Was It the 14th or the 15th of August ?
By Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd.)
Westridge, Rawalpindi

 

George Orwell , a great philosopher, warned mankind in no uncertain terms: “The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”  Unfortunately, our pseudo intellectuals and so-called historians seem to follow this maxim, though admittedly unwittingly, and feed us bizarre stories of their liking.

It all started with the process of the Islamization of Pakistan and anything even remotely Islamic had to be incorporated in, and associated with, our nascent history in the making.  Anything of the pre-partitioned subcontinent was Indian and alien to our history and culture so much so that even the pre-1947 songs of Noor Jahan - who was born, bred and buried in Pakistan - were considered Indian songs and proscribed by our patriotic Radio Pakistan!

At the same time our newly found religious frenzy made our ‘scholars’ lose  sight of all pragmatism to introduce such bizarre stories in our schools’ textbooks that carried a most nonsensical account of our soldiers throwing  themselves before Indian tanks at Chawinda in the 1965 war with mines tied to their chests to  embrace martyrdom (shahadat)?! 

Stupid, firstly because their Commanding Officer would have been court-martialed for not ensuring the safety of men under his command.  And, secondly, if a soldier could get that close to the enemy tank to lay himself under its tracks then what stopped him from mounting the tank from the rear and lobbing a grenade in the hull that would have killed all its crew apart from exploding the tank’s main gun ammunition inside that would have destroyed the tank itself ? 

Whatever, I for one would like to stand up and be counted to unearth the facts of our history as truly as possible.

A few days ago I had written an article “11 August – OUR MAGNA CHARTA” establishing that our founding fathers had no intention of making Pakistan a religious state in the sense that our rightists are trying to make it one, as according to them religion was a personal matter that had nothing to do with the business of the state.  Naturally,  no daily, weekly or magazine dare publish it, except that it got a thundering response on the social media networks.  I expect the same to happen to this article as well but that shall not deter me from speaking out the truth. 

And the truth is that Pakistan was not LIBERATED but CREATED at midnight August 14/15, 1947. It was Bharat that was LIBERATED and got its independence. These are two distinct facets of our history and we should be able to differentiate between them. Pakistan, mind you Sir, was NEVER a slave country and/or ruled over by any foreign power. It was a born-free country.  We should, therefore, not commemorate its “Independence Day"  but celebrate its "Birthday”. Actually, only the British - the Sovereigns – could legally and constitutionally ‘create’ Pakistan while they were still in power or else; once India became independent and a free country then it would have been up to its Constituent Assembly to legislate to carve out or not Pakistan from its main body.  And who knows with the absolute Hindu majority in the assemblies and Gandhi’s stance of “Cut me into two before you cut India into two”, the Indian parliament would have agreed or not to the partitioning of India?

 

Secondly, the birthday should be celebrated on 15 th August as it was done in the initial few years (four or five years) in the beginning.  Please see the commemorative postal stamps of the birth anniversary of Pakistan of the time reproduced here to prove what I say. 15 August 1947 can clearly be read on the stamps.

 

 

It was a later thought and some bright maulvi made it up to coincide with the 27 th of Ramzan which had fallen on the 14 th August 1947 instead of the 15 th. 

History must be read untarnished and as factual as possible. For, “Study the past if you would define the future”, said Confucius long ago. Another great mind -  Michael Crichton -   reminded the mortals, “If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.”  

 My appeal to all, especially the younger generation, is to read and read the correct and unbiased history to know the nation's rich heritage which has an immensely important place in the history of the human civilization.