Monday, December 29, 2008

Neil Joeck's Talk

A talk on Pakistan, by Neil Joeck at the Commonwealth Club of California. He deals with issues of nuclear non-proliferation in SouthAsia. The repetition of Pakistan's national myth about Chaudhry Rahmat Ali having coined the name 'Pakistan' as an acronym for Punjab-Afghania-Kashmir seems to only do a disservice to resolving the Indo-Pakistani conflict. If East Bengal formed 55% of Pakistan's population at Partition, then how the hell was this Pakistani majority left out of the name? Again, to me this acronym fable simply amounts to contrived revisionist history. The phrase 'ret-conning' comes to mind.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Somebody mentioned before Paki meant land of pure - not bad considering they have driven the hindus.the SS book had pointed to this 1930 incident - I believe.

Whatever, Hindu nationalists were driven out, they have been abused by the english establishment, always fearful and looking out for distinguished anglicized sickularists among hindus - While british establishment are cosy with the Islamists .



The intolerance towards hindu by the english establishment could be in macaulayian formulation, they have extended silly anti-semite logic to thrash the hindus. Muslims are viewed as the people of book for creating a new political entity.

The noise for this muslim separation was existing before an event of madrasa educated young man thinking through four provinces ( Punjab was half hindu/sikh then) , or the event of one poet expressing the idea of Pakisthan that he might have heard from elsewhere. For example the principle of division of bengal didn't have a Rahmat Ali in it. The British and secularists whitewash these principles developed by people of the book and put the blame elsewhere.




It is fact that elements in british had supported from high profile staff and political operatives of british govt in their quest for Pakisthan.
Mahatma Gandhi and his INC was popular among a lot of muslims, until a late push through Jinnah. Rahmat Ali , neither Jinnah could have managed to defeat INC lead by Gandhi....To some extent they were mascots without much control, that is the only reason they could afford sometimes to be secular and feel disappointed by the violence.

Thus the entire idea of Pakisthan is a shadow war against the hindus using various political ideas and justifications, the Punjab and Afgani unity is a sham. The reality is that the sindhis are dominated by Punjabis.

slim_shady said...

Also, the following Fora video is a must watch:

Making Sense of the Mumbai Attacks

There were three speakers, of whom the first two were excellent - well researched with strong arguments, while the third, an Indian woman, was unimpressive, in my opinion.

Sameer said...

I happened to read the National myth entry in Wikipedia.
We have national 'myth's of various countries, even for India. (for outsiders, all our history is 'myth'). We have it for US, Britain etc, but surprisingly we dont have it for Pukistan!
If anyone has a Wiki ID and with good writing skills, perhaps can add another myth :)

witan said...

Why do you say Chaudhry Rahmat Ali having coined the name 'Pakistan'... is Pakistan's "national myth"?
There is quite a bit of material on the Internet detailing Rahmat Ali's concept of Pakistan, although some of the earlier Web material has vanished. I have seen earlier editions (pre-1950?) of Concise Oxford English Dictionary with the defintion that 'Pakistan' was an acronym for Punjab-Afghania-Kashmir-Iran ...etc., but it is not there in later editions. Some Web editions of dictionaries still carry that old definition. It would appear that the newer meaning of PAKI as "pure" is a face-saving afterthought.

san said...

witan, maybe you're right. My thinking was that acknowledging this acronym is meant to legitimize its claim to Kashmir. But now that you mention it, perhaps this acronym helps to emphasize the existence of the component states which Pakistan should be broken back down into.

I dunno, which is the better spin? You guys all tell me - is it better to support the acronym or to oppose it?

witan said...

To San
See choudary rahmat ali
CR Ali did not omit [East] Bengal: "C.R.Ali also formulated demands for Muslim states in the Continent of Dinia (India’s true name), namely Usmanistan in Hyderabad Deccan and Maplistan in South India to avoid massive population transfers (read ‘ethnic cleansing’ and brutal rapes and killings in the name of religion). He advocated that Bangladesh should be a separate Muslim state called Bangistan. These Muslim states would then form a Pak Commonwealth of Nations. ... "
CR Ali is also said to have foreseen and predicted that "East Pakistan will secede because of the fault of politicians and bureaucracy".
I had earlier posted the following link to CR Ali's concept of PAKISTAN: http://www.islamic-truth.co.uk/islamicstore/paknation.pdf
or
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mohammed.butt1/islamicstore/paknation.pdf
It is important for the whole world and particularly India NOT to forget CR Ali's concept of PAKISTAN, because it envisaged an Islamic empire stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. In other words, Pakistan would never be satisfied even if they are given Kashmir. They are still obsessed with the idea of the Empire.

Anonymous said...

San,
This acronym whitewashes the atrocities and criminals. More research is required into it.

Bharat/Hindustan was existing with muslims and without. The serious ideas of this abstract concept of punjab, islamic etc are more likely British ideas, obviously that Ali was in london supports me. Most of leaders of national movement were above ( atleast pretended so with decent authenticity) stupidity of the partisans, consequently it is obvious that they have been humbled by a superior political force in creation of Pakisthan. If we accept the acronym blindly, then a lot of details gets lost.

My first suspicion: Rehmat Ali might not be capable of thinking this way, there aught be a british man behind it.

Second: SS mentioned this in his argument the othe day, but this fact I know for sure is that the seeds of such islamic identity and denial of hindus are in european 19th century political churning. Rahmat Ali could only be one of the faces of these ideas, a native mullah and people of book, he might have been quoted as a popular face.

The acronym masks the fact that it was not an agreement among four provinces. It was a political movement through Islam or Islam as a political moment. The unity of islam was propounded by the brits. The Brits had not biased in favor of half of the punjab to get into sindhu to form a country, which will engineer mass slaughter. There is no pretense so far that the politics is driven through Islam.

If Rehmat Ali talked only about Kashmir, then why did Pakis massacred the hindus there ? They should have provided relief to Kashmiri hindus as their future country men. Thus it was not about Kashmir as a province.

1- The acronym pretends as if it is an understanding of four provinces which it is not.
2- The acronym pretends a secular framework - good for sickularists, but actually it masks the religious-political doctrine.
3- The acronym masks the development Indian politics in europe amd britain and leads us to no understanding.