Pakistan's Fate - Karmic Baggage of its Crimes and Silent Acquiesence

Intellectuals in Pakistan are asking - why is Pakistani society where it is today. It did not happen in a day. The Crimes and the depravity was always present. You acquiesced to it all along.

Pakistan's Fate - Karmic Baggage of its Crimes and Silent Acquiesence
A photo of two padlocks.
Photo from Lahore by Shazaf Zafar / Unsplash
“But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.” ― Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express

We did not publish last week.  We had promised to send the newsletter out on Tuesday but the topic we took up needed comprehensive and detailed treatment.  It would have been a travesty if we had done a shoddy or an incomplete work.  So, as opposed to sending out half-baked stuff, we chose to move it to the normal weekend routine.  We hope this will not just serve as an eye-opener and a way to ask questions but also as a source for further research and information should anyone want to research the many crimes that were committed in the Indian subcontinent in the last 100 years.

Please read and share with others widely.  


The last few years have seen a proliferation of Pakistani "intellectuals" criticizing the Pakistani establishment, the Army, and the politicians.  Their words and narratives are happily lapped up.  Many even call them "enlightened intellectuals".

Yet, scratch the surface a bit and you see the familiar "false equivalence" game is on.  To the uninformed, that seems all fair and nice.  But when you put the events, the crimes, the ideological underpinnings, and the depravations to which the perpetrators of those crimes sank, you start to question the real locus of even these "enlightened intellectuals".

If disgust and rejection of the most horrific and demonic are not what one can muster, then one needs to ask the question - "Who Am I?" - very seriously.

That honesty and seriousness is what we want to poke at.

If the self-righteous "intellectuals" walk 7 out of the 10 steps right along with the war criminal jihadis and then on the 9th step after divergence wonder why the jihadis "betrayed" them and their morals, then it is kind of hard to digest.

Another point.  The creed of an exclusivist is predicated on the distinction between "Us vs Them".  Who comprises the "Us" and who is relegated to "Them" decides everything in the exclusivist world - the laws, justice, fairness, equity, and even altruism.


The remorseless hacking

It was March 5th, and the Hindu and Sikh students were protesting in Multan against the violence in Lahore where students who were protesting peacefully had been shot down.  The Muslim mob with lathis, daggers, and spears attacked these students near Bohar Gate, Multan.  The trouble had spread.  Islamic mobs were running from street to street murdering Hindus and Sikhs while shouting "Leyke rahenge Pakistan, Pakistan zindabad."

A mob near Delhi Gate attacked the Shri Krishan Bhagwan Tuberculosis Hospital.  They immediately went on to hack every one of the patients.  

Women, children, and the old.  No one was spared.  No one!

The Hindu compounder tried to stop them but was summarily put to death.

Source: The famous Four - Part IV by Muhammad Hassan Miraj / Dawn

When everyone was butchered remorselessly, the mob then burned the hospital down!

The cries of women, children, and the old who were struggling with their desperate state of health would have been deafening.  

So loud and full of pain that any human being would find it unbearable.

But not that mob.  They went about their dance of hate and death and set fire to blocks of houses near the Serai Wan Wattan railway bridge.  

Source: "Stern Reckoning" by Justice GD Khosla

And it continued.  The deaths, the fire, the hacking, the killings.

The cries grew louder to reach a crescendo.  

But no one heard them!

The entire brutality started with the call for Direct Action Day.

Direct Action Day: The beginning of the Death-Dance

It was on August 16, 1946, and the action started in Bihar and Bengal. Later repeated in Punjab.

Here is a picture from the evening before the Direct Action Day. Here the then Bengal Premier, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (right), is engrossed in a telephone conversation at his residence in Calcutta. Khawaja Nazimuddin, his predecessor, is seated next to him. Two years later, Khawaja Nazimuddin became Pakistan’s second governor-general and subsequently Pakistan’s second prime minister. (Source) Suhrawardy was known as the Butcher of Bengal. (Source)

Why was August 16, 1946, selected as the “Direct Action Day”?

Jinnah chose 16 August deliberately for a reason. That day in 1946 was the eighteenth Day of Ramzan and the day was associated with the Battle of Badr which resulted in Prophet Mohammad’s first decisive victory over the heathens and the subsequent conquest of Mecca. The then Chief Minister of Kolkata and an important Muslim League leader Suhrawardy and his Muslim League colleagues delivered fiery speeches reminding Muslims of Bengal of the victory of Badr and exhorting them to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet and wrest a victory for Islam on 16 August. (Source)

Here is an extract of the official Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings (1946) Vol.71, Pt.3.(for download click on the link)

It explains clearly how the whole massacre was planned and started.

Source: Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings (1946) Vol.71, Pt.3.

In fact, the legislative proceedings go on to show how the Muslim leadership worked to create obfuscation even when the evidence of who, how, and why the massacres were started was very clear. Prior to the massacres on Direct Action Day, leaflets were distributed which clearly said what was going to be done.

Source: Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings (1946) Vol.71, Pt.3.

The massacres were ruthless and done not just for the objective of winning power but to instill fear and humiliation amongst the Hindus.

Bengali Hindus were butchered and showcased.

Mere Narratives don't push people out of their homes!

The ask for Pakistan and the narrative of the two-nation theory were not the real actual reason why partition happened.  

Try getting a court order and asking your tenant to leave your home.  Just because you say so, do you think he will vacate it?  That is why there is an entire industry of goons who are "experts" at vacating tenants.

Here we had millions leave their own ancestral homes, kill their own wives and daughters and leave their valuables.  

Such actions need something very tangible and intense to orchestrate.

Not based on any narrative.  But based on actual violence.

Muslim League National Guard.

It was a 60,000-strong semi-military militia that carried out the threat that Muslim League politicians laid out in public and in private.

During the 1940s, Muslim League was creating this militia in Punjab and Bengal. In Bengal, Muslim League National Guard was called Azrail Bahini.  In Islam, the “Devil of Death” is known as Azrail.  The intention as well as the strategy was clear.

Source: Muslim League Attack Sikhs And Hindus In The Punjab by SGPC

The Muslim League National Guard cadres were prepared to kill, stab, and shoot while on the move in jeeps and lorries.

Drishtikone Newsletter #333: The Real Story of India’s Partition
How was Partition in 1947 really orchestrated? The real story and its players have never been discussed. Only a Secularism-powered false equivalence peddled. Here is a detailed analysis.

In December of 1946, Sardar Abdul Rab Nishtar pushed the Muslims to join the Muslim League National Guards in large numbers.  This, he claimed, would lay the foundation of the future army of Pakistan.  (Source: "The Punjab Past and Present - Volume 05 Part 1 and 2"; pg 177)

And it is not that people did not know of the Muslim League National Guard, its ferocity, and its preparations.  They did.  Here is a report from the correspondents of the Hindustan Times as late as March 13th, 1947 where it puzzlingly announces  

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"If the leaders of the Muslim League thought that they could seize power by force, they must have been disillusioned."

How tone-deaf and out of touch could the journalists be?  

The hacking of the patients in the TB hospital had happened on March 5th.  By Muslim League National Guard.  As HT's report confirms as well!  Yet they give the entire planning and execution machinery of the Muslim League a free pass!

The fact is that on January 25th, Liaquat Ali Khan had already announced that Muslim League National Guard is an integral part of the Muslim League. The Muslim League, which had hitherto disowned the Guard, suddenly acknowledged it as its integral part.

Source: Towards Freedom, 1947 Part I by Sucheta Mahajan, Extracta report in Dawn on January 27th, 1947

Contrary to what Liaquat Ali Khan said in January ("not once ..guilty of violence or lawlessness.."), Jinnah had already started preparations for creating Muslim League National Guard into a military-style group. By the end of 1946, it was 60,000 strong.

Source - Midnight's furies : the deadly legacy of India's partition by Nisid Hajari

March 5th, as we saw earlier, was the key date.  That was the day when all hell broke loose.  The destruction of markets, homes, and lives of Hindus and Sikhs reigned.

Source: "Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 10" / Pyarelal

The brutality of the Muslim National Guards knew no pause or thought for humanity.  

Sheikhupura was the scene of great destruction and death.  In fact, Sheikhupura had become a buzzword.  It was used to intimidate the Sikhs and Hindus to hand over their properties and accept Islam.

"If you do not so as you are told, "they said, "we shall enact another Sheikhupura here." Source
The force behind the execution of the partition to create a Muslim nation - Pakistan - was not mere narratives of Jinnah or Gandhi or Nehru. But the over 60,000 cadres strong semi-military unit called the Muslim League National Guard!

However, despite the horrific crimes and violent planning by the Muslim League National Guard for large-scale military-level violence, the politicians were peddling false equivalence throughout.

False Equivalence to Shield Genocides

On January 24th, 1947 the Muslim National Guards organization was declared an unlawful association under the Criminal Law Amendment Act by the Punjab Government, along with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)

When the premises of the RSS and Muslim National Guards were raided, the RSS submitted to the order and allowed its offices to be searched and locked up.  The Muslim National Guards members pushed back when the police arrived at their Lahore HQ. (Source: Stern Reckoning by Gopal Das Khosla)

Muslim League leaders (members of the Muslim League Working Committee) - Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din, Feroze Khan Noon, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan, and Khan Iftikhar Hussain Khan of Mamdot - rushed to the offices to stop the search.  They were arrested.  When the premises were opened, the police discovered over 1000 steel helmets, uniforms, and inflammatory literature.

The Muslim League leaders had arranged for Army Helmets from the Military Disposal Department for the National Guards cadres.  The Muslim National Guards wore uniforms and were trained in army drills.

Many arms like daggers and firearms had already been moved to the homes of League leaders.  Specifically the Mayor of Lahore - Mian Amir-ud-Din.

During the riots, the arms were being supplied from Amir-ud-Din's house!  Lahore's Mayor Amiruddin's involvement in the violence was deep, strategic, and tactical.

Source: Nexus and the city: Battle for Lahore during Partition of India / Dr Adnan Tariq, Assistant professor, Department of History Government Graduate Islamia College Civil Lines, Lahore

His grandson would later remark how Amiruddin would run the politics of Punjab from his home. Amiruddin's son had married the daughter of Mohammad Iqbal, the celebrated poet of Pakistan. How crime lords and culture icons were united!

For urban notables such as my Old City patron, Mian Yusuf Salahuddin, the virtue of descent was political and patriotic prestige. His maternal grandfather was Allama Mohammed Iqbal, the poet-philosopher generally credited with articulating the idea of Pakistan; his paternal grandfather was Mian Amiruddin, a former mayor of Lahore. Leaving his Old City residence in Barud Khana Bazaar, Mian Yusuf would sometimes point to an empty chair in the doorway and remark, “From that chair my grandfather [Mian Amiruddin] ran the politics of Punjab.” (Source: The Hairbrush and the Dagger / Univ of California)

Those who were at the helm of the cities and the administration were orchestrating the dirty dance of death openly from the Muslim League standpoint and yet, the narrative was being given the color of equivalence.

The Hindu Mahasabha, which was also falsely equated with the Muslim League meanwhile was sharing its anguish at the deaths being unleashed by the Muslim League and the utter neglect of basic duties by the administration in those areas.  This anguish was at its peak after the Noakhali massacre.  

In such a state of despair, the Hindu Mahasabha leaders realized one thing clearly - they are on their own!

That they had no one to defend them.  It is at THIS stage - for the goal of Defense - that the Hindu Mahasabha gave the call for a Hindu Militia.

Source: Towards Freedom, 1947 Part I by Sucheta Mahajan, Extract from Resolution passed at Gorakhpur session of the Hindu Mahasabha in January 1947.

This call - in January 1947 was, unfortunately, too little and too late.

What was done to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha, was also done to Veer Savarkar.

He was also equated to Jinnah and has been bundled together with the fanatic Islamist as the "thought leader" of the "Two Nation Theory".

Even when Savarkar fought this falsehood when this shady balancing act was attempted first.

Source: "Savarkar, A Contested Legacy" 1924-1966 Page 347.

Please listen to the text here as well.

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Veer Savarkar and the Two Nation Theory
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The fact is that as early as the first week of March (Mar 8th), 1947 the Congress had passed the resolution for the partition of India on a religious basis - Muslims vs Non-Muslims.

Source: "Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 10" / Pyarelal

"Collective Madness" - white-washing the crimes!

Till today, even those "intellectuals" who are considered "enlightened" (what a travesty at the trivializing of the concept itself) are so eager to create the false equivalence to wash away the crimes of the Muslim League National Guard, even when they seemingly do not agree with those ways.

Listen to Ishtiaq Ahmed - an extract from his video on his visit to India.

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Courtesy - Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed's video

Do you think someone like Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed does not know what had happened during the partition?  And that it was not a "Collective madness"?  

The call for Direct Action Day, the Great Calcutta Killings, the role of Lahore's Mayor Amiruddin, and the killings on and around March 5th.  

He does.  

He has written an entire book on that subject.  Yet, isn't it instructive how he still calls it "collective madness" and not the madness of one religiously aroused group to wipe out every identity that did not find relevance to their own belief - Islam?

Muslim League set out to empty Punjab and Bengal of all Hindus and Sikhs with the most devious plans and designs they could muster.  That was their overwhelming objective.  

RSS, Hindu Mahasabha, and the Akalis were planning on defending themselves because the prevalent British and the local administrations were either complicit or way too oblivious to the threat from the Muslim League.

Partition did not happen because someone believed in the "Two Nation Theory". It happened because someone created and used an army or a militia to execute that belief.

Hindus never asked for a division of their own 'civilizational' country, which they have always believed was a cultural and spiritual unity - stretching from Afghanistan to Burma.  

Pakistan - a land purified from the contaminated presence of Hindus

It was the Islamists of the Muslim League who wanted a "pure land".  Purified by removing all vestiges of Hindu culture and beliefs.  

Any number of programs and rants from Pakistan speak to this very clearly.  Heck, the entire bastardization of the Pakistani identity has been orchestrated for just this purpose - the annihilation of any vestiges of Hindu culture or identity in Pakistan!

The reason why the new Muslim land was defined as "Pakistan" was not just because they thought it was to have Islam. But because it was to be free of Hinduism as well. Hinduism was considered as "contamination".

Something that Amir Khusrau also reiterated in his writings as long back as the rule of Allaudin Khilji.

In the chapter “Campaign of Ma’bar”, Khusrau describes the devastation that happened at Somnath in the following words: “On the other side, so much dust had been raised from the temple of Somnath that it dried up the bottom of the sea.“ Amir Khusrau goes on the describe Hindu gods as demons and “shaitan” and devils who had possessed the land called Hindustan.  These symbols were taken out, prides Khusrau, from the “demon-lands” and it was only then that the “light of Shariat” shone in the land.  The Mullah’s call dispelled the “contamination of the false beliefs” through his daily morning call.

Amir Khusrau
Campaigns of Ala’ud’din Khhilji Being the Khaza’inul Futuh” of Hazrat Amir Khusrau by Muhammd Habib, Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University

The idea of the new land being a "pure land" was a continuation of the narrative of Amir Khusrau.

That Islamist ideology has always been exclusive is obvious.  The foundation of Kalma (Islamic creed) is that there is only one god and Muhammad is his final prophet.  Any "other god" and belief in any other prophet is a justifiable enough reason to fight against those who believe so and kill them.

The supremacy of one belief system and ideology is why Pakistan became "pure" when it became an "Islamic nation".  That it was "pure" also meant that Hindus were the contaminant.  The kufr.  

Which aligns with the belief system that Pakistan was built on.

Quran (9:29)“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”

Quran (9:33) – “ It is He Who has sent His Messenger (Muhammad) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam), to make it superior over all religions even though the Mushrikun (polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) hate (it).

The difference between the ideologies, approaches, the inspiration of the Muslim League - of aggression to "purify their land of kafirs" - and of RSS/Hindu Mahasabha - of defending their civilizational heritage that valued diversity and inclusiveness - couldn't be more stark. And yet.. all we have seen is an equivalence that is fundamentally and outrageously flawed!

Because the truth of what transpired during the partition was never realized nor called out (and instead buried under the carpet of false equivalence), the monstrosity of those falsehoods took on a larger form and became an evil that will be tough to imagine in the modern world.

Monster Secured by Willful False Equivalence Grows stronger

After the partition, Jinnah and the Pakistani leadership had assumed that Kashmir was in their “back pocket” since it was majority Muslim. This an assumption that every leader in Pakistan has carried ever since, exemplified by the swagger in their articulation of Kashmir’s destiny.

Jinnah was dying and he wanted to spend time in the salubrious climate of Kashmir. So, he sent forth his military secretary, Colonel William Birnie to make arrangements. Maharaja Hari Singh, however, had other ideas. He was not even prepared to entertain Jinnah or Pakistanis as tourists. A powerless king drunk on his possessiveness invited the wrath of the Pakistani leadership, without having any plan of defense.

As Navratri – the Hindu religious festival was approaching – in September of 1947, Liaqat Ali Khan huddled together in a secret meeting in Lahore. A multi-pronged approach was hatched to annex Kashmir by coercion or force.

Some options had been tried earlier – such as to pressurize Hari Singh via his Prime Minister R.C Kak (who had already been bought by Pakistani leadership). As was obvious from the rebuffing of Jinnah, this strategy obviously hadn’t worked.

It was September 12th, 1947.  The Muslim League National Guard had just delivered the most unreal prize for Jinnah and his gang.  Khurshid Anwar, the man who had ratcheted up the Muslim League National Guard and their work in Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, was holed up with the Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, and Punjab politicians Mian Iftikharuddin and Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan, as well as Army officers Colonel Akbar Khan, and Major General Zaman Kiani.  Sardar Shaukat Hayat was the original head of Muslim League National Guard and Khurshid Anwar took over from Shaukat Hayat in October 1946.

Source: "'Raiders in Kashmir' by Former Pak Army General, a Must Read for Valley's Youth" / News18

Operation Gulmarg was hatched just days after the 1947 genocide of Hindus and Sikhs that passes off as  India's Independence.  Major General Akbar Khan was to lead the attack on Kashmir.

Source: "22 October 1947: The darkest day in the history of Jammu & Kashmir" / European Foundation for South Asian Studies

It all started on October 21st, 1947 at night. Hundreds of Pathans – always easy cannon fodder for the Pakistani establishment – were gathered and lined up against the border as the world was in darkness and the Hindus in Kashmir started their celebrations of Navratri (9 nights of celebrations).

Mahura Power Station exploded with dynamite and the entire area from border areas with Pakistan to all the way near China went into total darkness.

On the other side, the Muslim army soldiers in Maharaja Hari Singh’s Army killed their commander, Col. Narain Singh, and lit the flares to give the signal to their Pakistani contacts and Pathans that all was well and attack could be resumed.

While Hari Singh and his family were busy celebrating Navratri, Kashmir was under attack.

The mayhem and crimes in Kashmir

What happened thereafter was just mayhem.  Killings, rapes, and plunder by Pakistani tribals led by the Pakistani Army.

St Joseph Hospital was attacked, very much like the Sri Krishna Bhagwan TB Hospital in Multan on March 5th, and every one of the patients was killed.  Nuns there were gang-raped and killed.  The hospital was burned down.  Young women were taken as sex slaves.

Gohar Rahman, a World War II veteran from Muzaffarabad (now in Pakistan) remembers the time when the “Pakistani tribals” came to unleash plunder and mayhem.

“They plundered the state armoury, set entire markets on fire and looted their goods,” Mr Rahman says.  “They shot everyone who couldn’t recite the kalima – the Arabic-language Muslim declaration of faith. Many non-Muslim women were enslaved, while many others jumped in the river to escape capture.”  The streets were littered with signs of mayhem – broken buildings, broken shop furniture, the ashes of burnt goods and dead bodies, including those of tribal fighters, state soldiers and local men and women. There were also bodies floating in the river. (Source: Gohar Rahman to BBC)

Nuns and nurses at the  St Joseph’s Hospital in the Baramulla area were raped and killed.  Looting, rapes, killing, and vandalizing of shrines and temples continued for several days.  A local cinema house was set up as a “Rape Center”.

Kashmir – the Case for Freedom by Tariq Ali

Imagine - a "Rape Center".

Such was the extensive war crimes and genocide in Baramulla, that out of 14,000 inhabitants, only 3000 were left alive at the end of it all.  This fact was "proudly" mentioned by the leader of the attack - Pakistani Army Major General Akbar Khan in his book "Raiders in Kashmir".

Source: "Raiders In Kashmir" / Maj General Akbar Khan

An eyewitness account from Kashmir shared the crimes, rampage, and rape committed by the "Qabailis" (tribals), which they weren't as already seen.  The executors may have been the tribals, but the leaders and the planners of those groups were Pakistani Army personnel.  Am reproducing some of the things that Shri Triloki Nath Bhan witnessed (Source: "1947 Qabaili Attack: An eye witness version" / Organiser)

  • Onwards, we reached Poshbugg, a village near Pattan, where kabailies had executed 14 Kashmiri Pandits as they were performing fire veneration “Hawan”. The fire was still smoldering. Luckily all fourteen had already been cremated by the Pandits of the neighboring villages who had escaped the onslaught of these savages
  • Visiting the Grove was the most horrendous and traumatizing experience as we saw pieces of Indian currency notes and human skeletons scattered in the area. The boy told us that Sikh adults had killed their women and children here to ensure that ‘they did not fall in the hands of these heartless and treacherous Pakistanis.
  • On Reaching Handwara, we witnessed six kucha earthen mounds burying six Kashmiri Pandits belonging to one family. It was a mass suicide committed by the family

These were the things that happened when Pakistan invaded Kashmir.  

When politicians and even intellectuals talk about historical events they mention them in a very matter-of-fact way. The pain, the crimes and the mayhem that accompanied them are hidden. Sometimes deliberately. To undermine the atrocities and the vile nature of the enemy. We were not dealing with humans in Pakistan. If the crimes from Sri Krishna Bhagwan TB Hospital in Multan to St Joseph Hospital in Baramulla are any indication, Pakistani leadership and violent groups (including their military) were the worst demonic force one could have imagined.

But that would get even worse.  If such a thing can even be imagined.

Operation Searchlight - Genocide beyond human imagination

In March of 1971, the Pakistani Army launched a genocidal mission – Operation Searchlight.  The goal was to purge Hindu and Hindu Culture from Pakistan completely. 2.3 million Hindus were massacred in the run-up to the 1971 war.

We have documented the massacres committed by the Pakistani War Criminal Army in Bangladesh.  35 of them just in 1971!

Here is a graphical representation of the numbers killed during these massacres.

As is obvious from the data, Bengali Hindus were targeted specifically.

“I saw Hindus, hunted from village to village and door to door, shot off-hand after a cursory ‘short-arm inspection’ showed they were uncircumcised. I have heard the screams of men bludgeoned to death in the compound of the Circuit House (civil administrative headquarters) in Comilla. I have seen truckloads of other human targets and those who had the humanity to try to help them hauled off ‘for disposal’ under the cover of darkness and curfew.” Anthony Mascarenhas in The Sunday Times, London on 13 June 1971

The US Government also knew this.

Source: The Blood telegram : Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide by Gary Jonathan Bass

The most painful aspect of the entire Operation Searchlight was the rapes.

Rapes, and mass rapes, were used as official instruments of war.  Jessica Lee Rehman writes how rapes were a way of establishing religious supremacy over the victims.  It was an act that was sanctioned by Allah in their eyes.  A way of "triumph of good" as they saw it.

Source: "Rape as Religious Terrorism and Genocide" by Jessica Lee Rehman

In fact, the Pakistani "Army" (it is better to call them a group of War Criminals), set up "Rape Camps" in their cantonments.

Salma Sobhan, an activist and scholar, documented that from the initial stages of the conflict, the Pakistan Army boasted about its opportunity to “convert East Pakistan through engendering true Muslims” – meaning forced impregnation. Yahya’s order to make Muslims out of Bengalis was carried out most cruelly and literally during the nine months of conflict, when an estimated 200,000 women and children were systematically subjected to rape. Pakistani soldiers and their collaborators raped women in their homes, in their local areas, or even forcibly took them to ‘rape camps’. In this process, there were various lists created of names and numbers, which many social workers talked about with this writer. Many of those lists were deliberately burned by the post-war government in 1972, and the remaining lists were all destroyed during 1978-80 and again in 1985-86 by subsequent governments.  Besides forced impregnation, there were other rationales for widespread rape, as well. The army used rape to terrorise the populace, to extract information about the insurgency, to boost the morale of soldiers, and to crush the burgeoning Bangladeshi national identity. In addition, the Pakistan Army’s local militia, known as the Razakaar and al-Badr, used rape to terrorise, in particular the Hindu population, and to gain access to its land and property. (Source: Victory's Silence by Bina D'Costa)

Anushay Hossain writes in "The Real Kashmir" on how women were treated by the Pakistani War Criminal Army.  

Source: "1971 Rapes: Bangladesh Cannot Hide History" / Anushay Hossain

Please read the above - the last para (voice of Dr. Geoffrey Davis) again.  What do you make of such war criminals?

Demonic.  Without any conscience.  Right?

Any human would at least have some realization at some time about the extent of his crime and the depths of his depravations.

Pakistani Army Generals had no idea as to why anyone would even consider those sexual terrorist acts as a crime!

Source: 1971: Rape and its consequences / BDNews

This is very instructive.  

Even now, after so many atrocities via terrorism and outright war crimes, Pakistani intellectuals do not understand why the Indian mind detests the Pakistani Army, distrusts their politicians, and questions their liberals, intellectuals, and commentators. For, if an entire society is so forgiving and unquestioning of the most horrific crimes committed - unimaginable even for most - then is the common population a vicarious participant as well?

So what is the real character of the Pakistani society?

Trying to understand the Pakistani society

A society that is devoid of any sensitization to the most horrific crimes.  Where people are comfortable (non-revolting and unrepentant) with what was being done in their name and for their good.  Despite the most horrible crimes, the only narrative that the Pakistani commentators discuss with respect to Partition (Direct Action Day), the Kashmir invasion of 1947, and the Bangladesh war is how India and the Hindus were equally responsible for those "events".

If someone had woken up when those patients in the TB hospital in Multan or those in St Joseph Hospital in Baramulla were hacked and the premises burned down or when Hindu women were raped and hung in butcher shops in Calcutta or when rape camps reverberated with the cries of devastated women,  and rejected the entire premise and normalcy of the Pakistani society in toto, then one could have called the likes of Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed or Ayesha Jalal as "humane".

But when they were busy creating false equivalence all along to create the justification for the astonishingly horrific war crimes perpetrated by their society, then they were just as complicit as General Tikka Khan was in 1971.

To talk about the crimes of the establishment now, when the target of that bunch of war criminals called Pakistani Army is your own family and friends, is sheer selfishness.

There is no self-disgust, no shame, no rejection of such a sick society and its ideological underpinnings or admission of its demonic character that is a continuation for several decades - even when the apparent adversary keeps changing along with the excuses. A tacit approval is all one can sense in their tomes and voices!

And that brings us to the final thought that we began with - Us versus Them.

Who is "Us" and who is relegated to "Them"?

The equation of Us vs Them is a progressive slide to hell.

Look at how things have changed.

In Iran, Sunnis are killed on a regular basis (check here, here, and here). Shias in Saudi Arabia are dealt with even worse (check here, here and here).

The situation in Pakistan is no different. A Shia doesn’t need to be in a riot-prone area to be killed.

He is killed within the confines of his own mosque while offering namaz. Thank you very much!

Ahmadis are worse. If they as much as greet anyone with “Salam Alaikum”, or say they are going to their “masjid”, they can be killed due to blasphemy, by the laws enacted by the state with the backing of the Pakistani Constitution!

This was when Ahmadis were instrumental in not just creating Pakistan as an Islamic nation but also in establishing its Islamic Constitution.

It was in March 1933, that Abdur Rahim Dard – an Ahmadiyya missionary in London – met Jinnah to convince him to take up the cause of the Muslims in India and ask for a separate state.  AR Dard was the one set the foundation for Pakistan in 1933 by changing Jinnah’s mind.  As the first step, he arranged for a lecture by Jinnah at the Mosque in Putney London in April 1933.  Jinnah was so moved by Dard’s persuasion that he asked Shaukar Hayat to seek blessings from the Hazrat of the Qadianis.

Extremely ironically, thus started the movement for Pakistan in India.

During the Boundary Commission deliberations, the Pakistani side was represented by Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, who was considered an equal of Babasaheb Ambedkar.  He not only paved the way for the current map of Pakistan but also represented Pakistan at the UN Security Council on Kashmir in 1948.  He was the Vice President of the International Court of the Justice at the Hague during 1958-61, President of the UN General Assembly in 1962, and President of the International Court of the Justice at the Hague in 1970-73.

During the 1948 attack on Kashmir by Pakistan Army regulars along with the tribals was aided in a big way by the Furqan force (formed under the second Ahmadiyya caliph Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad).

In 1949, an Objectives Resolution was passed by the Constituent Assembly. This resolution defined the foundational principle for Pakistan’s Constitution. It clearly stated what will be supreme in Pakistan in terms of law and constitutional supremacy. The architect of the Objectives Resolution, therefore, was Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan. The main foundation principles he defined were:

  1. Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone but He has delegated it to the State of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him as a sacred trust.
  2. The State shall exercise its powers and authority through the chosen representatives of the people.
  3. The principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam, shall be fully observed.
  4. Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings of Islam as set out in the Quran and Sunnah.
  5. Adequate provision shall be made for the minorities to freely profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures.
  6. Pakistan shall be a federation.
  7. Fundamental rights shall be guaranteed.
  8. The judiciary shall be independent.

Look at principles #1, #3, and #4. What he set into motion ultimately engulfed his entire community.

Do you see how the "Us vs Them" paradigm works?

What started off as "Muslims" vs "Non-Muslims - as in Hindus and Sikhs primarily" has now been redefined where Ahmadis, Shias, Bengalis, Balochis, and Sindhis are part of the "Non-Muslims" group.  The "Muslims" group now only constitutes the Wahabi Punjabi Sunni Muslims.

Video Corner: The Spirit Molecule

What is DMT and why is it so revolutionary?

Rick Strassman was the first American researcher to receive government approval to study hallucinogens after a two-decade ban. Between the years of 1990-95, the clinical associate professor of psychiatry administered roughly 400 doses of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) to nearly 60 patients at the General Clinical Research Center of the University of New Mexico Hospital. His findings changed the course of his career. While Strassman initially confined his clinical work confined to recording the physiological effects of DMT, such as heart rate and blood pressure, he couldn’t deny the overwhelming religious experiences reported by participants. (Source: "Why is DMT called the Spirit Molecule")

It is also a psychoactive component of the “vine of the soul,” ayahuasca.  The psychedelic used in South America.

This is a documentary on this molecule.

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