“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” - Santayana (in The Life of Reason, 1905)
The raising specter of Islamic Terrorism across the world once again brought Pakistan into the center stage of world discussion. Investigations are proving direct or indirect connection to Pakistan in almost every lone-wolf terror attack anywhere in the world. Yet Pakistan is being allowed to put a mask of normal nation-state by a facade of democratically elected civilian government, functioning army and alas a quasi-nuclear-state. Various world powers are allowing this menace to survive in the hope to use it to subvert their strategic competitors, albeit with steeply raising costs to their own national-security interests.
India has a vital interest in addressing this Pakistan problem because every aspect of Pakistan equation has a direct bearing upon India’s national interests. Pakistan openly declared India to be its existential threat and sole-target of its nuclear weapons. So it is in core Indian interests to address Pakistan problem head on and in a timely manner.
Solving Pakistan conundrum is not a simple affair. Pakistan is epicenter of clash of civilizations under nuclear umbrella with use of terrorism as state policy that can blow up into the worst humanitarian crisis the human race has ever witnessed. Perhaps this is the main reason why many strategic analysts recommend status-quo or worse rent-paying solutions when dealing with Pakistan.
This doesn’t mean humanity cannot solve Pakistan problem with minimal costs. However, such a solution requires a clear understanding of idea of Pakistan and how it came to existence in the first place.
The civilizational fight between Islam and Bharat started in 640AD and has been continuing since then. In the past 1370 years of this war, many battles have been won by either side and the winning side establishing states (or kingdoms) reflecting their power. In this process various western-Bharatiya regions succumbed to Islam and created new Islamic invaders like Ghaznis, Ghoris, Khiljis, Tuglaqs, Mughals etc. Irrespective of nativity (as these regions fell to Islam) of these sultanates the underlying factor of every sultanate is persecution and subjugation of native dharma a.k.a Hinduism and its followers.
“The Mohammedan conquest of India (Bharat, as India was not born yet) is probably the bloodiest story in history. The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great glee and pride the slaughters of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave markets and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam during 800 AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by sword during this period.” - Will Durant "The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage" (page 459) [1]
As a typical invasive ideology/empire, Islam retracted to safe areas when in defeat and expanded when enemy is overwhelmed. We can see this in the expansion and demise of various sultanates in Indian-subcontinent between 640AD till 1670s as the native Bharatiya civilization refused to succumb to Islam. The sword of Islam (Zulfiqar) was blunted and broken by the coherent Hindu resurgence under the leadership of Marathas by end of 17th century. By 1760 the Maratha empire [2] extended to nearly 40% Bharat and was on its way to wipe out Islam from entire Indian sub-continent.
As fate had it, Bharat attracted the attention of European colonial powers at this juncture and as they say, the rest is history. Eventually the British came out as victors and they built an intricate model of governance that brought almost entire Bharat (Afghanistan, Parts of Thailand remained out of British control) under quasi-British rule. Islam had to retreat into survival mode in the face of a more powerful colonial empire during British era. However, this didn’t stop Islam from persecuting Hindus wherever it held the power as we can see from how Hindus were systematically harassed in Nizam empire.
In the background of two world wars, the Indian Independence movement gained strength and Subash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army became an existential threat to British empire. The second world war not only broke Britain’s war fighting capacity but also its finances. As independence from colonial era became evident, the Hindu majority opted for ancient Bharatiya ideas like democracy, universal suffrage and uniform civil code as foundations of independent Bharat to much discomfort and existential threat to Islamic colonialism that is built on savage dictatorship, subjugation and exploitation of non-Muslims and sharia law that systemically enslaves non-Muslims.
From this ideological friction came the idea of Pakistan as a separate nation-state as homeland for the sub-continental Muslims [3][4] where they can restart the Islamic conquest of Hindu Bharat. Thus Pakistan is presented as a political solution to help restart Islamic conquest of Hindu Bharat where Islamists are not subjected to Hindu hegemonic imposition of democracy, universal suffrage and uniform civil code. The core rationale for a separate homeland for Pakistan is given by various Islamic thought leaders. Some of them are:
Britain, as the defeated colonial power happily embraced the idea of a separate Muslim homeland in Indian subcontinent for it served two key purposes. One is a natural desire to deny the victor, Bharat, a complete victory. The second purpose is more sinister where the British colonial empire saw no basic conflict between Western imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism [6]. The British secretary of state John Foster Dulles opined “The religions of the East are deeply rooted and have many precious values. Their spiritual beliefs cannot be reconciled with Communist atheism and materialism. That creates a common bond between us, and our task is to find it and develop it” [7]. Olaf Caroe, the architect of partition, advocated turning Pakistan into a base for a community of Muslim states that “would show the way for reconciliation between the Western and Islamic models”.
It is no strange that Pope Francis echoed this sentiment by proclaiming Islam and Christianity share an (sic) ‘idea of conquest’ [8] as he advised European Nations to allow Muslim immigration to repopulate Europe. One has to see no further than the commonality between these Abrahamic religions to understand the “idea of conquest” as they pillaging and genociding native populations and cultures wherever they set foot.
As soon as the military resources are split between the newly born nations, Pakistan jumped into action to conquer Bharatiya territories in the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir; which ended in a stalemate with Indian and Pakistan holding onto half of the territory.
By 1950s Pakistan became a western ally and signed a mutual defense agreement with USA (1954), and joined Anglo-American sponsored Bagdad pact (1955) along with Turkey, Iraq and Iran fulfilling John Foster Dulles’ vision for an alliance between Western imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism.
The first victim of new Islamic sultanate of Pakistan are the core values of native civilization – democracy and culture. The sultanate of Pakistan opted to adopt an artificial language Urdu with Arabic script and Persian words over a plethora of native languages its population spoke, be it Bengali in East-Pakistan or Punjabi of West-Pakistan. Even its national heroes and icons have to be non-native Islamic conquerors such as Ghazni and Ghori to reinforce the invasive characteristic of Islam is maintained. This civilizational conflict of Islam with Bharat in (then) Pakistan prime minister (sic) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto words - "Pakistan will fight, fight for a thousand years. If.. India builds the (atom) bomb.... (Pakistan) will eat grass or (leaves), even go hungry, but we (Pakistan) will get one of our own (atom bomb).... We (Pakistan) have no other Choice!" [9]
Year 1971 saw another victim of Islam in the existence of Pakistan. Democracy had to be killed in order to ensure the idea of Islam triumphs over cultural identity and regional assertiveness, even at the cost of losing nearly half territory. Whatever be the reason, the Hindu majority India had to intervene and help creation of Bangladesh for the clash of civilization is yet to be over.
The paranoia of Islam reached its peaks after 1971 defeat in the hands of Hindu-majority India and Pakistan became a client state of its sibling western imperialism. By 1980s Pakistan became the epicenter of new Islamic revival in the name of Afghanistan Mujahedeen which evolved into purer versions of Islam; Taliban, Al-Qaeda and now Islamic State.
Bolstered by the success of mujahedeen in Afghanistan, Pakistan introduced this model against its civilizational enemy Bharat in the states of Punjab (Khalistan movement) and Jammu & Kashmir (Kashmir insurgence). Tens of thousands of Indians have been killed in these Pakistan sponsored terrorist acts (Terrorism is peacetime equivalent of war crime [10]). The finger prints of Islam clearly visible in every aspect of Pakistan’s approach to Bharat; from its demands of Sikhs to pay jizya to visit Sikh pilgrimage places to its suicide terror attacks in Bharatiya cities to its sadistic mutilation of dead bodies of Indian Soldiers and so on. This sadism gets into ISIS proportions to the minorities living in its captive territories; all in the name of blasphemy. Pakistan is Islam manifested in Bharatiya territories.
Reciprocating India’s nuclear tests, Pakistan demonstrated its own capability to produce nuclear weapons in 1998. This ushered a new era – Islam under nuclear-umbrella. Lt General Khalid Kidwai, the longtime head of Strategic Planning of Pakistan’s National (Nuclear) Command Authority, declared that “Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were aimed solely at India”. This classification makes real sense nearly two decades since then as Pakistan declares India capturing Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) as a threshold that would trigger a nuclear attack but didn’t have any problem donating part of (same) Kashmir territory to China in 1963 or ceding strategic control over PoK to China as part of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Similarly, Pakistan doesn’t have any problem with USA bombing various groups using drones in the name of Global War On Terror (GWOT) and doesn’t consider it threat to its sovereignty. This is very important to note because Pakistan’s sovereignty comes under threat only when Hindu Bharat violates it but not from western imperialism.
True to its Islamic foundations Pakistan started to bite the very hands that feed either to demand more Jizya (the tax non-Muslims must pay to live in a Muslim world) in the name of aid or out of the natural desire to cause mayhem. Over the past two decades Pakistan evolved into the terrorism epicenter of the world, exporting Islamic foot soldiers to all four corners. Today there is not a single terrorist event anywhere in the world that doesn’t have Pakistan connection, directly or indirectly.
By gaining a sanctuary in fertile regions of Indian Subcontinent, Islam thus built a terrorist empire under nuclear umbrella over past 70 years of Pakistan’s existence. It threatens to commit a nuclear suicide by constantly reducing its nuclear-threshold as India becomes stronger. Soon one shouldn’t be surprised if Pakistan threatens a nuclear attack if India tries to respond to Pakistani terrorist attacks.
Does this mean the Indian subcontinent has to live with Pakistan’s Islamic terrorism even at the cost of thousands of lives and $billions of economic costs? Should the world community accept Islamic sadism on Pakistan’s own citizens in NWFP, Gilgit-Baltistan, PoK, Baluchistan, Sindh?
This author doesn’t think so. We will explore the costs of Pakistan problem from various angles and explore how the Idea of Pakistan can be turned on its head to prepare civilizational solutions to Indian-subcontinent ending the 1300-year clash of civilization.
The raising specter of Islamic Terrorism across the world once again brought Pakistan into the center stage of world discussion. Investigations are proving direct or indirect connection to Pakistan in almost every lone-wolf terror attack anywhere in the world. Yet Pakistan is being allowed to put a mask of normal nation-state by a facade of democratically elected civilian government, functioning army and alas a quasi-nuclear-state. Various world powers are allowing this menace to survive in the hope to use it to subvert their strategic competitors, albeit with steeply raising costs to their own national-security interests.
India has a vital interest in addressing this Pakistan problem because every aspect of Pakistan equation has a direct bearing upon India’s national interests. Pakistan openly declared India to be its existential threat and sole-target of its nuclear weapons. So it is in core Indian interests to address Pakistan problem head on and in a timely manner.
Solving Pakistan conundrum is not a simple affair. Pakistan is epicenter of clash of civilizations under nuclear umbrella with use of terrorism as state policy that can blow up into the worst humanitarian crisis the human race has ever witnessed. Perhaps this is the main reason why many strategic analysts recommend status-quo or worse rent-paying solutions when dealing with Pakistan.
This doesn’t mean humanity cannot solve Pakistan problem with minimal costs. However, such a solution requires a clear understanding of idea of Pakistan and how it came to existence in the first place.
SOUL OF PAKISTAN
Pakistan might have taken the form of a modern nation-state on 14th August 1947 but its seeds were sown many centuries ago in faraway regions as part of Islamic invasions into Bharat. While other civilizations like Persia succumbed to Islam quickly (within 60 years), the Hindu Bharatiya civilization is the only one that Islam failed to conquer despite the biggest and longest holocaust in history.
The civilizational fight between Islam and Bharat started in 640AD and has been continuing since then. In the past 1370 years of this war, many battles have been won by either side and the winning side establishing states (or kingdoms) reflecting their power. In this process various western-Bharatiya regions succumbed to Islam and created new Islamic invaders like Ghaznis, Ghoris, Khiljis, Tuglaqs, Mughals etc. Irrespective of nativity (as these regions fell to Islam) of these sultanates the underlying factor of every sultanate is persecution and subjugation of native dharma a.k.a Hinduism and its followers.
“The Mohammedan conquest of India (Bharat, as India was not born yet) is probably the bloodiest story in history. The Islamic historians and scholars have recorded with great glee and pride the slaughters of Hindus, forced conversions, abduction of Hindu women and children to slave markets and the destruction of temples carried out by the warriors of Islam during 800 AD to 1700 AD. Millions of Hindus were converted to Islam by sword during this period.” - Will Durant "The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage" (page 459) [1]
As a typical invasive ideology/empire, Islam retracted to safe areas when in defeat and expanded when enemy is overwhelmed. We can see this in the expansion and demise of various sultanates in Indian-subcontinent between 640AD till 1670s as the native Bharatiya civilization refused to succumb to Islam. The sword of Islam (Zulfiqar) was blunted and broken by the coherent Hindu resurgence under the leadership of Marathas by end of 17th century. By 1760 the Maratha empire [2] extended to nearly 40% Bharat and was on its way to wipe out Islam from entire Indian sub-continent.
As fate had it, Bharat attracted the attention of European colonial powers at this juncture and as they say, the rest is history. Eventually the British came out as victors and they built an intricate model of governance that brought almost entire Bharat (Afghanistan, Parts of Thailand remained out of British control) under quasi-British rule. Islam had to retreat into survival mode in the face of a more powerful colonial empire during British era. However, this didn’t stop Islam from persecuting Hindus wherever it held the power as we can see from how Hindus were systematically harassed in Nizam empire.
IDEA OF PAKISTAN
In the background of two world wars, the Indian Independence movement gained strength and Subash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army became an existential threat to British empire. The second world war not only broke Britain’s war fighting capacity but also its finances. As independence from colonial era became evident, the Hindu majority opted for ancient Bharatiya ideas like democracy, universal suffrage and uniform civil code as foundations of independent Bharat to much discomfort and existential threat to Islamic colonialism that is built on savage dictatorship, subjugation and exploitation of non-Muslims and sharia law that systemically enslaves non-Muslims.
From this ideological friction came the idea of Pakistan as a separate nation-state as homeland for the sub-continental Muslims [3][4] where they can restart the Islamic conquest of Hindu Bharat. Thus Pakistan is presented as a political solution to help restart Islamic conquest of Hindu Bharat where Islamists are not subjected to Hindu hegemonic imposition of democracy, universal suffrage and uniform civil code. The core rationale for a separate homeland for Pakistan is given by various Islamic thought leaders. Some of them are:
- “Hindus and Muslims differed in all matters and habits” - Al-Biruni (973-1048) [5] summarizing the impact of Islam on its converts; that it would completely and absolutely removes and separates the convert from his or her native civilization.
- “Islam has taught us this and I think you will agree with me, for whatever you may be and wherever you are, you are a Muslim. You belong to a nation now. You have carved out a territory, a vast territory, it is all yours; it does not belong to a Punjabi or a Sindhi or a Pathan or a Bengali, it is yours” – Muhammed Ali Jinnah 1948 [3] calling Indian Muslims to shun their regional and linguistic identities and submit to Islam and Islam alone.
Britain, as the defeated colonial power happily embraced the idea of a separate Muslim homeland in Indian subcontinent for it served two key purposes. One is a natural desire to deny the victor, Bharat, a complete victory. The second purpose is more sinister where the British colonial empire saw no basic conflict between Western imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism [6]. The British secretary of state John Foster Dulles opined “The religions of the East are deeply rooted and have many precious values. Their spiritual beliefs cannot be reconciled with Communist atheism and materialism. That creates a common bond between us, and our task is to find it and develop it” [7]. Olaf Caroe, the architect of partition, advocated turning Pakistan into a base for a community of Muslim states that “would show the way for reconciliation between the Western and Islamic models”.
It is no strange that Pope Francis echoed this sentiment by proclaiming Islam and Christianity share an (sic) ‘idea of conquest’ [8] as he advised European Nations to allow Muslim immigration to repopulate Europe. One has to see no further than the commonality between these Abrahamic religions to understand the “idea of conquest” as they pillaging and genociding native populations and cultures wherever they set foot.
EXISTENCE OF PAKISTAN
Past seventy years of Pakistan’s existence is a testament to the fact that it is nothing but continuation of Islamic conquests of Bharat. Even an auspicious moment such as birth of a new nation (Pakistan) couldn’t hide this underlying pursuit of Islam to genocide and enslave Bharatiya civilization. The partition riots where ~2million killed (~8million deaths in today’s numbers) were nothing but a civilizational war of historic proportions.
As soon as the military resources are split between the newly born nations, Pakistan jumped into action to conquer Bharatiya territories in the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir; which ended in a stalemate with Indian and Pakistan holding onto half of the territory.
By 1950s Pakistan became a western ally and signed a mutual defense agreement with USA (1954), and joined Anglo-American sponsored Bagdad pact (1955) along with Turkey, Iraq and Iran fulfilling John Foster Dulles’ vision for an alliance between Western imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism.
The first victim of new Islamic sultanate of Pakistan are the core values of native civilization – democracy and culture. The sultanate of Pakistan opted to adopt an artificial language Urdu with Arabic script and Persian words over a plethora of native languages its population spoke, be it Bengali in East-Pakistan or Punjabi of West-Pakistan. Even its national heroes and icons have to be non-native Islamic conquerors such as Ghazni and Ghori to reinforce the invasive characteristic of Islam is maintained. This civilizational conflict of Islam with Bharat in (then) Pakistan prime minister (sic) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto words - "Pakistan will fight, fight for a thousand years. If.. India builds the (atom) bomb.... (Pakistan) will eat grass or (leaves), even go hungry, but we (Pakistan) will get one of our own (atom bomb).... We (Pakistan) have no other Choice!" [9]
Year 1971 saw another victim of Islam in the existence of Pakistan. Democracy had to be killed in order to ensure the idea of Islam triumphs over cultural identity and regional assertiveness, even at the cost of losing nearly half territory. Whatever be the reason, the Hindu majority India had to intervene and help creation of Bangladesh for the clash of civilization is yet to be over.
The paranoia of Islam reached its peaks after 1971 defeat in the hands of Hindu-majority India and Pakistan became a client state of its sibling western imperialism. By 1980s Pakistan became the epicenter of new Islamic revival in the name of Afghanistan Mujahedeen which evolved into purer versions of Islam; Taliban, Al-Qaeda and now Islamic State.
Bolstered by the success of mujahedeen in Afghanistan, Pakistan introduced this model against its civilizational enemy Bharat in the states of Punjab (Khalistan movement) and Jammu & Kashmir (Kashmir insurgence). Tens of thousands of Indians have been killed in these Pakistan sponsored terrorist acts (Terrorism is peacetime equivalent of war crime [10]). The finger prints of Islam clearly visible in every aspect of Pakistan’s approach to Bharat; from its demands of Sikhs to pay jizya to visit Sikh pilgrimage places to its suicide terror attacks in Bharatiya cities to its sadistic mutilation of dead bodies of Indian Soldiers and so on. This sadism gets into ISIS proportions to the minorities living in its captive territories; all in the name of blasphemy. Pakistan is Islam manifested in Bharatiya territories.
Reciprocating India’s nuclear tests, Pakistan demonstrated its own capability to produce nuclear weapons in 1998. This ushered a new era – Islam under nuclear-umbrella. Lt General Khalid Kidwai, the longtime head of Strategic Planning of Pakistan’s National (Nuclear) Command Authority, declared that “Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were aimed solely at India”. This classification makes real sense nearly two decades since then as Pakistan declares India capturing Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) as a threshold that would trigger a nuclear attack but didn’t have any problem donating part of (same) Kashmir territory to China in 1963 or ceding strategic control over PoK to China as part of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Similarly, Pakistan doesn’t have any problem with USA bombing various groups using drones in the name of Global War On Terror (GWOT) and doesn’t consider it threat to its sovereignty. This is very important to note because Pakistan’s sovereignty comes under threat only when Hindu Bharat violates it but not from western imperialism.
True to its Islamic foundations Pakistan started to bite the very hands that feed either to demand more Jizya (the tax non-Muslims must pay to live in a Muslim world) in the name of aid or out of the natural desire to cause mayhem. Over the past two decades Pakistan evolved into the terrorism epicenter of the world, exporting Islamic foot soldiers to all four corners. Today there is not a single terrorist event anywhere in the world that doesn’t have Pakistan connection, directly or indirectly.
By gaining a sanctuary in fertile regions of Indian Subcontinent, Islam thus built a terrorist empire under nuclear umbrella over past 70 years of Pakistan’s existence. It threatens to commit a nuclear suicide by constantly reducing its nuclear-threshold as India becomes stronger. Soon one shouldn’t be surprised if Pakistan threatens a nuclear attack if India tries to respond to Pakistani terrorist attacks.
Does this mean the Indian subcontinent has to live with Pakistan’s Islamic terrorism even at the cost of thousands of lives and $billions of economic costs? Should the world community accept Islamic sadism on Pakistan’s own citizens in NWFP, Gilgit-Baltistan, PoK, Baluchistan, Sindh?
This author doesn’t think so. We will explore the costs of Pakistan problem from various angles and explore how the Idea of Pakistan can be turned on its head to prepare civilizational solutions to Indian-subcontinent ending the 1300-year clash of civilization.
References:
1. The biggest holocaust in World
History...whitewashed from history http://bnp.org.uk/news/national/biggest-holocaust-world-historywhitewashed-history
2. Maratha Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_Empire
3. Two Nation Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory
4. The Idea of Pakistan – Stephen B Cohen https://www.brookings.edu/book/the-idea-of-pakistan/
5. Stanley Wolpert,
Jinnah of Pakistan
6. Imperialism, the Cold War and the Creation of
Pakistan http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/1016/pakistan.html
7. The Political Economy of Growth, 1957 - Paul Baran
8. “Islam and Christianity share an ‘idea of
conquest’” - Pope Francis https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/05/17/islam-and-christianity-both-have-an-idea-of-conquest-says-pope-francis/
9. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulfikar_Ali_Bhutto
10.COMBATTING TERRORISM PROTECTING BY RIGHTEOUSNESS
Administrative Reforms Commission, Government of India (June 2008)