The rebirth of Indus Pakistan in 1947

| NEW YORK | RUPEE NEWS | August 14th, 2008 | Moin Ansari| Today is the anniversary of the rebirth of the Indus Valley Civilization– parts of which had which had been taken over by the British Empire. The Indus people have been existence as a separate unit for more than 5000 years. Quaid e Azam Mohmmad Ali Jinnah was the latest Indus person that allowed the Pakistanis to continue to live together as an entity.

Indus Pakistan has been existence for more than 5500 + 61 years

The birth of the Indus people as Pakistan in the middle part of the 20th century was a tectonic event. For thousands of years the poeple from the top of the Indus to the bottom of the Indus have been living and trading together. Pakistan existed 5000 years ago. We now call it the Indus Valley. The people of the Indus buried their dead, wrote a pictographic language, lived in a non-stratified society, did not have horses, were non-vegetarians, did not worship the Hindu pantheons and ate beef. The social structure of the Indus Pakistanis has always been separate. The language of the Indus Pakistanis had nothing to do with Sanskrit which was brought in later by the hordes of Agni and Mithra and Arjun-Gods that existed in Sumer and Persia.

The Indus Pakistanis have always found reason to separate themselves from the Ganges basin. It was religion or lack of it. It was language. It was diet. It was culture. It was social structure.

Pakistanis on this day resove to live together as they have always lived together. Neither British bayonets, nor hordes of the Destroyer God, nor the Indian maraudinghordes have been able to separate the Kashmiris, Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, and Baluchis, who have lived togeher not just since 1947 but for thousands of years. No amount of RAW support to Baitullah Mehsud will harm the determination of the Indus Paksitanis to live together and face the world as a united and determined nation.

Pakistan: Another Indian prophecy of doom. Here we go again. The first one came in 1947.

THIS TOO SHALL PASS! WE SHALL OVERCOME!

THE PAKISTANI RESILIENCE IN THE FACE OF THREATS: Mountbatten, Nehru, Indira, Kruschev, Johnson, Carter, Kissinger (Nixon), Gobachov, Clinton, Armitage (Bush), Karzia (Bush and Vajpayee/Sing) have all threatened Pakistan: The Pakistanis are used to it…so what else is new?!! Pakistan’s Nuclear Program should be seen in the backdrop of these threats.The capacity of Pakistan to sustain some fifteen major disarticulations in polity, power, and structure and still preserve a national identity is a phenomenon one is tempted to explain by recourse to the supernatural. Pakistan which has been pummelled by external events (three wars with India, secession of Bangladesh, 3.5 million Afghan refugees) and disrupted by internal fissures (4 periods of martial law totalling 27 years and ethnic violence in Sindh) to a degree which no other state established since 1945 has suffered. In this respect it stands as an exemplar of a nation whose adversities “common sense” might suggest make its viability impossible. Yet its continued existence defies the reality induced by such speculation. The enormity and persistence of these difficulties and the resilience of the nation in absorbing and somehow surviving them must be regarded with awe if not admiration.” RALPH BRAIBANTI

The Indus valley Civilization existed in what is today Pakistan. Pakistan is the natural inheritor of the Indus Valley Civilization, just like modern day China is the natural inheritor of the Chinese civilization (not called China then), and modern day Egypt in the natural inheritor of the Egyptian civilization (not called Egypt then). “Indus-valley-istan” existed 5000 years ago. Pakistanexisted5000 years ago, even though it was not called Pakistan. This is the geographic two nation theory.

Long before the Crescent and Star flew atop Islamabad, long before Mohammed Bin Qasim invaded Sind, and long before the Mughals spread prosperity in all the nooks and corners of the subcontinent, long before the Sikh dynasty briefly controlled Kashmir, and long before the Chundra Gupta Vikramadatya ruled India, the people of Punjab, Sindh, Sarhad, and Kashmir were tied together as the people of Pakistan.

IVCexistedonly in the Western part of the subcontinent, almost exclusively on the banks of the Indus (current day Pakistan). Therefore current day Pakistanis are inheritors of the IVC. There was a civilization in present day Pakistan. “India” did not exist 5000 years ago. The Sumerians called it Meluhha and Mekan. We don’t know what they called it. No one can be sure. “Pakistan” existed 5000 years ago in the IVC, even though the IVCprobablydid not call it Pakistan.

One cannot accept the Lebanese, and the Syrian, and Cypriotic claim to the Egyptian civilization, and one cannot accept the Japanese claim to the original Chinese civilization. Similarly once cannot accept the “Indian” claim to the IVC. The “Indian” claim to the IVC is by association. The Egyptian claim to the “Egyptian” civilization is by geography.

Was Pakistan inevitable?

THE GEOGRAPHIC TWO NATION THEORY:

“Pakistan” existed 5000 years ago: What was it called 5000 years ago?

These maps clearly show the existance of Pakistan 5000 years ago as the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC).

The IVCtraded with areas contiguous to it and to places as far as Hawaii.

This map shows more than 570 states in the Subcontinent. At this particular stage of the British Raj over the hundreds of states, most of Pakistan is not part of the Raj.

These maps tell us about the Pakistan the people of the Subcontinent struggled for, and asked for. It shows the Muslim majority areas of the Subcontinent.

This is the Indus Valley Civilization (Pakistan) which we have right now. Compared to the map of the IVC5000 years ago, it is very similar. The Indus Valley Civilization is a living and thriving civilization and it exists today as Pakistan, just like Pakistan existed as the IVC thousands of years ago.

The first Pakistani implements have been discovered in Soan River valley dating back 150,000 years. Mehergarh in Baluchistanisthe oldest arable land dating back 7000 years ago. This frame by frame evolution of Pakistan begining 4000BC. From the Indus Valley the Pakistani civilization helped evolve the Gangetic civilizaiton in India which came hundreds of years later. During the British reign the Subcontinent was broken up into more than 570 states. When the British left the states on the Indus banded together to form Paksitan, and those on the Gangetic vally got together to from “Bharat” (official name in the constitution).

The beliefs of the IVC are totally irrelevant to the inheritors of the IVC. There is no conclusive proof of the beliefs of the IVC. Bainerjee and Sir Edmund Hill, the two founding archeologists on the IVCclearly state in their writings, that the IVC people did not have any organized religion. No “Temples” have been discovered either in Moenjadaro or in Harappa or in Taxila. The ancient IVCculture, whether they worshipped anything or nothing is besides the point. The current day Egyptians are the inheritors of the ancient Egyptian civilization. The current day Egyptians are also Muslim. Are they going to be denied the right to claim the Egyptian civilization, just because they are Muslim? If one denies the Pakistanis the inheritance to the IVC, then you should go and challenge the Egyptians also. The ancient Egyptians ALSO participated in rituals that were Un-Islamic.

PAKISTAN AS INHERITOR OF THE IVC
Let us see what the encyclopedias says about the Indus Valley and Pakistan:

Present-day Pakistan shares the 5,000-year historyof the India-Pakistan Subntinent. At present day Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, the Indus Valley Civilization, withlarge cities and elaborateirrigationsystems, flourished c. 4,000-2,500 BC. Beginning with the Persians in the 6thcentury BC, and continuing withAlexanderthe Great and with the Sassanians, successive nations to the west ruled or influenced Pakistan, eventually separating the area from the Indian cultural sphere.The World Almanac® and Book of Facts 1994

History. The area that is now Pakistan was the site of the INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION, the earliest known culture on the Indian subcontinent. Press. Copyright © 1991 by Columbia University Press.

Pakistan (pàk´î-stàn´, pä´kî-stän´) Abbr. Pak.
A country of southern Asia. Occupying land crisscrossed by ancient invasion paths, Pakistanwasthe home of the prehistoric Indus Valley civilization, which flourished until overrun by Aryans c. 1500 B.C. After being conquered by numerous rulers and powers, it passed to the British as part of India and became a separate Moslem state in 1947. The country originally included what is now Bangladesh, which declared its independence in 1971. Islamabad is the capital and Karachi the largest city. Population, 83,782,000. – Pak´istan´i (-stàn´ê, -stä´nê) adjective & noun

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

Indus valley civilization, c.2500-c.1500 B.C., ancient civilization that flourished along the Indus R. in present-day Pakistan. Its chief cities were Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, where archaeologists have unearthed impressive public and private buildings that are evidence of a complex society based on a highly organized agriculture supplemented by active commerce. The arts flourished, and examples in copper, bronze, and pottery have been uncovered. Also found were examples of a pictograph script that long baffled archaeologists but was finally deciphered in 1969. The fate of the Indus valley civilization remains a mystery, but it is believed that it fell victim to invading Aryans.

The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia

An urban civilization with a so-far-undeciphered writing system stretched across the Indus Valley and along the Arabian Sea c3000-1500 BC. Major sites are Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in Pakistan, well-planned geometric cities withundergroundsewers and vast granaries. The entire region (600,000 sq. mi.) may have been ruled as a single state. Bronze was used, and arts and crafts were highly developed. Religious life apparently took the form of fertility cults.

Indus civilization was probably in decline when it was destroyed by Aryan invaders from the northwest, speaking an Indo-European language from which all the languages of Pakistan, north India and Bangladesh descend. Led by a warrior aristocracy whose legendary deeds are recorded in the Rig Veda, the Aryans spread east and south, bringing their pantheon of sky gods, elaborate priestly (Brahmin) ritual, and the beginnings of the caste system; local customs and beliefs were assimilated by the conquerors.

The World Almanac® and Book of Facts 1994

Indus (în´des),chief river of Pakistan, c.1,900 mi (3,060 km) long, site of the prehistoric INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION. It rises in the TIBET region of China, flows west across JammuandKASHMIR, India, then southwest through Pakistan, where it receives the “five waters” of the PUNJAB (the Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers), to an infertile clay delta on the Arabian Sea SE of Karachi. The unnavigable Indus is harnessed for irrigation and hydroelectricity by the Jinnah, Sukker, and Kotridams. A treaty (1960) between India and Pakistan regulates withdrawals of water from the river and its tributaries.

The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia Anthropologists have observed that the present population of …Punjab is said to be ethnically the same as the population of Harappa and Rupar 4000 years ago. Linguistically the present day population of Gujrat and Punjab belongs to the Indo-Aryan language speaking group. The only inference that can be drawn from the anthropological and linguistic evidences adduced above is that the Harappan population in the Indus Valley and Gujratin 2000 BC was composed of two or more groups, the more dominentamong them having very close ethnic affinities with the present day Indo-Aryan speaking population of India.

I call this the GEOGPRAHICTWO NATION THEORY…and when I originally proposed it and posted it on the SCI it was met with a lot of hostility….Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan has now written a book on this subject Aitzaz Ahsan’s Indus run.

Some more water has gone down the Indus since Aitzaz Ahsan published his book. As the Indus does not flow – at least not so far – in the Washington area, it is only natural that the book which was placed in a bottle and consigned to the waters by the author somewhere near Wazirabad has only found its way to these shores in the last few days.

The Indus reminds me of many good things. There used to be a watering hole at the hotel on The Mall in Lahore, which bears the name of the river, from whose cool recesses one summer afternoon, I had been summoned by the incomparable Prof G.M. Asar who by the time I arrived was in a most delightfully loquacious frame of mind, declaiming poetry in his rich and measured voice. His diction was so perfect that you could just learn English by listening to him, or Urdu for that matter.

But that is not the Indus Aitzaz Ahsanfrequents- and who can blame him considering what has become of it. Or has written about. His book is about the river and the region that now makes up Pakistan, what he calls the Gurdaspur-Kathiawar salient. His thesis, spun out over 350 pages, is simple but is it also true? One has to think because it is so perfectly formed, with no rough edges.

Truth, on the other hand, is often less meticulously packaged and is far more awkward to handle. Being the consummate lawyer the author is, the case is brilliantly argued.

Whether that makes him right as well is an open question. The basic idea of the book is that India and Indus have always been two distinct entities or regions in terms of civilisation and culture, their differences being “primordial and many”. Religion has not been the dividing line, only one of the factors. And since there was and is an Indus, there is also an “Indus person” who, poor creature, is the mess he is today because he has been “deprived of his heroes, nay, of himself and he has not gained much in the bargain.” So what is he then? The answer, if it please their lordships, is that “……he remains a family man, an enlightened non-fundamentalist Muslim, and a brave soldier (I knew there were khakis lurking somewhere in there)…. he is an ostentatious consumerist, a bad administrator and devoid of civic sense and responsibility.” That does it for me. Consumerist is best rendered by the national. Punjabi philosophy: Khao, piyo te jan banao. Or eat, drink and develop your biceps. Or one better:

Khao, piyo te paghrai na dyo. Eat, drink and don’t get caught.

The author tells us that apart from poets, mystics and warriors, it is the River Indus and its tributaries that have shaped the Indus person. Since no one is perfect, this being has developed certain defects, though none that cannot be cured. The book has been an attempt to highlight his strengths and develop his original potential. Once that happens, there is no reason why the Indus person and the India person cannot live in peace, amity and eternal goodwill. I will drink any amount of spiked Indus water to that.

The Indus person, Aitzaz Ahsan asserts, is a good soldier but a lousy administrator, an observation, let’s hope Mr Shahbaz Sharif remains unaware of, otherwise I can hear his
big bulldoze brigade beating bongo drums and moving towards Bank Square, Lahore, where the author keeps an office.

The Indus person, we are told, is a good soldier because he has “lived in the path of marauders who have come to burn his crops and villages.” Ahsan maintains that the “untiring Aryans”, the “savage Huns”, Alexander himself, the “unrelenting invaders” from Ghazni and Afghanistan, not to forget “the scourge of the earth” Taimurorthe “ferocious” Nadir Shah, were given a taste of their own medicine, or their own steel, by the Indus people. This is somewhat amazing because the received wisdom on the valour of this region, especially Punjab, is that in the event of an invasion, the inhabitants were lined up ten deep on their side waving garlands, pointing towards Delhi and shouting as they bowed from the waist: “Light of the Universe, Most Exalted Majesty, the good stuff lies in that direction.”

Aitzazalsocomes up with the theory that the people of the Indus believe that it is righteousness and not technical superiority which wins battles. Interesting. And where is righteousness to be found?

“Righteousness is with the faithful, even though they may lack discipline,
technology and scientifically more effective strategies” which is why despite a hundred years of the British, the Indus person “has not acquired a scientific attitude towards life.”

Does he have a role model? Yes. It is the “man on horseback, brandishing a sword and charging the enemy, single-handedly killing a hundred armed opponents.” Splendid, isn’t it! The mercenary and professional armies raised from this area by the British and those before them, are a matter of pride for the author. “The Indus person, when drilled, trained and subjected to discipline, can make the best military officer anywhere in the world … He has learnt the advantage, in peace and war, of obedience to superior officers. These were the men that Indus produced to help Britain rule over a global empire.” Umph!!!

Rule Britannia, we are on your side.

But if the Indus men are such good soldiers, why are they such lousy administrators? Aitzaz Ahsan’s answer: “Having been subjected to abject anarchy for centuries, the Indus person sees no need to abide by the rules himself.” Ha! but we had just been old that the Indus person is the best soldier in the world. How come he is such a disaster as an administrator? Or does the Indus person come in two varieties? The good soldier and the lousy administrator. Ahsan’s argument is that as long as the Indus person is in uniform, he is just fine, but once he is out of it, he instantly forgets what he has learnt. You only have to take one look at Gen Hamid Gul and Gen. AslamBegand exclaim that truer words were never spoken. Yes, that is also why soldiers have made such bad civilian administrators, adds the author. And since they are bad administrators, the “Indus elite” cannot abide by or have any respect for civic norms. One will need a cup of strong black coffee to digest this one.

Be that as it may, the fact is that it takes some doing to writeaheavy book like The Indus Saga and the making of Pakistan. Aitzaz is a man of many gifts. His retentive memory, for example, is so phenomenal that had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto known that it was better than his, he would have sent him, instead of Iftikhar Tari, to DalaiCamp. He can recite from Faiz, Faraz and Jalib for hours without faltering. Even Ms BenazirBhutto, who is quite without emotion in most matters, would sometimes not fail to be moved by Aitzaz Ahsan’s stirring recitation of verse she only half understood, being strictly “English medium” where it was perfectly in order to say. “Azan baj raha hai.”

There was no “partition”

http://moinansari.wordpress.com/for-britain-india-included-somalia-iraq-burma-etc/

Why we Created Pakistan?

http://moinansari.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/why-we-created-pakistan-the-pakistan-ideology/

Also see The Indus Valley Civilzationarticles on this site. By Ishtiaq Ahmed 2/2/2008
The official position on the origin of Pakistanis something like this: Muslims are expected to lead their lives in accordance withcomprehensiveIslamic injunctions. For doing that, an Islamic polity is imperative. Hence Indian Muslims were bound to demand a separate state for themselves whenever an opportunity arose. The end of British colonialism provided such an opportunity and the Muslims whole-heartedlyresponded to the call for a separateMuslim stateon the Indian subcontinent. Some versions of such theorising locatethe origins of Pakistaninthe arrival of the Arabs in the subcontinent in 711. Islam and Hinduism, it is argued, represent two diametrically opposite worldviews. Therefore partition was inevitable.

Another set of theories can be called ‘cultural-geographical theories’. We are told that six thousand years a distinct civilisation evolved around the Indus River and its various tributaries (roughly corresponding to the present territories of Pakistan) and remained separate for most of those six thousand years from the one centred on the Indo-Gangeticplains of Northern India. The sharp contrast between them being that the Indus Valley Civilisation evolved a liberal and egalitarian ethos deriving from the influence of various unorthodox creeds and movements which during the Muslim period were blended into the mystical forms of Sufi Islam, while the rest of India was organized into an hierarchical and rigid social system which found its ultimateperfection in the Hindu caste system. Hence, when the British withdrew from SouthAsia the Muslims of the Indus Valley Civilisation chose to separatefrom the rest of India. Such a theory it may be noted has no room for East Pakistanbeing part of Pakistan. (Editors note: ..but part of Bangistan as proposed by Chaudhry RehmatAliin his brochure “Now or Never”. There was Pakistan, Bangastina, Usmanistan and other Muslim areas in “Dinya”)

Another cluster of theories deriving from Marxism, look upon the movement for Pakistan as a democratic mass movement of the oppressed Muslim community against the dominant Hindu majority. Here, emphasis is given to the head start that Hindus and Sikhs enjoyed in taking to modern education in the schools established by the British. The Muslims lagged behind and consequently the non-Muslims captured the main sectors of the emerging capitalist economy. In particular the overwhelmingly Muslim agrarian classes including various categories of peasants were deeply indebted to the Hindu and Sikh money-lenders. An ideology of popular, egalitarian Islam attracted Muslims from all segments of society and therefore the establishment of Pakistan was the culmination of a protracted struggle to liberate Muslims from the yoke of Hindu-Sikh domination.

The most famous of these Marxist theories is the one put forth by the late Hamza Alavi. He asserted that the most ardent supporters of the idea of Pakistan were not the ulema but the Muslim salariat. The salariatcomprised the sizable body of modern-educated Muslims who perceived that the creation of Pakistanwould drastically improve their chances of finding employment withthe statethanif they were not to remain a part of a united India dominated by the more economically and educationally advanced Hindu majority. Thus, it is argued, Pakistan was not established out of confessional zeal but secular concerns of the salariat.

Alavi, however, never at any stage studied the actual dynamics of the Pakistan movement after the Lahore resolution of 1940. Therefore he was completely oblivious of the fact that the Muslim League made its breakthrough in the Punjab and NWFP only when it won over the Barelvi ulema and pirs. There is solid evidence to prove that Jinnah assured the ulemathatthe Shariah will apply to Muslims in Pakistan.

Theories based on high politics deriving from the role of individuals in the making of history, identify the role of Mohamed Ali Jinnah as pivotal and decisive to the creation of Pakistan. Without his towering leadership, it is asserted, the movement of Pakistanwouldnot have succeeded. No only his lieutenants and followers are portrayed as political pygmies but even his adversaries with the exception of Gandhi, perhaps, are considered light-weights. Some theories suggest that Jinnah never actually wanted the division of India and sought at most a fair share of power for Muslims in a united India and it was the Congress leaders who spurned his overtures for an accommodation within a loose federation and instead precipitated the partition because they wanted to rule India through a powerful centre. Ayesha Jalal is the main proponent of this variant of the role of individuals in history.

Other theories identify the fear of the Muslim upper classes of domination by Hindus. It is asserted that upper class Muslim leaders were not willing to accept a junior role for themselves in united India. Muslims had ruled India for more than 600 years and they could not understand why under a democratic system they should be deprived of power and influence. The veteran Khalid bin Sayeed champions such a theory.

Some theories identify a British hand in the creation of Pakistan. It has been suggested that the British were keen to use Pakistan as a base for their geopolitical and geo-economic designs in South Asia. In this regard, in a meeting held on May 12 1947 in London the chiefs of staff of various branches of the British armed forces and in the presence of Field Marshal Montgomery and Lord Ismay, it was observed:

‘From the strategic point of view there were overwhelming arguments in favour of Western Pakistan remaining within the Commonwealth, namely, that we should obtain important strategic facilities, the port of Karachi, air bases and the support of the Moslem manpower in the future… A refusal of an application to this end would amount to ejecting loyal people from the British Commonwealth, and would probably lose us all chances of ever getting strategic facilities anywhere in India…. From a military point of view, such a result would be catastrophic’ (Mansergh, N and Moon, P (eds), The Transfer of Power 1942-47, vol. 10. pp. 791-2).

Whatever the explanation for the origins of Pakistan, it is imperative that it becomes a state in which the rule of law and social justice prevail. For the Pakistani nation, the challenge is to look forward and not backwards.

The writer is a professor of political science and a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore. Email: isasia@nus.edu.sg

Why we created Pakistan: Train of freedom from the bowels of hell in India to freedom in Pakistan