PAKISTAN, SPEARHEAD OF ISLAMIC BLOC

Date: 15 Jun 2008

Comment:

The mullahs, military generals and the mass media in Pakistan have all along harked back to the glorious deeds of Mahmud Ghaznavi and Muhammad Ghuri when the accursed Hindu kafirs had a true taste of the Islamic sword. They have always looked at us with contempt as cowardly banias who are bound to surrender in course of time. We on our part have always dismissed this strain in her stance as mere poetry which may entertain her own people but which we should not take seriously. We have never tried to pin down this strain as an ideological strain which goes beyond Pakistan s physical frontiers, and makes her a member of the larger Islamic world sprawling away from both sides of our borders.

Medieval Muslim historians tell us that Mahmud Ghaznavi used to be
highly praised and heartily congratulated by all Islamic countries of that time, whenever he returned from India with plunder and prisoners of war, and with idols of Hindu Gods which were placed on the doorsteps to mosque in Ghazni, Baghdad, Mecca and Medina for being trampled upon by the faithful. Whatever their own differences with Mahmud Ghaznavi, in this context they were all agreed that he was doing the work of Allah and had the blessings of the Prophet to support him. The Islamic state of Pakistan has not been able to repeat the exploits of Mahmud Ghaznavi so far. But whenever she has attacked us she has been applauded by the rest of the Islamic world, and has received all round support in her role of a mujãhid (holy warrior) in
spite of the fact that we have been espousing all Islamic causes
abroad with a fervour and consistency which puts to shame the Islamic states themselves.

Till the end of the sixties, the support which Pakistan received from the Islamic countries was mostly moral support because the latter were in no position to extend much material aid. But since the early seventies, the oil-rich Islamic countries have been providing the massive finances which enable Pakistan to build and maintain her huge military machine including her nuclear establishment. The United States may be selling the sophisticated hardware which Pakistan has been piling up with frantic speed. But the bill is being footed largely by the oil-rich Islamic states of West Asia and North Africa.
This should be sufficient to prove that Pakistan is not an individual state. On the contrary, it has become the spearhead of an Islamic Bloc which is increasingly becoming not only more prosperous and better equipped militarily but also more fundamentalist, more self-righteous, and more militant for the spread of Islam.

Nor are Pakistan s ideological frontiers confined to the Islamic
countries alone; they are spread out to a sizeable section of our own
population. We have never faced frankly and honestly the unpleasant
fact that, with some honourable exceptions, our Muslim countrymen, by
and large, are supporters of Pakistan and other Islamic countries as
against us whenever they have to choose between the two. There is a
conspiracy of silence about this stark reality. Admitting it even
privately to ourselves, not to speak of discussing it publicly, will
be a serious slur on our Secularism. But the truth cannot be wished
away so easily. And a price has away to be paid for turning away from
truth, particularly when the security of a nation is involved. 

000000000