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Reversing 800 years of history
Ayaz Amir
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This is a perspective from Pakistan.
Ayaz Amir is one of the few saner voices in
Pakistan,
and was for a long time a columnist for Dawn newspaper before
plunging into politics, but his thoughtful critiques continue to
be taken seriously by the Pakistan elite. Here, he engages with
history and finds in Maharaja Ranjit Singh someone who can
inspire Pakistanis for a whole new push and attitude towards the
idea of a nation. The article is an example of how communities
can inspire each other across centuries and politics. |
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 All the great
Muslim rulers of our past whom we look upon as our heroes were
either Turks or Afghans, from Mahmud Ghaznavi to the last of the
Mughals -- Caucasians all of them, who, in successive waves of
invasion and conquest from the colder climates of the north, made
themselves masters of Hindustan.
For 800 years --
from 1192 AD. when Muhammad Ghori defeated Prithviraj Chauhan in the
second battle of Tarain (in present-day Haryana) to the
establishment of British rule in Bengal in the 18th century -- every
ruler of Hindustan of any note or merit was of Caucasian origin. In
all this vast expanse of history, the lands which now constitute
Pakistan
could produce only one ruler of indigenous origin who could lay
claim to any ability: Ranjit Singh, Maharajah of Punjab.
We, the
inhabitants of Pakistan, may claim in moments of (misplaced)
exaltation that we are descended from those early warriors. But this
is a false claim. We are now more sub-continental than Central
Asian. Just as empires and nations rise and fall, races too do not
remain the same over time. The Mughals were a hardy people when they
marched into India under Babar. After 200 years of unbroken rule
their dynasty -- descended from the great Taimur -- had become
degenerate and soft.
We may name our
missiles Ghori and Abdali -- although Abdali is somewhat
inappropriate, considering that Ahmed Shah Abdali in his repeated
invasions brought much suffering to Punjab -- but this is a
throwback to a past far removed from our present. Comfortable
thought or not, Ranjit Singh's kingdom of Punjab is more relevant to
our present-day conditions than those distant days of glory and
conquest.
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We had
roads and bridges, canals and waterworks, a judicial and an
administrative system, the trappings of democracy, the concept of
elections and political parties, but, apart from the one example of Ranjit Singh, no tradition of native ability. The idea of being
Turkish had always existed in the Turkish mind. The Muslim faith was
part of this idea but it wasn't the whole of it. Pakistan was a
wholly new invention and it was a reflection of the difficulties
besetting the idea of Pakistan that our leading figures declared,
very early on, that Islam was the basis of our nationhood. |
The challenge
thus posed is a daunting one. For 800 years we have produced no
ruler of native ability. But if Pakistan is to come into its own, if
it is to throw off the mantle of failure of the past 60 years and
forge a new future for itself, then its native sons and daughters
have to create something new: capacity and ability where none have
existed before – except in the solitary example of the one-eyed king
of Lahore, Maharajah Ranjit Singh.
We are going to
get no infusion of fresh blood from beyond the high mountains. No
Ghaznavi or Ghori is coming to rescue us or establish a new kingdom.
We are on our own. It is for us to make something of Pakistan or
disfigure it. The kingdom of heaven is here; redemption is here;
salvation is here.
The very
enormity of this challenge should teach us some tolerance. We expect
miracles from our rulers -- the Ayub Khans, the Yahya Khans, the
Ishaq Khans, the Zardaris, the Gilanis and no doubt the Sharifs –
without pausing to reflect that what we expect from them is nothing
less than a reversal of history. We expect them to be the heralds of
a miracle: the creation and expression of native talent and
ability.
Not that it
can't be done or will never happen. But at least we should be aware
of the extent of the challenge. We have to create something wholly
new, something which in Punjab, the Frontier, Balochistan, Sindh,
has not existed except in the dim annals of pre-history. There may
have been native rulers of ability in times past but we know little
of them and even if they did exist they did so before the advent of
Muslim rule in India.
And even if we
pride ourselves on our Muslim past, let us not forget that by the
time the British arrived in India and set about establishing their
empire, the Muslims of the sub-continent had declined to an inferior
position. They were no longer a master race. So much so, that they
were reduced to demanding from the British special safeguards, such
as separate electorates, to protect their status and position.
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The
past is no help because in two thousand years the only ruler of
worth, if not genius, to spring from the native soil of Punjab – as
opposed to imports from Afghanistan, Persia and Central Asia – was
Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Him and him alone. Punjab is saddled with a
historic responsibility. It must become a comfort zone, looking at
which Pakistanis can say that, bad as things are, they are sure to
get better. |
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Consider the
irony of this. Once the Muslims, a tiny minority, had ruled India.
Now they were afraid -- or their leading lights were afraid -- that
they would be swamped by the Hindu majority, fearful that in a
united India what they considered to be their just rights would be
denied them, that they would not be able to hold their heads above
the water.
This philosophy
of fear -- and there is no point in denying that it was that -- was
dictated by circumstances. After Ottoman defeat in the First World
War, Turkish nationalism found expression in the idea of a Turkish
republic confined to the Turkish heartland: the Anatolian plateau.
The idea of empire was no longer feasible. Mustafa Kemal realised
this, his vision clearer and sharper than most of his countrymen. In
India, Muslim nationalism found expression in the idea of Pakistan.
Jinnah's greatness lay in helping achieve this idea.
But there was
one vital difference between Turkey and Pakistan. The Anatolian
plateau was the solid centre of the
Ottoman Empire,
what the Turks called their true home. The centre of the Muslim
empire throughout the 800 years of Muslim dominance in
India was
central India, around Delhi. But Indian partition and the birth of
Pakistan
meant retreating from this centre and creating a new nexus of
existence on the western and eastern marches of the sub-continent.
Pakistan
thus arose on what used to be not the centre but the peripheries of
Muslim power in India.
This was a new
challenge: of creating a new locus of existence where none had
existed before. Muslim kingdoms had existed in South India. They had
of course existed in
North India.
But there had never been an independent Muslim kingdom in the areas
now constituting
Pakistan. And,
to repeat the point made earlier, there was in Pakistan no tradition
of outstanding native ability: no native ruler of
Multan
or Lahore, Peshawar or Bannu, Hyderabad or Thatta, Quetta or Kalat,
who could be cited as some kind of a role model.
We had roads and
bridges, canals and waterworks, a judicial and an administrative
system, the trappings of democracy, the concept of elections and
political parties, but, apart from the one example of Ranjit Singh,
no tradition of native ability. The idea of being Turkish had always
existed in the Turkish mind. The Muslim faith was part of this idea
but it wasn't the whole of it. Pakistan was a wholly new invention
and it was a reflection of the difficulties besetting the idea of
Pakistan that our leading figures declared, very early on, that
Islam was the basis of our nationhood.
Indeed, we made
religion a fallback position, seeking refuge in its dialectics when
more attention should have been paid to temporal problems. The
discontent arising in East Pakistan was proof that temporal problems
needed a temporal solution. Today it is the same in Balochistan
whose grievances are crying out for something more than the usual
palliatives.
The fight
against the Taliban may yet prove our salvation. It is putting us
through a formative experience. We were not willing to take on this
fight, using all the mental resources at our disposal to avoid it.
But this struggle has been forced on us by circumstances. The
Taliban had become a domestic headache. To this was added external
pressure from the American presence in Afghanistan, forcing the
Pakistan army to shed indecision and adopt a decisive course of
action.
What does the
idea of Talibanism tell us? That it is a foreign importation and as
such alien to our soil and condition. Osama bin Laden and Mullah
Omar just don't fit into the idea of Pakistan. But thanks to our own
misunderstandings and follies we had allowed this alien concept to
take root in our soil.
 Hopefully things
are changing. Pakistan has to be an autonomous concept, sufficient
unto itself and free of alien viruses. The struggle is not over. The
idea of
Pakistan
is yet in the making but it will come into its own, never to falter
or indeed wither, when we realise that the historic task before us
is to turn the mediocrity of our ruling class, including the
confusion that often besets the military mind, into a vision
springing from the needs of our own society.
27January 2010
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