By Dhirendra Sharma
“Pakistan-India Friendship Zindabad” –young scouts and students welcomed us as we came out of Karachi Railway station. Hundreds of men, women and children had gathered to receive us – 130 strong “Peace Friendship” delegation from India. We were garlanded and affectionately hugged.
In the evening there was welcome performance of Indian classical dances and musicals.
Ms. Seema Kirmani had organized a drama -cum-dance performance based on Tagore’s play. Seema’s group staged a beautiful act on the theme “Let my country awake where ..Mind is free and the head is kept high.” (Tagore)
Meeting Seema was the most rewarding experience on the Pakistani soil. She had been running, underground, theatre-cum-dance coaching school And in the hostile land she had sustained the classic artistic tradition by teaching Kathak, Odissi and Mainpuri to Pakistani youngsters.
For me coming to Karachi was of some personal significance a I spent my young ten years in a village Potohar, 20 kms from Karachi. After 56 years I was here on the Sindhi soil, on the grounds of the mighty Indus, the Sindhu, the center of ancient Harrapan heritage, the land where Aryan explorers had sung the hymns of the Rig Veda, and Emperor Ashoka spread the message of the Sakya muni, in 300 BC.
The Sindh that gave the Hindu identity to vast inhabitants of the entire South Asian sub-continent. Political divides notwithstanding. I recited “Jun, gun man..” and stopped at “Panjab, Sindh, Gujrat,..…” I was standing on the soil of Sindh but could not locate my childhood village. There is a big Military Establishment now, farmers moved out of the ancient agricultural land.
It was a joy to speak with the locals all of them in simple Hindustani ( they call it Urdu). As 60% of Karachi citizens are expatriate Indians mostly from UP., Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. I participated in group discussions on how to improve Indo-Pak relations. One Pakistani cheered us by singing “Madhuri Dixit de do, Kashmir lelo.”
Once as I was having a group discussion on the lawn of the hotel, a lady 40, in Panjabi dress with no sign of Muslim identity, (no burqa or head cover), informally joined in. I welcomed her in the discussion. After a few minutes suddenly a smartly dressed girl, walked up to me and said: “I want to be photographed with a Hindu professor..” and two photographers appeared from nowhere. The intruder held my hand and as the cameras clicked, shouted: “ Why are you killing our Muslim brothers in India?”
“You may like to think in another way,” I said. “ why do brothers fight brothers? Wasn’t there an attack recently on Shia mosque in Pakistan?
I could not go into long history of Islamic invasions, nor why India was partitioned. But before raising a finger of wrong doings on us Indians ( Hindus), remember that (Hindu) India gave Gandhi to the world. What did Islam and Pakistan contribute to the global civilization?
Next day I discussed “ Science and Culture” at the Jinnah University. I began with the belief in the divine origin of Knowledge. I maintained Knowledge is a human paradigm, in which even if He/She (God) existed, by very definition of Almighty, S/He cannot contribute anything in Time –Space. “But Koran is divine and it came through the Prophet Mohammed –Peace be upon him”. If you asked for proof, “it is said so in the Holy Quran”, insisted my questioner.But the Hindus also claim that the Vedas are divine. So, the Hindus and the Muslims must decipher the language in which the Almighty wants Time and Space, and communicate with each other. If Lord existed He/She must have no necessity to know anything nor to tell anything to anyone and anywhere as He/She is omni-scent and omni-present.to speak to us And Why?
We must know what was the mother-tongue of Almighty Allah? And what necessity did the Almighty felt to communicate?
As a student of Epistemology (Theory of Knowledge), I believe that all language-knowledge affairs fall in the human domain. Several hands went up. I noticed a few women in the audience and none of them was in Islamic dress.
“Let’s give a chance to a lady professor,” I said.
She spoke straight:
She referred to “an eye-witness account” that 5 lakh Muslims had gathered to protect the Mosque. But the Indian army went in with tanks, killed thousands of unarmed Muslims and made a corridor for the Hindus.” And “ they destroyed the historic Babari Masjid…”
I could not control my frustration:
“No, no, that is not true” I protested totally false anti-India story. I reminded them that iconoclastic- culture is alien to Hindus but it is the very essence of Islam. Therefore consider: As in Islam you are required to pray facing towards Mucca. building structure is not important. What is then so sacrosanct about an old structure that our Muslim brothers are ready to fight with Indians on this account?
Secondly: Babar was an invader who invaded Afghanistan and through Khyber Pass attacked Punjab, the U.P., and went all the way to Ayodhya -the birth place of Lord Ram
to build a mosque where there were no Muslims at that time. All of you in Pakistan and India were either Buddhists, or Hindus. What relation do you have with a foreign invader of some hundred years ago called Babar?
My provocateur responded:
“It is written in the Holy Qoran sharief that a Muslim is brother of another Muslim -wherever and whenever (beyond time and place). And since Babar was a Muslim, he was our brother. When you kill Muslims in Gujarat, we are hurt because the Muslims in India are our brothers.”
My patience had crossed the lakhshman rekha: I responded:
“In Gujarat it was a fight between two brothers. I am ashamed that we could not control our anger. But don’t forget that for two hundred years we ( Hindus) fought against the foreign rule. And when time came, you refused to live in peace with us – Hindus. In spite of partition of India, we have adopted a Secular and Democratic Constitution. We have elected Muslims as our President. Tell me how many Muslim countries have elected a Muslim president? I am asking “elected”, not military dictators or the Chieftains.
With some emotional pitch I raised my voice:
“My Sisters and Brothers: Tell me: who killed the first Prime Minister of Pakistan- Liyakat Ali Khan? Who killed the elected President of Bangladesh- Mujibur Rehman and his family- men, women, children and grandchildren? Who hanged your elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto? And finally I asked if any one of you know the Blood Group of the muslims that divides us?
—
Centre for Science Policy/Concerned
Scientists & Philosophers,
“Nirmal-Nilay”, Dehradun 248009 (India).
+(0135) 2736027.Mob. 989788 3741
http://psaindia.infotechlogic.com/
This partially explains the mindset of Ms. Sabrina Siddiqui, a Pakistani-brainwashed-American.