State of teaching (and recording) military history (MH) in Pakistan

[Wickerman]

Please go back and read the stuff. I have refuted what I thought was incorrect and twisting of facts.

You did present some facts about Ethnic cleansing, India's aggression etc., And then you brought in Nehru's statements to prove that he was lying and didnt do as promised. In an attempt to expose India's double standards. But Joe, just pointed out WHY Nehru said what he said, and he explained it in detail. You replied to one paragraph in that long post, that was his point of view, and ignored all others that he said.

Then why did he lie to his own people as late as 1952, and also continued negotiations with the UN when in 1948 he decided not to hold the plebiscite.

He did not lie. He simply said in 1948, that the plebiscite was not possible for all practical purposes BECAUSE he didnt foresee Pakistan withdrawing from Kashmir and satisfying the preconditions for a plebiscite. But this doesnt mean that he was against the plebiscite in the first place.

In 1952, he said that if the Kashmir people, in the plebiscite said that "We dont wanna be part of India" then we will let it go. I dont see how this is a lie. Cuz for the plebiscite to materialize Pakistan would have to withdraw in the first place and that you werent ready to do. So the one blocking the proceedings was Pakistan, and then you accuse the other person of lying.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I think such remarks are uncalled for.

When you make such nauseating commentary it is kosher, but when it is responded to, it becomes vulgarity strewn.

Ironic isn't it.

yaar tum log samajhtay ho ke yahan saaray andhay bethay hein aur tum jis ka chaho phuddu laga lo.

I would say 'coarse and vulgar', not ironic. But I admit my expertise in these areas is limited to what I taught my kid. She's 32 today, and knows how to stay dignified even when losing an argument, rather than getting coarse and vulgar.

O tempora! O mores!

 

[bronxbull]

Precisely, although the way the sentence is written, one gathers the mistaken impression shared by the entire chest-thumping Hindutva brigade, that Thapar is a Marxist.

she and Irfan habib are idiots,before any other useless jargon you ca n fix to her.

 

[Joe Shearer]

she and Irfan habib are idiots,before any other useless jargon you ca n fix to her.

So think all the saffron fanatics. Bigoted as they are.

 

[FaujHistorian]

I do not expect mockery from you; you are too well-informed not to be able to separate fact from wish.

Thank you and same here.

.......

Jinnah, I now believe, contrary to what I thought even weeks before,

What happened in the past few weeks that changed your beliefs?

Jinnah, I now believe, contrary to what I thought even weeks before, seems to have decided on partition even before the Cabinet Mission came to India, with its plan for three semi-independent 'groupings'. For reasons not very clear to anyone' perhaps due to his residual feeling for the unity of the country, and this is personal surmise, he reluctantly acquiesced to the CMP. When Nehru made his famous qualifying remarks in his 10th of July press conference, he reverted to his old position and demanded total partition, with all powers to the new entity.

Regarding your second part, it is quite true that he did not much fancy the idea of partitioning the Punjab or Bengal. So much so that he even was open to the idea of Suhrawardy's bid for an independent Bengal, with the support of Sharat Bose and Kiran Shankar Roy. The Congress central leadership was unable to do much about this state-level initiative, involving both Muslim League and Congress. I am told by experts on the subject on PTH that it was a popular movement by the terrified Hindus, who remembered the bloodshed of Direct Action Day, that scuttled this plan.

While Jinnah was against partitioning these two provinces, he was eventually open to the idea of partition with provincial partition. Almost all the bloodshed was associated with provincial partitioning, as you have said.

I feel it is unfair to attribute the term "partition" to someone who wanted Delhi as capital for all the provinces (hindu majority as well as Muslim majority).

Please understand that anyone who can do unbiased review of Indian leaders, Jinnah comes up on top when we discuss character, honesty, and integrity. He was in a sense born a perfect Indianman (as a perfect English gentleman) if we could every talk about perfections.

Won't you agree that he never accepted money from anyone or gave money for hidden purposes.

and never did "underhand" deals either.

You seem to go after one specific incident or one specific term said by Jinnah that is out of context.


I always wonder why would people ignore his interview with NY Times report in Karachi.

NYT -- Congratulations Mr. Jinnah. You got your Pakistan
MAJ -- This is not my Pakistan.

NYT -- What do you mean
MAJ -- We always wanted a deal similar to what Egypt's Saad Zaghlol Pasha gave to Coptics. (then Jinnah went on to explain what that deal was, and how it was good for the subcontinent).



Now My dear Joe, you ought to go out and look for that deal in Egypt and understand what Jinnah was talking about.


I know there is too much hateful $hite out there (as if there was any other kind of $hite), being thrown at Jinnah.

But that ain't true.

And true sons of soil Indians should pursue such analysis, so they figure out their own identity better.


So far it is truly sad to see Pakistanis and Indians both turning MAJ into Ayatullah Khomeni.

One sides want to Islamize him and the other side wants to demonize him.

While MAJ was a three piece wearing, rolls royce traveling, wine drinking, cigar smoking westerner, carrying human ideals of honesty and justice, born with Indian skin.

Thus both Pakistani and Indians out of their sheer prejudice make MAJ what he never was.


peace

 

[Joe Shearer]

What happened in the past few weeks that changed your beliefs?

Following an intensely detailed discussion on a private mailing list. I had copied some of the discussions on PTH for my friends to see, and the discussion that ensued was awesome. I wish there were some way to get you into that group.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I feel it is unfair to attribute the term "partition" to someone who wanted Delhi as capital for all the provinces (hindu majority as well as Muslim majority).

Please understand that anyone who can do unbiased review of Indian leaders, Jinnah comes up on top when we discuss character, honesty, and integrity. He was in a sense born a perfect Indianman (as a perfect English gentleman) if we could every talk about perfections.

This is nothing if not amusing.

You need to go through my earlier posts, or consult an old-timer. I happen to be a Jinnah fan. However, that does not stop me from commenting objectively on the consequences of some of his actions. I do not offer character testimonials, but if I did, Yasser Latif Hamdani would be glad to speak for me. That is more than he would do for many Pakistanis.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I always wonder why would people ignore his interview with NY Times report in Karachi.

NYT -- Congratulations Mr. Jinnah. You got your Pakistan
MAJ -- This is not my Pakistan.

NYT -- What do you mean
MAJ -- We always wanted a deal similar to what Egypt's Saad Zaghlol Pasha gave to Coptics. (then Jinnah went on to explain what that deal was, and how it was good for the subcontinent).

Now My dear Joe, you ought to go out and look for that deal in Egypt and understand what Jinnah was talking about.

This is hugely intriguing. I shall be looking this up as soon as I can.

Presumably, his solution would have amounted to some form of consociationalism, as in Canada or in Lebanon. That is how the Jinnah experts, YLH and my Pakistani friends on our mailing list, interpret it. But I should like to read it for myself.

So far it is truly sad to see Pakistanis and Indians both turning MAJ into Ayatullah Khomeni.

One sides want to Islamize him and the other side wants to demonize him.

While MAJ was a three piece wearing, rolls royce traveling, wine drinking, cigar smoking westerner, carrying human ideals of honesty and justice, born with Indian skin.

Thus both Pakistani and Indians out of their sheer prejudice make MAJ what he never was.

Wrong address.

You really need to look up the archives of PDF.

 

[Joe Shearer]

You seem to go after one specific incident or one specific term said by Jinnah that is out of context

And what might that be? Is it about the CMP? I thought that the consensus now is that which I have stated. How does y our interpretation differ?

 

[KS]

The fact that you have had an uneasy relationship with Afghanistan doesn't count of course.

Once your borders with Afghanistan and India are taken out of the equation, what remains? Iran?

"Borders with Afghanistan"....Please be specific. Did you mean the Indus (which for centuries was the natural boundary) or the Durand Line ? Because it seems the Afghan Govt does not accept the validity of the British imposed Durand line.

 

[KS]

So think all the saffron fanatics. Bigoted as they are.

People as dignified and well read as Arun Shourie can hardly be termed "saffron fanatics". Here you are doing the same mistake you accuse others of doing - stereotyping.

 

[Joe Shearer]

People as dignified and well read as Arun Shourie can hardly be termed "saffron fanatics". Here you are doing the same mistake you accuse others of doing - stereotyping.

A dignified and well- read bigot remains a bigot. Red his books. He is committed to disparaging one religion. A dignified and well-read Islamophobe is, of course, a person of great honour in the eyes of the Sangh Parivar.

Suppose you get one thing straight, once and for all.

Opposition to extremism is not an extremist position. Opposition to religious stereotyping is not guilt of stereotyping.

 

[FaujHistorian]

"Borders with Afghanistan"....Please be specific. Did you mean the Indus (which for centuries was the natural boundary) or the Durand Line ? Because it seems the Afghan Govt does not accept the validity of the British imposed Durand line.

Funny that someone with Indian flags would throw a new shosha in this thread.

Are you my dear dear dear poster, ignorant of the history of your own fing sub-continent? Is that what was taught in the 3rd grade Sarkari school books of yours?


Seriously, how many Indians are following this line. I wonder how many?



Just to clarify.

Durand line is not "fudged". Only an idiot and ignoramus of our geography would deny the border or attribute this only to Sir Durand.

FYI!

Like many boundary lines around the world, this line follows the mountain range of Indo-Kash (or more famously) Hindu Kash.

Hindu or Indo- Indian subcontinent region
Kash - means line (noun)
------ also Kash - to draw a line (verb), to draw or fetch (Cigarette ka kash as in smoking cigarette)

This line divided Afghanistani area on the West and Indian subcontinent regions on the East.

And thus it predates Brits by 100s of 1000s of years.

Sure there were kings and emperors who controlled both sides of this border. But the border still stood. And the kings and emperors used the "mountain passes" to cross this natural boundary line.

Khyber pass is the most famous among those passes.

Tribes and people always go across the boundaries. this is not unique to Pak-Af border
Tribes and people speak similar tongues across the boundaries. this is not unique to Pak-Af border

In some small sections on this border, Hindu Kash may not be making clear line, so you have to use mapping and survey techniques to define border there.


Let's cut this cr@p and make sure we do not trivialize important geographical feature that exists on our Western boundary.

Pakistan should respect this and all of or our borders.

Afghanistanis and their blind Indian pushers too must respect this border. We must institute the liberal visa regime for the tribes who have relatives on either side of the border.

But we must declare these tribes as citizens of the country where they declare their residence as "permanent".

Let's move to current times instead of living in an era that existed centuries ago.



peace

p.s. Brits introduced modern methods of doing survey and developing maps. We should give credit to Brits then for developing modern day maps for not only this border line, but the whole fing subcontinent, nay pretty much the whole global empire where at one time purportedly sun never set.


p.p.s. How many Indians here believe the $tupid jack@ss Mullah line that mountain range is in fact "Hindu-Koosh" like the place where Hindus were killed. Yeap. that explanation utterly wrong and a pure idiocy from geographical pov.

 

[FaujHistorian]

This is hugely intriguing. I shall be looking this up as soon as I can.

Presumably, his solution would have amounted to some form of consociationalism, as in Canada or in Lebanon. That is how the Jinnah experts, YLH and my Pakistani friends on our mailing list, interpret it. But I should like to read it for myself.
.

My dear dear dear Joe,

Yeap. another example was Netherlands of yesteryears.

In fact the 1940 resolution was pointing in the same direction. But we Desis were too close minded and never understood what Jinnah was trying to tell All of us, Hindus Muslims and all ethnicities.

We in turn tried to run our countries as a bad copy of UK or a local Nawabi or Raja-giri / feudalistic traditions.

Where baboos sitting in Dilli or Pindi are the gods and every state must fall in line of their di*k-tats.


We broke apart quicker because we were smaller and weaker and less diplomatic (OK democratic if you insist), but the same thing can happen anywhere given enough time.


But you should remain a realist as you have been. Accusing Jinnah for "partitioning" was something Mullahs and Mahasabites have always done, and I consider you above all those bigoted freaks.


peace

 

[Asian.Century]

The overall books from Nursery needs to be changed and become more nationalist, and complete on to grooming as a perfect person in the advanced world....tat should how the Pakistani books should focus on....developing Pakistani only...the Pakistani way in all specialized fields from the start.

Madrassas in Pakistan have recently been a focus of world attention for creating this kind of exclusionary and sectarian worldview. Madrassas are not the only institutions breeding hate, intolerance, a distorted worldview, etc. The educational material in the government run schools do much more than madrassas. The textbooks tell lies, create hatred, inculcates militancy, and much more.