The impure land – the failed state of Pakistan

On 14^th August, 1947 came into existence a nation, challenging the 5000 years of India’s existence as a nation where every religion, every thought however contrary and diverse was debated, welcomed and allowed to flourish. Even the founder of Jamait -e-Islami Syed Abul A’la Maududi opposed the creation of Pakistan calling it a nation of Muslims and not an Islamic nation.

The history of Pakistan is chequered and the nation although claiming to be land of pure (Pakistan) is full of deceit and contradictions. Pakistan has never been honest in the ideals on which it was created and has been probably one of the cruellest state against the Muslims. The Muslims of the Pakistan have suffered more in Pakistan than in anywhere in the subcontinent.

The Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, that Pakistan believes is the unfinished agenda of the Partition, was the first to face the brunt of ruthless Pakistan state when their army and their backed tribes invaded the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir, plundering the state and killing and raping thousands of Muslims of Jammu & Kashmir. The atrocities of the so-called Islamic army against the followers of Islam and the people they claimed they came to liberate, still sends shivers down the inhabitants of Jammu & Kashmir. The division of Jammu & Kashmir because of the intervention of United Nations, left one third of Kashmir under the occupation of Pakistan. Apart from Pakistan occupied Kashmir, the Pakistan also got to occupy the areas of Gilghit-Baltistan, the remote areas of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir. These remote areas have seen the worse of the atrocities from the Muslim state of Pakistan. Senge Sering, Director of the Gilgit-Baltistan Studies based out of Washinton DC says “the rights of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan are being subjugated and the combine of China and Pakistan are looting the resources of the region.The police apparatus is mostly from Pakistan. When Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau — an autonomous, federal body ostensibly meant to check corruption, but effectively keeps an eye on politicians on behalf of the army — wanted to open an office in Gilghit-Baltistan, it took over the only centre in the region for the handicapped”. He further alleges that “Pakistani Police are so ruthless that when the taking over of handicapped centre was protested by the locals and the local Law Minister spoke in their favour, a Pakistani soldier grabbed the Minister by the scruff of his neck and led him away. The minister later complained to the Chief Minister about the incident, but the CM said nothing could be done about it. That is how helpless and marginalised our people are.” (1)

In 1970 when the Awami League with large following in the erstwhile East Pakistan and now Bangladesh, won the national assembly elections decisively, the state of Pakistan refused to honour the mandate of the people and imposed martial law in East Bengal. Pakistan always practiced extensive economic discrimination against East Pakistan. Although East Pakistan generated 70 percent of Pakistan’s export revenue, the Pakistan government spending was much higher in West Pakistan and East Pakistan was regularly refused funds even for basic development. After the Bangladeshi started the civil disobedience movement against the blatant discrimination, the Muslim state of Pakistan used the most ruthless and brutal ways to subjugate the Muslims of east Bengal. The Pakistan Army under the direction of the state massacred around 3 million Bengalis. A Muslim state of Pakistan committed genocide against the Muslim citizens of its country. It is documented that General Niazi, the then military commander of East Pakistan had asked his men to rape every woman they see. ‘Iss haramzadi qaum ki nasal badal do (change the race of this community)” (2) was his instruction to his army men. What happened in Bangladesh is now being repeated in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The Muslims of Balochistan who have been resisting the atrocities of Pakistan have seen killings of Balochis in thousands. While many Balochis have disappeared without a trace, many have been killed publicly and brazenly. Nearly 1,000 dead bodies of political have been found Balochistan province over the past six years. Activists say the figures, point to large-scale extrajudicial killings. Relatives say most victims had been picked up by security agencies. Thousands of people have disappeared without trace in Balochistan since a separatist insurgency gained momentum in 2007 (3)

The role of Pakistan in the Islamic state of Afghanistan has always been of a neighbour who would go to any length to foment and promote trouble. The support to Afghan Taliban, especially the Haqqani Network, has been the root cause the bloody war that has been waging in Afghanistan, result in the death of thousands of people in both terrorist attacks and the retaliatory attacks by the NATO forces. The NATO forces continued to bombard Afghanistan in their pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, while he was hiding comfortably in garrison town of Abbotabad in Pakistan. The Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani recently said “the keys to war are in Islamabad, Quetta, Rawalpindi” – all cities in Pakistan (4) – suggesting the neighbouring country was a safe haven for cross-border terrorist activities.The sly Pakistan continues to soak its hand with the blood of innocent Afghanis, who are overwhelmingly Muslims.

India has the 3^rd largest population of Muslims in the world. Many Organisation of the Islamic countries (OIC), including Bangladesh, Turkey and UAE have expressed the desire to include India as a member to the organisation. Addressing the OIC foreign ministers’ meet last year, the then Bangladesh foreign minister AH Mahmud Ali had said, “A number of countries — not OIC members — have a large number of Muslims as their citizens. Muslims may be a minority in those countries, but in terms of numbers they often exceed the total population of many OIC member countries. There is a need to build bridges with those non-OIC countries so that a large number of Muslim populations do not remain untouched by the good work of OIC. That’s why, reforms and restructuring are critical for OIC.’ (5)

The move has not been liked by Pakistan, the self-claimed global protector and the well-wisher of Muslims of the world. Pakistan has been totally against the move and has thrown many tantrums to block the induction of India in OIC. It even passed a resolution in their National Assembly to request OIC to neither include India in OIC and requested OIC to not even invite the nation with third largest Muslim population as a guest or observer. So much is the love for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent that Pakistan will go to any extent to deny them any benefits they may derive from the good work of OIC.

The hypocrisy of Pakistan probably gets best exposed in the dealing of its all-weather ally China, with the Muslim citizens of China. The establishment of Pakistan or for that matter the entire state of Pakistan goes silent on the treatment of Muslims, their beloved Ummah, in the Xinjiang region of China. The Uighurs, have seen the worst form of religious prosecution, with China denying them even the basic right to worship and follow their religion. As per UN estimates, around a million Uighurs have been detained by Chines authority. The number and size of the detention camps has expanded rapidly since 2016, with estimates ranging from 180 centres to more than 1,000. Foreign news outlets and human rights groups have reported physical and psychological abuse on a massive scale. (6) This gross violation of Human rights, especially of the Muslims has seen zero response from the self-claimed protector of Muslims and Ummah; Pakistan. The leaders of Pakistan who have never shied away from taking the credits of the victorious Muslims rulers from the various parts of the world including claiming the glorious past of Caliphates as the part of their own history under the umbrella of Ummah, conveniently forget the same spirit of Ummah, when it comes to talk about the brutal atrocities on the Muslims of China.

The current Pakistan not only has failed as a nation state but has also failed on the very core principle on which it was created: Islam. Pakistan has clearly demonstrated that a nation state on the basis of religion is a failed experiment and at the best is a creation of a rogue nation and should be lesson to all those who are sympathetic to the killing in name of jihad and for a global Islamic supremacy, ignoring the most important verse from the Holy Quran ‘Killing of an innocent is killing of all humanity’ Quran verse 5:32

By - Amit Raina Twitter: rainaamit

https://wp.me/p1V8Mx-1U

 

References:

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/senge-sering-highlights-pakistan-china-atrocities-in-pok/article26600135.ece

Khadim Hussain Raja’s book “A stranger in my own country: East Pakistan 1969-1971

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38454483

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-president-pakistan/afghan-president-accuses-pakistan-of-holding-keys-to-war-idUSKCN1PO1U8

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/indias-global-stature-and-islamic-component-help-it-get-oic-invite/articleshow/68145827.cms

(https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/the-uighurs)

19/01/90: When Kashmiri Pandits fled Islamic terror - Kanchan Gupta

Srinagar, January 4, 1990. Aftab, a local Urdu newspaper, publishes a press release issued by Hizb-ul Mujahideen, set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to wage jihad for Jammu and Kashmir's secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. Another local paper, Al Safa, repeats this expulsion order.

In the following days, there is near chaos in the Kashmir valley with Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference government abdicating all responsibilities of the State. Masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans.

Reports of killing of Hindus, invariably Kashmiri Pandits, begin to trickle in; there are explosions; inflammatory speeches are made from the pulpits of mosques, using public address systems meant for calling the faithful to prayers. A terrifying fear psychosis begins to take grip of Kashmiri Pandits.

Walls are plastered with posters and handbills, summarily ordering all Kashmiris to strictly follow the Islamic dress code, prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcoholic drinks and imposing a ban on video parlours and cinemas. The masked men with Kalashnikovs force people to re-set their watches and clocks to Pakistan Standard Time.

Shops, business establishments and homes of Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the Kashmir valley with a recorded cultural and civilisational history dating back 5,000 years, are marked out. Notices are pasted on doors of Pandit houses, peremptorily asking the occupants to leave Kashmir within 24 hours or face death and worse. Some are more lucid: "Be one with us, run, or die!"

* * *

Srinagar, January 19, 1990. Jagmohan arrives to take charge as governor of Jammu and Kashmir. Farooq Abdullah, whose pathetic, whimpering, snivelling government has all but ceased to exist and has gone into hiding, resigns and goes into a sulk. Curfew is imposed as a first measure to restore some semblance of law and order. But it fails to have a deterrent effect.

Throughout the day, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists use public address systems at mosques to exhort people to defy curfew and take to the streets. Masked men, firing from their Kalashnikovs, march up and down, terrorising cowering Pandits who, by then, have locked themselves in their homes.

As evening falls, the exhortations become louder and shriller. Three taped slogans are repeatedly played the whole night from mosques: 'Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna hai' (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah-O-Akbar); 'Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa' (What do we want here? Rule of Shariah); 'Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san' (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).

In the preceding months, 300 Hindu men and women, nearly all of them Kashmiri Pandits, had been slaughtered ever since the brutal murder of Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, noted lawyer and BJP national executive member, by the JKLF in Srinagar on September 14, 1989. Soon after that, Justice N K Ganju of the Srinagar high court was shot dead. Pandit Sarwanand Premi, 80-year-old poet, and his son were kidnapped, tortured, their eyes gouged out, and hanged to death. A Kashmiri Pandit nurse working at the Soura Medical College Hospital in Srinagar was gang-raped and then beaten to death. Another woman was abducted, raped and sliced into bits and pieces at a sawmill.

In villages and towns across the Kashmir valley, terrorist hit lists have been floating about. All the names are of Kashmiri Pandits. With no government worth its name, the administration having collapsed and disappeared, the police nowhere to be seen, despondency sets in. As the night of January 19, 1990, wears itself out, despondency gives way to desperation.

And tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the valley take a painful decision: to flee their homeland to save their lives from rabid jihadis. Thus takes place a 20th century Exodus.

* * *

Srinagar, January 19, 2005. There are no Kashmiri Pandits in Srinagar, or, for that matter, anywhere else in the Kashmir valley; they don't live here anymore. You can find them in squalid refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi. As many as 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits have fled their home and hearth and been reduced to living the lives of refugees in their own country.

Two-thirds of them are camping in Jammu. The rest are in Delhi and in other Indian cities. Many of them, once prosperous and proud of their rich heritage, now live in grovelling poverty, dependent on government dole and charity. In these 15 years, an entire generation of exiled Kashmiri Pandits has grown up, without seeing the land from where their parents fled to escape the brutalities of Islamic terrorism, a land they dare not return to, although that land still remains a part of their country.

A large number of them are suffering from a variety of stress and depression related diseases. A group of doctors who surveyed the mental and physical health of the Kashmiri Pandits living in refugee camps, found high incidence of 'economic distress, stress induced diabetes, partial lunacy, hypertension and mental retardation.' Statistics reflect high death rate and low birth rate among the Kashmiri Pandit refugees.

And thereby hangs a tragic tale that has been all but wiped out from public memory.

An entire people have been uprooted from the land of their ancestors and left to fend for themselves as a weak-kneed Indian state shamelessly panders to Islamic terrorists and separatists who claim they are the final arbiters of Jammu and Kashmir's destiny. A part of India's cultural heritage has been destroyed; a chapter of India's civilisational history has been erased.

Had this tragedy occurred elsewhere in Hindu majority India, and had the victims been Muslims, we would have described it as 'ethnic cleansing' and 'genocide.' We would have made films with horror-inducing titles. We would have filed cases in the Supreme Court of India. Our media would have marshalled remarkable rage in reporting the smallest detail.

But, this tragedy has occurred in Muslim majority Kashmir valley, and the victims are all Hindus, that too Pandits. What has been lost is part of India's Hindu culture, what has been erased is integral to India's Hindu civilisation.

Therefore, the government makes bold to record that the Kashmiri Pandits have "migrated on their own" and their 'displacement (is) self-imposed;' the National Human Rights Commission, after a perfunctory inquiry, refuses to concede that what has happened is 'genocide' or 'ethnic cleansing,' though facts add up to no less than that, never mind that 300,000 lives have been destroyed.

And, our jhola-wallah brigade of secular activists rudely turn up their noses to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits: Hindu sorrow, inflicted by Islamic terror, stinks.

Today, on January 19, the 15th anniversary of the forced flight of Kashmiri Pandits, look back at India's wretched history of secular politics and consider the terrible price the nation has paid at the altar of appeasement because the Indian State has, and continues to, toe the line of least resistance.

Reflect. Resolve. React.

https://m.rediff.com/news/2005/jan/19kanch.htm