When it comes to using state power, the major political parties have a pretty equal, and pretty awful, record of opposing the infrastructure of jihad.
Perhaps the worst of the lot so far in this respect has been Asif Zardari. Sure he says all the right things, in his glib, oily way, but what has he really done?
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Almeida on opposing the Jihad
Cyril Almeida,on the situation in Pakistan:
Gauba on the Sikhs
K.L. Gauba, Consequences of Pakistan, 1946:
The Problem of Khalistan
But the foregoing table is only a faint indication of the problem involved. A separation of the Ambala Division from Punjab would mean the division of Sikhs of the Punjab into two provinces.
Are the Sikhs willing to be so divided ?
The Problem of Khalistan
But the foregoing table is only a faint indication of the problem involved. A separation of the Ambala Division from Punjab would mean the division of Sikhs of the Punjab into two provinces.
Are the Sikhs willing to be so divided ?
Thursday, January 6, 2011
From K.M. Munshi's Hyderabad Memoirs
K.M. Munshi had the following to say (1957)(The End of an Era - Hyderabad Memoirs)
(emphasis added)
"The Indian National Congress, the architect as well as the instrument of Indian nationalism, was for several decades dominated by Mahatma Gandhi and his devoted band of followers, both Hindus and Muslims. It exercised great self-restraint. But for it, Muslim separativeness would have led to the growth of fierce Hindu aggressiveness.
When the transfer of power from the British to Indian hands became a clear possibility, the separativeness which dominated certain sections of Muslims found expression in their growing demands. They wanted separate electorates; communal weightage; then, a balance of Hindu-Muslim provinces in the Federal government; later, a claim to equality of representation with the Hindu community. ...Ultimately when freedom was at hand, this separativeness took the shape of a blunt refusal to live in the same country and a determination to establish a separate homeland......
....Once Pakistan was conceded and the Congress installed in office in New Delhi, communal fanaticism lost its hold over vast sections of the Hindus. The fanatic impulse among most of the Muslims who remained in India was also curbed, at least on the surface.
But these new developments created little impression on the North Indian Muslims of Hyderabad....The Ittehad, inspired and dominated mostly by the Indian Muslims was also aided by local adventurers. Its natural ambition, therefore, was to build a modern fascist centre of communal aggressiveness in India on the crumbling edifice of the State....Their object, scarcely concealed, was to establish Islamic domination, with or without the aid of Pakistan, first of Hyderabad, then of the South and ultimately of the whole of India.
Had this attempt succeeded, it would have precipitated so powerful a Hindu sentiment as to have spelt the end of a free democracy in India. It would have also arrested its march towards a modern democratic state. The end of the Ittehad, therefore, served to bury this potential catastrophe once for all.
...If Hyderabad had remained unintegrated with the rest of India, the country would have felt outraged. The communal fascism of the Ittehad would have developed into a civil war between the communities. The Muslims of India, who had been accepted as an integral part of our democratic society, would have come to be looked upon as hostiles.
...By the Police Action, the people of India not only met an internal challenge; they fulfilled the destiny which had been denied to them by the accidents of history.
With the close of the Hyderabad episode, therefore, an era came to an end.
(emphasis added)
"The Indian National Congress, the architect as well as the instrument of Indian nationalism, was for several decades dominated by Mahatma Gandhi and his devoted band of followers, both Hindus and Muslims. It exercised great self-restraint. But for it, Muslim separativeness would have led to the growth of fierce Hindu aggressiveness.
When the transfer of power from the British to Indian hands became a clear possibility, the separativeness which dominated certain sections of Muslims found expression in their growing demands. They wanted separate electorates; communal weightage; then, a balance of Hindu-Muslim provinces in the Federal government; later, a claim to equality of representation with the Hindu community. ...Ultimately when freedom was at hand, this separativeness took the shape of a blunt refusal to live in the same country and a determination to establish a separate homeland......
....Once Pakistan was conceded and the Congress installed in office in New Delhi, communal fanaticism lost its hold over vast sections of the Hindus. The fanatic impulse among most of the Muslims who remained in India was also curbed, at least on the surface.
But these new developments created little impression on the North Indian Muslims of Hyderabad....The Ittehad, inspired and dominated mostly by the Indian Muslims was also aided by local adventurers. Its natural ambition, therefore, was to build a modern fascist centre of communal aggressiveness in India on the crumbling edifice of the State....Their object, scarcely concealed, was to establish Islamic domination, with or without the aid of Pakistan, first of Hyderabad, then of the South and ultimately of the whole of India.
Had this attempt succeeded, it would have precipitated so powerful a Hindu sentiment as to have spelt the end of a free democracy in India. It would have also arrested its march towards a modern democratic state. The end of the Ittehad, therefore, served to bury this potential catastrophe once for all.
...If Hyderabad had remained unintegrated with the rest of India, the country would have felt outraged. The communal fascism of the Ittehad would have developed into a civil war between the communities. The Muslims of India, who had been accepted as an integral part of our democratic society, would have come to be looked upon as hostiles.
...By the Police Action, the people of India not only met an internal challenge; they fulfilled the destiny which had been denied to them by the accidents of history.
With the close of the Hyderabad episode, therefore, an era came to an end.
On Salman Taseer's death
Kapil Komireddi writes in the Guardian
Who bears the responsibility for Taseer's death? To Pakistan's liberals, the principal cause of religious extremism in their country begins and ends with one person: General Zia-ul-Haq, an austere bigot who governed the country from 1976 until his death in 1988. Apportioning the blame so disproportionately exonerates his predecessors, erases the deeper history of theocratic idealism that underpins the very idea of Pakistan, and promotes, to the present generation, the erroneous idea that, prior to Zia, Pakistan accommodated pluralism.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Jinnah on the Constituent Assembly
This is from "Pakistan & Constituent Assembly", by Iftikhar-ul-Haq (1946). One objection to a Constituent Assembly elected by universal adult franchise is that the electorate is mostly illiterate.
Mr. Jinnah elucidated this point on 4th December, 1939, when in a statement in the New Chronicle he said, "Mr. Gandhi is neither concerned with the size of the country, nor the illiteracy of the masses. A truly representative assembly presupposes that in order faithfully to express the judgment of the people it can be o[nly?] be constituted if you have a fully developed public opinion, an electorate educated [ ] experienced, free from superstition and capable of judging the vital political issues affecting the country, and not as India stands today, composed of castes, creeds, superstitions, provincial jealousies, quite apart from the main division of British India and Indian States. The assembly proposed by Mr. Gandhi at best, therefore, be a packed body manœuvred and managed by the Congress caucus".
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Gauba's assessment
In Consequences of Pakistan, 1946, K.L. Gauba had the following assessment of the position of the Muslim League after World War II began, reproduced below. It is of interest as a contemporary Punjabi view of the situation.
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