Pakistan's Ideology and Identity crisis

we expect people to be next to god but they are humans in the end...Nehru did not do a great job but he did a fine job to lay down foundations of our democracy,educational institution and many other institutions that have become pillar of our nation...He at least did not put us into never ending misery that our neighbors are forced to live in..

nabi basically refers to prophet. So an imposter nabi is a "false prophet" if that makes sense. nabi is a generic word that is used as prophet.


The ironic fact is that the Qadiyanis were one of the most ardent supporters of the Pakistan movement. They were very close to the British and economically well off and held high positions in the Briitsh Indian govt. by virtue of their education.

The first foriegn minister of Pakistan for example was a Qadiyani and they also dominated the civil services of the newly independant Pakistan for the first couple of years.

The relentless campaign against them has however reduced their influence to a fraction of what it used to be initially.

Isn't that a bit of exageration. Maybe he referring to Muslims in Pakistan. All his "examples" are afterall Pakistani Muslims claiming this or that.

Otherwise, Indian Muslims repeated say that 90%+ are local converts and don't feel "ashamed" by this. Yes there are a few small ethnic groups that have migrated and settled in India over the last centuries mainly on the western coast of India from Gujarat to Kerela but they are very few. This has been a historical process where people from the African east coast, Arabian peninsula, Iran, Central Asia and even China have been coming to India and settling down even before Islam. And even that should not be held against them.

The idea of India is not based on some race or genetic basis but that all langauges races are welcome and who call India home are Indians. That is the major difference between the Pakistani nationalist view and an Indian nationalist view. Once you restrict the idea of your nation-state to just a single ethnicity, religion or language then you loose the ability to integrate and unite disparate groups of people into a strong nationa. This is fine if you have a single race or language but for large countries this is usually not the case. US is a prime example of this idea in practice where people from around the world migrate, contribute to their nation and proudly call themselves Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Arab Americans or Irish Americans emphasising that above all they are Americans first.

I think it has more to do with everything not so good in Pakistan or about Pakistanis as sub-continental or south Asian, it is how they seek refuge. Just the way an achievement of India becomes as an achievement of the sub-continent, or when in need overseas, they can hide their identities by calling themselves as Indians.

^^^ I forgot that all the "Muslims" in the subcontinent live only in Pakistan

A Muslim majority Indus Valley Civilization?

Who are we? For most of our history we have been caught between competing ideas about Pakistan. Is it a land for Muslims? What does an Islamic identity mean for the indigenous cultures of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit–Baltistan and the people who migrated to India?

Greatness is created through synthesis, and when old ideas are challenged by new paradigms. The decade of the 1940s saw the North East states of British India challenged by secular Muslim nationalism. What does that mean to us? We are still in the process of understanding it. But in doing so, we have relied on too many easy answers. Our national identity is based on repudiation; we choose to identify ourselves in the negative: we are not India. Our inability to step forward is because we have failed to create any synthesis from the social and political currents available to us. Let us then challenge our paralysis and press forward with our inquiry — let us seek to imagine who we are, and who we could be.

Our history does not start with 1947, nor with Muhammed bin Qasim’s (in)famous and glorified conquest of Sindh. Those events are important but form an incomplete story of our past. Our heritage goes back to the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the first people to build the great cities of Moenjadaro and Harappa, a complex language and mathematical system, and centers of commerce in Asia. The source of this great civilization was the Indus River whose mighty banks nourished and fed its people. Today it is not nuclear weapons that protect our country but the Indus, whose artery and tributaries provide the life flow of our country. By remembering that we are the heirs of the Indus Valley Civilization, we can shift our focus from the anti to the river itself. We can concentrate on protecting our environment and saving the river that is literally the lifeblood of the country, and the source of our food and electricity. We are a natural nation bound by the Indus, if the Indus dries out the country will collapse.

This doesn’t mean that we completely ignore the advent of the Mughals, the conquest of the British, the height of Hindu-Muslim unity during the war of independence and its subsequent breakdown, despite the best efforts of members of the leadership class. And of course, the bloodshed in the years leading to Partition – events which concluded that religion was going to play a role, however so undefined, in the consciousness of the masses of Pakistan.

While religion comes from the same source, it is up to different countries and peoples on how to interpret it to enrich their lives. That is why the Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia is different from the one practiced in most of Pakistan. The role of religion (in all of its cultural, spiritual, non-denominational and ritual manifestations) will remain in society. What is important is for thinkers to channel it into a force that is creative and not destructive, inclusive and pluralistic, not one that imposes its will on the unwilling. One that is large enough to include free thinkers and conservative clerics. One that encourages selfishness and a spirit of citizenship. One that convinces individuals that they have greater aims than their everyday jobs, but does not encourage utopian personalities or apocalyptic thinking.

What is the relationship between the pre-Islamic, pre-Christian Indus Valley Civilization to today’s Islamic Republic of Pakistan? These two strands of the secular and religious deliberately create a powerful contradiction. Contradictions are good because they deny any single understanding of morality and create a vibrant society through debate and compromise.

Embracing our Indus past will enable us to reject Arab cultural imperialism in the name of religion, and will help us discard the Two-Nation Theory. We will be focused not on fighting wars with India, but in making the greatest cities in the world. Cities like those of the past, which valued trade and commerce and became the hub of Indo-Persian-Chinese commerce. Let our market places be flooded by people from all over the world and be a blend of cultures. We will be a country that celebrates diversity; ethnic diversity of the many languages and cultures around the ecosystem of the great river, and religious diversity, for it will be a country for (all types of) Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs who can respect this ecosystem. It will be a country that empowers its minorities. And once religion is prevented from being abused we can truly reconcile it with modernity and our legacy of British constitutionalism.

Once our conscious awakens to this idea, we will be a renewed nation. On the crumbling edifices of Moenjadaro and Harappa we will once more build great cities, and build a great country.

Indus Valley Civilization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Extent and major sites of the Indus Valley Civilization. The shaded area does not include recent excavations.



Extent of the Indus Valley Civilization imposed over modern borders

Religion


The so-called Shiva Pashupati seal

Some Indus valley seals show swastikas, which are found in other religions (worldwide), especially in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism are alleged to have been present before and during the early Harappan period.[59] Phallic symbols interpreted as the much later Hindu Shiva lingam have been found in the Harappan remains.


Swastika Seals from the Indus Valley Civilization preserved at the British Museum.

Many Indus valley seals show animals. One motif shows a horned figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named by early excavators Pashupati (lord of cattle), an epithet of the later Hindu gods Shiva and Rudra.

In view of the large number of figurines found in the Indus valley, some scholars believe that the Harappan people worshipped a Mother goddess symbolizing fertility, a common practice among rural Hindus even today. However, this view has been disputed by S. Clark who sees it as an inadequate explanation of the function and construction of many of the figurines.

There are no religious buildings or evidence of elaborate burials. If there were temples, they have not been identified. However, House - 1 in HR-A area in Mohenjadaro's Lower Town has been identified as a possible temple.

In the earlier phases of their culture, the Harappans buried their dead; however, later, especially in the Cemetery H culture of the late Harrapan period, they also cremated their dead and buried the ashes in burial urns.

It is possible that a temple exists to the East of the great bath, but the site has not been excavated. There is a Buddhist reliquary mound on the site and permission has not been granted to move it. Until there is sufficient evidence, speculation about the religion of the IVC is largely based on a retrospective view from a much later Hindu perspective.

Ram Prasad Chanda, who supervised Indus Valley Civilisation excavations, states[70] that, “Not only the seated deities on some of the Indus seals are in Yoga posture and bear witness to the prevalence of Yoga in the Indus Valley Civilisation in that remote age, the standing deities on the seals also show Kayotsarga (a standing or sitting posture of meditation) position. The Kayotsarga posture is peculiarly Jain. It is a posture not of sitting but of standing. In the Adi Purana Book XV III, the Kayotsarga posture is described in connection with the penance of Rsabha, also known as Vrsabha.”

Christopher Key Chappel also notes some other possible links with Jainism. Seal 420, unearthed at Mohenjodaro portrays a person with 3 or possibly 4 faces. Jain iconography frequently depicts its Tirthankaras with four faces, symbolizing their presence in all four directions. This four-faced attribute is also true of many Hindu gods, important among them being Brahma, the chief creator deity. In addition, Depictions of a bull appear repeatedly in the artifacts of the Indus Valley. Lannoy, Thomas McEvilley and Padmanabh Jaini have all suggested that the abundant use of the bull image in the Indus Valley civilization indicates a link with Rsabha, whose companion animal is the bull. This seal can be interpreted in many ways, and authors such as Christopher Key Chappel and Richard Lannoy support the Jain interpretation.

Currently the Indus Valley [ Pakistan ] is the MOST UNCIVILISED area in the world

Or rather the most dangerous place in the world ; isnt it ironic

There is few more places in India: Dholavira, Rakhigarhi.

Dholavira - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

------





Rakhigarhi:

Rakhigarhi is a recently discovered city in Haryana, India. Partial excavations have revealed that it is as large as Harappa, Mohenjo Daro and Ganweriwala.

Dholavira:

Dholavira is located on Khadir Beyt, an island in the Great Rann of Kutch in Gujarat State, India. It has only been excavated since 1990. As large as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, it has some of the best preserved stone architecture.

A tantalizing signboard with Indus script has also been discovered.

Dholavira appears to have had several large reservoirs, and an elaborate system of drains to collect water from the city walls and house tops to fill these water tanks.

LOL .... sorry no offense meant.

If you would have inherited anything from that Civilization except archeological remains. we wouldn't be seeing these days


This, though is so hunky dory to read. But if people on that side really thought this way, there was no need to be two-nations. We would've emulated German re-union in our own way.
Nitpick - please rename thread title to "Muslims majority people living at Indus valley ruins of Indus-Sarasvati civilization"

When did Pakistanis or Muslims inherit from Harrappa and Mohenjodero, even Islam was not started then

And look how clearly they omitted the term 'Hinduism' , now trying to steal our identity, and after sometime they will call Hindus were invaders !

I would rather change the title to "Muslim majority people of subcontinent."

Dream on loser......Islam under the guise of people like you is already standing exposed out in the open, now there is no secrecy around it, majority understand its theology in disgust! Resistance against Islam which started centuries back still exists and gets stronger with each passing day. Thanks a ton for spreading the word of your god world over, due to which we don't stand alone. Islam will consume itself, that's what it is doing at present! Thanks for doing our job.......as per "Muslim majority sub-continent"....LOL Give 100 more yrs lets see even a strain of a religion like Islam exists on this planet.....All thanks to people like You!

Every discussion or topic finally veers to Hindu / Muslim and India / Pakistan.

Can we grow out of that framework ? I am fed up with those frameworks...

How is Harrappa and Mohan Jo Daro connected with Islam ??

I doubt the author knows that 'Indus' comes from Sindhu


End of thread.