Punjabi Nationlaism-III (Next)

Punjabi Nationalism II

A Divided Punjab and the British Terrorist Legacy

A forgotten Punjab hero

A great deal of ruin in a nation

Capturing the Punjabi imagination

Demand for South Punjab

Not Speaking a Language that is Mine

MAULA JATT VS GENERAL ZIA

New pressure on Pakistan

I speak Punjabi (but my kids might not)

Ethnicity and Regional Aspirations In Pakistan

Jinnah and Punjab A Study of the Shams-ul-Hasan Collection

Ethnicity and provincialism in Pakistan What we don't normally hear or read

How Long Punjabi Nation Will Remain A Socially And Politically Depressed And Deprived Nation

A Divided Punjab and the British Terrorist Legacy
Author:Andre Vitchek

To kill 1.000 or more “niggers,” to borrow from the colorful, racist dictionary of Lloyd George, who was serving as British Prime Minister between 1916 and 1922, was never something that Western empires would feel ashamed of. For centuries, the British Kingdom was murdering merrily, all over Africa and the Middle East, as well as in the Punjab, Kerala, Gujarat, in fact all over the Sub-Continent. In London the acts of smashing unruly nations were considered as something “normal”, even praiseworthy. Commanders in charge of slaughtering thousands of people in the colonies were promoted, not demoted, and their statues have been decorating countless squares and government buildings.
Wherever I work on this planet, I see remnants of European colonial savagery.
This time I worked in the Indian state of Punjab. Here, an unrepentant bigot – General Dyer, killed 1579 people in 1919, in Amritsar, in just a few dreadful minutes.
A narrow passage to Jallianwala Bagh Garden, inside the old city of Amritsar…
This is where, on April 13 1919, thousands of people gathered, demanding release of two of their detained leaders, Dr. Satyapal and Dr. Saifuddin. The protest was peaceful. It was right before the day of Baisakhi, the main Sikh festival; and the pilgrims were pouring to the city in multitudes, from all corners of Punjab and Sub-Continent.
Peaceful or not, British Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer would not tolerate any demonstrations, any dissent, in the areas controlled by his troops. He decided to act, in order to teach the locals a lesson. There was no warning and no negotiations. General Dyer brought fifty Gurkha riflemen to a raised bank, and then ordered them to shoot at the crowd.
Bipan Chandra, a renowned Indian historian, wrote in his iconic work, “India’s Struggle for Independence”:
“On the orders of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, the army fired on the crowd for ten minutes, directing their bullets largely towards the few open gates through which people were trying to run out. The figures released by the British government were 370 dead and 1200 wounded. Other sources place the number dead at well over 1000.”
Jallianwala Bagh is now a monument, a testament, a warning. There are bullet holes clearly marked in white, penetrating the walls of surrounding buildings. There is a well, where bodies of countless victims had fallen. Some people had chosen to jump, to escape the bullets.
There is a museum, containing historic documents: statements of defiance and spite from the officials of British Raj, as well as declarations of several maverick Indian figures, including Rabindranath Tagore, one of the greatest writers of India, who threw his knighthood back in the face of the British oppressors, after he learned about the massacre.
There are old black and white photos of Punjabi people tied to the polls, their buttocks exposed, being flagged by shorts-wearing British soldiers, who were apparently enjoying their heinous acts.
There is also a statement of General Dyer himself. It is chilling, arrogant and unapologetic statement:
“I fired and continued to fire until the crowd dispersed, and I consider this is the least amount of firing which would produce the necessary moral and widespread effect it was my duty to produce if I was to justify my action. If more troops had been at hand the casualties would have been greater in proportion. It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect from a military point of view not only on those who were present, but more especially throughout the Punjab. There could be no question of undue severity.”
I approached Ms. Garima Sahata, a Punjabi student, who did not hide her feelings towards the British Empire and the West:
“I feel ager, thinking what they had done to our people. I think it is important for us to come here and to see the remnants of the massacre. I still feel angry towards the British people, even now… but in a different way… They are not killing us the same way, as they used to in the past, but they are killing us nevertheless.”
The British Empire was actually based on enforcing full submission and obedience on its local subjects, in all corners of the world; it was based on fear and terror, on disinformation, propaganda, supremacist concepts, and on shameless collaboration of the local “elites”. “Law and order” was maintained by using torture and extra-judiciary executions, “divide and rule” strategies, and by building countless prisons and concentration camps.
The British Empire was above the law. All rights to punish “locals” were reserved. But British citizens were almost never punished for their horrendous crimes committed in foreign lands.
When the Nazis grabbed power in Germany, they immediately began enjoying a dedicating following from the elites in the United Kingdom. It is because British colonialism and German Nazism were in essence not too different from each other.
Today’s Western Empire is clearly following its predecessor. Not much has changed. Technology improved, that is about all.
Standing at the monument of colonial carnage in Punjab, I recalled dozens of horrific crimes of the British Empire, committed all over the world:
I thought about those concentration camps in Africa, and about the stations where slaves who were first hunted down like animals were shackled and beaten, then put on boats and forced to undergo voyages to the “new world” that most of them never managed to survive. I thought about murder, torture, flogging, raping women and men, destruction of entire countries, tribes and families.
In Kenya, I was shown a British prison for resistance cadres, which was surrounded by wilderness and dangerous animals. This is where the leaders of local rebellions were jailed, tortured and exterminated.
In Uganda, I was told stories about how British colonizers used to humiliate local people and break their pride: in the villages, they would hunt down the tallest and the strongest man; they would shackled him, beat him up, and then the British officer would rape him, sodomize him in public, so there would be no doubts left of who was in charge.
In the Middle East, people still remember those savage chemical bombings of the “locals”, the extermination of entire tribes. Winston Churchill made it clear, on several occasions: “I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas,” he told the House of Commons during an address in the autumn of 1937. “I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes.”
In Malaya, as the Japanese were approaching, British soldiers were chaining locals to the cannons, forcing them to fight and die.
Wherever the British Empire, or any other European empire, grabbed control over the territory – in Africa, Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia, in Sub-Continent, Oceania – horror and brutality reigned.
Now, Punjab is divided, because that old “divide and rule” scheme was applied here meticulously, as it was almost everywhere at the Sub-Continent.
The British never really left: they live in the minds of Indian elites.
Punjab suffered terribly during the Partition, and later, too, from brutality of the Indian state. In fact, almost entire India is now suffering, unable to shake off those racist, religious and social prejudices.
Delhi behaves like a colonialist master in Kashmir (where it is committing one of the most brutal genocides on earth), the Northeast and in several other areas. Indian elites are as ruthless and barbaric as were the British colonizers; the power system remained almost intact.
The Brits triggered countless famines all over India, killing dozens of millions. To them, Indian people were not humans. When Churchill was begged to send food to Bengal that was ravished by famine in 1943, he replied that it was their own fault for “breeding like rabbits” and that the plague was “merrily” culling the population. At least 3 million died.
It goes without saying that the Indian elites, disciples and admirers of British Raj, are treating its people with similar spite.
Only 30 kilometers from Amritsar, one of the most grotesque events on earth takes place: “Lowering of the Flag” on the Indian/Pakistani border. Here, what is often described as the perfectly choreographed expression of hate, takes place in front of thousands of visitors from both countries.
Wagah Border has even tribunes built to accommodate aggressive spectators. It is everyday:
“Death to Pakistan! 
Long Live India!”
“Death to India! 
Long live Pakistan!”
“Hindustaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan Zindabad!!!!!!” They shout here, “Long Live India”, and those endless spasms are immediately followed by barks glorifying India and insulting Pakistan.
Border guards, male and female, are then performing short marches, at a tremendously aggressive and fast pace, towards the border gate. The public, sick from the murderous heat and the fascist, nationalist idiocy, speeches and shouts, is roaring.
The seeds sown by the British Raj have been inherited by several successive states of the Sub-Continent. They are now growing into a tremendous toxic and murderous insanity. Instead of turning against the murderous elites, the poor majority is yelling nationalist slogans.
Everything here is deeply connected: the colonial torture, the post-colonial genocides, the prostitution of the local elites, who are selling themselves to the rulers of the world, the over-militarization, the institutionalized spite for the poor and for the lower castes and classes.
Confusion is omnipresent. Words and terminology have lost their meanings. Dust, injustice, pain and insecurity are everywhere.
Anyone who claims that colonialism is dead is either a liar or a madman.
And if this – the direct result of colonialism – is “democracy”, then we should all, immediately, take a bus in the opposite direction!
Andre Vltchek is philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist, he’s a creator of Vltchek’s World an a dedicated Twitter user, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
First appeared:http://journal-neo.org/2015/05/01/a-divided-punjab-and-the-british-terrorist-legacy/
Curtsey:www. journal-neo.org 01/05

Curtsey:www.tribuneindia.com  Sunday, March 7, 2004

Pakistan
A great deal of ruin in a nation

Why Islam took a violent and intolerant turn in Pakistan, and where it might lead

“TYPICAL Blackwater operative,” says a senior military officer, gesturing towards a muscular Westerner with a shaven head and tattoos, striding through the lobby of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel. Pakistanis believe their country is thick with Americans working for private security companies contracted to the Central Intelligence Agency; and indeed, the physique of some of the guests at the Marriott hardly suggests desk-bound jobs.
Pakistan is not a country for those of a nervous disposition. Even the Marriott lacks the comforting familiarity of the standard international hotel, for the place was blown up in 2008 by a lorry loaded with explosives. The main entrance is no longer accessible from the road; guards check under the bonnets of approaching cars, and guests are dropped off at a screening centre a long walk away.

Some 30,000 people have been killed in the past four years in terrorism, sectarianism and army attacks on the terrorists. The number of attacks in Pakistan's heartland is on the rise, and Pakistani terrorists have gone global in their ambitions. This year there have been unprecedented displays of fundamentalist religious and anti-Western feeling. All this might be expected in Somalia or Yemen, but not in a country of great sophistication which boasts an elite educated at Oxbridge and the Ivy League, which produces brilliant novelists, artists and scientists, and is armed with nuclear weapons.
Demonstrations in support of the murderer of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, in January, startled and horrified Pakistan's liberals. Mr Taseer was killed by his guard, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, who objected to his boss's campaign to reform the country's strict blasphemy law. Some suggest that the demonstrations were whipped up by the opposition to frighten the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government, since Mr Taseer was a member of the party. Others say the army encouraged them, because it likes to remind the Americans of the seriousness of the fundamentalist threat. But conversations with Lahoris playing Sunday cricket in the park beside the Badshahi mosque suggest that the demonstrations expressed the feelings of many. “We are all angry about these things,” says Gul Sher, a goldsmith, of Mr Taseer's campaign to reform the law on blasphemy. “God gave Qadri the courage to do something about it.”

Pakistani liberals have always taken comfort from the fundamentalists' poor showing in elections and the tolerant, Sufi version of Islam traditionally prevalent in rural Pakistan. But polling by the Pew Research Centre suggests that Pakistanis take a hard line on religious matters these days (see chart 1). It may be that they always did, and that the elite failed to notice. It may be that urbanisation and the growing influence of hard-line Wahhabi-style Islam have widened the gap between the liberal elite and the rest. “The Pakistani elites have lived in a kind of cocoon,” says Salman Raja, a Lahore lawyer. “They go to Aitchison College [in Lahore]. They go abroad to university…A lot of us are asking ourselves whether this country has changed while our backs were turned.”
The response to another death suggests that the hostility towards Mr Taseer may not have been only about religion. Two months later Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minorities, was murdered for the same reason. Yet his killing did not trigger jubilation. Mr Taseer's offence may have been compounded by the widespread perception that he, like most of the elite, was Westernised. His mother was British, he held parties at his house, and he posted photos on the internet of his children doing normal Western teenage things—swimming and laughing with the opposite sex—that caused a scandal in Pakistan.
The West in general, and America in particular, are unpopular. It was not always thus. Before the Soviet Union left Afghanistan, around a third of Pakistanis regarded Americans as untrustworthy. Since then, a fairly stable two-thirds have done so. The latest poll on the matter (see chart 1) suggests that Pakistanis see America as more of a threat to their country than India or the Pakistani Taliban. It was carried out in 2009, but anecdotal evidence confirms that the views have not changed. “America is behind all of our troubles,” says Mohammed Shafiq, a street-hawker. That may be because America is thought to have embroiled Pakistan in a war which has caused the surge in terrorism; or because many Pakistanis, including senior army officers, genuinely believe that the bombings are being carried out by America in order to destabilise Pakistan, after which it will grab its nuclear weapons.
Four horsemen
From the complex web of factors that have fostered intolerance and violence in Pakistan, it is possible to disentangle four main strands. The first is Pakistan's strategic position. Big powers have long competed for control of the area between Russia and the Arabian Gulf, and the unresolved tensions with India have dogged the country since its birth in 1947. Nor has Pakistan tried to keep out of its neighbours' affairs. It was America's enthusiastic ally in the war to eject the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in the 1980s, which it sold to its people as a jihad. “We used religion as an instrument of change and we are still paying the price,” says General Mahmud Ali Durrani, former national security adviser and ambassador to Washington. Pakistan helped create the Taliban in the 1990s to try to exert some control over Afghanistan. And with much trepidation on the part of its leaders, and reluctance on the part of its people, it has supported America in its war against the Taliban over the past decade.
By trying to destabilise India, Pakistan has undermined its own stability. “When the Soviets went away,” says a senior military officer, “we had a very large number of battle-hardened people with nothing to do. They were redirected towards India. The ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence, the main military-intelligence agency] was controlling them…20:20 hindsight is very good, but this decision was perhaps wrong.” According to the officer, after al-Qaeda's attacks against America on September 11th 2001 the army decided to wind down the policy. “We started taking them out. But many of them said, ‘Nothing doing.' They had contact with people in the Afghan jihad, and they joined those people again.” Because the Pakistanis were helping the Americans in their fight against the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani jihadisturned their fury on the government.
The second strand is the unresolved question of Islam's role in the nation. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder, made it clear that he thought Pakistan should be a country for Muslims, not an Islamic country. But since then, according to General Durrani, “Every government that has failed to deliver has used Islam as a crutch.” Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, for example, though fond of a drink himself, banned alcohol. Zia ul Haq, his successor, tried to legitimise his military coup by pledging to Islamise the country.
The relationship between religion and the state is not an abstruse question of political philosophy. A treatise on the Pakistani constitution published in 2009 by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two (who is believed to be in North Waziristan), argues that the Pakistani state is illegitimate and must be destroyed. This tract is widely read in themadrassas from which the terrorist groups draw their recruits. Its popularity exercises Qazi Hussein Ahmed, the grand old man of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the most fundamentalist of the political parties, for the Jamaat works within the state, not against it. He argues that Pakistan's failure to adopt an Islamist constitution “has given the Taliban and such extremist elements a pretext: they say the government will not bow to demands made by democratic means, so they are resorting to violent means.”
The third strand is the uselessness of the government. Democracy in Pakistan has been subverted by patronage. Parliament is dominated by the big landowning families, who think their job is to provide for the tribes and clans who vote for them. Except for the Jamaat-e-Islami, parties have nothing to do with ideology. The two main ones are family assets—the Bhuttos own the PPP, and the Sharifs (Nawaz Sharif, the former and probably future prime minister, and his brother Shahbaz, chief minister of Punjab) own the Pakistan Muslim League (N). The consequence is dire political leadership of the sort shown by Asif Ali Zardari, who is president only because he married into the Bhutto dynasty. When Pakistan desperately needed a courageous political gesture in response to the murders of the governor and minister, the president failed even to attend their funerals.

Pakistan's rotten governance shows up in its growth rates (see chart 2). In a decade during which most of Asia has leapt ahead, Pakistan has lagged behind. Female literacy, crucial as both an indicator of development and a determinant of future prosperity, is stuck at 40%. In India, which was at a similar level 20 years ago, the figure is now over half. In East Asia it is more like nine out of ten.
Given the government's failings, it is hardly surprising if Pakistanis take a dim view of democracy. In a recent Pew poll of seven Muslim countries they were the least enthusiastic, with 42% regarding it as the best form of government—though, since the country has spent longer under military than under democratic rule, the army is at least as culpable.
The armed forces' dominance is the fourth strand. Tensions with India mean that the army has always absorbed a disproportionate share of the government's budget. Being so well-resourced, the army is one of the few institutions in the country that works well. So when civilian politicians get them into a hole, Pakistanis look to the military men to dig them out again. They usually oblige.
Terrorism is strengthening the army further. In 2009 it drove terrorists out of Swat and South Waziristan, and it is now running those areas. Last year its budget allocation leapt by 17%. Nor are the demands on the armed forces likely to shrink. Although overall numbers of attacks are down from a peak in 2009, they have spread from the tribal areas and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), along the border with Afghanistan, to the heartland. Last year saw an uptick in attacks on government, military and economic targets in Punjab and Karachi, the capital of Sindh province. Since then, security has been stepped up; and with the usual targets—international hotels, government buildings and military installations—surrounded by armed men and concrete barriers, terrorists are increasingly attacking soft targets where civilians congregate, such as mosques and markets.
Exporting terror
Pakistani terrorism has also gone global. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistani Taliban), announced when it was formed in 2007 that it aimed to attack the Pakistani state, impose sharia law on the country and resist NATO forces in Afghanistan. But last year Qari Mehsud, now dead but thought to be a cousin of the leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, who was in charge of the group's suicide squad, announced that American cities would be targeted in revenge for drone attacks in tribal areas. That policy was apparently taken up by Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-born naturalised American who tried to blow up New York's Times Square last year.
Pakistan's new face?
That prompted an increase in American pressure on the army to attack terrorists in North Waziristan. The army is resisting. The Americans suspect that it wants to protect Afghan Taliban there. The Pakistani army says it is just overstretched.
“We are still in South Waziristan,” insists a senior security officer. “We are holding the area. We are starting a resettlement process, building roads and dams. We need to keep the settled areas free of terrorists. It is not a matter of intent that we are not going into North Waziristan. It is a matter of capacity.”
The growth in terrorism in Punjab poses another problem for the army. “What we see in the border areas is an insurgency,” says the officer. “The military is there to do counter-insurgency. What you see in the cities is terrorism. This is the job of the law-enforcement agencies.” But the police and the courts are not doing their job. One suspected terrorist, for instance, a founder member of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was charged with 70 murders, almost all of them Shias. He was found not guilty of any of them for lack of evidence. In 2009 the ISI kidnapped 11 suspected terrorists from a jail in Punjab, because it feared that the courts were about to set them free.
So where does this lead? Not to a terrorist march on the capital. Excitable Western headlines a couple of years ago saying that the Taliban were “60 miles from Islamabad” were misleading: first because the terrorists are not an army on the march, and second because they are not going to take control of densely populated, industrialised, urban Punjab the way they took control of parts of the wild, mountainous frontier areas and KPK.
Yet even though they will not overthrow the Pakistani state, the combination of a small number of terrorists and a great deal of intolerance is changing it. Liberals, Christians, Ahmadis and Shias are nervous. People are beginning to watch their words in public. The rich among those target groups are talking about going abroad. The country is already very different from the one Jinnah aspired to build.

The future would look brighter if there were much resistance to the extremists from political leaders. But, because of either fear or opportunism, there isn't. The failure of virtually the entire political establishment to stand up for Mr Taseer suggests fear; the electioneering tour that the law minister of Punjab took with a leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba last year suggests opportunism. “The Punjab government is hobnobbing with the terrorists,” says the security officer. “This is part of the problem.” A state increasingly under the influence of extremists is not a pleasant idea.
It may come out all right. After all, Pakistan has been in decline for many years, and has not tumbled into the abyss. But countries tend to crumble slowly. As Adam Smith said, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” The process could be reversed; but for that to happen, somebody in power would have to try.
Curtsey:www.Economist.com  From the print edition: Asia
Mar 31st 2011 | ISLAMABAD AND LAHORE 

Read the original article at source link: http://www.economist.com/node/18488344

Capturing the Punjabi imagination: drones and “the noble savage”
By Myra MacDonald

 Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid may have captured something rather interesting in his short story published this month by  The Guardian.   And it is not as obvious as it looks.
In “Terminator: Attack of the Drone”, Hamid imagines life in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan under constant attack from U.S. drone bombings.  His narrator is one of two boys who go out one night to try to attack a drone.
 ”The machines are huntin’ tonight,” the narrator says.  “There ain’t many of us left. Humans I mean. Most people who could do already escaped. Or tried to escape anyways. I don’t know what happened to ‘em. But we couldn’t. Ma lost her leg to a landmine and can’t walk. Sometimes she gets outside the cabin with a stick. Mostly she stays in and crawls. The girls do the work. I’m the man now.
“Pa’s gone. The machines got him. I didn’t see it happen but my uncle came back for me. Took me to see Pa gettin’ buried in the ground. There wasn’t anythin’ of Pa I could see that let me know it was Pa. When the machines get you there ain’t much left. Just gristle mixed with rocks, covered in dust.”
It is powerful stuff, told in the language of a black American slave in the style of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”.  It vividly captures the terror inspired by drones, and the helplessness of the people who live in the tribal areas. But is it true? And does it matter?
In a discussion on Twitter, literary critic Faiza S. Khan, who tweets @BhopalHouse, argued that the story should be judged as a work of fiction rather than taken as reportage. A fair point. But what if we turn this around and consider the story as reportage, not of the tribal areas and the drones, but of the way these are imagined in Pakistan’s Punjabi heartland? As a writer who spends part of his time in Lahore, capital of Punjab, Hamid can be considered representative of at least part of that Punjabi imagination.
We will return to the short story later, but first step back a bit and consider that the narrative gaining traction, at least in urban Punjab, is that the people of the tribal areas have been radicalised by American drone attacks.  Pakistan’s rising political star, Imran Khan,  attracted tens of thousands to a rally in Lahore last month with a version of this narrative. Stop the drones, and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, can be engaged in peace talks to end a wave of bombings across Pakistan. 
The simplicity of this narrative is beguiling. At a stroke it taps into the anti-Americanism prevalent in Pakistan and also promises peace. Yet it is incredibly problematic. Bear with me – this is not a defence of drones per se.  The use of “machines” to fight a war is disturbing, as indeed is the use of snipers in their capacity for personalised targetting by an unseen hand.  Emotionally, I would be far more scared of drones and snipers than I would be of artillery and airstrikes,  even if I knew the latter two were more likely to kill me. And nor is it a defence of the way the United States has fought its war in Afghanistan - the risks of the Afghan war going wrong have been obvious from the start to anyone with a knowledge of history.  But those are different subjects. This is about how the drone campaign is perceived in mainland Pakistan, and perhaps particularly in Punjab.
The first problem with the narrative is that it slides over the fact that radicalisation in the tribal areas (and Pakistan as a whole) began long before the U.S. drone campaign.  Many ascribe it to Pakistani support for the United States in backing the jihad against the Soviet Union after the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979.  I might go further back, perhaps to the 1973 oil boom when a disproportionate number of Pashtun from the tribal areas went to seek work in the Gulf . The results were twofold – the migrant workers were exposed to the Wahhabi puritanical Saudi Arabian tradition of Islam, and the remittances they sent home upset the traditional balance of power in the local economy.  I could go back even further, to the origins of the Pakistani state in 1947 and its use of Islam as a unifying force to counter ethnic nationalism, including Pashtun nationalism.  In short – it is complicated. Stopping drones may or may not be a moral imperative, depending on your perspective. But let’s not be fooled into thinking that in itself, it will bring peace.
Secondly, the narrative on drone attacks takes at face value assertions that they cause high numbers of civilian casualties.  The Americans say they are precise; their critics say they are lying; the rest of us simply don’t, and can’t, know the truth.  With little independent reporting on the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), we can’t possibly verify whether the claims of civilian casualties are accurate. We don’t know for sure the numbers of the dead, let alone whether among those dead were Taliban foot soldiers who are also civilians.
What I have noticed however, is that at least some among the Pashtun intelligentsia say the drone strikes are precise, and that opposition to them increases the further away you get from the tribal areas.  Earlier this year, a senior Pakistani military officer was quoted as saying that ”a majority of those eliminated are terrorists, including foreign terrorist elements”. Writer and academic Farhat Taj has taken this argument further by saying that people actually prefer drone strikes to living in fear of the Taliban and their foreign allies.
Now I don’t know the truth. I have been to the tribal areas only once, on a one-day army-supervised trip to Bajaur.  Incidentally, I was struck by how far the landscape differed from my own Kiplingesque imaginings of “the Frontier”. In Bajaur, I saw agricultural prosperity, neatly laid out fields,  and mountains which  in relative terms (ie compared to Siachen, the Karakoram and even the barren mountains of Scotland) seemed unexpectedly tame. I gather other parts of FATA are wilder, but that Bajaur trip was a lesson for me in how far my imagination (no doubt heavily influenced by colonial literature) was very different from reality. Many Pakistanis never get a chance to visit FATA at all – and so it remains in the Pakistani heartland as much of an imagined frontier as it was under the Raj.
So to get back to the drones, let’s for a moment take the prevalent view that Pakistan is fighting “America’s war” out of the discussion and consider what the people of FATA themselves think about drone attacks and peace talks with the Taliban.  As the people who suffer most at the hands of the Pakistani Taliban, their views - at least from a moral point of view – should predominate in any Pakistani discourse which set itself up as idealistic. What do they say?
This brings me to the most problematic part of the narrative, and loops back into Hamid’s short story. In the “stop the drones, win the peace argument”, the people of FATA are crucially assumed not to be able to speak for themselves. They are frozen in time in an  idealised village life, people who will revert to their ancient traditions as soon as the drones and the Afghan war ends, as though the last 60 years of history never happened. As though not not one of them had ever got on a plane, worked in the Gulf, or migrated to Karachi.
Look at how they are portrayed in Hamid’s story (though since I have not asked him, I will concede this may have been an intentional parody of the way the people of FATA are often viewed).
In his story, our characters have no ability to grasp the big world events that have brought the machines to their land.  They speak in the language of black American slaves. The narrator’s mother is compared to an animal, “snorin’ like an old brown bear after a dogfight”. Their primitiveness is underlined by the sexualisation of the weapon assembled by the two boys to attack the drone:  ”We put the he-piece in the she-piece”.
They are reduced to the cipher of  “the noble savage“.
It is true that the people of FATA do not tend to speak for themselves. But given the scale of bombings and assassinations, fear seems to be a more likely explanation than an inability to articulate their thoughts.
And it is also true that they are not even proper citizens. Rather they are subject to the Frontier Crimes Regulation – a draconian colonial-era law which makes them liable to collective punishment, and which is only slowly being reformed by the Pakistani government.  The eventual abolition of the FCR, the incorporation of FATA into Pakistan, and other reforms meantto decentralise and accommodate Pakistan’s different ethnic groups, would arguably be far more effective in the long run in allowing the country’s Punjabi heartland to make peace with the Pashtun in the tribal areas, more even than ending drone strikes.
You will find people who argue you can do both – abolish the FCR and end drone strikes. But how can you tell? How do you make peace with a particular group and work out what suits them best, unless they are represented politically?  (Holding peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban is not the same.)
Now reread Hamid’s piece and consider the gap between the characters imagined in his short story, and a people with full citizenship rights and political representation.  As Fazia S. Khan said, judge it as a work of fiction.  But as a window into the Punjabi imagination, it may also have  its uses as a political document.
 
Reported for Reuters on France, Egypt, the European Union and South Asia, and author of "Heights of Madness", a book about the Siachen war between India and Pakistan. Now based in London.
Any opinions expressed here are the author's own.
Curtsey:blogs.reuters.com: November 13, 2011
Source Link: http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2011/11/13/capturing-the-punjabi-imagination-drones-and-the-noble-savage/

Demand for South Punjab
By Abdul Manan

PML-N does not disagree on the creation of new provinces, but demands it be created on an “administrative basis” only.
LAHORE: While the demand for a separate South Punjab province has been making the rounds at discussions, editorials, and other forums for decades, it gained political traction in February 2011 after the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) parted ways with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) provincial government in the Punjab.
Between 2008 and 2011, when the PPP sat on treasury benches in the Punjab Assembly, it sided with the PML-N on knocking out resolutions pertaining to South Punjab province. PML-Q’s MPA Mohsin Leghari submitted tens of resolutions, in almost every session, but none were supported by the PPP.
After the fallout, PPP’s Co-Chairman, President Asif Ali Zardari, asked the party’s manifesto committee to prepare recommendations for a new province. The committee has held only one meeting since 2011, but never discussed the issue of South Punjab.

Gaining traction

Before being taken up by the leading parties, the PPP and the PML-N, the issue also lacked electoral support.
Leaders, like the Pakistan Seraiki Party’s President Barrister Taj Muhammad Langah, who have been most vocal about a Seraiki or South Punjab province, have never been elected to parliament or provincial assemblies.
The tide, however, turned around after the PML-N wrapped up the local government system in 2008, introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf under his regime.
As authority centered back in Lahore, the demand for South Punjab went from drawing rooms to the street.

Budget figures

At the 2010 budget speech in the Punjab Assembly, lawmakers from South Punjab protested on the floor of the house over the allocation of “Rs5 billion” for South Punjab.
Terming the amount “equivalent to Zakat,” the lawmakers lashed out at Rs21 billion spent on Raiwind road that leads to the Sharifs’ residence outside Lahore.
Chairman Planning Department of Punjab, however, refuted the claim.
Giving official figures to The Express Tribune, the chairman said the PML-N government increased the allocation of development budget to South Punjab from Rs22 billion in 2007-08, or 15% of total development allocation in the Punjab, to Rs70 billion in 2011-12, or 32% of total allocation.
The allocation, however, does not necessarily translate into disbursements which may be far lower.

Rhetoric versus action

The PML-N says the resolution in National Assembly is an attempt to deflect pressure on the government following conviction of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in a contempt case.
Analysts second that, saying the resolution is merely a political gimmick that attempts to cash in on public support on the issue in , what is widely perceived to be, an election year.
Caving out a new province will require a bill, not a resolution, they say, adding that a resolution has no legal weight and does not make South Punjab imperative. Since a new province would require amending the Constitution, the PPP, if it is serious about South Punjab, should have moved a bill.

What is the process? 

The process for amendment to the Constitution, which is essentially what a new province would entail, is laid out in Article 239 of the Constitution.
A bill has to be moved in either houses of parliament, National Assembly or Senate, and has to pass with a two-thirds majority in both. Any regular bill would then be sent to the president for endorsement but sub article 4 adds an extra provision for this case, which states: A bill to amend the Constitution which would have the effect of altering the limits of a province shall not be presented to the president for assent unless it has been passed by the provincial assembly of that province by the votes of not less than two-thirds of its total membership.
Few months ago, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement submitted a bill to remove the aforementioned clause. The bill, however, is pending in National Assembly secretariat and has not been entertained.
South Punjab, therefore, needs the assent of both – the PPP and the PML-N – if it has to become a reality under the current Constitution, and before the next election.

PML-N’s counter-proposals

The PML-N does not disagree on the creation of new provinces, but demands that they should be created on an “administrative basis” only.
The party, in its policy presented last year, has called for a commission, like the States Reorganisation Commission constituted in India in 1953, which should form new provinces after detailed study.
According to the PML-N’s manifesto committee, the party has plans for 13 new provinces in Pakistan; and while not much progress was seen on that front, the party was jolted into action on Friday.
Hours after PPP’s resolution was passed by the National Assembly, the PML-N submitted a counter resolution to the NA secretariat, calling for the creation of not one but four provinces – South Punjab, Bahawalpur, Fata and Hazara.
Sources in the party, however, say the PML-N’s stance on a prospective ‘Bahawalpur’ province is a political attempt to counter PPP’s demand of a ‘South Punjab’ province.

Bahawalpur versus South Punjab

While the debate on southern Punjab, until recently, focused on South Punjab versus Bahawalpur, PML-N’s resolution submitted on Friday now calls for creation of both.
The party is not the only one calling for a Bahawalpur province though.
Former information minister Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani, a leading figure in the movement for a separate Bahawalpur province, has demanded that the former princely state be given a provincial status.
It is the constitutional right of the people of Bahawalpur to have their own province, just like it is the right of the people of DI Khan and Multan to have their own province, Durrani said in a statement on Thursday.
Any effort to pitch the people of Bahawalpur against the people of DI Khan and Multan will fail, he added.
PML-Functional Punjab President Makhdoom Ahmad Mehmood has also demanded that Bahawalpur should be restored as a separate province, instead of inducting it into a Seraiki or South Punjab province.

Hazara province

Following through on its counter-proposal submitted to the NA secretariat on Friday, the PML-N submitted a resolution in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Secretariat, calling for forming the Hazara division a separate province. The resolution, filed on Friday, is signed by six lawmakers .
“Once it is carved into a new province, the revenue generated [through its resources] will be used on this region,” Muhammad Javed Abbasi told reporters. “It is very difficult to administer this division from Peshawar.”
The resolution states that the Hazara division is gifted with natural resources but unjust treatment by successive governments have led to feelings of depravation amongst the people.
“This provincial assembly asks the provincial government to recommend to the federal government to amend the Constitution of Pakistan to make Hazara a separate province,” the resolution reads.
Meanwhile, pro-Hazara province activists have called for a protest and sit-in in Islamabad on May 14, against the ignoring of their demands. Members of the Suba Hazara Tehrik criticised the PPP for ignoring the demand of Hazarawals at a meeting in Abbottabad on Friday, saying their demand is an administrative one in nature.

The road to Seraiki province

Pakistan Seraiki Party’s President Barrister Taj Muhammad Langah believes that creation of a Seraiki province is imperative, and a boundary commission should therefore be established immediately.
If the process is delayed, however, he has several short-term proposals to offer.
The Punjab Assembly could be divided informally into Punjab and Seraiki region, he said, while talking to The Express Tribune.
Members from the Seraiki regions in the Punjab Assembly should prepare budget proposals for their areas separately and allocation of funds to the Siraiki area should be based on population and the area’s contribution to the national economy, he said.
Similarly, the federation should have separate financial allocation in the budget, as well as in the NFC award, for a future Seraiki province, he added.
He proposed that until a separate province is created, the Punjab Assembly should, on temporary basis, be divided into two houses for legislation and development allocation purposes.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 5th, 2012.

Ethnicity and provincialism in Pakistan: What we don't normally hear or read

Author's note: I am of Baloch, Sindhi, Muhajir and Punjabi descent. Critics of my post are free to have their opinions, but the idea of Punjabi hegemony on my part can be ruled out due to my multiple ethnicities. 

Over recent years, the cases of ethnic, tribal and provincial nationalism in Pakistan seemed to have reached a high peak. 
Members within my own family are leaders of major provincial-nationalist organizations that seek greater rights for their province Sindh inside the state of Pakistan.

I myself was and still am a strong supporter of provincial equality within Pakistan. But that support has changed and my trust in many provincialist rights organizations has severely declined. 

Over many years, provincial rights organizations have complained about being labeled "Indian agents." Much of their political messages and websites in Pakistan have been blocked/censored by the government and they have protested this as a violation of their freedom of expression. 

But while complaining about such an accusation being given to them, I feel these provincial nationalists have done everything to earn this label, instead of fighting for a true and just cause. Let's first cover some examples of this.

During my summer holidays in Karachi back in 2005, I was sent an email by one of my parents who is a member of a Sindhi human rights organization. The email contained a speech by an Indian who attended this organization's seminar in Washington DC. 
It started out with "as we all know, the state of Pakistan was carved out of Indian territory."

I didn't bother reading the rest of the email, knowing the bias it contained. It got me wondering, if this is a Sindhi cause, why does it have to involve the Indians? A few days later I another email containing an article about why Pakistan was "created."

Apparently according to this article, a group of Muslims in the British Raj could not stand the power of "Indian democracy" and so these corrupt Muslims elites opted for a separate state where they could rule over the masses like Kings and Queens.

As already explained in this article, the region of Pakistan was never a part of India, except under the Mauryan Empire which lasted about a century. Secondly, where was this so-called "Indian democracy" during the British Raj? At that time the subcontinent was under British imperial rule, so how can these supposed Muslims elites evade or fear a democracy that does not even exist?

Such claims are not just opposing points of view against the state of Pakistan, but outright lies. The worst part is that this is all being promoted by an organization which claims itself to be a defender of Sindhi rights, yet welcomes Indian propaganda itself.

It is now up to readers to decide weather the government and people of Pakistan have the right to be suspicious of such organizations or to accuse them of being "Indian agents."

It does not end with Indian support. This Sindhi organization that one of my parents helps runs claims to seek a greater audience amongst the people of Pakistan. Yet of all the interns that they recruit, I have not heard even of one hailing from any part of Pakistan.
In fact, these interns are from completely far ends of the world such as Sweden, America etc.

Then comes their alliance with Baloch organizations which seem to be so strongly pro-Afghan and pro-Indian. They also have interesting tactics of labeling any pro-Pakistani Balochis and Sindhis as "puppets of the Pakistani government" or pretending the so-called province of "Balochistan" is all Baloch ethnically speaking.

With these Baloch and Sindhi organizations working together, there is a pattern of sponsoring Indian & Afghan propaganda, blaming the ISI for everything that goes wrong in India and Afghanistan, labeling any pro-Pakistani Sindhi or Baloch a "government agent."

Interestingly they have a Kashmiri who is strangely pro-Indian and claims his people to be of Jewish origins (I do plan on discussing falsified Semitic ancestries in Pakistani populations in my other blog called History of Pakistan).

The establishment of the Durand line has also been condemned by these pro-Indian/Afghan separatists, which has been refuted in this article. 

With all these things mentioned, there was even another Sindhi organization which decided not to partner with my parent and friends out of resentment for promoting Indian hegemonic agendas. This Sindhi organization supposedly departed to Pakistan in hopes of promoting provincial rights without involving pro-Indian/Afghan elements.(These people were in North America).

The organization(s) one of my parents works for even has close ties to Uighur separatists from China.
Interestingly enough, all these campaigners for provincial equality in Pakistan never work with separatists from India or Afghanistan. How far can they go convincing Pakistan and the world that they are not working on behalf of Indians and Afghans?

I'm not trying to imply that these people are indeed Indian RAW agents, though the RAW may have an indirect hand in funding and other means, but the nature of their activities is enough for them to decide how they'll be judged.
Besides that, their pro-Indian/Afghan policies are outright hypocrisy and immoral.

India and Afghanistan have treated their minorities even worse than Pakistan, so for these provincial nationalists to speak so highly of either countries indirectly advocates and tries to justify the inhumane treatment of Indian & Afghan minorities.

Of the organizations my parent (I won't mention which as I keep personal information private on the Internet) has worked for and the people they consist of, I have made two observations in provincial nationalists. This mainly applies to those from Sindh and Balochistan.
I cannot comment on other provinces as I have little knowledge of their provincial nationalists. The pro-Indian Kashmiri guy is an extremely rare case amongst his people. 

Some negative things I've observed in Pakistani provincial nationalism:
Though I do not doubt that there are plenty of provincialists in Pakistan who are actually in search of human rights and greater autonomy and not acting as Indian/Afghan puppets (ie. the Sindhi group that I mentioned above which left for Pakistan), I've uncovered many things about the darker and more sinister side of Baloch and Sindhi nationalism.

Many Balochis and their political groups I've come across practice what I call Baloch fascism.
This practice is based on jingoistic, bigotry ideas and falsified beliefs that I have found through simple observance.

As examples, I've conversed with a Baloch separatist closely associated with my parent. He along with this mysterious Kashmiri play the game of blaming the ISI for everything that goes wrong in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India without any proof or evidence.

As I wrote before, it is hypocrisy for Pakistani provincialists to be defending India and Afghanistan since both countries have a worse history of treating their ethnic and religious minorities. 
Some Sindhi and Baloch nationalists have defended this idea claiming they need this support.

But then this generates more hypocrisy on their part. When the Pakistani government aided religious and ethnic minorities in India and Afghanistan, these same Sindhi and Baloch nationalists have accused the Pakistani government of "meddling" in the affairs of the two countries.

Seminars and cultural events that have taken place hoist the Baloch Liberation Army flag; a flag which represents a single Baloch organization and not the people of Balochistan who have not even given their consent for this flag to represent them. 

This Baloch separatist also seemed to be very enthusiastic on telling me he and his wife don't teach their children Urdu, the national language of Pakistan (which is fine by me).
But then the hypocrisy in all this is that the Baloch themselves have been imposing their language onto other ethnic groups of the province called "Balochistan" such as the Brahuis. 

I have also been asked by this separatist on the legitimacy of the state of Pakistan. I was questioned weather Pakistan is a nation state to justify it's existence.

The definition of a nation state in the past might have meant one race, one culture one language. 
However, today it mostly refers to a state binded by a people speaking a single language. Pakistan of course, does not fit this definition. But then the question is does the province of Balochistan? 

Baloch fascism covers up many facts that I will discuss below, while highlighting only facts that suits it's cause. Baloch fascism is also mirrored by what I refer to as Sindhi Chauvinism. 

Sindhi Chauvinism circles around the ideas of Sindh being the center of human civilization, Sindhi language and culture being older than all the other cultures in the region or that Punjabis and "Muhajirs" are the cause of Sindh's problems and that Sindhis have absolutely no part in it. 
Again, most of Sindhi chauvinism can easily be disproved through historical and scientific facts.

Facts that Baloch fascists and Sindhi chauvinists never discuss:
The so-called land of "Balochistan" has never been home only to the Baloch people. On the subject of naming the land after an ethnic group, a fact to note is that the Iranian government refers to their Baloch province as "Sistan." 

The Baloch seemed to have arrived much after other ethnic groups in "Balochistan" according tothis article. Also according to the article, the Baloch displaced other ethnic groups in the land that they arrived in. 
I've also personally heard of claims that Balochi extremists have been oppressing Brahuis and pressuring them into assimilation.

The linked article and claims seem to be supported with two points:
1) A Brahui once told me that many Baloch tribal leaders have been pressuring his people to declare themselves as Baloch; in other words asking them to surrender and trade their Brahui identity for Baloch identity.

2) The theories of Baloch people arriving in the region from a more western direction coincides with the fact that Balochi is a Northwestern Iranic language, placing it closer to Kurdish, a language spoken in the northwestern areas of the Middle East. 

Like all other language families and their subfamilies, the Iranic languages and dialects are broken into various categories based on geography. Languages having closer spoken proximity to other languages in other geographic locations and it's origin points are termed as such.
In this case, the modern Baloch language is closer to the Iranic languages spoken in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran than it is to eastern Iranic languages such as Pashto. 

With all that being mentioned, "Balochistan" is not and was not a land consisting simply of Balochis. These are key points that Baloch fascists will not discuss. 
What Baloch fascists will also not discuss is that it is not Urdu that threatens the various languages of "Balochistan" but the Baloch language itself.

Urdu is still mostly spoken mostly in urbanized areas of Pakistan such as the main cities of the country and main towns of the provinces. In rural parts of Sindh, Balochistan, Kashmir, Pakhtunkhwa and perhaps even Punjab, Urdu is not used in daily life. 
Even my own visits to Hyderabad showed me my relatives speaking to one another in Sindhi and hardly using any Urdu let alone English.

It is not the Punjabis nor the "Muhajirs" who have told Brahuis and other minorities in Southwestern Pakistan to trade their language and culture for Punjabi or Urdu, but rather certain Baloch supremacists who have fought vicious battles against them in the past.

Knowing the tense history between the Baloch and non-Baloch populations of the region; especially Brahuis, it is unlikely the Brahuis will submit to a separate state under Baloch domination. 

The right to the territory of so-called Balochistan lies with various ethnic groups who have traditionally inhabited it, not simply just the Baloch. The Gwader port was acquired by Pakistan from Oman around 1958, which puts Baloch-centric claims on a significant portion of the coast of that province into question. 

Another fact that Baloch fascists and their masters in Afghanistan and India will not mention is that Balochis constitute only around two to three percent of Pakistan's population at the most. Within that two percent, only a small handful consist of separatists. 
This means there are plenty of Balochis (including close friends of mine) loyal to their country Pakistan. In fact even a friend of mine of Iranian-Baloch origin works for the ISI.

With a small handful of Baloch fascists using backing from Afghanistan and India, there is little chance of Balochistan separating from Pakistan; knowing the enormous size of the Pakistani armed forces added with their superior weapons technology to the separatist militants.

Below are thought provoking videos to those who have been sympathetic to Baloch separatism. The first reaction by many Baloch and Sindhi separatists might be that these Balochis are government puppets. But then again, these pro-Pakistan Balochis can easily point back the finger at the separatists and accuse them of being Indian/Afghan pawns: 



As mentioned before, Sindhi chauvinism revolves around crazy ideas of Sindh being the cradle of civilization and Sindhi predating other languages of Pakistan. It also speaks of the victimization of Sindhi people at the hands of the evil Punjabis and their "Muhajir" puppets. 
I even got an email by a Sindhi chauvinist who discussed Sindh's history periodically.

The end of his email concluded that the Sindhi language has evolved over a period of five thousand years. 
Let's discuss Sindhi chauvinism starting with this rather far-fetched claim. As most educated people know, Sindhi is an Indo-Aryan language, part of the Indo-European family of languages. 

According to most historians and linguists, there is no evidence of Indo-European (IE) languages having a presence in the Indus Valley region as far back as five thousand years. 
In fact, five thousand years ago, linguists estimate that most of the IE languages were still mostly intact meaning they were the same language before breaking off into various languages due to geographic separation between their speakers. 

Also according to linguistic, historic and archeological evidence, the IE languages arrived in the Indus Valley/Pakistan around two thousand to three thousand BC, ruling out the belief that Sindhi was spoken in Sindh as far back as five thousand years. 
Sindhi, like all the Indo-Iranic languages of Pakistan were brought to the country through migration.



Opponents of these theories can easily research the facts for themselves. No symbol or artifact of the Indus Valley Civilization connects to the artifacts or symbols of ancient Indo-Europeans. To better understand this, please see my History of Pakistan blog and search books on this subject such as Indo-European culture or Proto-Indo-European Language and Culture by Benjamin Fortson. 

Even genetic evidence contradicts Sindhi chauvinistic beliefs of Sindhis being the exact same people of the Indus Civilization.

Sindhi chauvinists also like to spread the idea of Sindhi victimization of their people without taking the slightest bit of responsibility for it.
In 1947 Karachi and other parts of Sindh were flooded with Muslim immigrants from all over the subcontinent. The Sindhis welcomed and sheltered them. They hardly reacted nor showed concerns to the massive numbers of the immigrants.

When I was once at a Sindhi gathering at a restaurant in UAE with my parent, I heard the same cries of complaint from leaders that the Punjabis have taken over Sindh and given it to the Muhajirs.
I have heard these cries countless times before. But another Sindhi in the meeting pointed out that Sindhis did not raise any voice or opposition to Muhajir and Punjabi domination of their province; nor did they stand up to their oppressors. 

Instead they welcomed them during the over flood of the Muhajirs into Sindh. Even with the rise of the MQM in the 1980s till today, there was hardly any strong reaction or resistance from the Sindhi community.

I myself have thought this for so long. Not only that, but Sindhis I've spoken to insist that Muhajir aggression must be countered with peace and love.
Is it even a wonder why Muhajirs have managed to dominate Sindhis in their own province despite being outnumbered by them? 

Sindhi provincial chauvinists also don't mention the fact that Sindh also has smaller minorities such as Siriakis and Tharis.
Sure Sindhis can argue, they are not that different from themselves. But then neither are Punjabis that different. Linguistically speaking Sindhi and Punjabi are both Northwestern Indo-Aryan languages. The two peoples are almost like first cousins both having similar language, culture and traditions.

My own maternal grandmother's father was Northern Punjabi despite the fact that she was born, raised in Sindh and spoke Sindhi. Punjabi and Sindhi are both derived from the same Northwestern Sanskrit dialect.

My thoughts and opinions on provincial nationalism in Pakistan:
Firstly, if provincial rights are going to be made critical issues in Pakistani politics, the provincial nationalists themselves have to reform and be objective if they are ever to achieve their goals.

For this to happen they need a large audience amongst not just politicians but the people of Pakistan who are sympathetic to their cause. 
And to achieve that they must stop working with the Indian and Afghan governments to reduce suspicion upon themselves. 

Particularly Sindhis and Balochis need to also keep the fascists and chauvinists out of their organizations and also open doors to interns from all over Pakistan to work with them instead of bringing in people who have little knowledge on Pakistani history and politics.

Sindhis and Balochis also have to stop spreading biased ideas that their fascist and chauvinistic members mislead their communities into believing. Discrimination needs to come to an end- including Baloch discrimination towards Brahuis and other non-Balochis in so-called "Balochistan."

This doesn't mean I defend the armies brutal atrocities in Sindh and especially Balochistan.  Nor do I advocate taking energy from Balochistan to support Punjab's needs without any benefit.

Also with the coming of solar technology and temperatures soaring in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan the government and peoples should invest more in solar technology so more and more people have equal access to energy.

Provincial autonomy and equality is the solution to unity in Pakistan combined with Pan-Indo-Iranism. The education system must have the languages of the ethnic minorities available throughout Pakistan. Punjabi children should be allowed to study Punjabi at school as should every ethnic group in Pakistan alongside the federal language Urdu.
Brahui children should be allowed to study their own language and study Baloch and Urdu as additional options.

People who speak Urdu as a first language must then learn the main language of their province. 

Overall there is also thought about the people of Pakistan as a whole. Pakistani people have much of a shared identity based on linguistic, genetic and cultural lines. Most Pakistanis descend from ancient Indo-Iranic tribes that spanned across Eurasia before settling into the Indus Valley and merging with the native population(s).

This idea can be used to forge a national Indo-Iranic identity, for most multi-lingual and multi-ethnic countries do not have common language family, unlike Pakistan.
For all this to happen, unbiased knowledge of the history and politics of Pakistan must be spread and promoted.

Only then I feel, will the issue of ethnicity and provincialism in Pakistan will finally be resolved and satisfied.
Curtsey: http://pakindependent.blogspot.com/

Ethnicity and Regional Aspirations In Pakistan
31 December 2001
By Sudhir k. Singh

Ethnicity is not a new phenomenon in world politics. For a long time ethnicity was regarded as the sole domain of sociologists, where as on studies on International Relations and intra-regional developments it received little attention.
After the nation building efforts of Bismarck and Garibaldi succeeded in Europe during the 19th century, the European States were mainly considered mono-national states, where the influence of any sub-national ethnic groups was largely neglected. After the end of the Second World War, with numerous multinational multiethnic colonised nations becoming independent, the issue of ethnicity assumed enormous scholarly significance. Many of the post-colonial states have faced the problem of ethnicity in one form or the other ever since. In many cases, ethnic assertion has assumed violent forms. Since the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the reassertion of the ethnic movements, especially in violent forms, across the globe has forced many states to look at it more closely. As Horbwitz says, ethnicity has fought and fled and burned its way into public and scholarly consciousness.
Before coming to the ethnic problems in pakistan, it will be helpful to define ethnicity. Etymologically speaking the word 'ethnic' is derived from the Greek word 'ethnikos'; which referred to (a) non-Christian 'pagans' (b) major population groups sharing common cultural and racial traits; primitive cultures. Ethnicity denotes the group behaviour of members seeking a common ancestry with inherent individual variations. It is also a reflection of one's own perception of one self as the member of the particular group. According to the Prof. Dawa Norbu, "an ethnic group is discrete social organization within which mass mobilization and social communication may be affected. And ethnicity provided the potent raw material for nationalism that makes sense only to the members of that ethnic group. its primary function is to differentiate the group members from the generalised others".
Out of 132 countries in 1992, there were only a dozen which could be considered homogeneous; 25 had a single ethnic group accounting for 90% of the total population while another 25 countries had an ethnic majority of 75%. 31 countries had a single ethnic group accounting for 50 to 75 % of the total population whereas in 39 countries no single group exceeded half of the total population. In a few European and Latin American cases, one single cases, one single ethnic group would account for 75 % of the total population.
The Pakistan Case
The country under study here - Pakistan - comes under the third level, with one dominant ethnic group accounting for 50 to 75 % of the population, as the Punjabis are around 56 % of the total population. In the case of Pakistan, the regional assertion based on the ethnic identities came to the fore in more pronounced ways in the 1990s. Ethnic disaffection was simmering in Baluchistan and NWFP since the 1970s. Similarly, the Mohajirs of Pakistan were emerging as an important ethnic group with the growth of MQM since the 1980s as a major force in Urban centers in Sindh, especially in Karachi and the twin city of Hyderabad. the Sindhi assertion has along been there since 1950s. All this has to be studied against the background of the separatism within Pakistan that climaxed in the formation of Bangladesh in 1971.
Historical Background
To examine the ethnicity in pakistan, we will have to search for its root in the Pakistan movement. It was a movement of a special nature. Led by the Muslim League under leadership of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the muslims of British India were fed with the fond hope of an Islamic State as opposed to the secular, democratic ideals of State Advocated by the Indian National Congress, which sought to unify diversities. While the Congress Party organised constructive programmes like, women welfare, eradication of illiteracy, untouchability, decentralisation of power and so on, the leaders of the Pakistan movement clung to the anti-Congress agenda and their strategy of exploitation of the religious sentiments which culminated in Direct Action Day in August 1946. The idea of 'Islamic State' overstepped all other secular concerns and after the foundation of the State of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, there was no further impetus to build a nation out of several disparate ethnic groups. The demand for an Islamic Pakistan was essentially a demand for political empowerment, and was therefore not so religious in intent. As such, 'Islam' did not act any more as a binding force once Pakistan came into existence. It is of little surprise that the most prominent of India's Ulema and religious leaders, notably those in the Jamaat-i-Ulama-i-Hind (party of Indian Ulema) did not look favourably upon Muslim Communalism and instead supported the Congress Party's notion of United India. After independence, the positive programmatic policies of the Congress Party were incorporated into the Indian Constitution as the guidelines of a welfare state. In contrast, the ideological foundation of Pakistan as a unified Muslim nation has not yet taken roots in the minds of the people in Pakistan. The failure of the process of drafting of a constitution for the state of Pakistan revealed the irreconcilable differences among various groups seeking to impose their World-view on the people of Pakistan. this lack of consensus has marked the nature of the Pakistani polity ever since.
Pakistan movement was very strong in Muslim minority provinces; where Muslims feared Hindu domination most. Pakistan, however, was created in the Muslim majority Provinces of northwestern India and Bengal. Ethnic, linguistic and cultural distinctions set them apart. The socio-cultural outlook of the Muslim populations of the Muslim minority provinces (Bihar, U.P, M.P, Hyderabad) had very little similarity with the Muslims in Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP and even in Punjab. The Sindhis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Biharis, or Hyderabadis followed different customs. they were different people who had more in common with their Hindu neighbours than with muslims of other provinces. The founding fathers of Pakistan had hoped, however, that the cementing force of Islam would maintain the integrity and unity of the country despite the presence of various ethnic groups.
After the passing away both Jinnah and Liaquat, the League virtually became leaderless. The League leadership was heavily Mohajir dominated. Just after independence, out of 27 top posts of the country including P.M, C.M, Governor, Attorney General etc., Mohajirs numbered about 18. They were very well-educated in comparison to the other ethnic groups. However, the oligarchic League leadership delayed the formation of the constitution, and remained over-dependent upon the old colonial set-up, which again had its ethnic bias with Mohajirs and Punjabis having an upper hand.
Thus Punjabi - Mohajir combine further did not like the idea of Bengali dominated Pakistan, culturally a stronger community in Pakistan and numerically preponderant. the ruling elite, mostly Urdu speaking Mohajirs from north India, was completely against the Bengalis. there was a big gap between East the West Pakistanis society in terms of rituals and customs. Between 1963 and 1967 the percentage of poor - those whose income was below Rs. 300 per month - had declined in both rural and urban areas, from 60.5 % to 59.7 % and from 54.8 % to 25 % respectively. the actual number of the poor in both the areas had risen from 24.46 million to 24.8 million in rural areas, and from 6.78 million to 6.81 million in urban areas. economic growth favoured the industrial sector at the cost of the traditional economy, and it led to growth of the cities at the cost of the rural hinterland and small towns. punjab and west Pakistan grew at the cost of East Pakistan. Authoritarianism became associated with economic disparity. Ayub Khan's (1958-1967) rule especially harboured an ethnic bias. According to Mahbubul Haq, 1968, twenty two families controlled two thirds of Pakistan's industrial assets : 80 % of banking and 70 % of insurance. Majority of them were from West Pakistan. this hatred and the sense of discrimination against the Bengalis culminated in the bifurcation of pakistan in December 1971. It was the first direct manifestation of the anguish of major ethnic groups against the dominant ethnic groups, i.e., Punjabi, Sindhi, Pathan, Mohajir and Baluchi, apart from many small groups like Saraiki, Hindko, Zikri, Ahmadiya etc.
The rise of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the PPP to power in 1971 presented Pakistan with another opportunity to define national identity in secular socio-economic terms. But he miserably failed to embrace democratic norms, thus shaking the foundations of newly established paramilitary democracy and federalism in Pakistan. Bhutto could not tolerate his PPP's electoral debacle in 1970 elections in Baluchistan as well as NWFP and to meddled with the ethnic politics of these states.
The ruling political elites in Pakistan have always sought to use the ideology of Pakistani nation against the demands of different nationalities as well as ethnic groups for greater provincial autonomy. the elite's temptation to take any demand for autonomy as a mischievous conspiracy to divide and disintegrate Pakistan has had adverse effects and led to assertion of many regional identities.
The Case of Baluchi and Pathan Assertion
Baluchistan is the largest province of Pakistan constituting 43 % of the total population. Even if the name would suggest that the province is named after the principal ethnic community, the Baluchi, in Baluchistan, the Baluch make up less than half of the population of the province. In fact Baluchi population residing in Karachi outnumber the Baluchi population living in Baluchistan itself. Baluchis are divided into several tribes and clans and organized on the lines of traditional semi-feudal Sardari System. Firstly Z.A.Bhutto played the sardars against each other for their own interest and finally in 1976 he declared the system abolished. subsequently, Baluchi leader Ghaus Bakhsh Bijenjo gave the theory of four nationalities. Z.A.Bhutto motivated by desire to dominate Baluchistan and NWFP, dismissed the elected provincial governments and put the Baluch nationalist leaders on trial before the special Hyderabad tribunal. these measures were seen in Baluchistan and NWFP as an assault on the autonomy of the provinces. the resistance in Baluchistan soon developed into a civil war. Bhutto ordered the armed forces to suppressing the Baluchi dissidents. The war against Baluchis lasted almost three years and many Baluchis were forced to flee Afghanistan. The war resulted in the killing of 5300 Baluchis and death of 3300 soldiers. The Shah of Iran also came to the help of Bhutto in suppressing the Baluchi nationalities as he was afraid that the contagion might spread to Iranian Baluchis too.
Again in October 1992, ethnic tempers ran high and clashes took place between the Baluchis and second largest ethnic group, the Pathans in Baluchistan, when 12 new wards were included in the Quetta municipal corporation. pathans dubbed the decisions as faulty because according to them it was meant to outnumber Pathan councilors against Baluch to ensure the election of a Baluch mayor.
After the Chagai nuclear tests by pakistan in june 1998, some Baluchi students hijacked one PIA plane to register their disapproval and draw international attention to the prevailing sense of discrimination in pakistan against Baluch people and Baluchistan. The Afghan crisis in early 1980s also triggered ethnic tension between the Pathans and the Baluchis.
The idea of an independent Pakhtunistan is very old. the origins of this idea lie in the nostalgic association of the Pathans with the empire of Ahmed Shah Durrani, a Pathan, who gained control over the entire area from Persia to Delhi during the late 18th century. This empire did not last long. But the memory of this empire lingers in the popular memory and this has provided the legacy for those advocating Pakhtunistan. Apart from this the major ethnic group in Afghanistan, the Pathans are willing to support any movement for autonomy for Pathans in Pakistan. Continued negligence of NWFP by central leadership in Islamabad gives further legitimacy to the movement for ethnic assertion, which might assume disintegrative proportion. The gradual decline of Pathan representation in administration and especially security agencies, has created lot of resentment among the Pathans. In 1968 Pathans were almost 40 % of the top military elite, thus getting the bigger share than the Punjabis (35-4%). Ayub Khan was himself a Pathan. For sometime, the large presence of Pathans in the state apparatus made it difficult for the advocates of autonomous or independent Pakhtunistan to convince the younger educated middle classes to believe that they were being ruled by other ethnic group. But later on the steps taken by the central administration contributed to their fear of gradual marginalisation in the hands of the Punjabis. the massive influx of Afghan refuges into Baluchistan and NWFP in the wake of the Afghan war revived the Pakistani fears of on eventual revival of the Baluch and Pathan separatism in the 1980s. This in fact distributed the ethnic equation in Baluchistan leading to Baluch assertion for they were being 'minoritised' (outnumbered by Pathans). Similarly in NWFP, the huge Pathan-refugee population added to the confidence of the Pathans for renewed assertion. During this period, interestingly quite, regional parties were welcomed into allianced with mainstream national parties and such coalition succeeded in blunting the edge of ethnic assertion effectively for sometime till irreconcilable differences tore them apart leading to ethnic assertion by the regional parties again.
Thus, after the 1998 elections the Awami National Party (ANP) having considerable Pathan following, made an alliance with the PPP and in 1990 formed a coalition government with the Islamic Jumoori Ittehad (IJI), and again with PML-N in 1997. This alliance broke down when the government of Nawaz Sharif refused to rename the NWFP as Pakthunkhwa. this marked apparently the return of the strategy of ethnic mobilization by the ANP. Begum Nasim Wali (the wife of Wali Khan) declared in an interview: "I want an identity.. I want the name to change so that Pathans may be identified on the map of Pakistan". She emphasised that Pakthunkhwa was " the 3000 year old name of this area: the name used by Ahmed Shah Abdali who said he forgot everything including the throne of Delhi but not Pakthunkhwa". ANP is also against the Kalabagh Dam project whose royalties the Pathans say is bound to go in Punjabi pockets.
The Mohajirs
Another serious ethnic tension, going on in Karachi, is the one between the Sindhis and the Mohajirs. the Mohajirs are the people who migrated to Pakistan mainly from gangetic belt of India, in 1947. The Mohajirs were not only in politics but also dominant in administration in Pakistan during the initial years. Out of 101 Muslim members of the Indian Civil Service, 95 opted for Pakistan, among whom only one third were Punjabis. the Mohajir represented only 3.5 % of the population, in the early years while they occupied 21 % of Civil Services post". Right since the beginning, the Mohajirs shared a dominant position with the Punjabis, who because of their former status of the martial race in British India, represented 80 % of the armed forces. The reign of Ayub Khan saw the balance tilting in favour of Punjabi-Pathan axis. The Mohajirs were no longer in apposition to exert as much influence as they did not vote for Ayub in the 1964 Presidential election.
Z. A. Bhutto's PPP came to power in 1971. The Sindh saw it as the empowerment of Sindhi nationalism. At the same time Mohajirs saw Bhutto as Anti-Mohajir. Bhutto made Sindhi compulsory in School by passing the Sindhi language bill. It forced bureaucrats to use Sindhi as an official language. Mohajirs protested against this. Bhutto introduced a quota system under which 1.4 % of the posts in central administration was given to rural Sindhis (Sindhi hinterland) through the 1973 constitution. This affected the Mohajir preponderance in the Civil Service of the Province. In 1973 Mohajirs constituted 33.5% of the posts in civil administration, when they only represented 8% of the total population. The rural Sindhis occupied 2.7% of the posts in the junior grade and 4.3% of the posts in the officer grade. In the army they represented only 2.2% and their presence has remained more or less the same since then Zia, on the one hand supported Mohajirs for countering the PPP in its stronghold and on the other favoured Sindhi nationalism and also facilitated the Punjabi penetration in Sindh. The Karachi crisis is mainly between the Sindhis and the Mohajirs but there is strong presence of other ethnic groups too. table-1 shows the real situation. In April 1998, a Mohajir boy's love marriage with a Pathan girl triggered a new brand of ethnic clash resulting in many deaths.
Table-1

Ethnic Groups In Sindh

Mohajir ethnic consciousness found expression first in 1986 in the form of student activism, but very soon it consolidated into a political party - the Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM). Soon after its appearance, the MQM swept into power in the Urban centers of Sindh, taking over the Mayorship of Karachi and Hyderabad in 1988. This led to confrontation and the Province became the battleground for violence and armed conflict". Army launched operation clean up in 1992 to clean Sindh of dacoits and anti-social elements. During the operation, MQM activists were harassed and fake-encounters occurred. Army also engineered split within MQM and the split away group was known as MQM - Haqiqi faction, which acts as an arm of the security agencies of the Pakistani State. The main MQM party was then known as MQM - Altaf Hussain faction. The leader of MQM - A, Altaf Hussain, lives in exile, in London. During the last decade, encounters between the two MQM faction and as well as between MQM - A and the Police and security forces took ten of thousands of lives in Karachi. the city, which generated one third of the country's GDP has been termed by the New York Times as one of the violent cities of the World. It has had negative impact on the economic scenario, which is already under tremendous pressure after the Chagai explosions due to international economic sanctions.
There are many other small ethnic groups in the country and many linguistic groups as well. Various smaller linguistic groups often complain that they are not receiving proper treatment from the center.
Table-2
Language distribution in Pakistan

Among the above mentioned linguistic groups, Sariki-speaking people have proclaimed their independent ethnic identity within Punjab. They have demanded that Punjab should be bifurcated and Sarikistan would be constituted.
As far as fulfillment of regional aspiration are concerned, after the secession of Bangladesh, Punjab has emerged as the focal point of the unity and integrity as well as the cause of regional assertion. Punjab became economically very strong after the successful culmination of 'green revolution' in 1970s.
Pakistan is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country. There are also so many multiethnic, linguistic and racial groups in India. but the problems of ethno-linguistic assertion has been successfully managed through the mechanism available for resolution of such tensions within the Indian constitutional framework. Unlike India, the leaders of Pakistan could not evolve a healthy democratic culture. The party responsible for formation of Pakistan was not sufficiently democratised to lead Pakistan to a truly representative form of democracy. The conflicting forces of unity and diversity could not be balanced due to prevalence of acute ethnic and linguistic variations and lack of mutual interdependence of national and regional sub-systems. The frequent outbreak of federal provincial and inter-provincial crisis such as the the one-unit act, the Pakhtoon-Baluch struggle for maximum autonomy and the Sindh-Urdu controversy in Sindh continues to disturb the federal equilibrium. In the process the ruling elites, in a bid to keep the union intact tend to gravitate more and more towards centralisation.
When Z. A. Bhutto took over as the first elected Prime Minister of the country in 1971, there was some hope for he had made his intentions very clear on the issue of founding and strengthening a federal structure under which, regional aspirations could be effectively managed. He came out with the 1973 constitution. But within one year of passage of 1973 constitution, he himself violated the very ethos enshrined in the constitution. Zia used his full tenure (1977-1988) to destabilise the society, by pitting one against the other. He used Islam not as a cementing force to unite the whole society but to legitimise his illegimate regime. The restoration of democracy in 1988 raised some hope in this direction. but rampant corruption, growing fundamentalism, sectarian violence, etc., dampened the prospects of good, efficient and federalised governance. Bureaucracy, which is very important in any system, saw itself as the ultimate arbiter of Pakistan 's fate and soon linked itself with the army. The military bureaucratic collaboration proved lethal to the development of other institutions. the legislative branch remained sapless; the judiciary withered and the press stultified. Successive Prime Minister depended on the support of the Army to maintain public order. According to the Article 6 of 1973 Constitution, army rule could not be imposed, but it has been imposed successfully, first in July 1977 and recently in 12th October 1999.
The assertion of regional identities can be attributed to the shrinking resources too. Economy is in doldrums in pakistan. Apart from gross mismanagement by the ruling elite - the army - bureaucracy- landlord troika - the nuclear engagement with India has taken its toll. Economic growth has faltered and is now incapable of keeping pace with Pakistan's annual population growth rate of nearly 3%, from about 6% in the 1980s. Current military budget consumes roughly 40% of the gross national product. Much of the government spending goes on interest payment. After all this, the government does not have sufficient amount to meet with people's aspiration. The chief interest of the elite in this situation has been to maintain status quo.
All this has had its effects on the regional aspirations. The formation of political outfits like PONAM (Pakistan's Oppressed Nations Movement), which vows to fight for the rights of the oppressed nationalities in Pakistan, shows the way non-Punjabi ethnic and national identities are trying to assert themselves in the national political scene. It is easy to brush them aside as nominal parties without having any constituency or support base. But the sense of frustration that is simmering within may very well erupt posing grave challenges to national integration in Pakistan
Curtsey:www.jammu-kashmir.com

 How Long Punjabi Nation Will Remain A Socially And Politically Depressed And Deprived Nation
Shahzah Arain‎

Punjabi is the world 10th most spoken language and brave martial nation. Punjabi’s are inhabitant of all over the world. Punjab is the homeland of Great Nation of Sub-continent. Yet, socially and politically Punjabi is a depressed and deprived nation due to hegemony of Urdu and Hindi language, Gunga Jumna culture, supremacy of UPites and UPite mindsets in policymaking and decision taking of national affairs and foreign relationship since from 1849 (due to many factors). However, because of future geopolitical situation of Punjab, Punjabi's will receive the international proxy stimulation, motivation, facilitation, and sponsorship to become a "Great Nation of Sub-Content.”
Politics of Pakistan is boosting towards the sentiments of ethnic, cultural, traditional and regional issues of nationalities, because of that the future politics of Pakistan is predictable as “Politics of Nationalism”. In future era, year by year, due to Geo-political position of Pakistan, the “Great Global Game between US, China and Russia” will enhance at land of Baluchistan and Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa, therefore, proxy politics will be the part of “Great Global Game” and Pakistani politics will dominate the national and international issues. However, the integrity, sovereignty and national interest of Pakistan will remain an internal subject dependent upon wisdom and skill of political leadership.
As the Pakistan is a heterogeneous nation and sub-nationalism is already an important issue, still waiting to be resolved, therefore, it will take boost in future. Hence, without redressing the confusion and conflict of sub-nationalism, problems of social polarization, economic disaster and bad governance will never be redress and resolve by any political party or any type of government. Therefore, it is also vital to induct and include the original and actual entities of Pakistan (i.e. Sindhi, Baloch and Pukhtoon’s) in national policymaking and decision taking institutions and departments in replacement of "Alien UPites to assemble Pakistanis and developing Pakistan". Especially foreign affairs and defense establishment be reserved for the “Son of Soils” along with declaring the Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto and Punjabi as National languages of Pakistan as a substitute of Urdu.
Although, since creation of Pakistan, nationwide social and political association of Muhajir and Punjabi created the atmosphere of Muhajir and Punjabi domination in politics of Pakistan, it provided socio-economical encouragement to Muhajir’s and Punjabi’s but it was brutal for the Bengali, Pukhtoon, Sindhi, and Baloch nations.
Being majority nation and Geo-political advantage, Bengali nation preferred the way of separation whereas Pukhtoon, Sindhi, and Baloch nations being minority nations and Geo-political disadvantage started the struggle to face the dilemma.
After five decades of Muhajir and Punjabi social and political association, MQM and Musharraf strategies broke the Muhajir and Punjabi association by replacement of Muhajir and Sindhi assimilation with intention to disintegrate and dominate Punjabi nation to fulfill American agenda to reduce the role of Punjabi nation in “Great Global Game between US, China and Russia”. This strategy is practically in practice since one and half decade, previously under administration of Musharraf and now under management of Zardari by combining some leaders of Pukhtoon and Baloch nations.
As, at present USA is presumed behind arm-twisting of Punjab by motivation of Muhajir’s, Sindhi’s, Balochi’s and Pukhtoon’s against Punjabi’s and conspiracy of South Punjab province with stunt of Saraiki issue and Sindh card, Muhajir card, Baloch card game politics. It is a presumption that, USA desires the same role of Punjabi’s against China in game of communication and energy corridors from “Baluchistan to silk route”, like they performed against Russia but Punjabi’s are reluctant, because China is a neighboring nation and a trusted friend of Pakistan. However, if US want to retain domination in Afghanistan and desire to keep Punjabi's in US camp, not in Chinese or Russian camp then USA have no alternative option other than to stop conspiracies against Punjab by building trustful relationship with Punjabi nation. On the other hand, in future, China, Russia and Iran will prefer to maintain healthy and faithful relationship with Punjab because of “Great Global Game in Pakistan” and to save their Geo-political interests in region.
Nevertheless, Politics of Pakistan is boosting towards the sentiments of ethnic, cultural, economic and regional issues of nationalities, because of that, future politics of Pakistan predicted to be the “Politics of Nationalism”. Although, Punjabi’s are still lacking in “Punjabi Nationalist Politics” therefore, still they do not have any “Nationalist Political Party”, however, Punjabi nationalism is growing day by day therefore, organized and systematized effort by Punjabi’s or sponsorship and facilitation by any global game player will accelerate it beyond imagination. Whatsoever, this is the last and declining decade for hegemony of Urdu language and Gunga Jumna culture along with supremacy of UPites and UPite mindsets in policymaking and decision taking of national affairs and foreign relationship of Pakistan.
In future, grip of Punjabi’s on social, cultural, economic and political affairs of Pakistan along with policymaking and decision taking in national concerns and foreign relations of Pakistan will become very very strong. It is a presumption that, "Punjabi Nation" will be the "Asian Tiger" in 2020-2030, Sindhi, Baloch and Pukhtoon nations will prefer to remain part of Pakistan with complete social, cultural, economic and political autonomy at local and provincial affairs after withdrawing from conspiracies against Punjab.
In future, Punjabi’s having Punjabi mindset will dominate the Punjab; therefore, Non-Punjabi mindset Punjabi’s will receive the title of “Treacherous of Punjab”
Aaj TV
September 30, 2012 ·

How to Become Punjabi in New York City
BY SAMIR CHOPRA

(Photo by Nabil Rahman)
In the wake of the Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi’s recent rise to power as India’s prime minister, some have expressed worries that he and his Bharatiya Janata Party will attempt to redefine Indian identity in terms of a narrowly conceived Hindu one. To anyone even slightly familiar with the bewildering diversity that is a hallmark of the Indian subcontinent, such attempts appear entirely misguided, deliberately and obtusely ignorant of that land’s rich history of accommodation and synthesis of cultures, languages, religions, and social modes of organization.
Sometimes such diversity and syncretism can be found even within a single Indian life. Like mine.
*          *          *          *          *          *
 In December 1988, while dropping off a friend for a flight back to India, I walked through JFK Airport’s departure hall, past a gate for a Pakistan International Airlines flight. I heard all around me a familiar language — Punjabi — spoken by the travelers headed home.
These were not Indians, like me; they were Pakistanis. Their fathers could have been among those my father had fought in the 1965 and 1971 wars. But we were all Punjabis. In this unfamiliar new country, I suddenly saw them as potential brethren.
A year before, at the age of 20, I had arrived in the U.S. as a graduate student from India. Once here, I struggled with the immigrant’s familiar and peculiar schizophrenia of identities. Sometimes I sought rapid assimilation and Americanization; sometimes I dreamed of returning to India. Perhaps, I thought, with these Punjabi-speaking fellow immigrants, I could try to resolve my struggles and fashion a new identity, far away from a place I used to call home.
To do that, however, I would have to rediscover a mother tongue that had been lost to me for most of my life. I would need to learn the language of my grandparents — one that, in my middle-class urbanite childhood in India, I had never really spoken. It is also a language that is losing ground in some spheres on the subcontinentof India and Pakistan, subject in both countries to the influence of an ambiguous modernity that classifies it as a “rural language.” (Though in India, despite only finding a marginal presence in modern writing, it has pride of place in the lyrics of popular Bollywood slang and songs.)
At that moment, my desire to speak Punjabi reasserted itself with some vigor. But that desire was not an unambiguous one; it never had been. In India, my struggle with my Punjabi identity had always been fraught with issues around class and culture — and that turned out to be no less true here in New York City.
A “Hick” Language
My last name, Chopra, is a giveaway: I’m a Punjabi. But I’ve never lived on either the Pakistani or the Indian side of the region of Punjab (which was brutally split during the partition of those two countries in 1947).
As a child, I was not particularly keen to assert a Punjabi identity. My first homes were on Indian Air Force bases, where my father was a fighter pilot. There, the lingua franca was English, and ethnic identities were deemphasized in favor of a more pluralistic Indian one. At home, my parents never spoke Punjabi to me though they did so — with fluency and aplomb — with their parents whenever we visited them.

(Photo by Nabil Rahman)
I never felt much of a pull to the region of my family roots, either. Amritsar, with its Golden Temple, revered by Sikhs worldwide, did not exert a strong hold on me. Punjab smacked of the rustic, the agricultural, the homespun; I saw myself as an urban Anglophone. In my teens, I lived in New Delhi, the capital of India; my ancestors seemed to have lived in dusty villages and provincial towns. If this was my ethnic heritage, I disdained it, choosing instead the new, cosmopolitan one that my parents’ nomadic lifestyle afforded me.
I was not unusual among my cohorts in this respect. None of my cousins — and indeed, just about no one in my generation of urban Punjabis in New Delhi — spoke Punjabi. They were content with their fluency in English and Hindi. Even as Punjabi blended with Urdu and Hindi in Bollywood movies, the migration of Punjabis to India’s urban centers seemed to have condemned our language to a slow death in those cities, where it was overcome by the homogenizing effect of Hindi and English.
Still, during my two years spent in boarding school in India’s northeast, during what would have been my ninth and tenth grades I found myself labeled “Punjabi” – and the identity that had seemed foreign to me now marked me as a hick.
In reaction to that prejudice, I began slowly to embrace that identity. On returning to Delhi, I wanted to be able to understand Punjabi songs, to crack jokes in Punjabi, to perhaps even watch a movie or two in Punjabi. I still did not speak to my mother in her mother tongue; our relationship was too entrenched in the familiar contours afforded by English and Hindi. But I began some tentative conversations in Punjabi with my grandparents, who responded enthusiastically.
The Punjabi I acquired thus was old-fashioned, and my early attempts at spoken Punjabi were, as might be expected, ludicrously bad. But a halting journey had commenced. It would continue in a land 10,000 miles away.

(Photo by Nabil Rahman)
Punjab on the Hudson
After six years in the United States, in 1993 I moved from New Jersey to New York City. I found that my new home played host to a large ethnically, economically and religiously diverse Punjabi population of over 100,000 — including Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, Indians and Pakistanis. I could hear Punjabi spoken in subway cars, restaurants, streets. New York City seemed to enclose a small Punjabi city within its confines.
I found that my first attempts to speak Punjabi in New York City had unexpected consequences: a cab driver, for example, delighted to make acquaintance with a fellow Punjabi-spouting homeboy, would simply decline my fare payment, and give me a free ride. My American friends were nonplussed by such remarkable displays of generosity and ethnic camaraderie. So was I. I grew embarrassed and would try my best to pay, but to no avail.
I was struck, especially, by how hard it was to imagine such brotherly gestures back in India, where class and culture separate urban, middle-class young men like me from cabdrivers and other working people. Here in New York City, however, these gestures draw upon a commonality I had overlooked. I took pride in these conversations, in the display they afforded of an old-world generosity, now made visible in this most modern of cities.
I discovered that the Punjabi spoken in the Punjabi hinterland — in both India and Pakistan — was far harder to master than the urban variant I had been previously exposed to. So my progress in learning Punjabi — and thus building bridges to New York’s Punjabi community — was halting. All too often, in the midst of a conversation, I would be unable to keep up with the barrage of incomprehensible words coming my way, and I would have to switch back to the safety of Hindi-Urdu.
I relished the opportunity I now had to reach out and make contact with small-town Indians and Pakistanis. New York had, for me at least, enabled a partial transcendence of class boundaries. By moving to the U.S., I had come into contact with a slice of my ancestral culture that I might have been denied had I stayed on in India.
A Multiplicity of Identities
Some remnants remained of my old ambivalence about my Punjabi identity. As a graduate student, and later a professor of philosophy at Brooklyn College, I have been immersed in sophisticated theoretical discourse that drew upon ideas from around the world. What was I doing, expending precious time and mental effort in learning a language that was shrinking even within India and Pakistan’s villages?
I had married an Indian-American woman who spoke no Punjabi at all, and our daughter, now 19 months, will almost certainly never learn the language; indeed, it would be a miracle if she learned a bit of Hindi or Urdu. Although there are now more than 100,000 Punjabi speakers in the city of her birth, her New York City is unlikely to bring her into close contact with many of them. What role did Punjabi have to play in my future family life?
Here, as in India, many of my South Asian friends, middle-class professionals like me, still associated Punjabi with the plebian and the unsophisticated; the language of taxi drivers and their all-night food joints, whether on Houston Street in Manhattan or in Jackson Heights, Queens. It has become a language associated with our pasts, with the lives left back home.
In December of 2000, I became an American citizen, and was forced to give up my Indian citizenship. It was a bittersweet moment, but also curiously exhilarating; my identity, I realized, had become more ambiguous, offering me new opportunities for its reconfiguration.

(Photo by Nabil Rahman)
I now live in Brooklyn, in a neighborhood that abuts a large Pakistani and Bangladeshi community. Here, my opportunities for speaking Punjabi are confined to short conversations with local shopkeepers, and my fluency in Punjabi remains a couple of rungs short of full-fledged mastery. I could practice more Punjabi in New York City if I interacted more with the Punjabi community here; perhaps if I visited a Sikh gurudwara, for instance. But I am not a religious person, and I feel out of place in those settings.
There are limits to the extent of the effort I will put into fashioning a Punjabi identity. I cannot fight the reality that the Punjabi speakers in my family, in my line, will end with me.
My earlier angst about seeking an identity has died down. I am treated as an American when I travel overseas. I am happy to slip in and out of the three languages — English, Hindi, Punjabi — that I can call upon with varying degrees of felicity. I delight in the varied perspectives these linguistic lenses afford me. I am now, perhaps, finally comfortable in my skin; as a transplanted person that can look back on a childhood spent elsewhere, and who can claim allegiance to, and membership in, various cultural traditions. I am destined to be a mongrel of sorts.
But even as I accept the multiplicity of my identities, I don’t regret my foray into Punjabi solidarity. I realized what it had achieved on a trip back to India some years ago, when, in the Punjab, I went with my brother and some of his friends for a late-night dinner at a roadside eating joint — the ubiquitous Punjabi dhaba. There, without thinking much of it, I ordered my food, the classic parantha and daal with a side order of green chilies, in reasonably fluent Punjabi — as I had so often done before in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. My brother’s friends, highly amused, sent some friendly joshing my way: I was a hick, speaking a language they associated with farmers and truck drivers.
But I could also see that they looked at me with a grudging respect. I must have provided an incongruous spectacle indeed: a U.S.-returned Indian, complete with his khaki slacks and American twang, had crossed a boundary they could not, connecting on a simple linguistic level with the people behind that counter — people from a sphere that hardly intersected with their own.
To them, at least, I had gone to the U.S. an Indian, and come back a Punjabi.
Samir Chopra is a professor of philosophy at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He blogs at The Cordon on ESPNcricinfo and at samirchopra.com. He can be found on Twitter as @EyeOnThePitch. He has authored or co-authored  five books. His latest book, “Eye on Cricket: Reflections on the Beautiful Game” (Harper Collins) is due for release in January 2015.
Curtsey and source : www.voiceofny.org  JUNE 25, 2014

I speak Punjabi (but my kids might not)
By Affan Chaudhry 

‘Ik Sutti Uthi Dooji Akhon Ka’ani ’-
Do you understand what this Punjabi idiom means, or do you need a translation in English first? The literal translation may be “one just woke up and the other one is partially sighted!” but that isn’t what it means. 
This funny phrase refers to a person who has just woken up and then on top of their disheveled appearance is cross-eyed as well. It is used “icing on the cake” in English.
Most people wonder why everything in Punjabi sounds so comic? Maybe our ancestors just appreciated humour.
If you belong to a Punjabi speaking family and couldn’t understand then this is proof that our language is teetering on the brink of extinction. How many more generations will it be before the original dialect just vanishes from the planet? Nobody in my circle of friends has a Punjabi vocabulary like my parents have. If the trend continues, than it’s not really hard to predict the outcome.
The Punjabi language is not the only one facing this acute hazard of becoming extinct. According to the World Resource Institute, out of 7,000 unique languages spoken in the world today, nearly half are likely to disappear this century, with an average of one lost every two weeks!
Imagine the sound of Punjabi and the rich cultural heritage it boasts lost forever.
You may think the notion is absurd or maybe do not see it happening in your life time.
So, what’s the big deal if there isn’t a single person speaking Punjabi at the end of this century?
Who needs Punjabi anyway?
Aren’t we better off with a universal language?
But imagine our offspring speaking only English (or Chinese for that matter). Language is not just the encoding and decoding of information among people but it brings with it the norms, identity, traditions, history and values of a society. When we move to a foreign country, we adapt to other languages and our lifestyle also changes.
While I believe different languages can co-exist within a society and this might be the ultimate solution to save the endangered ones. We spend so much time learning so many random things, but what I fail to understand is, why not make a little effort to learn our own mother tongue? Why not strive to save our languages, so that history may not hold us responsible for confining these languages only to the books kept in the unfrequented corners of old libraries.
I can’t describe the delight I saw on the faces of my elders when they came to know that at least somebody from their descendants was interested in learning the language they spoke all their life and are so proud of.
Languages need not to be taught, but should define who we are, which means we need to inculcate a sense of responsibility and understanding explaining why a mother tongue is important for the next generation – why speaking their own language will earn them more respect.
The point here is not against the learning of other languages but the emphasis is to keep our own culture alive. I believe that we become the unintentional ambassadors of many things involuntarily, but by fate and being the heirs of Pakistani and Eastern culture at large, we owe it to our region to uphold its worthiness and value, and keep it bustling with progression and development for our future generations.
Curtsey:blogs.tribune.com : Published: March 16, 2012

Jinnah and Punjab: A Study of the Shams-ul-Hasan Collection
AMARJIT SINGH

During the last four decades historians and scholars like S.S. Pirzada, Nicholas Mansergh, Jamil-ud-Din Ahmad, S.Q. Husain Jafri, Z.H. Zaidi, M. Rafique Afzal, Waheed Ahmad, Lionel Carter, Kirpal Singh, Khurshid Ahmad Khan Yusufi, Sher Muhammad Grewal and Sarfaraz Hussain Mirza have done yeomen’s services in publishing rare documents relating to the Punjab of the 1940s and the speeches, writings and correspondence of M.A. Jinnah, the Quaid-i-Azam. These documents have assisted the historians to look back with new and fresh perspectives to the politics of the Punjab, events leading to the formation of the sovereign state of Pakistan and the role played by Jinnah. Shamsul Hasan Collection related to the Punjab of the 1940s are other such documents which forms a part of this gernre of historical literature. Only a part of this rare Collection was earlier edited and published by Syed Shamsul Hasan himself and later by his eldest son Khalid Shamsul Hasan. However, it is for the first time that I have made a humble attempt to translate, edit and publish the complete text of this rare, significant and wonderful Shamsul Hasan Collection in the year 2007.
Syed Shamsul Hasan, Secretary, Central Office of the All India Muslim League, diligently kept the records of the Muslim League, private papers of Jinnah, the correspondence between Jinnah and the leaders and workers of the different Provincial Muslim Leagues including the reports of the Provincial Muslim Leagues. On the eve of the partition of India M.A. Jinnah directed Syed Shamsul Hasan to take care of the records at the Central Office of the All India Muslim League and to transfer those records and documents safely to Pakistan. Syed Shamsul Hasan handled this job meticulously even at the risk of his life and the life of his family and shifted all the records, documents including the private papers of Jinnah from Delhi to Karachi. Shamsul Hasan took personal possession of the private papers of Jinnah and the correspondence between Jinnah and the leaders and workers of the different Provincial Muslim Leagues. These documents were later entitled as Shamsul Hasan Collection and the Shamsul Hasan Collection, Punjab is a part of this significant and rare Collection. Jinnah once directed Syed Shamsul Hasan, “Do not destroy these papers but do not publish them for 20 years so that the Musalmans must know the difficulties faced in organizing them and the details of how the state for Pakistan was fought and won”.
Shamsul Hasan Collection, Punjab was under the personal possession of Syed Shamsul Hasan till his death in 1981. After his death this valuable Collection was transferred under the custody of his eldest son. Khalid Shamsul Hasan and who had reproduced some parts of his literature while writing three of his books.In the year 2006, this historical treasure was donated to the National Documentation Centre of the Cabinet Division, Government of Pakistan by Zahid Shamsul Hasan, the younger son of Syed Shamsul Hasan. During the 1980s one of my senior colleagues in India had acquired the complete text of this valuable Collection from Khalid Shamsul Hasan and I became fortunate enough to take possession of this historical literature from this Indian colleague in the year 1996. After making a detailed, careful and minute study of these documents it appears to me that this wonderful Collection may be made available to the historians, scholars and researchers across the world so that they may reconstruct the history of the Punjab of 1940s on the basis of this valuable historical literature, hence, the complete text of the Shamsul Collection, Punjab has been translated, edited and published by me.
The Shamsul Hasan Collection, Punjab contains 275 documents in all which begans with a letter of M. Rafi Butt to M.A. Jinnah of dated April 11, 1944 regarding the introduction of a daily English newspaper for the Muslim League and a report of the activities of the Punjab Muslim League and ends with a letter from M.A Jinnah to Malik Firoz Khan Noon regarding the leadership of the Punjab Muslim League Party, dated April 30, 1947.This Collection covers the period from 1944-1947, which was crucial in the run-up to the partition of the Punjab. On the one hand the events between the first and last letters of this Collection can best be understood with the help of the other available correspondence in this Collection, and on the other hand the various references and ideas presented in this significant literature also help us to understand, to some extent, the events of some preceding years and the period between April 1947 to August 1947. This Collection in an invaluable source material for the historians and researchers and for those who aspire to study the growth of the Muslim League and the demand of Pakistan in the Muslim Punjab. This Collection provides significant information about the role of the people and leaders of the Muslim Punjab in the formation of the sovereign state of Pakistan. Shamsul Hasan Collection reveals that how the Punjab Provincial Muslim league under the leadership of M.A. Jinnah influenced and shaped the provincial politics in its most turbulent years and has emerged, in a real sense, a body of the Muslim masses.
After a careful perusal of the Shamsul Hasan Collection. I would like to single out four dominant concerns. Firstly, the Punjab Muslim League, between the Years 1943-1947, emerged as the real mass body of the Muslims of Punjab. The Punjab Muslim League was strengthened from below and its strength simply marginalized the unionist Party, urban elite, rural landed aristocracy and Pirs and Sajjada-Nashins and eroded their social bases.Secondly, the national politics and the fortune of the All India Muslim Leagues, its relationship with the Indian National Congress and the Raj profoundly affected the strength position of the Punjab Muslim League. Thirdly, the diplomacy, the tactics, leadership and maneuvering of M.A. Jinnah provided strength and motivation to the Punjab Provincial Muslim League and the Muslims of the Punjab and guided them towards the goal of Pakistan.The political climate of the Muslim Punjab and its association with the diplomacy and politics of Jinnah, fourthly, elevated Jinnah to the position of an icon.
The Imperialist and Cambridge historians, Marxist and Nationalist historians of India and even the nationalist historians of Pakistan are the opinion that Jinnah and Punjab Muslim League at first mobilized the strong support of the urban elite, rural landed aristocracy, Pirs and Sajjada-Nashins who subsequently won over the Muslims of Punjab for the cause of the Muslim League and Pakistan. It has been suggested by these scholars that the demand of Pakistan in the Muslim Punjab was based on the vertical mobilization and its was not a mass movement. It has been further argues by these scholars that the Muslims the Punjab entered to the ranks of the Muslim League either because of total factional rivalries or the changes brought about the second world war but not to support the popular demand of Pakistan.However, a careful study of the Shamsul Hasan Collection reveals to anyone the Jinnah and Punjab Muslim League, simply aroused the common Punjabi Muslims, rural and urban, to participate in a powerful mass movement for the demand of Pakistan.
To substantiate my view point I would like to refer a letter of Nawab Iftikhar Hussain Khan of Mamdot to M.A. Jinnah dated July 19, 1944 stating that, “We are having very great success in our public meetings. You must have read about two big meetings, one in the Sheikhupura district and the other at Montgomery. I attach more importance to the Montgomery meeting because it was exactly ten days after an official meeting, which was attended by Khizar Hayat Khan and Chhotu Ram. The attendance in their meeting was 492 while inspite of all official resistance the gathering in our meeting was decidedly more then ten thousands. Even the big zamindars have discarded the fear and have started attending the zamindars have discarded the fear and have started attending the meeting freely”.This letter is the obvious evidence to suggest that the Punjab Muslim League began to emerge as the Muslim mass movement as early as by the middle of 1944. The language of this letter further suggest that such meeting were attended by the common Punjabi Muslim and only a handful of rural landed aristocracy might have attended these meetings.
In this connection I would like to refer two other documents of the years 1945 and 1946 respectively. On January19, 1945, Mian Mumtaz Daulatana has reported to Jinnah that, “work in the Punjab is going on very satisfactorily. Everyday the League is getting stronger and closer to our people. We hope to be invincible by the end of the year.”M.A. Jinnah has visited Punjab on the eve of the Provincial Legislative Assembly elections and so on January 18, 1946, Jinnah issued a press statement as under, “I was very glad to see with me own eyes that there is a tremendous upsurge and complete solidarity among the Muslims of the Punjab. I have notices a remarkable and revolutionary change. First the Musalman do not suffer any longer from fear complex or dread of the tin Gods of the Punjab… They have secured a freedom of thought and speech and now these elections have given them an opportunity to act as free men and I am confident of our success in the Punjab”.
The above observations made by Mumtaz Daulatana and Jinnah suggest us that the Punjab Muslim League during the years 1944-1946 had truly emerged as the real mass body of the Muslims of Punjab. The correspondence between the leaders of the Punjab Muslim League and Jinnah of this period clearly reveal that the spontaneous response of the Muslims of Punjab to the demand of Pakistan led to the emergence of the Muslim mass movement. On this issue the Shamsul Hasan Collection contains the correspondence of all the Provincial leaders of the Muslim League, prominent among them were: Nawab Iftikhar Hussain Khan of Mamdot, Malik Firoz Khan Moon, Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan, Malik Barkat Ali, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, Mian Bashir Ahmad, Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, Ghulam Bhik Nairang, Sir Syed Maratib Ali, Nawabzada Rashid Ali Khan, Begum Jahan Ara Shah Nawaz, Lady Vicky Noon, Fatima Begum, Khan Bahadur Nazir Ahmad Khan, M.Rafi Butt and Mohammad Zafrulla.
The historians and scholars like Penderel Moon, Peter Hardy, David Page, Anita Inder Singh, Ayesha Jalal, Stanley Wolpert, Hector Bolitho, Ian B. Wells and Ajeet Jawed have viewed Jinnah as such a leader who followed cross political agenda.However the Shamsul Hasan Collection debunks such a perception about Jinnah, the Quaid-i-Azam, especially in terms of his role in the politics of Punjab. These documents suggests that Jinnah and leaders of the Punjab Muslim League were dealing with matters like society, culture, religion, economy, finance, industry, scientific development, press, education and the position of women, thus, adding meaning Nationalism.Jinnah and some of the leaders of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League regularly exchanged their views and observations regarding the industrial and scientific development for the Muslims of the Punjab and for the upliftment of the general financial and economic conditions of the Muslim Punjab. Prominent among those who were concern with the economic and industrial development of the Muslim Punjab were M. Rafi Butt, Syed Maratib Ali, M.M. Khan, Mohammad Ismail Khan and Adbur Samad Khan.”
The Shamsul Hasan Collection assume immense significance in case the historians and scholars may make an attempt to know the views, observations and efforts of the Punjab Muslim League’s leaders and of M.A. Jinnah regarding the modern educational developments for the Muslims of Punjab.In addition to the schemes about the educational developments the leaders like M. Rafi Butt, Ahmad Shafi, Mian Bashir Ahmad, Professor Abdul Haye and Lady Vicky Moon used to debate the issues like language, literature and the growth of the exclusive Muslim press in the Punjab.A peep into these documents reveals to the readers that issues like diplomatic relations. Foreign affairs and the relations of the Muslim India with the outside world were thoroughly discussed between M.A. Jinnah and the leaders like M. Rafi Butt, Ashiq Hussain Batalvi, M.H. Humayun, Sheikh Gul Muhammad, Mrs. K.L., Rallia Ram, Begum Jahan Ara Shah Nawaz and Lady Vicky Noon.The Shamsul Hasan Collection informs to the readers that the issues like making of the constitution and constitutional relations between the Muslim India and Britain also attracted the attention of M.A. Jinnah and the leaders of the Punjab Muslim League.
enderel Moon, Peter Hardy, Hector Bolitho, Stanley Wolpert Ayesha Jalal and Asim roy have all portrayed M.A. Jinnah as a shrewad bargainer of the high politics of the partition of India. These scholars have projected Jinnah as a leader with aristocratic and reticent personality who always moved and interacted within the elite corridors and sometimes would avoid even shaking hands with the people, especially with the common man. Jinnah has been projected by these scholars as such a masterful leader who would always marshal his forces while tightening his grip on the sword arm of his embryonic nation i.e. Pakistan. He has been viewed as arrogating sole spokeman of the All India Muslim League who was always anxious to stife his customary bable of tongues. These scholars and historians have observed Jinnah as such an adamant, self-centred and ambitious politician and for-sighted statesman who was always concern with his personal political achievements and victories and was less concern with the real interests and aspirations of the Muslim masses.
However, the Shamsul Hasan Collection has rebuted such charges against Jinnah and these documents brings to our knowledge that Jinnah was always communicating with all the sections of the Muslim Punjab and was always responding to the commoners which adds new dimensions to his already and otherwise projected reticent and aristocratic personality.Jinnah was communicating not only with the leaders and workers of the Punjab Muslim League but also with the students, school teachers, college and university professors, scientists, doctors, people from the press, men of the religious affairs, any Punjabi Muslim either with urban or rural background including a motor mechanic from Lahore.These documents suggest to the readers that Jinnah virtually emerged as an able organizer of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League and if required would like to answer even a small query from any section of the Muslim Punjab.The process of institutionalization of the Muslim League and M.A. Jinnah comes out graphically in this valuable Collection.
After a careful perusal of the Shamsul Hasan Collection it appears to me that during the years 1943-1947, Jinnah became an integral and indispensable part of the Muslim Punjab and its political climate. During this period Jinnah was regularly associated with the each and every level of the Muslim politics and society. The way he guided the Muslims of Punjab on the political, social, economic, cultural, literary and constitutional matters, elevated his position to status of an Icon in the eyes of the Punjabi Muslims. In order to substantiate my view point I would like to refer two documents from this Collection. On November 20, 1944, M.A. Hussain wrote to Jinnah that, “I write to you as an obedient and dutifull son to a loving father. After all, you are indeed the ‘Father of the Muslim Nation’ and I think that every Muslim should look upon you as his father”.On June 15, 1945, Mian Mumtaz Daultana wrote to Jinnah in the similar vein that, “There is no question, Sir, that what you will decided should be best for the Muslims of India. You, Sir, have never made a mistake. Every Muslaman knowns that and, if it is for struggle you decide, and if need be against all the powers of the world, then struggle is right and we are prepared as one man.”It can be asserted on the bases of the Shamsul Hasan Collection that the love, affection, devotion and concern of Jinnah towards the Muslim Punjab raised his status to such a position which hitherto had not been enjoyed by any one else.
It has been suggested by Penderel Moon and Peter Hardy that the position and strength of the All India Muslim League helped the Punjab Provincial Muslim League to consolidate its position and demand of Pakistan in the Punjab. It has been suggested by these historians that on the eve of the Provincial Legislative Assembly elections of 1946 the Muslim Unionists of the Punjab were undermined by the revelation of the strength of the All India Muslim League and thus tey found themselves not to match with the Punjab Provincial Muslim League.Similarly, the documents of the Shamsul Hasan Collection also reveal that the fortune of the All India Muslim League, its relationship with the Indian National Congress and Raj profoundly affected the strength and position of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League. The events and activities of the Punjab provincial Muslim League during the years 1946-1947, vividly demonstrated its relationship with the powerful position of the All India Muslim League. To make this issue more clear I would like to refer a part of M.A. Jinnah’s press statement on the eve of the arrest of the leaders of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League i.e. on January 26, 1947: “This policy of the suppression and oppression of the Muslim League raises very grave issues. The repercussion of this one more mad and inimical action against the Muslim League on the part of the Punjab Government will be terrific all over Muslim India and I appeal to the Viceroy to immediately intervene and save the situation which otherwise may take a very serious turn for which the entire responsibility will rest with the Viceroy and the His Majesty’s Government.”
A study of the Shamsul Hasan Collection brings to our knowledge that the Muslim women with elite background became politically active between the years 1944-1947. Prominent among these women leaders were Begum Jahan Ara Shah Nawaz, Begum Kamal-ud-din, Fatima Begum, Begum Blossom Latif and Lady Vicky Noon. This women leadership of the Punjab Muslim League also mobilized the Muslim public opinion in favour of the League and Pakistan. Lady Vicky Noon, wife of Firoz Khan Noon regularly wrote to M.A. Jinnah about the politics of Punjab and kept him well informed. The Collection contains twenty letters of Lady Vicky Noon to M.A. Jinnah out of total 275 letters.The Shamsul Hasan Collection reveals to the readers that the correspondence of Lady Vicky Noon always assisted Jinnah to formulate this tactics, strategies and maneuvers towards the Muslim politics of Punjab, Jinnah, on September 10, 1946, wrote to Lady Vicky Noon that, “Of course, you will appreciate my difficulties in not dealing with the various matters that you have brought to my notice by means of correspondence, nor do you expect me to do so, but I am looking forward to meet you very soon, when I may be able to discuss all the points that you have brought to my notice”.
The Shamsul Hasan Collection also brings to our knowledge that the numerical strength of the women leadership of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League and their number of participation during the movement for the demand of Pakistan was not as large as was of the menfolk. However, in the given socio-cultural environment of the Muslim society, even such participation was a significant aspect in the historical perspective. For all practical purposes the Muslim women of the Punjab were the most backward among all the communities and under the given circumstances it was no doubt a laudable development that the Muslim women, rural or urban, were not only politicized but they were made to take active part for the cause of the League and the demand of Pakistan. The Shamsul Hasan Collection reveals to us that it was largely under the guidance and encouragement of Jinnah that the Muslim women of the Punjab were politicized.
Mrs. K.L. Rallia Ram was the most frantic non-Leaguer communicator to Jinnah. The Collection contains 27 letters of Mrs. K.I. Rallia Ram to M.A. Jinnah. Mrs. Ralia Ram, an Indian Christian and General-Secretary of the Indian Social Congress was the mother-in-law of Mohammad Younus, secretary of Abdul Gaffar Khan, the Frontier Gadhi. She wrote to Jinnah on May 29, 1946 that, “Mr. Jinnah should not give up the demand for an equal sovereign state. The oppressed and disgraced of the Hindus must have placed to run to and take shelter. Pakistan will be a refuge for such people.”Mrs. K.L. Rallia Ram considered the Indian National Congress as the body of the Caste Hindus intending to establish the Caste Hindu rule in India.The correspondence of Mrs. K.L. Rallia Ram immensely assisted M.A. Jinnah to know the latest political developments in the Punjab and also to formulate his strategies regarding the growth of the Pakistan movement in the Punjab. M.A. Jinnah always appreciated this gesture and wrote to Mrs. K.I. Rallia Ram on November 1946 that, “Many thanks for your letter of the 18th November 1946 and the previous one which I have been receiving. They are very encouraging and full of information and I thank you for all the trouble that you are taking, and the press cutting sent by you, and very instructive indeed. I shall always welcome your communication”.However, the case of Mrs. K.I. Rallia Ram is worth probing especially her vengeance towards the Hindus. Historians and scholars may corroborate other sources in order to probe the case of Mrs. K.I. Rallia Ram.
Nearly all the historical writings on M.A. Jinnah are unanimously of the opinion that Jinnah was seriously ill during the last days of his life or rather to say, during the last years of his life. For several years before his death there was a constant tug-of-war between his physicians and Jinnah. They warned him to take long intervals of rest and short hours of hard work, but he did exactly the opposite, knowing fully well the risk he was running. Often his doctors complained to his sister that he ignored their advice.The Shamsul Hasan Collection further substantiate the Views of these historians regarding the illness of Jinnah. In this Collection, the issue of Jinah’s declining health and illness appears time and again, though the nature of the ailment remains unknown. Syed Maratib Ali, Mian Bashmir Ahmad, M. Rafi Butt, Lady Vicky Noon, Mrs. K.L. Rallia Ram, Nawab of Mamdot ond Mian Mumtaz Daultana regularly inquired about the health and illness of Jinnah during the year 1945-1947.M.A Jinnah himself writing to Mian Mumtaz Daulatana on June 7, 1945 has said that he was several breakdowns during the last few days and the doctors gave him serious warning and strict orders to have complete rest.
During the recent past historians and scholars, have debated the issue of Jinnah’s address to the first session of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on Augst11, 1947, where he has started that, “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed….that has nothing to do with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of the one State….and you will find in course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslim would cease to be Muslim not in the religions sense, because that is the personal faith of the each individual but in the political sense of the citizens of the State.”The Shamsul Hasan Collection informs us that it was not only after the foundation of the Pakistan that Jinnah began to talk about the model and modern State but it was even before the foundation of the Pakistan that Jinnah declared that all the minorities along with the Muslim majority will be treated equal in the new found State of Pakistan. He was, to my opinion, building a Muslim majority state but not the Islamic state. Islamic symbols and religious appeals were advocated by the Punjab Muslim League during the campaign for Pakistan, however, all these were only the tactical move suggested by Jinnah and these Islamic Symbols were not the bases of the movement.M.A. Jinnah giving directive to the Punjab Provincial Muslim League after the resignation of the Malik Khizar Hayat Khan Tiwana in March 1947 said that, “It is the sacred durty of the Musalmans of Punjab to protect the minorities that live amongst them.”
What happened between February 13, 1947 to August 15, 1947, the Shamsul Hasan Collection maintains a tacit silence and there is only one leter of this period dated April, 30, 1947. Such gaps are glaring and raised a number of question especially keeping in view the most deplorable communal situation in the Punjab during this period. Perhaps the events had overtaken the Muslim League and the leaders and the League as a body now found itself unable to check the increasing amount of communal antagonism. The Punjab Provincial Muslim League broke its silence only on the eve of the foundation of Pakistan and on August 14, 1947, Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan as a spokesman of the League issued a statement at Lahore that, “The Punjab Provincial Muslim League has decided that there will be no celebrations and rejoicing on the occasion of the Transfer of Power on August 15, 147, anywhere in the West Punjab. The day will be dedicated to prayer meetings particularly after the Jumma congregational prayers, for the greatness and glory of the Punjab and safety and well being of the Muslims in the minority areas.”
No doubt, the Shamsul Hasan Collection assumes immense significance, in terms of the study of the growth and strength of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League, consolidation of the demand of Pakistan among the Muslim of Punjab, the relationship which existed between M.A. Jinnah and the Punjab Muslim League and the emergence of Jinnah as an Icon in the eyes of the Muslim Punjab. However, the information provided by this valuable Collection may not be considered as an all the time gospel truth by the historians and researchers. A critical mind and the applications of the modern tools of research in history may be adopted by the historians while reconstructing the history of this phase, which was the most turbulent period of the colonial Punjab, on the basis of this wonderful Collection.
Curtsey: http://nazariapak.info/Pakistan-Movement/Jinnah-Punjab.php

ATITHI/MALGEREY/GISATA, CINEMA, HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, KALAI/SAN'AT

MAULA JATT VS GENERAL ZIA: PUNJABI CINEMA, POLITICS AND NATIONAL IDEOLOGY IN PAKISTAN, BY DR. IQBAL SEVEA

OCTOBER 21, 2014 SARA KHAN

Having sharpened his gandhasa, a farming implement that consists of a long wooden pole with a wide blade, Maula Jatt defiantly marches out to confront his enemies, the Malik clan, in an epic battle to death. His thirst for revenge, he has declared, will remain until he has eliminated the entire patrilineal lineage of his enemies. Maula Jatt is beyond doubt the most popular character in Pakistani Punjabi cinema. Such was the popularity of the character that Maula featured in a host of films including Weshi Jatt (1975) Maula Jatt (1979), Jatt in London (1981), Maula Bukhsh (1988), Gandhasa (1991) and Maula te Mukho (1991). One would not be wrong in surmising that the character of Maula Jatt emerged as the most successful superhero franchise in South Asian cinema to date. Indeed, the film Maula Jatt proved to be one of the biggest commercial successes in the history of Pakistani cinema. This was despite it officially being banned by the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq (1924-1988) who sought to legitimize his dictatorship through ushering in an era of strict censorship and Islamization. Though the film was ostensibly banned on the grounds of the extreme violence depicted, the character of Maula Jatt posed a threat to General Zia’s vision of Pakistan itself. Not only did Maula show scant respect for the law and order mechanisms of the state, he celebrated attributes that challenged Zia’s attempts at shaping a national ideology.
The popularity of the character of Maula Jatt symbolised an important shift in Pakistani popular culture. Prior to this, the quintessential hero in most Pakistani films had been depicted as being educated, Urdu-speaking, morally upright, well-groomed and soft-spoken.
These were qualities that encapsulated the ideals and visions of nation-building in the young state of Pakistan. In contrast, Maula Jatt marked the emergence of a new type of a hero, one who was rural, loud, hyper-masculine, unabashedly violent, fluent in colloquial Punjabi, and had very little to do with the nation or state. In terms of dress, conduct, speech, and values, Maula was at odds with previous presentations of heroes and ideals of nation-building.
In many ways, he posed a challenge to nationalist visions. He was firmly grounded in a regional identity (Punjabi), celebrated communal alliances (including caste) over a national identity, and displayed total disregard towards the everyday institutions of the state – primarily the police and judiciary. The commercial success of films like Maula Jatt firmly established the ascendancy of a new genre of rural revenge sagas. Indeed, the film Maula Jatt was to go on to determine the aesthetic, linguistic and narrative content of much of Punjabi (both in India and Pakistan) and Pakistani cinema. The extent of this is clearly visible not just from the story-lines of the films but also from the large number of film titles that began to feature caste labels like ‘Jatt’, ‘Gujjar’ (e.g. Dara Gujjar) and ‘Dogar’ (e.g. Weshi Dogar), thus clearly celebrating rural and caste-centred identities.
This shift from the presentation of the hero as a genteel figure towards the valorisation of the violent, rural and colloquial was reflective of socio-political changes in Pakistan. At the level of political discourse, the 1970s witnessed a new emphasis on populism targeted at segments of society – the urban poor and rural masses – that had felt marginalised by the political elite and disconnected with its visions of national development. This shift in political discourse was also accompanied by a renewed pride in traditional/rural values and attire. The new hero, as characterised by Maula Jatt, reflected these developments in the socio-political milieu. Shedding western attire and sherwanis, which came to be associated with the urban elite, clad in kurta and chaadra (long cloth tied from the waist down), he symbolised a celebration of the ‘real’ and manly rural folk as opposed to the urban sections of Pakistan.
The celebration of caste identities, questioning of official attempts at shaping a national ideology and the utter disregard for the everyday forms of the state make the Maula Jatt films and subsequent Punjabi films into important political statements; political statements that had to be monitored and censured by General Zia’s regime. It is however important to note that despite being officially banned, the film Maula Jatt emerged as a huge hit. Cinemas in Punjab found ways of illegally screening the film. Thus, even watching the film became a political act.
Curtsey: http://monsoon.web.unc.edu/2014/10/21/maula-jatt-vs-general-zia-punjabi-cinema-politics-and-national-ideology-in-pakistan/

New pressure on Pakistan's ethnic fabric
Death of Bhutto threatens state unity

January 10, 2008|By Griff Witte, The Washington Post
KARACHI, Pakistan — To Khaled Chema, an unemployed 32-year-old living in a sprawling slum of this megacity, Benazir Bhutto wasn't assassinated because she opposed extremism and advocated democracy. She was killed because, like him, she was a Sindhi.
And just as her father did before her, Bhutto died a long way from home, in the back yard of the Punjabi establishment. Her assassination has inflamed long-simmering resentments among ethnic minorities toward the dominant Punjabis.


In Pakistan -- a federation of four provinces, each associated with a different ethnic group -- the issue of ethnic identity has long been troublesome, imperiling the unity of the state.
In Baluchistan, many people are in open revolt. Pashtuns in North-West Frontier province have joined their clansmen on the Afghan side of the border in a bloody insurgency against both governments.
Now, Bhutto's assassination in Rawalpindi, a key city in Punjab province and the home of themilitary, has endangered the uneasy balance in which Sindhis suppressed their ethnic-nationalist desires because they knew that one of their own was among the most popular politicians in the country.
At Bhutto's funeral in rural Sindh province last month, there was hardly a Pakistani flag to be seen, and Sindhi mourners chanted, "We don't need Pakistan!" Sindhis also attacked Punjabi targets in the three days of rioting after news of her killing.
Threats against the army
Meanwhile, some in Karachi are threatening to wage war against the Pakistani army unless Sindhis win more power in elections scheduled for next month. Punjabis have long been overrepresented in the army, which is widely blamed here for Bhutto's death, despite the government's insistence that Islamic extremists were responsible.
"The army is unable to work in Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier province. Sindh is next," said Bashir Ahmal Haleemi, a trucker and longtime Karachi resident. "The people in Sindh hate the Punjabi establishment. Not the common man from Punjab but the Punjabi factor in the army. Now the hatred is growing."
President Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged the backlash, appealing for calm in a nationwide address Wednesday and reaching out "especially to my Sindhi brothers and sisters."
Pakistan was cobbled together more than 60 years ago as a homeland for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. Though religion was a common bond, the country's multilingual and multiethnic nature has never been successfully addressed by any of its leaders. The ethnic strife peaked in 1971, when Bengalis revolted and Pakistan split in two with the creation of Bangladesh.
Few believe the country is in imminent danger of fracturing again. But Bhutto's death has exacerbated ethnic tension in at least two ways: It has angered non-Punjabis because of her status as a member of a minority and it has eliminated one of the few Pakistani politicians whose reputation transcended ethnicity.
At a time of constant upheaval in Pakistan, when religion, education levels and party affiliation are all sources of conflict, ethnic identity is just one more layer of division.

Asma Jahangir, a human-rights advocate, said she first grasped the depth of the current ethnic tension when she attended Bhutto's funeral and heard crowds at the airport shouting at soldiers: "Leave Sindh! We don't want to be part of you! You can keep your generals!"
"It's an extremely fearful atmosphere in Pakistan," Jahangir said. "There is terrible resentment in Sindh, and if Musharraf's government stays it will just keep getting worse. I have never been this pessimistic. I have never been this depressed about Pakistan."
United by Bhutto
Bhutto herself believed ardently in the unity of Pakistan and enjoyed nationwide support. While other parties appealed to particular ethnic groups, her Pakistan People's Party had backing across the country. After her return from exile in October, she crisscrossed Pakistan. The crowds were especially large in her native Sindh, but they were sizable in the other provinces too.
Bhutto's successors at the head of the party now have to strike a difficult balance, acknowledging the anger felt by Sindhis but also preventing that anger from becoming so strong that it makes other ethnic groups feel unwelcome.
Nasreen Chandio, a lawmaker from the Pakistan People's Party in Karachi, said calls for a separate Sindhi nation have grown since Bhutto's death, "but we respect her will to unite the federation, despite all of our anger."
Sherry Rehman, spokeswoman for the party, said party leaders have been "appealing to our Sindhi supporters not to blame the Punjabis, to see them as our brothers," adding, "We are seeking to unite the country."
But that will be difficult. Resentment of Punjab is widespread in the other provinces, which believe they supply more than their fair share of natural resources and get little in return from the Punjabis, who run the army and, by extension, the country.
"Pakistan is like a house," said Haleemi, the trucker. "It was established for us. But when the army was building it, they didn't give us any choices. They chose the color of the carpet, the design of the kitchen, the style of the windows. We have to live there, but they make all the selections."
Some believe the only solution is for Sindh to break away and form its own nation, but the more common view is that Sindh, Baluchistan and North-West Frontier only need greater autonomy from the central government.
"There has never been an equal and just distribution of resources among the federating units, and that's something that causes big resentment," said Afzal Khan Lala, a senior Pashtun nationalist politician from North-West Frontier.
Curtsey: articles.chicagotribune.com
Source link: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-01-10/news/0801090675_1_benazir-bhutto-north-west-frontier-province-karachi

Not Speaking a Language that is Mine

Ghanta Ghar at Multan. Credit - pakistanpaedia.com

I speak a language that is not mine.1 I don’t speak a language that is mine. My mother tongue is Punjabi. But I don’t speak it. To be more precise, I am not as fluent in it as I am in Hindi, the national language; in colonial English; or even in the local Bengali. But ever since I can remember, I have entered Punjabi in the column one has to enter one's mother tongue. I am not alone in making this contradictory claim for I discover it to be a 'disability' I share with other ‘displaced’ Hindu Punjabis of my generation.2 How can one stake a claim to a mother tongue one speaks haltingly, softening its heavy consonants and lengthening its vowels? How can one demand the membership of a linguistic group without speaking its language? This paradoxical disengagement of language from ethnicity occurs at the ‘displaced’ sites of the Indian nation place. It foregrounds the language-ethnicity elision in the pre-national Indian imaginary superscripted by print nationalism. I will trace the linguistic dislocations of Partition displacement to examine the problematic constitution of the modern Indian subject converging on a national language. 

The Indian nation myth essentially aimed to overwrite, through a unifying national script, linguistic cultural identifications. The middle-aged nation’s failure at national language implementation speaks volumes about tribal mothers’ recalcitrance to learn the new patois. The strong resistance to Hindi language implementation, in the South as well as in non-Hindi speaking states, is rooted in the elision of language and ethnicity in theBhaaratvarshiya imaginary.3 The national language comes metonymically burdened with the homogeneity of the nation narrative in this interlocking of language with ethnicity. National language implementation is shot with a strong ambivalence that mirrors the Indian subject’s problematic constitution. The ‘one as many’ slogan of the Indian nation, voiced in the national language, is greeted with a loud wail in the 'vernacular' tongues or bhashas, which apprehend the nation’s unifying impulse as eroding their regional difference. The stubborn attachment to the mother tongue is a vociferous protest against the feared dissolution of the many into one. The transnational era has signaled the return of the ‘tribes’ following the tracks of these 'tribal tongues' buried under the national unconscious. What happened to dialects that died with the last survivors?8 To which tribal songs may their descendants turn to claim tribal ancestry? Will the permanent loss of these dialects drum the birth of new idiolects? I shall attempt to explore these issues by tracing the linguistic habits of three generations of a displaced Hindu Punjabi family, which resettled in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh in the Hindi heartland. 4

My analysis, grounded in a family narrative, is restricted to the experience of a 'micro' community of displaced Hindu Punjabis dispersed after United Punjab’s Partition in 1947 to different parts of India. My arguments are based on my routine interactions and conversations with members of similar displaced Hindu Punjabi families in the Indian cities and towns I have lived in between the years 1964 to 2003, covering Srinagar, Jammu, Jaipur, Lucknow, Delhi, Nainital, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore. Stories have acquired legitimacy as an alternative research methodology in the humanities and social sciences in the recent years. I follow an intuitive method drawing from my readings in post-colonial theory, subaltern, diaspora and culture studies to record these stories and have grounded my explorations in a self-narrative in the hope that it will be corroborated by the narratives of other displaced Hindu Punjabi families. I believe that such ‘storytelling’ can be substantiated and supplemented by empirical sociological methodologies. In my opinion, self-narratives like the ones used in this text could fill up the gaps that sociologizing and anthropologizing have not been able to account for. They can provide a close-up focus that zeroes in on the minutiae of everyday life and practices from which one can pan across to wider theoretical frames. Partition narratives, in particular, have been suppressed, distorted or homogenized through the elision of linguistic, regional, ethnic or sectarian differences undergirding them. These 'little' self-narratives, as paradigmatic stories of displacement trauma, could be fruitfully utilized in the theorizing of displacement in the discourses of nationalism, diaspora and post-colonialism.5 

Until a couple of decades ago, the column in which one has to enter one's nationality in all Indian state documents carried a footnote specifying the special category of the displaced, distinguishing it from other citizenship qualifiers such as birth, descent, or domicile. The displaced Hindu Punjabi temporality invokes the nation’s double time linguistically. Here is one community whose suffering the nation’s birthpangs literally entitles it to a particularly intimate kinship with the infant nation. Calendar time and dates of the nation compete with village event-time in the displaced Punjabi memory with the traumatic Partition experience forming the most significant temporal rupture. The secularized displaced Hindu Punjabi time traces its history to the birth of a secular nation carved out of an ancient communal core. Temporal breaks are marked here not by prophets’ births but deaths in the name of gods. The double time of the displaced Hindu Punjabi history is the pre-historic time of the 'tribal' past, Partition ton Pehlaan(Before Partition) and the secular nation time, Partition ton Baad(After Partition).6 Partition ton Pehlaan was roughly the time of spoken dialects, Partition ton Baad was the time of print languages, particularly the print language used in official documents.7 How did the ethnolinguistic subject negotiate the vocabulary of citizenship? The Punjabi subject transformed into the nation citizen by learning the rules and regulations governing the idiom of nationness. The bordercrossing translation ritual literally took place in the interstices of the nation marking many crossings – from the old to the new, from the sacral to the secular, from caste to class. It was a popular cultural text, namely the filmmaker Ramesh Sippy’s telenovellaBuniyaad(1984), which captured this 'translational' moment in the train the displaced family boards to India. The protagonist Lajoji, whose gendered tale slants Sippy’s Partition Narrative, chooses a Hindi, not a Punjabi, name for her newborn granddaughter. Her name–Bharati–ejects her from both her grandmothers’traditional Punjabi(Lajo,Veeranwali) and her mothers’ modern Punjabi(Lochan,Babli) narrative into the Hindi narrative of the modern Indian nation. By the time Bharati’s daughter, the Aditi character in Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding(2002), comes of age in the Indian English or Hinglish universe of millennial New Delhi , Punjabi has become a vestigial trace leaking as slippage in moments of intimacy or emotion. But diasporic Punjabi filmmakers Deepa Mehta and Gurinder Chadha have taken Nair's lead in 'upmarketing' Punjabiness to an exoticized global vernacular. 


Partition ton Pehlaan(Before Partition)

From Pujandi to Satya Kumari

Pujandi

She was named Pujandi in her native dialect.9 Her progressive Arya Samaji husband made her enter the Great Indian Narrative by renaming her Satwanti. Her son changed it to Satya Kumari in tune with post-independence trends in Hindu women’s names. The story of several losses–of home, language and community–underwrites my grandmother’s inhabitation of her many names on which the nation’s script is overwritten. Till her death in the mid nineties, she remained an alien in her own country, her foreignness accentuated by ‘the foreignness of languages’. She spoke her singsong derewali that sounds alien even to East Punjabi speakers. Conversely, she never quite ‘settled’ in the Hindi heartland to which the family migrated. For one who located her home in a North Western Frontier Province, in a pind(village) called Bhakkhar, the nation narrative was framed within a migrant narrative, first from the village to the city and then to another linguistic region. Her imagination translated the nation’s alien geography as the loss of a home village and as the necessity of having to master a foreign language. Therefore, the first generation displaced Hindu Punjabi tenancy of the local dialect, a foreign tongue in the new land, problematizes the clash of old imaginings of the nation with the new. The lost home and community, without the compensating ‘myth of return’, are recovered in the traces of the dialect. Dialects, unlike the print languages on which the nation is imagined, speak of and from small places of face-to-face speech communities. They also remain the last resistive spaces in the homogenizing movement of print nationalism.

The pre-national Indian imagining of homeland was essentially a very small locality based in a dialect and a region.10 The synonymy of home with a linguistic region in the Indian imaginary, invariably a small locality, becomes particularly problematic when the region turns overnight into a foreign country. The citizen subject reclaiming a home in another nation is a contradiction of the condition of compliance underwriting the formation of the national subject. Adrift in a nation that is not home, he zooms in so close on the homeland that macro boundaries go out of focus. Home for the displaced Hindu Punjabi is the Punjabi suba frequently interchangeable with the mulk/watan or nation. The homeland, located in a narrowly defined Punjabi region with its particularized dialect, is a geographically bounded neighbourhood (river, mountainrange, and climate). Take, for example, the case of derewali's geographical constituency. Derewali binds the district lying between Jhelum and Sindhu river on the North West Frontier Province, now in Pakistan. Across the Sindhu are other dialect regions, for instance,balochi in Balochistan and Bannuwaali in Bannu. The map given above (1905) can provide the topography and contours of undivided Punjab. 

Satwanti

Besides, the proposed national language had to write the new nation on the traces of the Moghul scribal lingua. It must be noted that the communicational languages of old empires did not ever encroach on the cultural territories of speech. The switch from Hindustani to Hindi and Urdu as official languages of India and Pakistan heralds the emergence of the nation from the remains of the Empire. Courtly Hindustani marks the graphocentric phase in the gap separating phonocentric dialects from print languages. Pre-partition educational practices reflect this transitional moment in a linguistic split between 'the Hindiwallahs' and 'the Urduwallahs'.8 As the nation’s birth becomes imminent, the nationmaking process is expedited by the sharp switchover to Hindi from Urdu. 

Dialect and language divide splits the private and public spaces of modern civil society. The citizen subject is born in the separation of the dialect or private speech from language or public discourse. Pujandi’s offspring, ill at ease in the face-to-face intimacy of derewali, articulate their aspirations to Standard Punjabi’s urbane inflections. Dialect has a strange meeting with language in the domestic space where Pujandi’s 'rustic' derewali utterances are greeted with Standard Punjabi responses in Lyallpur (renamed Faisalabad). Instead of resisting it, the dialect gives in to Punjabi’s unifying space in the construction of modernity. The erasure of 'dialectal' differences in Standard Punjabi enables the imagining of a unified Punjabi community. Standard Punjabi’s modernity writes its difference from the closed spaces of local dialects, which circumscribe identity in rigid kinship structures of belonging.

Anderson’s point about the homogenizing impact of print languages on speech communities is illustrated by dialects’ natural death in the evolution of modern Indian print languages. The development of modern Punjabi opens up new identity routes on which the nation myth might be scripted. But the inscription of the nation in modern Indian languages, be it Punjabi or Bengali, reveals a marked divergence from the unifying script the Indian nation sought to inscribe itself in. The adoption of modern Punjabi by educated speakers in Lahore and Lyallpur is a move away from small dialect based identifications towards the beginnings of a modern Punjabiqaum. Speakers of different dialects congregate in the public sphere of a standardized Punjabi to construct a unified linguistic space, which will be seen to reveal a deep ethnocultural as well as ethnolinguistic cleavage.9 

The imagining of the nation in the Punjabi language produces slippages of religion translating into separatist demands for two pure lands, Pakistan and Khalistan. Though the latter is also couched as a linguistic demand, the Hindu Punjabi’s linguistic nationalism is a disjuncture in the sacral pre-national communities. The convergence of Arya Samaaj’s Hindu reformist programme with the Indian nationalist project offers the Hindu Punjabi a politically right path out of prospective minority location.10 Hindu Punjabis allegedly enter Hindi as their mothertongue and are dubbed traitors by the Akaali Dal. Pujandi enters the grand Indian masternarrative as the namesake of theMahabharata queen Satwanti, as the Arya Samaaj movement sweeps over Punjab dissolving tribal names, gods and dialects in a ‘return to Vedas’ Hinduism. 

Satya Kumari

Torn between Muslim and Sikh separatism, the Punjabi Hindu community’s allegiance to Indian nationalism puts it in a linguistic bind. Consent to the nation narrative is interpreted as a tacit agreement to exchange place and language identities for a homogenous nation space signified by the national language. Mastery of the national language, of Hindi in India or Urdu in Pakistan, is flashed as a secret password to the citizenship of secular nation space in India and to the Islamic state in Pakistan. No other linguistic space cleared as wide a passage for the national language incursion as that of the displaced Hindu Punjabi. It betrays a naive faith in the reality of the nation myth, whose fragments interrogate its existence today.

Pujandi’s family sought in the dream of a secular nation forged in a national language a refuge from religious persecution. Its attempts to enter the nation narrative by learning the national language yielded much amusement. How does one get oneself understood in another language without making 'expensive' mistakes? Lengthening Punjabi sounds gives cause for unintentional humour and confusion. But Pujandi, now Satya Kumari, valiantly fights her way through the maze of Hindi to get across basics no matter if her strange accent causes much merriment among the locals who speak chaste Hindi or Urdu. Displaced from both the dialect and the vernacular tongue, the family’s increasing fluency in the national language is an indicator of the success of the rehabilitation scheme. Shuttling between the Punjabi place of the resettlement colonies and the nation space of public places, their uneasy tenancy of the new language and place is accentuated by the differences in pronunciation, everyday practices and rituals. Punjabi’s 'alien; rhythms translate into a harsh Hindi underlining the violence of the resettlement scheme. Though an entire generation comes of age in the resettlement colonies, home Punjabi still conflicts with public Hindi to produce an 'atrocious' accent. Like all other old world customs, Punjabi speech might be practiced within the confines of the refugee ghetto. But Hindi is the currency to be exchanged for assimilation into the new milieu. Though strains of Punjabi might still be heard in extended families where the first two generations find comfort in the home language, nuclear set-ups are almost 'Hindiized'. These homes, saddled with the baggage of a foreign Punjabi in the new land, adjust to the changed surroundings by switching over to the national language the children bring home from school. The strange discourse between Pujandi and her children is repeated in another generation with the derewali dialect being replaced by Standard Punjabi. It would take three decades for a booming Punjabi industry to transform the shame of refugee existence into a saga of pride and adventure. Though Punjabi cannot be restored, the employment of Punjabi Hindi in the public sphere will signify not as Punjabi 'foreignness' but as Punjabi difference. And it would be another couple of decades before Punjabi can returnas the loudest voice in the Indian popular cultural space.11

The myth of return distinguishes the self-constitution of other migrants from refugees. While most migrants are 'strangers', refugees are particularly vulnerable because they are unwelcome both at home and abroad. While other migrants find refuge in language and ethnicity from their estrangement in foreign tongues and nations, refugees fleeing from ethnic violence know the price of ethnic difference too well. They rush to eradicate every trace of foreignness by wiping off all visible signifiers of ethnicity. They make a conscious attempt to adopt local dress, manners and languages to assimilate into the mainstream. The new settlers’ status is decided by their political clout. Conquerors demand homage, the vanquished receive contempt, or pity, at best. When the homeless are given shelter in others’ homes, they make space for themselves by making themselves inconspicuous. The hidden spaces of the home alone remain the preserve of ethnicity. Here one may speak tribal dialects, observe archaic rituals, relish exotic cuisines, and sing primeval songs without the fear of reprisal. Refugees must acquire a working knowledge of the local language and customs to be able to do business in the adopted land. But they return every evening to the security of the dialect of the ghetto where the old place is reconstructed through memory in the dwellings, the food, the attire, and everyday habits.

Unfortunately, certain identity markers, such as the body or the accent, cannot be cast away as easily. The body and the accent inscribe their foreignness in the land of others. The Punjabi language and ethnicity signified to the older residents an inferiorized refugee identity. The filth and squalour of the refugee camps, eyesores on the nation’s ancient cultural capitals – Delhi, Kolkata, Lucknow – were projected as metaphors of cultural debasement. If Punjabi dialects sounded harsh and uncouth, Lahori Urdu was designated a poor countrycousin to the chaste Lakhnavi.12 Punjabi costume, designed on Muslim patterns, paraded its foreignness against the backdrop of starched dhotis and sarees. Punjabi music sounded too loud and cacophonous to classical Hindustani ears. Displaced Hindu Punjabis were willing to make any adjustment, linguistic or cultural, to make a home in the new nation. The displaced Hindu Punjabi male learned to write Hindi to know his rights and duties as citizen subject and worked overtime to enter the nation as producer. The displaced Hindu Punjabi female learned to speak Hindi to participate in the nation’s public sphere and went through a complete 'makeover' to recast herself as an Indian woman. The acquisition of the national language, Hindi, and the removal of visible Punjabi ethnocultural signifiers signaled not only derewali's but aslo Punjabi’s death, which coincided with the displaced Hindu Punjabi subjects’ transmutation into Indian citizens. It took a couple of generations to make them shed their strong derewali or Punjabi accent and yet another to tone down their skin colour and physical features. It also took two generations for them to come home to the loss of a dialect and to the discovery that the submergence of the home in the dream of the nation was permanent.


Partition ton Baad (Post Partition)

Rushdie’s deconstruction of English in Midnight’s Children was viewed as signposting a significant moment in the decolonization process. But the deconstruction of Hindi a couple of years later in the celebrated commercial Hindi filmmaker Ramesh Sippy’s magnum opus Buniyaad on the small screen, on the other hand, went completely unnoticed in literary circles. But his homage to Punjabi Hindi, the way Hindi is spoken by Punjabi speakers, opened the Indian skies to regional variations of Hindi. Hindi films and Hindi language television have switched over to spoken vernacular Hindi registers from stilted Standard Hindi thanks to Ramesh Sippy’s mega tele-serial following 'the rags to riches' story of a displaced Hindu Punjabi family. However, long before the titan of Hindi filmdom made the Punjabi Puttar part of South Delhi’s haute couture, Hindi had always been deconstructed in Punjabi homes.13 In a manner similar to the way Rushdie works the structure of English outwards to inflect it with Hindi rhythms, displaced Hindu Punjabis would alter Standard Hindi to infuse it with Punjabi ‘structures of feeling’. The first, and perhaps the second, generation’s Hindi 'vowel and semi-vowel disability', is turned by the third generation into an act of linguistic deconstruction.14 Speaking its difference from Standard Hindi, displaced Punjabi Hindi scripts a difference in the Indian masternarrative inscribed in the national language. 

European nationalism, converging on a print language, proved to be far from modular when confronted with the multiplicity of Indian languages. Followed to its logical extreme, cultural identifications clustered around languages disrupted the homogeneity of the nation space. The idea of the nation, a derivative discourse, required a link language to approximate to the European model. But fifty-five years after the birth of the nation, Indian languages are more likely to be relegated to oblivion by global English than by national Hindi. The ambivalence in the adoption of the national language by non-Hindi populations is replicated in the reluctant assent to the idea of the nation. Linguistic returns of the transnational era drive home the strength of these linguistic memories on which the nation myth was superimposed. 

Identities are always relational and accretive. When an Indian meets a European, he identifies himself as an Indian; when he meets another Indian, he specifies his linguistic identity; when he meets another member of his linguistic group, he particularizes the region. Unlike that of other Indian linguistic groups, the displaced Hindu Punjabi’s particularized place is not relational and accretive but disjunctive. Recalling a region-based memory preserved in the dialect that the national memory erased forever along with the homeland, this disjunctive small regional memory recalls the violence of the national superscript. As the sole signifier of a particular ethno-cultural identity, the loss of dialect is particularly poignant as a grim reminder of the permanence of the loss of the homeland. The displaced Hindu Punjabi subjectivity is 'barbwired' against real geographical spaces. Unlike the materiality of regional spaces inhabited by other dialects, the geo-region survives virtually as a memory. The displaced Hindu Punjabi’s small regional memory reverses the real/imaginary dialectic of the region and the nation through this act of double imagining. 

While the indelibility of vernaculars enables other linguistic returns, speakers of vanishing dialects can disrupt the homogenous nation space only by inscribing difference in the national language. The national language does not meet regional language difference but is repeated with a difference, a difference that does not return as the same. The repetition of the national language fractures its unified structure to inscribe the absence of the dialect. Neither Hindi nor Punjabi, the new language calls forth the violence of the idea of the nation. Like its speakers, the hybrid idiom is articulated in the transitory spaces of displacement. Neither at home in the new Hindi, nor in the forgotten Punjabi, the displaced Hindu Punjabi has inscribed the loss of home through communicating his discomfort in both. The displacement narrative cannot be inscribed in a pre-given linguistic origin but a linguistic rupture that inscribed the loss of home in a new language.15 It constructs cultural identifications from a language of negation, which borrows familiar signs to signify difference rather than identity. 

I speak Hindi, a language that is not mine. I don’t speak Punjabi, which is my language. I speak Hindi because it is the only language I have. I speak Hindi fluently but with a difference that signifies my non-identity with its native speakers. I speak it with a trace of Punjabi to make it mine.

Works Cited

Ashcroft, Bill. Post-colonial Transformation. NY: Routledge 2001
Bhaba, Homi K. Nations and Narrations. London: Routledge 1990
Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and its Fragments. Delhi: OUP
Chadha Gurinder, Bend it Like Beckham 2002
Das, Veena et al(ed), Violence and Subjectivity. New Delhi: Reynolds 2000
Derrida, Jacques. Margins of Philosophy. Tr Alan Bess Chicago: Chicago Univ Press 1982
Gupta, Dipankar, The Context of Ethnicity: Sikh Identity in a Comparative Perspective. Delhi: OUP 1996
Hall, Stuart, “New Ethnicities”. Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. (ed) David Morley & Kuan-Hsing Chan. London: Routledge 1996 441-449
Nair Mira, Monsoon Wedding 2001
Nandy, Ashis, Time Warps: The Insistent Politics of Silent and Evasive Pasts. N Delhi: Permanent Black. 2001
Pandey, Gyanendra, Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India. Cambridge University Press. 2001
Sippy Ramesh Buniyaad 1984-85
Veer, Peter van der. Religious Nationalism: Hindus and muslims in India. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1984

Acknowledgement

Our thanks for permission to reprint the above article to - Anukriti. Translation Today for Anjali Gera Roy's essay 'Not Speaking a Language that is Mine' Vol 1. No 2. October 2004

_____________________________________________
1 Refer to Jacques Derrida’s collection of essays in Speaking a Language that is not my Own where he relates his own situation – a Mehrabian speaking French – to the nature of language. 
2 I am beholden to Tutun Mukherjee for this phrase and for leading me to believe that my little story has its place in the mega national narrative. I have discovered through my routine conversations with other Punjabis that this disability is confined to displaced Hindu Punjabis forced to settle outside Indian Punjab, especially those raised in nuclear homes. Sikh Punjabis retain Punjabi language irrespective of the place of resettlement or migration. The splintering of the religious and linguistic identity is peculiar to Hindu Punjabi but not other Hindu communities say Gujrati or Bihari. This happens because their religious affiliation enjoins the learning of devanagarirather than gurmukhi, the Punjabi script developed by Sikhism. Research has shown the use of shahmukhi used to transcribe Punjabi sounds prior to the formation of the Sikh identity. 
3 I will use the term Bhaaratvarshiya to designate the pre-national community that the nation India replaced. I choose this over the later term Hindustan because of its sectarian and regional connotations. My preference is not rooted in any originary desire but the inclusiveness accorded by its anteriority, which locates all subsequent self-imaginings into a pre-national temporality. 
My description of derewali[Miyaanwali] as a dialect was based on the general understanding of derewali as a dialect of Punjabi among displaced Punjabis. 
4 Ironically, Punjabi speakers were in the habit of using Hindustan to refer to this region and Hindustani to the speakers of Hindi from whom they distinguished themselves. This linguistic slip, pointing to older linguistic communities, writes them out of the nation.
5 Diaspora theory has largely addressed itself to linguistic, ethnic or sectarian diasporas overseas. Similar intra-national diasporas have not been theorized. Interestingly, Bill Ashcroft’s Post-colonial Transformations illustrates place and displacement by citing the Partition diaspora. Gyanendra Pandey’s Remembering Partition uses the Partition experience to theorize about nationhood, history and particular forms of sociality.
6 Among the Partition displaced, Partition serves as the most important marker in dividing generations. The most important difference is between those who were born before Partition and those born later. Gyanendra Pandey suggests that the alternative names to refer to the events of 1947, ‘are diverse claims regarding nationalism and the nation-state’(2001:13) 
7 Though modern Punjabi evolved well before the Indian Partition, dialects continued to flourish in Punjab. The temporality of both modern Punjabi and Hindi is at odds with dialect time. The official language of pre-Partition Punjab Hindustani met challenges from Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi promoted by the Muslim league, the Arya Samaaj and the Akali Dal respectively in consolidating Muslim, Hindu and Sikh identities causing Punjabi’s linguistic rupture.
Peter van der Veer notes ‘the creation of a regional identity around the symbolic cluster of a tomb cult as that of Faridudin Chisti in Punjab. He asserts that the establishment of Baba Farid’s shrine was instrumental in the transformation of this region from a non-Islamic to an Islamic one. He offers an insight into the fracturing of a regional idenity into a sectarian identity, particularly in Punjab. He mentions that the change in names from Punjabi secular to Islamic, which disappear completely by the early nineteen century reveals a very slow homogenization of the identities of the the followers of Baba Farid, which he compares to Hinduization or Sikhization.
As the essays in this special feature show, languages such as derewali, lahnda, Hindco and others that have now been included in Siraiki in contrast to my understanding of them as being variations of Punjabi.
8 Khushwant Singh makes a jocular reference to the divide between the Hindi and Urduwallahs in Government College Lahore in his obituary to the Hindi writer Bhisham Sahni. Though Hindi might have been available as an option, Urdu was the preferred language up to a certain point. The majority of Punjabi Hindu males who were in high school before Partition are able to write the Urdu script but write Devanagari with great difficulty. Those born closer to Partition, particularly females have no knowledge of Urdu.
9 Deepa Mehta freezes this moment of rupture on celluloid in her film 1947 Earth. The film constructs a public sphere where all castes and communities might freely congregate and dialogue represented by the Hindu ayah (governess) and lallah (shopkeeper), Muslim khaansaama (cook), Ice-candy Man and maalishwaalaah (masseur), the Sikh worker and the Christian sweeper. The riots on both sides of the proposed border trigger a rift between friends that turns out to be unbreachable. “Punjabis ceased to be Punjabis and became Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs”. Pandey quotes an intelligence report. (Rees papers, PBF bundles, Secret ‘log’ of 4th August 1947) Pandey 2001: 198) Nandy cites this as an example of ‘religion as ideology’ coming into conflict with ‘religion as faith’. 
1 0 Punjab’s demographic structure has changed after its several partitions. Hindu Punjabis, a considerable majority in undivided Punjab, are a minority in present day Punjab. Dipankar Gupta notes that their perception of themselves as a minority (though they constituted 31% of the population of undivided Punjab) might have played a role in the way Hindu Punjabis welcomed the Arya Samaaj movement. Gupta also attributes to the Arya Samaaj movement the resurgence of a Hindu consciousness in Punjab. The alleged listing of Hindi as mother tongue by Hindu Punjabis led to the further division of Punjab into Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. 
1 1 The nineties have signaled the return of Punjabi to India via the Punjabi diasporic presence, which has created a global space for Punjabi through its music. Today, no Bollywood film is complete without a Punjabi number.
1 2 Dipankar Gupta makes very important distinction between the alleged ‘Punjabi invasion’, which the older residents found brash and aggressive and the specific culture engendered by contingencies of refugee existence. “The lack of decorum and form that older residents of Delhi objected to were really outcomes of refugee existence”(1996: 32)
1 3 Puttar, son, is an endearment used to address both male and female children by elders. The linguist Vaishna Narang told me in a private conversation in October 1995 that Delhi Punjabis switched over from the Hindi equivalent beta, son, to puttar post Buniyaad.
1 4 Punjabi speakers had problems with Hindi semi-vowels as in sounds ending with kra or dra. But it can be used to signify Punjabi difference, such as pronouncing putra (son) as puttar or fikra (anxiety) as fikar in Punjabi Hindi.
15 Veena Das displays a great sensitivity to this linguistic dislocation speaking about her experience of interviewing displaced urban Punjabi families in connection with her work on their ‘aesthetic of kinship’. A ‘delicate aesthetic’ alluding to betrayals and complaints could be reconstructed only at the edges of conversation, which invoked the old kinship structures. “The very language that bore these memories had a foreign tinge to it, as if the Punjabi or Hindi in which it was spoken was some kind of translation from another unknown language”, she observes. (Das 2000: 209)

Curtsey and source kink : http://www.museindia.com/featurecontent.asp?issid=38&id=2741