I, Maha Sapta Sindhu

[SQ8]

just a little correction here.
There is absolutely nothing common in Sufism and Islam. Both are poles apart.
Any person having good knowledge of Islam would tell you that Sufism is actually a child born out of Islam.
Islam is founded on the two revelations: the Quran and Sunnah, and all that is not taken from the Quran and Sunnah is anything but Islamic.
Sufism is a borrowed philosophy(from Persia), but a separate ideology alien and in opposition to Islam.

How absolutely incorrect you are..
Sufism is the embodiment of Islam.. complete submission.. to the will of god..and detachment from this worldly life.
The incorrect practices carried out by the many visitors at the shrines of Sufi saints are the result of their own cultural heritage taking over..nothing is near to what the Sufi's taught.

 

[Joe Shearer]

@Joe

First..
What I have come to painfully understand..is that only 1/5 people are who they are in front of you..as they are behind you..or in this case..behind an IP.

Yet..during my visits.. I did notice a lot of misconceptions about Pakistan..
depending on the education level.. people think of Pakistan is either a land of Bearded "akhtoo's".. or people stuck in the 60's.
Those that do know..seem to take our balanced lot as a minority..rather than the majority.
Pre Mumbai attacks the focus was on terrorism in debates..the ISI..the Lal Masjid incident..
and I was taken to this cafe next to a posh school.. Christian saint... and asked if something like that place existed in pakistan..(really neat place.. art deco interior.. wifi.. good latte )..

Dont take me wrong.. 4/5 of the people I met.. I wont forget.. had a blast..
But there were those who showed contempt..and a 3/5 a condescending attitude..
Compared to that.. 45/50 Indian's here tend to display it..

It isnt that changed on the other side.. too much.. after all.. being fed on false history does that..
But are these people to decide the course of the two nation's relations..
Where one population talks of air strikes and quick military action as if its a walk in the park.. and the other promises all out war..and nuclear retaliation..as if there is a tomorrow after that??

It is scary to even suppose so...
there are lies told here.. and lies told on the other end.. some small some great..
I will step out a foot extra and say that the mistakes began on our side.. even if by leaders that chose to lie to us.. they were still our leaders.. and we are responsible for letting them sit on their thrones..
But it does fall upon India.. and Indians.. to take even the single..smallest hand of friendship..and pull it close..

what if the new Indian demand of having the all the perpetrators of 26/11 being brought to justice never come true.. will you stay the same??.. prepare for war..even after I have grown up kids..will the tune of terrorism be sung..
If it is our military you fear.. then bypass it.. talk to the ones that will..
How can they stop it?.. another bomb.. talk to the people more..ignore those you mistrust.. and you may even end up taking your biggest fear out of the equation once and for all.

Hmm.

An advantage that you have over me is that you have actually visited India, and have a better feel for local opinion in general, not the selective version aired on the Internet, than do I.

There are two points I'd like to touch on briefly: one is the imression of the cross-section of Pakistani society, on the lines of the ratios you sought to establish, and the other is the practical course that we Indians could adopt. The second first.

Actually, there are a number of us, particularly on PTH, who have decided for ourselves that contrary to public opinion in India, we should like to find out for ourselves, and then decide our attitudes and stances towards our neighbours ourselves. Gorki, Hayyer, Luq, Majumdar - these are just a few of the Indians who started visiting Pakistani fora, mainly ATP, Professor Adil Najam's excellent forum, and from there we followed Yasser Latif Hamdani to PTH. A number of Pakistanis also came across to PTH from ATP at about the same time, D_a_n and Bloody Civilian prominent among them. We were very scared and guarded at the beginning; it was an incredible high the day it dawned individually on each of us that we were in fact speaking to our exact intellectual counterparts on PTH as we represented ourselves. We did test out your suggestion, and we did find it successful, extremely so.

This may not be a winning strategy, however.

After nearly three years of interaction on these two fora, not including my meagre little contribution to PakDef, one is left with a depressing set of conclusions.

• There is a thin layer of liberal democrats in Pakistan, with whom we can interact as exact opposite numbers;
• Many times that number of generally liberal people exist, who are just the same as us, but have a strong religious orientation - this doesn't interfere with intercommunications, but does inhibit things at other levels;
• A very large number exists outside these two, firmly religious, firmly convinced that Pakistan's dependence is assured only on a foundation of Islam; yet, they are inclined to be friendly, if there is goodwill and a willingness to be friendly back; inclined to be open to discussion, provided it is discussion as equals, not as a client state to a super-power in the making;
• My personal conclusion is that outside these, the vast bulk of the population is reasonably neutral. But there are very strong communal and fanatic elements within them, and these elements have enough fear and respect in the general population to inhibit the natural tendencies of this general mass.

As a result, we may have to wait a very long time for the rightist elements in your society to be addressed politically and defeated, before our conversation with the first, second and even the third sections can bear fruit. For the general mass of the fourth section, there is always friendship and good feeling, but only once they are out of the clutches of the clergy who preach hatred and death to the infidel. A reference to recent events is superfluous.

So while generally agreeing with you, it does seem that we are dealing with an attenuated liberal section, a section which in proportional numbers may be smaller and less influential than in India. That by itself means nothing except that it may take a little longer than we might wish to bring in any improvement in relations.

We can only maintain the dialogue and hope sincerely that on both sides, yours as well as ours, those sections, those bigots and jingos who look for trouble, and who talk so foolishly of surgical strikes and nuclear retaliation, are eliminated from any influence before long.

 

[Capt.Popeye]

@Joe

Hi Santro,
Even though your response was directed at Joe, the fact that you have made a well considered and thought out submission deserves the respect of an opinion from me.

First..
What I have come to painfully understand..is that only 1/5 people are who they are in front of you..as they are behind you..or in this case..behind an IP.

This part is very true indeed. The anonymity of the internet helps (even drives) seemingly normal people to extremes. Hence the phenomenon of people posing as warriors or living out "Walter Mitty-esqe" fantasies. While in real life they are "punks', intellectually and/or physically.

Yet..during my visits.. I did notice a lot of misconceptions about Pakistan..
depending on the education level.. people think of Pakistan is either a land of Bearded "akhtoo's".. or people stuck in the 60's.
Those that do know..seem to take our balanced lot as a minority..rather than the majority.
Pre Mumbai attacks the focus was on terrorism in debates..the ISI..the Lal Masjid incident..
and I was taken to this cafe next to a posh school.. Christian saint... and asked if something like that place existed in pakistan..(really neat place.. art deco interior.. wifi.. good latte )..

Your take on being misinformed about the people across the border (respectively) is accurate. And it is directly related to the level of information/education. But it may come as a surprise to you (in some ways) that the people at the bottom of the information/education pyramid actually seem to have the least active prejudice. What do i mean by that? That the person concerned is so burdened by the problems of everyday living that he scarcely has time (or energy) to maintain a simmering hatred for anything or anyone. Till somebody works on his mind, and in sustained fashion. The "man in the pagri" in Sparklingway's avatar has enough things to occupy him (problems included) to consider me as a sworn enemy, only because i have an Indian Passport (all my life).

Dont take me wrong.. 4/5 of the people I met.. I wont forget.. had a blast..
But there were those who showed contempt..and a 3/5 a condescending attitude..
Compared to that.. 45/50 Indian's here tend to display it..

That depends again on the kind of people (as well as the amount of interaction) that you met with.
About the opinion on the people on this forum; i think we must factor in the fact that it is an action/reaction game being played out by people using the cloak of (cyber) anonymity. And being grossly misused in some cases. To tell you the truth, there have been a few instances where the blatant falsehoods and half truths that are so easily proffered here (as elsewhere on cyber-space) have created a "testosterone rush" within me. But i'd be wasting it here! ;-) So that's that.

It isnt that changed on the other side.. too much.. after all.. being fed on false history does that..
But are these people to decide the course of the two nation's relations..
Where one population talks of air strikes and quick military action as if its a walk in the park.. and the other promises all out war..and nuclear retaliation..as if there is a tomorrow after that??

i've heard that kind of chest-thumping talk too. And the delicious irony of it is that it is (mostly) dished out by people who have no connection with any uniform and would have a heart-attack if they heard a gun go off. But if you can't be a soldier, why not try to be a "tin-pot" soldier!

It is scary to even suppose so...
there are lies told here.. and lies told on the other end.. some small some great..
I will step out a foot extra and say that the mistakes began on our side.. even if by leaders that chose to lie to us.. they were still our leaders.. and we are responsible for letting them sit on their thrones..
But it does fall upon India.. and Indians.. to take even the single..smallest hand of friendship..and pull it close..

Am inclined to agree with that. Ah, if wishes were horses.....

what if the new Indian demand of having the all the perpetrators of 26/11 being brought to justice never come true.. will you stay the same??.. prepare for war..even after I have grown up kids..will the tune of terrorism be sung..
If it is our military you fear.. then bypass it.. talk to the ones that will..
How can they stop it?.. another bomb.. talk to the people more..ignore those you mistrust.. and you may even end up taking your biggest fear out of the equation once and for all.

About the first part, "having the all the perpetrators of 26/11 being brought to justice never come true.." This is the difficult part; even the rational and reasonable Indians will gradually fade in to silence, while the "Indian man in the pagri" kind of person will become more susceptible to demented hard-core types. Whose cause will that serve?

Now about the underlined part: How does anyone bypass the military, is it a bypassable entity? Has anybody, at any time (internally or externally) been able to do that? You know the answer as well as (or probably better than) me.
And about that bomb bit- no (solving) bomb exists.

Now this part:"talk to the people more..ignore those you mistrust.."
i think that "Aman ki Asha" is precisely trying to do that. Nothwithstanding the 5-star hotels and the 4-course meals.
There seems to be some substance to that style. Better to walk that route, there don't seem to be many others anyway; rather a lot of uncharted territory.

On a personal note, i am a music lover (nearly all kinds of music). Some years ago, i asked myself this question- What is the state of music in Pakistan now? (it was the Zia era). My personal quest to find an answer to that question has taken me through a fascinating journey; and fructified into a small project called "Sarhad Paar". Needless to say, a lot of it is of Sufiyana Qalaams.
BTW, whenever i log onto PDF, i make sure that first i start some music in the background (on my computer, there is a choice of a few thousand of hours), that helps me to switch on/off at will.

Another N.B. i've had an opportunity to visit Pakistan on quite a few occasions in the 90s, as well as live and work with Pakistani colleagues at different times in the past in a non-subcontinental arena.

But Santro, Thanks for putting forward your POV and asking some questions.
Made me try to think, which i try to like to do.

 

[kbx911]

All of it belongs to Ancient Indus valle.y

Problem solved.

...belongs to the ancient Sarasvati Civilization. FTFY.

imho except Punjab and Sindh the other areas of present day Pakistan
were frontier areas even during Ram Rajya. Just finished reading Aswin Sanghi's 3 books and now starting on Amish Tripathi's Trilogy with Immortals of Kashmir oops Meluha. If Pakistanis read these books and research history, they will find that all Kashmiris and most Pakistanis were originally Aryans, 4k years later Islamic invaders came from the north west and converted people by the sword, either they became Muslims or they were beheaded. It is obviously impossible that so many people came from Arabia and replaced the local population. Most Pakistanis are descendents of the people who were born in Vedic culture, which is why war between the two bros over petty religious issues which are recent, as compared to the racial and cultural similarity of over 5k years, simly does not make sense.

 

[rustam90789]

It seems more like a hindu fantasy. I am surprised there are some people in pakistan who have interest in these pre-historic events that have no influence on our lives or even our culture today.

 

[SQ8]

It seems more like a hindu fantasy. I am surprised there are some people in pakistan who have interest in these pre-historic events that have no influence on our lives or even our culture today.

Maybe we should then stop trying to market moenjodaro, taxila, harappa, thatta.. and raze them all to the ground.. find and burn all the stamps and everything. Saladin had no influence on our lives either in that sense.. lets take him out as well.

I am not at all surprised that people like you exist in Pakistan.

 

[Tikolo]

this is a very big mystery, no body knows for sure what happened, did the aryans kill off Indus valley folks? no idea.