Your argument is no different than his except packaged better. In simple terms you essentially downplayed the entire contribution on mere nothingness and seem to attribute the survival of the country to the good old "martial race" hint that is propagated throughout the length of your post.
The whole Pashtun-Punjabi elite ideal was no generosity by them but rather engineered. With quota systems and nepotism ruling the roost till today. As if the Baloch people are less capable of defending Pakistan or the Sindhis. It only objectifies a mentality that considers certain races more equal than others.
If the poster's swipe only revealed these thoughts I find it odd that you keep them at bay. This is the simple problem with Pakistan today, the disunity within the nation is a consequence of this impartial domination of civil servant and military service quotas by the two provinces that has led to the Baloch wanting their own state and others soon to follow.
As for the rather laughable idea of losing Kashmir, let me remind you that it was the key leadership of ML from UP that proposed the military intervention for Kashmir in 47-48 along with all other territories that were supposedly Pakistanis.
Rather, it was the stupidity of Ayub when he was given the option of taking Kashmir in return for dropping the Hyderabad-Junagarh issue that is missed out when the distorted history that we are taught by these two P elites is stated.
Suddenly those poor boys guarding the country have to end up being used against their "own" people much like it was with Bangladesh? Where these poor boys committed atrocities under the guise of "protecting" this so called "crucial" alliance between the two larger communities?
And what was the result of that attitude? 70000 of these poor boys returned with shoes on their faces and their supposed thankful people not even bothering to look at them. Good show.
As for your link, perhaps you should go through the initials ideals that it proposes that the very "Punjabization" of the Army ended up being a source of dissent within other provinces in the Raj. It to this day forces that divide between the provinces and prevents integration of both the majority and the minority, creating that angst the keeps both from reconciling their differences and working together.
This paragraph completely takes your own post and turns it onto its head, something that you seem to have missed when
Thus, the tradition of British military recruitment in the North West of the subcontinent (Punjab and NWFP), was a major factor in the emergence of Pakistan as a quasi-militarised country. It was a country with a weak political structure, feeble political parties and politicians, but a strong feudal class and civil and military bureaucracy. This naturally ‘consolidated the linkages between the military service, agricultural land and political power’
Hence the Muslim League, due to its weak control within the newly created country, had to abdicate in favour of a stronger giant, the Pakistan Army. With the firm support of the feudal class, more agricultural land under its domain, and with its organisational and professional culture, the Pakistan Army began to assert its political role in the hub of the country’s politics. The irony of fate is that it lacked political training. Hence, the Army ran the country like a defence establishment by increasing the defence budget, having defence pacts, and appointing defence services people in the policy making bodies of the country, with effects that ultimately were to be deleterious in the future development of the country
Sadly, this country and its people are not very keen on history besides anything that goes +/- 10% the core syllabus taught in school.
You seem to portray it as such.
