[Reader-list] Who killed whom

[Shivam]

From: "Ishtiaq Ahmed" <Ishtiaq.Ahmed at statsvet.su.se>
asiapeace mailing list

Dear All,
Asiapeace member Aamir Riaz, USA, drew my attention to an editorial in
the Daily Times of Wednesday, November 17, 2004, in which it had been
argued that the unilateral Bab-e-Pakistan at Walton near Lahore to the
Muslim victims of the 1947 holocaust would not reflect the loss of life
of Hindus and Sikhs at that time. Also, it was incorrectly pointed out
that large scale massacres started first in East Punjab and Delhi. I
correct that by referring to the massacre of Sikhs and Hindus in the
Rawalpindi division. My letter has been published today. Please find
both items.
Best regards,

Ishtiaq Ahmed
Moderator Asiapeace - An electronic discussion group
Homepage:
http://www.statsvet.su.se/stv_hemsida/statsvetenskap_04/hemsidor/ishtiaq
_ahmed.htm
www.asiapeace.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asiapeace
Affiliate of Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA).

Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
Stockholm University
106 91 Stockholm
SWEDEN.
Ishtiaq.Ahmed at statsvet.su.se

Daily Times - Site Edition
Wednesday, November 17, 2004

EDITORIAL: Bab-e-Pakistan - one-sided memory
Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi announced Saturday that the
foundation stone of the Bab-e-Pakistan monument would be laid on March
23, 2005. The monument would be constructed on a 110-acre site on the
Walton Road in Lahore where the largest refugee camp was established
after the 1947 partition for the Muslims displaced from India. With
President Pervez Musharraf as chief of the Bab-e-Pakistan governing
council, the project costing Rs 800 million would be completed in quick
time. It will contain the main monument, gardens, headquarters of the
boy scout movement, and a high school each for boys and girls. A library
devoted to the Pakistan Movement will also be housed in the
Bab-e-Pakistan complex.

Like all symbols of nationalism the Bab-e-Pakistan will make us relive
the painful birth of the state of Pakistan. It will commemorate the
killing of thousands of innocent Muslims as they made their way across
Indian Punjab, the rape of the refugee women of Amritsar where the
Muslim community was butchered by Sikhs. There will be pictorial
depiction of the bedraggled millions who streamed across the newly drawn
frontier and kissed the soil of their new homeland. Bab-e-Pakistan will
remind us of the sacrifices the Muslims of India made for their new
homeland. It will follow the earlier Bab-ul-Islam, namely Sindh, where
the Arab Muslim commander Muhammad bin Qasim defeated a Hindu local
ruler to bring Islam to the part of India which is now Pakistan.

Every nation has a monument representing the "painful birth syndrome"
which is supposed to keep nationalism alive as an instrument of uniting
the various regional identities within a country. (Bab-e-Pakistan, too,
will represent all the four provinces.) Perhaps the most tragic
depiction of this syndrome took place in the Balkans where in the 19th
century whole populations were moved several times with accompanying
communal mayhem. The Balkan nationalism at the beginning of the 20th
century came to be based on the memory of this suffering. The last
decade of the 20th century saw the genocide the preservation of this
collective memory brought to the region. It was at a "painful birth"
monument at Kosovo that Serb dictator Milosevic swore revenge against
the Muslims of old Yugoslavia for which he today faces trial at an
international court. A monument at Dhaka commemorates how a West
Pakistani army killed "millions" in East Pakistan.

Pakistan and India have bad memories of the partition. Stories of
migration from both sides have been recorded. They are touching in the
extreme and highlight the inhumanity to which the two communities
descended during the pre-partition riots. It was a tale of the wicked
few driving the innocent majority into the trauma of dislocation and
death. It is no use putting a political gloss on the events of 1947. The
memoirs of partition are too solid a legacy to sweep under the carpet.
Now that India and Pakistan are about to embark on peaceful coexistence
after an epochal war of fifty years, shouldn't we introduce a motif of
non-communalist humanity in the over-all theme of Bab-e-Pakistan? We
should not concentrate only on the suffering of millions of those who
came in; we should also remember the suffering of the millions who had
to leave. If Bab-e-Pakistan comes up without the political bile secreted
since 1947 by the textbook nationalism of India and Pakistan, it will
stand forever. If not, it will fail the test of time, because evil is
not eternal and its celebration is even less durable.

The first touching evidence of the suffering of 'the other side' is
recorded in Jinnah Papers: Pakistan, Pangs of Birth, Volume Five (15
August to September 1947), ably put together by ZH Zaidi. These were the
papers found in the office of the founder of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam
Muhammad Ali Jinnah. They tell a story that Bab-e-Pakistan should
include as one of its themes. There are letters written to Jinnah by
Sikhs and Hindus in distress trying to leave a riot-torn Pakistan. The
real massacres started first in East Punjab and the UP. When the Muslims
heard of them in West Punjab they unfortunately decided to imitate the
savagery, which did them no credit. Interesting letters in the volume
from Indian Sindhi president of the National Congress JB Kripalani and
his wife tell Jinnah about how the Pakistani officers were stripping the
Hindus crossing over to India of their belongings. Mrs Kripalani
actually submitted an eyewitness report from Hyderabad describing how
the Hindu refugees were being looted.

If Jinnah Papers provide one side of the picture, there is the Indian
side too, and it has recently been highlighted by Mushirul Hassan in his
book India Partitioned: The other Face of Freedom. No one in India and
Pakistan can deny that the Partition of 1947 was a trauma. The large
mass of people involved in this two-way exodus was permanently damaged
by it. Remembering it is not such a good thing if it intensifies the
hatred India and Pakistan have nurtured for each other. It is for this
reason that Bab-e-Pakistan is not such a good idea, unless it stands
aside from the politics of Partition and focuses on human suffering. In
fact, history in South Asia has been moulded negatively by this
"separatist" recall. In Pakistan, the refugee joined up with the Punjabi
to frame a tough anti-India ideology; in India, the refugee has
eventually given birth to the BJP, the party that lives on hatred, with
top leadership drawn from refugees from Sindh. The only way the
Partition recall can be useful is if its presentation indicts both the
communities. If Babe-e-Pakistan has to be built, let it represent
suffering of all refugees from both sides. *

Letters, Daily Times, Lahore, November 22, 2004
Punjab holocaust

Sir: Your editorial, "Bab-e-Pakistan - one-sided memory" (Daily Times,
November 17), aptly critiques the Punjab Government's decision to go
ahead with a memorial at Walton for the Muslim victims of the 1947
Punjab holocaust.

To ignore the fact that Hindus and Sikhs were also victims of the
massacre does not respect the extent of the human tragedy that took
place. However, you mention that "the real massacres started first in
East Punjab and the UP". This is not true. Even Justice Muhammad Munir,
who was member of the Punjab Boundary Commission, mentions on page 17 of
his book, From Jinnah to Zia, that the Muslims were the first to resort
to large-scale massacres.

The systematic killing of mainly Sikhs but also Hindus took place in the
villages around Rawalpindi and Gujjar Khan between the night of March
6-7,1947 and continued until March 13. However, the real big-scale
continuous massacres began after the announcement of the Radcliffe Award
on 17 August, and more Muslims died in those attacks because they were
completely unprepared whereas the Sikhs had been preparing for such an
eventuality ever since more than 2,000 of them were killed in the March
riots.
ISHTIAQ AHMED
Stockholm, Sweden