A monument of Alexander for defeating Indians.

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
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A Pakistani NGO based in Islamabad, Cultural Heritage and Afforestation Preservation Society (CHAAPS), is building a monument to Alexander the Macedonian. It is a “token of homage”, according to the chairman of the NGO, "to the great soldier whose humanitarian values were even greater.
Alexander is remembered in Pakistan for defeating local Hindu king Raja Porus. Pakistan has already honored Muslim crusader Muhammad-bin-Qasim who came and defeated the local Hindu king Raja Dahir of Sindh and spread Islam.

It is a thought-provoking report for Pakistanis especially for the intellectuals of Salt Range of Punjab. Syed Arshad Sadiq chairman of CHAAPS, an NGO based in Islamabad under the guidance of eminent scholar Prof Ahmed Dani, has completed the first phase of the monumental project as a mark of respect to the memory of Alexander the Great of Macedonia , the conqueror of the Indian subcontinent who defeated the Indians.

Pakistanis are unable to comprehend the reasons and the purpose for building this project at a cost of Rs 17 million especially when this monument would continue reminding Indians and Pakistanis of the ruthless heroism of Alexander who invaded India out of sheer greed and lust.

Alexander was not a benefactor for this region and constructing a permanent monument for him will continue to haunt people of Salt Range and shall have the least positive impact on them.

Both Raja Porus and Raja Dahir are from Pakistan (then India) but being Hindus they are treated with contempt. Alexander was not a benefactor for this region and constructing a permanent monument for him will continue to haunt people of Salt Range and shall have the least positive impact on them. While Alexander , Shahbuddin Ghauri, Mahmud Ghazni, Timur, Genghis Khan, Bin-Qasim are treated heros because though they looted the country, they defeated the Hindus and Indians.

Alexander may have been a great soldier but the “humanitarian” bit sits oddly on a man who burnt down Persepolis and massacred every inhabitant of a small town near Multan (then part of India) because he had been wounded while besieging it.

Nations build monuments to their defenders, their heroes. But apparently, owing to some bizarre reasons, Pakistan has decided to glorify their tormentors and attackers. It would have been quite befitting for Pakistan to build a monument to Hindu king Raja Pursh (Porus) who fought in defence of his land. He may have had a small army but he stood up to the Greek invaders bravely - a fact recognized even by Alexander.

Commemorating Alexander’s victory over Indians, however, makes sense in another way. One of the objectives of the monument is to attract tourists, primarily from the West. So a memorial to a general who attacked and massacred Indians.

Pakistan is known for distortion of history. History of Pakistan begins with the arrival of Islam in India.

[This message has been edited by mohabbat (edited December 16, 2000).]

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I saw an excellent TV programme from PBS in US.
The journalist traced Alexander’s journey from Greek to ancient India.
He was given serious resistance by people of Afghanistan,Sind and Punjab.
He got hurt in what is today called Multan while jumping over the wall of a fort.
He got real resistance from Porus, who when he was captured and asked how he should be treated famously replied ‘Like a King!’

Alexander turned tail at karachi.

So ultimately I suppose what I am trying to say is that Alexander TRIED to conquer India.
He turned back in Karachi itself.

So now Pakistanis are welcome to put up that statue and commemorate their own defeat.
Other appropriate monuments would be.
1.For the English over the conquest of Sindh.
2.Somewhere between Pakistan and Afghanistan commemorating the whupping the English got from Afghans in the two wars they fought with them.
3.Ofcourse one for 1971 !!
All the scholars on Gupshup are welcome to add to the list

http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/smilies/smile.gif

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Who said we are putting up a statue of Alaxander, I am from Islamabad and I havent heard of this from anywhere.

As for your coments about statues for different wars. All we need to put is one statue up for commemorating our victory during the independence and getting a separate country even when Nehru and Gandhi tried as much as they can trying not to split the continent! The truth is WE GOT WE WANTED and was a slap on the congress's face!

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This is interesting. I think there is nothing wrong with celebrating the conquests of Alexander. He reached the status of super-man at a very young age. Andhra, I also watched that documentary – it was Michael Wood of BBC who did that and it was very well done. Although, there is a lot more to know about Alexander’s conquests than one can learn by watching small documentaries. He is the only person in recorded history with more cities named after him (in Asia Minor at least).

He left a lot of footmarks all over Asia. Although, he is credited with killing millions of people, but looking at the contented side of history of conquests, one learns that He brought civilizations together.

So, if Pakistanis are building some sort of cenotaph, I think it is a good thing.

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[quote]
Originally posted by AliBeta:
**Who said we are putting up a statue of Alaxander, I am from Islamabad and I havent heard of this from anywhere.

**
[/quote]

ya.. i read a letter in dawn. they are spending 17 million rupees on this monuent.

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NYA,

Countries build monuments for their hero's, why do you think Pakistanis think of Alexender as their hero.

What lessons will a Pakistani youngster learn about their race and country, while looking at this statue?

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Rani, I personally don’t think that there is anything wrong with building a monument of Alexander. That by no means is an indication that Pakistanis will think of him as their hero. Heck, we have Queen Victoria’s statute smacked in the middle of Lahore, and one of George 8th, infront of the Uni of Punjab, does that mean that they were our heroes? I am sure there are millions such statutes in India of conquerors who passed through or ruled India. History needs to be taught and examined.

Alexander left big footmarks all over Asia (way way before there were any Western religions). His influence on culture is very sever and that needs to be celebrated.

I don’t think building monuments to celebrate history equals considering someone as their Hero. In any events, I consider Alexander a master of cultural prologue, may be not as my Hero. He is credited with building the first library known to mankind.

Similarly, many Pakistani consider Gandhi to be their hero, but there is not a single monument dedicated to him. I wish they will at least name a City after him, may be Islam-a-Bad should be named Gandhi-a-Bad.

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Originally posted by NYAhmadi:
Rani, I personally don’t think that there is anything wrong with building a monument of Alexander. That by no means is an indication that Pakistanis will think of him as their hero. Heck, we have Queen Victoria’s statute smacked in the middle of Lahore, and one of George 8th, infront of the Uni of Punjab, does that mean that they were our heroes? **
Neither of them was built by pakistanis.
**
I am sure there are millions such statutes in India of conquerors who passed through or ruled India. History needs to be taught and examined.
It does not reflect dispassionate analysis of history. Why not a monument for Porus who fought Alexander or Raja Dahir who fought Mohammad bin Qasim? The reason why local heroes are absent and foreign invaders conquests are celebrated needs to be examined and reason is well evident in the very metality. The religion based jingoism has soon taken racist inclination associating themselves to be more white than the eastern neighbor and thus superior. Hence Alexander who looted the area has a monument and Porus who fought him has none.

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NYA

Rani, I personally don’t think that there is anything wrong with building a monument of Alexander. That by no means is an indication that Pakistanis will think of him as their hero. Heck, we have Queen Victoria’s statute smacked in the middle of Lahore, and one of George 8th, infront of the Uni of Punjab, does that mean that they were our heroes? I am sure there are millions such statutes in India of conquerors who passed through or ruled India. History needs to be taught and examined.

Most of the times i agree with you but this time i don't. All the statues you are talking about were build by British not by Indians or Pakistanis and they should be removed and replace by our national heros and we have no dearth of them.

Alexander was a conqueror and I have never seen conquered people build a statue to honor a conqueror. I would personally hate to have his statue build anywhere in India. He should have his rightful place in the history books and we should learn from his expliots and strategy but to think of him as our hero would be wrong.

On the other hand judging by what i read on this forum anybody who has conquered India is Pakistan's hero.

[This message has been edited by Rani (edited December 22, 2000).]

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ZZ. You make a good point, but whatever the Pakistanis decide, it will be at least a start. There are monuments of Civil War (and revolutionary War) all over the US. They depict history in a very unbiased way. May be someday Pakistanis will do the same. Let us first start one for Alexander, we will work our way to building one for Porus also. I personally would like to see a big Monument of Gandhi in Lahore.

Rani. I can understand your perspective, but I still think that Alexander is one of only a handful of figures in the History of mankind that no matter what Pakistanis or Indians think of him, has a very towering place. When he conquered India, he only ventured in northern India, and was defeated badly past that. He went back and died someplace between Afghanistan and Macedonia. When people (Pakistani Youth in particular) will see his monument, they will get curious and would want to learn more about him and the history. So, that’s how I see that it will help educate people and wake up their curiosity. For now, you ask a little kid in rural Pakistan who Alexander was, you sill see a desperate sadness in his/her eyes and perhaps an answer such as: “He sells oranges in the next village”.

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hmmm ... very logical.

We have hundreds of great monuments in our country that have been there for centuries. They are crumbling away and are in the desperate need of some attention. We also happen to be in the deepest recession the country has ever faced. So obviously the most logical step in the circumstances is to build yet another monument in the artificial city of modern monuments as our great leader (Nawaz Shareef) once said "Sher shah soory is not remembered in history for his fiscal deficits but is remembered for the GT road"!!

I am sure that the real reason behind this monument is either (a) the organisation is spending the money to hide some irregular financial going-ons to save themselves from NAB; or (b) the "thekedaar" resp for the monument is the "saga chaachey da putter" of Mr chairman and they will be pocketing at least Rs10m out of this joint venture.

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http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2001-weekly/nos-18-11-2001/foo.htm#2

Singing the unsung – at long last!

Salman Rashid celebrates the greatest Punjabi king Paurava with the naming of a hall in Murree

There is a large, sprawling property just behind the GPO in Murree known as O’Spring. Among the various buildings sprinkled about its compound, there is a hall in one, recently renovated, that flaunts a brand new brass plaque by its door. The hall is dedicated to Raja Paurava as the plaque tells us in the following words:
"The pronunciation of his name in Sanskrit was Paurava.

Common Punjabis pronounced their king’s name Poru and the Greeks transformed it to Porus. That is how the world remembers a great unsung hero.

"Paurava who, according to the Greek historian Arrian, stood no less than seven feet tall, defied the might of Alexander of Macedon on the banks of the Jhelum river in the summer of 326 BC. In doing so he won Arrian’s unqualified admiration who waxed eloquent concerning the Punjabi king’s gallantry in combat and his magnificent conduct in defeat.

"Nearly every Pakistani has heard of the famous exchange between the two adversaries where Alexander asked how Paurava wished to be treated in defeat and received the answer, ‘As a king ought to be treated.’ Alexander appreciated the response but said Paurava should ask for something else whereupon the king replied, ‘Everything is contained in what I have said.’ Alexander was so impressed by the majesty of his defeated enemy that he restored Paurava’s kingdom and made him his friend.

"Paurava had a soul and a character to match his great physique, a measure of which we get three hundred years after he had passed away from life. Apollonious of Tyana, a Greek philosopher, visited Taxila in 44 AD and recounted seeing temples whose walls were adorned with large brass murals depicting the epic clash between Paurava and Alexander. He was told these murals were set up on the orders of the Punjabi king after news of Alexander’s death arrived from Babylon so that posterity may know that the Punjabi held the Macedonian in high esteem.

"Alexander was dead, his Greek garrison had abandoned Taxila and the rest of Punjab of which Paurava was now the uncontested master. He could have destroyed history by depicting himself the victor and Alexander the vanquished and not a soul could have raised a finger to him. But he was above such pettiness. He told the truth – unsavoury as it was – but preserved history as it ought to have been. History can boast of few instances of such character and such largess of the spirit. Herein is a lesson for all to imbibe and build upon.

“He has long remained unsung – even in his own land. It is time now to celebrate the greatest Punjabi king ever to have been born. It is appropriate that the celebration begins here with the naming of this hall after Raja Paurava.”

It all began on a dreary gray morning in Kabul in February 2000. My friend Farrukh Marvin Pervaiz, who heads Church World Service – Pakistan/Afghanistan, and I were walking past the forlorn tomb of Amir Abdur Rahman discussing the great heroes brought forth by the land that we now call Pakistan. These great heroes had unfortunately preceded the blessing of this land by Islam and had thereby been denied the approbation of those of us whose ancestors converted to the new faith. The name that immediately came to mind was that of Raja Paurava. This was for no other reason but the fact that he possessed that majesty of the spirit that moved him to tell only the truth. Even if that truth meant the commemoration of his defeat at the hands of Alexander.

This greatness of character was, in my view, what placed Raja Paurava way above so many pygmies that we count among our heroes today. That day in Kabul, Marvin and I agreed that the recognition of our own heroes was long overdue and that someone had to take the first step to begin this process. Little did I know that it would be Marvin who would posses the courage and ingenuity to grab this initiative.

In August, Marvin called from Karachi and asked me to draft the inscription for a plaque to dedicate the training hall at O’Spring to Raja Paurava. And so it was that on October 26 the Raja Paurava Hall, duly renovated, was inaugurated. At hand was our friend Bishop Sammy Azariah to bless the hall with a prayer.

The hall is a venue for training young women and men social activists. Here they come, regardless of caste, creed or sex, to learn the craft of helping their less fortunate brothers and sisters. In the past several years there passed through the portals of what is now called the Paurava Hall innumerable young (and some not so young) people to spread out across Pakistan. Armed with commitment and the resolve to make this a better country for its disadvantaged citizens, these people have responded beyond what was the call of duty. I say this for I am acquainted with the work of many of them.

Even before being so dedicated, Paurava Hall was used for a cause. That it now celebrates a great Punjabi king is fitting both for the memory of the Raja as well as the quintessence of the premises. When the next batch of trainees pauses to read the inscription by the door of the hall it will be for the first time that Pakistanis – Sindhi, Pukhtun, Baloch and Punjabi, will become aware of the greatness of this son of the Chej Doab – the belt between the Chenab and the Jhelum.

This appreciation comes two thousand four hundred years after the death of Raja Paurava, but as they say, better late than never.

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I think they should build the staute in Peshawar instead of Islamabad. That way the Talibanists can demolish it for whatever reason that they might feel fit. I believe the hellenic society of America can not only fuel the fire of Pakistan's reason for being, claim heritage back to the Greeks now that the arabs have disavowed them and also at the same time allay the destructive tendencies of the talibanists.

"We build 'em you knock em down"