My Pakistan Diary: Roots! A Spiritual Journey

Ally:

i am just 32...and didnt have any part in trying to convert anybody to islam. i see it ridiculous without being a model muslim and trying to bring people to my religion. i believe that all should be allowed to believe in whatever they belive in. simple.

i am not responsible for what hindus and sikhs did in indian punjab. we also came from majeetha near amritsar and my grandfather killed her eldest daughter, my phupho, lest she was taken away by sikhs. all that happened was terrible. my eldest uncle passed away last year remembering his slained sister`s name.

i apologised for the sins my fellow muslims committed in the name of religion that speaks in Surah Kafiroon about keeping all people`s individual faiths.

maybe partition was a silly decision and i can prove it!

DM:

Next time you come to Pakistan...you are NOT allowed to leave here without seeing Malikwal and - for some comic relife - myself too.

So near...yet so far...!

DM/33 . . . achievement in the sense that I do get a feeling that whatever is/was good in the geographical boundaries of Pakistan, not allowed to flourish there for the past few decades after the overall drop in gene pool due to exchanging populations and also due to some mistaken loyalty to things Arab, seem to be slowly flowing in two directions:-

a) A revival in Pakistan, where possible, for example, folk theatre, motor vehicles, free speech in vernaculars, and robust lifestyles without healthcare systems.

b) An outflow into India, wherever not possible, for example the English media and its attraction to matters Indian like fashion shows and actresses crying at borders which are after all common heritage.

Forgive the puns, please?

Satyamvada,

You are right ! The sooner muslims get out of the seige mentality, the better it is for the world. They have no one to complain but themselves. If the muslim past has been perfect, why is the present tense ? Muslims should stop living in the past imagined grandeur, stop cribbing over the perceived loss of it, learn from their brothers in Malaysia, Turkey and learn to put religion behind their personal lives. They are not minorities, a 1:3 ratio when India was undivided wasn`t really a lop-sided ratio. Even if it was, why should that matter ? Aren`t the Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis living in India now ? Are they clamoring for a separate state ? Muslims should honestly question themselves as to what it is in their thinking and culture that sows seeds of dissent in almost all the nations where they do not constitue a numerical majority. Hindus are proud to say, there are always reformationist movements taking place within their religion. Omar, you need not worry about the fate of `minorities` in India. No one really is one, nor isn`t. To the non-muslims, Islam is what it appears to them, no matter how much muslims shriek.

nakhok #107
Thanks, that is informative.

Dost-Mitter,

You write that Muslims are entitled safety, security and dignity in India.
Show me one other country in the world where Muslims have the amount of rights that
muslims in India have ?

With rights come responsibilities - every individual has to work hard, get
and education and prosper. Do you know that the SC/ST`s in India now spend
almost the same amount of money on education, stay almost the same amount
in school as obc`s and forward castes. However, the muslim community lags
even the sc/st`s !!!! Even in Kerala where the muslims have lots of gulf money,
they lag in education compared to others.

When you pander to muslim feeling of victimization, you are just encouraging
complaints and providing reasons for failure. You will be perpetuating the
bigotry of low expectations from Indian muslims. In the long run, by pandering
you will be condemning to failure.

What is needed is a dose of reality and that one has to work hard and get
an education.

Everybody in India is a minority in one way or the other. There should be no
special rights or entitlements. One has struggle to get an education and make
the best use of available opportunities.

# 100 by sadna

+++++
``What good has a sizeable Hindu MINORITY done Bangladesh``
+++++

Decades-old land law in Bangladesh marginalises Hindus
Sharier Khan (OneWorld.net)
Dhaka, June 14

A discriminatory law enacted decades ago in Muslim majority Bangladesh continues to deprive hundreds of thousands of minority Hindus of land rights, despite being repealed in 2001.

Before Bangladesh`s independence from Pakistan in 1971, West Pakistani military rulers had enacted the Enemy Property Act, 1965, to drive Hindus out to neighbouring India after grabbing their lands.

Since then, encroachers have misused the law with the help of corrupt state authorities to grab property by identifying Hindus as ``enemies of the state.``

Explains the secretary of the Bangladesh Economic Association and land researcher, professor Abul Barakat, ``Following independence, a predominantly Muslim but secular Bangladesh should have had abolished this law. But the state renamed it the Vested Property Act to acquire the properties of people from West Pakistan who had left after the war.``

The four-decades-old law has seen around a million Hindus lose at least 2.1 million acres of land.

To amend the situation, the former Awami League Government had enacted the Vested Property Repeal Act in 2001. But it was never implemented because of objections from politically influential encroachers and legal complications.

Explains a senior land ministry source, ``While the Government is responsible for taking over all land under the Enemy Property Act, in reality it does not control 99 per cent of these lands. If the repeal is implemented, the Government will have to return the lands to their rightful owners. But how will it do so when it has lost track of these lands?``

The initiative further lost steam when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led ruling coalition came to power.

Charges the vice chairman of the Bangladesh Bar Council, barrister Amir-Ul Islam, ``The BNP government has stayed the execution of the repeal with ulterior motives, putting the minority community in trouble.``

Defending the government, Law Minister Moudud Ahmed informs, ``We are scrutinizing the (repeal) act. The issue has a legacy of nearly 40 years now. It is a very difficult problem that cannot be resolved overnight. But we are committed to tackling it.``

Concedes advocate Mahbubur Rahman, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Land, ``The government is aware of land grabbing and the committee is working on reforms. We are recommending laws to take stern action against encroachers.``

The law seems to have served its masters well. The NGO for the landless Samata found that because of migration to neighbouring India, Hindus comprised just 9.2 per cent of the population in 2001, down from 18.4 per cent in 1961.

Abul Barakat also conducted research which revealed that apart from Hindus, land encroachment victims also included 31 other ethnic minority groups that comprise 12 per cent of the country`s 140 million population.

According to him, the share of landless households increased from 19 per cent in 1960 to 56 per cent in 1996.

But Barakat maintains that, ``Hindus are the worst affected as they are the biggest minority group who owned plenty of land before the discrimination began. More than one-third Hindus have turned landless or marginal landowners.``

Agrees Hindu lawyer Arun Pal. ``All the Hindus of two villages in our region in Gopalganj (140 kilometers southwest of Dhaka) have become landless from 1965. Over the years, many of my neighbours have gone to India and many others are living destitute on other peoples` lands although they are land owners themselves,`` he discloses.

Pal is lucky his ancestral home was not seized, unlike 50-year old Debashish of Tangail, 120 kilometers north of Dhaka. Debashish`s life changed in the early 1980s when encroachers in connivance with land officials took away his lands.

Recalls Debashish, ``I discovered I was no longer the owner of my land one morning when I went to the land office to pay my taxes.`` Encroachers promptly descended on his property and drove him away.

But Debashish has not yet abandoned hope. ``I am waiting for the Government to implement the repeal of the Vested Property Act,`` he says optimistically.

Rights groups are also campaigning for the cause of people like Debashish.

Lashes out land rights activist and Dhaka University professor Ahmed Kamal, ``This law has caused mass migration, dispossession of huge amounts of land and other assets, breaking of family ties, the loss of human potential, disruption in social capital formation, and the creation of parasitic vested interest groups.``

Activist and advocate Subrata Chowdhury asks the Government to ensure the repeal of the Act and help dispossessed people get their land back, calling the legislation a ``death trap for the minorities.``

Leader of the National Committee of Vested Property Act Resistance Movement Kamal Lohani terms the Act a ``black law,`` charging, ``It discriminates against religious minorities in a democratic society. Yet the government is reviving it by empowering district officials to lease out so-called `vested` property.``

He adds that grabbers have captured 4.2 million acres of Government land. ``If we can recover them, hundreds of thousands of landless families will be rescued from a life of poverty.``

Bangladesh has 37.4 million acres of land area with 60 per cent under agricultural use. According to the NGO Samata, 57 per cent of the population is landless.

Faruk #103
Thanks, good article. A romantic like Kuldip Nayar speaking of ISI hmm.

Kaurasach: I think you are going into the emotional mode. How can you justify the killings of muslims by Banda. I know the historical circumstances and I can say I do understand the fire of revenge that Banda and his men had burning inside but saying it was good because he converted some muslims forcefully and now all of Malwa is sikh majority brings you down to the same level that you complain about muslim invaders. Also it is factually incorrect...Banda killed lot of muslims in and around Sirhind and other areas but he did not succeed in converting many...certainly not to the level of changing demography of the region.

re: sadna # 99
Here is an article on Banglasesh from todays express

Be generous. Be realistic
New Delhi can conquer the anti-India feeling in Bangladesh



The anti-India feeling in Bangladesh is so strong, you can taste it. When even Sheikh Hasina, considered New Delhi’s friend, refuses to preside over the launching of a book that commends India’s contribution to the liberation of Bangladesh, the situation should cause concern. While in Dhaka, I was reminded of what people told me at Lahore and Islamabad after East Pakistan had seceded from West Pakistan: Hum ne dholak baja ke dekh li hai; tum bhi dekh lo (We have experienced the drum beat, it’s your turn now).

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia had a curious explanation for the anti-India feeling. She said that since people in Bangladesh hated Sheikh Hasina and her party, the Awami League, they automatically hated India because ‘‘you are their friends.’’ Law Minister Moudud Ahmed expressed similar sentiments. It seemed as if the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had a planned strategy to whip up anti-India feeling so as to cover up its government’s bad performance. Since Jamat-e-Islami is a coalition partner, it has used the anti-India feeling to stoke the fires of fundamentalism. In fact, two Jamat ministers, holding charge of agriculture and social welfare, are all over Bangladesh, with their party cadres and welfare officers, to sow the seeds of prejudice. The one lakh-plus Ahmedi community is their special target. The Jamat wants it to be declared a non-Muslim minority as has been done by Pakistan. The Jamat also flaunts its pride in the fact that the name of Dhaka airport is written in Arabic, apart from English and Bengali.



The Jamat’s relentless effort to ‘‘Islamise’’ Bangladesh has already taken shape. A fanatic Bangla Bhai, who is indulging in violence against the Awami League and the leftists, has already killed eight. He is said to have worked with Al-Qaida chief Osama-bin Laden. Bangla Bhai’s Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), belatedly noticed by the Khalida government after America’s warning, has opened camps to train cadres at Bagmara, Durgapur, Atrai and Nalanda.

The Jamat on the one hand and the JMJB on the other appear to have an overall understanding with the ULFA, the underground Nagas and the ISI, all ploughing their own furrow. New Delhi considers these developments a threat to its security and has reportedly said so to Bangladesh Foreign Minister Morshed Khan when he was recently at Delhi.

He, in turn, is said to have drawn India’s attention to a list of ‘‘escaped criminals’’ which Dhaka had forwarded to Delhi, a quid-pro-quo of sorts. Sheikh Hasina, extremely worried over the future of Bangladesh, feels helpless. ‘‘What can I do?’’ she asks. ‘‘Those who have brought Khaleda to power should have known the repercussions. They are the ones who must think of a way out.’’ She has no plans to go back to parliament which the Awami League has practically boycotted since the formation of the BNP government. (The Awami League attends parliament for just a few hours after every 90 days lest the members should be disqualified for their absence). The former prime minister blames the Khaleda government for allowing the communal forces to become stronger. Her argument is that the BNP would rather have fundamentalists ruling the country than the Awami League. She also blames New Delhi for the present state of affairs and accuses it of ‘‘helping Khaleda.’’ Her hatred for the Bangladesh Prime Minister is pathological as is Khaleda’s hatred for Hasina. No third group is on the horizon and I feel the country will oscillate from one leader to another for years to come. Both are in their mid-50s.

I found that donor countries are agitated. They felt concerned after the recent attack on the British High Commissioner at Hazrat Shahjalal’s shrine in Sylhet. Although Bangladesh has maintained a growth rate of five per cent, it is afraid that the anti-India feeling would make cooperation with New Delhi more difficult besides telling upon Dhaka’s economic future. Khaleda favours transshipment, not transit — some progress.

Things would have looked still gloomier if elections in India had not lifted the pall of darkness somewhat. These polls have done what hundreds of goodwill delegations have failed to do. India is being spoken about in superlatives for its democratic and secular credentials. ‘‘Great elections, great people, great leaders,’’ an editor of a leading daily from Dhaka e-mailed me.

I found the comments still more effusive when I reached Bangladesh. Sonia Gandhi is their icon. Atal Bihari Vajpayee has gone down a peg — only a peg. Bangladeshis never tire of exclaiming that only a country like India could have a Muslim as president, a Sikh as prime minister and a Roman Catholic as chief of the ruling United Progressive Alliance.

Our elections are converting the bias and prejudice against us into admiration, even adulation. I found people looking towards India with envy and hope. This is an opportune time to harness the goodwill that the polls have generated. I recall the days of the Bangladesh liberation when camaraderie oozed and the two countries prepared blueprints for integrated development. It looks like the same atmosphere of friendship can be revived.

‘‘After many years the train has arrived,’’ said a senior Bangladesh minister. ‘‘If not boarded now, it would not come again.’’ We can prove to them that India is there to help that country in its progress and development. Why not allow Bangladeshi products to come into India duty-free? Today our official trade is worth $1 billion as against $1 million from their side. The non-official trade is said to be $2 billion in favour of India. If we could help give the Bangladeshis more purchasing power, trade would be proportionately higher. Illegal migration might stop, people would find work in their own country. Dhaka seems prepared for the gas-based joint industrial collaborations to set the ball rolling. Is South Block listening? My five-day stay in Dhaka has convinced me that a generous and realistic attitude towards Bangladesh can help us fight the anti-India feeling there.


by Kuldip Nayar

re:#91 by mohar11
I agree.
It is no use making the Pakis more paranoid than they already are!
But still, one needs to remember the past if only to learn some lessons from it. Indians must try very hard not to follow the wrong path that Pakis took 50 years ago. That much is very clear.
Sridhar

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Kaurasach, satyamvada:

Nobody who lived through the experiences of the partition can forget it; in fact, even their children and grandchildren are still afraid to go to Pakistan because they are afraid of their physical safety there, such is the trauma of that event. But I do realize that this was a terrible time and the history of the subcontinent was, in general, that of peaceful coexistence, though not of brotherhood. I also do not believe in guilt through association; the muslims of Gujarat were not responsible for the brutality of their coreligionists at Godhra; and the children and grandchildren of those who did the mayhem on either side in 1947 can not be held responsible for the acts of their grandparents. One also learns that while some people indulged in killings, others tried to protect and helped their friends and neighbours find a safe passage, often at considerable risks to their own lives.

I have no illusions about the nature of Islam. The more I learn and read about Islam, the more I agree with hamidms/sameerjbs and urstrulys than with the tahmeds. I am wary of those who want us to accept that islam is a religion of peace and tolerance instead of saying that it should become a religion of peace and tolerance; who say that punishments for blasphemy, apostacy, jihad etc. are misinterpreted or are not an essential part of islam rather than saying that islam should be purged of these medieval concepts. These people, even if they are sincere in their beliefs, probably kept saying the same things while their brothers kept using their sharp swords to wipe out traces of other religions and turn kaafirstans into nuristaans, first in Arabia, then in Persia, Afghanistan and so on. I have said these kind of things at chowk before.

But I do make a clear distinction between muslims and islam. Muslims are human beings and there are good and bad muslims, just as there are good and bad Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, etc. I also realize that if my great grandfather had converted to islam, enslaved by a conqueror or my great grandmother raped/made sex-slave by a muslim soldier, I too would be singing praises of islam today.

Satyamvada:
There is no obfuscation on my part. I do believe in what I wrote to urstruly. But I also believe that India has not provided muslims with safety, security and dignity that they are entitled to as citizens of India.

And I have never implied any moral equivalence between India and Pakistan. Nor should there be any. Despite attempts to reinterpret the two nation theory and dig out some forgotten speeches by Jinnah, hindus and Sikhs were never promised any rose garden in the new country. They knew that in the ‘land of the pure’ they were the impurities and would be treated as such.

The situation was not the same on the Indian side. India chose to give guarantees to Muslims that they will not only be treated at par with the hindus, their communal rights as minorities will also be protected and these guarantees were enshrined in the constitution. India owes it to itself and its Muslims that those guarantees be honoured. We chose to be measured by different standards, and should not complain now that we are asked to measure up.

``What good has a sizeable Hindu MINORITY done Bangladesh``

nakhok #98
What good has a sizeable Hindu majority done Bangladesh except to create hell for those Hindus. They could not stop Bangladesh from becoming an Islamic republic.

They could do nothing to change the Bangladeshi law `Vested Property Act `, where the property of Hindus who have fled can be seized and redistributed, making it very lucrative for Muslims to force Hindus to flee.

Or they would have been raped and killed in large numbers in revenge by ruling party when Khalida Zia`s BNP won, like happened in 2001.

Did I mention Hindus being raped and killed. omigosh, that makes me a fascist, because for liberals, for Hindus to be raped and killed or driven out of their homes is their justly deserved fate, whether Pakistan, J&K or Bangladesh.

If Pakistan had retained its pre-1947 religous and cultural diversity:

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http://www.dawn.com/2004/06/15/op.htm#1

DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan
15 June 2004 Tuesday 26 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

Ties with India: what if...
By Shahid Javed Burki

..... had the partition of British India not resulted in a thorough ethnic cleansing of what is today`s Pakistan, the country today would be a multi-cultural and multi-religious society, tolerant of a variety of different views, particularly on religion.

But the bloodshed that resulted from the way British India was partitioned had unanticipated demographic consequences. It resulted in the movement of some 14 million people across the newly defined border between India and Pakistan. .....

..... In the 1940s, the area that now constitutes Pakistan, Muslims accounted for slightly more than two-thirds of the total population. Today Muslims account for nearly 97 per cent of the citizenry. .....

..... What if the partition of the subcontinent of British India had not resulted in such a massive transfer of populations between the successor states of Pakistan and India? .....

..... Had Pakistan not been so thoroughly ``Muslimized,`` it would not be facing today the problem of Islamic extremism - a problem about which President Pervez Musharraf wrote in an article contributed recently to The Washington Post. I have coined the verb ``to Muslimize`` to deal with two different phenomena in Pakistan`s history. .....

..... Once Pakistan was established, the Jamaat-i-Islami moved to the new country while the JUI cultivated support for itself among the refugees who had settled in Karachi and in the northwestern areas of the new country.

With Pakistan now a totally Muslim country, these two groups found it easier to influence the predominantly Muslim polity. This would have been more difficult to do had Pakistan retained a large non-Muslim minority.

As was vividly demonstrated by the unexpected success of the Congress in the 2004 elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party`s programme of Hindutva - was checkmated by the Muslim and Dalit minorities. Similar constraints would have been imposed on Pakistan`s political development. .....