An open letter to brothers and sisters in Pakistan
Rajan Khanna
When I am addressing you as my brothers and sisters, I, as a nationalist, very staunchly and earnestly believe that you are part of the same cultural stream of the Indian sub-continent as we in India are. and will always remain.
Isn’t it strange that the inheritors of the same Indus and Saraswati valley civilisation, we, who have been separated by an artificial geographical border, are baying for each other’s blood? It is high time that we let our younger generation know about our ancestors, their achievements and sacrifices, our common culture and provide it an opportunity to factorise our history while embarking on a peaceful journey to future.
I was rather surprised to discover that in your country, it is taught in history books that Pakistan was created in 712 AD when Arab invader Muhammad bin Qasim captured Sind after defeating Raja Dahir. Further elaboration in the history text books say that boundaries of Pakistan went further north in the eleventh century AD (presumably when Ghazanvi attacked India) and expanded in the 13th century AD to the entire north-west part of the country. The history books mention that in the 14th century AD Pakistan was formed in the southern parts of India also and with the demise of Aurangzeb in the year 1707, the Mughal empire started declining and boundaries of Pakistan also started shrinking.
Wherever in the world, including India, history of Pakistan is taught, it is clearly mentioned that first time Chaudhary Rehmat Ali conceptualised the name Pakistan as a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent in 1933, which was later incorporated in the Pakistan resolution passed by Muslim League in its March 1940 general session in Lahore. Then isn’t it strange that generation after generation what is fed in Pakistan is absolutely misguiding facts of history?
The ramifications of such distorted information of history, which is being taught in your schools, are evident when one discovers that despite getting Independence from the British on same very day, India has become a thriving democracy and a designated superpower, whereas, Pakistan has either to suffer under military dictatorships or put up with quasi- military regimes where all the decisions are taken in the GHQ Rawalpindi and civilian regimes are forced to do duties, which in other democratic setups, are done by the municipal corporations.
Coming back to the subject of history, it can be surmised that the proponents of the theory of formation of Pakistan in the eighth century AD, wish to coincide the advent of Islam in the subcontinent to the idea of Pakistan.
For any civilisation of the world, Muhammad bin Qasim will be narrated as a foreign invader only and Raja Dahir would be remembered as a King who valiantly tried to defend his kingdom, but, in your country the former is
portrayed as a hero and the latter is projected as a villain.
It is another historical truth that all the invaders who attacked our common motherland were ruthless, plunderers, murderers and rapists. Now, simply because those whose religion was Islam—which is your state religion too- should be absolved of their inhuman beastly acts because you share religion with them, is unfathomable and injudicious. With this yardstick, should the terrorists of the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban-Pakistan), who didn’t spare even children during Peshawar school attack, be exonerated because they are your co-religionists?
If all the historical accounts are collated, the conclusions which emerge are: the foreign invaders employed all types of means—including levying of Jaziya—to convert the indigenous
population to Islam. Therefore, how those who forcibly converted your forefathers can be heroes for you?
Religion cannot be sole determinant of the common behaviour of the societies; culture remains the dominant factor to shape mind-sets of the nations. Most pertinent example which can be given in this respect is of your Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah who propounded two nation theory, arguing that Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent are two different nations.
If that was the case then why Bengalis of the then East Pakistan—eighty per cent of whom were Muslims—chose and fought with you to carve out a separate nation, Bangladesh, for themselves?
Culture of a particular nation normally has its manifestations in its language, food, dresses, music, entertainment and non-religious customs. The cultural
identity, Hindusthan, remains same, though, there might have been two different political entities existing by the name of India and Pakistan. You speak the same set of languages what we speak here in India, your food, clothes, music and entertainment are no different than those of us Indians.
You, are unsuccessfully trying to find similarities in your and Arab cultures; if you introspect, you will discover that other than religion, there is no point of convergence between both of them.
Some members of your intelligentsia have been highly vocal about misplaced articles of faith created in your country. The sane voices of such people must be heard and pride in our great cultural heritage must be restored. Marauders like Mohammed bin Kasim, Mahmood Ghazanvi, Mohammed Ghauri, Nadir Shah and Ahmed shah Abdali had unleashed a reign of terror on our past generations; the travesty is, you are glorifying them by naming your ports and missiles after their names.
The history stands testimony to the fact that Takshshila University which existed in the north-western part of your country, and remains of which still narrate the story of its past grandeur, was the best centre of education in various fields even couple of thousands years ago.
Great scholars like Chanakya and Panini were among the teaching faculty of the said university; even the Chinese traveller Hsuan tsang who travelled India in the seventh century AD has written about the marvellous centre of education that Takshshila was. Why cannot be Chanakya and Panini the heroes for your young generation? Why cannot be Acharya Patanjali, the celebrated pundit of Yoga and Ayurveda and who according to the historical records was the native of the north-western part of your country, the source of inspiration for your people too? It is highly unfortunate that instead of those who were the makers of the Takshshila University, your heroes are those who destroyed not only the building of the said university but also the unaccounted wealth of generational wisdom which our enlightened ancestors had accumulated at that place.
It is high time course correction must be done in your country as far as teaching of history as a subject is concerned. Truth must be revealed to your present generation that the invaders at various intervals of time came to the land of our ancestors and used all kinds of coercive tactics to convert their religion. However, they could not change the culture of this land.
Today if you maintain religion as the sole identity for your nation, you will find yourself standing alongside with the organisations like Tehrik-e-Taliban and Daesh. But if you lay emphasis on cultural traits, you will lay foundations for future generations to live a peaceful life and who will be proud of the human values they would be imbibing. Religion essentially is a private matter and it must remain so, but, if it is intertwined with other aspects of society then there should not be a surprise if that nation meets the fate of those nations who have tread similar paths; for example of Afghanistan.
Making heroes out of those historical figures who became victorious by use of sheer violence indicates that the nations are glorifying the use of violence and this is
historical truth that violence begets violence.
Why cannot be Ashoka, who abdicated violence after the war of Kalinga and became Ashoka the great, be hero for the present generations of your country too? Make your youngsters take pride in the fact that their ancestors did not attack another country throughout the civilisational history.
Today, India has gained international goodwill because of the tenets of peaceful coexistence historically it has followed.
However, we have learnt from the past mistakes which we committed while foreign invaders attacked our land.
We have learnt the hard way that those who believe in and practice the cult of violence do not understand the language of peace, love and compassion; therefore, it becomes mandatory that if those, who believe in the tenets of peaceful coexistence, have to be protected then people with violent ideologies have to be eliminated.
It is now the part of our state policy that we will never, as we had done in the past too, attack territory belonging to other countries but if our sovereignty is challenged, we will take the attack back to the enemy territory and ensure that even its future generations shudder on the thoughts of violating the honour of our motherland.
Please listen to the saner voices of your country and stop glorifying the invaders like Kasim and Ghazanvi; I need not tell you that the same very people are cult heroes for the organisations like Tehrik-e-Taliban who have been threatening the existence of the majority of people of your country. They don’t want you to sing the Sufi songs of Bulle Shah, Waras Shah and Baba Farid.
Let us all strive to save and nourish our common cultural heritage. We remember with reverence our ancestors who didn’t yield to the barbaric onslaughts of the medieval invaders.
Similarly, our future generations too should remember us for not surrendering to the diktats of the radicals.
Let, we, the people of Indus and Saraswati valley civilisations resolve that we will preserve our great cultural identity and will not allow the different ways of worship interfere with this pious stream flowing from the time immemorial.
(The writer is a Mumbai-based journalist, whose family is post-partition migrant
from Pakistan)
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