Myths of Pakistani History-Dawn

[alamgir]

and some thing about myth no.3.........................Contrary to the general belief that Mahmud Ghaznavi was a Hindu-killer or destroyer of Hindu religious places, he was extremely liberal towards them. His army consisted of a large number of Hindus and some of the commanders of his army were Hindus. Sonday Rai was the Commander of Mahmud's crack regiment and took part in several important campaigns with him. The coins struck during Mahmud's reign bore his on the one side and the figure of a Hindu god on the other.

Not only Mahmud Ghaznavi but his successors also were great patrons of Hindus. In fact some of the historians of the early period feel that the main cause of the fall of the Ghaznavid Empire was their excessive reliance on Hindus and the appointment of Hindus to positions of great responsibility. When in 1034 A.D. - 426 A.H., the Governor of Lahore, Ahmed Nial Tagin was suspected of rebellion, Sultan Masud Ghaznavi sent General Nath, a Hindu, to crush him. When Nath was killed in the fighting, Masud sent another of his Hindu generals, Tilak, who succeeded in killing Nial Tagin by treachery. This is the story of the Ghaznavids who are generally considered Hindu-killers.

It may be of interest to note here that Mahmud Ghaznavi's exploits of Somnath and the destruction of the temple are mentioned only by Muslim historians. No Hindu record, either contemporary or of a later date, makes any mention of it. Unfortunately some Muslim historians had the habit of painting an exaggerated picture of the campaigns of their rulers which was exploited by English and Hindu historians of our own times to present Muslim rulers as destroyers of temples.

 

[Spring Onion]

Thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that current textbooks teach this, since the article dates to 2005..

(Sorry alamgir to disrupt your post tempo)

well even before 2005 it was not taight

.

Perhaps the author is indicating that these myths are in circulation among the uneducated or semi-educated population..

Oh so you mean the uneducated can read
as far the semi-educated well that too do not have much time to read history as hobby nor these two segments indulge in fomenting hatred. on both sides poor have no time for such luxuries its people like you and me who are senseless even with education.

I think you are wrong there. Gandhi was shot because a lot of hindus opposed his generosity towards Pakistan.
.

Anyone from India Sir Ray you also hold this opinion ????

i enver heard he was killed beacuse he has generosity towards Pakistan.
Come on stealth

 

[Flintlock]

Lol...your article is just propaganda lifted off storyofpakistan.com. Its tone and lack of objectivity tends to give it away, but still, I will try and correct some of the points.

Some of the Congress leaders even stated that they would take revenge from the Muslims for the last 700 years of their slavery.

Where is your source for that? And what were the muslim leaders in Congress doing when the hindus were making remarks? Sleeping? What were Maulana Azad, Ghaffar Khan doing?

Even before the formation of government, the Congress started a Muslim Mass Contact Movement, with the aim to convince Muslims that there were only two political parties in India, i.e. the British and the Congress. The aim was to decrease the importance of the Muslim League for the Muslims.

Basically, if you remove the Anti-India tone and other biases, a more appropriate version would be that the Congress was trying to spread the idea of a united India among the people, under the rule of the Congress.

After taking charge in July 1937, Congress declared Hindi as the national language and Deva Nagri as the official script. The Congress flag was given the status of national flag, slaughtering of cows was prohibited and it was made compulsory for the children to worship the picture of Gandhi at school.

Some Hindu Revivalists were campaigning for the prohibition of cow slaughter and the change of script (which was totally justified btw since the majority of people used it, nothing to do with "muslim oppression").
Nothing actually happened. None of those policies were actually implemented. This is a total lie!

I don't know about the "worship Gandhi" part. Even today no school asks children to worship gandhi. Perhaps the practice of hanging a poster of him in schools and offices was misconstrued as "worship".

The Congress flag was never officially adopted as the national flag!! What ridiculous stuff is this!!
Congress had considered the adoption of several flags including saffron-green, red-green, vertical stripes etc. in the past, but they were all unofficial.

Do you really think the British would allow a separate Indian flag? Indian flag was still the colonial one!!

Band-i-Mataram, an anti-Muslim song taken from Bankim Chandra Chatterji's novel Ananda Math, was made the national anthem of the country. Religious intolerance was the order of the day. Muslims were not allowed to construct new mosques. Hindus would play drums in front of mosques when Muslims were praying.

First of all Vande Mataram is not anti-Muslim. It simply describes the beauty of the homeland and personifies India as a mother.

Also, it was not compulsory to sing the song in schools. The governor himself ensured that it was a completely optional exercise.

The "Muslims weren't allowed to construct mosques" seems very shady to me, considering that Maulana Azad was pressing for a united India at the time. Perhaps some localized incidents might have happened, but this was obviously not the formal policy of the congress.

This whole description is an obvious attempt to demonize the congress using pseudo-history and wordplay.

The Congress government introduced a new educational policy in the provinces under their rule known as the Warda Taleemi Scheme. The main plan was to sway Muslim children against their ideology and to tell them that all the people living in India were Indian and thus belonged to one nation.

Is the concept of nationalism anti-muslim?
they were obviously trying to impart secular education which is also anti-hindu, if seen from such a point of view.

Most neutral historians consider the popular sentiment against the Wardha scheme to be as a result of loss of power of the muslims. Obviously, with the hindu majority in place, education was more secular and the quran was not given importance. There was no persecution of muslims or attempt to convert them.

In Bihar and C. P. the Vidya Mandar Scheme was introduced according to which Mandar education was made compulsory at elementary level. The purpose of the scheme was to obliterate the cultural traditions of the Muslims and to inculcate into the minds of Muslim children the superiority of the Hindu culture.

The Vidya Mandirs were simply voluntary schools set up to impart education in rural areas. No muslims were being forced to submit to hindu culture or anything.
It certainly didn't have a sinister purpose of "Obliterating cultural traditions of the muslims"

Even the Governer of the Central Provinces remarked that "there was nothing concrete in the agitation of the muslims against the Vidyamandir scheme"

The Congress ministries did their best to weaken the economy of Muslims. They closed the doors of government offices for them, which was one of the main sources of income for the Muslims in the region.

This was due to adoption of English rather than Persian. They didn't refuse to give Muslims government jobs. Again, clever wordplay and total misrepresentation by using the metaphor "closed the doors".

What does "closed the doors" mean? It could me anything to a person with no prior knowledge. A pakistani would interpret it as refusal to hire muslims.

They also harmed Muslim trade and agriculture. When Hindu-Muslim riots broke out due to these biased policies of the Congress ministries, the government pressured the judges; decisions were made in favor of Hindus and Muslims were sent behind bars.

Minor Hindu-Muslims riots were going on for a long time due to the divisive British policies.
There were no extraordinary riots because of the Congress, except perhaps due to muslim leaders overreacting to the Congress rule.

The British government, which was anti-congress and pro-Muslim league to the max even conceded that there was no real oppression of muslims going on at all.

To investigate Muslim grievances, the Muslim League formulated the "Pirpur Report" under the chairmanship of Raja Syed Muhammad Mehdi of Pirpur. Other reports concerning Muslim grievances in Congress run provinces were A. K. Fazl-ul-Haq's "Muslim Sufferings Under Congress Rule", and "The Sharif Report".

The Pirpur report was widely considered as eggagerations and generalizations by everyone, the English press, the British, the Congress. Everyone except the Muslim League.


the "muslim suffering under congress rule" report was simply a bunch of gruesome descriptions of violence against muslims. It completely ignored the fact that both communities were fighting it out in remote villages due to the divisive policies of the British and the Muslim League.

 

[Flintlock]

Oh so you mean the uneducated can read
as far the semi-educated well that too do not have much time to read history as hobby nor these two segments indulge in fomenting hatred. on both sides poor have no time for such luxuries its people like you and me who are senseless even with education.

Er...myths don't need books to perpetuate. They are passed on as stories, conversation, political speeches, etc etc.

i never heard he was killed beacuse he has generosity towards Pakistan.
Come on stealth

The immediate cause of assassination was anger among Mahasabha because he had convinced the congress to release 55 crore rupees to the Govt. of Pakistan. The congress had earlier refused to release the funds because Pakistan had occupied parts of Kashmir by force rather than discuss the issue.

This angered some young radicals and they decided to kill Gandhi. Gandhi never had any security so it was very easy to do so also. Just walk up to him with a gun and shoot.

By the way, there had been 5 previous attempts to kill Gandhi and Nathuram Godse, his assassin, was involved in 4 of them.

 

[Sam Dhanraj]

Anyone from India Sir Ray you also hold this opinion ????

i enver heard he was killed beacuse he has generosity towards Pakistan.

Jana,

Would you believe it if Nathuram Godse or His brother (who was also involved in the planning of the killing) himself quoted the reason ??

Lets hear (read rather) what Gopal Godse himself said...

"Gopal Godse offered a razor-sharp recollection of his own role in the killing, from the moment when Nathuram Godse asked him if he would participate - "I gave my consent immediately" -- to a first, botched attempt on Jan 20, 1948, 10 days before the assassination. On that occasion, the conspirators detonated explosives in a wall at the New Delhi house with a view to drawing people away from Gandhi, but stopped short of tossing a grenade at their intended victim for fear of killing bystanders.

Godse said he fled the scene and returned by train to Pune, meeting up again in Bombay a few days later with his brother, who told him that he was returning to New Delhi to carry out the assassination alone. Gopal Godse returned to his duties as an army storekeeper and said he had heard nothing more until the radio announcement of the assassination.

"You know, I had mixed feelings," he said. "I knew I was going to lose a brother; and I had no doubt that I was going to be arrested and share his fate. On the other hand, our target had been fulfilled. We had done away with somebody who was not only satisfied with the creation of Pakistan; he wanted to see Pakistan progress; he was in fact the father of Pakistan. "

So contray to what Mr Niaz has suggested that

Gandhi was murdered by a a hindu fundamentalist Nathhoo Ram Godse who though that Gandhi had given too much rights to the Dalits. IMO it had nothing to do with Pakistan."

or what you have heard , Dalits were not the reason but, Their purpose was to punish Gandhi, a Hindu, for his evenhanded attitude toward Muslims as quoted by Gopal Godse till the end of his days..

Try finding interviews by neutral sources who interviewed Gopal Godse... probably that will help if you dont trust on what i have posted above.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Er...myths don't need books to perpetuate. They are passed on as stories, conversation, political speeches, etc etc.
.

The point being that if such myths exist amongst the uneducated, illiterate population, then the criticizing the Pakistani state for it is unjustifiable, though criticizing them for a lack of educational opportunities would not be. The uneducated, illiterate will often times hold superstition and misinformation to be true - that is why increasing literacy is so important.

So I guess what needs to be shown, if the veracity of the article is to be determined, is what exactly is taught in schools today.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Yes, the idea does appear to have been discussed earlier. But then it was just an idea, and had hardly any political or popular support. Several other ideas pertaining to independence were also being discussed, whenever the British allowed a period of free press.

The point is that the "idea" of a distinct and seperate entity for the Muslims was not one that Jinnah just created for the sake of his political ambition, as a lot of Indian commentators like to suggest. And the fact that the ML carried so much of the Muslim vote in the later elections, as time for the British to leave the subcontinent came closer, indicates that there was widespread support for the idea of a distinct entity for Muslims to be created out of the colony the British were leaving.

The fact remains that the Muslim League had opposed the freedom struggle since its conception till the 1930s.
Not only that, they managed to convince the British to have separate electorates for Muslims in 1916, and weighted representation for Muslim Community, at a time when Hindu-Muslim cooperation was at its peak.

The British were always very sympathetic towards treating Muslims differently from the rest, and the Muslims League ensured this by staying loyal the them.

Even Congress was not supportive of outright independence from the British intitially, so why single out the ML for that?

In 1896, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress, which was the largest Indian political organisation. Like most of the Congress at the time, Jinnah did not favour outright independence, considering British influences on education, law, culture and industry as beneficial to India. Moderate leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale became Jinnah's role model, with Jinnah proclaiming his ambition to become the "Muslim Gokhale".

The ML would only have been able to carry so much influence, to change policy, if they were representative of the people on whose behalf they were demanding those changes. The Muslim League was merely acting in a way that was representative of the the fears of its constituency (Muslims) with respect to being trodden roughshod over by a Hindi Majority.

Also, there were serious ideological differences. Jinnah didn't like the ascetic and peaceful philosophy of Gandhi, nor did he have much respect for Nehru's atheistic secularism.

Gandhi's philosophy was not necessarily liked by a lot of congress leaders either, who would have preferred action, so it is intellectually dishonest to single out Jinnah for it, to attempt to portray him as being "non peaceful". The fact is that all the individuals involved would have had different ideas on how to proceed - Gandhi's philosophy won. Jinnah and the Congress leaders accepted and followed it didn't they?

And I disagree with your contention that he had "no respect for Nehru's atheistic secularism" - Jinnah's own life, and his own words about the destiny of Pakistan debunk that claim. The concern and distrust he had of the Congress, and the future of the Muslims in a single country with a Hindu majority, is somehow being turned into a "dislike of secularism". Thats just flawed logic.

Later, in 1928, the Congress managed to repeal the Separate electorates for Muslims, and the British too were becoming sympathetic towards a secular system....this further distanced Jinnah from the Congress.

In 1937 elections, the Congress once again trumped the Muslim League in all states except Punjab and Bengal.

In the 1940s, Jinnah's and Muslim League's popularity grew and so did the popularity of his ideas of a separate Islamic state.....

What all of the above indicates is that there was an inherent mistrust between the communities, and the congress failed to bridge it and satisfy the Muslim needs for a sense of security and participation in a united India. The two parties had an open forum to try and convince the Muslims to favor one solution or the other. The ML won. The people had spoken.

 

[Flintlock]

The point being that if such myths exist amongst the uneducated, illiterate population, then the criticizing the Pakistani state for it is unjustifiable, though criticizing them for a lack of educational opportunities would not be. The uneducated, illiterate will often times hold superstition and misinformation to be true - that is why increasing literacy is so important.

So I guess what needs to be shown, if the veracity of the article is to be determined, is what exactly is taught in schools today.

Agnostic, as we, or atleast I have learnt today, opinion makers are always the elite few. The majority of people just echo the opinions of these opinion makers. Right from Indo-Iranian times to present, this is the case.

If such myths are such a deeply ingrained part of the Pakistani psyche, then the state and leaders are the guilty ones.

Of course, education plays an Important role, but Pakistani history books arent't all that great either.

For example, this website The Most Comprehensive Reference on the Political History of Pakistan

On this website, in order to grant greater legitimacy to the Two Nation Theory, pretty transparent attempts have been made to demonize the Congress party and the Hindus of India.

If this site is borrowing from the history books of Pakistan, then we have a big problem.

 

[Flintlock]

The point is that the "idea" of a distinct and seperate entity for the Muslims was not one that Jinnah just created for the sake of his political ambition, as a lot of Indian commentators like to suggest. And the fact that the ML carried so much of the Muslim vote in the later elections, as time for the British to leave the subcontinent came closer, indicates that there was widespread support for the idea of a distinct entity for Muslims to be created out of the colony the British were leaving.

Well yes, just as Pakistani historians demonize the Indian leaders, ditto with Indian historians.

I don't doubt the sinceretly of Jinnah. Clearly he believed that Hindus and Muslims were separate and distinct.

However, even though Jinnah didn't create the idea of a separate muslim nation, he did manage to win over a lot of muslim leaders, and consequently the people to his side.
He was the main opinion maker in favour of partition.

I completely disagree with him on that count, because after all, Hindus and Muslims had learnt to coexist after a thousand years of living together.

I feel that even if it was completely inadvertent, Jinnah played a big role in alienating the Hindu and Muslims population and creating a distrust which would result eventually in partition.


[\QUOTE]Even Congress was not supportive of outright independence from the British intitially, so why single out the ML for that?[/QUOTE]

Congress was the main driving force for the independence movement, not the ML, which is my point.

ML didn't participate in the freedom movement until very late, when the British were trying to find a way out of the mess.

Basically, ML was instrumental in the division of British India. As an Indian, I take this a "villian's role". However, as a Pakistani, you would obviously see it differently as the "rescuing of muslims from the evil hindu dominated congress".

Whatever the perception might be, the facts don't' change.

The ML would only have been able to carry so much influence, to change policy, if they were representative of the people on whose behalf they were demanding those changes. The Muslim League was merely acting in a way that was representative of the the fears of its constituency (Muslims) with respect to being trodden roughshod over by a Hindi Majority.

The Muslim League, even though not in power, played a major role in changing the opinion if muslims. They published a series of "reports" detailing the atrocities committed on muslims by hindus, while ignoring the other side of the storis. The British themselves refused to accept the ML version of events and called it "much ado about nothing".

Basically, they had an agenda to prove that muslims were suffering under congress rule. As far as the veracity of the reports go, the Congress and British rejected them, while the ML and other muslim leaders took them seriously.
Now whether this was a George Bush and Iraq style propaganda or the truth is debatable.

I am inclined to believe that it was partly truth and partly propaganda, designed for maximum shock and awe effect on the people, however you are free to call me biased if you like.

Gandhi's philosophy was not necessarily liked by a lot of congress leaders either, who would have preferred action, so it is intellectually dishonest to single out Jinnah for it, to attempt to portray him as being "non peaceful". The fact is that all the individuals involved would have had different ideas on how to proceed - Gandhi's philosophy won. Jinnah and the Congress leaders accepted and followed it didn't they?

I did not mean to portray Jinnah as "non-peaceful" actually. It might have seemed that way.

Basically, Jinnah disagreed with Gandhi's contention that Hindus and Muslims could live together by practicing ahimsa etc. He was infact scared of the dilution of the muslim culture by hindus.

Also Jinnah didn't like Nehru's version of Atheistic Secularism.

Remember, Jinnah was secular in that he demanded rights for minorities. But, he wasn't an atheist.

What all of the above indicates is that there was an inherent mistrust between the communities, and the congress failed to bridge it and satisfy the Muslim needs for a sense of security and participation in a united India.

I'd say that the seeds of mistrust were sown by Muslim League and other Muslim leaders, because they felt that the ideological differences between the muslims and hindus were too sharp for them to ever coexist peacefully.

Maybe it was a bit of both your view and my view. After all, history in anything but simple.

The two parties had an open forum to try and convince the Muslims to favor one solution or the other. The ML won. The people had spoken.

Yes, that was towards the end, when the ML had convinced the muslims that they should leave India.

Obviously, religious leaders held the sway in those days, as they do now.

Whether this was good or bad, is upto you to decide.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

^^^

Just one quick point. There is no need to look at Jinnah as a "villain". British India was just a colony, brought about by the conquest of various territories and lumped into mostly one administrative unit (as we have discussed on the name thread), so there is no question of "division of India" - There is no question of "division of a Hindu land". Various civilizations, kingdoms and empires existed simultaneously throughout history in this region - the creation of Pakistan and India was simply a reorganization and unification of parts of the subcontinent into two nations - not a division.

What seems to drive most of the animosity of some Indians towards Jinnah is this notion of "division" - but when you look at history that is simply not the case. But it seems to have been propagated as such within India, and indeed is hard to let go since even the rhetoric from India over Kashmir is based on "historically part of India" - when there never was such a thing as a "nation called India", only a region, the Indian subcontinent.

 

[Flintlock]

Just one quick point. There is no need to look at Jinnah as a "villain". British India was just a colony, brought about by the conquest of various territories and lumped into mostly one administrative unit (as we have discussed on the name thread), so there is no question of "division of India" - There is no question of "division of a Hindu land". Various civilizations, kingdoms and empires existed simultaneously throughout history in this region - the creation of Pakistan and India was simply a reorganization and unification of parts of the subcontinent into two nations - not a division.

Well yes, of course it wasn't "Hindu land". That is absurd considering majority were muslims!!

I would consider it a division since it was united earlier. Now whether this was done by the British or by the Muslims is immaterial.

The fact is that majority of India had been united for over a thousand years, and it should have retained that unity after independence as modern secular state.

This may sound a little idealistic to you, but I prefer unification to division any day.
Which is why I am a strong supporter of a South Asian Union on the line of the European Union.

IMHO, the only advantage of borders is administrative. There is not utility of borders except to subjugate the people under some power grabbing ruler.

What seems to drive most of the animosity of some Indians towards Jinnah is this notion of "division" - but when you look at history that is simply not the case. But it seems to have been propagated as such within India, and indeed is hard to let go since even the rhetoric from India over Kashmir is based on "historically part of India" - when there never was such a thing as a "nation called India", only a region, the Indian subcontinent.

I have explained this earlier actually, that the idea of uniting territories that share a common culture and many times a common history is an idea to be encouraged.

I don't care about which empire ruled which area at what particular time.

the fact is that an Indian nation was always in the best interests of the people of the subcontinent who have much more in common than you think!!

Have you ever thought why the people of India and Pakistan speak the same language, even though they write it differently? Its because we lived together for so much time.

 

[im_aquarius86]

Pakistan is an idealogical state, it never existed in history before 1947, now for an idealogical state and specialy one that is based on religious idealogy(means making a nation on name of religon) it's important to teach your childerns history according to the view of idealogy. Israel is another example, now do israeli schools teach history of their land without keeping in view their idealogy or their history starts from abraham to moses to david&solomon(pbut) and then tell the childerns about the destruction of juresllum and then skips to the german attrocities and creation of israel.

now if pakistanis start seeing the things according to the geographical viewpoint, meaning the history of say indus valley and tell the history of hindu raja's then me as a rajput must see the defeat of raja dahir by the hand of bin qasim as my defeat by the hands of arabs, or war between jai paal and ghaznavi as a war between rajputs and turks.

if pakistani's start seeing pakistan as just a geographical entity then its possible that our study is taught starting from mohenjo daro or taxila, then it will be confusing for the young minds.

as for the myth about ghaznavi the idol breaker, yes the motive behind his campaigns was riches of india but intentionaly or unintentionaly he did helped the cause of spreading islam. yes sufis were in forefront to spread islam, but we know what happened to the BUDHIST saints in india after ashoka , all that stuff about AGNIWANSH would have repeated itself if there would have been no muscle of ghaznavi or ghauri to protect them.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Well yes, of course it wasn't "Hindu land". That is absurd considering majority were muslims!!

I would consider it a division since it was united earlier. Now whether this was done by the British or by the Muslims is immaterial.

The fact is that majority of India had been united for over a thousand years, and it should have retained that unity after independence as modern secular state.

This may sound a little idealistic to you, but I prefer unification to division any day.
Which is why I am a strong supporter of a South Asian Union on the line of the European Union.

IMHO, the only advantage of borders is administrative. There is not utility of borders except to subjugate the people under some power grabbing ruler.

I have explained this earlier actually, that the idea of uniting territories that share a common culture and many times a common history is an idea to be encouraged.

I don't care about which empire ruled which area at what particular time.

the fact is that an Indian nation was always in the best interests of the people of the subcontinent who have much more in common than you think!!

Have you ever thought why the people of India and Pakistan speak the same language, even though they write it differently? Its because we lived together for so much time.

What you say is idealistic. It is almost colonialist, because the British could argue that since they "unified" so much of the world, the world should have continued to exist that way - after all more than language, culture, religion etc., we are similar as a species. But just as the idea of a vast monolithic British state composed of its colonies is inconceivable, so is the idea of a "United India", just because certain Monarchs/autocrats foreign powers managed to conquer a large percentage of it. Your argument applies just as well to the continuation of a colonial empire.

You cannot just pick an arbitrary standard, "common history/ culture", and in fact that very notion is being debated on other threads, and say, "well those areas should be united". How far back do we go in history? What is considered "common" culture? Some would argue that religion is what should determine, some would argue race.

What is true is that people should have the right to determine what they feel is in their best interest, and out of the colony of the British, a set of people decided what their destiny was, and that it was distinct and seperate.

 

[Awesome]

Myth 8 does also debunk the "Myth" that it was Jinnah and the Muslim League that were responsible for the creation of Pakistan - the idea of a "single block" of Muslim provinces forming a "natural group" preceded them.

Myth 8 is quite valid. The idea of a Muslim state was around but it was he who presented it as a serious actuality to Jinnah. He also went in pursuit of Jinnah and convinced him to work for a Pakistan when Jinnah was hesitant.

Iqbal through his poetry really propagated the idea and very rapidly (in his lifetime) built this concept of the "Khudi" into the hearts and minds of Pakistanis.

Let's just say Pakistan was a fantasy till Iqbal came around. It was a Myth, he made it historical fact.

The rest are quite interesting indeed.

Pak History books start from Mohammad Bin Qasim because his story is easy to relate to for children. Otherwise every well read adult in Pakistan is well aware that the entire freakin Indian civilization (primarily) took off from Sindh, Pakistan (there were other contributors of course).

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Myth 8 is quite valid. The idea of a Muslim state was around but it was he who presented it as a serious actuality to Jinnah. He also went in pursuit of Jinnah and convinced him to work for a Pakistan when Jinnah was hesitant.

Iqbal through his poetry really propagated the idea and very rapidly (in his lifetime) built this concept of the "Khudi" into the hearts and minds of Pakistanis.

Let's just say Pakistan was a fantasy till Iqbal came around. It was a Myth, he made it historical fact.

The rest are quite interesting indeed.

Pak History books start from Mohammad Bin Qasim because his story is easy to relate to for children. Otherwise every well read adult in Pakistan is well aware that the entire freakin Indian civilization (primarily) took off from Sindh, Pakistan (there were other contributors of course).

You are correct, in fact I was trying to convey "idea of Muslim State" not "creation of Pakistan". They became entangled in my head as one, and I presented it incorrectly.

Apologies.