Pakistan Independence Quotes

Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries -- slave of prejudice … slave of religious fanaticism … slave of barbarity and inhumanity.

Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the Muslim Ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure and which, we hope other will share with us.

In Pakistan when women say they want independence, people think this means we don’t want to obey our fathers, brothers or husbands. But it does not mean that. It means we want to make decisions for ourselves. We want to be free to go to school or to go to work. Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man. The word has not come down from the heavens to tell us that every woman should listen to a man.

1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.... This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger’s undisclosed reason for the ‘tilt’ was the supposed but never materialised ‘brokerage’ offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.... Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was ‘a basket case’ before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere. 2. Chile.... Kissinger had direct personal knowledge of the CIA’s plan to kidnap and murder General René Schneider, the head of the Chilean Armed Forces ... who refused to countenance military intervention in politics. In his hatred for the Allende Government, Kissinger even outdid Richard Helms ... who warned him that a coup in such a stable democracy would be hard to procure. The murder of Schneider nonetheless went ahead, at Kissinger’s urging and with American financing, just between Allende’s election and his confirmation.... This was one of the relatively few times that Mr Kissinger (his success in getting people to call him ‘Doctor’ is greater than that of most PhDs) involved himself in the assassination of a single named individual rather than the slaughter of anonymous thousands. His jocular remark on this occasion—‘I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible’—suggests he may have been having the best of times.... 3. Cyprus.... Kissinger approved of the preparations by Greek Cypriot fascists for the murder of President Makarios, and sanctioned the coup which tried to extend the rule of the Athens junta (a favoured client of his) to the island. When despite great waste of life this coup failed in its objective, which was also Kissinger’s, of enforced partition, Kissinger promiscuously switched sides to support an even bloodier intervention by Turkey. Thomas Boyatt ... went to Kissinger in advance of the anti-Makarios putsch and warned him that it could lead to a civil war. ‘Spare me the civics lecture,’ replied Kissinger, who as you can readily see had an aphorism for all occasions. 4. Kurdistan. Having endorsed the covert policy of supporting a Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq between 1974 and 1975, with ‘deniable’ assistance also provided by Israel and the Shah of Iran, Kissinger made it plain to his subordinates that the Kurds were not to be allowed to win, but were to be employed for their nuisance value alone. They were not to be told that this was the case, but soon found out when the Shah and Saddam Hussein composed their differences, and American aid to Kurdistan was cut off. Hardened CIA hands went to Kissinger ... for an aid programme for the many thousands of Kurdish refugees who were thus abruptly created.... The apercu of the day was: ‘foreign policy should not he confused with missionary work.’ Saddam Hussein heartily concurred. 5. East Timor. The day after Kissinger left Djakarta in 1975, the Armed Forces of Indonesia employed American weapons to invade and subjugate the independent former Portuguese colony of East Timor. Isaacson gives a figure of 100,000 deaths resulting from the occupation, or one-seventh of the population, and there are good judges who put this estimate on the low side. Kissinger was furious when news of his own collusion was leaked, because as well as breaking international law the Indonesians were also violating an agreement with the United States.... Monroe Leigh ... pointed out this awkward latter fact. Kissinger snapped: ‘The Israelis when they go into Lebanon—when was the last time we protested that?’ A good question, even if it did not and does not lie especially well in his mouth. It goes on and on and on until one cannot eat enough to vomit enough.

It was too quiet for hope, and then too loud for safety. She thought of the people she had lost, of the affection, the smiles, the belonging she could never again take for granted. It was the end of a life, and as she stood there, shivering in the brief night-time chill, it dawned on her that it was the end of her childhood.

B. R. Ambedkar in his 1941 book Thoughts on Pakistan had urged that Indian nationalists should not object to the idea of Pakistan, because India would, he argued, be much better off with a “safe army” in which Punjabis were no longer so dominant (Ambedkar 1941, 93).

She knew well the history of which they spoke because her father had been a part of it. When the military overseers of Pakistan had refused to allow the winning party in Bangladesh—then East Pakistan—to form a government, her father had put down his textbooks, left the university, and joined the fight. Hundreds of thousands, millions of deaths later, Bangladesh had its independence. His stories had made a deep impact on on Asma as a child. She had resolved to be as brave, only to learn that as a woman she wasn't expected to be.

In Pakistan when women say they want independence, people think this means we don't want to obey our fathers, brothers or husbands. But it does not mean that. It means we want to make decisions for ourselves. We want to be free to go to school or to go to work. Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man. The word has not come down from heavens to tell us that every woman should listen to a man.

Then again, it was precisely from a fear of democracy–the voting power of majority Hindus, and the dread that Muslims, as a minority in independent India, would be disenfranchised–that Pakistan had come into being.

Hence it was not the circumstances of Pakistan’s birth, as some scholars have argued, that locked the newly independent Indian state and the new-born Pakistani State in a confrontational mode, but rather it was the unresolved issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

I noticed that Asiatics were now referred to as Asians in the papers. I was told that sometime in 1953 the British press had started to use “Asian” because “Asiatic” had a touch of condescension or disrespect, and the change was a concession to the people of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, now independent. I did not understand how this improved their status. When young London children called me a Chinaman or a Chink, it did not trouble me. If they meant it as a term of abuse, my business was to make them think differently one day.

The country was passing through turbulent times. British Raj was on its last legs. The World War had sucked the juice out of the British economy. Britain neither had the resources nor the will to hold on to a country the size of India. Sensing the British weakness and lack of resources to rule, different leagues of Indians sniffed different destinies in the air following the imminent exit of the British: a long stretch of Nehru Raj, Hindu Raj extending from Kashmir to Kerala not seen since Emperor Ashoka in third-century BCE before the emperor himself renounced Hinduism and turned a non-violent Buddhist, a Muslim-majority state carved out of two shoulders of India with a necklace-like corridor running through her bosom along Grand Trunk Road, balkanisation of the country with princes ruling the roost, and total chaos. From August 1946 onwards, chaos appeared to be the most likely destiny as it spurted in Bengal, Bihar, and United Provinces, ending in the carnage of minority communities at every place. The predicament of British government was how to cut their losses and run without many British casualties before the inevitable chaos spread to the whole country. The predicament of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, was how to achieve his dream of Muslim-majority Pakistan carved out of India before his imminent demise from tuberculosis he suffered from, about which—apart from his doctor—only a handful of his closest relations and friends knew about. The predicament of Jawaharlal Nehru, the heir apparent of the Congress Party anointed by Gandhiji, was how to attain independence of the country followed by Nehru Raj while Gandhiji, a frail 77-year-old at the time, was still alive, for God only knew who would be the leader of the party once Gandhiji’s soul and his moral authority were dispatched to heaven, and Nehru couldn’t possibly leave the crucial decision in the hands of a God he didn’t particularly believe in. Time was of the essence to all the three.

Suhrawardy, who was barred from politics by Ayub Khan, challenged the concept of Pakistan as an ideological state. Emphasis on ideology, he argued, “would keep alive within Pakistan the divisive communal emotions by which the subcontinent was riven before the achievement of independence.

The Battle of Good and Evil Polytheism gave birth not merely to monotheist religions, but also to dualistic ones. Dualistic religions espouse the existence of two opposing powers: good and evil. Unlike monotheism, dualism believes that evil is an independent power, neither created by the good God, nor subordinate to it. Dualism explains that the entire universe is a battleground between these two forces, and that everything that happens in the world is part of the struggle. Dualism is a very attractive world view because it has a short and simple answer to the famous Problem of Evil, one of the fundamental concerns of human thought. ‘Why is there evil in the world? Why is there suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people?’ Monotheists have to practise intellectual gymnastics to explain how an all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly good God allows so much suffering in the world. One well-known explanation is that this is God’s way of allowing for human free will. Were there no evil, humans could not choose between good and evil, and hence there would be no free will. This, however, is a non-intuitive answer that immediately raises a host of new questions. Freedom of will allows humans to choose evil. Many indeed choose evil and, according to the standard monotheist account, this choice must bring divine punishment in its wake. If God knew in advance that a particular person would use her free will to choose evil, and that as a result she would be punished for this by eternal tortures in hell, why did God create her? Theologians have written countless books to answer such questions. Some find the answers convincing. Some don’t. What’s undeniable is that monotheists have a hard time dealing with the Problem of Evil. For dualists, it’s easy to explain evil. Bad things happen even to good people because the world is not governed single-handedly by a good God. There is an independent evil power loose in the world. The evil power does bad things. Dualism has its own drawbacks. While solving the Problem of Evil, it is unnerved by the Problem of Order. If the world was created by a single God, it’s clear why it is such an orderly place, where everything obeys the same laws. But if Good and Evil battle for control of the world, who enforces the laws governing this cosmic war? Two rival states can fight one another because both obey the same laws of physics. A missile launched from Pakistan can hit targets in India because gravity works the same way in both countries. When Good and Evil fight, what common laws do they obey, and who decreed these laws? So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe – and He’s evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief. Dualistic

Despite their insecurity and despair in an India witnessing the rise of Hindu nationalism, most of my Indian Muslim friends were Indian nationalists. They disagreed with me and other Kashmiri students about our ideas of an independent Kashmir. They were afraid that the secession of a Muslim-majority Kashmir from India would make log worse for India's Muslims. Whenever a cricket match was screened on the television room of our hostel, my Indian Muslim friends cheered, sang and rooted for the Indian Fri let team. Kashmiris cheered for Sri Lanka or Pakistan, or whichever team played against India.

Despite their insecurity and despair in an India witnessing the rise of Hindu nationalism, most of my Indian Muslim friends were Indian nationalists. They disagreed with me and other Kashmiri students about our ideas of an independent Kashmir. They were afraid that the secession of a Muslim-majority Kashmir from India would make life worse for India's Muslims. Whenever a cricket match was screened on the television room of our hostel, my Indian Muslim friends cheered, sang and rooted for the Indian cricket team. Kashmiris cheered for Sri Lanka or Pakistan, or whichever team played against India.

Norbu rejects the Western stereotype of Tibetans as an innately nonviolent people, a romantic notion which he thinks gratifies many Western people discontented with the aggressive selfishness of their societies but obscures the political aspirations of the Tibetan peoples and the variety of means available to them to achieve independence. In 1989, he published a book about one of the Khampa warriors of eastern Tibet, who fought the invading Chinese Army in 1950 and then initiated the bloody revolt against Chinese rule that eventually led to the Dalai Lama's departure for India. "We are ordinary Tibetans," Norbu told PBS. "We drink; we eat; we feel passion; we love our wives and kids. If someone sort of messes around with them, even if they're an army, you pick up your rifle.

by allies, meant no good to its neighbor. Between them, Pakistan, China, and the United States, each for its own reasons, wanted to contain India, the new, independent, and rising power. This was the dominant Indian strategic outlook in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, up to the end of the cold war. India was able to pursue a policy of inaction for several reasons.15 First, it was the preferred policy most of the time—the default policy, and the guiding philosophy of one of India's least-heralded prime ministers, P. V. Narasimha Rao. He used to tell associates that in time most problems would take care of themselves. Rao demonstrated this by forwarding no significant initiatives toward Islamabad during his tenures as foreign minister and prime minister. At the same time, India has often been unable to act because

For dualists, it’s easy to explain evil. Bad things happen even to good people because the world is not governed single-handedly by a good God. There is an independent evil power loose in the world. The evil power does bad things. Dualism has its own drawbacks. While solving the Problem of Evil, it is unnerved by the Problem of Order. If the world was created by a single God, it’s clear why it is such an orderly place, where everything obeys the same laws. But if Good and Evil battle for control of the world, who enforces the laws governing this cosmic war? Two rival states can fight one another because both obey the same laws of physics. A missile launched from Pakistan can hit targets in India because gravity works the same way in both countries. When Good and Evil fight, what common laws do they obey, and who decreed these laws? So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe – and He’s evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief.

The real reason for Father Braganza's laughter was the history of Amrapur. It was a quaint town, nestled amidst barren mountains. The Hindus and Muslims living there were perpetually warring with each other, reacting violently at the slightest provocation. It had started a long time ago, this squabble, and had escalated into a terrible war. Some people say it started centuries ago, but many believe it started when the country gave one final, fierce shrug to rid itself of British rule. The shrug quickly became a relentless shuddering, and countless people were uprooted and flung into the air. Many didn't survive. Perhaps the mountains of Amrapur absorbed the deracinating wave. People weren't cruelly plucked from the town. They remained there, festering, becoming irate and harbouring murderous desires. And while the country was desperately trying to heal its near-mortal wounds and move on, Amrapur's dormant volcano erupted. Momentary and overlooked, but devastating. Leaders emerged on both sides and, driven by greed, they fed off the town's ignored bloodshed. They created ravines out of cracks, fostered hatred and grew richer. The Bhoite family, the erstwhile rulers of the ancient town, adopted the legacy of their British rulers---divide and conquer.

In any case, Jinnah died within a year of independence, leaving his successors divided, or confused, about whether to take their cue from his independence eve call to keep religion out of politics or to build on the religious sentiment generated during the political bargaining for Pakistan.

Pakistanis were being conditioned to believe that their nationhood was under constant threat and that the threat came from India. Within weeks of independence, editorials in the Muslim League newspaper, Dawn, “called for ‘guns rather than butter, ‘urging a bigger and better-equipped army to defend ‘the sacred soil′ of Pakistan.

During the more than 70 years of independence of Pakistan, none of the governments established its resources to argue and defend its disputes and political and diplomatic relations in civilized societies. For that purpose, the English print and electronic media would have the appropriate and suitable ways to execute its concerns, for the security and economic achievements. Unfortunately, all institutions fail, to draw attention towards that insight and point. Pakistan has not a lack of talented figures, who may devote their services voluntarily, for that cause. It is a key to the state of Pakistan, for its advocacy of peace and harmony with other nations, and defending tool, to opponents, who try to damage the dignity and prestige of Pakistan, with negative propaganda. If we realize that, the small nations and political, or religious groups, have a hold on such tools, and ways, for their propaganda. While Pakistan is out of that picture; consequently, we face isolation, and humiliation by wrong elements.

India, which became independent along with Pakistan in 1947, agreed on a constitution in 1949 and held its first general election in 1951. Pakistan’s first constitution was not promulgated until 1956, and within two years it was abrogated through a military coup d’état.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Pakistani army had been created out of the British Indian army and had inherited all the professional qualifications of its colonial predecessor, within the first few months of independence it was also moving in the direction of adopting an Islamic ideological coloring.

West Pakistani soldiers, politicians, and civil servants dominated Pakistan’s government. Within a year of independence, Bengalis in East Pakistan were rioting in the streets, demanding recognition of their language, Bengali, as a national language. Soon thereafter, in the western wing of the country, ethnic Sindhis, Pashtuns (also known as Pathans), and Balochis also complained about the domination of the civil services and the military’s officer corps by ethnic Punjabis and Urdu-speaking migrants from northern India.

One-third of the Indian subcontinent’s Muslims remained behind as a minority in Hindu dominated India even after partition in 1947. The other two-thirds now lives in two separate countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh, confirming the doubts expressed before independence about the practicality of the two nation theory.

The campaign for Pakistan had, in its final stages, become a religious movement even though its leaders initiated it as a formula for resolving post-independence constitutional problems. This created confusion about Pakistan’s raison d’être, which Pakistan’s leadership has attempted to resolve through a state ideology.

IN THE room of Mashal Khan, a student at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan, a dusty town in north-west Pakistan, the late occupant’s handwriting is on almost every surface. Some of his scribblings in felt-tip pen are banal (“You beauty”) or crude (“Get your burger-flipping ass outta here”). But many hint at an idealistic and fiercely independent young mind: “Freedom is the right of every individual” and “Be crazy, curious and mad!” These were injunctions that Mr Khan, a journalism student, upheld—and that got him killed.

After the four Indian judges had neutralized one another by their separate and contradictory opinions, Radcliffe gave his own binding decisions: Lyallpur, Montgomery, and Nankana Sahib to Pakistan; most of Lahore district and all of Lahore city to Pakistan; Amritsar district (and city) to India; Ferozepore district, including its Muslim-majority tehsils (Zira and Ferozepore) and a portion of Muslim-majority Kasur tehsil (Lahore district) to India; Gurdaspur district’s Shakargarh tehsil, which lay west of the river Ujh, to Pakistan; all the rest of Gurdaspur district to India. Reached before 14 August, the day of Pakistan’s founding, Radcliffe’s decisions were however only announced on 17 August, i.e. two days after India’s independence.

Sharif Miyan: "I wish I did, though. Own some land, that is. My family owned it once when I was a young man. It's all gone now." Sharif Miyan's eyes had a faraway look in them, as if he could still see the land. Avi: "Where did it go?" Sharif Miyan: "We lost it during Partition. My family owned many farms in Punjab---the one in Pakistan." Avi: "But land does not go anywhere, does it?" Sharif Miyan: "You are right. Land does not. It's not the people who go away. I know where my land is in Punjab. I can see it. I can walk on it. But it is not mine. Isn't that terrible? I can never forget the day when those landgrabbers held my family at gunpoint and told me to leave. I didn't think I would have to leave the country.

Independent observers believe that the Pakistan Army killed between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand Bengalis in a nine-month period, whereas Bangladesh puts the figure at three million.

US-centered Pakistan's foreign policy by its undemocratic figures caused irreparable damage and the collapse of independent international relations that resulted in even the fall of Dhaka. The US leadership always betrayed Pakistan and left it alone in difficult times. Despite that, such puppet characters are still active in all institutions of the broken and failed state without shame and regret. The state of Pakistan has yet to regain freedom and liberty; indeed, it was a dream of Iqbal and the two-nation theory of Jinnah. Unfortunately, Pakistan has faced the traitorous ones of uniform since then; Pakistan can still unquestionably be a stable country with a neutral foreign policy and peaceful reciprocal relations with neighbors rather than a one-sided strategy.

If Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known as Mahatma Gandhi, would not have started India's independence campaign against British rule; be sure, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, known as Quad-e-Azam, could never succeed the independence of Pakistan; Jinnah was the hero of Pakistan. However, Gandhi was not only the hero of India; he was also the hero of East and West Pakistan as well. It is undoubtedly a reality that no one realizes or accepts.

The irony of India's partition is that Muslims wrested Pakistan from the British and retained their hold over Bharat to stymie the Hindus for ever, and that's absurd.

If Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known as Mahatma Gandhi, would not start India's independence campaign against British rule; be sure, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, known as Quad-e-Azam, could never succeed the independence of Pakistan; Jinnah was the hero of Pakistan. However, Gandhi was not only the hero of India; he was also the hero of East and West Pakistan as well. It is undoubtedly a reality that no one realizes or accepts.

Lute believed that no political agreement with the Taliban, if one could be achieved at all, would be sustainable without Pakistan’s participation, even though Tayeb Agha had insisted that the Taliban wanted to negotiate independently with the United States, free from I.S.I. pressure.

The Radcliffe Award, delineating the borders between India and Pakistan, had been prepared by 13 August 1947. Mountbatten, however, chose to hand over the Radcliffe Award to leaders of both dominions only on 16 August, after Independence. The Radcliffe Award was published only on 17 August. Consequently, the great confusion that prevailed until then, as to where exactly the border lines would be drawn, also added to the sense of anarchy.

The pro-independent Kashmir organisations , on the other hand, would love to see the constitutional arrangement be scrapped because Kashmir in their view would then “become a clear Indian military occupation” without a “legal instrument” guiding its relationship with the Indian Union.

You know,” Baba continues, “Pakistan has a lot of strong, independent, and brilliant women, in history, and today. Groups like the Taliban may be trying to hold them back. But the women will prevail. I know they will.

Whenever I attempt to understand the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence and the civilian Intelligence Bureau, whose purpose is to collect crucial information on the security of the state, I am left with biting questions about their true roles in internal and external matters. It is a fact that such countries as India and Pakistan have always suffered from a lack of limits on the role of their intelligence agencies and respect for international law and human rights, including the privacy of individuals within the concept and context of global peace and fundamental freedoms. The ISI, driven by the Pakistan Armed Forces, ignores the supreme constitutional role and rule of a democratic head of state, under which even the Armed Forces themselves fall. This is not only a violation of the constitution but also a rejection of the civilian leadership. This can be interpreted as Pakistan is a country where the servant rules its leader and patron. It is this bitter reality that leads toward the collapse of all systems of society, which the Pakistani nation has faced since the first introduction of martial law by General Ayub Khan in 1958, and such conduct has continued to exist ever since, whether visibly or invisibly. One cannot ignore, avoid, or deny that Pakistan has maintained its physical independence for more than 7 decades. However, its real freedom as conceptualized upon the nation’s creation has been only a dream and abused by its so-called defenders and its power-mongers. Unfortunately, such figures control the ISI and lead it in the wrong direction, beyond the constitutional limits of its power. Consequently, the ISI plays the role of a gang that disrupts the stability of the main political parties and promotes tiny, unpopular parties to gain power for itself. There is thus no doubt that the ISI has failed in its responsibility to support constitutional rule and to secure and defend the state and its people. The failure of the democratic system in the country, directly or indirectly, reflects the harassment practiced by both intelligence agencies without proof or legal process, even interfering with other institutions. The consequences are the collapse of the justice system and the imposition of foreign policies that damage international relationships. The result is a lack of trust in these agencies and their isolation. In a civilized century, it is a tragedy that one dares not express one’s feelings that may abuse God, prophets, or sacred figures. But more than that, one cannot speak a word against the wrongdoing of a handful of army generals or ISI officials. In Pakistan, veteran journalists, top judges, and other key figures draw breath under the spying eyes of the ISI; even higher and minister-level personalities are the victims of such conduct. One has to live in such surroundings. Pakistan needs a major cleanup and reorganization of the present awkward role of the ISI for the sake of international relations, standards, and peace, including the privacy of individuals and respect for the notable figures of society, according to the law.

When I read about my country's political and establishment role in history, I feel ashamed of the fact that right and good leadership created Pakistan; it became an independent Muslim state. Unfortunately, it has been under the leadership of evil individuals, who have been wrong and detrimental ever since.

When I read about my country's political and establishment role in history, I feel ashamed of the fact that right and good leadership created Pakistan; it became an independent Muslim state. Unfortunately, it has been under the leadership of evil individuals, who have been wrong and detrimental since.

In India, in the aftermath of the bloodbath of the Partition massacres that spread across the subcontinent at the time of independence from British rule and the creation of the states of India and Pakistan—Hindus massacred by Muslims, Muslims by Hindus, somewhere between one and two million people dead—another group of founding fathers, led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, resolved that the only way to ensure peace in India was to remove religion from the public sphere. The new Constitution of India was therefore wholly secular in language and intention, and that has endured until the present moment, when the current administration seeks to undermine those secular foundations, discredit those founders, and create an overtly religious, majoritarian Hindu state.

Those who champion a so-called Independent America will tell you that drones create more enemies than they kill, and that America will attract more admirers by perfecting American democracy. Do you really believe that young men living among the tribes of the Afghan-Pakistan border are less likely to support extremist ideologies if we build better schools in Ohio and better hospitals in Arkansas? Do you accept that Somali jihadis are less likely to plan attacks on Western targets or that U.S. embassies around the world will be safer if U.S. policymakers redouble their commitment to American civil liberties? In the real world, a leader must often choose the least bad of many bad options. Drones achieve military objectives with much less risk for our military and at much lower cost to our economy. Use them. Never

These letters are dated 21 January and 24 July 1897. The contents are unknown, but, from what we otherwise know of the two men’s lives, some speculation may be in order. Could Jinnah’s first letter have been a message of support on hearing of the brutal attack on Gandhi at the Point in Durban? Or might both letters have been explorations of interest in a possible career in South Africa? In 1896, Jinnah returned from London to his home town, Karachi. Soon afterwards, he moved to Bombay. There, like Gandhi some years previously, he found it hard to establish an independent law practice. We know that Gandhi was keen to bring some barristers to Natal to help him, hence his invitation to the Parsi lawyer trained in London, F. S. Taleyarkhan. Jinnah may very well have known Taleyarkhan in London and Bombay, and thus have known of the opportunities across the ocean. Did he approach Gandhi to find out how to proceed? Or did Gandhi ask him in the first place? Jinnah was a Gujarati Muslim, in terms of personal and professional background extremely well qualified to work as a lawyer among the Indians of Natal. That Jinnah wrote to Gandhi to commiserate on his injuries is plausible; that he wrote to ask whether they could forge a legal partnership together in South Africa is not entirely impossible. But we must speculate no more. All we now know is that, a full fifty years before Partition and the independence of India and Pakistan, the respective ‘Fathers’ of those nations were in correspondence.

Did he approach Gandhi to find out how to proceed? Or did Gandhi ask him in the first place? Jinnah was a Gujarati Muslim, in terms of personal and professional background extremely well qualified to work as a lawyer among the Indians of Natal. That Jinnah wrote to Gandhi to commiserate on his injuries is plausible; that he wrote to ask whether they could forge a legal partnership together in South Africa is not entirely impossible. But we must speculate no more. All we now know is that, a full fifty years before Partition and the independence of India and Pakistan, the respective ‘Fathers’ of those nations were in correspondence.

The ugly scenes created on that 1980 tour of New Zealand, England’s tour of Pakistan with the Shakoor Rana v Mike Gatting incident and the sight of Sunil Gavaskar and Arjuna Ranatunga leading their teams off the field in Australia in protest at the umpiring might not have occurred if the independent umpiring panel had been in place.

Before independence from Britain, Bengal was one of the largest states in India. Now it is split into two, West Bengal, where Kolkata is located, and East Bengal, which became East Pakistan and, afterward, the beautiful but blighted nation of Bangladesh.

By the terms of the Partition Award, Bengal had been divided, with the eastern wing going to Pakistan and the western section staying in India. Calcutta, the province’s premier city, was naturally a bone of contention. The Boundary Commission chose to allot it to India, sparking fears of violence on the eve of Independence.

i believe in the freedom of state where every people have to right develop their culture and maintain the democracy while two things are very essential justice and equality - Long Live Pakistan and Happy Independence Day

In August 1947 on the cusp of Independence, my parents sat in the United Services Club in London with two friends, soldier comrades from the recent war. One of them – later to become a chief of the Indian army – raised his glass to the other – who became a general and diplomat in Pakistan. He said, “Let us drink to the aborted twins!” Attia records this with a sense of horror and disbelief.

Before either men could commence a deliberation over who knew more of the hotel’s history, Coraline injected, “India was writing the last chapters of its saga of independence when The Imperial opened its doors in the 1930s.” She paused before proceeding, “Pandit Nehru, Mahatama Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Lord Mountbatten met under congenial conditions to discuss the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan on the very ground we stand on. Adding to that, the Nehru family also had

Before either men could commence a deliberation over who knew more of the hotel’s history, Coraline injected, “India was writing the last chapters of its saga of independence when The Imperial opened its doors in the 1930s.” She paused before proceeding, “Pandit Nehru, Mahatama Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Lord Mountbatten met under congenial conditions to discuss the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan on the very ground we stand on. Adding to that, the Nehru family also had a permanent suite within the walls of this ‘Maiden of the East.’” She let out a discreet chuckle that I think only I caught. Both men stared at the female, not knowing how to respond. Before either one of them could opine, she continued, “If only walls could speak. Here indeed is a repository of fascinating anecdotal material for authors of romantic and detective fiction. It was here, at this very site, that one could clink glasses for the Royals to their war efforts, urge Gandhi to quit the India movement, or dance to the strains of Blue Danube, belly dance like a belle from Beirut or be serenaded by an orchestra from London.” The group of us stared at the big sister, wondering how in the world she knew so much about The Imperial. My teacher and Jabril pressed for affirmation. Instead, she vociferated, “Notably, The Imperial has the largest collection on display of land war gallantry awards in India and among its neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Bhutan and China. It also holds a sizeable record of orders and decorations bestowed by the British Royalties to the Emperor of India as an honour to the local Maharajas, Sultans and ruling Princes from the various Indian states.” While Narnia’s chaperone continued her historical spiel, the recruit pulled me aside and whispered amusingly, “Although everything my big sister said is true, she’s having fun with you guys. Her information is from the hotel’s brochure in the guest rooms.” I quipped. “Why didn’t you tell the rest of our group? I thought she was an expert in India’s history!” She gave me a wet kiss and said saucily, “I’m telling you because I like you.” Stunned by her raciness, I was speechless. I couldn’t decide whether to tell her there and then that I was gay – but at that very moment, Andy appeared from around the corner. “Where did you two disappear to?” he inquired. When Narnia was out of earshot, I muttered knowingly to my BB, “I’ll tell you later.”, as we continued the art tour browsing portraitures of India’s Princely Rulers of yore.

Pakistan first tried to seize Kashmir in 1947. As British decolonization of South Asia loomed, the sovereign of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, hoped to keep the country independent of either of the two new states, India or Pakistan. As Singh held out, marauders from Pakistan’s tribal areas invaded the territory of Jammu-Kashmir in hopes of taking it for Pakistan and were supported extensively by Pakistan’s nascent provincial and federal governments. This attack expanded into the first war between India and Pakistan. When it was over and the cease-fire line was drawn, Pakistan controlled about one-third of Kashmir, and India controlled the remainder. Although the war ended in a stalemate with international intervention, Pakistan may have rightly concluded that the strategy of using irregular fighters succeeded. After all, Pakistan had claimed at least some part of Kashmir, which it would not have had

Another collaborator who found an important position in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat was Mahbubul Alam[6]. Alam was the Dacca correspondent of the English daily from Karachi, Dawn. During the liberation war, he was characterized as a Sarkari[7] newsman by the Pakistani authorities to distinguish him from other Bengali journalists. Alam was known to be pro-Pakistani and the military authorities commissioned him to write scripts for Plain Truth, a propaganda program of Radio Pakistan against the liberation war. He received thirty to fifty rupees for each piece[8]. Alam was now the Press Secretary to the Prime Minister." [6] Mahbubul Alam is currently the editor of the Independent. [7] Sarkari means government owned or government minded. [8] Anthony Mascarenhas, Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood, Kent: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986.

The Pakistan Election Commission failed to perform its fairness as an international standard even though the voting time couldn't pass and match that; only 8 hours for voting were not appropriate. Imran Khan may manage to form an unstable government with unwanted compromises in question, which, indeed, degrade him more, as he went too far to victimize Muslim League N and Pakistan Peoples Party Zardari; however, he cannot fulfill what he promised to the people of Pakistan nor will he be able to execute new and standard foreign policy independently. Any compromise will cause him to be an opportunist for power, especially to become the prime minister at all costs. It does not seem that any party will cooperate with him to form even a weak government. As a fact, even in the leading position of the PTI in elections, the confused establishment faces grave defeat in the face of compromise for a coalition government that holds slurs and severe consequences. Pakistani media airing Imran Khan as a prime minister is not only false but also misleading to the nation. Though Khan's PTI is a leading party in the elections, it does not have the required seats to form a full-fledged government, nor has any other party or parties shown their willingness to join PTI for that purpose. In this context, why does the Pakistani media execute something that does not define the reality within the strong foes such as the PMLN and PPP? Let's realize and wait for the coming days to see how the sun rises and what the shape and outcome will be. The media seem non-professional and irresponsible. 

The events leading up to the creation of Pakistan also made the path to statehood very difficult: more than a decade of civil unrest as Indians of all races and creeds sought independence from Great Britain was followed by a massive migration involving some fourteen million refugees who crossed what became the Pakistan-India border. Nearly one million persons—Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims—died during this bloody upheaval.

Inter-ethnic rioting erupted in 2009, leading to over 200 deaths. Beijing responded in three ways: it ruthlessly suppressed dissent, it poured money into the region, and it continued to pour in Han Chinese workers. For China, Xinjiang is too strategically important to allow an independence movement to get off the ground: it not only borders eight countries, thus buffering the heartland, but it also has oil, and is home to China’s nuclear weapons testing sites. The territory is also key to the Chinese economic strategy of ‘One Belt, One Road’. The road is, oddly enough, a sea route – the creation of an oceangoing highway for goods; the belt is the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ – a land-based route formed from the old Silk Route, which goes straight through Xinjiang and will in turn connect down southwards to the massive deep-water port China is building in Gwadar, Pakistan. In late 2015 China signed a forty-year lease on the port. This is part of the way in which ‘the belt and the road’ will be connected.

But my bucket list had only three items. Become financially independent. Be known for my work. Find true love.

Subhas Chandra Bose not died in a plane crash at the front, had Bhagat Singh not been hanged by the British, and had Gandhi not been killed by a Hindu extremist moron, Bharat, Pakistan and Bangladesh together would be shining as the brightest beacon of multiculturalism on the face of earth.

As Kashmir remains occupied by India, Palestine by Israel, Arab states by their dictators, and Pakistan by its armed institutions, similarly, superpowers continue to control others' trade, democracy, and foreign policy around the world. Independence and the freedom of the states and people are still a dream and a question in the presence of the United Nations Charter.

Factually, in the history of Pakistan since its independence, the unfair judges of the pawn judiciary and the treacherous generals of the anti-democratic establishment and political parties founded and supported by them eliminated the nation's rights and ruined the democratic system of the state through their wrong verdicts and martial laws. Pakistan still breathes in an atmosphere of hegemony and dictatorship instead of constitutional and democratic values.

Factually, in the history of Pakistan since its independence, the unfair judges of the pawn judiciary and the treacherous generals of the anti-democratic establishment and political parties founded and supported by them eliminated the nation's rights and ruined the democratic system of the state through their wrong verdicts and martial laws. Pakistan still breathes in a situation of hegemony and dictatorship instead of constitutional and democratic values.

In Pakistan we had had a woman prime minister and in Islamabad I had met those impressive working women, yet the fact was that we were a country where almost all the women depend entirely on men. My headmistress Maryam was a strong, educated woman but in our society she could not live on her own and come to work. She had to be living with a husband, brother or parents. In Pakistan when women say they want independence, people think this means we don’t want to obey our fathers, brothers or husbands. But it does not mean that. It means we want to make decisions for ourselves. We want to be free to go to school or to go to work. Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man. The word has not come down from the heavens to tell us that every woman should listen to a man.

14 August -Independence Day Pakistan need not, to be new, or its institutions should stay under the Constitution, Pakistan turns into new Pakistan until our collective and mutual thinking, as long as, becomes capable, to match with the world's decent societies and communities, adopting within its religious, cultural and social values, and welfare's boundaries; then the change can be possible. The slogan of a new Pakistan can be just a slogan; however, our collective status, shape, and thought will stay unchanged, collapsing as the earthquake, and Pakistani people will remain the victim of it; indeed, no one else. As a fact, Pakistan's prestige and also beauty situates and depends upon its stronghold, independent, prosperous, self-sufficient, stable, and compatible with all its institutions. Long live, Pakistan. (Pakistan Zinda-o-Paindabad.)

In the 1940s, Congress—the dominant secular party that led India to independence from Britain, and was assailed by both Jinnah and the RSS—heroically withstood the demand of aggrieved Hindus to respond to Pakistan’s birth by turning India into a Hindu state. Nehru, as India’s first prime minister, frequently raced to scenes of communal clashes on his own, often chasing vengeful Hindu and Sikh refugees expelled from Pakistan without regard for his personal safety. ‘If you harm one single hair on the head of one Muslim,’ he told a mob plotting a massacre of Muslims, ‘I will send in a tank and blast you to bits’.

Even after 72 years of partition, Pakistan is still dependent upon India for both its sadness (when India succeeds at something) and its happiness (when India fails at something). What sort of Independence is this, dear Pakistan?

Had they stayed in Pakistan and moved to cities, being exposed to education and work in a language they already spoke, the women in these families might have arguably secured greater independence and decision making than they did in Britain. Two generations after arrival, British Muslim women often remained less educated and less likely to work than women from British Indian families of Hindu or Sikh background, who had emigrated from urban centers and were already better educated.

Throughout the decades after Independence, the political culture of the country reflected these ‘secular’ assumptions and attitudes. Though the Indian population was 80 per cent Hindu and the country had been partitioned as a result of a demand for a separate Muslim homeland, three of India’s eleven presidents were Muslims; so were innumerable governors, cabinet ministers, chief ministers of states, ambassadors, generals, and Supreme Court justices. During the war with Pakistan in 1971, when the Pakistani leadership was foolish enough to proclaim a jihad against the Hindu unbelievers, the Indian Air Force in the northern sector was commanded by a Muslim (Air Marshal, later Air Chief Marshal, I. H. Latif); the army commander was a Parsi (General, later Field Marshal, S. H. F. J. Manekshaw), the general officer commanding the forces that marched into Bangladesh was a Sikh (General J. S. Aurora), and the general flown in to negotiate the surrender of the Pakistani forces in East Bengal was Jewish (Major-General J. F. R. Jacob). They led the armed forces of an overwhelmingly Hindu country. That is India.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan partition, from the Republic of India, and as entire Secular India, independence from the British Empire enter its 70th anniversary. Unfortunately, both countries fail, within its real conception of freedom as India in its secular system and Pakistan as in its democratic prospect in the perception of Islamic values that cause the partition from India. Consequently, Pakistan bore the lesson of the partition of its East Pakistan, becoming Bangladesh. Beyond all other issues, the both Pakistan and India would have become the great, richest, and powerful nations in the world map if both sides had adopted the vision, dialogue of mutual interests, and toleration for the peace and harmony. In an open fact, enmity, with the diplomatic idiocy damaged, not only the old traditional and literary relationships but also the economic destruction on both sides. Both countries produce and facilitate, and sponsor the extremists and terrorists for self-destruction on self-costs and lives. How long both countries stay on that strategy, which gains nothing, except suffering from that, both sides people? Ehsan Sehgal

Pakistanis must figure out why India, which inherited similar institutions from the British Raj, maintained democracy consistently after Independence while Pakistan could not. They should also examine how Bangladesh has been able to expand its economy while reducing its population after breaking off from Pakistan.

The number of clerics has also increased exponentially. At Independence in 1947, there were only 137 madrasas (Islamic seminaries) in Pakistan. Nine years later, a 1956 survey reported that the number of madrasas had increased to 244 in West Pakistan. By 1995, the ministry of education estimated the figure at 3,906, which increased to 7,000 in 2000 and 35,000 by 2016.

In Abraham I had found a staunch Indian nationalist, who was discarded by independent India, like many other freedom fighters in the North East. He had understood the futility of waging a war against the government of India. But he insisted that the Nagas, a proud people, should be helped to come out of the stranglehold of some of the Pakistan and China inspired leaders and the machination of the certain Church functionaries owing allegiance to the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society (ABFMS), which was headed by Billy Graham.

The Fights 1962: US vs Russia in General / China vs Formosa over possession / India vs China over border territory / India vs Pakistan over possession Kashmir – Religious / India vs Portugal over possession Goa / India vs Nagas over Independence / Egypt vs Israel over possession of territory and Religion / E. Germany vs W. Germany sovereignty / Cuba vs USA – Ideas / N. Korea vs So. Korea – Sovereignty / Indonesia vs Holland – Territory / France vs Algeria – Territory / Negroes vs whites – US / Katanga vs Leopoldville / Russian Stalinists vs Russian Kruschevists / Peru APRA vs Peru Military / Argentine Military versus Argentine Bourgeois / Navajo Peyotists vs Navajo Tribal Council – Tribal / W. Irian? / Kurds vs Iraq / Negro vs Whites – So. Africa – Race / US Senegal vs Red Mali – Territory / Ghana vs Togo – Territory / Ruanda Watusi vs Ruanda Bahutu – Tribe power / Kenya Kadu vs Kenya Kana – Tribe power / Somali vs Aethopia, Kenya, French Somali / Tibet Lamas vs Chinese Tibetan secularists / India vs E. Pak – Assam Bengal over Border & Tripura / Algeria vs Morocco over Sahara.

If Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known as Mahatma Gandhi, would not have started India's independence-campaign against British rule; be sure, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, known as Quad-e-Azam, would never have succeeded the independence of Pakistan. Jinnah was the hero of Pakistan; however, Gandhi was not only the hero of India; he was the hero of East and West Pakistan as well. It is undoubtedly a reality, which no one realizes and accepts.

With the end of the Cold War, China’s efforts to establish more friendly relations with its neighbors extended to India and tensions between the two lessened. This trend, however, is unlikely to continue for long. China has actively involved itself in South Asian politics and presumably will continue to do so: maintaining a close relation with Pakistan, strengthening Pakistan’s nuclear and conventional military capabilities, and courting Myanmar with economic assistance, investment, and military aid, while possibly developing naval facilities there. Chinese power is expanding at the moment; India’s power could grow substantially in the early twenty-first century. Conflict seems highly probable. “The underlying power rivalry between the two Asian giants, and their self-images as natural great powers and centers of civilization and culture,” one analyst has observed, “will continue to drive them to support different countries and causes. India will strive to emerge, not only as an independent power center in the multipolar world, but as a counterweight to Chinese power and influence.”48

That Pakistan should face a particularly acute challenge in forging a coherent national identity will scarcely surprise those who have long pointed to its artificiality as a nation-state. Indeed, at independence, the country was largely bereft of the prerequisites of viable nationhood. The exceptional physical configuration of the new state, in which its eastern and western territories were separated (until 1971 and the secession of Bangladesh) by more than a thousand miles of Indian territory, was an immediate handicap. So was its lack of a common language. Its choice of Urdu—spoken by a small minority—to serve as a national language was fiercely resisted by local regional groups with strong linguistic traditions. They expressed powerful regional identities that separated the numerically preponderant Bengalis of the country’s eastern province from their counterparts in the west, where Punjabis dominated over Sindhis, Pashtuns and Balochis. Pakistan’s national integration was further handicapped by the lack of a common legacy grounded in a strong nationalist narrative informed by a mass anti-colonial struggle. Yet, these severe limitations were judged to be of secondary importance when set against the fact of a shared religion—Islam—held up by Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), as the real test of the Muslim ‘nation’ that would inherit Pakistan.

For China, Xinjiang is too strategically important to allow an independence movement to get off the ground: it not only borders eight countries, thus buffering the heartland, but it also has oil, and is home to China’s nuclear weapons testing sites. The territory is also key to the Chinese economic strategy of ‘One Belt, One Road’. The road is, oddly enough, a sea route – the creation of an oceangoing highway for goods; the belt is the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ – a land-based route formed from the old Silk Route, which goes straight through Xinjiang and will in turn connect down southwards to the massive deep-water port China is building in Gwadar, Pakistan. In late 2015 China signed a forty-year lease on the port. This is part of the way in which ‘the belt and the road’ will be connected.

He observed the awkward position the Pakistan Army had been forced into in Waziristan. Tribal uprisings had taught the British empire to maintain a light footprint there, to maintain control by providing cash subsidies from the relative safety of Peshawar. Independent Pakistan’s generals were mostly ethnic Punjabis—effectively foreigners when they toured Waziristan. They had internalized Britain’s lessons. Through a system of local political agents, and through I.S.I.’s construction of forward operating bases during the anti-Soviet Afghan war, Pakistan had developed its own Islamism-influenced system of light presence and heavy subsidies, with an implied guarantee of autonomy for local tribes.

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, from Bengal, who served as prime minister for a brief period under the 1956 Constitution, warned against the preoccupation with ‘segregation of our voters into religious communities’ and the emphasis on Pakistan’s destiny as an ideological state. This, he said, ‘would keep alive within Pakistan the divisive communal emotions by which the subcontinent was riven before the achievement of Independence’. He proposed instead that Pakistanis start seeing Pakistan ‘in terms of a nation state’. Suhrawardy saw ‘a Pakistan great enough and strong enough to encompass all of its citizens, whatever their faith, on a basis of true civic equality and by that fact made greater and stronger’.

Pakistan need not, to be new, or its institutions should stay under the Constitution, Pakistan stays new Pakistan until our collective and mutual thinking, as long as, becomes capable to match with the world's decent societies and communities, adopting within its religious, cultural and social values, and welfare's boundaries; then the change can be possible. The slogan of a new Pakistan can be just a slogan; however, our collective status, shape, and thought will stay unchanged, collapsing as the earthquake, and Pakistani people will remain the victim of it; indeed, no one else. As a fact, Pakistan's prestige and also beauty situates and depends, upon its stronghold, independent, prosperous, self-sufficient, stable, and compatible with all its institutions. Long live, Pakistan. (Pakistan Zinda-o-Paindabad.)