islam and Pakistan's Identity</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">"The
birth of Urdu language was the direct result of the synthesis between
the invading armies of Mahmud of Ghazni with the civilian population of
the Indian cities. The word Urdu itself means Lashkar, derived from the
Turkish language meaning armies."</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">- The Essentials of Indian Culture by K.K.Khullar</b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0 kghFzc"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">“Those
who ascribe the origin of Urdu to Delhi and its environs ignore the
considerable chunk of 177 of earlier history of uninterrupted
interaction of Persian and Punjabi. Their theory also fails to explain
the existence of Urdu in the South in the form of Dakhani of a large
number of Punjabi words and grammatical constructions. In view of this
background, it seems that the late professor Mahmood Sherwani and
Professor Zore were right in holding that urdu was born in Punjab. There
is ample historical and literary evidence to support this view.”</span></span></span><br /></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">-<b>Prince, Poet, Lover, Builder, Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, the Founder of Hyderabad by</b> <b><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0 kghFzc"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal;">Narendra Luther</span></span></span></b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0 kghFzc"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal;"> "</span></span></span></b><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0 kghFzc"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal;">In fact this mixture of locals and foreigners gave birth to the language of Urdu in Lahore that was called Lashkari Zuban (language of army) at that time</span></span></span><b><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0 kghFzc"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal;">."</span></span></span></b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0 kghFzc"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal;">-Lahore During the Ghaznavid Period by Khalid Kanwal<br /></span></span></span></b></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><b><span class="CssComponent__CssInlineComponent-sc-1oskqb9-1 UserSelectableText___StyledCssInlineComponent-lsmoq4-0 kghFzc"><span class="q-box qu-userSelect--text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background: none; font-style: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><br /></p><div class="gs_citr" tabindex="0"><br /></div>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-90029249597092627092021-04-07T14:48:00.003-07:002021-04-16T17:29:34.327-07:00The Indus Valley is Genetically Distinct from the Gangetic Plain (North India)<p class="ih ii fu ij b ik il im in io ip iq ir is it iu iv iw ix iy iz ja jb jc jd je dg gq" data-selectable-paragraph="" id="0fd1">Conventional
wisdom has long held that the principal genetic divisions in South Asia
are generally tied to linguistic differences. Indo-Aryan speakers
(North Indians) form one broad cluster, Dravidian speakers (South
Indians) form a second cluster, Iranic speakers (Western Pakistan) form a
third, etc. While allowances are made for caste-differences and
geography, the above formulation is more-or-less accepted by the casual
observer. Its often wrong however, particularly at the margins.</p><p class="ih ii fu ij b ik il im in io ip iq ir is it iu iv iw ix iy iz ja jb jc jd je dg gq" data-selectable-paragraph="" id="97e7">One such case I want to highlig<span id="rmm">h</span>t is the genetic gap between two neighboring Indo-Aryan regions; the <b class="ij ct">Indus Valley</b> (specifically Punjab and Sindh), and <b class="ij ct">Gangetic North India </b>(Uttar
Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat). Below is a PCA chart constructed from
Harappa ancestry samples, which will help us visualize the genetic
distance between these ethnic groups.</p><p class="ih ii fu ij b ik il im in io ip iq ir is it iu iv iw ix iy iz ja jb jc jd je dg gq" data-selectable-paragraph="" id="9973"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://miro.medium.com/max/3000/1*bW_yGv3Y_fQWOxj4DMzfWQ.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="755" height="277" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/3000/1*bW_yGv3Y_fQWOxj4DMzfWQ.png" width="522" /></a></div> <br /> As
can be seen from the figure above, there is little genetic overlap
between the Indus Valley and Gangetic North India. In contrast, despite
both a linguistic and geographic divide, Gangetic North India does
exhibit significant overlap with Dravidian South India. Indus Punjabis
show a similar relationship with Iranic Pathans, however Indus Sindhis
and Iranic Balochis do not seem to overlap.<p></p><p class="ih ii fu ij b ik il im in io ip iq ir is it iu iv iw ix iy iz ja jb jc jd je dg gq" data-selectable-paragraph="" id="ef15">Hopefully
this will help caution readers against lumping all Indo-Aryan ethnic
groups together. These populations not only have significant cultural
differences, but from a genetic standpoint they can often diverge
considerably.</p><p class="ih ii fu ij b ik il im in io ip iq ir is it iu iv iw ix iy iz ja jb jc jd je dg gq" data-selectable-paragraph="" id="a5e2"><i class="jm">Notes:<br />- </i>The
Dravidian sample includes individuals from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and
Andhra Pradesh. The Gangetic sample includes individuals from Uttar
Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. The Punjabi sample includes both
Pakistani and Indian Punjabis. The Pathan sample includes individuals
from the <a class="dm jn" href="https://araingang.medium.com/pashtun-genetics-15b40f363a21" rel="noopener">Eastern Pashtun</a> grouping. <br />-
Its possible that many of these groups will demonstrate greater or
lesser genetic overlap once more South Asian genetic samples become
available. This post is not the last word on the topic, simply an
observation. <br />- The phenomenon of linguistically similar Indian
groups diverging significantly from a genetic standpoint (even after
adjusting for caste) is also seen with Malayalis visa-vis Dravidians,
and Marathis visa-vis Indo-Aryans. Time permitting, I hope to write
about both of these cases.<br />- Data source comes from <a class="dm jn" href="https://www.harappadna.org/" rel="noopener nofollow">Harappa Ancestry Project</a>,
with scores from individuals being largely collated from forums like
Anthrogenica. This info is publicly available, and analysis can be
reproduced by anyone willing to collate the scores and run them through a
PCA program. I used BioVinci, but there are free programs available as
well.</p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-77514646448877631842021-03-30T16:31:00.001-07:002021-03-30T16:31:34.633-07:001971 War - Myths and Realities 1971 <p> A compilation of quotes from books refuting common myths about the 1971 war and it's predeceasing events.<br /></p><p>Byline: Arshi Saleem Hashmi
<br /><br /> December 16 1971 does not bring good memories for Pakistanis; it is
the date we lost half of our country. Since 1971 a lot has been
published questions have been raised politician and military
personalities have been blamed and that continues to happen even today.
According to the Hamood-ur-Rehman commission report the defeat suffered
was not a result of military factors alone but had been brought about as
the cumulative result of political developments that took place between
1947 and 1971. It is unfortunate that instead of an objective analysis
of the circumstances that led to the debacle in 1971 one sided
accusative approach is adopted to describe the situation during that
time. Critiques of Pakistan take no time to come up with the accusation
of brutality" being conducted by Pakistan Army without any
substantiated data.
<br /><br /> A strong narrative based on 'biased propaganda' was
promoted without analyzing factors like the role of India Mukti Bahini
Awami League and wrong decisions at political level. Unfortunately
Bangladeshi youth is also being brought up on this narrative. East
Pakistan was not governed properly can be a true assessment but the
violence that was unleashed in the year prior to the secession was way
too exaggerated. The brutal murder of innocent Bengalis was all
classified as the gruesome act of Pakistan Military it actually helped
covering the negligence of East Pakistani political and civil
administration. The new narrative that was created in the subsequent
years was to protect the violence conducted by Mukti Bahini and Awami
League's members against those East Pakistanis who were not
convinced that the solution to governance problems in East Pakistan was
to break away from West Pakistan. </p><p>These patriotic East Pakistanis believed in Pakistan and paid heavy
price by losing their lives and damage to property. Later on all the
killings were termed as genocide by West Pakistan's policy tool and
Pakistan Army was presented as the one responsible for this.
<br /><br /> Recently I have gone through few books that record the accounts of
primary sources and show the true picture. These books in a way respond
to the most prevailing myths about 1971 and East Pakistan. The study of
these books reveals the extent and effectiveness of Indian and Awami
League propaganda to defame Pakistan and Pakistan Army. These
independent scholars who have tried to bring a more scholarly work based
on extensive research included personal experience as well as accounts
of common Bangladeshis to unravel the true face of negative narratives.
<br /><br /> Sarmila Bose is one such author who in her book Dead Reckoning:
Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War" provides primary sources
interviews detailing the accounts during the time and unfolding many
mysteries that have been dominating the literature on East Pakistan
situation.
<br /><br /> There are many other voices opening up new avenues for researchers
and scholars working on Bangladeshi politics and its history. Ikram
Sehgal renowned defence expert has come up with his book Escape from
Oblivion: The story of a Pakistani Prisoner of War in India". Mr.
Sehgal narrates the details about the real situation after Pakistan Army
men were taken as prisoners by India.
<br /><br /> Similarly the book The Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline
and Fall of East Pakistan" written by a Bengali professor Dr Syed
Sajjad Hussain who remained Vice Chancellor of Rajshahi University and
moved to Dhaka University in July 1971 gives an insider's account
that unfolds many secrets regarding East Pakistan buried in the history.
<br /><br /> In next paragraphs I am reproducing few of the relevant excerpts
for the interest of readers that also highlight different but a
well-researched view-point about prevailing myths.
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: The military operation was conducted against innocent
civilians.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: "At the more organised level weapons training started and
military-style parades were held carrying weapons both real and dummy.
Kaliranjan Shil a Communist activist who survived the army's
assault on Jagannath Hall in Dhaka University on 25-26 March wrote that
following the postponement of the national assembly on 1 March and the
start of the non-cooperation movement as part of the struggle the
student union started 'training in pre-paration for war with dummy
rifles on the Dhaka University gymnasium field... I was also taking
training in a group. In a few days our first batch's training was
completed and along with girl-students' group three groups of us
took part in a march-past on the roads'. Photographs of marching
girls carrying rifles appeared in the foreign media during this period
and images of such gatherings and parades are displayed with pride in
the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka. </p><p> The invocation of Gandhi's name in connection with the Bengali
uprising of 1971 is not only entirely inappropriate it is patently
absurd. Mujib 'the apostle of agitation' seeking power through
brilliant oratory and electoral politics did not speak the language of
Gandhi or think his thoughts. Crowds did not go to hear Gandhi armed
with guns rods and spears." (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories
of 1971 Bangladesh War Page 26)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: There were over 3 million killings of Bengalis during the
military operations.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: "Examination of the available material on the 1971 war in
both Bengali and English showed that while the allegation of
'genocide' of 'three million Bengalis' is often made
in books articles newspapers films and websites it is not based on any
accounting or survey on the ground. Sisson and Rose state that the
figure of three million dead was put out by India while some Bangladeshi
sources say it was the figure announced on his return to Dhaka by Sheikh
Mujib who in turn had been 'told' that was the death toll when
he emerged from nine months in prison in West Pakistan. It is unclear
who 'told' Sheikh Mujib this and on what basis. However Sheikh
Mujib's public announcement of 'three million dead' after
his return to the newly created Bangladesh was reported in the media.
<br /><br /> For instance on 11 January 1972 in The Times Peter Hazelhurst
reported from Dhaka on Mujib's emotional home-coming: in his first
public rally in independent Bangladesh Mujib is reported to have said
'I discovered that they had killed three million of my
people'." As the earlier chapters indicate my own experience
in Bangladesh was very similar with claims of dead in various incidents
wildly exceeding anything that could be reasonably supported by evidence
on the ground. 'Killing fields' and mass graves were claimed
to be everywhere but none was forensically exhumed and examined in a
transparent manner not even the one in Dhaka University. Moreover as
Drummond pointed out in 1972 the finding of someone's remains
cannot clarify unless scientifically demonstrated whether the person was
Bengali or non-Bengali combatant or non-combatant whether death took
place in the 1971 war or whether it was caused by the Pakistan Army.
<br /><br /> Ironically as Drummond also points out the Pakistan Army did kill
but the Bangladeshi claims were 'blown wholly out of
proportion' undermining their credibility. Drummond reported that
field investigations by the Home Ministry of Bangladesh in 1972 had
turned up about 2000 complaints of deaths at the hands of the Pakistan
Army." (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh
War Pages 175 177)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: The riches of East Pakistan (Sonar Bangla) were exploited by
West Pakistanis.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: "The second move in the game was to build up an equally
fictitious image of a Bengal overflowing with milk and honey which had
been delivered over to Pakistan. The so-called Bengali scholars claimed
to discover almost every day more and more evidence of a rich cultural
heritage in Bengal's past now exposed to risk. The fact that the
province had not yet recovered from the devastating famine of 1943 and
the ravages of the Second World War was conveniently overlooked. Nor did
anybody care to draw. attention to the recurring cycle of famines and
shortages which has been a constant in Bengal's history. Only about
43 years before the 1943 famine there had been at the turn of the
century a terrible famine of the same kind which had taken a heavy toll
of human life. Stories of similar food shortages at twenty-five or fifty
year intervals form the staple of Bengal's literature. But the
illiterate public in Bengal have a short memory and are apt to forget
inconvenient truths.
<br /><br /> They love day-dreaming. Oblivious to the picture of this barrenness
and starvation the image they love to cherish of Bengal is that of an
inexhaustible granary where no one goes hungry"... No one could
deny either openly or secretly that Bengal overwhelmed with a large
population needed foreign capital for development since she had no
capital herself. On the other hand the presence of outsiders who seemed
to possess both money and skill was keenly resented. To rationalise the
resentment they created the myth that the outsiders were not really
helping in the development of her resources but fleecing Bengal. There
had existed they maintained back in the dim past of Sonar Bangla a
Golden period when the country lacked nothing. The outsiders had eaten
her resources away reduced her to destitution and poverty and degraded
her to her present position. The myth took hold on the imagination of
the public.
<br /><br /> In their lucid moments of course they remembered how relentless the
realities around them were. But the natural bent of their minds towards
romanticism and emotionalism gave rise to puerile fancies without the
slightest foundation in fact about the wealth and resources of the
motherland. The Indian conspirators kept fanning this puerilism taking
advantage of the inevitable frictions which the advent of foreign
capital produces in any society." (Dr Syed Sajjad Hussain The
Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan
Pages 111 112 117)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: Pakistan Army alone is responsible for all violence.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: By the time I reached my unit my world had been turned
topsy-turvy the writing clearly on the wall. One could never believe
that the 2E Bengal had killed their West Pakistani colleagues. Sadly it
was true. The massacre of the family of Subedar Ayub was especially
heinous and unforgiveable. All these officers had repeatedly been warned
by West Pakistani officers that they would be killed if they did not
leave the unit. During those critical days some Bengali officers even
advised them to take leave or go to Dacca on some pretext. All of them
without exception refused to take the easy exit by abandoning the unit.
It was unthinkable on their part to do so particularly at such a
juncture. They all were of the sentiment that if they stood their ground
they will be able to stop any action that might be taken against their
unit. But they proved to be gravely wrong. They were murdered their
martyrdom proves that they were heroes by all means.
<br /><br /> Their killing is a dark stain on history and can never obliterate
the fact that they were a fine battalion." (Ikram Sehgal Escape
from Oblivion: the Story of a Pakistani Prisoner of War in India Page 6)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: India entered the war in December 1971 and was trying for
peaceful political solution to the problem from the outset.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: The date of the start of full-fledged war between India
and Pakistan in 1971 is a contested issue. The date popularly given out
is 3 December the one announced by India but this is merely the date the
war spread to include the Western sector. In a sense India's
involvement in the war may be taken to be from March and its involvement
in the politics of the province perhaps from even earlier. Numerous
Bangladeshi pro-liberation accounts blithely recount close contact and
coordination with authorities prior to the military action taken by the
Pakistani Regime as well as in-year. Many of the Pakistani officers I
spoke to described Indian involvement and casualties in
'actions' in East Pakistan throughout the year
<br /><br /> 'The big operations are always done by the Indians'
reported The Guardian on 18 September 1971 after an ethnic Bengali who
blended in with the local population and needed no translation visited
the training camps of the Mukti Bahini in India and crossed in to East
Pakistan with a guide on his own. Of the couple of hundred Bengali
'volunteers' who were said to be in the border area he visited
only six had been given any training at all and only three had taken
part in any operation" The American government was correct in its
assessment that India had already decided to launch a military operation
in East Pakistan when Mrs. Gandhi came to Washington in early November
pretending that she was still seeking a peaceful solution".
(Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh War Pages 172
173)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: The West Pakistanis imposed their culture on Bengalis.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: During the Civil War of 1971 there was a great deal of
talk in the American Press particularly in such journals as Time and
Newsweek about the revolt of the Bengalis against the attempted
imposition of an alien culture upon them by the Punjabis. In so far as
the term Bengalis connoted Bengali Muslims this was of course a plain
lie there having been no difference between the culture of one section
of Muslims and another in Pakistan. In so far as the statement referred
to the original culture of the local inhabitants there was not much in
it which one could consider worth defending. There was in either case no
truth in the allegation that the inhabitants of East Pakistan were being
forced to accept a way of life repugnant to them.
<br /><br /> What had indeed been happening since the adoption of policy of
industrialisation by Pakistan was that the crust of old customs and
superstitions was gradually breaking up people were beginning to
understand the advantages of modern comforts; polished floors were being
substituted for mud and sand bamboo being replaced by cement concrete
porcelain taking the place of brass and bell-metal chairs and tables
being substituted for cane mattresses. New roads better communications
the influx of capital from abroad the growth of industrial townships the
arrival of new skills and techniques had begun to erode the traditional
pattern of life and end the old isolationism. An air of cosmopolitanism
filled the atmosphere. Bengalis both Hindus and Muslims were being
forced increasingly to come into contact with foreigners whose ways and
judgments were so different.
<br /><br /> The opening of airports in remote areas like Lalmonirhat or
Shaistanager the setting up of a paper mill at Chandraghona or a
newsprint mill at Khulna the establishment of a network of jute mills
all over the province the discovery and utilisation of gas at Haripur
and Titas disclosed new potentialities at the same time that they opened
up possibilities of change never foreseen." (Dr Syed Sajjad Hussain
The Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan
Page 116)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: West Pakistani Army was the 'occupying force'
whereas Indian Army was a 'liberation army'.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: "The Pakistan army is also constantly referred to in the
Bangladeshi literature as an occupying force' or 'hanadar
bahini' (invading force raiders). This is a mindless
misrepresentation of reality. In 1971 East Pakistan was a province of
Pakistan a country created in 1947 as a homeland for South Asia's
Muslims through a movement in which East Bengal played a significant
role. The Pakistan army was present in the province as it was in other
provinces of the newly created state. Bengalis served both in the
existing units of the army and in the special Bengal regiments raised
later. Just as West Pakistanis served in East Pakistan Bengali officers
were posted in West Pakistan.
<br /><br /> Bengalis who later decided they wanted to secede from Pakistan and
fight for an independent country could have termed the Pakistan army
'shotru' 'enemy forces' whom they wished to eject
instead of resorting to pointless attempts to erase history by labelling
them 'occupying' or 'invading' forces as though they
had suddenly appeared from a foreign land. Moreover many Bengalis did
not support the idea of secession and continued to consider the Pakistan
regime the legitimate government and some Bengali officers continued to
serve in the Pakistan army defending what was still Pakistani territory.
There was only one 'invading force' in East Pakistan in 1971
that was India." (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971
Bangladesh War Page 163)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: Bengali language was fundamental part of Bengali nationalism.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: "The Indians began by painting a dismal picture of the
subservience to which the Bengali-speaking Muslims of East Pakistan
would be reduced in the event of Urdu being declared Pakistan's
state language. The Bengali-speaking Hindus of West Bengal saw no threat
to their identity in the adoption of Hindi as the Indian state language.
This was perverse logic. We seemed to be back in the world of Humpty
Dumpty. But the so-called intellectuals of East Pakistan failed to see
through the Indian game and immediately took up the cry that Bengali had
to be saved from the threatened onslaught. A myth was concocted almost
overnight about a conspiracy against the Bengali language" What on
the contrary the Awami Leaguers assisted by the left-wing journalists
fanned all the time was the cult of Bengali nationalism. Here again
their dishonesty was transparently plain.
<br /><br /> They didn't contend that the entire subcontinent needed
reorganising on linguistic lines or that each major language group in
Pakistan and India called for recognition as a separate nationality with
a right to self-determination. The theory was applied to the Bengalis of
Pakistan only. The Bengalis in West Bengal in India could stay where
they were; the Marathis the Tamils the Andhras---all belonged to the
Indian nation and nothing illogical could be seen in their union into a
single State of the disparate language groups which inhabited India. The
Nagas ethnically linguistically and culturally differed from the rest of
India but they received no support although they had been struggling for
secession since 1947; their leader Dr Phizo lived in exile in London
while Indian tanks armoured cars heavy artillery and bombs helped
'pacify' Naga villages. The disputed area of Kashmir was also
left severely alone.
<br /><br /> No India had a right to be one and anyone who pleaded for pluralism
either politically or culturally was a reactionary. But Pakistan with
precisely the same demographic composition as India had to be viewed
differently. Never in political history before has the jaundiced eye
been so powerfully at work as in India and Pakistan weighing the same
problems in the two countries in different scales and insisting on
different conclusion." (Dr Syed Sajjad Hussain The Wastes of Time:
Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan Pages 111 213)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: Armed activities against non-Bengalis were carried out by
Mukti Bahini guerrilla only and not the Indian Army.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: "Bengali accounts of the 'heroic' exploits of
rebel fighter in the war are punctured by some accounts given by their
powerful allies the Indians. 'It can now be said' wrote Maj.
Gen. Sukhwant Singh 'that despite the Awami League's hold on
the Bengali troops in the name of patriotism Mujib's charisma and
the professional contacts in the armed forces of Col Osmani the
organizers of the insurgency had not been able to draw up and implement
an integrated plan... the revolt had no strong popular base'.
Initially the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) supported the
operations of the rebels but 'Unfortunately these efforts were not
very effective'. 'The failure of the revolt and the poor
results obtained by the rebel forces in their operations after crossing
into India led to a detailed appraisal of the situation by the Indian
Government in the last week of April'. According to Maj. Gen. Singh
'the Indian Army was asked to take over the guidance of all aspects
of guerilla warfare on 30 April'"
<br /><br /> The assessment of Maj. Gen. Lachhman Singh was similar: 'The
Mukti Bahini fighter was not a dedicated guerilla... the Awami League
leaders were reluctant to join them and face the hazards of military
struggle. The guerillas had no safe bases for operations inside East
Pakistan but could safely operate from camps across the Indian
border'. In Singh's view 'It was becoming clear by July
that Mukti Bahini was unable to win the confidence of the
villagers'. They also avoided direct confrontation with the
Pakistan army owing to the heavy casualties they suffered. However
'The propaganda machine worked hard and to good effect. Dressed in
a Iungi and rifle in hand the Mukti Bahini guerilla became an instant
hero... The news-hungry press swallowed claims of fictitious successes
which were widely believed." (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories
of 1971 Bangladesh War Pages 146-47)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: Pakistani soldiers carried out rapes of university student
during Operation Searchlight.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: "None of the Bengali eye-witness accounts nor the testimony
to me of Pakistan army officers involved in the action nor the evidence
of the recorded radio communication among them mention Rokeya Hall the
women's hostel of Dhaka University as a target of military action.
Yet a story had circulated in 1971 repeated to me by members of the
Bangladeshi intelligentsia about the women's hostel being attacked
and girls jumping out of the windows. In reality like the other hostels
Rokeya Hall had also emptied of its normal residents before 25 March and
did not seem to have been a targeted building. Similarly as attested in
Jahanara Imam's book by a terrified resident of Mohsin Hall the
army did not go to Mohsin Hall either." (Sarmila Bose Dead
Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh War Page 57)
<br /><br /> <b>Myth</b>: 93000 Pakistani soldiers became POWs to India.
<br /><br /> <b>Reality</b>: "One of the most notable 'numbers' of 1971 in
circulation is the assertion that '93000 Pakistani soldiers'
were taken prisoner by India at the end of the war. This statement has
been repeated virtually unchallenged in practically every form of
publication. It is a number about which one expects a certain precision
after all the number of POWs in India had to be an exact figure not an
approximation. Yet it turns out that 93000 soldiers were not in fact
taken prisoner.
<br /><br /> In March 1971 the number of West Pakistani troops in East Pakistan
was reported to be 12000. More forces were brought in to cope with the
crisis and Lt Gen A. A. K. Niazi Commander of the Eastern Command in
1971 from April to December wrote: 'The total fighting strength
available to me was forty-five thousand 34000 from the army plus 11000
from CAF and West Pakistan civilian police and armed
non-combatants'. Out of the 34000 regular troops 23000 were
infantry the rest being armour artillery engineers signals and other
ancillary units.
<br /><br /> How did 34000 army personnel plus 11000 civilian police and other
armed personnel a total of 45000 men more than double into '93000
soldiers' who were reported taken prisoner by India in
December" (Sarmila Bose Dead Reckoning: Memories of 1971 Bangladesh
War Page 174)
</p><br />Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-29873860861230563372021-02-21T01:35:00.003-08:002021-02-21T01:35:31.165-08:00Debunking the 3 million genocide myth<p> </p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">This is copied from the "Ancient Pakistan" page on Facebook.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Just
days after the Fall of Dhaka, General Abdul Siddigui and his Bengali
nationalist guerrilla fighters (Mukti Bahini) are photographed using
bayonets to torture and kill four Bihari men suspected of
"collaborating" with Pakistan. This scene was repeated across Bangladesh
weeks after 16 December 1971, in which minority communities like
Biharis, Chakma Buddhists and even a small Punjabi community in Dhaka,
were brutally murdered.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Mature
nations should be able to question their own history, and accept
interpretations which may differ from the one they were led to believe.
This is particularly true in cases of conflict. As time passes and
cooler heads prevail, we can start piecing together the facts, and
shunning away the propaganda and exaggerations. History cannot be
changed, but it can be reassessed.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">I,
as a historian and a Pakistani, personally hold no grudges against
Bangladesh today nor am I interested in “reclaiming” East Pakistan. But
the truth of 1971 must be told – ever since then, Pakistanis have been
led to believe a masochistic version of history that holds us
responsible for everything that happened in that war. But the actual
evidence and sequence of events tells us a very different story, one
which morally bankrupt pseudo-historians and cherry picking rights
activists like <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://www.facebook.com/pakistanvotes/?__cft__[0]=AZU4Ykdb-ZyFWkX6692ugKdfg53cjrh9HZ7Sc9nuMsVb2nkdRVMZZ9B2jp4oUAigwOi4tc2Vf6cYVzdi_B7l5ziuktfO66oo_XHe7DgT8sFgb_i6LZhTLarM7TDJuqZ2zX0FGEchHNLZnow8wXA5uOCj3Q2qQ54ipm3LVEe0qxHh7fn2o-za1wY5V1kEikTWFtw7JsCArQReE2E2sMUfxnVm&__tn__=kK-R" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank"><strong class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">Pakistan Votes</strong></a> and <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://www.facebook.com/BrownHistory/?__cft__[0]=AZU4Ykdb-ZyFWkX6692ugKdfg53cjrh9HZ7Sc9nuMsVb2nkdRVMZZ9B2jp4oUAigwOi4tc2Vf6cYVzdi_B7l5ziuktfO66oo_XHe7DgT8sFgb_i6LZhTLarM7TDJuqZ2zX0FGEchHNLZnow8wXA5uOCj3Q2qQ54ipm3LVEe0qxHh7fn2o-za1wY5V1kEikTWFtw7JsCArQReE2E2sMUfxnVm&__tn__=kK-R" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank"><strong class="_12FoOEddL7j_RgMQN0SNeU">Brown History</strong></a>, would rather ignore.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">The
fact is non-Bengali minorities were brutally murdered by Bengali
fascists. What exactly was the intention of targeting them is not fully
understood, but a case of “ethnic cleansing” can surely be made. This is
something the Government of Bangladesh (the Awami League in particular)
would rather hide than accept, and to this day, the crimes committed
against these minority communities by Bengali nationalists are either
ridiculed or simply dismissed by the Awami League. It is particularly
this reason why Bangladesh never made any efforts to involve the
international community in going after and charging Pakistani generals
involved in the 1971 war. Mujib knew very well that if an impartial,
independent, international tribunal were to be set up, like the
Nuremberg tribunal was after Nazi Germany fell, that the truth of their
own war crimes against non-Bengalis would be exposed to the world.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">But let’s take a step back for a second and go back to 1933, because this is an important fact that people seem to miss.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">The
fact is the conflict in East Pakistan should have never happened in the
first place, because East Bengal was never meant to be part of
Pakistan. This can be attested to the 1933 document “Now or Never”,
written by Chaudhary Rehmat Ali, whereby he defines PAKSTAN, an acronym
of the historic nations that would form the country in the future –
meaning Punjab, Afghania (KP), Kashmir, Sindh and BalochisSTAN. Bengal
was never in the picture to begin with, but in the hastiness of
partition it appears the two Muslim wings were simply lumped together.
Had our leaders had the foresight after 1947, East Bengal should have
either become independent or become an autonomous territory within
Pakistan.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">There are three major issues why this should have occurred:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">> Ethnolinguistic differences<br />East
Bengal had a relatively homogenous ethnic population and spoke one
language, whereas West Pakistan (comprising of Sindh, Balochistan,
Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan)
was multiethnic, multilingual and multicultural.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">> Population<br />East
Bengal was overpopulated – roughly the size of Sindh, it had a larger
population than all of West Pakistan’s provinces combined.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">> Geography<br />East
Bengal was an enclave surrounded on all four sides by India – its total
border length with India was 4156 km, with an additional 270 kilometer
border with Myanmar.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">When all these factors highlighted, East Pakistan was simply a disaster waiting to happen.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Since this is a very long topic, I will divide it into four major parts:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Part 1: Debunking The 3 Million Myth<br />I
have only used non-Pakistani sources from Bangladesh’s own Foreign
Secretary to the British Medical Journal. Sources have been provided for
each quote.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Part 2: Ethnic Cleansing by Mukti Bahini<br />The
murder of Biharis is well known, but what is not known are the
massacres committed against Chakma Buddhists in Chittagong Tract Hills
and the small Punjabi business oriented community within Dhaka. With
this in mind, the case of “ethnic cleansing” could surely be made.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Part 3: International Crimes Tribunals (Bangladesh)<br />This
court was setup domestically within Bangladesh in 2012, based off the
ICT Act which Bangladesh passed in 1973. The word “international”
shouldn’t fool you, since the international community played no part in
the trials. It was simply added in to look as if they did. Foreign
observers have criticized the tribunal, mentioning government
interference, restrictions on public discussion, not enough time
allocated for the defence, the kidnapping of defence witnesses and a
judge resigning due to controversy over his neutrality.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Part 4: What Pakistan Got Wrong In East Bengal<br />To
suggest Pakistan had no role in the debacle of 1971 would be silly.
This is why the Hamoodur Rahman Commission was setup to understand what
led to the conflict of 1971. However, as you’re all well aware, it was
classified at the behest of the military. The commission was highly
critical of Pakistan's military interference in East Pakistan,
misconduct of politicians as well as intelligence failures of the ISI
and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />PART 1 - The Myth of 3 Million<br />I’ll
start off by addressing the most controversial issue here – the myth
that three million people were killed in East Pakistan by the army. This
allegation was first made by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 8 January 1972.
This number is widely circulated as fact, but sources from within
Bangladesh seem to question its authenticity.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Serajur
Rahman, a journalist and broadcaster with BBC Bangla Service at the
time, wrote a piece in 2011 for The Guardian explaining how the three
million figure came to be:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“On 8
January 1972 I was the first Bangladeshi to meet independence leader
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after his release from Pakistan. He was brought
from Heathrow to Claridge's by the Indian high commissioner Apa Bhai
Panth, and I arrived there almost immediately. Mujib was puzzled to be
addressed as "your excellency" by Mr Panth. He was surprised, almost
shocked, when I explained to him that Bangladesh had been liberated and
he was elected president in his absence. Apparently he arrived in London
under the impression that East Pakistanis had been granted the full
regional autonomy for which he had been campaigning. During the day I
and others gave him the full picture of the war. I explained that no
accurate figure of the casualties was available but our estimate, based
on information from various sources, was that up to "three lakh"
(300,000) died in the conflict. To my surprise and horror he told David
Frost later that "three millions of my people" were killed by the
Pakistanis. Whether he mistranslated "lakh" as "million" or his confused
state of mind was responsible I don't know, but many Bangladeshis still
believe a figure of three million is unrealistic and incredible.”
(Source: <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2011%2Fmay%2F24%2Fmujib-confusion-on-bangladeshi-deaths%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1PkWT78yHFoMj4WnMlEHtxE95swVOdWaLkpNh-EyAsMWISc7_pLkn6VBA&h=AT2Rc3_9yl06a9L2YhY8f4ypQmF8ny1T-qdaiF2saadGNrAmhuAewP-22MEi1FVtZkhVa91tgNV8CO19YS0cWJXILRPFBebNEcWqilQJyzrQDfwpWal-fmMS53V5q4WWpFdmhO7kuEB_3T8z5w&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/24/mujib-confusion-on-bangladeshi-deaths</a>)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">However,
in the book “Sheikh Mujib: Triumph and Tragedy” by Sayyid A. Karim,
Bangladesh’s first foreign secretary, he wrote a different story about
the three million claim:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“As for
the number of Bengalis killed in the course of the liberation war, the
figure of 3 million mentioned by Mujib to David Frost in January 1972
was a gross overstatement. This figure was picked up by him from an
article in Pravda, the organ of the communist party of the Soviet
Union.” (Source: <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fuplbooks.com.bd%2Fauthor%2Fsayyid-karim%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR32k58xk4TdcFb-nazQPHzLExsVDHo-Ws5gvJ2BjgwxK3658KNw3MQsKvU&h=AT216WGNgjR8WCqfr6ZKEM4Lf0Smj84NuymiWAENZzjbYHOwBx99ngexzJtCGpVJ3eN-lMNXA2YTnSP086ofIYD0ARmMp9JqJvqiMkRGAvE-B8UqoHTUJk3vnErHAMcHIn5hKZcTzqlCJh1bpw&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">http://uplbooks.com.bd/author/sayyid-karim</a>)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">But
where did Mujib get his hands on Pravda in London? That answer lies in
an article written in “The Bangladesh Observer”, which was published on 5
January 1972 (and was a prosecution exhibit in the Golam Azam case)
entitled, “Pak Army killed over 30 lakh people”. It reads:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“The
Communist party news paper ‘pravda’ has reported that over 30 lakh
persons were killed throughout Bangladesh by the Pakistan occupation
forces during the last nine months, reports ENA. Quoting its special
correspondent stationed in Dacca the paper said that the Pakistan
Military forces immediately before their surrender to Mukti Bahinis and
the Allied forces had killed about 800 intellectuals in the capital city
of Bangladesh alone.”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">It is
unclear how Pravda got ahold of this figure – the newspaper simply
quotes its special correspondent, which in turn is quoted by the
Bangladesh Observer. It’s pertinent to note that the USSR played a big
role in the secession of East Pakistan and riling up Bengalis. In a
television interview, retired KGB Psychological Warfare Officer Yuri
Bezmenov explains in detail how the USSR aided Mujib by using India.
(Watch video here <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D7bb_fXONk2Y%26fbclid%3DIwAR3zocMcsDXjTVDGH7OFRrxUc0Lh8UHJEYys9-WdIGbFa9Qm4655OMNKoPw&h=AT2m4UYkLc-wOoLPiZz1b-k6b5qbESsFlyUc0Im6tQnTUTGrI8ftZzUv2nsJjC9q7paiMS5LDPAWz1g_12t1efaYlYVTJsS30dnEBiQl0eLOpGLWkakUbmoZXa0tMrp4XZM8ytVzFK6n7EdN1w&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bb_fXONk2Y</a>)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">In
1974, Bangladesh apparently tried to calculate the number of people who
had died in 1971. However, upon most of the study being completed, the
actual number calculated came to around 250,000 dead and was nowhere
close to the estimated 3,000,000 Mujib had claimed in 1972. Upon hearing
the number, Mujib had the entire study shut down. Lawrence Lifschultz,
a resident correspondent with the “Far Eastern Economic Review” in
Bangladesh, wrote about this in detail:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“In
the course of my reporting I met a very interesting man who had a very
intriguing story to tell about the work he had recently been doing. He
was employed by the Home Ministry and was part of a team of researchers
conducting a study that was trying to assess the total number of
casualties that had occurred during the nine months of 1971 as war raged
across the country. The Home Ministry study was trying to assess how
many people had died directly from the armed violence of the Pakistan
Army and their local collaborators. They were also trying to estimate
how many people had died on the road or once they reached refugee camps
across the border in India. Many of these deaths were among children and
the elderly. The study was conducted by field workers systematically
asking families in villages about those who had died from their village
during the war and under what circumstances. They were slowly building
up a picture across the country. At the time we met, the Home Ministry
team had completed their survey in approximately a third of the
districts. My Home Ministry source told me that based on their
projections the number of deaths from the war was estimated at 250,000
people. As I recall, this did not include the young, the ill and the
elderly, who died either in the refugee camps or as they fled the
Pakistan Army. A quarter of million people dying from armed violence is
by any measure a terrible and tragic number. However, according to my
source, the study was abruptly shut down and discontinued. The reason
was that the survey was moving toward a statistical conclusion that
differed with the prevailing orthodoxy that three million people had
died from armed violence and refugee migration. (Source: <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pamphleteerspress.com%2Fthe-case-of-david-bergman%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR32k58xk4TdcFb-nazQPHzLExsVDHo-Ws5gvJ2BjgwxK3658KNw3MQsKvU&h=AT0lDmAmTIpZysnTUkYVN3aJh49yFdU8OHbJpIG2pIy0Xm7CDF3sLWSDPunPwD4bxc6vqieoatTEQq3u40dh16Jm51cBpd5fzTDTTXxk7PpmM9BFU096EmOVKxdrlovmLGq6I3E4yc9jIipg4g&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">http://www.pamphleteerspress.com/the-case-of-david-bergman</a>)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">And
the controversy continues to this day. Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP) chief and former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Khaleda Zia herself
has questioned the validity of the three million claim:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“There
is a debate about how many hundreds of thousands were martyred in the
Liberation War. Different books and documents give different accounts.”
(Source: <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehindu.com%2Fnews%2Finternational%2Fkhaleda-raises-doubt-on-liberation-war-casualties%2Farticle8018812.ece%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2f77G5t-ojnDpxDPNszZohpdoMd2rO34jJtNpRclMmja_ik6aKPx-1NVQ&h=AT30XYx__FrhNaOMCaW0AHGL6-mSpgkGEiVi8tg-XK9KvTUGgSsb7zejw8Bnc66wdv_Cai8yjidurC10iX5T85J8X0eRIeqYj5TZHnt5hq-mhM7VXhpzsLxwEmjb_tfGEM0WNvacwO895w7E_g&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/khaleda-raises-doubt-on-liberation-war-casualties/article8018812.ece</a>)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">In
Volume 30 of the “Population Studies: A Journal of Demography”
published in 1976, the study ”Demographic crisis: The impact of the
Bangladesh civil war (1971)” estimates around 500,000 deaths during the
conflict. (Source: <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tandfonline.com%2Fdoi%2Fabs%2F10.1080%2F00324728.1976.10412722%3Ftab%3Dpermissions%26scroll%3Dtop%26fbclid%3DIwAR1YeIiLIg2W-l8KuEO4G7DTqag9sRP3AmCfmRz-Zytk7pETkIiITNucnIc&h=AT2S-Xxs6adyX19V3FOcTHz-GBTF2QPvHZCFFOkAfBXvLzxUetZk1Jo2td4_QnHc6O3p8bzNVd49WTjISflCCnpheOw_Gbhc2k6VEABGT9BSHyBtzfD-P-NFOYhwW8B1CdkSLwCLg8Yq59tgfQ&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00324728.1976.10412722?tab=permissions&scroll=top</a>)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">In
the British Medical Journal’s 2008 volume, the study “Fifty years of
violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the
world health survey programme” states around 269,000 deaths (allowing a
possible range of 125,000 to 505,000). Earlier estimates of casualties
during the Bangladesh war were in the region of 58,000, the study noted.
The objective of the survey was to provide an accurate estimate of
deaths in wars. The study analysed estimated deaths from war injuries in
13 countries over 50 years, including Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
(Source: <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bmj.com%2Fcontent%2F336%2F7659%2F1482%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3uGDR_gass2xh8TQRyNUGR8Y9uYjI2ToyqPD7fi0lzo_RRXAb14kVXIns&h=AT2uTQtD_0xaPEhggn02KW3zT8_Tgkx6iWDr5-7SH_uB2TCE00q7PJHjHUA7sH3X_sW7SLm_1QlU0xiozNWInoKvn95YYUWqu07tClM_qkZKtF8mWd6vwANWcDdvg8u6jjjiOVHJ-rw04ICD0A&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">https://www.bmj.com/content/336/7659/1482</a>)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Despite
factual evidence available from non-Pakistani sources debunking the
myth of 3 million, some Bangladeshis, and many Indians for that matter,
continue to believe this ridiculous number. M. A. Hasan, convener of the
"War Crimes Fact Finding Committee" in Bangladesh says that:</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">“The figure of liberation war martyrs is one such issue which no one should question.”</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">The
fact this is coming from somebody who heads a “Fact Finding Committee”
is quite disturbing. It’s evident from this quote that fact finding is
not the objective here, but rather cementing the myth is. Since the
Awami League came to power again in 2009, it has tried to use the
emotions surrounding the 1971 war to justify a move toward authoritarian
one-party rule in Bangladesh. In its version of history, only the Awami
League is the party of liberation, and therefore of government, and
opposition parties are branded as “pro-Pakistan,” and therefore
dangerous and disloyal. For many others however, both within and outside
of Bangladesh, questions are indeed necessary on the 1971 war.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">All
of what has been written above comes in the form of small articles and
studies. However, if you want an unbiased, scholarly take into the
events surrounding 1971, I would suggest Sarmila Bose’s book “Dead
Reckoning: Memories of Bangaldesh”.</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Sarmila
Bose is a British-Indian historian at Oxford who is credited for
publishing the first scholarly analysis of the 1971 conflict. Bose’s
investigation of the 1971 Bangladeshi narrative began when she saw a
picture of the Jessore massacre of 2 April 1971. The caption of the
photo stated: "April 2, 1971: Genocide by the Pakistan Occupation Force
at Jessore". However, upon closer examination, Bose found that "some of
the Jessore bodies were dressed in shalwar kameez an indication that
they were either West Pakistanis or Biharis. In Bose's book, she has
done a case-by-case body count estimate that lead her in the end to
estimate that between 50,000 and 100,000 people were killed on all
sides, including Bengalis, Biharis, West Pakistanis and others, in 1971
war. (s: <a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2011%2Fjul%2F01%2Fdead-reckoning-sarmila-bose-review%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1CKAnTNCcqnv1Bye13bKr22pKCHuYiK_CK-GYjHDYZphsUr4u7Dl03ufU&h=AT3sTkLlu7U2n178Z9xjAVhUQK78VYf2bYlHP4ZkxQu8XP9r2PcoLpPrGGa_gAbrIcXZGxXZCFDs2DfmJgpE52VVHvfQbR2c1cqGGm9pYvuW_kMVaqBJSrZicgY6d3Ktr_Ku3jfEr4L5-SnQWA&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/01/dead-reckoning-sarmila-bose-review</a>) and (<a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraphindia.com%2Fculture%2Fstyle%2Fthe-truth-about-the-jessore-massacre%2Fcid%2F1553111%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2WiRRPNM-lFq5uiXY4xmSPky83l3EtiY7DXauC3VYYKLUalBtBXz-k050&h=AT01PWrcfotKoSulqCN89aItXGzXFocgGnxfFOPWJVfXXI_ar1QSXTk6cyIOIFKgNhRQ-0C2RWNVF0yqxs-O5igUi3XYSAqsvE1L8nHPjrBkQx3tXt8QnaMSjGPedq0oP3lx_CNhluyswVh1pA&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">https://www.telegraphindia.com/culture/style/the-truth-about-the-jessore-massacre/cid/1553111</a>)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Another
book I suggest reading is by Dr. M. Abdul Mu’min Chowdhury, a Bengali
nationalist who actively participated in the separatist cause. In his
book "Behind the Myth of 3 Million", he challenges the falsehood and
conspiracy theories around what took place in 1971. Citing an extensive
range of sources to show that what the Pakistan Army was carrying out in
East Pakistan was a limited counter-insurgency, not genocide, the
scholar discloses that after the creation of Bangladesh, the new de
facto government offered to pay 2000 Taka to every family that suffered
loss of life, but only 3000 families claimed such compensation. Had
there been three million Bengalis dead, a lot more families would have
come forward. Furthermore, the actual fighting force of the army in East
Pakistan was 40,000 not 93,000. As such, when India invaded East
Pakistan, the army was at a 50:1 disadvantage. (<a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.storyofbangladesh.com%2Febooks%2Fmyth-of-3-million.html%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0gkxtujFh1efIMGfFfONOLKhT97W_kYpIUQAhtVyfVnEc-GixHI7m1OUk%23%3A~%3Atext%3DMany%2520myths%2520have%2520been%2520formed%2Cintegrity%2520of%2520a%2520united%2520Pakistan&h=AT2CtxiMY-HEsB3AlCzWRvE_JPUUwfO6Xp7CEmE_1n9SdQa5_bf0WJ6BZm7zkQ5yNBxJQAJLb7-u7CsV9QjFqmnfUB2kwgWMTLmHneNZvcB5YV1ak5T_i_isAx704D6hS10xPA2PgdbFIEMsWg&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">http://www.storyofbangladesh.com/ebooks/myth-of-3-million.html#:~:text=Many%20myths%20have%20been%20formed,integrity%20of%20a%20united%20Pakistan</a>.)</p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM">Other Sources<br /><a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F04%2F06%2Fopinion%2Fthe-politics-of-bangladeshs-genocide-debate.html%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1CKAnTNCcqnv1Bye13bKr22pKCHuYiK_CK-GYjHDYZphsUr4u7Dl03ufU&h=AT3goE-5j7PF_4joRX1cJYyHe826dVFgp_K-5PDgWk5ln4oXDzWTLiRwdsQqIFLXXOzzAcsVCIpiv7qa6DV4oZqv_KpvGodHS9FJ-A7VJg9PuN6xdARBZFWeZH-aDA9wG9-AKMo-jBWh4JWD1w&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/opinion/the-politics-of-bangladeshs-genocide-debate.html</a></p><p class="_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM"><a class="_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbangladeshwarcrimes.blogspot.com%2F2014%2F02%2F1971s-war-time-dead-further-thoughts.html%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR017-LXUCTUA_g41M0e0BmstckyJYT_fGxbaduF2s1tJNzntmz4ZynZki0&h=AT1Bs5t2O_hs5kpaUmqg82s0vXlcPbOr-lGqi3xLwzTMH1Z4sdIRiCo1J6oROLRXgN-K21Jq5nCtkJgpPAaAzNFlUNTPTuKCP9o8WxMZvCAuia83Q2Ah_NU9K82BoyHPufYvycHkRT5eB95efg&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT2cnjaj7aa4lp4NeDd615JUiotTl6f_Bq2enbtTptyqzwVQg8i_Ut9wSsVmLvJqcb0nLx75eVIyD0lGPVmAHTYrd8wZWOGoIzYIvU1h8rcwV27osy8AIFY9_11-iw2Q3Lpjje1wigC7hpqWaqg_Wf1GyXO82cWXb31pENqoqzOdSz2IrZpCu7Boa7T51nLR2_5_ivAOvlsJj2cY5OnGHcgX8_A_" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank">http://bangladeshwarcrimes.blogspot.com/2014/02/1971s-war-time-dead-further-thoughts.html</a></p>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-12915760308700789562020-05-25T17:20:00.000-07:002020-05-25T17:20:35.092-07:00Is Pakistan the real India? <div dir="auto">
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Is <span class="il">Pakistan</span> The <span class="il">Real</span> <span class="il">India</span>?</div>
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When we refer to <span class="il">India</span> today, are we also referring to the historic concept of <span class="il">India</span> that ancient historians and explorers wrote about? Turns out it’s not. The <span class="il">India</span> of today is not the historic <span class="il">India</span>…ironically <span class="il">Pakistan</span> is the <span class="il">real</span> <span class="il">India</span>. Confused? You should be! Unfortunately European colonialism played a big role in how the term “<span class="il">India</span>” was misused and mislabeled.</div>
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Let’s discuss this more in detail by first defining some basic terms to avoid confusion: When ‘Republic of <span class="il">India</span>’ is mentioned, we are referring to modern-day <span class="il">India</span> (1947 to present). When ‘<span class="il">India</span>’ is mentioned, we are referring to the historic definition of <span class="il">India</span> (the Indus Valley) as cited by Vedic, Persian, Greek, Macedonian, Arab, Chinese and Roman sources.</div>
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~ Jinnah vs Mountbatten ~</div>
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Following independence in 1947, many maps printed in the Republic of <span class="il">India</span> referred to the newly formed country as Bharat – in fact the constitution of <span class="il">India</span>
officially names the country as Bharat. The word Bharat derives from
Bharatavarsha (the land of the Bharatas), with these Bharatas being one
of the early Vedic clans who migrated from the Indus Valley to the
Ganges plain sometime between 1200 BCE to 800 BCE. By adopting this
name, the new republic in Delhi could, it was argued, lay claim to a
revered Arya heritage that was geographically vague enough not to
provoke regional jealousies yet doctrinally vague enough not to
jeopardize the republic's avowed secularism.</div>
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Bharat would seem preferable since the term <span class="il">India</span>
was too redolent of colonial disparagement. It also lacked a
respectable indigenous pedigree. In the whole colossal corpus of
Sanskrit literature, nowhere is the term <span class="il">India</span> ever mentioned. Nor does the term <span class="il">India</span> appear in Buddhist or Jain texts and nor was it used in any of the Republic of <span class="il">India</span>’s numerous languages.</div>
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Worse still, if etymologically the term <span class="il">India</span>
belonged anywhere, it was <b>not</b> to the republic proclaimed in Delhi by
Jawaharlal Nehru but to its rival headed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah in <span class="il">Pakistan</span>. Partition would have a way of dividing the subcontinent's spoils with scant reference to history. No tussle over the word <span class="il">India</span> is reported because Jinnah preferred the newly coined and Islamic-sounding acronym <span class="il">Pakistan</span>. Additionally, he was under the impression that neither state would want to adopt the colonial term "<span class="il">India</span>."
He only discovered his mistake after Lord Mountbatten, the last British
viceroy, had already acceded to Nehru's demand that his state be named
the "Republic of <span class="il">India</span>." Jinnah, according to
Mountbatten, “was absolutely furious when he found out that they (Nehru
and the Congress Party) were going to call themselves <span class="il">India</span>."</div>
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The use of the word implied a sub-continental primacy that <span class="il">Pakistan</span> would never accept. It also flew in the face of history, since <span class="il">India</span>
originally referred exclusively to territory in the vicinity of the
Indus River (with which the word is cognate) and its tributaries. Hence <span class="il">India</span> was largely outside the Republic of <span class="il">India</span> and largely within <span class="il">Pakistan</span>.</div>
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~ European usage of the word <span class="il">India</span> ~</div>
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Reservations about the word <span class="il">India</span>, which convinced Jinnah no nation would use it, stemmed from its historical usage among European colonialists. <span class="il">India</span>
or Indies (its more generalized derivative) had come, as if by
definition, to denote an acquisition rather than a specific territory. <span class="il">India</span>
was yet conceptually concrete to Europeans: it was somewhere to be
coveted as an intellectual curiosity, a military pushover and an
economic bonanza. While the historic term of <span class="il">India</span> exclusively referred to the Indus Valley (today known as <span class="il">Pakistan</span>), the European definition of <span class="il">India</span> was used to describe acquired territories across the world. Let’s go over some of them:</div>
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*British East <span class="il">India</span> Company – present-day Bangladesh, Republic of <span class="il">India</span> (Ganges plain & Deccan)</div>
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*British
West Indies – The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Antigua, Virgin
Islands, Dominica, Montserrat, Grenada, Cayman Islands, Guyana, Jamaica,
Trinidad & Tobago</div>
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*Dutch East <span class="il">India</span> Company – present-day Bangladesh, Republic of <span class="il">India</span> (Ganges plain & Deccan)</div>
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*Dutch East Indies – present day Indonesia, Brunei & Malaysia</div>
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*Dutch West Indies – present-day Suriname & Netherlands Antilles</div>
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*French East <span class="il">India</span> Company – present-day Puducherry</div>
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*French West <span class="il">India</span> Company – present-day Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe & Haiti</div>
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*Portuguese East <span class="il">India</span> Company – present-day Goa </div>
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*Portuguese East Indies – present-day Malacca (Malaysia) and Macau (China) </div>
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*Casa da <span class="il">India</span> – managed all overseas territories including Brazil & Angola</div>
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*Spanish West Indies – present-day Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela & Dominican Republic</div>
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*Spanish East Indies – present-day Philippines, Guam, and Papua New Guinea </div>
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*Danish East <span class="il">India</span> Company – present-day Bangladesh, Republic of <span class="il">India</span> (Bengal & Tamil Nadu)</div>
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*Danish West Indies – present-day US Virgin Islands</div>
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*Swedish East <span class="il">India</span> Company – present-day Bangladesh & Bengal (but never lasted long).</div>
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You get the picture...<span class="il">India</span>
was geographically imprecise among the Europeans. This is in stark
contrast to terms like Africa, Arabia, Britain, Scandinavia or America,
where the territory was well defined. The term <span class="il">India</span>
on the other hand was indeed moveable if one took account of all the
“Native Indians” in the Americas, and all the overseas Indies. Tulane
University professor Rosanne Adderly says the phrase "West Indies"
distinguished the territories encountered by Columbus or claimed by
Spain from discovery claims by other powers in [Asia's] "East Indies".
The term "Indies" was eventually used by all European nations to
describe their own acquired territories in the world.</div>
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~ Historic <span class="il">India</span> ~</div>
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Now that we have a clear picture of how the word <span class="il">India</span> was misused by Europeans, let’s delve deeper into where the term <span class="il">India</span>
comes from and what it actually defines. The first occurrence of the
word sets the trend. It's an inscription found at Persepolis, capital of
the Achaemenid Empire of Darius I in Persia dated from 518 BCE, where
it lists his numerous domains including that of “Hi(n)du”. Where does
the word Hindu comes from? Let’s investigate.</div>
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The
word for the Indus river in Sanskrit is “Sindhu” and hence “Sapta
Sindhu” meant the land of the seven rivers, which is what the Vedic
clans of the Indus Valley called Punjab. Six of these rivers were all
tributaries to the Indus river and hence the Indus was viewed as the
“Sindhu par excellence”.</div>
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</div>
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In the ancient Persian language, a relative of
Sanskrit, the initial 'S' of a Sanskrit word was invariably rendered as
'H' and thus Sindhu became Hindhu in Persian. </div>
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</div>
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When the word found its
way into Greek, the initial ‘H’ was dropped, and it began to appear as
the root “Ind”. In this form, it reached Latin and most other European
languages, giving rise to “Ind + ia” or <span class="il">India</span>. </div>
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</div>
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In Arabic, Persian and Turkish, the “H” was retained and the term
“Hindhu” would eventually give rise to Hind and Hindhustan, by which
Arabs, Turks, Persians and Mughals would know <span class="il">India</span>.
The word Hindhu also reached Europe much later and was used to define
the country's indigenous people – the Vedic clans of the Indus Valley
(ie. Sindhu, Kasmiras, Kambojas, Gandhara etc).</div>
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On
the strength of a slightly earlier Persian inscription, which makes no
mention of Hindhu, it is assumed that the Indus Valley was added to
Darius' Achaemenid Empire much earlier than 520 BCE. This earlier
inscription mentions “Gadara” (or Gandhara), a Buddhist state located in
an arc reaching the western Punjab through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa towards
Kabul and perhaps into southern Afghanistan (where it is believed
Kandahar got its name from). </div>
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</div>
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According to Xenophon and Herodotus, Cyrus
The Great had conquered Gandhara, which means the first Achaemenid
invasion may have taken place as early as the mid-sixth century BCE
(~550 BCE) rather than 518 BCE. This invasion seems likely from a
reference to Cyrus dying of a wound inflicted by the enemy. The enemies
were the “Derbikes” who enjoyed the support of the "Sindhu" people and
were supplied by war-elephants.</div>
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</div>
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In Persian and Greek minds alike, the
association of "Sindhu" with war elephants was thereafter almost as
significant as its connection with the mighty Indus River. To Alexander
of Macedon, following in the Achaemanids' footsteps two centuries later,
the river would be a geographical curiosity, but the elephants were a
military obsession.</div>
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<br /></div>
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If
Gandhara was already under Achaemenid rule, Darius' Sindhu territory
must have been beyond it, and so to the south or east. Later Persian
records refer to Sindhu giving rise to the word Sind, today <span class="il">Pakistan</span>'s
southern most province. It seems unlikely though that the present-day
Sindh borders were that of Sindhu in the late sixth century BCE, since
Darius subsequently found it necessary to send a naval expedition to
explore Sindhu. Flowing through the middle of the Indus River would
surely have been familiar to any naval explorer of the region. More
probably then the territory of Sindhu lay east of Gandhara and in all
likelihood would be the region between eastern Punjab and Thar Desert.
Sindhu territory thus occupied what is today Cholistan and Thar
(southern Punjab and northern Sindh provinces). Both Gandhara and Sindhu
would later on become provinces or "satrapy" of the Persian Empire.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Under
Xerxes (Darius' successor), troops from the satrapy of Gandhara and
Sindhu were reportedly serving in the Achaemenid Army. These people were
mostly archers, although cavalry and chariots are also mentioned. They
fought as far as eastern Europe and some were present at the Persians'
victory over Leonidas and his Spartans at Thermopylae, and then at the
decisive defeat by the Greeks at Plataea. Through these and other less
fraught contacts between Greeks and Persians, Greek writers like
Herodotus gleaned some idea of <span class="il">India</span>. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Compared
to the intervening lands of Anatolia and the Iranian plateau (a geographic region and not a country), it appeared a veritable
paradise of exotic plenty. Herodotus told of an immense population and
the richest soil imaginable from which kindly ants, smaller than dogs
but bigger than foxes, threw up hillocks of pure gold dust. The ants may
have intrigued entomologists, but the gold was registered in political
circles. With several rivers to rival the Nile and behemoths from which
to give battle (war-elephants), it was clearly a land of fantasy as well
as wealth. Herodotus, of course, knew only of the Indus Valley and that
too by hearsay. Hence, he did not report that the land beyond the
sensational extent of the Thar Desert. Hence, the Indus Valley was
considered “terra firma” or the end of the world to Greeks and
Europeans.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In abbreviated
form, Herodotus' history circulated widely throughout ancient Greece
and Europe - and a hundred years after his death, people would still be
reading his writings, including an avid teenager named Alexander of
Macedon, who knew it well enough to quote its stories. It wouldn’t be
until Alexander’s arrival in the Indus Valley (~330 BCE), that people
would discover a land beyond the Indus Valley (the Gangetic plain and
Deccan...or what is today the Republic of <span class="il">India</span>). Up until this point, the Indus Valley was considered “one end” of the ends of the world. The rest as they say is history.</div>
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<br /></div>
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~ Moving Forward ~</div>
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If
Pak Studies had been written properly, today we would not be having
this discussion. It’s very easy to blame European colonialists for
disparaging the word <span class="il">India</span>, but why haven’t we claimed this name? What are we sitting around for twiddling our thumbs for? <span class="il">Pakistan</span> should have done to the Republic of <span class="il">India</span> as Greece did to the Republic of Macedonia.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
Macedonia naming dispute is a political dispute regarding the use of
the name Macedonia between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia,
formerly a federal unit of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the former Socialist Republic
of Macedonia gained independence in 1991, naming itself Macedonia.
Citing historical and territorial concerns resulting from the ambiguity
between the Republic of Macedonia, the adjacent Greek region of
Macedonia and the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon which falls mostly
within Greek Macedonia, Greece opposed the use of the name "Macedonia"
by the Republic of Macedonia without a geographical qualifier such as
"Northern Macedonia" for use by all and for all purposes. </div>
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</div>
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As millions of
ethnic Greeks identify themselves as Macedonians, unrelated to the
Slavic people who are associated with the Republic of Macedonia, Greece
further objects to the use of the term "Macedonian" for the neighboring
country's largest ethnic group and its language. The Republic of
Macedonia is accused of appropriating symbols and figures that are
historically considered part of Greek culture such as the Vergina Sun
and Alexander the Great, and of promoting the irredentist concept of a
United Macedonia, which involves territorial claims on Greece, Bulgaria,
Albania, and Serbia. The dispute has escalated to the highest level of
international mediation, involving numerous attempts to achieve a
resolution. In 1995, the two countries formalized bilateral relations
and committed to start negotiations on the naming issue, under the
auspices of the United Nations.</div>
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</div>
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Until a solution is found, the
provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"
(sometimes unofficially abbreviated as FYROM) is used by international
organizations and states that do not recognize translations of the
constitutional name Republic of Macedonia. UN members, and the UN as a
whole, have agreed to accept any final agreement on a new name resulting
from negotiations between the two countries.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Similarly, <span class="il">Pakistan</span> should have done the same to the Republic of <span class="il">India</span>, which has no valid claim on the term <span class="il">India</span>
– neither geographically (Indus Valley vs Ganges plain), neither
religiously (Vedic beliefs vs Brahminism) and neither culturally. The
only reason the Republic of <span class="il">India</span> is named <span class="il">India</span> is purely due to European colonialist ignorance and greed. It remains to be seen if <span class="il">Pakistan</span> would ever legally question the usage of the term <span class="il">India</span>,
however, it is our responsibility as a nation to educate not only our
own people, but also the world. The Indus Valley is the true <span class="il">India</span>…always has been and always will be.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Feel free to tag and share this post with everyone you know.</div>
</div>
Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-5227646729468718882018-09-22T23:20:00.001-07:002018-09-23T00:08:05.253-07:00The British invention of "Hinduism" By<i> Hadwa Dom</i><br />
<br />
<i>Hinduism did not exist before 1830. It was created by the English colonialists in
the 1830s. This remarkable circumstance is evidenced by the fact that none of
the travelers who visited South Asia before English rule used the word `Hindu' or `Sanatana'.
This is amply borne out by the Encyclopedia Britannica, which states :
</i><br />
<blockquote>
" The term Hinduism ... [ was ] introduced in about 1830 by British
writers. "<br />
-- [ EB 20 `Hinduism ' 519 ]
</blockquote>
In other words, the founding father of `Hinduism' is an Englishman ! Nowhere in
the Vedas, Puranas or any other religious text prior to 1830 AD are the terms
`Hindu' or `Sanatana Dharma' used. Not a single inscription contains the terms
`Hindu' or `Sanatana' prior to the Muslim era. The myth that Hinduism or
Sanatana Dharma existed prior to this has been discarded in many theological
circles, and the fantasy that Santana Dharma is `One Religion' has been
abandoned -
<br />
<blockquote>
" The term "Hindusthan" was first used by a 12th century AD
dynasty of Muhammad Ghori who dubbed his new subjects
"Hindus". Prior to this era, no one in any region of South Asia had
ever used these terms to define themselves."<br />
There is no mention of either of these terms in "ancient Brahmanical
books (the oldest of which do not predate the 11th century; also the oldest
"Brahmanical" temples are all post Buddhist, after 8-9th century
A.D.). Ironically, two of the three core concepts of the Poorbia Brahmanist
imperialistic program of "Hindu and Hindusthan" are borrowed from
post-12th century Muslim (Afghan and Mogul) regimes."<br />
- [ Khals ]
</blockquote>
In recent years has arisen the movement for a revival of Dravidian religion. Two
of the main proponents of this movement have exploded the fallacy of the `Sanatana
Dharma' concept invented by a European-Smarta-Brahmin conspiracy as follows -
<br />
<blockquote>
" We are cognizant of the fact that the term 'Hindu religion' can not be
found before the arrival of the Europeans in India. We are also aware of the
fact that it was the Europeans who coined the term 'Hindu religion' to denote
the Indian religions that were originated in India and followed by the
Indians.
Since the term 'Hindu religion' denotes all the religions of India
together, it cannot refer to any particular religion. And since the term
'Hindu religion' consists of many religions which have different doctrines and
are contrary to each other, there will be leaders for each religion and there
cannot be a common leader for all the religions since they are controversial
to each other.
<br />
For instance, how can there be a common leader for both Buddhism and
Saivism, which are contrary to each other. Hence the belief that there is a
common leader for Hindu religion is superstitious and displays ignorance.
Hence, the statement that 'The Brahmins are the leaders of Hindu religion'
exhibits ignorance and deceptive. "<br />
[ Deva ]</blockquote>
Indeed, the Aryan race of Brahmins were never the leaders of any of the
religions of Dravidian religion, Kolarian religion, Buddhism or Jainism. They
were only the leaders of the 6 orthodox schools of Brahmanism, which includes
Vedism and Vaishnavism -
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
" History reveals that the Europeans coined the term Hindu religion and
saw nothing wrong in doing so. "<br />
-- [ Dev ]
</blockquote>
Hinduism is hence an invention of the Europeans, nothing more and nothing less.
It should more properly be subdivided into the religions of Brahmanism and
Shaivism, Shaktism, Tantrism and Saurism.
<br />
<h3>
5.2 Greeks and South Asian Religions</h3>
The Aryans referred to the region now known as `Punjab' (Persian `Land of 5
Rivers'), as `Sapta Sindhu'. In Old Achaemenid Persian this became `Hapta Hindwa',
and `Hindwa' then meant `Inhabitant of the Indus', completely without religious
significance. In Greek `Hindwa' became `Indoi' (Indian), whence the Latin
`Indus' river and `India'. The Greeks expanded the meaning of India to include
the entire subcontinent. It was never used to denote any religion in Greek or
Latin. The Greeks never used the word `Hindu', nor did the Romans.<br />
5.3 Arabs and 42 South Asian Religions<br />
In Old Persian `Hindwa' denoted only the `Region around the Indus River' and
not the whole of India. In Pahlavi or Middle Persian this developed into
`Hindustan' (The Land of the Indus) but still denoted only the region around the
Indus river. It was later Sanskritised to `Hindusthan'. This meaning was later
distorted to denote `Land of Hindus'. The term `Mughalstan' by contrast refers
to the Indus-Ganges basin which contains a Muslim majority. In fact, one-third
of all Muslims in the world inhabit this `Mughalstan', and a considerable
Islamist separatist movement has garnered around this banner. In recent years
the terms `Dravida Nadu' or `Dravidistan' and `Dalitstan' have been coined to
denote the regions where Dravidoids and Dalits respectively are a majority. `Sudra
Nadu' or `Sudrastan' has developed as an umbrella term for Dravidistan and
Dalitstan. A full one-third of all Negroes in the world inhabit this Sudrastan,
and Pan-Negroism has played a considerable role in the spread of this movement.<br />
<br />
<h3>
5.3 Arabs and 42 South Asian Religions</h3>
In Old Persian `Hindwa' denoted only the `Region around the Indus River' and
not the whole of what is today known as India. In Pahlavi or Middle Persian this developed into
`Hindustan' (The Land of the Indus) but still denoted only the region around the
Indus river. It was later Sanskritised to `Hindusthan'. This meaning was later
distorted to denote `Land of Hindus'. The term `Mughalstan' by contrast refers
to the Indus-Ganges basin which contains a Muslim majority. In fact, one-third
of all Muslims in the world inhabit this `Mughalstan', and a considerable
Islamist separatist movement has garnered around this banner. In recent years
the terms `Dravida Nadu' or `Dravidistan' and `Dalitstan' have been coined to
denote the regions where Dravidoids and Dalits respectively are a majority. `Sudra
Nadu' or `Sudrastan' has developed as an umbrella term for Dravidistan and
Dalitstan. A full one-third of all Negroes in the world inhabit this Sudrastan,
and Pan-Negroism has played a considerable role in the spread of this movement.<br />
<br />
The Arabs adopted the Old Persian `Hindwa' as `Hind' (India) and `Hindwi'
(Indian). Neither of these words were used as applying to any religion; they
were purely geographical and national terms. None of the medieval Arab
travellers was aware of one single monolithic faith being practiced. In fact,
all the Arab travelers referred to the 'Indians' as practicing 42 different
religions :
<br />
<blockquote>
" Ibn Khurdaba has described that in India there are 42 religions. Al
Idrisi also observes that `Among the principal nations of India there are 42
sects. Some recognize the existence of a creator, but not of prophets, while
others deny the existence of both. Some acknowledge the intercesory powers of
graven stones, and others worship holy stones, on which butter and oil is
poured. Some pay adoration to fire, and cast themselves into the flame. Others
adore the sun and consider it the creator and director of the world. Some
worship trees; others pay adoration to serpents, which they keep in stables,
and feed as well as they can. deeming this to be a meritous work. Lastly,
there are some who give themselves no trouble about any kind of devotion, and
deny everything." '<br />
-- [ Arab.p.57 ].
</blockquote>
<br />
Al Idrisi's description of South Asian religions given above presents a clear
description of the many different faiths practiced in the Indian subcontinent. He has accurately
described the existence of Sun-worshippers (Rajput Sauras) and Atheists (Carvakas)
as separate religions. None of the Arab travellers was aware of there being only
one religion in the subcontinent. This proves that `Sanatana Dharma' did not exist at that
time.<br />
Some of the Arab travellers even increased the number of Indian religions to 48:
<br />
<blockquote>
" The Jamiu-l Hikayat increases the number of religions in India to 48
"<br />
-- [ Arab.57.n1 ]
</blockquote>
<i>An exhaustive treatment of the Indian religions is given later on. To summarize,
in the words of the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, <i>" The word [
Hindu ] was never used in Indian literature or scriptures before the advent of
Muslims to India " </i>[ ERE.6.699 ], cf. also [ Tirtha.p.vii ]. If at all
it was used in a racial sense, <i>" the Muslim rulers used the term 'Hindu'
[ correctly `Hindooi' ] to mean Indian non-Muslims only.</i>" [ Basic ] </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
The traveller Qazwini has also described the various different religions
prevalent in the subcontinent during ancient times, clearly mentioning Brahmanism as a separate religion
:
<br />
<blockquote>
" Qazwini (1203 AD - 1280 AD) says that there are various sects among the
people of Hind. Some believe in the creator, but not the propher. They are the
Brahmans. There are some who believe in neither. There are some who worship
idols, some the moon and some other, fire."<br />
-- [ Nain.230 ]
</blockquote>
<br />
Asokan inscriptions also contain the term `brahmana va sramana', indicating a
fundamental distinction between the Brahminists, followers of the 6 orthodox
schools of Brahmanism, and the Sramanas or `nastika' heretics. Qazwini correctly
describes Brahmanism as accepting a creator - God, something which the Sramanas
do not do. Qazwini's <i>"there are some who believe in neither"</i>
almost definitely refers to these nastiks (Jains, Buddhists, Atheists). Yet
another traveller Abul Faaj (988 AD) mentioned the sects of India, and was
completely unaware of the existance of `One Religion':<br />
<br />
" al-Dinikitiya - <i>These are worshippers of the Sun. They have an
idol placed upon a cart supported by 4 horses. They believe that the Sun is
the king of the angels deserving worship and adoration. They prosrate
themselves before this idol, walk round it with incense, playing the lute
and other musical instruments .. </i>" [ Nain.228 ] < This refers to
the Rajput (Indo-Scythic) Saura religion, which consists of a mixture of
Zoroastrian and Iranic (Scythic) fire cults >.<br />
<br />
" al-Jandrihkriya " [ Chandra + kranti ] <i>" They are
worshippers of the moon. They say that the moon is one of the angels
deserving honour and adoration. Their custom is to set up an idol, to
represent it, on a carrt drawn by 4 ducks. In the head of this idol is a gem
called jandarkit" </i>[ Nain.229 ] [ jandarkit is moonstone, <i>"said
to emit moisture when placed in the moonlight, and believed by some to be a
congelation of the moon's rays." </i>Nain.229.n3 ] <br />
<br />
" Anshaniyya " [ Sans. Anasana - fasting ] <i>" those who
abstain from food and drink " </i>[ Nain.230 ] < The term is derived
from sanniyasi. Abul Faaj refers here to one of the Buddhist, Jain or Vedic
ascetic orders. ><br />
<br />
" Bakrantiniya <i>are those who fetter their bodies with iron. Their
practice is to shave off hair and beard and not to cover the body except for
the private parts. It is not their custom to teach or speak with anyone
apart from those of their religion." </i>[ Nain.230 ]
<br />
<br />
" Kangayatra [ Gangayatra ] <i>" scattered throughout Hind.
Their belief is that, if a man commits a grave sin, he must travel to the
Ganges [ and ] ... wash [ in it ] " </i>[ Nain.230 ]<br />
<br />
" Rahmarniyya [ Raja + Tam. manam = honour, self-respect; rajapimani
= supporters of the king ] <i>They say, "God, exalted be He, made them
kings. If we are slain in the service of kings, we reach paradise." </i>[
Nain.230 ]<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>" There is another sect whose practice is to grow long hair."
do not drink wine, ... temple on hill called hawran </i>[ Nain.230 ]<br />
<br />
Hence, there existed at the time of the Arabs several distinct religions.
This is simply because `Hinduism' or `Sanatana Dharma' had not yet been invented
by the Europeans. Like many aspects of early Indology (or the study of the Indian subcontinent), the concept of `Hinduism'
was overly simplistic and utterly baseless.<br />
<br />
According to Jawaharlal Nehru, the earliest reference to the word 'Hindu' can
be traced to a Tantrik book of the eighth century C.E., where the word means a
people [of the Indus], and not the followers of a particular religion. The use of the word
'Hindu' in connection with a particular religion is of a very late occurrence [
Nehru, p.74-75 ].<br />
<br />
<h3>
5.4 Portuguese and Gentoos</h3>
The Portuguese never even used the word 'Hindu' or `Santana' or any of the
variants to denote any South Asian religion, proving that Hinduism, did not exist as
a concept at the time of the Portuguese. Instead, they referred to the `Hindus'
as `Gentoos'. Portuguese dictionaries give the following definition of `Gentoo':<br />
<br />
<dl>
<dt><span style="color: red;">Gentio </span>(Hindu, gentile, a heathen, pagan)</dt>
<dd>+ applied by the Portuguese to the Hindus in contradistinction to the
Mouros, or Moors ie. Mohammedans. [ Asia, p.167-168 ]</dd><dd>+ <span style="font-family: "courier";">Anglo-Ind.</span> <i>`gentoo'</i>, Konk. <i>jintu</i></dd>
<dt><span style="color: red;">Gentilico </span>(`the language of the Hindus')</dt>
<dd>+ `em gentilico' in the Hindu or vernacular langauge</dd><dd>+ still applied to the Telugu language</dd><dd></dd><dd>The word `Gentoo' still survives in usage, and is applied to the Telugus:
<br />
<blockquote>
" The word `gentoo' is used at the present time only in Madras of the
Telugu-speaking 'Hindus' and their language."<br />
[ Asia, p.168 ]
</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="color: lime;">Duarte Barbosa</span><br />
As an illustration of the fact that Sanatana Dharma did not exist at the time of
the Portuguese, a few quotations from Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese traveller who
visited the subcontinent, are given. The 'Indians' are always referred to as `Gentoos':<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>" And before this kingdom of Guzerate fell into the hands of the
Moors, a certain race of Gentios whom the Moors called Resbutos dwelt
therein."</i><br />
[ Duarte Barbosa, ed. Dames, Vol. I, p.109 cited in Asia, p.167.n3 ]
</li>
<li><i>" And in this kingdom there is another sort of Gentio whom they
call Baneanes."</i><br />
[ Duarte Barbosa, ed. Dames Vol. I, p.109 in Asia, p.167.n4 ]</li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="color: lime;">Contemporary Documents</span><br />
Documents from the early modern period also do not mention `Sanatanis'; they
only mention `Gentoos':
<br />
<blockquote>
" The Originall of this Petition (to Charles II) ... is signed by 225 of
the principalest inhabitants of this Island, viz.<br />
123: Christians and<br />
84: Gentuis<br />
18: Moores "<br />
-- [ <i>`Anglo-Portuguese Negotiations relating to Bombay 1660-1677'</i> (OUP)
by S.A.Khan, p.453 ]
</blockquote>
Another term used by Europeans as applying to the followers of Indigenous South Asian was `Banian'. <i>" The early European travellers applied the term
[ Banian ] to the followers of the Hindu religion generally "</i> [Asia,
p.38 ] The term in fact denotes a Jain trader (from vaniyan Sansk. vanij,
trader).<br />
<br />
<h3>
5.5 Creation of Hinduism after 1830 by the English Colonialists</h3>
The Brahmins of present-day India actively collaborated with the English colonialists in
their conquest of the subcontinent. As a result, the English rewarded them by inventing the
designation `Leaders of Hinduism' for their loyal servants, their Aryan Brahmin
cousins. </dd><dd><br />
<span style="color: lime;">Gentoos & Anglo-Indians</span><br />
The English came to the [Indian] subcontinent after the Portuguese, and due to the immense cultural
influence of the latter, the English also adopted the word Gentoo as applying to
any follower of an South Asian religion:
<br />
<blockquote>
" The first digest of Indian legislation, which was complied under orders
of Warren Hastings and published in 1773, has the title `A Code of Gentoo
Law'."<br />
-- [ Asia,p.168 ]
</blockquote>
Yule is led to believe that the English form Gentoo did not come into general
use till late in the 17th century. [ Asia.168 ]<br />
<br />
Nor did the early English travellers use the words `Hindu' or `Sanatani',
instead they used the Portuguese word `Gentoo':<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>" The late scarcity of provisions necessitating us to take some cows
from the Jentue inhabitants to supply the fleet... "<br />
-- [ Forrest, Selections, Home Series, Vol. II, p.31 cited in Asia,p.167.n1
]
</li>
<li>" The Gentues , the Portugal Idiom for Gentiles, are the Aborigines,
who enjoyed their freedom till the Moors or Scythian Tartars .. undermining
them, took advantage of their Civil Commotions."<br />
-- [ Fryer, East India, Hak. Soc. Vol. I, p.81 in Asia, p.167.n1 ]</li>
</ul>
<br />
Thus the concept of `Hindu' or `Sanatani' as applying to a religion did not
exist, nor were any of these terms used by the early English colonialists.
Hence, even by the time of the early English colonialists `Hinduism' did not
exist.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: lime;">Invention of Hinduism by English Census-Compilers</span><br />
The English census-compilers were assigned the daunting task of conducting the
Indian head-count by the British government. These people were not theologians,
and coined the term `Hindu' as a blanket term to encompass several religions.
Thus a `Hindu' was defined in the Census as anybody who was not Muslim,
Christian, Buddhist, or Jain. It was thus an exclusivist term: Hinduism was
defined by what it was not, and not by what it was. It is hence entirely
unsuitable as a definition. Later the term Sanatana Dharma was invented to
deliberately submerge the English creation of Hinduism. In the words of the
Babri Masjid archive [ Basic ] :
<br />
<blockquote>
" Finding it difficult to get the names of the religions of these
communities, the British writers gave them the word "Hinduism" to be
used as a common name for all of their religions in about 1830."<br />
-- [ Basic citing EB 20:581]
</blockquote>
<br />
Indeed, the concept of "Hinduism" was invented by the English with the ulterior
motive of making their loyal servants, the Aryan Brahmins, the rulers of what is present-day India. <br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: lime;">Ulterior Motives in Creation of Hinduism</span></b><br />
The creation of Hinduism, the subsequent formation of Sanatana Dharma and the
propagation of these concepts is mainly due to vested interests with the
following ulterior motives.
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: red;">Reward of Brahmin Collaborators </span>- As shown
above, the main motive in the English invention of 'Hinduism' was to reward
their Aryan Brahmin collaborators with an imagined leadership of all of 'Hinduism' and by extension, all of the subcontinent. Such were the services rendered to
the British crown that not only were the Brahmins made leaders of present-day India at
that time, but the whole of history was completely falsified to
portray them as the `eternal rulers of all Hindus'. <span style="color: red;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;">Dravidianism Suppressed </span>- India obtained
Independance from Anglo-Brahmin and Brahmin-Portuguese rule in 1947.
However, the new state that arose was merely a neo-Brahminist casteocracy.
One of the main `threats' to the integrity of the new Aryan Brahmin-ruled
republic was the spectre of Dravidian Nationalism. The Sudroids (Dravidoids
and Kolarians) represent the original inhabitants of the Indian peninsula, who were later
subjugated by the Aryan invaders. They form the overwhelming majority in
Southern India, and strong demands existed for a separate Dravidian nation.
Ambedkar and many others fought for recognition of the Dravidian Religion as
separate from the Hindu religion, but M.K.Gandhi foiled these attempts, and
succeeded in temporarily subverting the Dravidians in Hinduism. The British
were reluctant to recognise the Dravidian religion, since it would have
antagonised their Brahmin collaborators. This is one of the prime motives
behind the invention of 'Hinduism'. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: red;">Vaishnavite Ambitions </span>- Since the majority of
`Hindus' were Brahminist Vaishnavites in any case, it was hoped that
Vaishnavism would thus become a synonym for 'Hinduism', thereby subverting
Shavism (Dravidian Religion), Smartism, etc. in one go. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: red;">Christian Missionaries </span>- The creation of
'
Hinduism' suited the missionaries who did not have to deal with any South Asian
theological system. Christianity historically made the greatest inroads in
`pagan' (ie. religions lacking a developed sustem of theology) regions,
while failing in areas where `devoloped' religions like Islam, Confucianism,
etc. By creating 'Hinduism' and submerging thereby Vaishnavism, Jainism,
Buddhism, Saurism, etc. into `One Great Pagan Religion' they had to deal
with `merely another pagan cult'. Hence, `Hinduism' served the interests of
the Christian missionaries. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: red;">English Imperialism </span>- The creation of
'
Hinduism' entailed inclusion of the Negroid-Australoid Aboriginal Races of
India as `Hindu'. Thus, English dominion in India was justified by claiming
that it represented a pious mission to `civilize the pagan natives'. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: red;">Aryanism Suppressed </span>- English colonial rule
was justified by the rule of `Whites' over `non-Whites'. Accepting the
existence of `Aryans' in the subcontinent would have meant a nullification of this
justification, since a sizeable fraction of India's population would be
`white' and would not require `white' Anglo-Saxon rule. The submergence of
Indo-Aryans as `Hindus' served to suppress this menace to British rule. The
early Arya Samajists realised this attempt to subvert the identitiy of
Aryans. and staunchly opposed the use of the word `Hindu'; a move equally
opposed by the British. By denying `white' status to Indo-Aryans (a fact
since proven by genetics). the English justified rule over `non-whites'. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: red;">Rajputism Suppressed </span>- The Rajputs are
descendants of the Scythians, Greeks, and other immigrants who entered India
just prior to the rise of the Indo-Islamic Caliphate of Delhi. Throughout
their history they followed their Solar religions (`saura' cults),
independant of any Aryan Vaishnavite Brahmans. Yet the invention of Hinduism
served to subvert Saura religion as well. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: red;">Smarta Subversion </span>- The creation of 'Hinduism'
suited the Smartas (Advaitins) most of all, since their religion was defined
in terms of giving equal worship to 5 major gods of the Indian peninsula, as well as a
whole host of others. It remained a very minor religion in India, having
been propagated only by Sankaracharya and being localised mainly in Kerala.
The overwhelming majority of 'Hindus' were (and still are) Vaishnavites (more
than 75 %). However, the definition of `Hinduism' was essentially Smarta,
and by propagating `Hinduism' the Smartas hoped to submerge their old rivals
the Vaishnavites.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Noted Sikh author G.S.Khalsa has amply pointed out the manner in which Hinduism
was invented :<br />
<br />
" The Brahmanists came to power on the Congress elephant by deviously
converting the pre-independence political debate and struggle into a communal
'
Hindu'-Muslim religious struggle. This was made possible by the master stroke
of Mahatama Gandhi - the 'Hindu' nationalist cum holy sadhu who made
"Hindus" a 55% majority on paper in the 1920s upon getting the
Dalits or "untouchables" (20%) dubbed as "Hindus" by the
British. This coup moved the "Hindus" from 35% to a 55% majority in
British India. In pre-independence India, Muslims were 25%,
Sikhs/Christians/Buddhists/tribals/etc. formed the remaining 20%. This action,
along with recognition of Congress as the sole political representative of all
Indians in national matters, was a payoff by the British colonial authorities
to the Brahmanist lead Congress and Gandhi for loyal services rendered to
Queen and empire in supporting their WWI war effort; recruiting the
"martial" communities (e.g. Sikhs, Jats, Rajputs, Gujars of Saka-origin)
of the northwest and Muslims to go fight for the British Empire in
Europe/middle east; subduing, opposing, infiltrating and sabotaging other
non-Congress/non-Brahmanist lead political parties and independence movements
organized at home (who saw British weakness during the war as an ideal
opportunity). The 55% fraudulent "Hindu pile" was little more than a
political game of Brahmanist politicians and political parties in Delhi while
caste 'Hindus' would not eat/touch/marry/socialize or even worship with their
"polluted" Dalits (20% untouchables) in the 1920s. After this
"victory on paper", Brahmanist politicians, political parties, and
organizations totally communalized pre-independence politics along
"Hindu/Muslim" religious lines of "nationhood" to get on
the road to empire and Delhi. "<br />
<br />
-- [ Khals ]<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
5.6 Invention of Sanatana Dharma by Smartas</h3>
Subsequent to the invention of 'Hinduism' the followers of the different
religions realized that the word `Hindu' and `The Religion of Hinduism' were
English inventions. This caused much embarrassment, and many Vaishnavites,
Shavites etc, declared that they were followers of different religions, which
they actually are. Had this process reached its full development, there would
have been no problem. However, some Smartas and other vested interests attempted
to preserve the superficial unity which the English creation of 'Hinduism' had
given. Hence, the English concept of `Hinduism' was renamed as `Sanatana Dharma'
in order to fabricate a Sanskritic name for the concept. The word `Sanatana' was
created in sometime in the 19th century as an attempt to replace the foreign
word `Hindu'.
The non-Muslim people of the South Asian subcontinent called Hindu had no
precise word for their religions [ Land ]. They were, as they are, divided into
thousands of communities and tribes, each having its own religious beliefs,
rituals, modes of worship, etc.<br />
<br />
The Smarta religion arose <i>"by the 7th century, when the Smartas
inistituted their worship of 5 deities, omitting Brahma, he had lost all claims
as a superior diety. "</i> [ EB 2.460 ]
<br />
<blockquote>
" The people called Hindu have nothing common in their religious affairs.
'Hinduism', therefore, cannot give any precise idea as to what it means.
Attempts were made to define the term but could not succeed. "<br />
-- [ Basic ]
</blockquote>
<br />
To summarize, revealing that "Hinduism" was in fact an English invention; this
circumstance becoming widely known and the cause of much satire on `Hinduism'
and its English invention, the Brahmin Vaishnavas invented the term `Sanatana
Dharma' in order to counter these difficulties :
<br />
<blockquote>
" Faced with this dilemma, 'Hindu' scholars sometime use the word Sanatan
Dharma (eternal religion) and sometime Vedic Dharma (religion of the Veda),
etc. for their "religion". But as names of their religion, these words are also
untenable as they do not imply anything precise for all the people called
'Hindu'."</blockquote>
<br />
<br /></dd><dd><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</dd></dl>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-42734378414152092772018-09-12T16:22:00.001-07:002018-09-12T16:23:05.846-07:00The Evolution of "Hinduism" While religious communities of thought and practice have flourished on
the Indian subcontinent for at least three millennia, the concept of
“Hinduism”—as a world religion, as a unitary, coherent package of
beliefs and rituals akin to “Christianity,” “Islam,” or
“Buddhism”—emerged only in the nineteenth-century colonial context via
processes much-debated in scholarship over the past three decades.<br />
<br />
Derived from a Persian word indicating those who live “beyond the
Indus River,” over the centuries “Hindu” has been associated with a
variety of regional, cultural, and religious identifications. It was in
the context of British colonialism of the Indian subcontinent, however,
that the meaning and significance of “Hindu” among European officials,
missionaries and scholars grew increasingly complex. For example, in
the late eighteenth century British Christian missionaries took aim at
the “idolatry” and “savagery” of “Hindoo” practices as they failed to
understand the significance of divine images or rituals of animal
sacrifice. In contrast, early Orientalist scholars such as William
Jones (1746-1794) countered such contemporary visions of “excess” with
accounts of sophisticated philosophical wisdom from ancient Sanskrit
texts. In a third example, British Indian scholar Rammohan Roy (1772-1833) who
was heavily influenced by both Islam and British Unitarianism, embraced
the Vedas and the monotheism of the Upaniṣadic Brahman. Roy was a
social reformer and the first to use the term “Hinduism” in 1816 to
refer to a coherent, pan-South Asian set of religious ideals and practices (e.g. Brahmanism).<br />
<br />
Throughout the nineteenth century—and particularly following the
transfer of power over much of the Indian subcontinent from the East
India Company to the British crown in 1857—“Hindu” and “Hinduism” grew
increasingly identified with Indian aspirations for independence and
full nationhood. While a diverse range of political and religious
figures from Vivekananda (1863-1902) to Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
envisioned a religiously plural India where "Hindu" and Muslim, Sikh and
Jain might live peaceably side-by-side, activists such as Dayananda
Saraswati (1824-1883) sought to define India as a more exclusively "Hindu"
nation, its social and cultural forms to be rooted in Sanskrit
education, the teachings of the Vedas, and adherence to caste. From
Saraswati’s conservative focus on Veda, Sanskrit, and caste would emerge
the twentieth-century Hindu nationalist movements, beginning with
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s (1883-1966) influential 1923 pamphlet that
introduced the notion of Hindutva or “Hindu-ness” into Indian public
discourse, “Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?” There, Savarkar argues for Brahman nationalists as a unifying cultural and political force that unites the
people of India and forms the basis for authentic nationhood.
Savarkar’s use of Hindutva to encompass all of Indian cultures, religion,
and politics is championed today on a global scale by a closely allied
set of political and cultural organizations known as the Sangh Parivar.<br />
<br />
Critique of “Hinduism” as defined during the colonial period and
underlying the Hindutva rhetoric of the Sangh Parivar has grown
increasingly loud in the wake of inter-religious violence at Ayodhyā and
in Gujarat in the 1990s and early 2000s. Many historians have argued,
for example, that the “Hinduism” understood by Rammohan Roy and
increasingly taken up by the British colonial administration primarily
reflected the elite traditions of the relative few, ignoring entirely
the beliefs and practices of the vast majority of "Hindus". In the
mid-nineteenth-century census-taking exercises of British India, for example, questions of religious identity often proved
confusing for respondents, with significant numbers checking both
“Hindu” and “Mohammedan” in early versions of the census. Most working
definitions of “Hinduism”—like the Sanskrit-, Veda-, and caste-based
rhetoric of the Sangh Parivar—focus on upper-caste, elite, male views
and downplay or denigrate the everyday religious lives of women,
low-caste communities, and non-"Hindus". On the other hand, in the
contemporary global diaspora, streamlined presentations of "Hinduism" that
target second-generation "Hindus" living in the US or Europe—such as
Viswanathan’s widely circulated primer, <i>Daddy, am I a Hindu?</i>—owe
much to the more liberal, inclusivist views of colonial reformers such
as Vivekananda and Mohandas Gandhi. These examples represent 1)
diversity within the tradition, 2) how religions evolve and change, and
3) the ways that religious influences permeate social, political, and
cultural life. Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-68831486435159363732014-05-13T10:11:00.001-07:002014-05-13T10:11:55.826-07:00The buzz: Cousin marriages in Pakistan<a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/705835/the-buzz-cousin-marriages-in-pakistan/#.U3JSS59huxA.blogger">The buzz: Cousin marriages in Pakistan</a>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-90538955449234565632014-03-22T22:29:00.001-07:002014-03-22T22:29:50.799-07:00Is Pakistan a soft target for US media?<a href="http://www.arabnews.com/news/544436">Is Pakistan a soft target for US media?</a>Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613627449748728695.post-45722333198413610532014-03-04T14:41:00.002-08:002014-03-04T14:41:39.494-08:00The 10-year-old victim of Pakistan's 'forgotten war'http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/the-10-year-old-victim-of-pakistan-s-forgotten-war-490956<br />
<br />
Gruesome and cowardly crime. Unforgivable act committed by unknown personals, most likely those who have positions in Pakistan's shadowy intelligence agencies and committing atrocities against the people of Pakistan. <br />
<br />
Shame!<br />
<br />Pakistani Patriotshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12419935792008171857noreply@blogger.com1