The recent events in Pakistan have exposed many untold and bitter truths. First, Pakistan is not a nation but an artificial entity created by colonial powers for their vested interests. Second, most of the people on the world map where Pakistan is located neither want the division of the country in the name of Islam nor did they support the concept of Pakistan and many are still against it. Third, ‘Ummah’ which emphasises global Muslim cooperation and unity in the name of Islam is only a bookish thing, it has nothing to do with practicality. Fourth, Muslims are the ones who have caused the most damage to the dignity of Ramzan. In the past few days, claims of more than 300 people been killed in two separate major attacks (11 March and 16 March) by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) targeting the Pakistani army are doing rounds. The land of Balochistan on which these attacks took place has a Vedic history of thousands of years. This region was also a major center of Buddhist tradition. When Muslim invaders attacked Bharat in the seventh century, the influence of Islam increased here. One of the major Shaktipeeths of Hindus, Hinglaj Mata Mandir, still exists here. When the British ruled the Bharatiya subcontinent, Balochistan was ruled by the Kalat princely state. In 1876, a treaty was signed between the two and it became a conditional British subordinate state. After the partition in 1947, Kalat chose the right to remain independent instead of becoming a part of Bharat or Pakistan. But in March 1948, on the instructions of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Pakistani army annexed it by force. Since then, it has remained a symbol of “patriotism and self-determination struggle” for Baloch patriots.
Separatism is not limited to Balochistan alone, rebellion is gaining momentum in Sindh and Pashtun region as well. Truth is, in the areas that are now known as Pakistan, which includes Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, there was opposition to a separate country in the name of Islam before partition. If a country was to be created on the basis of religion, why are there 56 different Islamic and 16 Christian countries in the world? Allah Baksh Muhammad Umar Soomro (1900–43), a top leader of the Sindh Ittehad Party, was twice the Prime Minister of Sindh (1938–1940 and 1941–1942) in undivided Bharat. He had described the concept of creating a separate country for Muslims on the basis of religion as anti-Islamic. Allah Baksh was assassinated in 1943. The Muslim League is suspected to be involved in his assassination.
Till 1945, there was no political support for Pakistan in the name of Islam in undivided Punjab. In the provincial elections of 1937, the people of Punjab chose the ‘secular’ Unionist Party instead of the ultra-religious Muslim League. This party formed the government in Punjab along with the Akali Dal and Congress under the leadership of Sikandar Hayat Khan (1892–1942). Sikandar rejected the ‘Pakistan proposal’ of 1940. After his death, the influential Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana (1900–1975), who then owned several thousand acres of land, took over the reins of the Punjab government from 1942. Jinnah pressurised Tiwana to declare the Unionist Party as a party of Muslims. But Tiwana did not bow down to this and declared that he would work together with Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims in Punjab. Displeased with this, Jinnah, along with the British government, incited religious frenzy in Punjab. Soon the Unionist Party disintegrated and the Muslim League dominated Punjab in the 1946 elections. When Tiwana retired from politics and came to live in the newly formed Punjab of Pakistan in October 1949, the Islamic government there confiscated his property out of resentment. To escape religious persecution, he settled in America and breathed his last there in 1975.
There was no support for Pakistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa either. In the provincial elections of 1946, the Muslim League got only 47 per cent votes in the then North-West Frontier Province (present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Sarhadi Gandhi), born in this region, who was considered a close friend of Gandhi ji and a supporter of Hindu-Muslim unity, also strongly opposed the partition of Bharat on religious grounds. Ghaffar fought for autonomy for Pashtuns in Pakistan, due to which he spent most of his time in jail or exile. Similarly, when the Pakistani establishment repeatedly crushed the Bengali identity in East Pakistan, the fire of rebellion led by Sheikh Mujiburrahman gave birth to Bangladesh in 1971. Now the same situation is seen in Balochistan.
This is not the first time that the ‘Ummah’ has been questioned. Ahmadiya Muslims played a multifaceted role in the creation of Pakistan. In 1940, the religious idea of Pakistan was written down by Ahmadiya Muslim Muhammad Zafarullah, who not only became Pakistan’s first foreign minister but also advocated against Bharat on the Kashmir issue in the United Nations. When Pakistan attacked Kashmir in October 1947, the Caliph of Ahmadiya Muslims Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmed formed a military force called ‘Furqan Force’ against the Bharatiya Army. Imagine, in the same Pakistan for which Ahmadiya Muslims fought for a country of their dreams in the name of Islam, they were declared non-Muslims in 1974 on religious grounds. Since then, they too are victims of religious persecution like other ‘kafirs’.
Often, a narrative is created that Hindus should not take out processions in ‘Muslim areas’ on the day of Ramzan, because bhajans and kirtans hurt the ‘sentiments’ of the Muslim community. If this is so, why did Baloch rebels target Pakistani soldiers and civilians during Ramzan? Why did a conflict take place in Syria during Ramzan between the new Islamist rulers and the fighters of the Alawi sect supported by Bashar al-Assad, in which more than a thousand people were killed? Is it not true that in Pakistan, along with the Tehreek-e-Taliban, other Shia-Sunni jihadi organisations also carry out terrorist attacks on each other’s mosques, followers or the Pakistani army in the name of calling themselves ‘true Muslims’? If ‘Ummah’ is really practical, then what is the reason for the hostility between Saudi-Iran, Turkey-Syria and Pakistan-Afghanistan?
Pakistan is not a nation but a poisonous ideological project, whose foundation is based only on anti-Hindu hatred. On March 12, the education department of Pakistani Punjab banned Hindi songs in schools and colleges in the name of ‘immorality-obscenity’. If ‘immorality-obscenity’ was the criteria, then why was there no ban on western dance and songs? This is not the first irony of Pakistan. Pakistan is trying unsuccessfully to assimilate its original identity into the Arab culture of the Middle East-Gulf countries by cutting off its original identity from the Bharatiya cultural roots. A big proof of this is, despite more than 40 per cent of the people in Pakistan speak Punjabi and Urdu-English being the official languages, the Qaumi Tarana (national anthem) is in the foreign Persian script. Due to these contradictions, Pakistan is in a deep political, social, geographical and economic crisis, which will not allow it to remain united as a unit for a long time.
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