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What students are being taught about the separation of East Pakistan

A very interesting observation, though begging a number of questions.



This is after all a Pakistani site. I imagine that there is some responsibility attached to the moderators other than taking part in a discussion and informing those disagreeing with them that such disagreement approaches trolling (which has happened on this thread itself). Perhaps in an unwary moment, you might even admit that they have a duty to rein in the local fanboys when these packs are in full cry.

Please don't lie. The warning I gave had nothing to do with anyone disagreeing with me and everything to do with one-liners (read forum policy) and pursuit of both sides of the argument merely to troll.

I also take it that given your criticism of the forum and it's moderation, you have never participated in discussions at any of the larger Indian defence forums. Take a look around and it will put your comments above in perspective. Suffice to say, we don't have a board here dedicated to 'the terrorist state of india'

It's fine to be partisan, but please don't lose all sight of objective reality in pursuit your partisanship.
 
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@Paladin, I hear you. But someone spewing nonsense against you in their loudest voice doesn't change reality. It's good for Pakistanis to get a sense for who our friends are, and vice versa. And frankly, the anti Pakistan propaganda posted here is answered very effectively. You'll see PDF come up in a TON of google queries concerning Pakistan and the region. It's great that instead of just a one sided attack on Pakistan, those results now include the Pakistani perspective and response as well.
 
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Deleted by myself, on grounds of it being excessively stupid.

Two wrongs don't make a right.
 
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Right, but I wasn't questioning the participation of Pakistani guests on your shows, but rather the possibility that lack of awareness in Indian about the extent of diverse and controversial discourse, on various platforms, lends to the opinion that Pakistan only exists because of 'hate India'.

We read countless times, from Indians, that 'Kashmir and anti-India rhetoric' is used to distract Pakistanis by the politicians and military, so that they can continue to maintain power and build personal assets.

Perhaps awareness of the openness of discourse in Pakistani society on a wide variety of issues would help remove perceptions such as those, that Pakistan exists solely because of 'hate India' or 'not India'?

Sir, only two points:-

1). I mentioned the participation of Pakistani guests coming on several Indian shows to point out that India does get exposure to viewpoint developing across the border, though not in a huge way.

2). Awareness among Indians about Pakistani society can come from free media interaction among ppl of both sides but that is not going to happen due to multiple reasons which are not worth going into in this thread.

These issues are too complex. For every finger that Pakistan points at India, India can point the same back and we are going no where.

Too much lack of trust !

Thank you for your comments, the above statements are the final ones from my side.
 
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This particular comment of yours is a dual edged sword..
Shows you are just here for cynicism..and nothing else.
Shall I bring up the Rape of Kashmiri women?.. will you then cite that it was an isolated incident?..and does not happen everywhere else?
Or should I claim that the killings of bengali intellectuals was an isolated incident.. did not happen everywhere else?

The purpose of such forums is debate.. and counter debate..
Point taking... low level jabs.. is for your local tea house.

There are other similar forums.. where you may dish out continuous cynics at us..and where we may boast "one pakistani is as good as a hundred Indians".
But somewhere in these forums.. there are still more from all three countries.. that despite all of their differences...would not tolerate nonsensical accusations against the other..
Let us not forget..as I still believe..
come a foreign country.. if I had the choice to buy a bag of chips from a foreign vendor.. and one that is from the sub-continent.. I would choose the latter.
Tomorrow.. I know for certain.. when I go to America..
and am without a roof..against the wall.. I dont have to beg in the streets. I have an Indian friend who can give me a roof and a job.


Back to the topic at hand.. and specifically at Markus.
The mindset has been cultured.. take an example of quite a few of the 60's generation..
Many of those hold Ayub khan as their hero.. and lay the blame on his son..Gohar Ayub for his downfall.. and wont accept anything else.
Can the same not be said of people in India??
If.. for eg tomorrow.. hypothetically.. concrete proof came out against say Indra Gandhi having an affair(hypothetical!!!!!!)..
Would not those that lived during her rule vehemently defend her??
especially those who prospered?

For years the Americans fed a whole heap of anti-communism to their population....eventually..when the wall fell...many new truth's unfolded..and many untruth's did.

How much of what is said about North Korea is true??.. how much isnt?

Imagine.. if a person who wished to know about Kazakhstan....was shown "Borat".. what would be his impression?

There are people in Pakistan..and elsewhere in the Muslim world.. who preach America as a godless nation..full of sex, Injustice and atheists.
Yet..if one was to visit America...you would find all the above..
but that is not all you would find..
you would find welcome gifts when you move into a neighborhood.
you would find people going to Church..there are more practicing Christians in America as a ratio than in the UK.

The same goes for you and me..
The greatest example ..would be bollywood..afterall...it reflects a lot about what is the message given about us?
Did anybody check "veer zaara".. god knows what Pakistan was being talked about there.. never seen anything like it.

A good family friend of ours visited us from India(muslim)..
He was all about how good India is and extremism here etc etc.
But he was eventually forced to admit.. after touring Karachi..Lahore..and the nothern Areas.. that what he thought was all wrong.
He was surprised to enjoy Dosa's here.. and pav bhaji..

The only way to end misconceptions.. is for people to meet.. and then see for themselves what they are taught..and what is there..

back to the topic..
As I mentioned before... had the people of West and East Pakistan had a lot more interaction.. things might have been very different.
Yet.. it was physically impossible...and impractical..we had India between us.. and nothing else to culturally hold us together.

Yes, we need more ppl to ppl interaction but I would like to say this:-

Pakistan also shares its cultural heritage with India as much as it shares with Bangladesh and you dont need to share borders to stay united. Culture can bind ppl across continents. But having said that, I am more or less convinced that we are going no where. All this "Aman Ki Asha" has just turned out to be a media gimmick. After reading views of other ppl from your country who are too rigid in accepting Indian viewpoint, I think we are going no where.

Thank you for your comments, I would not like to pursue this topic any further.

Lets see where destiny has to take both of our countries!
 
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young Pakistani student are taught misleading information about the war of 1971 which ultimately will makes young 'Pakistani unfriendly towards bangladeshis in future .who is going to beneficiary of this unfriendly relation ? ist not india ? i think pakistan should teach the actual fact about the 1971 and try to learn from their mistake they made 40 years ago.
 
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young Pakistani student are taught misleading information about the war of 1971 which ultimately will makes young 'Pakistani unfriendly towards bangladeshis in future .who is going to beneficiary of this unfriendly relation ?

Pray tell me, how many unfriendly Pakistanis have you encountered as a Bangladeshi? [Not on chat forums but face to face].

For you sake, let me say that the younger generation is more aware of what happened in East Pakistan than their predecessors since they have access to much of the documents and accounts unveiled and written in the past 39 years. Pick any book, not just text, written by people who were around in East Pakistan and you get the sense that we wronged. The extent of that wrong may not be eloborate, every one needs to save some face, but it is there. Add to it the general consensus among politicians, intellectuals about the discrimination towards Bengalis by west pakistan.

As far as the topic is concerned, i feel that people criticizing text books forget the role of teachers in class-rooms in explaining the various contexts and versions of a historical event. The text books cannot be elaborate, though they can be much precise and clearer.
 
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Right, but I wasn't questioning the participation of Pakistani guests on your shows, but rather the possibility that lack of awareness in Indian about the extent of diverse and controversial discourse, on various platforms, lends to the opinion that Pakistan only exists because of 'hate India'.

We can look at this possibility in greater detail as we look at the avenues of diverse and controversial discourse in greater detail, as we identify the various platforms that you have named. Which are these platforms? books and articles? the electronic and the print media? the blogosphere?

Should it be through the torrent of publications of books in Pakistan that we judge this, and by ' we', I mean any reasonably impartial observer, very much including Pakistanis themselves.

Pakistan is going through its own spring-time of English language literature, one that has been long in the making and one that has caught everyone by surprise now that it is here. As far as Pakistani authors are concerned, if you check with them, they are mobbed by admirers and readers whenever there is an opportunity for Indians to meet them; personally, in my little backwater of Assam, it is an impractical proposition, otherwise I too would be queuing up for an autograph.

We may not have read much; my own count includes Bapsi Sidhwa, and Hanif Kureishi, both read a long time ago, neither read as particularly 'Pakistani'; more recently, Moth Smoke and A Case of Exploding Mangoes, and with a great deal of perplexity and trepidation, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders.

But how many Mohammed Hanifs do we have, and, by contrast, how many others who hint at a troubled society, in whose writing we merely occasionally see the paw under the door, a passing whiff of brimstone?

On the question of the electronic and the print media, it is best to pas over lightly, because everyone has his or her very sharply etched 'take' on it; let us all agree to disagree with everyone else. My little squeak of an opinion wouldn't really count in this grand diapason of sound from both sides.

About the blogsphere, I'm much more sure, having been a habitue of both ATP and PTH, and a one-time daily reader of 5 Rupees. I read LUBP briefly when they were tangling with YLH, but didn't quite take to them. These three first-mentioned are fora of impeccable liberal democratic credentials, and there is nothing coming out of there that is suspect; there is a lot that is disputed, but as among comrades and fellow-workers.

And the rest? What of the rest? What is it among them that would attract anyone? There was that classic moron who started his blog with....well, never mind, it's too easily recognisable, and the last thing I want is an angry punctured gasbag hunting my scalp.

So now tell me, having gone through this quickie, what should I conclude?

If I take the vast bulk of correspondents, other than those of ATP and PTH, they hate India, and don't know why. Is that ignorance, or from something they know that we need to know? Please, PLEASE don't raise issues like they're hurt to the core about Kashmir; that horse has been kept running - first embalmed, then stuffed, then fitted with actuators, then put back on the turf - by those who desperately need India to be a permanent enemy, present and terrifying, so that they can keep growing their private empires, and keep getting bigger and better budgets every year.

We read countless times, from Indians, that 'Kashmir and anti-India rhetoric' is used to distract Pakistanis by the politicians and military, so that they can continue to maintain power and build personal assets.

Perhaps awareness of the openness of discourse in Pakistani society on a wide variety of issues would help remove perceptions such as those, that Pakistan exists solely because of 'hate India' or 'not India'?

You just heard the exact same thing, exactly according to the script that you threw open to the public, from someone who's been around, who's tried to keep objective, someone who's striven hard for good relations between the two countries, someone who's a charter member of the Defend Liberal Pakistan Club.

At this moment, honestly, it seems to be a one-way street; we keep bending over backwards, and we keep getting taken for a ride. The more we try, the more we get taken. The more we soft-pedal and put our sore points out of the picture, the more we face jerks, the very late teen types who think it's funny to be rude or coarse, or try to get every discussion to become an argument, or try to win these with totally witless one-liners, and a slew of smileys strewn around the place.

Is it possible that this big myth about Pakistan might actually be a small dirty secret about Pakistan? Have you ever thought about it?
 
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This particular comment of yours is a dual edged sword..
Shows you are just here for cynicism..and nothing else.
Shall I bring up the Rape of Kashmiri women?.. will you then cite that it was an isolated incident?..and does not happen everywhere else?
Or should I claim that the killings of bengali intellectuals was an isolated incident.. did not happen everywhere else?

The purpose of such forums is debate.. and counter debate..
Point taking... low level jabs.. is for your local tea house.

There are other similar forums.. where you may dish out continuous cynics at us..and where we may boast "one pakistani is as good as a hundred Indians".
But somewhere in these forums.. there are still more from all three countries.. that despite all of their differences...would not tolerate nonsensical accusations against the other..
Let us not forget..as I still believe..
come a foreign country.. if I had the choice to buy a bag of chips from a foreign vendor.. and one that is from the sub-continent.. I would choose the latter.
Tomorrow.. I know for certain.. when I go to America..
and am without a roof..against the wall.. I dont have to beg in the streets. I have an Indian friend who can give me a roof and a job.


Back to the topic at hand.. and specifically at Markus.
The mindset has been cultured.. take an example of quite a few of the 60's generation..
Many of those hold Ayub khan as their hero.. and lay the blame on his son..Gohar Ayub for his downfall.. and wont accept anything else.
Can the same not be said of people in India??
If.. for eg tomorrow.. hypothetically.. concrete proof came out against say Indra Gandhi having an affair(hypothetical!!!!!!)..
Would not those that lived during her rule vehemently defend her??
especially those who prospered?

For years the Americans fed a whole heap of anti-communism to their population....eventually..when the wall fell...many new truth's unfolded..and many untruth's did.

How much of what is said about North Korea is true??.. how much isnt?

Imagine.. if a person who wished to know about Kazakhstan....was shown "Borat".. what would be his impression?

There are people in Pakistan..and elsewhere in the Muslim world.. who preach America as a godless nation..full of sex, Injustice and atheists.
Yet..if one was to visit America...you would find all the above..
but that is not all you would find..
you would find welcome gifts when you move into a neighborhood.
you would find people going to Church..there are more practicing Christians in America as a ratio than in the UK.

The same goes for you and me..
The greatest example ..would be bollywood..afterall...it reflects a lot about what is the message given about us?
Did anybody check "veer zaara".. god knows what Pakistan was being talked about there.. never seen anything like it.

A good family friend of ours visited us from India(muslim)..
He was all about how good India is and extremism here etc etc.
But he was eventually forced to admit.. after touring Karachi..Lahore..and the nothern Areas.. that what he thought was all wrong.
He was surprised to enjoy Dosa's here.. and pav bhaji..

The only way to end misconceptions.. is for people to meet.. and then see for themselves what they are taught..and what is there..

back to the topic..
As I mentioned before... had the people of West and East Pakistan had a lot more interaction.. things might have been very different.
Yet.. it was physically impossible...and impractical..we had India between us.. and nothing else to culturally hold us together.

On that note... I remember when the metro bombing in London happened, one of my coworkers was from southern India at that time... and believe you me, the way Pakistani community was demonized in the British media upset him more than myself... For starters he was a "thinker" and he could see that people from Pakistan got well along with him... he was also opposed to some of the nonsense that the more extreme side of his community shoved at him now and then and one day in those days in 2005 he was sitting with some of his friends from India and I happened to be there and he asked during some discussion with his friends why the hell were Muslims being shown in such a negative light all the time in the media... It actually surprised me because the way he asked reflected pure agitation and disgust... all because he had seen a side of Pakistan that perhaps many Indians are never able to see!!!
 
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Not every school in Pakistan follows that, does it?

Mr Robot... Cant you read members telling you that the issue of East Pakistan is very fairly described in our text books... You are overlooking a very important aspect in this matter which is that even if we accept that such one sided material is being taught for argument's sake, we still have the generation of our parents who lived and witnessed that time and remember clearly what happened... anything that contradicts reality has a way of becoming known if double checked and our parents told us great details about the whole affair...

We know who our enemies are... have no doubts about this... now you have a choice, either you support the real efforts for peace, reconciliation and unity... or you continue in your mindless aims of more war mongering... and in this case silly accusations... I wont be able to get one member here from Pakistan to state a single good thing about the leader of that time General Yahya Khan... as well as Najeeb and Bhutto who wanted to cling to power no matter what happened to the country... On that issue everyone says that our leaders messed up the whole situation... Bangalis resorted to petty nationalism and even though their grievances were legit, they are absolutely no where better leaving Pakistan than they are now (under the rule of a similar corrupt government which has delivered next to nothing to the people)... When you have leadership of drunk idiots, the results for the people are seldom nice...

Bangladesh should have been managed in the most autonomous manner led by Bangalis at that time... we would have avoided ourselves much pain...

And India definitely had a very sinister role in that bloodshed... denying that would be a blatant lie...
 
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Yes, we need more ppl to ppl interaction but I would like to say this:-

Pakistan also shares its cultural heritage with India as much as it shares with Bangladesh and you dont need to share borders to stay united. Culture can bind ppl across continents. But having said that, I am more or less convinced that we are going no where. All this "Aman Ki Asha" has just turned out to be a media gimmick. After reading views of other ppl from your country who are too rigid in accepting Indian viewpoint, I think we are going no where.

Thank you for your comments, I would not like to pursue this topic any further.

Lets see where destiny has to take both of our countries!

What about the rigidity of your people?
Should you stop because of rigidity..then lets stop...would you rather chance the death of millions..then stop.
Aman ki Asha is a gimmick...gimmicks like these exist such as VoA..as well..
thankfully ..saner heads do prevail in most situations..where they dont.. is where you get 71..or 84.
If borders is what I seemed to have implied..then its incorrect.
You need people to meet...
Hawaii is further away from America than we are from Bangladesh.
But the rights that the locals enjoy..and the integration they were provided within the American state is unprecedented.
You are welcome to keep your opinion though..
 
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It is really sad that in pakistan these type's of conspiracy theory's are taught to young people with full of hatred....on the name of History..!
 
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