The Unspoken Fears of Hindus

Pakistan’s Crocodile Tears for Muslims – Global, Indian or Kashmiri

By Girish Menon

It is two weeks since the Indian Parliament de-operationalised Art. 370 and used the armed forces to crush any dissent in the few Muslim majority districts of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir. It is well known that when any army administers an area there will be human rights violations; and I don’t expect anything different in the Kashmir valley. But does Pakistan’s rhetoric in this matter inspire confidence among embittered Kashmiri Muslims on the Indian side?

Pakistan (the land of the Pure Muslim) was founded on the principle of the Two Nation Theory for Muslims from the Indian subcontinent who were afraid of being persecuted in a post-British, Hindu majority India. From its inception, Pakistan persecuted its own Hindu, Sikh, Ahmadiya, Shia and Christian populations. It also persecuted Sindhis, Balochs, Pashtuns etc. and ended up as the land only for the Punjabi Sunni. It acquired the epithet Bakistan (leftover land) after its Bengali Muslims left to form Bangla Desh.

Pakistan initiated four formal wars against India viz. 1948, 1965, 1971 and1999. It launched proxy wars in the Punjab in the early 1980s and in Kashmir from 1989 onwards which resulted in the displacement of a large number of Hindus who were resident in the Kashmir valley. It did not adhere to the UN resolution of 1948, the Simla agreement of 1972 and its miltablishment jeopardised peace initiatives between civilian governments including Modi’s by attacking the Indian Parliament, Mumbai, Pathankot and Pulwama.

Internationally, the pious Pakistan general Zia ul Haq earned his spurs by firing on Muslim Palestinians even before he came to power illegally. The Pakistan state persecuted its Mohajirs who fled India after the 1947 partition. Recently too, it did not step in to help Syrian refugees, the Rohingyas or the Uighurs (all Muslims) who suffered in large numbers.

Now the Pakistan media alleges that India is using genocidal policies to subjugate Kashmir. However, I don’t see any counter relief policy by Pakistan welcoming aggrieved Indian Muslims in general and Kashmiri Muslims in particular to cross the border and to settle in the Sunni Islamic paradise called Pakistan. After all, the other famous land of the faithful, Israel, is an open haven to Jews from all over the world.

Pakistan’s support for Indian Muslims is part of the Ghazwa-e-Hind rhetoric. They hope that Indian Muslims will take up arms (which they have supplied) to create a fifth column so that the armies of the faithful can wander in and establish Imran Khan’s Riyasat-e-Medina.

Unsurprisingly, Pakistan’s friends and members of the Islamic ummah viz. the UAE and Saudi Arabia have not supported it’s rhetoric. Also, most Indian Muslims have decided to follow their self interest and ignored the calls from across the border. Now, it is up to the Indian government to ensure they win the hearts and minds of the doubters in the Kashmir Valley.

More importantly, the Indian government should focus on the dire economic situation in the country which affects people from all denominations. Success in this area will ensure that Kashmiri Muslims will wish to stay with India and not raise the call for Azaadi (freedom from both India and Pakistan).


---Prognosis for the Future (in Urdu)

-----Interview with Imran Khan which validates the above theses

Ghazwa-e-Hind: The Prophecy about the Islamic Conquest of India Explained

Is it Islam or its followers that need reform?

Discussion is in Urdu

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Lessons for all from the great Tarek Fatah

Pakistan is a state of mind - Tarek Fatah

Tarek Fatah - "Pakistan is a state of mind which believes that a Muslim cannot live in peace in non Muslim majority countries". It believes in the concept of Darul Harab and its Indian version is Ghazwa e Hind.

Tarek Fateh on Lahore blast: Good and Bad Talibans are twins children of mother Pakistan

Is Pakistan waking up?

Khaled Ahmed in The Indian Express

National Management College (NMC), Lahore, an institution for senior bureaucrats, has pleasantly surprised me by going through an elaborate exercise in March about removing extremism from Pakistan. There was a time when it reacted negatively to any guest speaker’s reference to extremism as part of the ideology of the state. Times have changed.

One secondary topic of discussion where I was invited as observer was “Extremism of the Educated”, which struck me as bravely perceptive about the central defect of Pakistan and the Islamic world. My own thinking is as follows:

The survival of a state is hinged on preservation of the status quo. It is endangered if it tries to change the status quo of its neighbours. The world favours status quo because it doesn’t want war. The state’s prime task is the education of its people so that they accept the state as home. If today Pakistan is considering such topics of discussion as “Extremism of the Educated”, it’s assumed it has been doing something wrong in the field of education and wants to self-correct.

All states use education to create a uniformity of the mind. It’s also called indoctrination. It confirms the status quo and causes acceptance of the state. But if the state is revisionist and promises a revised state through a revision of its boundaries, it may imply war. If it goes to war to change the status quo, it may justify war and pledge more of it.

If the state is ideological, it may curtail freedom of thought and expression. It may legislate to the detriment of minorities and enact laws apostatising certain communities. 

Extremism may be born of the interpretation placed on the state’s ideology. The vehicle of state ideology is education; it may become the vehicle of extremism. Ideology is unchangeable; it will challenge the constitution of a modern state. Even the “reason-based” communist ideology in the Soviet Union didn’t change quickly enough. If the ideology is Islam, it will constantly challenge the essentially changeable constitution. The validity of lawmaking under the constitution will be questioned, leading to extreme actions and reactions.

Two examples: The modern state agrees with the international law that war can be declared only by the state and not by individuals. Religious factions may interpret the Quran by rights and decide jihad can be declared by individuals or their groups. The state may rely on this thinking too and start “proxy jihad” that it can deny. In this case, the state actually allows the development of a violently extremist mindset sought to be directed outwards but which it has no capacity to prevent from being directed inwards.

After the middle age in Europe, the modern nation-state was born, disenchanted with the principle of enforcing piety. Today, the nation-state uses coercion to punish crimes. There’s punishment for those who violate the penal code; there’s no reward for those who don’t. But if the state succumbs to parallel interpretations, it can punish its citizens for not being pious.

The principle of Nahi an-al Munkir (punishing the prohibited) has been accepted by the modern state; but Amr bil Maruf (commanding the permitted) has been wisely ignored. 

Terrorist leader Mangal Bagh forced people to say namaz in the mosque under strict roll-call and burned down the houses of those who didn’t attend the five-times-a-day prayer. In Swat, warlord Fazlullah tyrannised the population under Amr bil Maruf, just like the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

Pakistan seems to have woken up to the menace of an extremist consensus wrongly based on religion. The establishment is waking up to the fading away of the modern state. It needs peace without to achieve peace within. It seems the state has completed a dark journey and wants to emerge into light. Its journey has accustomed it to isolation that allows national hubris to grow. Now may be the time to break this isolation and reach out to an alienated neighbourhood.