Written by Dr Sher Zaman Taizi
Monday, 12 June 2006
There is a proverb in Pushto that "the lie destroys villages until the truth is revealed ". In the atomic era, this proverb also moved and expanded its sphere as "the lie destroys countries until the truth is revealed." Respectable Wali Khan dusted the truth when the lie first divided India, then bifurcated Pakistan, then put fire to Afghanistan and now working on destruction of Kashmir.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan is painted as a preceptor of the two-nation theory. But Wali Khan mentions him to have said in a speech in Gurdaspur on January 27, 1884; "We (ie Hindus and Mohammadans) should try to become one heart and soul, and act in unison... Remember that the words Hindus and Mohammadans are only meant for religious distinctions - otherwise all persons whether Hindu or Mohammadan, even the Christians who reside in the country, are all in this particular respect belonging to one and the same nation. (A nation is Born by Syed Hassan Mahmood; p.339)" (p.123). Addressing the Indian association in Lahore in 1884, he said; "I heartily wished to serve my country and my nation faithfully. In the word nation I include both Hindus and Mohammadans, because that is the only meaning I can attach to it." He does not stop here, but goes to the extent to say; "These are the different grounds upon which I call both those races which inhabit India by one word i.e. Hindu; meaning to say that they are the inhabitants of Hindustan." (p.124)
Since we have entered the age of discretion, we have been listening to rhetoric that Iqbal saw a dream and Pakistan came into being. Now Wali Khan brought out those references that Iqbal himself was not in favour of Pakistan. He had rather committed to say:
Saaray jehaan say achchha Hindustan hamaaraa,
Ham bulbulayn hayn iskee, yeh gulistaan hamaaraa. (p.124)
(Better than the entire world is our India,
We are its nightingales, its our rose-garden.)
Mazhab nahin sikhaataa aapas mayn berr rakhnaa,
Hindi hayn, ham-watan hayn, Hindustan hamaaraa. (p.125)
(Religion does not teach mutual-distrust,
We are Indian, compatriot, India is ours.)
Dana-e-tasbeeh ba zannar kasheedan aamoz,
Gar nigah-e-too do been ast, ne-deedan aamoz. (p.125)
(String the beads of rosary in the scared threat,
If you see the two (apart), better to be blind.
But who is to be told, and who would believe in this truth which has been buried under the heaps of lies. Here the perennial flow of lies for the last half a century has washed and polished the minds to such an extent that they can not accept any other hue.
This is not a lie or two to be discussed and clarified. After the creation of Pakistan, when the time of distribution of spoils arrived, and those on-the-ground and underground Pakistanis came out to fall out among themselves, a continual and endless series of accusation and counter-accusation started. There may not be such a leader or a party in Pakistan which might have not been accused of treason. It looks as if the government is also in the hand of the traitors, the opposition is also traitor and the subject is also traitor. But the common enemy of all these traitors is one and the same - and that is Bacha Khan, and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement.
Whether it is an official traitor, or traitor in opposition, political traitor or religious traitor, they all sing in chorus the same lilt that:
Bacha Khan is ally of Hindus;
Bacha Khan didn't accept Pakistan.
This lilt had been composed and publicised by the British through their well-wishers. So, why their pet Khans, Maliks, Mullahs, Pirs and Qazi should forget it?
Bacha Khan was awakening the Pukhtun nation to get freedom of the British government and shake off these parasite demons from their shoulders. It happened that when the Pukhtun attained the sense of discretion, those Khans and their Mullahs were stunned and worried. The British government found a ready-made stock of people to counter the threat. The government encouraged them, put turbans on their heads, awarded robes of honour to them and gave them awards and titles. They were given authoritative posts to beat and bleed their own people. And those people received Pakistan in heritage from their masters. They received the record of the British government. So the traitor of the state, traitor of the crown, traitor of the people, ally of Hindus, saboteur and subversionist on the record of the British offices remained as such. Because, these people preached awakening, brotherhood and self-determination of the Pukhtuns, which irritated the rulers.
The piles of lies made the history of Pakistan - a new volume of the romances of the Arabian Nights (Alif-Lyla). This is the story of seven dervish, like this; One dervish presented the two-nation theory, the second saw a dream, the third selected a name for it, the fourth presented a resolution, and the fifth created Pakistan; the sixth terrified India with a towering fist and the seventh cut Pakistan into two. During this period the devil of martial law appeared which disqualified all political leaders and banned all political parties. When another demon of martial law entered the scene, Pakistan staggered and split in two parts; one fell there and the other fell here. Then the imp of civil martial law jumped in the arena and threw out the elected members from the assemblies. Then appeared the white-robed dervish with a wand of martial law to Islamise the state and the people. How and in what a circumstances this dervish disappeared is still a mystery. But as the assassination of Liaqat Ali Khan has become a mystery, the elimination of Zia-ul-Haq and his colleagues has also become a mystery. And when these mysteries are solved and the facts are known, the time would have elapsed.
In this Pakistan, many experiments have been conducted, such as one-party rule, democratic government, one-unit, basic democracy, roti-kapra-makan, Islamic socialism, Islamic government and so many others. These experiments are made at the cost of people. The ruling junta does not consider people and their welfare. The condition of people is going from bad to worst.
Let me mention one thing here. On March 30, 1940, a resolution was passed in the Minto Park, Lahore. Who presented this resolution, why it was done and how is matured? These questions have answered and discussed by Wali Khan in detail (p.217), which does not need repetition. The point is that the people came to know about that resolution when, as its consequence, Pakistan came into being. The distance between that resolution and Pakistan was seven years and a little less than five months, which was not known to any body within the limits of the existing area of Pakistan. And since the creation of Pakistan, there has never been a consensual interpretation of that resolution.
On the other hand, even before the creation of Pakistan, Pukhtuns had demanded the name of Pukhtunistan only for their identification. In 1948, Bacha Khan repeated that demand in the legislative assembly of Pakistan, as the representative of the Pukhtuns. Hundreds of meetings and demonstrations were held for the purpose, and hundreds of resolutions were passed. And then, how many resolutions were passed even by the provincial assembly for renaming of the province as Pukhtunkhwa? Every week, a resolution or two are passed for introduction of Pukhto as medium of education and official language of the province. But none of these resolutions has ever been given any heed!
There are too many things to be discussed. But every matter is so much complicated, that it could not be discussed separately. The time is fast. Those people who had followed Bacha Khan to sustain such hardship which would raise the hair on mere hearing, have almost left the world. The new generation would hardly believe in stories of their sufferings. These stories would also sound as stories of Alif Lyla. After all, why these people had sustained so much hardship, and what was the result? Because the youths of the new generation educated under the government policy have been indoctrinated that Pakistan has grown from the two-nation theory, it is interpretation of the dream of a poet, and has been made from one resolution.
There is everything in the textbooks of our schools and colleges but nothing of truth. There is no mention in these books of the heroic struggle and unbearable sufferings of the leaders and soldiers of the century-long movement of freedom. The text books of Pakistan do not teach history and geography of Pakistan. These books may introduce Ghalib and Sir Syed from India, Shakespeare from England and many other poets and writers from other countries but they don�t present the image of native poets and writers. The Pakhtun student may know any poet and writer in any corner of the world but has not information about Khushal Khan Khattak and Rahman Baba.
It is a charisma that this important aspect of the national history attracted attention of Khan Abdul Wali Khan who took all the trouble with sore eye and swollen heart and entered the horrifying darkness of papers to snatch some rays of truth out of them, and break the talisman built up by the 60-year long exercise of lies. Bacha Khan had stressed more on education along the struggle for freedom.
The title of the book shields its author from many-sided literary, academic and critical sallies. Wali Khan calls it an attempt in defence of Bacha Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement. So it is not a history, but analytical study of the events leading to the creation of Pakistan, and advocacy in the light of this process to defend the political career of Bacha Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgar movement. On this account, it is strongly recommended that the new generation must read and understand it.
Discussion on events with personal approach and the original aim of the work ie defence of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement have resulted in repetition and literary hyperbole because the author himself has been a character of all these stories throughout his life. At some places, comments and footnotes are not relevant, and at some places sources of information are missing. After-all, it is not the work of a research scholar but of a political leader.
Bypassing the technical flaws and defects, the style shows that had Wali Khan not joined the politics he would have been a writer of high standard. But the Pukhtuns need leadership, too. So Wali Khan did not care for his own self and tried to serve the nation on both the fronts. At a very critical and sensitive juncture of history, he provided all-the-best leadership to his people, and then, with his three books, he was the only political writer among the Pukhtuns to rise and become a light-house for the Pukhtun historians.
Bacha Khan au Khudai Khidmatgar (in two volumes);
Khan Abdul Wali Khan;
Wali Bagh (Ashnaghar) Charsadda;
Vol-I; March, 1993; Pp. 566; Rs 200;
Vol-II; July, 1994; Pp. 622; Rs 200.
Vol-III; March 1998; PP: 744; Rs 250.
The writer is a research scholar and Pushto writer and poet, having 33 books of Pushto and English in credit.
Home: Dr. Sher Zaman Taizi, Usmanabad, Pabbi, District Nowshera, NWFP, PAKISTAN
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