The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

[phoenixdesi]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

in 50s/60s/70s the pakistan brand was establishing itself globally ... there were a lot of efforts to create a pakistani civilization unifying punjabi, pathan, sindhi and balochi roots under one brand name but we ignored bengali part and paid the price... but nonetheless Pakistan was creating a brand name...

PIA was a well known airlines, actually one of the best.....

we were winning in many sports other than cricket....world champions in hockey and squash as well

our PTV dramas were sensational in the whole region....

economy was growing fast and the country was flooded with tourists...

lahore was too busy arranging global cultural shows in 60s and 70s....

movie industry was flourishing with Urdu becoming a unifying bond

and our poets were international brand names..faiz ahmad faiz, josh maleeh abadi, qateel shafai and many others

Karachi became a melting pot/center-point of this new pakistani civilization where mohjars, sindhis, punjabis and pathans were all present

it is hard to believe today but when we pakistanis used to go abroad in those days, Pakistan was a separate brand name than india ... yes we did not have enough historical and cultural weight but we were getting there.. that is how you start to create your brand name and we were doing all those things..

until mardood zia took over........and it is downhill since then as we got overly obsessed with religion, fundamentalism and proxy wars...that is what our problem is.

we dont need india name and i am not being patriotic here. I mean it. we were creating a brand name but went off the track. Our shared history with india will always be there and no one can take it away. We just need to take it and market it properly with a new paksitan....but where is that new pakistan?...................................

[Aussindian]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

phoenixdesi: i can almost feel the pain in your words.
i understand and respect you. it is for people such as youselves which give ordinary people like me, a hope that Pakistan will one day return to its founding members vision, of a liberal and progressive nation.
khoji: this denial of common history, culture and past glory of our ancestors is self imposed by Pakistan. most Pakistanis are converts from the local population of this land(ex hindus).
you all have a have a right to be proud of the history and past glory of our great civilization.

[Antumul_alona]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

@khoji

It is a beautiful name. But sometimes I think that Muslims of subcontinent lost big time by coming up with a new name, and leaving the name India to be used for Bharat exclusively.

While there never was a country named India in subcontinent, it was used to denote to the land east of Persian empire by Persians and Afghans. Thus there is a lot of history associated with the name India. And the region of Pakistan shares this long history with Bharat. The whole world knows about this history and associates the word 'India' with it.

By coining a new name 'Pakistan', we effectively presented all the history and its achievements to Bharatis. For example, the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, The Moryas, Ashoka, the Mughals, Hyderabad nizam, Tipu Sultan, concept of zero, tabla, sitar, dhol, etc. etc; are all now considered a part of history of Bharat. Only because for the world, Bharat=India.

We don't realize it, but I think this is a huge HUGE loss of our identity.

---

It would have been more appropriate if we had called this new country 'Muslim India'. *Or we could have just used both names at the same time, 'Pakistan' AND 'Muslim India'. * Bharat also does it. Officially its name is not India but Bharat.

So Industan? or Islamindus? Its not about names, its about actions. And actions of the past predecessors can only take a nation so far, after that its people have to make new history, which Pakistani' feudal lords, "jagirdars" , "waderas" and "chaudary's" did not let the people do by messing up politics and keeping the folks behind the times.

[Afat]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

LOL .... read phoenixdesi's post again ....and come out of political sloganeering twists of history .
these Jagirdar and Waderas were stronger in the 50-70's ...

...the first twist of disassociating yourself from your own roots ... in 47 , with a constructed national narrative's .... real impact was felt when .... you turned your face toward Arabia and called in Ummah ... via Zia ul Haq... in the name of Islam.... forgetting there is more diversity in the so called Islamic Ummah than you can imagine ... for example Turks, Iranians, or for that matter ...Egyptians are Muslims but they have kept their past roots and have not disassociated themselves from it .. infact they proudly claim them ....unlike us ... where we hide out Indus-Saraswati Civilization from our own ... ...

[phoenixdesi]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

LOL .... read phoenixdesi's post again ....and come out of political sloganeering twists of history . these Jagirdar and Waderas were stronger in the 50-70's ...

...the first twist of disassociating yourself from your own roots ... in 47 , with a constructed national narrative's .... real impact was felt when .... you turned your face toward Arabia and called in Ummah ... via Zia ul Haq... in the name of Islam.... forgetting there is more diversity in the so called Islamic Ummah than you can imagine ... for example Turks, Iranians, or for that matter ...Egyptians are Muslims but they have kept their past roots and have not disassociated themselves from it .. infact they proudly claim them ....unlike us ... where we hide out Indus-Saraswati Civilization from our own ... ...

agreed.....actually this whole notion of islamic ummah was coined, nurtured and promoted by pakistani establishment of zia times and even bhutto....no other muslim country never promoted or sold this stupid vision to their masses....so we cannot blame anyone but our own sorry ass!

bhutto was the first idiot who tried to sell islamic ummah concept by arranging 1974 conference in lahore....while emotions ran high at that time, time proved that muslim countries are way too diverse and we cannot use islam as a platform to evolve as a unifying brand. OIC became a laughing stock but zia never learned lessons and took this islamic ummah bul**** to a totally new level in pakistan.

iranians remained Persians and muslims, Egyptians remained north Africans and muslims and saudis remained arabs and muslims....they were all proud of their identity and always kept their national interest ahead of islam

Under Zia, we cut ourselves off from our past in an attempt to re-brand ourselves as a muslin-identity-only land but became a celebratory gutter of this universe in the mean process...

as i said above we did not have these hang ups in 50s/60s/70s and we were trying to establish a Pakistani brand with a secular, modern and progressive outlook....yes, religious parties were trying to pollute pakistan even then (1954 movement against qadyanis and moduddi's JI)...

...but our establishment never promoted those visions untill zia came into power.....and this islamic ummah became a national policy...syllabus got changed, history books got slaughtered with newly coined arab heroes, our history now suddenly started to begin from 712 with arrival of some qasim dude, sect based hatred got pronounced, islamic ummah concept got popular, proxy wars started, afghan war was promoted as a platform to spread islam across the globe, minorities were crushed....rest is history....

that zia-based generation is now grown up and is in its mid 40s and running pakistan...these socio-politico-ideas that zia establishment (and then PMLN for a while) dumped upon them is now part of their thinking dna....so i really dont see any hope in near future....

[phoenixdesi]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

Phoenixdesi, I understand your confusion. Actually the topic has been made confusing by the successful governments starting from the passing of Objective Resolution in 1949 (?), that is right after the Quaid passed away. But if we look closely we will see that the demand of Pakistan had nothing to do with religion. It was all about economics. Muslim league wanted a country for Muslims, it did not want a country for imposition of shariah. This is why every islamic party, including jamat e Islami, and khaksar opposed its creation.

The slogans for Pakistan never included anything like Islam is in danger, because Islam never was in danger there. Muslim league's concern was the democracy and obvious marginalization of Muslims at the hands of Hindu majority. The most common slogan of Pakistan movement was 'le ke rahein ge Pakistan, butt ke rahe ga Hindustan'. It was only later that Pakistani governments made us believe that the famous slogan was 'Pakistan ka matlab kya, la ilaha illallah'.

Quaid did talk about islamic principles being the basis of the country, but he was only talking about principles like equality, freedom, discipline, honesty, etc.

khoji bhai...i am not confused at all!

the problem is i am too clear about my vision and ideas!

[Sachaydino]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

It pains to see foreigners calling biryani, kabab and pulao 'Indian dishes', and then saying 'Pakistani dishes are very similar to Indian dishes'.

But that is the truth, do you have any doubt about it?

[kaka_in_usa]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

i thought it was pretty obvious it was a semi-fun post....i mean if we have decided to cut our roots, lets find our new home somewhere which is more kool!

anyway i didnt mean to hurt anyone...my depiction of "indian" name in the above mentioned post applies equally to all desis including Pakistanis .... and while a lot of it is a bit stereotyped, we do have that reputation globally!

I dont know what part of world you live in but indian stereotype is totally different then what you wrote.May be we had similar impression back in the days but Indians have moved ahead in their image in world's eyes.

Now more of the foreigners are economically afraid ,consider us superior in terms of intelligence and future ally in case all the nuts decide to unite against the civilizations.

You can cut your roots though but dont underestimate our civilization, it will never leave you.

[Doppleganger]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

Indians might not have that terrorist image but I can assure you, americans really don't love for all the outsourcing of jobs. The southern indians started a first good impression but the influx of gujaratis IMO has much ruined the indian image wherever they end up in the west.

[Ali_Syed]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

Indians might not have that terrorist image but I can assure you, americans really don't love for all the outsourcing of jobs. The southern indians started a first good impression but the influx of gujaratis IMO has much ruined the indian image wherever they end up in the west.

How come?

[delhi2lahorekarachi]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

i'm intrigued to know about the Gujurati thing as well as I have a gujurati friend here on gupshup lol. I like the name Pakistan but I can see where you are coming from as well. I guess we could have been like North Korea/South Korea but instead North West India/India. idk

[delhi2lahorekarachi]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

i thought it was pretty obvious it was a semi-fun post....i mean if we have decided to cut our roots, lets find our new home somewhere which is more kool!

anyway i didnt mean to hurt anyone...my depiction of "indian" name in the above mentioned post applies equally to all desis including Pakistanis .... and while a lot of it is a bit stereotyped, we do have that reputation globally!

I so nearly fell into the trap. I was about to say hmm maybe that image might be true for Indian guys but not the girls. jk. Although Indian girls do carry their own set of negative stereotype in the west.

[Iconoclast]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

Loads of crap. Majority of ancient civilizations around the world fall in countries that have new names and recently demarcated borders, in last 100 or so years. Such mesopotemia, the scythians, Inca civilizations etc all fall in countries with new borders and new names. Only an idiot will try to separate mesopotemia from Iraq just bcoz its not names mesopotemia.

[Doppleganger]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

How come?

You have to be near them to know them LOL. Aside from being stingy, but I guess that a lot of their problems come from it, they don't spend money on perfume or anything and would show up in droves for free things and abuse that privilege so much that now in areas that they traffic, every desi is considered a fraud cheapster. In academia, I had the fun experience of being stereotyped if I missed a deadline for valid reasons because ironically, gujaratis ended up abusing the good nature of the instructors here. The academia thing could be done by anyone, but the stinginess and many times the absolute hatred of Pakistan / muslims really puts me off. I think that it was almost right after the gujarat riots that this gujarati kid started to rant to me about kashmir and how islam / muslims are all terrorists LOL like seriously.

[Dr_Sufi]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

well my passport says "republic of india" on it. not bharat. i have never heard of bharat being used officially except in hindi.

reinventing identity is hard work. neo-cons everywhere on this earth are trying actively though.

Respected Sir, You do have a point, may be that's why some Ex-Cons avoid changing their identities.....definitely, bad habits, die hard.

[PyariCgudia]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

Mmm, nah. I think the bigger loss was that our people got an entire country to themselves, and they still screwed it up with their greed, and their dishonesty and cruelty towards one another.

Never made sense to me. If you don't like the other kinds of Pakistanis that are out there, then why not just go back to India? Why did your family choose to be Pakistani in the first place?

[Geezer]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

@PyariCgudia

Mmm, nah. I think the bigger loss was that our people got an entire country to themselves, and they still screwed it up with their greed, and their dishonesty and cruelty towards one another.

Aren't indians doing the same thing?

[Doppleganger]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

Indians have a better sense of nationhood than Pakistanis, so in the bigger scheme of things desi, they are doing better if only slightly than us.

[kakaballi]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

Pakistan should have been named "East and West India Company, Private Limited".

[delhi2lahorekarachi]

Re: The new name 'Pakistan': Our loss?

@Doppleganger

Indians have a better sense of nationhood than Pakistanis, so in the bigger scheme of things desi, they are doing better if only slightly than us.

What do you think India-Pakistan would have been like today if we were still under rule by the Brits if they ruled us but due to human rights laws and all we were treated as equal citizens? Would we have become like UK and Europe? Would it have been like Pakistanis and Indians living in the UK and US?