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Why My Father Hated India

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Bang Galore

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Why My Father Hated India

Aatish Taseer, the son of an assassinated Pakistani leader, explains the history and hysteria behind a deadly relationship

Ten days before he was assassinated in January, my father, Salman Taseer, sent out a tweet about an Indian rocket that had come down over the Bay of Bengal: "Why does India make fools of themselves messing in space technology? Stick 2 bollywood my advice."

My father was the governor of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, and his tweet, with its taunt at India's misfortune, would have delighted his many thousands of followers. It fed straight into Pakistan's unhealthy obsession with India, the country from which it was carved in 1947.


Though my father's attitude went down well in Pakistan, it had caused considerable tension between us. I am half-Indian, raised in Delhi by my Indian mother: India is a country that I consider my own. When my father was killed by one of his own bodyguards for defending a Christian woman accused of blasphemy, we had not spoken for three years.

To understand the Pakistani obsession with India, to get a sense of its special edge—its hysteria—it is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan. This is not merely an academic question. Pakistan's animus toward India is the cause of both its unwillingness to fight Islamic extremism and its active complicity in undermining the aims of its ostensible ally, the United States.

The idea of Pakistan was first seriously formulated by neither a cleric nor a politician but by a poet. In 1930, Muhammad Iqbal, addressing the All-India Muslim league, made the case for a state in which India's Muslims would realize their "political and ethical essence." Though he was always vague about what the new state would be, he was quite clear about what it would not be: the old pluralistic society of India, with its composite culture.

Iqbal's vision took concrete shape in August 1947. Despite the partition of British India, it had seemed at first that there would be no transfer of populations. But violence erupted, and it quickly became clear that in the new homeland for India's Muslims, there would be no place for its non-Muslim communities. Pakistan and India came into being at the cost of a million lives and the largest migration in history.

This shared experience of carnage and loss is the foundation of the modern relationship between the two countries. In human terms, it meant that each of my parents, my father in Pakistan and my mother in India, grew up around symmetrically violent stories of uprooting and homelessness.


But in Pakistan, the partition had another, deeper meaning. It raised big questions, in cultural and civilizational terms, about what its separation from India would mean.

In the absence of a true national identity, Pakistan defined itself by its opposition to India. It turned its back on all that had been common between Muslims and non-Muslims in the era before partition. Everything came under suspicion, from dress to customs to festivals, marriage rituals and literature. The new country set itself the task of erasing its association with the subcontinent, an association that many came to view as a contamination.

Had this assertion of national identity meant the casting out of something alien or foreign in favor of an organic or homegrown identity, it might have had an empowering effect. What made it self-wounding, even nihilistic, was that Pakistan, by asserting a new Arabized Islamic identity, rejected its own local and regional culture. In trying to turn its back on its shared past with India, Pakistan turned its back on itself.

But there was one problem: India was just across the border, and it was still its composite, pluralistic self, a place where nearly as many Muslims lived as in Pakistan. It was a daily reminder of the past that Pakistan had tried to erase.

Pakistan's existential confusion made itself apparent in the political turmoil of the decades after partition. The state failed to perform a single legal transfer of power; coups were commonplace. And yet, in 1980, my father would still have felt that the partition had not been a mistake, for one critical reason: India, for all its democracy and pluralism, was an economic disaster.

Pakistan had better roads, better cars; Pakistani businesses were thriving; its citizens could take foreign currency abroad. Compared with starving, socialist India, they were on much surer ground. So what if India had democracy? It had brought nothing but drought and famine.

But in the early 1990s, a reversal began to occur in the fortunes of the two countries. The advantage that Pakistan had seemed to enjoy in the years after independence evaporated, as it became clear that the quest to rid itself of its Indian identity had come at a price: the emergence of a new and dangerous brand of Islam.

As India rose, thanks to economic liberalization, Pakistan withered. The country that had begun as a poet's utopia was reduced to ruin and insolvency.

The primary agent of this decline has been the Pakistani army. The beneficiary of vast amounts of American assistance and money—$11 billion since 9/11—the military has diverted a significant amount of these resources to arming itself against India. In Afghanistan, it has sought neither security nor stability but rather a backyard, which—once the Americans leave—might provide Pakistan with "strategic depth" against India.

In order to realize these objectives, the Pakistani army has led the U.S. in a dance, in which it had to be seen to be fighting the war on terror, but never so much as to actually win it, for its extension meant the continuing flow of American money. All this time the army kept alive a double game, in which some terror was fought and some—such as Laskhar-e-Tayyba's 2008 attack on Mumbai—actively supported.

The army's duplicity was exposed decisively this May, with the killing of Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad. It was only the last and most incriminating charge against an institution whose activities over the years have included the creation of the Taliban, the financing of international terrorism and the running of a lucrative trade in nuclear secrets.

This army, whose might has always been justified by the imaginary threat from India, has been more harmful to Pakistan than to anybody else. It has consumed annually a quarter of the country's wealth, undermined one civilian government after another and enriched itself through a range of economic interests, from bakeries and shopping malls to huge property holdings.

The reversal in the fortunes of the two countries—India's sudden prosperity and cultural power, seen next to the calamity of Muhammad Iqbal's unrealized utopia—is what explains the bitterness of my father's tweet just days before he died. It captures the rage of being forced to reject a culture of which you feel effortlessly a part—a culture that Pakistanis, via Bollywood, experience daily in their homes.

This rage is what makes it impossible to reduce Pakistan's obsession with India to matters of security or a land dispute in Kashmir. It can heal only when the wounds of 1947 are healed. And it should provoke no triumphalism in India, for behind the bluster and the bravado, there is arid pain and sadness.

—Mr. Taseer is the author of "Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands." His second novel, "Noon," will be published in the U.S. in September.

Why My Father Hated India - WSJ.com
 
I don't really care what Aatish Taseer says,
Pakistanis really do have a different culture. Pakistani culture is different from Indian culture.
The more Pakistan is different from India, the better.
Some Pakistani intellectuals have suggested making Farsi as the third official language of Pakistan, because it was the Official language of the Mughal empire and the language spoken by the elites.
If Aatish Taseer wants to be an Indian thats his choice.
By the way most Pakistanis don't care or dislike India.
 
i stopped reading as soon as the (evidently confused) author claimed that "ridding itself of indian identity" is the reason behind Pakistan's misfortunes. The reasons are more political and manmade in nature. The truth is, Pakistani Nation never was ideologically or culturally "one" with that of hindustan --which didnt even come into form until 1947.

Pakistani nationalism existed far earlier, it was just realized on Aug. 14 of 1947.

if you ask the common man on the street, they could care less about india. This talk of "obcession" is quite naiive and borderline immature (at best)


the author clearly is confused and just has an agenda; given that he never even knew who his father was
 
i stopped reading as soon as the (evidently confused) author claimed that "ridding itself of indian identity" is the reason behind Pakistan's misfortunes. The reasons are more political and manmade in nature. The truth is, Pakistani Nation never was ideologically or culturally "one" with that of hindustan --which didnt even come into form until 1947.

Pakistani nationalism existed far earlier, it was just realized on Aug. 14 of 1947.

if you ask the common man on the street, they could care less about india. This talk of "obcession" is quite naiive and borderline immature (at best)

the author clearly is confused and just has an agenda; given that he never even knew who his father was

Very true, the article seems ridiculously biased.
 
Very true, the article seems ridiculously biased.

if you read his other rubbish, you will immediately know that bias and emotional writing are not exactly out of character as far as he and his 'work' are concerned
 
I don't really care what Aatish Taseer says,
Pakistanis really do have different culture. Pakistani culture is different from Indian culture.
The more Pakistan is different from India, the better.
Some Pakistani intellectuals have suggested making Farsi as the third official language of Pakistan, because it was the Official language of the Mughal empire and the language spoken by the elites.
If Aatish Taseer wants to be Indian thats his choice.
By the way most Pakistanis don't care or dislike India.

Let's see how fast this resolution gets passed in places like Sindh or Khyber - Pakhtunkhwa.
 
Let's see how fast this resolution gets passed in places like Sindh or Khyber - Pakhtunkhwa.

it never was a "resolution" and quite frankly, it's a non-issue at this point since we have a national language & majority of Pakistanis can read/understand it.
 
if i had the power, i would have dug a deep hole and massacred all ghaddars like taseeris and dumped them

in pakistan we need to get all ghaddars out, pakistan must immediately implemet shariah with islamic socialism, and there should be limit to one's opinions

salman the has gone, but he has left a verman out there, his children that are a vermens and germs to the society

and thats why i support hitler action on jews, because jews were the same to germans what these vermons are to pakistani society, these taseeris and mirzais bhuttos and zerdaris corrupt feudal vermons

pakistan tere baap ki jayedad nahi, pehle khud dekh, hazaar aikar ke zaminon peh pakistanion ko ghulam banata hai, apne auqat kio bhulta hai jahil pakistani!!

taseer died a fraud corrupt guy but is made shaheed WTFing joke

yeah taseer ka sala wahi illegetimate bharati aulaad hai
 
Article doesn't explain why Bangladesh is essentially anti-Indian even after 1971 and still retains a culture significantly different from India although attempts have been made in the last 40 years to assimilate it to India.
 
Let's see how fast this resolution gets passed in places like Sindh or Khyber - Pakhtunkhwa.
Huh, have you been to Pakistan?
Sindhi and Pathan nationalism is dead.
Pathan nationalism is only popular a little bit in Afghanistan.

Bringing Farsi/Dari back, may have some logic to it because:
1) Language of the Mughal Empire which many Pakistanis can relate to
2) Dari is spoken in Afghanistan, and Tajik in Tajikistan

So the more different Pakistan and India are, the better.
In fact if Pakistan could cease bilateral relations with India, I would support this due to the territorial disputes between Pakistan and India.
 
1) Language of the Mughal Empire which many Pakistanis can relate to


mughals were not south asians, they were turko mongols from central asia, and central asia has influences of mongol and turk culture, now what learn mongolian??? have some sense in your comments
The Mughal emperors themselves had 'S. Asian' Indian-Rajput blood after Akbar. Akbars son Jahangir was born from a Rajput women, many other Mughal emperors after that too.


Look how looks changed after generations.

Bahadur_Shah_Zafar.jpg


428px-Zeenat_Mahal.jpg


Sons_of_Bahadur_Shah_Zafar.jpg


Last Mughal, wife and sons. They dont look Mongol-Turkic any more.

Unlike the first guy.

Babur.jpg
 
why the fucck we learn farsi or darri?????, if u wanna learn farsi go to iran

mughals were not south asians, they were turko mongols from central asia, and central asia has influences of mongol and turk culture, now what learn mongolian??? have some sense in your comments

Actually I mean Dari.
Mughal Empire has its own style of persianate culture which is different form Iran's.
I don't want Irani Farsi. Afghani Dari would be more appropriate.
And why the hate? If you want to disagree atleast do it in a mature way.
I'm saying this is what some intellectuals have suggested.
Perhaps adopting a different language, would be able to throw off Indian influence, and make Pakistan have cultural sovereignty.
The more Pakistan is different from India, the better.
 
The Mughal emperors themselves had Indian-Rajput blood after Akbar. Akbars son Jahangir was born from a Rajput women, many other Mughal emperors after that.

And your point is? They were Mughalized or Mughal Persianized. They adopted Mughal Persian culture, not Irani Persian culture.
Many Iranian persians went to the Mughal empire and developed a new Persian culture.

Tell me what are the similarities between South Indian, East Indian, and North Indian culture?
South Indian culture is very different from North Indian culture.
 
Actually I mean Dari.
Mughal Empire has its own style of persianate culture which is different form Iran's.
I don't want Irani Farsi. Afghani Dari would be more appropriate.
And why the hate? The more Pakistan is different from India, the better.

i think we should deport you to afghanistan or iran
 
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