Pakistan's Sikh Legacy - Amardeep uses Pluralistic Language

I was moved by the language of this article, it is reconciliatory and bridge building in nature. I loved the description where he let the "mitti" slip from his hand for what it would remind him of, it went against his sentiments of watan ki mitti, but he did the right thing to let it go.

What happened during partition was sad. What is shameful is, those who endured the pain on all sides, continue to pass on that hatred to their offspring, do they really want to dump their misery onto their children? If we are 'sincere', I mean 'sincere' peace makers, we should give hope to the next generation and not mess them up with our problems.

When I read an occasional stray note from a Indian or a Pakistani about their hate for the other, it saddens me.  If they don't claim to be religious, it is fine, but when they call themselves Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs, they are betraying their own religion.  None of the religions teach you to hate, but the politicians and guardians of religions and a few hateful men mess up the lives of future generations.

The bottom line is we have to leave a better world for our kids, we have learn to understand the past but build the future where they can spend their time in finding means to enjoy rather than spend their time in ill-will towards the other.

INTERFAITH CONFERENCE IN KARACHI

I am organizing an interfaith conference in Karachi, if you have an interest to join or to speak, the speech will be checked by me before hand, it has to build bridges.  You can text me at (214) 325-1916 – The event will be in September, and we have every faith except Buddhism is represented, we are looking for Buddhist, connect us with on, particularly a Pakistani Buddhist, but any Buddhist for that matter. 

This is a good piece worth reading

Mike Ghouse
All about me at www.MikeGhouse.net 
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Pakistan's Sikh Legacy -  

Courtesy - Times of India 

“If you could visit any place in Pakistan, where would you go?” asks Amardeep Singh whenever he gives a talk to introduce his recently published travelogue Lost Heritage – The Sikh Legacy In Pakistan.

The question, aimed primarily at Sikh members of the audience, invariably elicits two answers: Sikh holy places. Their ancestral village.

It was the same in Boston on June 18, 2016 at the E-5 Center where Amardeep Singh gave his 42nd such talk. He understands the response all too well. After all, he too once had the same “myopic” reasons, as he says, for wanting to go to Pakistan, which he considers his “homeland”, being the land of his ancestors and also where Sikhdom’s holiest sites are located, like Nanankana Sahib, birth place of Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru.

But when Singh did finally fulfill his dream to visit the country in October 2014, he had an epiphany halfway through his solitary trip that changed the meaning of his travels. It also changed the course of his life. He realised that reducing Pakistan to religion was doing a disservice to the country, its people and the larger cause of humanity.

The process may have begun earlier, when Singh applied for a visa at the Pakistan embassy in Singapore, where he has lived for the past 16 years. When the visa officer handed him back his passport, Singh refused to take it.

“I am going to my homeland for the first time,” said Singh, who was born in Gorakhpur, India, in 1966. “And you want to restrict me to ten days?”

The officer laughed and said he would increase the visa duration to 30 days. Emboldened, Singh pushed further. He wanted a visa for the entire country, not just two or three cities, and he wanted it to include “Pakistan Administered Kashmir” – the term that he prefers to use rather than the loaded “Pakistan occupied Kashmir” or “Azad Kashmir”. He suggests using such neutral language, also for “Indian Administered Kashmir” in an attempt to convey an acceptance of the reality that Pakistan or India manage the region, plus “it allows us to balance and focus on the core message of the book”.

Singh is “deeply grateful” to the Pakistan government for granting him a 30-day, non-police reporting country (rather than city-specific) visa – facilities normally denied most Indian / and Indian-origin travellers and vice versa.

But perhaps the story of the metamorphosis of a corporate banker into a photographer/travel writer starts even earlier. Singh was never a “corporate junkie”, even while working with American Express first in Hong Kong and then Singapore as head of revenue management.

He undertook many solitary trekking holidays in remote, far flung areas in India, Tibet and other places throughout his 25-year banking career. Then there was his love for history and travel that led him to devour travelogues like British era explorers like William Mooncroft (1819) and Alexander Burns (1831), and later accounts like Alice Albania’s ‘Empires of the Indus’.

Those experiences — travel with no access to the outside world, reading historical accounts and travelogues, photography, writing — he feels, were “God’s way” of preparing him. The dots joined organically. The Pakistan ‘pilgrimage’ that he initially started with, his life’s pursuit, became not the culmination of a dream but the starting point of another journey powered by secular, universal ideals.

Historical traumas like the cataclysmic 1947 Partition of India with its ensuing bloodshed produces a first generation that doesn’t talk, observes Amardeep. The second is lost. The third, to which he belongs, goes in pursuit of the stories.

His father was born in Muzaffarabad, in the western-most frontier of the former princely state of Kashmir that both India and Pakistan lay claim to and which in turn claims independence. Amardeep turned up to try and find his roots in Pakistan in 2013 like a wanderer on a pilgrimage, carrying three pairs of clothes, his camera, and the contacts of a couple of Facebook friends. “A madman in love” is how one audience member describes him.
In Pakistan, Singh says that he met and connected with 14 Pakistanis who were on a similar pursuit, to discover their common heritage. And all of them were Muslim. Singh realized that the legacy that they shared could not be easily compartmentalised into “Muslim” or “Sikh”.

The “Sikh Empire” touted in the history narrated by the British colonists and their successors, was actually deeply secular. The distortion of history has meant other, more dangerous falsehoods being perpetrated, like the basis-less rumour that Sikhs converted the Badshahi mosque in Lahore into a stable for horses. On the contrary, Ranjit Singh in fact gave financial grants to the Badshahi Masjid.

In the pre-partition era, Sikhs had invested heavily in creating the Khalsa schools and colleges, which imparted excellent education to students of all faiths. Abandoned by the departed community, these today operate as Islamia schools and colleges.

He also came across many non turban-wearing followers of the Sikh Guru Nanak in Pakistan, all of Pashtun origin and from the Khyber area.

These realisations – about the secular or syncretic nature of what he had assumed was a “Sikh” heritage — pushed Singh beyond his original limited goal of taking a fistful of earth back from Muzaffarbad as a momento for his family. It stopped him in his tracks as he picked up some riverbank soil at the site of a bloody massacre of Sikhs soon after Partition.

The place is known as “Domel”, where the Jhelum River meets the Neelum River. (“We even ascribe religion to our natural resources,” comments Singh, referring to the Muslim name, Neelum, for the waters known as Kishan Ganga on the Indian-administered side).

On October 21, 1947, a war cry arose over the hills that the local non-Muslims were ill-prepared to counter: Loot the Hindus, behead the Sikhs. Armed marauders herded some 300 Sikhs to the bridge on “Domel”. Shots rang out. Among the bodies that toppled into the river were the grandparents (Nana and Nani) of Amardeep Singh’s wife.

Also killed were both parents of five-year old Jaswanti. A Muslim neighbour the next morning found the little girl scrambling along the riverbank looking for her father and mother. He took her into his own home, renamed her Noori, and brought her up as his daughter.

Jaswanti/ Noor is Amardeep’s distant “bua” (aunt) related to his father. In his book he relates the stranger-than-fiction story of how she was found in 1998 and connected to her to the Sikh side of her family. At 73 years, today she continues to live in Pakistan as a Muslim.

Amardeep recounts how, looking at the bridge over the river, he let the soil fall back to the earth from his hands at “Domel”. It was what he had come for. But he realised that the lesson he wanted to impart to his children was different. This souvenir could remind them forever of hatred and bloodshed.

“I went to get soil but came back with a book,” he says. The soil would have been just for his daughters. The book however is a reference for coming generations of future traveler and history lovers.

In the two weeks he had spent so far in Pakistan, Amardeep had realised that the “Sikh legacy” of this land went far beyond gurudwaras and ancestral homes, and was in fact not limited to adherents of the Sikh faith. The legacy lived on in human interactions, experiences, memories, music, poetry, spirituality and other aspects of a shared history that belongs not just to Sikhs but also to Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others. For example, others too lay claim to rituals, poetry and music that Sikhs consider to be “theirs” This legacy, he stresses, is secular in nature.

Throughout his journey, Amardeep used the lens, not of a pilgrim, but of a traveler chronicling socio-historical aspects.

An important aspect of this lens is to place the contemporary reality of gurudwaras and havelis built and owned by Sikhs into a historical context without blame or judgment. Many of these buildings are being used as police stations, libraries or people’s homes. The mass cross-border exodus left these buildings abandoned, and those who came to this land were bound to fill the vacuum for their own survival.

Putting things in context also means being able to see the positive aspects, like the fact that the Pakistan government has since 1980s been looking after the holy places of non-Muslims. With the mass exodus of an entire community, the government can’t possibly maintain every aspect of the heritage but clearly the intent is there, as Amardeep stresses. The number of functional gurudwaras in the Punjab has increased from one to twenty-three over the past decades. Several Hindu temples has also been revived. People of all faiths must support and encourage these moves even though they may be, as Singh “the tip of the iceberg” given the magnitude of the issue.

Amardeep also holds responsible for the neglect those who have kept silent rather than being vocal in demanding that this heritage be preserved. Sikhs who visit Pakistan don’t even ask to visit the Lahore Museum, he observes. Due to the lack of demand the Museum’s Sikh Gallery has been closed as Amardeep discovered when he tried to see it.

Pakistani Sikhs, he observes, are in general too poor and focused on their own survival to pay attention to such higher pursuits. It is up to the diaspora — increasing numbers of whom now visit Pakistan for religious reasons — to push for these demands beyond religion.
After Partition, practically the only Sikhs left in Pakistan were those living in the Pashtun areas bordering Afghanistan. Post 9/11 Taliban inroads into the region, accompanied by attacks on religious minorities forced large numbers to flee to the Punjab. Many Sikhs took refuge in the Gurdwara Punja Sahib at Hassan Abdal, says Singh. He notes that Pakistan has for years been combating militancy while also reviving the historical religious sites belonging to religious minorities.

All in all, Amardeep Singh’s message is clearly not limited to Sikhs and Punjab or Pakistan. It is about the need to go beyond surface identities and labels to an interconnected, secular past, and universal values. This is not just about the past but the way to a more harmonious way forward.

This article was first published in Himal Southasian. Amardeep Singh’s “Lost Heritage – The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan” is a monumental 504-page book, weighing 3 kg, with 507 photos complementing the story line. It can be ordered here.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Pakistan, India and Kashmir Peace Talks - Why War Is Not An Option.

Note: Mona is one of my favorite Muslim human rights activists and I admire her for her work. I wish, I could attend the program, as I am deeply involved in the Anti-Muslim protests and solutions there of, and then go to Salt Lake City for the Parliament of Worlds Religions. 

Please participate in the symposium and things will change if you do something about it and Mona is doing it. Give her the support

Mike Ghousehttp://RedeemingPakistan.blogspot.com
http://MikeGhouseforIndia.blogspot.com 

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Pakistan, India and Kashmir Peace Talks - Why War Is Not An Option.

By Mona Kazim Shah

This symposium is scheduled for the 10^th of Oct, 2015 at UT Dallas at 2 PM at Naveen Jindal School of Management. It is organized by #ProjectPakistan, an ongoing campaign that speaks for human rights issues, has philanthropic projects, political radio shows, provides space for open mics, and is working diligently to encourage dialogue to resolve conflicts and promote South Asian art and culture in the U.S.

The focus of this symposium is to bring the youth from Pakistan, Kashmir and India on one forum and to instigate peace talks and healthy dialogue that will finally take their voices further. Since we will be micro blogging and streaming the event live for the participation of the audience in the region, we expect our voices to reach back home. We believe the same youth will be part of our government, bureaucracy, policy making and pressure groups in a very short time and is capable to take these talks to the next level. They have shown serious political acumen and the will to re-open the frozen issues, such as the one under discussion.

The panelists are pro peace, pro dialogue Journalists/Academics/Activists/Artists who have worked in their own capacities for years and have paid a price for it.

 Beena Sarwar, a journalist, artist and documentary filmmaker from Pakistan (focusing on media, gender, peace and human rights issues) who also work part time as Editor, Aman ki Asha, a peace initiative between the Jang Group of Newspapers, Pakistan and The Times of India. I asked her about the fact if any change should be expected from younger generation of government/bureaucracy? Her answer was in affirmation she also added that, “Politicians, business people and even a common person is capable of bringing about a change, the younger generation doesn't have the baggage or carry the animosity. Most want to live in peace and have good relations. I believe that the change is happening, but it will take time” Beena said optimistically. Beena currently teaches Journalism at Brown.

Raza Ahmad Rumi, a Pakistani journalist and policy analyst who serves as an editor at The Friday Times, Pakistan's foremost liberal weekly paper, had an interesting analysis about the role that media can play in bringing India, Kashmir and Pakistan on the same page. According to Rumi, “The media is a powerful player now, even stronger than state actors. It has a vital role in shaping public opinion for peace-building. However, the disturbing corporatization of media means that you have to sell conflict for profits. This is why peace and diplomacy find less traction and more sensational stuff is witnessed. This has grave implications for the future peace efforts”.

Rumi, himself survived an assassination attempt by religious extremists in Pakistan last year. Rumi’s book, Delhi by Heart: Impressions of a Pakistani Traveler is a must read.

Dr.Amie Maciszewski, an international musician, a Sitarist who will be opening the symposium with a Kashmiri folk tune told us how her life has been about liminality: negotiating borderlands and building bridges. She has been studying and practicing expressive traditions, particularly music, of a complex region like South Asia.  For her Kashmir is one such borderland which has been enriched by intercultural encounter, dialogue, and collaboration.  Amie believes, Symposia like this are most important steps towards dialogue, collaboration, and, ultimately, mutual enrichment.

At this much anticipated event, we also have Dr. Pritpal Singh as a panelist. A Physician who has always stood up and addressed Human Rights Issues with great passion.  He is an executive with Cigna. He facilitates workshops and projects which aim to fight both religious and political oppression through reflection, awareness, and activism.  Dr. Singh is a frequent guest speaker at the educational, religious, and social forums.  Dr. Singh believes, “Conflict only furthers tensions and creates more divisions, solutions that take the route of peace are the only ones that provide political and social harmony and is of optimal value.”

Dr. Nyla Ali Khan is on the faculty of the Expository Writing Program and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma. She is a native of Kashmir, and a native speaker of the Kashmir language.

 Dr. Khan believes that the younger generation of Kashmir has witnessed the militarization of the Valley and has grown up in a traumatized environment. She told me that when she interacted with young people at various academic institutions, she realized that they have tremendous potential.  Dr. Khan said, “I hope the right opportunities are created for them, not just in academia and the government sector, but in the private sector as well” She hopes that young Kashmiris tap into the potential that they have, “only then there is hope for light at the end of the tunnel”.

Nyla Ali Khan has most recently edited a major anthology, The Parchment of Kashmir: History, Society, and Polity, which develops an unparalleled understanding of the region’s culture, resilience and fate as political pawn. Her recent book, ‘The Life of a Kashmiri Woman’ a critically acclaimed work, is a hybrid form of academic memoir and biography on her maternal grandmother, Begum Akbar Jehan. Nyla’s goal is to engage in reflective action as an educator questioning the erosion of cultural syncretism, the ever increasing dominance of religious fundamentalism, and the irrational resistance to cultural and linguistic differences.

Amitabh Pal is the Managing Editor of The Progressive. He has interviewed the Dalai Lama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter and John Kenneth Galbraith. In addition to his role as the Managing Editor, Pal is the Co-Editor of the Progressive Media Project. He is the author of "Islam" Means Peace: Understanding the Muslim Principle of Nonviolence Today.

Quoting one of Amit’s articles, “The international community including the United States, the European Union and other nations has pressed for India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue”

According to Pal, “Indians and Pakistanis deserve a better future than the fate their leaders have bestowed on them for more than half a century and both countries need to work toward that -- step by step”.

The panelists, the audience and the city look forward to this very timely and important discussion that may lead to positive results. This is yet another effort in the name of peace by the people who truly believe that war has not and will not solve anything.  We are done with the tired rhetoric and losing innocent lives on the borders. All three regions can use the money it invests on defense on development, health care and education of its masses.

We would like to thank our partners and supporters for trusting us and our efforts for this Peace Symposium and for joining hands with us in making a difference.  We thank United Nations Dallas Chapter (UNAUSA Dallas),  Pakistan Students Association UT Dallas, Indian Students Association UT Dallas, Embrey Human Rights Program Deadman College, Southern Methodist University (SMU), Never Forget Pakistan, Pakistan Society of North Texas (PSNT) Fun Asia Radio, Dallas, Voices Breaking Boundaries (VBB), Dallas Peace and Justice Center, Pakistan Students Association UNT, Indian Students Association UNT and World Echoes  from the bottom of our hearts.

About the Author: Dr. Mona Kazim Shah is the Founder of #ProjectPakistan, Journalist and Human Rights Activist. Dr. Shah is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Global Studies and Human Rights & Social Justice from Southern Methodist University. She lives with her husband and twin daughters in Dallas.  She can be reached at monakazimshah@gmail.com

Young Indians And Pakistanis Rewrite Their Shared History

Though this article is old, it will always remain fresh in understanding India Pakistan relationships. The right wing Indian and Pakistani politicians (defined as those who believe "others don't have a right to exist" and will do anything to annihilate the other in their own filthy imaginations) have deliberately done a lot of damage between the two people to lie and promote hatred and causing wars, destruction and a lot of discomfort.  A few Indians and a few Pakistanis are soaked in hate and loaded with poison, I feel sorry for them. The following article captures that essence and it is so true.


 
I am blessed to be barrierless, I truly believe in the Hindu concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbukum - i.e., the whole world is one family and we must treat each other as such, and the Islamic concept that all of us are created from the same couple and are created into many nations and tribes and the best ones among us are those who make the effort to understand each other and live in harmony. That is all God wants.
Nearly a decade ago, Dr. Akbar Ahmed showed his film on Jinnah at the UTD campus, there were about four Indians including me, who protested the "wrong" portrayal of Nehru and Gandhi in that film and willing to speak out "our" version. The Pakistani Consulate General wanted to cut us out of the discussion, not me, thank God, Dr. Akbar Ahmed asked the consular to let me speak, he is an intellectual and a scholar and as such he welcomes diversity in speech. Since then, we have become friends and both of us are equally committed to prosperity of both the nations without prejudice. 
When my son was in High School, he was called names by a Pakistani Kid in Richardson Mall, because he is an Indian, but I taught him not to be a revenge seeker and thank God he laughed it off at that son of a bigot, of course same % of Indians parents are equally bigoted. These stupid parents inject so much poison in the hearts of their kids, making their lives miserable when they grow up with hatred for the other. Don't you want  to slap them for messing up their kid's lives? It should be counted as child-abuse.
The SADEW, a South Asian Democracy Watch Organization in Dallas is planning on holding the event "Aman Ki Asha" in Dallas, Texas. It is a continuation of the project." Aman ki Asha (Hindi: अमन की आशा, Urdu: امن کی آشا‎, translation: "Hope for Peace") is a campaign jointly started by the two leading media houses The Jang Group in Pakistan and The Times of India in India. The campaign aims for mutual peace and development of the diplomatic and cultural relations between the two nations in South Asia. It started on 1 January 2010. The campaign never received warm response from India and Pakistan. Despite this, Bennett & Coleman, the holding company of Times Group has been trying valiantly to keep the campaign afloat through a high decibel media campaign. - Wikipedia."

This is an inspiring article, and I hope the Sadew people make an effort to bring Pakistani and Indian kids, teenagers and adults to have an unprepared, unrehearsed conversation about issues, as to how they see the issues. It will be an eye opener for the audience, and material for the research to find ways to mitigate the conflict between the two people. Hell, it looks like those "few" Indians and Pakistanis living in the US are more hateful than the people actually living in India and Pakistan.  
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Mike Ghouse is a public speaker, thinker, writer and a commentator on Pluralism at work place, politics, religion, society, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, food and foreign policy. A regular commentator on Fox News and syndicated Talk Radio shows and a writer at major news papers including Dallas Morning News and Huffington Post.  All about him is listed in several links at www.MikeGhouse.net and his writings are at www.TheGhousediary.com and 10 other blogs. He is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.

by Tanvi Misra August 17, 2014 1:59 PM ET
NPR - http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/08/17/340687306/young-indians-and-pakistanis-rewrite-their-shared-history?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20140817

Mohandas Gandhi poses with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, in 1944, in what was then Bombay. The two countries have been rivals for decades, and students from the two countries have jointly published an online project comparing the different narratives.

 

When Britain ended its colonial rule in 1947, splitting the Asian subcontinent into two countries, India and Pakistan, it wasn't just the land that was divided. The two new states quickly came up with very different narratives, with each blaming the other throughout the decades of contentious relations that have followed.
Accounts of major events have diverged widely on questions like who's to blame for the three wars they've fought. Prominent figures who are heroes in one country are villains in the other.
"Most people don't get to meet somebody from the other side," says Qasim Aslam, 27, a Pakistani who started The History Project in 2013 as a way to bring together "conflicting versions of a shared past."
"It's kind of frustrating," Aslam says. "People hate others without really knowing them."
Aslam and co-founder Ayyaz Ahmad, who is also Pakistani, together with a team from both sides of the border, released the first part of the project last year.
They are updating the online version and releasing a textbook this September. The project looks at many major issues, as well as six key personalities, and provides side-by-side descriptions of how the issues and individuals are portrayed in both countries.
Mohandas Gandhi is one of those figures, and the differences are stark.
According to the Indian account from the book, "Of all the people, Gandhi ji, who at all times, had tried to preserve the unity of India, was shattered and heart-broken. The communal carnage that broke out even after the Partition made the situation unbearable."
In this version, his name is followed by the Hindi suffix "ji," signaling the respect and reverence that surrounds Gandhi. He is portrayed as a man who did his best to prevent tensions from boiling over, but tragically failed as Indians and Pakistanis waged their first war at independence in 1947.
In the Pakistani excerpt, "Gandhi did his best to prove India as one nation and nationality so that he could claim to represent the Indian people alone ... Gandhi insisted that there was only one nation in India which were the Hindus."

The History Project illustrates differences between Indian and Pakistani perceptions of Gandhi.

Kaustubh Khare and Zoya Siddiqui/The History Project 

 

In this telling, Gandhi (no "ji" here) is a man who had an exclusionary vision of India in mind, one that Muslims just could not live with. He was "stubborn and childish," Aslam quotes from the book, and has an anti-minority reputation.
When it comes to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the father and founder of the Pakistani nation, the accounts totally flip.
Jinnah is the one who is revered. His propensity for alcohol and his casual attitude toward prayer were conveniently omitted in Pakistani textbooks, Aslam says.
Instead, he's a man who fought against Hindu hegemony to liberate the Muslim people. He was a champion of self-determination.
Meanwhile, in India, Jinnah is portrayed as a power-hungry politician, who wanted to rule a nation so badly that he made his own, Aslam says. Some school kids Aslam spoke to in India compared Jinnah to Voldemort.

 

Kaustubh Khare and Zoya Siddiqui/The History Project 

 

The authors don't attempt to reconcile the differing accounts of the individuals and the issues, but they do provide questions for the reader to think about.
When Indian and Pakistani kids are growing up, they are "given a narrative and asked to regurgitate it," Aslam says, adding that the project's purpose is to have them question what they learn.
Aslam and others questioned their own beliefs at an annual Seeds of Peace camp in Maine in 2001.
The camp was started by journalist John Wallace in 1993 and brings together teenagers from countries on opposite sides of a conflict, like Israelis and Palestinians.
In this case, Indians and Pakistanis came face to face. At first, tempers soared. But when the voices calmed down, the kids looked at their counterparts from the other side of the border and saw some of their own biases. Their friendships sustained the heat of the arguments, and several years later The History Project was born.
Along with the new book, the project aims to use humor and social media tools to engage young people with their history, Aslam says. The creators hope that the project transcends South Asian geography. They've already been asked to speak at various college campuses in the U.S., but Aslam wants to expand the project to 10 more countries in five years.
It hasn't all been smooth, though.
The governments have been "very cagey about it — as soon as we start sniffing around," Aslam says. "We're going to make them [the books] so interesting that kids are going to pick them up themselves."