Ancient History not Appreciated by Pakistanis?

[Vinod2070]

The Vedic religion, different from Hinduism as far as I can tell.

It might be the predecessor of Hinduism, in that some of the elements were incorporated into Hinduism later, but this is all tangential to my argument.

Et tu, Brute?

We say "Kharbuje ko dekh ke kharbuja rang badala".

Vedism is as different to Hinduism as Sunnism and Shiaism is to Islam.

 

[A.Rahman]

Et tu, Brute?

We say "Kharbuje ko dekh ke kharbuja rang badala".

Vedism is as different to Hinduism as Sunnism and Shiaism is to Islam.

Dont try to drag Islam in here. stay on topic

 

[Vinod2070]

The you haven't been paying attention - we are claiming the history of ancient Pakistan- that includes its civilizations, cultures, achievements - everything.

To respect that history we need to preserve it and recognize it, not learn Sanskrit or the IVC script or convert to Buddhism or Vedism. Had the government more resources, we woudl undoubtedly see even more efforts being made in promoting and preserving our heritage - hopefully that will change as we progress.

To level-3. Yes, I hope so.

 

[UnitedPak]

Pakistan was founded on the basis of "Two Nation Theory", which means that the muslims and hindus of India are separate nations.

Now, by claiming that Pakistan has always existed since ancient times, you giving up the two nation theory and creating a new theory for Pakistan's existence.

Nobody claimed Pakistan as a nation existed before 1947, but the kingdoms/empires and provinces of the region are part of the Pakistani peoples history and identity. Two nation theory states that the "Muslim nation" existed from the invasion of Bin Qasim. Before this it was Pakistanis Pre-Islamic era.

The term "Ancient Pakistan" refers to the people of Pakistan and the Indus Valley. I have told you this countless of times Flintlock, Ancient history has nothing to do with politics. Pakistanis are natives to the indus valley, the history of the indus belongs to them, regardless of what they called themselves throughout time.
I have never denied some overlaps into neighbouring regions, but the idea of Pakistanis claiming a history before 1947 offends you too badly.

Do you know how many nations were "created" last century? India was one of them.
You seem to think India has existed constantly as a nation for 1000s of years. Kingdoms and empires are replaced all the time, but in the end the identity is carried on by the descendants. With time every culture and identity experiences changes.

If Indian members didnt have such outbursts when Pakistanis claimed Gandhara and Indus Valley were part of their past, there wouldn't be a problem talking about overlaps. But Indian members want to claim Indus as Indian and fullstop. Pakistanis shouldn't be mentioned at all due to whatever colonial definition they are using.

Your contempt is just shining through, which makes me question the point of explaining anything to you.

 

[Vinod2070]

Dont try to drag Islam in here. stay on topic

Please check the context. It is not about Islam.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

That is turning the TNT on it's head! A few glaring facts:

The majority of Pakistanis on 15 August 1947 were in the East, not West!

The Pakistan demand came mainly from the Muslims of provinces where they were in minority. Places like UP, Bihar etc. In fact Muslims majority states were lukewarm at best in the beginning.

The father of the nation was a Gujarati. I have never seen him talk of a reason for Pakistan other than faith! His insistence on including places like Hyderabad (the Deccan variety ) in Pakistan suggests that geography was far from his mind and of other leaders of Pakistan.

The population exchange and riots on the basis of faith clearly give a lie to any geography bases ideology of partition.

This is nothing but revisionism. But that characterizes the whole of Pakistani arguments on this thread.

It doesn't matter where the majority of Pakistanis ended up being, East Pakistan was an addition in a way to the idea of Pakistan that should not have occurred, nor was it originally envisioned as part of Pakistan, rather a separate Independent nation.

I am posting Niaz Sahib's post from elsewhere in this regard:

In his presidential address at the Lukhnow session of Muslim League in 1930 Allama Iqbal for the first time presented the idea of two nation theory. For the benefit of the members I post the relevant excerpt.

Quote
Communalism in its higher aspect, then, is indispensable to the formation of a harmonious whole in a country like India. The units of Indian society are not territorial as in European countries. India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages, and professing different religions. Their behaviour is not at all determined by a common race-consciousness. Even the Hindus do not form a homogeneous group. The principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India without recognising the fact of communal groups. The Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim India within India is, therefore, perfectly justified. The resolution of the All-Parties Muslim Conference at Delhi is, to my mind, wholly inspired by this noble ideal of a harmonious whole which, instead of stifling the respective individualities of its component wholes, affords them chances of fully working out the possibilities that may be latent in them. And I have no doubt that this House will emphatically endorse the Muslim demands embodied in this resolution.

Personally, I would go farther than the demands embodied in it. I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India. The proposal was put forward before the Nehru Committee. They rejected it on the ground that, if carried into effect, it would give a very unwieldy State. This is true in so far as the area is concerned; in point of population, the State contemplated by the proposal would be much less than some of the present Indian provinces. The exclusion of Ambala Division, and perhaps of some districts where non-Muslims predominate, will make it less extensive and more Muslim in population – so that the exclusion suggested will enable this consolidated State to give a more effective protection to non-Muslim minorities within its area. The idea need not alarm the Hindus or the British. India is the greatest Muslim country in the world. The life of Islam as a cultural force in the country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory. This centralisation of the most living portion of the Muslims of India, whose military and police service has, notwithstanding unfair treatment from the British, made the British rule possible in this country, will eventually solve the problem of India as well as of Asia. It will intensify their sense of responsibility and deepen their patriotic feeling.

Thus, possessing full opportunity of development within the body politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets. The Punjab with 56 percent Muslim population supplies 54 percent of the total combatant troops in the Indian Army, and if the 19,000 Gurkhas recruited from the independent State of Nepal are excluded, the Punjab contingent amounts to 62 percent of the whole Indian Army. This percentage does not take into account nearly 6,000 combatants supplied to the Indian Army by the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. From this you can easily calculate the possibilities of North-West Indian Muslims in regard to the defence of India against foreign aggression. The Right Hon'ble Mr. Srinivasa Sastri thinks that the Muslim demand for the creation of autonomous Muslim states along the north-west border is actuated by a desire "to acquire means of exerting pressure in emergencies on the Government of India." I may frankly tell him that the Muslim demand is not actuated by the kind of motive he imputes to us; it is actuated by a genuine desire for free development which is practically impossible under the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu politicians with a view to secure permanent communal dominance in the whole of India.
Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states. I have already indicated to you the meaning of the word religion, as applied to Islam. The truth is that Islam is not a Church. It is a State conceived as a contractual organism long before Rousseau ever thought of such a thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earth-rooted creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism. The character of a Muslim State can be judged from what the Times of India pointed out some time ago in a leader [=front-page article] on the Indian Banking Inquiry Committee. "In ancient India," the paper points out, "the State framed laws regulating the rates of interest; but in Muslim times, although Islam clearly forbids the realisation of interest on money loaned, Indian Muslim States imposed no restrictions on such rates." I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim State in the best interests of India and Islam. For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.
Unquote.

Three years later a Cambridge student Ch. Rahmet Ali proposed the name Pakistan for the new State. This was followed by the Lahore declaration in 1940 and in 1947 Pakistan was born.

The analogy doesn't really make any sense. In the Greek case, one never knows of a period when the country was divided on the basis of old and new faiths. If there had been a division, the part still following the ancient faith and civilization would clearly inherit the civilization.

I am not sure why you cannot comprehend it - The Greeks are now primarily orthodox Christians, but their ancient history included a polytheistic faith far removed from Christianity. The Greeks nonetheless still own that ancient history on their land and of their people, even if their culture and faith has changed. The same case with Pakistan.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Et tu, Brute?

We say "Kharbuje ko dekh ke kharbuja rang badala".

Vedism is as different to Hinduism as Sunnism and Shiaism is to Islam.

More like the differences in the Abrahamic faiths than a sectarian one. Vedism was a precursor to Hinduism etc.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The Vedic religion is nothing but an early form of Hinduism, which has changed and evolved continually throughout its history.

Thats like saying Judaism is an early form of Islam ... (technically it is I suppose, since Moses was God's messenger and Prophet as well), but from a scientific non-theistic perspective, Islam woudl be an evolution of the other Abrahamic faiths, like Hinduism might be of Vedism.

But anyway, we go off topic. My original comment was in response to the 2 nation theory.

 

[Flintlock]

Not at all. You are missing my point completely. What "offends" me, or rather what I disagree with, whole idea of trying to isolate the history of Pakistan from the rest of India, which is simply incorrect.

 

[Flintlock]

Thats like saying Judaism is an early form of Islam ... (technically it is I suppose, since Moses was God's messenger and Prophet as well), but from a scientific non-theistic perspective, Islam woudl be an evolution of the other Abrahamic faiths, like Hinduism might be of Vedism.

But anyway, we go off topic. My original comment was in response to the 2 nation theory.

HInduism cannot and should not be compared with Abrahmic religions, because unlike Islam, nobody drew a line and declared the new faith to be "Hinduism." and the old one to be "Vedism" (except when Roadrunner came along and did it for us)

Hinduism carried forward the gods of the Rig Veda, and the Rig Veda is an essential part of Hinduism (Unlike Islam where the Quran supercedes the older books.).

Hinduism is essentially inclusive, and not exclusive like Abrahmic religions.

Also, this isn't off topic, since Hinduism is also part of Pakistan's history, and you guys must learn to appreciate that before you start claiming the achievements of Hindus.

 

[UnitedPak]

Not at all. You are missing my point completely. What "offends" me, or rather what I disagree with, whole idea of trying to isolate the history of Pakistan from the rest of India, which is simply incorrect.

I already acknowledged history overlaps, which is the case with all neighbouring regions of the world.
I didn't miss your point as you have spent a considerable time trying to prove that Pakistanis are not the same people as Ancient Pakistanis. Refer back to all your mass migration theories.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Not at all. You are missing my point completely. What "offends" me, or rather what I disagree with, whole idea of trying to isolate the history of Pakistan from the rest of India, which is simply incorrect.

The history of no nation can be isolated from its surrounding nations, but at the same time when we credit a nation or people with that history (The Persians, Greeks etc.) we shoudl take into account where the nucleus, origins and majority of the history took place.

As I said before, just because the Persian civilization at one time incorporated parts of Pakistan does not mean the Persian civilization is Pakistani history. We share it to an extent no doubt, but the nucleus and majority of that civilization was in what is today Iran, and it is Iranian history, shared by Pakistan and the other nations the Persian civilization impacted.

 

[Flintlock]

I already acknowledged history overlaps, which is the case with all neighbouring regions of the world.
I didn't miss your point as you have spent a considerable time trying to prove that Pakistanis are not the same people as Ancient Pakistanis. Refer back to all your mass migration theories.

Those theories are not mine, so that's a moot point.

What I showed was that there was a gradual shift of post-harapan settlements eastward into the hitherto uninhabited Gangetic plains. Which I still stand by, the sources, highly credible ones at that, are still there.

In any case, I'm not discussing the IVC anymore. I said so earlier.

 

[Vinod2070]

More like the differences in the Abrahamic faiths than a sectarian one. Vedism was a precursor to Hinduism etc.

Who are these Vedists? We can still see the Jews and the Christians.

 

[DarkStar]

The Vedic religion and rituals later incorporated local beliefs, deities, especially after the success of the early Bhakti movements which spread from the south to the North. This led to teh formation of modern day HInduism, which supplanted the previous, indigenous Budhist and Jain beliefs.