Pakistan – a nation in fidayeen mode?

हंस के लिए हैं पाकिस्तान, लड़ के लेंगे हिंदुस्तान

With a contemptuous smile, we robbed them of Pakistan;

Now we will battle, to conquer Hindustan

Synthesis of Pakistan

For many years, the above slogan (popular in pre-partition India amongst Muslims) summed up the idea of Pakistan. The State of Pakistan was an artificial creation – and popular leaders like Sheikh Abdullah refused to even meet up with Jinnah – and who was deemed irrelevant.

Extract from “Memories of Jinnah By K. H. Khurshid, Khālid Ḥasan”

To this, add what Jinnah later boasted “I will tell you who made Pakistan: Myself, my secretary and his typewriter”. Many versions of the boast exist – though no one disputes the boast itself. Another writer narrates how Jinnah won“Pakistan merely with the assistance of “one Secretary and a typewriter machine”. Yet another researcher writes how “Jinnah once claimed that “I have won Pakistan with the help of my Secretary and his typewriter”. One memoir of Khurshid, Jinnah’s Secretary, pretty much says the same thing, “I’ll tell you who made Pakistan. Myself, my secretary and his typewriter”. At yet another occasion he seems to have said, ” My dear man, I got you Pakistan with a typist and a typewriter.” Apocryphal (as Jaswant Singh seems to suggest) or verbatim, this boast was repeated so many times and in the many versions does capture the Pakistani mindset.

The Deoband seminary issued a call to Muslims, against the idea of Pakistan. Deoband seminary was set up after the 1857 War, as a religious institution to ‘escape’ British repression. 75 years after its establishment, the Deoband school became famous during Independence, due to its strong anti-Jinnah, anti-Partition stand. And 60 years after Indian independence, the Deoband seminary is again, leading an anti-terror campaign in India.

Colonial Legacy

Yet, the British colonial administrators needed to prove that only they could rule over India. Indians were after all ‘men of straw … of whom no trace will be found after a few years’. And they were led by ‘half naked fakir‘.

The clue is in the body language

The colonial administrators created false divides – between Hindus and Muslims, between Hindus and Hindus. In some they succeeded – and in some they didn’t. Kashmir, was after all an issue that was created by British commanders of Indian and Pakistani armies – in 1948. Mountbatten was the also the Governor General of India at that time.

Modern Pakistan

Pakistan is actually 5 parts.

First is the army and the ISI combination. Then there are the popular politicians who participate in elections. Add the mullah-madrasa-mujahhid combine with a fundamentalist clergy, various terrorist groups – like JeM, LeT, Al Qaida, various Taliban factions et al make up the third.

The fourth part are the 22 families that control the economy and wealth of Pakistan. Mahbub-ul-Haq’s “22 families” speech in Karachi in 1968 highlighted the power and wealth of a few families in Pakistan.

And bringing up the rear there are the rest. No one in Pakistan talks to anyone. Each has contempt for the other four. And all five have separate agenda.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn …

And what partition era Indians remember most about the slogan above, was the indifference, to the fate of Pakistan by the soon-to-be Pakistanis – and their total India-centric focus. It is their reading, that the Pakistanis may not mourn away the passing away of Pakistan much – which is something that most Indians do not factor. Having got Pakistan for a song, they may soon be found snickering at its break up.

Is it this indifference which has allowed Pakistan to become a client state of the West?

Resident Non Indians

Some part of the Indian bureaucracy and English speaking media is possibly made up of RNIs (Resident Non-Indians), whose children and future, they have ‘secured’ in the West – much like the indifferent Pakistanis.

And this may be the one quality, that possibly is the one thing, that the RNIs and Pakistanis share – indifference to the fate of the country.

Related articles

• The respect Pakistan deserves – and does not get (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• The headache that is Pakistan (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• Pakistan – Blackmail as State Policy (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• Pakistan – Shifting sands? (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• Clinton’s visit removes misconceptions: Pakistan – Xinhua (news.google.com)
• Clinton on surprise visit to Pakistan (alternet.org)

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