Adil Najam
Today is August 15. India’s Independence Day.
ATP sends all Indians sincere and heartfelt Independence Day greetings and the very best wishes.
Each year since All Things Pakistan started, we have written a post on this day with the same headline and the same opening words (here, here, here, here). Today, for the fifth time, I write the same words dipped in the same feeling the very same intensity of emotions. Let me begin, this time, with the prayer I ended last year’s post with: May the best hopes of both Mr. Jinnah and Mr. Gandhi come true for both our nations. May all our futures be good futures.
As we wrote last year, these posts have carried a trilogy of imagery our post in 2006 sought to revisit our imagery of our past (here), in 2007 we highlighted the changing imagery of India-Pakistan relations in the present (here), and in 2008 we called upon our readers to re-imagine our visions of the future (here).
But the same imagery has also held a constancy of purpose: An investment in the hope that relations between these countries will, in fact, become better and reflect what we believe are the true aspirations of most Pakistanis as well as most Indians.
This year these hopes have been challenged on both sides. Talks restarted amidst cautious hopes, but the images coming out of them have been of tense nerves rather than real relationships. It also does not bode well that the news today is that the Pakistan government is still deliberating whether to accept an offer of aid from India to help its flood victims, or that the Indian Prime Minister is again vexing hawkish fingers towards Pakistan. Neither should really be news and one realizes that there are political compulsions on both sides that could explain these moves. But one wishes that this were not so.
The statesmanship, it seems, is coming not from the leaders on either side, but, instead, from within the people rather than the political classes. But maybe that is only to be expected since politicians seems too entrenched in their own rhetoric. I have long believed, and continue to believe that if indeed there is going to be headway it will be pushed by people-to-people processes and the best that we can expect from leaders of either side is that they will then follow the aspirations of their own people.
So today, on India’s Independence Day, we the Pakistani people send the fondest of greetings to the people of India. May all our shared futures be prosperous and peaceful. May our tomorrows be always better than our todays. May our tomorrows be marked by friendship, by peace, by prosperity, by goodwill, and by understanding.
Happy Independence Day, India.
I echo the same sentiments. Enough of this conflict. Let us accept each other for what we are today. History is history and history is done. All that Pakistanis want is respect and to get it we must give the same to other.
Happy Independence Day, India.
Independence Day Mubarak to all Indians across the border.
Peace for all of us in Pakistan and India. Let us not let our politicians scare us of each other. Only they benefit by that talk, it is the people of the two countries who have to create ways of co-existence and mutual respect. The politicians will never do it.
Happy Independence day!!!! lets strive to promote peace and only peace!!!
Heartfelt sympathy for people affected by Floods…We understand your pain and suffering and pray for ypur well being..
My heartfelt thanks to my Pakistani brothers for their wishes!
I too wish you all in Pakistan a Happy Independence day!
Let our generation(i’m 40) show greater intelligence and maturity than the previous ones and let us live together in peace. Khuda hafeez!
May I be the first one to nominate Raza Rumi as a citizen of South Asia.
Happy Independence Day India.
May Pakistan and India both prosper and get bound together in a tie of love and respect in Future!
Greetings to both India and Pakistan. and a questions: even after 63 years, why do you still use pedigree to chose your leaders. This a criteria to chose horses and dogs. Read more at: http://fmeducation.blogspot.com/2010/08/if-leaders-were-chosen-on-basis-of.html
Happy independence day to India!
And to our Bangladeshi brothers and sisters as well.
August 14th was their first Independence Day. They had to struggle few more decades for justice and equity.
So, therefore on this day,
Jai Bangladesh
Jai Hind
Pakistan Zindabad
Sorry to be a spoilsport but I just came across this today:
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/08/14/why-silence-over-kashmir-speaks-volumes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pulsemedia+%28P+U+L+S+E%29
We can make all the right noises and we should but certain things are a bit too blatantly in our faces for us to avoid looking at them.
Thank u so much for your kind words. We the people of South Asia have to lower the bars of ego and surge forth towards a more fruitful future. Think always of the poorest of the poor and your heart and head will answer….
I am disappointed to see this kind of post from pakistaniat (one of my favorite blog). This doesn’t deserve such a long post considering what we are facing today – floods – as India opened water without warning. Shame on India.
Thank you for the wishes! & Same to you guys too for 14/8.
Nice post & agree that peace, if it comes in near future, will come from people to people interaction. Hope trade between our country grows and benefits all people on both side of border.
In long term, there will be peace. There can even be ‘One Country’ again, including Ind-Pak-Ban. Thats where our power lies. Don’t know how many years it will take, but ti will happen.
Regards,
I don’t want your greetings. Actually, I don’t need them either. We are a world power and you are a basket case. You are all already dying miserable deaths. Your reward from getting away from Mother India.
Independence Day wishes to all Indians.
Let us not allow those few who want to spread hate to win in their design.
Let us respect each other and learn to live with each other. May India continue to prospect and live in peace. Pakistan Zindabad forever.
May GOD Bless Both Countries!!! :) Though we are Not Independent at all yet!
The only obstacle to enduring peace between the 2 countries is the need for the political forces on both sides to drum up hostility. They use India vs. Pakistan as a tool to maintain their own power.
Thank you! Happy Independence day to Pakistan too!
Let peace and prosperity prevail in the subcontinent!
I think people like Najam r those who just sit at home and read newspapers,magazines and books,inorder to learn
the truth 1 must experience things personally. Just by wishing independence day to India,don’t think that
the relations between both countries will improve. Indian Govt is still blaming Pakistan for cross border
terror and they continue this bullshit even after their hopeless mumbai attack.
Those who have personally interacted with indians or have friendship with Indians know how
good general indian public is. If u guys think that India is so good then why Indians don’t come out
and wish Indepdence day to Pakistanis? Why Sania Mirza started making faces after she was
recieved at Lahore Airport with hospitality by the people of Lahore?Pakistanis were calling
her “bahoo of Pakistan” but she replied by saying that “She married Shoaib Malik not a pakistani”.
Those who have lived abroad know the fact that how prejudice Indians r against Pakistan and that is
mostly becoz Indians r very nationalist(It is the only hindu state in the world). Pakistanis
donot hesitate to go into Indian shops but indians never go into the shops of Pakis.Dear Najam pls go and live in India instead of siting hear and talking all this crap.
Thank you for the greetings. It makes my heart feel very happy.
Sad that we in India do not reciprocate very often. We have also been brainwashed by our leaders who use Pakistan as a way to distract from their own problems like Manmohan is doing right now.
But I hope people of two countries will rise above this and make real bonds of friendship.
Happy Independence Day India. All the very best for both countries and their future. We cannot undo our past but we can move forward to co-exist.
Peace & stability to our region!
For those who were born in Hindostan singing songs of Mother India, Bharat and Pakistan, are not two countries but two states of Hindostan, with separate paraphernalia of states like two brothers living in separate homes. In fact this was the idea of the Founding Fathers of the partition of Hindostan, Jinnah and Gandhi. They could not visualize that the communal hatred will divide the Mother India into perpetual warring camps. So it is basically the communal hatred among the people of the sub-continental Hindostan exploited by the self-seeking politicians who are preventing friendly relationship among the two states, rather three now, with addition of ethnic hatred.
So unless we solve these communal and ethnic problems among the people of Mother India, it will go on dividing into warring camps of different states as India had been before the British rule.
Happy Birthday to India and Pakistan! Hope and pray for a better future and peaceful coexistence
My warm wishes to everyone in Pakistan and India on 14th and 15th August. I disagree that the politicians on both sides are the only problem, extremist mindset in common people on both sides is as much a probelm as politicians. You don’t have to go too far, read some of the commments here.
We are not free. We do not think on our own, we do not act on our own, we do not do what is right and we do not stop what is wrong. We look to westerners for approval. We fail to plan for floods, draughts, illitracy, discrimination, growing populations, low yields, increasing pollutions, violance. We fail to check hatred in our hearts and we fail to love our people. We fail to weed out the corrupt and we fail to stall those who spew hatred. We cannot travel when we want and where we want. The life of men women and children are constantly under threat. Can we claim to be free?Think, Peace.
happy independence day to pakistan. we feel sorry for the flood which has devastated the life of people in the region. our heart goes to the sufferers.lets do something together so that the waters of rivers should be used for irrigation by building dams and the floods should be stopped .
Thanks for your warm wishes. Unfortunately most Indians don’t reciprocate the same feeling towards Pakistan, 63 of propaganda has created so much hatred. The bogey man of Pakistan has been created by our politicians to keep this artificial nation called India united.
I want to wish Happy Independence Day to everyone in Pakistan and India on 14th and 15th August.
Regards,
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How nice of ATP to wish the Indians Happy Independence Day! I second the sentiment with almost no reservations bit one caveat. Despite being reminded by one Indian, “Amarnath” or something, that his country is a “superpower” (ha!) and we are a “drowning” and dying basketcase, is there even one Pakistani today despite all our problems and issues that wishes to be an Indian? May we remind our eloquent “brothers” across Wagah, so glowing in their warm hubris of being a superpower, that India today contains within her more poor, sick and hungry people than all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. The situation would not have been much different, if not worse, had these floods hit India.
Napoleon famously called the British a nation of shopkeepers. What would one call a nation that answers complaint calls from customers once they have bought the merchandise from the shopkeepers? An IT superpower? Hardly!
Have heart, Pakistan. Focus inwards. Rebuild, with dedication and hardwork. Reemerge with your head held high, for you are a proud people, of a proud nation. Happy Independence Day, Pakistan!
@Gohar
I wonder at the education being imparted to the post-partition generation who are ignorant of the fact that India is the mother country of both Bharat and Pakistan as Pakistan is the mother country of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Bharat usurped the English name ‘India’ actually coined by the British for the sub-continental India, including, inter-alia, all the three states listed heretofore. Bharat did have some right to assume the name, being the majority state but the post- Bangladesh Pakistan which included only the former West-Pakistan, which though the minority wing of Pakistan, retained the name of Pakistan, as the eastern majority wing abhorred this name. So the subcontinental India, which may be called Mother India, fathered by the British, gave birth to various states which are further breaking up into smaller and smaller states, which may lead ultimately to Pre-British anarchy in India, when it was divided in many warring states.
So we sang in schools the ‘Taranah-e-Hindi’ of Allama Iqbal:
“Sare jahan se achha Hindostan hamara
Ham bulbulein hein iski yih gulstan hamara
Mazhab nahein sikhata aapas mein beir ralhna
Hindi hein ham watan he Hindostan hamara”
and so on…
Will we ever sing this song again?
readinglord,
You probably don’t know that Allama Iqbal himself regretted writing that song. Later in his life he called his nationalistic period his “ayaam – e – jahilia” (days of ignorance).
Dear ATP,
Thank you for your wishes, and ours to you as well.
We live in troubling times. Both our countries’ leadership has a lot of answer for. Perhaps it is time for both to put bruised feelings aside and join together to help out our brothers and sisters caught in this natural disaster. Aid should not be given grudgingly, nor should it be rejected for political expediency.
To my brother Asif, I know you read this page, so my best wishes to you, and I hope you’re alright..
Of course one may say that Iqbal’s latter life was really his “ayaam – e – jahilia” (days of ignorance), as he transformed from a forward-thinking, broad-minded secularist, to a narrow Islamicist in later life.
Both Jinnah and Iqbal (grandchildren of a Gujarati Hindu Rajput and Kashmiri Pandit respectively) started broad and ended narrow. Notwithstanding claims to the contrary, forming a nation on a religuous basis for “Indian Muslims” is *fundamentally* incompatible with secularism. The consequences of the wrong-headed religuous obsession for the expediency of creating Pakistan by Iqbal and Jinnah is just starting to unravel, leaving all of us to the pay the price.
Just as the broad and secular leadership of Gandhi is starting to bear fruit in our eastern neighbor and has continued to inspire the likes of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela the world over.
I sincerely believe we have to start Pakistan afresh and not be afraid to debunk the leaders who put us on the wrong side of history and set us back centuries. It is time embrace new secular heroes and join the world of nations as a liberal democracy.
Ahmed
@Zameer
This is indeed news to me that Allama Iqbal had regretted his nationalistic period and called it his days of ignorance. He had died in 1938 when he was still an Indian national. How could he disown his nationality as an Indian and his Knight-hood as British subject. These are matters of fact. I put a question to you: did the prophet of Islam disowned his nationality as an Arab. No, he called himself as “Arbiun, Ummiyun”. I wonder what would have happened if Mujiburrehman had adopted the name of Pakistan for his new state instead of Bangladesh, which he had every right to do representing the majority of the Paky nation, but he hated the very name of Pakistan. For your information the world still generally knows us Pakys as ethnic Indian. Even Saudies call Pakys as ‘Hindi Miskeen’.
Btw, will you please furnish me with any proof of the very important statement you made about repenting of Iqbal about his Indian nationality? In fact we are living in dour-e- jahalat when we try to deny the truth and facts of history?
I applaud Najam for congratulating the citizens of our brotherly state of Bharat but I would like to know if he had ever congratulated the Bangladeshies also on their independence day? If not, why not?
@Readinglord
I wish why the comments section attracts all the frustrated cynics of the world!
Maybe you should search for Bangladesh Independence on this blog and see that each year this blog has been wishing Bangladeshis on their Victory Day.
You can accept your mistakes and be gracious without turning into a sulky whino who finds faults in everything and things thats what honesty and intellect is!
thank you very much for your good wishes.i wish all my pakistani brothers and sisters,the very best ,too.
sujatha,chennai,india
Aid should not be given grudgingly, nor should it be rejected for political expediency.
Thanks pakistani bhai and bahen. Or same to u.
I wonder if in some future time , the split nation of Bharat will find its way back into one nation, and once these brothers have stopped squabbling amongst each other they will find they are the same and one cannot exist without the other. Brothers united facing the world. Religon, caste, colour or creed an after thought, what matters most is breed – HUMAN