Discovery of and by Pakistan
“Nehru wrote The Discovery of India in the Ahmednagar Fort prison. I began my journey to discover Pakistan in the New Central Jail, Multan…”
So reads a small segment of the book on Discovery of Pakistan- The Indus Saga-From Pataliputra to Partition by Aitzaz Ahsan, a legal luminary, human rights activist and an unrelenting champion of democracy.
History is often made in the process of churning of buoyant minds and discoveries are made by great explorers into the realm of cranial electrodes. Before acclaimed Mr. Ahsan discovered Pakistan while moving from one jail to another during Zia-ul-Haq regime, another worthy explorer Chaudhry Rahmat Ali had discovered the ethnic, linguistic, and religious wirings of the odd bubble of modern history-PAKISTAN. He coined the word and scribbled the philosophy around the time Allama Mohammad Iqbal had pronounced the historic imperative for a separate Muslim homeland.
To be true to history Mohammad Ali Jinnah had not discovered Pakistan, he had just delivered the child through the most painful Caesarean Operation India had ever witnessed.
Allama Iqbal, Choudhry Rahmat Ali, and Aitzaz Ahsan have a common connectivity. They studied in Cambridge and contributed to the idea of Pakistan significantly. However, Ahsan’s journey to discovery to the roots of Pakistan takes him 5000 years back in history. Even Mohenjodaro peoples were the predecessors of present day Pakistanis. The Pakistanis, according to him are the people of the Indus and the rest of the Indians are the people of the Ganges, Yamuna etc.
Pakistan, thus, is a great country of discoverers. The latest discovery by Lieutenant General (Retd) Hamid Nawaz Khan, caretaker Interior Minister of Pakistan, surpasses the discoveries by his illustrious predecessors.
He disclosed on March 1, 2008 that knowledge derived by him from Pakistan Military Academy prove that India, Afghanistan, and the United States were behind proliferating acts of terrorism in Pakistan. He did not offer any proof but asserted in Goebbelian style that the peoples of Pakistan nurtured this perception.
His discovery asserted that waning of Taliban offensive in Afghanistan matched the waxing graph of terrorism in Pakistan. Similar discoveries were made by him in the recent past identifying Indian, Afghan, and even Iranian hands in the ongoing rebellion in Balochistan.
The itch of India pointing fingers at the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistan discovering the ghost of the R&AW in every nook and corner has assumed the character of inevitable kitchen-soot.
Hamid Karzai is perceived as a US stooge and as the stumbling barrier between Pakistan’s geopolitical hegemony and Afghanistan’s assertion of sovereign nationhood. The Acting Interior Minister did not hedge his ire to hint that the Durand Line should not be the restraining line of Pakistani operations against the terrorists. In reality, he wants to push the line nearer to Kabul.
Afghanistan, like India is a hate object. What about the USA? Perhaps the General tried to sound a warning that in the wake of Benazir’s assassination, elections to the National and Provincial Assemblies the USA was cooling off President Musharraf. Segments of the army still loyal to Musharraf are worried about their own and mentor Musharraf’s future.
Huge chunks of the billions pumped in by the USA for fighting terrorism, aka Taliban and al Qaeda etc, are allegedly siphoned off to the pockets of in the men in uniform.
Elections have brought the USA and the elected government-in -waiting on the same table. Washington have to deal with the new government directly and not through the military. However, if past lessons are relevant, the USA is capable of funding the ISI and the army at the back of an elected government. Nawaz’s discovery was perhaps a subtle hit to the Pentagon that the fuel pipeline should not dry up.
General Hamid Nawaz did not spell out prescriptions for dealing with the USA. Coming from a minister of the ruling government the USA has either taken the utterances seriously or brushed aside as tomfoolery of a Big F…l.
Obviously, it might not be possible immediately for another ISI chief to finance a terrorist like Mohammad Atta. Or is everything possible in the Land of the Indus? America should know better.
Hamid Karzai is a worried and amused man. He is worried because despite NATO presence Taliban controls major parts of the country. He is amused because his bugbear, the al Qaeda, and its Arab, Waziri, Chechen, Uzbek and Pakistani warriors are nestled in Pakistan and for the time being are incapable of joining forces with Mullah Omar. He expects that an elected government might prefer to normalise relations.
But the biggest hurdle is Balochistan. The Baloch rebels headed by followers of Akbar Bugti and well-trained Baloch Liberation Army have continued to resist Pakistan army and the ISI. The Bugti, Marri, Mengal, and Zarakzai, Achakzai etc tribes have refused to surrender to Pakistan army.
Baloch struggle has passed through four crucial stages. I have in mind to devote columns to the heroic people of Balochistan and Balawaristan (Gilgit-Skardu of occupied Northern Area).
However, The civil disobedience movement launched by the Marri, Mengal, Bugti, Zarakzai etc tribes and ‘Pakhtoons’ had very fast turned to armed struggle. Mir Hazar Khan Marri led the Baloch liberation movement under the banner of Balochistan Peoples Liberation Front (BPLF). The BPLF was forced to move to Afghanistan along with thousands of its supporters. From the original BPLF the Baloch people, in recent times, have branched into organisations like BLA, BLM, BLO, etc. There exists a Balochistan Government in Exile in the USA with branches in Europe. Controlled media in Pakistan do not allow deep examination of the tragedy in Balochistan and Balawaristan.
Pakistan has consistently alleged Indian, Russian and Afghani support to the Baloch rebels. PML (Q) Secretary General Mushahid Hussain in an interview to the Outlook India magazine said (16.04.2006), “RAW has established its training camps in Afghanistan in collaboration with the Northern Alliance remnants. Approximately 600 ferraris, or Baloch tribal dissidents, are getting specialised training to handle explosives, engineer bomb blasts, and use sophisticated weapons in these camps.”
Regarding genocide in Balochstan Asma Jahangir, Chairperson of HRCP said, “I have a very different view. It is not a matter of Indian government or Pakistan government. My view is that human rights issues are universal…And I think when our government takes out the issue of the massacres that took place in the Indian Gujarat, not only our government but all governments of the world should make India accountable for what they did…And therefore, it is just right that when systematic human rights violations are taking place as they took place in Gujarat and what is taking place in ‘Baluchistan’, that the world community does pay attention to it. …so what is happening in ‘Baluchistan’ is grave enough to take notice of.”
Asma Jahangir and others did not blame India.
Pakistan is capable of hurting India significantly. Whether there is military dictatorship or an elected government, Pakistan’s Kashmir policy is not likely to change. A new chord has been struck by Asif Ali Zardai. He has “de-linked” Kashmir from the process of normalisation of relations with India. In his latest statement delivered on the day the interior minister was delivering himself of his “anti-everybody” wisdom, Mr Zardari gave priority to the pursuit of bilateral trade, giving everybody “time to grow up” in India and Pakistan. It is hoped that Zardari’s voice would be heard by the army, ISI and the Jihadi tanzeems.
This hope is as transient as Thar mirage. Pakistan may not immediately launch retaliatory attacks against Afghanistan and fund another 9/11 attack. But it continues to sabotage and subvert the integrity and sovereignty of India.
Over a dozen of jihadi tanzeems were churned out from mosques and madrasas like Darul Uloom outfits in Sind, Balochistan, Punjab, NWFP; the Binori mosque, Lal Masjid and Markaz Islamia Madrasa etc specifically for waging jihad against India. The most notorious tanzeems are Harkat-ul- Ansar (Harkat-ul-Mujahideen), Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Al Badr, Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami, Jundulla, Jamait ul Mujahideen Bangladesh etc.
In Bangladesh, over six hundred mosques still churn out militants to fight against India in collaboration with the DGFI, ISI, and Pakistani tanzeems.
Over 5000 trained Jihadis trained by Pakistan and Bangladesh are available in the reserve pool. These outfits have spawned innumerable “cells” and branches in India.
Pakistani has exhausted the military option and the valiant Muslim nation cannot repeat the march of Islam to India like their predecessors did. Excesses committed by the Muslim conquerors have been aptly described by Francois Gautier (Rewriting Indian History), “Let it be said right away: the massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese.”
What we witness in India today-series of bomb blasts, killing of scores of innocent people, targeting of holy places are directly related to the legacy of the colossal killings of Indians by the Muslim invaders. What was done by hoards of Turkic, Afghan and Persian horsemen are being attempted now by the jihadis trained by ISI, DGFI and the Tanzeem leaders through their fidayeen dastas (suicide squads) and jihadi vanguards. They are progressively trying to subvert certain weaklings among Indian Muslims.
This is the very war peoples like Lt. General Hamid Nawaz Khan have in mind when they shout war cries against India. Such ghostly discoveries keep the blood flow steady in a country which is yet to attain Nationhood.
Discoveries by Aitzaz Ahsan, Iqbal, and Rahmat Ali etc have been overshadowed by discoveries by warmongers like General Nawaz. The so-called 5000 year old Nation on the Indus is no nation at all. It has become a jihad exporting country.
May 31st, 2008 at 5:24 pm
It is timely warning to India. Let us not be carried away by the rehtoric of peace talks. Whao can trust Pakistan army?
June 5th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I like the thrust of the idea and the way it has been delivered. It points out the truth that various elements in Pakistan are yet to reconcile to the facts of partition and Muslims having country of their own. It is in Muslim religion and philosophy to occupy other lands and peoples and convet them to the stupid religion called Islam, a khichri of Judaism and Christianity. It was good for ignorant Arab tribes. How can it be good for older civilisations?
June 15th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I have found the article very informative. Most other articles are out of the normal journalistic pattern. Dhar is a dedicated writer and not a time killer. WE want more knowledge on national security.
August 6th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
plz change layout,fonts and color to make it less stressful for reading..
like design of blogspot..
the font and white background color makes very stressful reading..hope u will take this constructively..thank you..
btw..your views are rally unique,blunt and unapologetic..refreshing..
not like usual journo cr*p..