Understanding Pakistan Project

iFaqeer June 18th, 2007

Athar’s post about the year under Jinnah Saahab is sobering. The first thing that jumps out–or should jump out, if one is not completely in denial–is that, however much respect and regard one has for the Quaid, is that his over-arching assessment, that “he left a legacy as the first Governor General that could be described as mixed or “incomplete”, at best” is very hard to argue with.

Secondly, the detailed statistics and economic/resource breakdown of the “Partition” that he puts together–I wish this had been part of the Pak Studies curriculum, rather than–or at least in addition to–the list of woes that we got. Things that specifically caught my eye:

* Only one million out of the 6.5 million refugees/immigrants fit the profile of what we today call the “Muhajirs”–people from Delhi, and other parts of India, particularly UP.

* Pakistan had a good agricultural base, with 75% of its farmed area having irrigation facilities, and receiving 70% of British India jute capacity–the latter, if I am not wrong, being the world’s largest.

On the negative side, too, Athar provides details of the woes that befell Pakistan in more detail and clarity than I remember from previous reading. But the the point that is startling–though oh, so obvious if you think about it, is this:

“With resources and destinies so interlinked with each other (i.e. Pakistan’s dependence on India’s goodwill for its water, and India’s dependence on Pakistan’s raw material for its factories), much was dependent upon the goodwill between the two countries. Leaders on both sides made public statements that suggested that they expected nothing short of that. Some had, in the past, even suggested the possibility of a joint-defense pact between the two countries. However, in reality the relationship that emerged, as the ashes of the partition settled, was everything but cordial. This took leaders on both sides by surprise…” They had been colleagues in a heartfelt movement, if representing different threads in it, for decades up till that point.

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iFaqeer June 11th, 2007

Athar’s second piece–related to the actual process of the transfer of power is rather well-written and, comprehensive, so my own comments will be short.

However, it is interesting that the grip of the official mythology is so strong that when discussing the June 3 Plan, Athar slips up and gives the critical date defined therein as “August 14th”. It reminded me of a piece done on the “Chronicle of Pakistan” website (by Khurram Ali Shafique) that does some serious myth-busting on the topic. It might sound trivial, but it is a good illustration of how history is transformed as nations choose how to build their stories. [That whole website is a good place to go for the nitty-gritty of events on a year-by-year basis.]

The other discordant note I wanted to strike was that while the official story often has words like the following from Athar’s piece: Continue Reading »

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iFaqeer June 4th, 2007

By: Sabahat Ashraf (iFaqeer)

The anchor piece this week can best be described, in its own words, as “a criticism of looking at Pakistan’s history from its ideological prism”. But I’d like to point out that even in setting it up in that way, it is very difficult for us to get out of that way of thinking completely.

The piece starts out by asserting that the idea of Pakistan was first formally presented to the Muslims of the Sub-Continent in 1937 and goes on to imply that it became a rallying cry in 1940. That in itself can be taken as revisionism–and taken as revisionism based on either what can loosely be taken as the pro-Two Nation Theory point of view or the anti-Two Nation Theory. One could say that the idea was not just a 1935-47 phenomenon. Or one could say that “Pakistan” wasn’t actually the real desired end-game of the likes of Mr. Jinnah, either, until it became the only option left to them. And the anchor piece does a good job of laying out the history that can be used as the basis for either critique. And in that, I think it meets the aim set for this project.

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