Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.
Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/
On April 15th, Asim Munir, the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff, arguably one of the greatest positions of power in the country, said Hindus and Muslims are different in every conceivable manner. The statement, a part of a longer monologue that was delivered to the Overseas Citizens of Pakistan, in many ways went on to equate non-muslims with India and muslims with Pakistan.
The implications of such statements often play out on the ground – way back in 2021, a beautiful statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the founder of the first kingdom of Punjab, was vandalized beyond repair. This was the 3rd such attempt, after which the custodians of the Fakirkhana museum in Lahore who had built the statue, simply gave up.
I will come to how these two incidents are much more intricately connected a little later.
Let me begin by saying that besides many other things that were deeply problematic with Mr. Munir’s speech, I, as someone whose ancestry is scattered across what was once undivided Punjab, and who has interacted with Pakistanis in countries like the UK and Saudi Arabia, was thoroughly disappointed and even sorry to see what the country has become.
I will deliberately quote prominent Pakistani civil society members to make my case, because that by itself invalidates the communal rhetoric that the ruling establishment has used repeatedly in their anti-India stance – something that has deeply imprinted upon the Pakistani psyche, especially its lower middle class, as was my experience with them in Saudi.
Usman Ahmed, a popular Pakistani podcaster said (on another podcast where he was a guest) that in his societal circuit, the 2-nation theory was irrelevant today, and that no antagonism against Indians or specifically Hindus was expressed. To him, the COAS’s views seemed far too stretched.
But by his own admission, this nonpartisan view of India was elite – coming from the highest echelons of Pakistani society, far above the reach of regular Pakistanis.
For starters Mr. Munir is himself a Punjabi. His family hails from Jalandhar (India), and most likely his ancestors inhabited the land for hundreds of years prior to partition of India and subsequently of Punjab – all this, while coexisting with people of different faiths.
The most important fact – Punjab at its apex was created by a Sikh ruler, Ranjit Singh who, for the first time in the region’s history, consolidated all the warring misls (12 Sikh confederacies) and brought them under a single sovereign rule united not by religion but by a cultural identity i.e., Punjabi. The Punjabi language itself borrowed words from both Persian and Brahmi scripts.
Ranjit Singh’s Punjab had muslims and hindus with pivotal roles but the most relevant for this argument are 3 muslim brothers, all of them chief emissaries who used the ‘Fakir’ prefix to their names – Azizuddin, Nooruddin and Imamuddin.
Azizuddin, the foreign minister and diplomat, was closest to the emperor.
Their 6th generation descendent, Fakir Saifuddin, is the director of the Fakirkhana museum which was mentioned earlier. It is one of Pakistan’s finest private museums that has preserved Sikh-era artefacts amongst many other invaluable items of antiquity.
Covered by numerous podcasts and news channels, he has endorsed Ranjit Singh’s character as the most secular ruler Punjab has ever seen – the same Punjab that COAS Munir is a product of, same that has produced remarkable sportspersons and journalists on both sides of the border. It is also the same Punjab that today houses Tehreek-e-Labbaik, a far-right political party that the activist who vandalized the statue of Punjab’s very own king, swore allegiance to. Once banned in Pakistan, the party seems to have resumed its political relevance in 2023.
And it isn’t just personal histories and royal lineages. Salman Rashid, one of Pakistan’s most respectable travel writer, on a podcast, eruditely spoke of Ranjit Singh as the only indigenous king from Pakistan after Porous who fought Alexander at the Battle of Hydaspes – the ancient Greek word for the Jhelum River.
The popular adoption of Alexander (referred to as Sikdandar-e-Azam) or Bin Qasim (the Arab) as native kings in Pakistan, is according to him, reflective of a grave identity crisis, added to a language crisis due to Urdu being imposed upon its populace – Urdu was born in present-day central Uttar Pradesh in the Indian heartland.
The history of the entire subcontinent is of course very nuanced, but one thing I can say for certain – that while India has had its share of politicians who have incited communal or racist sentiment, never has a credible representative of the Indian Armed Forces, let alone a Chief, spoken in the overtones that were reflected in the Pakistani COAS’s speech.
A country’s defense in my opinion, speaks volumes about its character as a whole. And in this context the Pakistani citizenry has, at the very least, something to worry about.
Selected References:
The untold history of Sikh rule under Ranjit Singh in Lahore | Fakir Syed | TEDxULahore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWxDhT3ybUs
Lahore ‘ਚ Maharaja Ranjit Singh ਦਾ ਬੁੱਤ ਬਣਾਉਣ ਵਾਲਾ ਕਾਰੀਗਰ ਕੀ ਕਹਿੰਦਾ | 𝐁𝐁𝐂 𝐏𝐔𝐍𝐉𝐀𝐁𝐈
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc2oYF_Maa4&t=118s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXM_KedWv94
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.