I am not ashamed to be a Lucknowi or a migrant but I view my communities efforts from the prism of benefits to Pakistan rather than my qaums (muhajir) success or work to get (in my view special) rights.
In this I am very different from karachites and sorry to say I do not believe Altafs speech on partition calling it the biggest blunder-in fact anyone calling my peoples death at the hands of India a mistake whether it be partition riots or post partition riots which I have special information about and the partition, which happened because of it, a mistake, deserves if not my hatred then not the least my sympathy.
Muhajir is a fake term imposed on us by our elders. I would advise you to look at the blacks and how they threw away their discriminatory names after freedom from white owned plantations. Yet surprisingly our elders call themselves nothing but muhajir.
I would rather throw the word out. Yet urdu speakers does not speak for all of us as we are also marathi speakers, gujrati speakers and marwari speakers among others. The identity problem thus is complex. Moving from place A to B makes no one muhajir otherwise all of us would be muhajir since we moved from somewhere. Then Jinnah never expected we would become a separate ethnic group. He thought we would merge. Also I don't see how I can call a marathi speaker my brother when we do not share clothing dishes nor language but hate my punjabi brother and call him different from us if not hate hi,
I see Pakistan as my country not Jinnahpur (yes muhajirs some of them support it like Syed Jamaluddin) or a small section. My outlook thus is national with an increased focus on muslims left in Indian occupied parts as I moved from there. I am a proud Lucknowi still therefore so make no mistake of that-yet I want to merge as a pashtun. As I said the ethnic problem is very complex, especially among muhajirs. For example many muslims in Lucknow were children of Pashtuns who had forgotten pashto-enter the rohillas-so during partition many moved to Pakistan. Now they had no link with pashtuns-had forgotten pashto and identified as urdu speakers. Their identity became muhajir. So you see how complex the ethnic web is and even I may be pashtun by those standards as I have some links.
As for being muhajir my views on said topic are exponential and are very vividly described in this thread. Do take a look:
Split Discussion: Muhajir Identity | Page 12
You will have to go through the posts-my posts very carefully and spend a lot of time but you will know where I am coming from. I am all in for an inclusive society without hatred. This is why i have extreme respect for you Jaanbaz, being an Ahmedi, your rights taken from you is hard-yet supporting and living for Pakistan for the promised better day for all of us is even harder. If you ever need my help or support call upon me. This goes to
@Pakistani Exile as well though I feel he does not agree with my views about MQM and Muhajirs. It is easy to get lost when so few talk of your rights so he sympathizes with MQM because it is secular and has no beef against Ahmedis but we cannot ignore how it has made us-us Pakistanis fight each other over the basis of ethnicity. Peace
@Ifrit @fakhre mirpur @Samandri @WAJsal Even the Indians. What I have is strong but unique views I can equally strongly defend. Each of us needs those.
like Muhammad Kashif etc.
