History Is Always Dug Up Later
Soroor Ahmed
When Urdu translation of Jaswant Singh’s book Jinnah: India, Partition and Independence was released in presence of the author himself on November 1 in Patna some handful of Muslim apologists for the BJP and its alliance partner, the Janata Dal (United), questioned the relevance and timing of this event. As the function turned out to be a huge success and managed to draw columnists like Prabhash Joshi and M J Akbar, politicians like Digvijay Singh and Arif Mohammad Khan, Gandhian like Dr Razi Ahmed and activist like Teesta Stelvad these critics were left with no other option but to create confusion over the date, month and year of the whole exercise. What is the need to dig up the history 62 years after the partition was their common refrain.
Those who tried to run down the impact of the function, are neither historians nor political scientists but they just have their own score to settle. They are men of limited ambition and want to emerge as replacement for Dr Ejaz Ali, a Rajya Sabha MP, who was suspended from his own party, Janata Dal (United), only 10 days before the occasion simply because his action was embarrassing the BJP. So the criticism of Dr Ali and the function was made only to please chief minister Nitish Kumar and his BJP friends and they had nothing to do with the larger ramifications of the show.
What the detractors failed to recognize is that history is always dug up years, decades and centuries after the event. Historians are unanimous that history written in the later years often have less rancour and biasness than compiled at the time of the great upheaval or just after it. For example, history books written by German and British historians between 1939 and 1945 had different things to say on the same issue as the nationalist sentiment was running high on both sides in those tumultuous years.
And then history book compiled in the immediate post-war years by both the Germans and British have one thing in common: they all pilloried the Nazi Germany and demonized Hitler for obvious reasons. Now both the victor and vanquished spoke the same language. The objectivity was at its lowest and nobody was prepared to listen to or read the Nazi German side of the story.
But now decades later when some one from Britain or other Allied powers like the United States, Russia or France come up with slightly more balanced view on what actually happened in those years nobody would accuse him of being the Nazi agent. Now some people do read with rapt attention the exaggerated stories of the Holocaust. To some extent historians of today have come to realize that several facts related to it were grossly blown out of proportion for some ulterior motives, for example, to create a state for the Jews or to hide the war crimes of the western powers. Since there is no bitterness and animosity left among different countries and communities people are prepared to accept some hitherto hidden facts.
Similarly when Jaswant Singh, though a founder-member of the BJP, did try to unveil some of the facts he was in position to do so as in spite of tension between the governments of India and Pakistan there are ,more sensible people who want to know and understand the real story. The number of those carried away by the emotion of the holocaust of partition has certainly subsided.
Today only those people will oppose such move who had some secret interest in keeping these facts in the dark. Therefore, it is the BJP, which reacted more sharply than the Congress either when the book hit the stand on August 17 last in New Delhi or on November 1 in Patna––or anywhere else in between.
Jaswant’s book does not exonerate Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Instead it also exposes the role played by the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the then home minister, Vallabh Bhai Patel. What is strange is that the Sangh Parivar reacted more sharply than the Congress. Jaswant was thrown out within 48 hours without anyone reading the book. True, the Congress leaders were also peeved at Jaswant’s view on Nehru and Patel yet the Sangh Parivar top brass was furious as if the first Prime Minister and home minister of the country were their own men and, therefore, their misdeeds should not be known.
Jaswant’s book may just be an extenstion of what Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who served as the Congress president for the longest time before independence, had already written in India Wins Freedom decades ago when the emotion was really running high and the number of objective readers in the sub-continent was much less.
The manner in which the Sangh Parivar reacted against Jaswant Singh book and the way in which the Janata Dal (United) emerged as the only NDA constituents––may be apart from Shiv Sena––to support the BJP on the issue only go to prove that there is certainly some hidden agenda which the former external affairs and finance minister of India exposed. True neither Nehru nor Patel were the RSS men, but may be for their own selfish interest they managed to did what the Sangh Parivar wanted to do. Therefore, suppress any voice which is trying to make public this darker unknown side of history.
Pakistan, the Battleground of History?
Soroor Ahmed
That Pakistan is in turmoil does not make a big news now as it has often been so in history. The region, which forms the present-day Pakistan, especially its northern half, has always worked as the battlefield for all the invading forces on way to Delhi. Sometimes in the history the conquering army had to retreat after stiff resistance, especially west of river Indus. The marauding Moghuls right from the 13th century to 15th century dreamt of reaching Delhi, but they failed. Only Taimur, though not a pure Mongol, succeeded in capturing Delhi in 1398. But then he returned to his country after pillaging and looting. Possibly he had too big an empire to handle. Taimur has the rarest distinction in the history: the only emperor who had captured both Moscow and Delhi. His empire spread from the western China in the east to Ankara in Turkey and Damascus in Syria in the west––with Samarkand as its capital. And it is this region which is passing through a
tumultuous phase now.
After Taimuir it was Babur who managed to overcome the battlefield of western India, that is Punjab, to reach Delhi. He was a different man. He wanted to settle and establish empire rather than go back, though he was also from Samarkand. After him conquerors like Nadir Shah in 1739 from Persia and Ahmad Shah Abdali in 1761 from Afghanistan came all the way down to India’s capital. They too were not interested in establishing empires.
Post-1761 the Indian sub-continent did not face any invasion from the Khyber Pass. In fact effort was made to reverse history––conquer Afghanistan from the east. The British tried more than once, but succeeded only partially and had to pay a huge price for this misadventure.
However, in 1979 the then Soviet Union tried to rewrite history. It sent over one lakh army to capture Afghanistan and put a figurehead, Babrak Karmal, as the ruler. Russians were not much interested in Afghanistan, nor were they––unlike the other invading armies of the past––looking towards Delhi. In contrast they were eyeing Baluchistan with the aim to utilize its ports––Gwadar and Makran. These ports, along with Karachi, are now being used by Chinese as transit points for trade with the Middle East and Africa.
The Russian action alarmed Pakistan and it started helping the Afghan Mujahideen against the invading army. After the loss of about 13 lakh Afghans and thousands of Russian soldiers the latter had to withdraw. Initially the United States––bitten in Vietnam as late as 1975––was shying away from supporting any such Afghan groups. However, when they observed that the Mujahideen are putting up a brave front the US did supply some arms to them but that was at much later stage. In fact volunteers from38 Muslim countries converged to the border of Pakistan to fight the war against the Russians in Afghanistan.
The rout of the then Soviet Union and its subsequent dismemberment gave the United States an opportunity to boast that in fact all this was possible because of it. The truth is that the United States had little to do with the whole operation in Afghanistan and not a single US soldier died in defeating the Russians. The US did not want to give credit to any one else for the defeat of Communist empire. So all those books and articles claiming US involvement in Afghan Jehad are sheer exaggeration and distortion of history. Most of these writers are paid to write such absurd pieces as it would show the US in a good light.
The West saw the reversal of history in the defeat of Russians. Seldom had the invading forces from north of river Oxus––border between Afghanistan and the then Soviet Union and now Central Asian Republics––been beaten back. without reaching the western part of the Indian sub-continent. And seldom in the history had any part of the sub-contnent managed to control Kabul. Even the British India failed in this objective though it tried four times.
This reversal of fortune was too much for the West. But the lack of poor political sense and myopic policy of those who matter in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the latter years once again changed the course of the battle-game.
Since Islam was used as a rallying point to beat back the godless Communist Russia in 1980s the new emerging powers of the West tried to use the same slogan to fish in the trouble waters of the land of five rivers––Punj-ab––of Pakistan. This notwithstanding the fact that those indulging in these acts have nothing to do with Islam. In between several side-shows also went on which too contributed to create mess in the region.
Now an impression is being created that those indulging in terror attacks in Pakistan are planning to turn their heat towards India. An exaggerated fear is being whipped up among the common masses and ruling elite by the media.
What appears tragic is that the whole situation has been given a new twist. If India is kept in the grip of fear it would be in the interest of the same western powers. Their arms sale would boost and India would go further deep into their camp. And this is happening. With Afghanistan destroyed and Pakistan thrown in turmoil it is natural for India to look for help. This development would certain limit the space for China to manouvre.
As per plan things are going on well for the western powers. While the invaders of the past always had an eye on Delhi and further east and south, the Russians in 1979 wanted to reach the warm water of Indian Ocean so that they could control the Middle East Oil Theatre. They did not want to disturb friendly India and look beyond Baluchistan in Pakistan.
In contrast the present occupants of the land west to Khyber Pass never want to conquer the sub-continent physically. They only want to extract maximum economic gain by keeping the pot boiling. The upheaval in Pakistan is certainly the direct fall out of their action. And they are pleased to see that India too is, of late, not free from trouble. The challenge posed by the Maoists may have nothing to do with them, but then they may end up being beneficiary. After all weak governments in the region is always in the interest of this distant masters of the region.
Call it an accident of history or a well-planned design, the truth is that perhaps never in 62 years of history both Pakistan and India have faced identical challenges from the armed groups.
