Pakistan World Power Manifesto
Thoughts on SAARC and Akhand Bharat
Repentant Pakistan & Forgiving India by
Manzoor Ahmed Manzoor
(Written in 2019, updated 23-9-2023)
In spite of diversity, history unites us. Therefore, let me come to what is and what can be understandable by our people in SAARC countries in particular in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan too. There is no real conflict anywhere except many artificial and manufactured ones between Pakistan and India and between Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Pakistan is central to these conflicts. And there is no right reason except mental disorders in Pakistan. Urdu Party which holds sway over ideological landscape in Pakistan; oxygen of its existence is anti-Hindu and anti-India narrative. Pakistani people are discovering this truth and when they are able to get hold of it firmly and give it a political narrative, Urdu Party’s ideology will die. That would be the time that Pakistan would have stood on its own and see India historically and rightly. At that time Pakistan would be repentant of the excesses and insults inflicted in their name on the peoples of India by the Urdu Party. And hopefully India would be forgiving.
Whosoever initiated it, was not ‘akhandta’ of Hindustan, India or Bharat inherent in the concept of SAARC? Realities are far bigger and the absurdities of smaller minds cannot hold them in check. They reappear again and again in some suitable form in spite of obstructionist nonsense.
That our future history should be wiser cannot mean anything else except that we are assuredly in that process. How to judge? My own overall understanding of our collective situation, contrary to popular perceptions, tends to make me believe so. I had to struggle to dismantle falsehood that had totally prevailed in Pakistan, partly in India and abroad. Those who led Indian Muslims and Pakistan from, at least, from the time of the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885 through 1947 to the present time (Syed Ahmad Khan and associates and the All-India Muslim League before Partition and since then Pakistani leadership respectively) always played villainous and un-civilized role. The trend-setters of this villainous role were the U.P. Muslims or the ‘Urdu Party’ before and after 1947 in pre-Partition India and Pakistan respectively. Punjabis, Bengalis and others were worked up to become their camp followers.
It is too painful. It is a question of Himalayan proportion of our history, why there was never a Muslim awakening against this group, the Urdu Party, to take a turn in the right direction. But what to talk about awakening against this group, they were never identified. They remained hidden under ‘Muslim’ cover. Muslim League, for example, was Urdu Party League. Their sins must not be put on the shoulders of Muslim masses. Obviously, the burden of awakening fell on the masses and I happened to be one of them. I believe, so far, nobody has paid attention to this aspect of the reality.
They were the British nurtured ‘separatist front’. In addition to this British front itself, mere two facts should suffice here to appreciate the difficulties faced by the Congress. G.K. Gokhale (1866-1915) stated explicitly in 1913: “No Indian could have started the Indian National Congress … if an Indian had come forward to start such a movement embracing all Indians, the officials in India would not have allowed the movement to come into existence. If the founder of the Congress had not been an Englishman and a distinguished ex-official, such was the distrust of political agitation in those days that the authorities would have at once found some way or the other to suppress the movement.” And almost all viceroys of India were anti-Congress and they made all possible efforts in preventing the Muslims from joining the Congress.
On the national front, the Congress accepted Partition and that too under the British. Why? Moreover, they did this in spite of Mahatma Gandhi. What else they could have done? Lacking capabilities to fight back, the leadership took the undesirable decision. But the lesson was not learnt. Moreover, to-date, this has not changed. In this race of remaining mediocre, the BJP can be seen to be some steps ahead of the Congress by creating new complications. It is unfortunate.
The historical, unprecedented and opportunity of becoming great, history had offered India in 1947, was missed. Obviously, there was no appetite or passion. If Maratha and Sikh powers were too two earlier opportunities, how not to go into deep thinking for the future? Perhaps, India’s bigness and diversity made unity of action humanly impossible. However, any thinking person would agree that India’s place in the world could not be of a camp follower of the West. That necessitates introspection.
India must have created a new civilizational place in history. Instead, it tried to adjust in the world dominated by the West. India without an independent and assertive position on peace in the world is a recurring loss to humanity. This colossal loss kept humanity comparatively poorer than what it would have been otherwise.
Is Taiwan ‘other’ for China? No. With accepted borders, in not exactly similar case, Indian thinking about Pakistan as some ‘other’ country is against reality and wrong. With India’s ‘leaving’ Mahatma Gandhi behind, that was inevitable. India went not the right way if not the wrong way. The point is India should have worked to not let mischief-makers proliferate in Pakistan. Why killings related to Partition were not investigated and culprits named? There should have been a very high-powered commission to investigate who were primarily responsible and who were reacting.
Mahatma Gandhi’s passion for unity and Satyagraha commitment was the path. With a vision, if led by such a passion and commitment, Indian people would have responded for greatness in spite of disowning by Muslims. Had there been vision, passion and deep commitment to greatness; acceptance of Partition under compulsion would have injected an unprecedented new vigour in the national life. British engineered Muslim separatism transforming itself into India’s ‘Pakistan Problem’ would not have remained unchallenged by not letting Pakistan become some other country. India must have remained adamant for right behavior from Pakistan.
India retained Mountbatten, joined the so-called Commonwealth, and called itself non-aligned. The Indian stand on Tibet and Dalai Lama was indefensible from any point of view. It was more so when it had been in alignment with the American position. Apparently, as if absent-mindedly or like not knowing what was around in 1962, India found itself at war with China when America had not yet even recognized that country. Would it not be a mild statement to say India found itself in the American camp?
Lenin and Chairman Mao had objections to the Western domination and behaviour in the world. After 1947, India acquiesced practically to everything Western. America asked India to participate in the 1991 Gulf War. Why? Could America have asked China or Russia? When America was about to invade Afghanistan in 2001 after their so-called 9/11, Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee offered them bases in India and obviously everything else. Why? And it goes on and on and we find one day Modi Sahib brings Netanyahu to the Sabarmati Ashram of Mahatma Gandhi! Where was Indian vision, if any?
In such a setting of things, I had a problem. What to do? Born in a village of Hoshiarpur district in a Gujjar peasant-proprietor family about 1945, I found that the Partition had wronged Punjab and expelled us from our homes, which we were not ready to leave. And that the same had happened on the other side. I have not been able to reconcile to the forced expulsions to this day. Moreover, trapped in the situation created by liars and manipulators, I found myself in a predicament as I grew up. Incapable of following nonsense as I was, I sought many answers. And at every encounter with falsehood, I was able to stand my ground.
I came to know that in the larger scheme of things, Humanity never surrenders whatever the adversities. It tries to build repeatedly and somehow finds its way onward. Steadfastly on this path, I was eventually able to declare in my book ‘The Pakistan Problem’ 1993: “Internally Pakistan is in a state which cannot be termed ‘settled’; while externally thousands of kilometers of our eastern borders remain closed as if the world, on that side, ends there. We are very near to a dead-end. Those who built careers and made fortunes on ‘problems left by history’, while creating new in the process, have lost the mandate, if at all it was ever there.”
Pakistan’s permanent dead-end like situation is becoming more and more visible. The totality of what Imran Khan represents and the way he was brought in have hastened the process. What they call ‘elections’ of 25th July 2018 brought into the open the critical stage in Pakistan. Within the overall abnormality, which was, part of Pakistan’s life since 1947, a sudden and a new big bulk of the same abnormality has entered the system. The life of what was going on since at least 1947 has drastically further shortened. In addition, the possibilities of our deliverance from the falsehood have increased manifold. That something unpredictable is bound to happen can be said to be a right statement about the present situation.
Anyhow, all I stood for collectively meant that Pakistan must change from within the State. In the present sort of emergency like situation, it has become more urgent. Pakistan must shed the baggage of lies it was carrying due to Urdu Party and the British since 1947 and even before. Beyond that lied, the worthy goal and a possibility of Pakistan’s greatness for which I worked earnestly. But as the way to Pakistan’s greatness passed through Indian greatness, perhaps, that had been why borders had failed to restrict my aspirations and thinking. ▄