Historical Background of Pakistan and its People
SOME REDEEMING ASPECTS
Muslim world is a vast and immense mass of land sprawling
from West Africa facing the Atlantic to southern Philippines
far in the Pacific. Its northern limits touch the Volga in
Russia while southern frontiers run up to Mozambique in
South-East Africa on the Indian Ocean. In China, in addition
to Sinkiang, Muslims are in substantial numbers in the
provinces bordering Burma and in the districts around
Peking. Total population of Muslims in the world is
estimated at one billion.
it is proposed to deal with only a small segment of this vast and varied
world -- with the land and people of the region called
Pakistan. The purpose is not to discuss each and every
aspect of their history nor to give a comprehensive account
of their activities. It is intended to bring out only
certain salient aspects which have either escaped the notice
of historians or failed to receive sufficient emphasis from
them. This book will substantiate the historical truth that
the creation of an independent State of Pakistan in the
sub-continent in the middle of the 20th century was not an
oddity or a strange phenomena, nor have the people
inhabiting this new political entity asserted their separate
status from India for the first time.
Pakistan in different forms and in different backgrounds has
appeared many a time in these very regions and endured
longer than other independent states of this sub-continent,
making enormous contribution to civilization. The history of
its people is full of colour, thrill and excitement; of
gallant deeds and sublime performance. It has, perhaps,
witnessed more invasions than any other part of the world,
absorbed more racial strains than any other region and more
ideas have taken birth in the bosom of this land than
elsewhere.
It was in these lands that the Indus Valley Civilization,
one of the most brilliant in the annals of human history,
flourished with its main centres at Moenjo Daro in Sind,
Harappa in the Punjab, Kej in the Baluch territory and
Judeiro Daro in the Pathan region. It was here that Buddhist
culture blossomed and reached its zenith under the Kushans
in the form of Gandhara civilization at the twin cities of
Peshawar and Taxila. It was on this very soil that the
Graeco-Bactrian civilization had its best flowering and left
the indelible marks of finest Greek art in the potwar
plateau around Rawalpindi. The entire Baluchistan is strewn
with the remains of the earliest products of man's
activities. "Western Pakistan is a region which has been
conspicuously important in the development of civilization."
(Pakistan and Western Asia, By Prof. Norman Brown. Pakistan
Miscellany).
"In our present state of knowledge, we may regard the period
of the Indus Valley culture as the first epoch in the
history of civilization in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent.
The second epoch is again one in which the north-west
figures basically. This is the period when the Aryan entered
through the passes of the north-west at a time assumed to be
about 1500- 1200 B.C. and possessed the culture of the Rig
Veda, which is the first and most important book of the
early Indo-Aryans and was probably compiled by 1000 B.C."
(Ibid)
"Of the two river systems that of the Indus, now mainly in
Pakistan, had the earliest civilization and gave its name to
India. The fertile plains of the Punjab watered by the five
great tributaries of the Indus had a high culture over two
thousand years before Christ, which spread down the lower
course of the Indus as far as the sea." (The Wonder that was
India, By A.L. Bhasham.)
In valour and patriotism the people of these lands have been
second to none. It was the people of the Indus Valley that
held back the Aryans for decades; it was in the Punjab that
the advance of ferocious Mongols was halted for more than a
century. But for this defence the tender sapling of Muslim
state planted at Delhi in the early 13th century A.D. would
have been trampled upon and smothered out. Among more recent
events the stiff resistance that Napier encountered from the
Sindis and Baluchis is still fresh in our minds. The revolt
of the 'hurs' of Sind against British rule in the 20th
century is another glorious mark in this series. Pathans'
defiance of the British rule and their perpetual struggle in
the cause of freedom is a story of only the other day.
Kashmiris have suffered silently but never ceased their
fight for freedom. The lands of Pakistan are indeed drenched
with the blood of many a hero and saturated with the wisdom
of many a sage. And what is more exhilarating, it was from
these lands that Islam commenced its journey in the
sub-continent.
PART-2
PAKISTAN RARELY PART OF INDIA
But, as the following discussion will prove, during the
Hindu period it was the people of the Indus Valley in the
West and the Padma-Meghna Delta in the East that mostly
emerged triumphant. Both the wings remained independent of
Gangetic Valley and in fact Pakistan-based governments ruled
over northern India more often and for much longer periods
than India has ruled over Pakistan territories. What is more
important, Pakistan as an independent country always looked
westward and had more connections ------ cultural,
commercial as well as political ---- with the Sumerian,
Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Central Asian civilizations
than with the Gangetic Valley. It was only from the Muslim
period onward that these two wings became subservient to
northern Indian governments. Even this period is not devoid
of revolts and successful assertion of independence by the
two wings. In the pre-Muslim period, India’s great expansion
covering large portions of the sub-continent took place only
during the reigns of the Mauryas (3rd century BC), the
Guptas (4th century AD), Raja Harsha (7th century AD), the
Gurjara empire of Raja Bhoj (8th century AD) and the
Pratiharas (9th century AD). It is important to note that
except for the Maurya period lasting barely a hundred years,
under none of the other dynasties did the Hindu governments
ever rule over Pakistan. They always remained east of river
Sutlej. I shall quote a few passages from history to
substantiate my statement.
"At the close of Samudragupta’s triumphal career (4th
century AD) his empire --- the greatest in India since the
days of Asoka --- extended on the north to the base of the
mountains, but did not include Kashmir…. Samudragupta did
not attempt to carry his arms across the Sutlej or to
dispute the authority of the Kushan Kings who continued to
rule in and beyond the Indus basin." (Oxford History of
India, By VA Smith).
"Harsha’s subjugation of upper India, excluding the punjab,
but including Bihar and at least the greater part of Bengal,
was completed in 612 AD." (Ibid)
"The Gurjara empire of Bhoja may be defined as, on the
north, the foot of the mountains; on the northwest, the
Sutlej; on the west the Hakra or the ‘lost-river’ forming
the boundary of Sind." (Ibid).
"The rule of the Pratiharas had never extended across the
Sutlej, and the history of the Punjab between the 7th and
10th centuries AD is extremely obscure. At some time, not
recorded, a powerful kingdom had been formed, which extended
from the mountains beyond the Indus, eastwards as far as the
Hakra of lost-river, so that it comprised a large part of
the Punjab, as well as probably northern Sind." (Ibid)
"Politically during the time when Hellenism in the south
Asian sub-continent was decaying and the centuries
afterward, the north-west remained separate from northern
and central India. The Gupta empire, which at its height in
the middle of the 4th century AD, and the empire of Harsha
in the middle of the 7th century AD barely reached into the
Punjab and included none of Sind." (Pakistan and Western
Asia, by Norman Brown)
The above quotations amply prove that none of the periods of
its greatest expansion did India succeed in occupying
Pakistan. The only exception is the Maurya period in the 3rd
century BC when Asoka’s empire is said to have extended up
to the Hindu Kush, north of Kabul. Even in this isolated
case of the Mauryas, historians are aware that Chandragupta
Maurya, the founder of the Maurya dynasty who hailed from
Pakistan (Punjab), did not get Pakistan by conquest but by
diplomacy from the Greek rulers who had succeeded Alexander.
As pointed out by more than one writer, the five thousand
year history of Pakistan reveals that its independence had
been a rule while its subservience to or attachment with
India an exception. "Throughout most of the recorded history
the north-west (i.e. Pakistan) has normally been either
independent or incorporated in an empire whose centre lay
further in the west. The occasions when it has been governed
from a centre further east (India) have been the exception
rather than the rule; and the creation of Pakistan which has
been described as a geographer’s nightmare is historically a
reversion to normal as Pakistan is concerned." (A Study of
History, by AJ Toynbee)
During its five thousand-year known history, Pakistan has
been subservient to Central Indian governments only during
the Maurya, the Turko-Afghan and British periods who were
Buddhist, Muslim and Christian respectively. While the
Mauryan (300-200 BC) and British (1848-1947) periods lasted
barely a hundred years each, the turko-Afghan period was the
longest covering a span of 500 years.
Here we come across an important ideological point. All the
three religions i.e. Buddhism, Islam and Christianity which
succeeded in uniting the sub-continent under the Maurya,
Turko-Afghan and British rulers stood for universal
brotherhood and were spread all over the world. In the
context of ideology, the implications are obvious i.e., only
people believing in universal brotherhood could unite and
hold this sub-continent together. Otherwise Pakistan’s
independence could never be challenged nor its people
subdued by India’s Hindu Governments.
It is of these celebrated lands and of their intrepid people
that we shall narrate the story here. In this article we
shall give a brief historical background and the
contribution made by each of the groups that inhabit it: We
shall begin with a general account of the entire country
first and then take up the history of each group.
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