I was just curious about those people who wish defense day on one hand and then go on to challenge the two nation theory?
Like, Pakistan and India division is just a political one and basically we are same people etc. Or those who say they have family both in pakistan and india etc.
I get confused about this stand. Could someone explain or share their perspective?
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
I don’t understand those type of people either.
I don’t really celebrate Defense day or even believe that it should be a national holiday but I do believe in the two nation theory; most of the people that insist Pakistan shouldn’t exist are usually Ultra Leftists or ethnic nationalists.
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
Muslims can’t live under Hindu rule, as was evident in the British india at that time.
Hence the struggle for a new homeland. Ofcourse these days it’s easy to question anything when u don’t have to go through the pains or sacrifices that those people at that time went through.
No need to get confused by it. Pakistan is another country and it’s people and culture/religion are different than india.
india and its hindu nationalists should accept that as reality and give up the dream of occupying/conquering Pakistan.
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
That was short-lived.
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
You need to differentiate between wanting peace and challenging the two nation theory. I am all for peace, but over my dead body will I ever allow anybody to call me an Indian. I’m a proud Pakistani of Punjabi ethnicity and Punjabis are NOT Indians. Punjabis have there own history and culture which is separate from Indians (just ask the Sikhs and the revived Khalistan movement).
Take religion out of it, we are still different people. Pakistanis are people of the Indus…Indians (the north) are people of the Ganges. In Pakistan all of our different ethnicities have a unique bond to sufi spirtualism which is non-existant in India. Plus, we look drop dead sexy and Indians don’t. Sorry if that sounds racist or “hateful” but it’s the truth.
We are two different nations in every respect.
And personally speaking I’ve never actually heard any Pakistani question the Two Nation Theory. The theory stands…it stood in 1984 when the Sikhs were slaughtered, it stood in 2001 and every now and then when Muslims are slaughtered and stood against in 2008 when Christians were slaughtered. Yes, we have issues in Pakistan, but name the last time a genocide took place in Pakistan? We’ve seen 3 in India over the past 30 years with regards to 3 different religions.
The theory proves itself.
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
Drop dead sexy..you cracked me up. Why the population if minorities is going down in pakistan?
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
You drug.
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
fake self made stories
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
LOL the Qataris fund Takfiri fundamentalists in Pakistan yet they have the audacity to accuse Pakistan of “Shia Genocide” -the word genocide gets thrown around a lot by people in Pakistan but that word is very serious; I wouldn’t call the massacre of non-Sunnis in Pakistan a “Genocide” -that’s a stretch…
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
Says who? By the way I’ll be heading over to Bean Town later this month, make sure to come pick me up from Logan. What does your taxi company charge?
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
Yeah “Bangladesh Genocide”, a genocide which no country in the world even recognises except Bangladesh and India. I find it particularly funny how to date not a single shred of evidence has found its way to the International War Crimes Court in The Hague and why not a single Pakistani military officer has been put on trial. Wanna know why? Because that genocide is nothing more than a myth.
Some books worth reading:
Behind The Myth of 3 million - Dr. M. Abdul Mu’min Chowdhury (Bangladeshi)
Behind the Myth of 3 million
Dead Reckoning Memories of 1971 by Sarmila Bose (British-Indian historian at Columbia)
PART 1: Awami League’s true desires for an Indian colony in East Pakistan Ever since 1971, Pakistanis have been brainwashed with a masochistic version of history that holds us responsible for everything that happened in that war. But the actual evidence tells a very different story - Pakistan is accused of provoking Bengali separatism by committing “atrocities” in East Pakistan, but it’s a fully established fact that the Indian Intelligence Agency called “RAW” fomented secessionist terrorism and sponsored the Mukti Bahani, while politicians in its pay whipped up war hysteria among the Bengali people. Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman’s daughter admitted her father had started his separatist campaign in 1969, a full two years before the alleged “atrocities” of the Pakistan Army (which we have been told were the reason why East Pakistan broke away). This is now known as the Agartala Conspiracy; moreover, our history books make no mention of Crusader 100, which Jessica Fox writes about in great detail here in the link belowLINK - http://www.free-press-release.com/news-raw-trained-crusader-100-in-action-in-bangladesh-1335098104.html
Indian General Manekshaw in his book admitted to recruiting 80,000 Hindus to create the Mukti Bahini. This group (whom he trained) would dress themselves up in Pakistan Army uniforms and killed, raped and pillaged large numbers of civilians in East Pakistan. They also carried out acts of sabotage against the government while dressed in civilian clothing.
In the book “Blood and Tears” by Qutubuddin Aziz, he describes in great detail about the actions of the Mukti Bahini, who committed large scale massacres of innocent civilians during the war. Once again, a lot of the times they did this while dressed up in Pakistan Army uniforms. LINK -http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/187772303?width=320
Another book entitled “RAW and Bangladesh” written by a Mukti Bahini terrorist-turned-journalist Zainal Abedin, is a huge eye-opener that reveals the true face of the Bengali separatists and shows the Indian hand behind the atrocities committed in East Pakistan (that were blamed on the Pakistan Army). In this book, Zainal Abedin also says India, under the guise of giving Bengalis freedom, turned them into a colony and vassal.
In the book “Genesis of Indigenous Chakma Buddhists and Their Pulverization Worldwide” by S. P. Talukdar, it documents the atrocities of Mukti Bahini against the Buddhists of East Pakistan’s Chittagong Hill Tracts, even though they never fought for Pakistan in the 1971 war. LINK - Genesis of Indigenous Chakma Buddhists and Their Pulverization Worldwide - S. P. Talukdar - Google Books
Sarmila Bose has written an excellent account of 1971 in her book “Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War”. This ground-breaking book chronicles the 1971 war in South Asia by reconstituting the memories of those on opposing sides of the conflict. 1971 was marked by a bitter civil war within Pakistan and war between India and Pakistan, backed respectively by the Soviet Union and the United States. It was fought over the territory of East Pakistan, which seceded to become Bangladesh. Through a detailed investigation of events on the ground, Sarmila Bose contextualises and humanises the war while analysing what the events reveal about the nature of the conflict itself. Bose claims in her book that allegations of genocide and rape by the Pakistan Army were exaggerated by Bangladesh and India. She presents interviews of many witnesses in favour of her opinion. She also accuses Bangladeshi liberation accounts of ignoring atrocities against Urdu-speaking people in East Pakistan. The book, published by C. Hurst and Co. and Columbia University Press, is the first international study published on the events of 1971.
She has been subjected to howling denunciation from the vanguards of politically correct history in Bangladesh, but the evidence upon which she wrote her book have not been refuted by her detractors. Till now, most works on the subject have been by Bangladeshi authors, who have mostly given in to their emotions than reason. It’s also ironic that an Indian-American historian was the first historian to write a detailed analysis of what occurred during the War of 1971 which largely puts the blame of the Awami League for the massacres and political drama. Read more about her book here. LINK - Myth-busting the Bangladesh war of 1971 - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
Here’s also a story about the Jessore massacre - that massacre was definitely NOT committed by the Pakistan Army. The dead men were non-Bengali residents of Jessore, butchered in broad daylight by Bengali nationalist terrorists, reports Sarmila Bose. This is an on-going theme of 1971 - the massacres claimed to have been committed by the Pakistani armed forces were in fact carried out by Mukti Bahini then covered up by both Bangladesh and India.LINK - http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060319/asp/look/story_5969733.asp.
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
PART 2: The “3 Million Genocide” Myth Pakistan is accused of committing a genocide and killing 3 million people in East Pakistan. So, this means the Pakistan Army was killing Bengalis at a rate of over 17,000 per day, about the same rate as Auschwitz. This at the hands of a military that was fighting a war against a foreign power from the front (India backed by the USSR) and secessionist terrorists from the back (MB backed by India), while the majority of its war assets were based a thousand miles away in West Pakistan. 17,000 per day? Impossible!
There are certain hallmarks without which no genocide can possibly take place - these include:
a. Mass Graves
To date, not a single mass grave has ever been found in Bangladesh. If 3 million were killed, where did they go? Did they simply vanish into thin air?
b. Concentration Camps
Never existed - Bengalis themselves claimed none ever existed.
c. Mass Dehumanisation of the target group
The Nazis called the Jews “vermin”. The Hutus called the Tutsis “cockroaches”. The Bengalis were generally looked down on by other Pakistanis but there was no such dehumanisation. As if 2012, over 3 million Bengalis still reside in the city of Karachi alone. If Bengalis were being “dehumanised” why didn’t these 3 million leave?
d. Systematic, Coordinated Execution of Killings
As mentioned earlier, Pakistan’s military assets were all based in West Pakistan and was fighting with insufficient supplies against the combined forces of India and heavily armed and militarily trained terrorist guerrillas. Moreover, the entire operation was a logistical and technical nightmare in the middle of a vast piece of territory full of marshy terrain completely unsuited for mass-scale genocidal military operations.
To date, not a single United Nations report claims anywhere close to 3 million were killed. To this day, not a single Pakistani military officer or soldier has ever been accused of war crimes or tried by any international court for 1971 war-related crimes. Not a single western nation has ever denied a VISA to any Pakistan military officer or soldier on human rights grounds like Canada did with India regarding Kashmir and Gujarat. To think that a military low on ammunition, supplies, and morale could organize killings at the scale of the Nazis who had a detailed plan of mass murder is absurd. Also the allegations of 300,000 rapes means that every Pakistani soldier raped 5 women - yet another absurd claim. There may have been rapes and killings of civilians (both by the Pakistan Army and the Mukti Bahani of course), but to throw out such absurd numbers is so insane.
The anti-Pakistan forces weaken their own case by making such preposterous claims, particularly since the claim of 3 million came from Sheikh Mujibar Rehman, as he was flying back to Bangladesh, after spending the majority of time in West Pakistan. How could he know the number of civilian casualties or rapes when he had no contact or accurate information from the ground? Civilian casualties and rapes may have occurred, of course, but to make arbitrary numbers for political reasons is the height of intellectual dishonesty.
“Behind the Myth of 3 million” written by Dr. M. Abdul Mu’min Chowdhury (a Bangladeshi) and is an excellent read for those who are still tempted to raise lies about a “genocide” which no world body has ever accepted occurred. LINK - Behind the myth of 3 million
Another Indian myth is that Hindus and non-Muslims were “wiped out” in the war. The idea that some mass exodus of Hindus and non-Muslims occurred is a lie. Also a lie was the idea that Bengali Muslims and Hindus lived in harmony and Pakistanis ruined it during the war. For more information on Muslim-Hindu relations in East Pakistan, read “Bangladesh and Pakistan” by William B. Milam, in which he addresses this issue quite strongly. He even offers statistics; in 1947, 23% percent of East Pakistan was Hindu. In 1974, it was 14% and as of 2002 only 9%. Hindus have been continuously leaving Bangladesh since independence because of the violence they face and more commonality with people across the border in India. The so called eradication of Hindus and non-Muslims again is a major hyperbole and a lie.
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
PART 3: Article - “Bangladesh Gets No Sympathy for 1971” by Bangladeshi writer Mohammad Shahidullah
Lately, a lot of attention has been focused on trial of the Pakistani army personnel who were responsible for the killing of so many innocent people in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1971. I will try to provide some explanations why such a large-scale killing did not receive the kind of international and human rights groups’ attention it deserved, and why the world did not move for any justice in this case. I will also reflect on how that impacts our psyche as a nation.
The commission, after an exhaustive work, came up in 1973 with a death toll number, which was a 5-digit number. The results were published in newspapers briefly. The govt., in an apparent attempt to save it from a big embarrassment, hushed up the commission report and a high level decision was made to continue with the 3 million number publicly. (This is possible only for politicians of third world). Now, a casualty of 20,000 or 40,000 or 60,000 people in a matter of months is not a trivial thing, and is not to be taken lightly. It is a serious tragedy of mankind by any standard and in comparison to other events of the century, which deserved appropriate judicial action. Specially, the people killed were totally innocent to be a target of any army. We, Bangladeshis should not have anything to be ashamed of if the human sacrifice we made for our independence is not in millions, but in tens of thousands. Not many peoples have made that kind of sacrifice for their countries. But as the over-enthusiastic Awami League leadership wanted to take the whole credit for independence to themselves, they thought that by putting a large figure of deaths, they would increase their price in front of everybody.
Exaggeration: Another thing to note is that world community is not ready to buy this number of 3 million deaths. They are not as gullible as simple people of Bangladesh who hardly do any diligence behind the numbers. (Even people in India in their private conversations agree that the 1971 death toll number is absurd). They do hair-splitting investigation of everything. A death toll of 3 million over a period of 8 and a half months (266 days) means over eleven thousand people were killed everyday on an average! There is hardly any mechanism that any army can employ to kill that many people in one day (may be except by nuclear bombs) for so many days in a row. It is not possible for any force to kill that many people individually or in groups when the whole population was against the army. (Carpet bombing in Vietnam did not kill nearly as many people as someone would expect). Also, 1971 was in very modern time, and communication was quite developed then. It was highly unlikely that Pakistanis would get away with such a big genocide and the world would not know about it or not do anything about it. India and USSR were very much on Pakistan affairs then, and at least they would not let it slip unnoticed. I would even ask all of us who were adults in 1972 to take a sample survey. How many people did you know personally or your relatives who were killed in 1971? Or how many people did you know who had their relatives killed? Bangladesh is a country where people know each other unlike in USA. It is not difficult to know if people get killed. If 4% of the population was killed in a matter of months, then everybody should have some of their relatives killed. That was not the case. If you consider all the links, you will find that the death toll could not have been higher than what Sheikh Mujib’s commission found out.
Political Motive: Bangladesh govt. was never interested in bringing to books the war criminals of the Pakistani forces. All they wanted was to make a political issue out of it and keep it alive. They were afraid that a trial of the criminals (at least 197 by the Awami League govt. account) would bring the matter to a closure, which would deprive them of a propaganda weapon. They wanted to maintain the hatred in public mind so that the Awami League govt. could cover their incompetence and failures in running the country. It also fit well their agenda to keep the Islamic forces in the country suppressed in the pretext that they were a party to the killings and until a trial happens, they will remain guilty in front of the nation. A fair trial of the Pakistani army officers would reveal facts that would cause embarrassments for many big Awami League leaders and clear the names of many of their political opponents who are always accused for taking part in killing without a charge sheet to this day.
Lack of Sincerity: The Awami League govt. was hardly concerned about the emotional side of the relatives and friends of the victims. In reality, very few of the Awami League leaders (even lower level ones) had lost loved ones during the 9-month period. (That can be a topic of another article). So there was no sensitivity or sense of urgency for them to work for justice for the relatives of the victims. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who did not lose anybody close to him, made behind the curtain deals with the Pakistani premier Bhutto (the person who was probably most responsible for the tragic events of 1971) in exchange of the war criminals. But he continued his high pitch rhetoric in public to keep his political enemies at bay. To this date, the same tactics are being used by the Awami League. When the identified war criminals were in their hands, they let them go and now they are behaving as if the Pakistani govt. rescued their army personnel by some military action. They are fooling the countrymen by their humdrum and shouting in the air for war crime trial knowing fully well that nothing will happen.
National Character: We have demonstrated time again how unreliable we are as a nation in giving out information. Especially our politicians have earned such notoriety as far as honesty is concerned that we do not need to elaborate. Even today, we lie about our population. When our population is nearing 150 million, we state it as over 120 million to avoid the disappointment of the donor agencies. We routinely exaggerate the numbers like percentage of literacy by a big percentage. The govts. in Bangladesh are only good at propagating lies, deceptions and falsehoods. They promise things in a flash that they know are not deliverable. They always claim credit for things that have really not happened, and for things they do not have any contribution. When our national budget’s 50% comes from foreign aid, we always boast to pass a ‘surplus’ budget every year, which is totally farcical. These things are good for domestic consumption, but world community knows what goes in our country. Just because everybody is not blunt as Henry Kissinger was does not mean that people outside do not notice things or know things. They just tend to ignore things as petty matters in their big picture. The world community is sensitive enough not to insult the event by openly questioning the 3 million figure, but they all know it is an outrageous lie. So when the world community is consciously working to redress human tragedies in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Kashmir, E. Timor, Chili, nobody is inclined to talk about 1971 tragedy of Bangladesh. The western world does not even recognize it as an important event of the century. It is not in the list of top genocides of the century for obvious reasons, although killings of less than half a million people got into the list (Time magazine). Apart from the fact that a considerable time has passed, we ourselves have weakened the case by our continuous dishonesty in this matter. We still hammer on the unrealistic 3 million number and are not willing to reconcile to truth. Because, in some of our hearts, we find our ego getting hurt to admit a mistake. Many of us do not really want a trial of the culprits, but are more interested in keeping a tension current in the region. This gives a good preoccupation for a section of our country, and suits the political agenda of many. Even today when 5 skulls are discovered in a grave in Mirpur, we drum it up as a ‘MASS’ grave. We try to sensationalize a thing that everybody already knows or expects. Because, it fits well with political timing of some special quarters. The situation now is very much like early seventies, and the party in power needs to create a lot of distraction to cover up their misdeeds. We discovered graves with many more skulls in 1972, but then we kept quiet. Why? This is the contradiction we suffer from. If we really believe 3 million people were killed in 1971, then why are we so excited to find a few skulls now? Are not ‘millions’ more supposedly buried in unknown graves? Discovery of 5 skulls does not go any distance to substantiate the 3 million number anyway. Some people will argue that it is an insult to the dead even to question the number of deaths now. But is it? And only ‘anti-liberation’ forces would do so. That is a typical response to many problems that our nation has come to face today. But if you think it carefully, we have insulted their memory more by making a farcical matter it has been reduced to. We have used them as a pawn in the narrow interest of the political parties. That is how we have treated our freedom fighters. Now we are politicizing even the children of the martyrs and using them for selfish propaganda. This is precisely why the sacrifice of our people did not (and does not) get the respect it deserved. This is the reason we did not get any justice in bringing the perpetrators of the crime to book. This has only reduced the honor of the nation to a level that we did not want. The present generation of Bangladeshis are only more confused by all these contradictions.
The publicized sacrifice of a huge number “3 million” does not inspire the nation for doing any good for the country and the society. Nobody cares to honor the people who laid down their lives (except for some politically motivated photo ops on certain days of the year). Why? We have deprived the nation of truth by distorting the history. Unless we become conscientious and do the right thing and face the truth, it may be too late to rectify the situation and we, as a nation will live a lie forever! This is called self-deception. Nothing can be more unfortunate for a nation.
Re: Defense Day and Pakistan/India Loyalty
anwar pai here sounds like an incarnation of islamabadi bhai jaan. A pleasant guy all around.
I haven’t had the pleasure of welcoming you anwar pai. Enjoy your stay while it lasts.