i am at a loss to understand how wadood can qualify and disqualify things on mere heresay. after reading his report about life in india, i was surprised to learn that i was living in a different place altogether - it is also called as india. please note that i am not commenting on the content itself; i am commenting on the principle of reporting. where did wadood get his information? what are his sources and so forth. another disclaimer: please don't take offense wadood. you are a dear brother and i have enjoyed many of your posts. but being rigorous will surely help. wa's salam.
I agree with Wadood. Of course a lot of bad things happened, but it wasn't as wide spread as people think it is. I have many many people who can testify this, as they had first hand experience.
Re: Creation of Pakistan I would also like to add that most of the time the rumours of uncontrolled mass killings and mass rapes were spread by the Indian army and agents who had spread their web through out the country at that time. The basic theme of this fear spreading was "Pakistanis are coming to kill you", "Punjabis are coming to kill you" So many Bangladeshis I have met in my life, to whom I have had close friendships from the very old to the very young ones today, still recall the "terror" that the Punjabi Pakistanis struck on Bengalis. But where is the evidence that the situation was this bad, to such a big degree. Alas, Indian propaganda has worked. Lies have become truth in the minds of sincere people.
Re: Creation of Pakistan Is the topic "Punjabi Pakistani atrocities on Bengalis"? Apart from this the 3 million figure can never be verified and is most likely a lie. Ophcourse the elders you met are sincere Muslims, no one said they are liars. But what they heard in those times were most of the times "rumours", lies about mass killings, mass rapes, that was simply not the case. It is once again propaganda to lay the blame on the Punjabi units of the Pakistani army. Why? Because at that time, just as today, West Pakistan was perceived as ever as Punjabi. Only the word Punjabi arises not pathan or Baluch. Was YaHya Khan a Punjabi? No. Once again there were rapes, there were mass killings of Bengali academic by Pakistani units (not necessarily Punjabi) but not to the degree that is being made out here. No one mentions the perhaps hundreds of thousands of Urdu speakers killed in East Pakistani during that time, poor Biharis mostly, many of whom are still stranded there.
Re: Creation of Pakistan Going somewhat off the topic again, I thought I'd share a photo i took in Bangladesh when a visited a memorial site. The Bangladeshis were also viceforous in wanting to split from India, but again i emphasise that for both East and west pakistan's leaderships, nationalism and language had a very high status for them and their unislamic actions over the years has shown that religion did not play much more than a cultural role.
Re: Creation of Pakistan Assalamu alaikum brother Wadood, my sources of reference are not India or indians. I spent some time in Bangladesh earlier this year and i stayed with very sincere practising muslim elders for most of the time, who grew up when these atrocities were happening which were not distinguishing between muslim and non-muslim. And also, these were not committed by pathans, but by the Punjab army units. One of the main reasons for the divide was the language divide between urdu and bengali In war, its amazing how much muslims justify some of the things they do. Not just the targeting of civillians today, but look at the example of how saudi arabia was established and also how the followers of muhammad ibn abdul wahhab slaughtered thousands of muslims and took their women for themselves. At the same time though, people should not think that i am saying that the whole pakistan army is like this. Of course there were and still are thousands of sincere people in the army who would never ever do such a thing.
Re: Creation of Pakistan Islam was into the equation for many of the Pakistani soldiers serving there in East Pakistan(Bangladesh). Please do not exagerrate as India did. Much of the so called mass rapes and mass killings were propaganda. First the story was the mass rape and mass killing of Hindus in East Pakistan (Bangladesh), and that was said by India. Then this has changed into mass killings and rapes of Muslims in Bangladesh by the Pakistani Army. One must not forget that the a huge proportion of the Pakistani army were Pathans (deobandis/TJs mostly) from the NWFP, who have a strict code of honour. One cannot imagine them to systematically rape Muslim women. Can TJs rape and kill innocents? The Pakistani army was/is immensely TJ. Ophcourse there were mass killings in East Pakistan. The Bengali fighters were killing Biharis and Urdu speakers. While many parts of the Pakistani army itself were involved in rapes and mass killings especially of innocent villagers and university academics but it was not to the degree the propaganda makes it out to be. There are 1 million Bangladeshis in Karachi alone. Hundreds of thousands of other live all over the rest of Pakistan. Why would they live in a country that "mass-killed" them?
