The yo-yo political game

Haunting sense of despondency, alternating with transient delight is what politics is all about in Pakistan. A resolute Will disentangled all the intricate webs woven to scuttle the freedom of the Muslims, in India and to dupe them under the spell of a barrage of fine and glittering words - Indian nationalism, Indian Congress - to hoodwink the Muslims identity and sensibility proved to be of no avail. In fact, Hindu chauvinism was their latent aspiration.

Congress camouflaging it under "secular" ruse, while Hindu Mahasaba and its various off-shoots - RSS, Shiv Sena and so forth-came out openly with the big tongue of Bal Thakray pouring venom against Muslims, including the Saffron Brigade under BJP. Modalities to render Muslims - no insignificant minority by any means - into a permanent compliant minority, differed but the 'objective' was to carve out a great Hindu Empire reminiscent of the Maurian Dynasty minus its Buddhist Character. It is ironic that a vastly followed religion in the Far Eastern countries, has practically been washed out from the very territory of India, where it was born. Muslims, therefore, stubbornly ensured that their faith was not assimilated within Hinduism as was the fate of Buddhism.

There was a galaxy of great Muslim stalwarts like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Allama Iqbal, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang, Liaquat Ali Khan, Hasrat Mohani, Nawab Salimullah of Dacca (former East Pakistan), at whose residence Muslim League came into being, which played its dynamic role in the creation of Pakistan. Besides them there were many others who followed Quaid-e-Azam with a sense of determination. What is intended to convey is that great Muslim political thinkers, endowed with strategic vision, gave us a great gift of history, the biggest Muslim country in the world - Pakistan. This unfortunately was sliced into two pieces - again as a function of Indian machinations. Our own failure was not to decipher the Bengali mind, as it was passionately averse to any domination, whether of Hindus or West Pakistanis. They were democratic in orientation, unlike West Pakistan which was essentially feudal.

The Military rule in Pakistan created an attitudinal climate for the Bengalis, who could not co-exist with the Army at the apex of political power in West Pakistan, whose political culture was polluted by the feudal mind-set. A typical zamindar, had internalised all the values and lifestyle of the colonialists, to whom they served faithfully as their surrogates, and in turn, it treated its own people with disdain and antipathy like typical mini lords and successors of the British Ruler; Franz Fannon has written a very interesting book highlighting this post-colonial syndrome - The Black Face and the White Mask.