127 quotes found
"While the landlords and capitalists allowed the clergy to make Pakistan a religious state, the clergy allowed the landlords guaranteed property rights and the capitalists unbridled control over the economy. Theocracy and landlordism/capitalism are the two pillars of Pakistan and Bangladesh."
"Today, Pakistan is a profoundly unstable country. Its economy is paralyzed, and its political leadership appears directionless. Even the aid and support provided by Beijing as part of the “Belt and Road Initiative” strategy seem inadequate to stabilize the situation."
"At this solemn hour in the history of India, when British and Indian statesmen are laying the foundations of a Federal Constitution for that land, we address this appeal to you, in the name of our common heritage, on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKSTAN—by which we mean the five Northern units of India, Viz: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan."
"In the present times of grave crisis we need dissident intellectuals who can challenge the establishment... Pakistan did not develop any tradition of dissident intellectual activity."
"It appears to be the dawn of a new vision pointing to a new destiny symbolized by a new name, Pakistan. The Muslims appear to have started a new worship of a new destiny for the first time. But this is really not so. The worship is new because the sun of their new destiny which was so far hidden in the clouds has only now made its appearance in full glow. The magnetism of this new destiny cannot but draw the Muslims towards it."
"The nation is gripped in her worst crisis, standing in the middle of the road between survival and disintegration. Since the birth of Pakistan, crisis has followed crisis in rapid escalation. Millions of lives were sacrificed to create this country. Pakistan is said to be the dream of Mohammad Iqbal and the creation of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Quaid-e-Azam. Was anything wrong with the dream or with the one who made the dream come true? Opinions have differed and continue to differ. The next few years will most probably decide the issue, perhaps once and for all, and not without bloodshed. This process is not inevitable but the present policies of the ruling junta are driving this country towards a sad inevitability."
"I fully understand the men behind Al Qaeda. They have tried to assassinate me twice before. The Pakistan Peoples Party and I represent everything they fear the most — moderation, democracy, equality for women, information, and technology. We represent the future of a modern Pakistan, a future that has no place in it for ignorance, intolerance, and terrorism. The forces of moderation and democracy must, and will, prevail against extremism and dictatorship. I will not be intimidated. I will step out on the tarmac in Karachi not to complete a journey, but to begin one. Despite threats of death, I will not acquiesce to tyranny, but rather lead the fight against it."
"Pakistan is the only government consisting simultaneously of arsonists and firefighters."
"If there is any entity and the most anti-muslim entity on this earth is Pakistan...They made Muslims of India vulnerable actually. And killing Balochs, the one who taught them how to say Kalma they are killing baloch with impunity. And not only Baloch, but they also killed the founders of Pakistan – Bangladesh. 30 million Bangladeshis they have killed and in Afghanistan 4 million Afghans they have killed. So, they are Muslims. Even, they killed Muslims in Jordan. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq as a Pakistani mercenary has killed 25,000 Palestinians. 10,000 of them were killed in one night. I repeat that if anyone is more anti-Muslim in this world, it is Pakistan. So, they can’t be champions of Islam. They are the manipulators. They are good actors."
"The Pakistanis... Nothing could embarrass that country... The country is effectively living on welfare, but they can afford nuclear weapons... They simply can't be trusted."
"On my block, it's war. We live like we're in Pakistan."
"The formation of Pakistan was necessary so that it may be used as a base for conquering the rest of India to Islam."
"America's most allied ally in Asia."
"The first thought a Western woman has when she arrives in a rigorously Muslim country like Pakistan is that she appears to be the only woman to have survived a tsunami that has washed away all the others."
"Pakistan is a living testament to the bankrupt idea of an Islamic State."
"I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated Northwest Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of Northwest India."
"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the State."
"Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the Muslim Ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure and which, we hope other will share with us."
"Do not be afraid of death. Our religion teaches us always to be prepared for it. We should face it bravely if the honour of Pakistan and Islam are at stake. There is no better salvation for a Muslim than the death of a martyr for a righteous cause. Duty comes first. Have faith in God. There is no power on earth that can undo Pakistan. She is here to stay."
"I do not know what the ultimate shape of this constitution is going to be, but I am sure that it will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principle of Islam. Today, they are as applicable in actual life as they were 1,300 years ago. Islam and its idealism have taught us democracy. It has taught equality of man, justice and fairplay to everybody. We are the inheritors of these glorious traditions and are fully alive to our responsibilities and obligations as framers of the future constitution of Pakistan. In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic State to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims — Hindus, Christians, and Parsis — but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan."
"I assert that Pakistan is the biggest rogue of all the rogue states of today. I assert that what is taking form there, between Islamabad and Karachi, is a black hole compared to which Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad was an obsolete weapons dump."
"The state withered. But faith didn’t. Failure only led back to the faith. The state had been founded as a homeland for Muslims. If the state failed, it wasn’t because the dream was flawed, or the faith flawed; it could only be because men had failed the faith."
"But wasn't this what Pakistan was supposed to be? After all, it came into being on the basis of the two-nation theory, that Hindus and Muslims were two separate states, that Hindus and Muslims could not live together. That was Pakistan's raison d'être. Supposing by some black magic they converted to another way of thinking... Pakistan would collapse. Therefore one of the planks of Pakistani statecraft was to keep reminding its people and the world at large of that mantra of survival: we are because we cannot live with them."
"Pakistan can only be achieved through shedding blood of ourselves, and if need be, and if opportunity arose, by shedding blood of others. Muslims are no believers in Ahimsa."
"You know, Biafra stirred up a few Catholics. But you know, I think Biafra stirred people up more than Pakistan, because Pakistan they’re just a bunch of brown goddamn Moslems."
"This name-Pakistan-means literally ‘the Land of the Pure’ or of Purity. This implies clearly that Hindus and all that belongs to them credally and materially is impure, defiled and unholy. In a communally-charged atmosphere to have broadcast such an offensive name and concept among the Muslims was to extend an open invitation to racial and communal arrogance, contempt of others, challenges and counter-challenges."
"(The achievement of Pakistan) was the first successful step in this 20th century to realise their 1200-year old dream of complete subjugation of this country."
"The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"
"Just as Medina had provided a base for the eventual victory of Islam in Arabia, Pakistan would pave the way for the triumphal return of Islam as the ruling power over the entire subcontinent. The whole of Hindustan would thus be turned into Pakistan just as the Prophet himself had turned all of Arabia into Pakistan."
"Terrorize the jam like troops in Pakistan Swingin through your town like your neighborhood Spiderman."
"Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state. Take out Judaism from Israel and it will collapse like a house of cards. Take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state; it would collapse. For the past four years we have been trying to bring Islamic values to this country."
"Muhammad b. Qasim, Mahmud of Ghazna, and Shihabuddin Ghori emerged as powerful symbols in Muslim politics in the context of the 1930s’ communal atmosphere in India. Interestingly they continue to be used as symbols of perfect Muslim heroes who have the ability to restore peace and order through their belligerence. [….] The consequences of hero worship have resulted in disaster for Pakistan. Following the footsteps of the conquerors, the rulers of Pakistan treated it as a conquered country and, therefore, legitimated plunder and loot of its wealth and resources. The only difference between them and the model conquerors is that in the past the wealth was taken away from India and deposited in the state treasuries of Damascus, Bhagdad, and Ghaznin. Now the Swiss banks or American and Western countries provide safe haven to the plundered wealth."
"Everybody wants to see the economy improve, but more importantly, everybody wants to feel that improvement in their day-to-day lives."
"And then, almost at the moment of partition, some people saw that there was a certain amount of money to be made out of the new state as well. All the land in the west—ancient and not-so-ancient seats of Hinduism and Buddhism and Sikhism—was finally going to lose, or be cleansed of, its Hindu and Sikh populations. They would leave and go to India. As communities, the Hindus and Sikhs were rich; it was said that they owned 40 percent of the wealth of the region. When they left, many debts were wiped out; and all over Pakistan, in villages and towns large and small, an enormous amount of property needed new owners. Fortunes were made or added to overnight. So at the very beginning the new religious state was touched by the old idea of plunder. The idea of the state as God was modified."
"It didn’t have to pay its way. It became a satellite of the United States; its various régimes were shored up right through the cold war. It didn’t develop a modern economy; it didn’t feel the need. Instead, it began to export its people; it became in part a remittance economy."
"Thirty-two years after partition there came the war in Afghanistan against the Russian occupation. This could be entered into as a kind of religious war; and, again, the loot was prodigious. American arms and Afghan drugs followed the same route for eight years; hundreds of millions of dollars stuck to the hands of the faithful all along the way. The corruption was too gross; the state was finally undermined. Public faith and private plunder made a circle. There was no point now at which that circle could be broken into, and a fresh start made. After the cynicism and intellectual idleness of four decades, the state, which at the beginning had been to some like God, had become a criminal enterprise."
"Urdu is a common denominator. It is the national language (national language of Pakistan). People in all the provinces of Pakistan speak Urdu."
"In this catalogue of new demands there are some which on the face of them are extravagant and impossible, if not irresponsible. As an instance, one may refer to the demand for fifty-fifty and the demand for the recognition of Urdu as the national language of India. ... Their claim for the recognition of Urdu as the national language of India is equally extravagant. Urdu is not only not spoken all, over India but is not even the language of all the Musalmans of India. Of the 68 millions of Muslims, only 28 millions speak Urdu. The proposal of making Urdu the national language means that the language of 28 millions of Muslims is to be imposed particularly upon 40 millions of Musalmans or generally upon 322 millions of Indians."
"“The poets of Delhi, proud of the ‘pure’ Urdu of the imperial camp… rejected the Dakani principle and practice of borrowing extensively from the Indian languages, especially if these borrowings were related to Hindu religion, culture and world-view… In this process imagery was drawn exclusively from Persian precedents, i.e., from the unseen and unexperienced sights, sounds and smells of Persia and Central Asia, rejecting totally the Indian sights, sounds and sensuous experience as materials regarded not sublime enough for poetic expression… It was a desperate unconscious clinging to the origins of the symbols of Muslim India’s cultural experience which had begun abroad, and an instinctive fear of being submerged into the Hindu cultural milieu. These modes of aesthetic appreciation, rooted so deeply in the essence of universal Islamic culture, remained more or less incomprehensible to the Hindu mind."
"The very word Urdu came into being as the original Lashkari dialect, in other words, the language of the army."
"“Throughout the whole range of Urdu literature in its first phase… the atmosphere of this literature is provokingly un-Indian - it is that of Persia. Early Urdu poets never so much as mention the great physical features of India - its Himalayas, its rivers like the Ganges, the Jamuna, the Sindhu, the Godavari, etc; but of course mountains and streams of Persia, and rivers of Central Asia are always there. Indian flowers, Indian plants are unknown; only Persian flowers and plants which the poet could see only in a garden. There was a deliberate shutting of the eye to everything Indian, to everything not mentioned or treated in Persian poetry… A language and literature which came to base itself upon an ideology which denied on the Indian soil the very existence of India and Indian culture, could not but be met with a challenge from some of the Indian adherents of their national culture; and that challenge was in the form of highly Sanskritized Hindi’.”"
"In actual life, it is impossible to separate us into two nations. We are not two nations. Every Moslem will have a Hindu name if he goes back far enough in his family history. Every Moslem is merely a Hindu who has accepted Islam. That does not create nationality. … We in India have a common culture. In the North, Hindi and Urdu are understood by both Hindus and Moslems. In Madras, Hindus and Moslems speak Tamil, and in Bengal, they both speak Bengali and neither Hindi nor Urdu. When communal riots take place, they are always provoked by incidents over cows and by religious processions. That means that it is our superstitions that create the trouble and not our separate nationalities."
"Islamism immediately revived the lost cause of Urdu behind the smoke-screen of this Communist campaign against Hindi. It lauded loudly when progressive Urdu poets like Firaq Gorakhpuri lampooned Hindi in a language which was largely unprintable. Simultaneously, Islamism started parading Urdu as the great language of culture and refinement which will be lost to India for good if Urdu was allowed to go under. No Communist came forward to examine this “culture and refinement as a legacy of decadent Muslim courts and a frivolous Muslim aristocracy. No Communist questioned the heavy Persianisation and Arabicisation of Urdu which made it incomprehensible even to educated people, leave alone the man in Chandni Chowk. The recognition of Urdu as a second language has today become a sine qua non of Secularism."
"Let me make it very clear to you, it is no doubt that the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really the enemy of Pakistan. Without state language, no nation can remain tied up solidly together and function. Look at the history of every government judgement substitute language. Therefore, so far as the State language is concerned, Pakistan's state language shall be Urdu."
"Urdu begins, as matter of commonsense have begun, as soon as the Ghaznavi armies got to Lahore in 1027 -and Lahore was nowhere near the area of Khari (and still less of Braj and Adhvani)"
"A word from Urdu will be seen intruding into Hindi like a crow among swans, at one place, while at another, a Hindi word in the midst of Urdu will ruin the flavor like salt in a sweet dish."
"It is equally important to know that Urdu poetry came under the influence of Persian poetry at a time when the latter had fallen into decadence. The result was that our poetry was tainted with narrowness and artificiality at the very outset of its career. ... Urdu poetry lacks freshness because, among other things presently to be discussed, it leaves out observation and borrows its imagery wholesale from Persia. From this it naturally follows that our medieval poetry, especially the gha^al^ has no local colour. In this respect, the contrast between Urdu poetry and Hindi and Punjabi and Sanskrit poetry is striking. The latter have grown out of the soil and absorbed its natural wealth and social background. And for this reason they make a deeper ap- peal to us than Urdu poetry. One of the most unfailing sources of aesthetic enjoyment in poetry lies in the idealization and recognition in it of things we see and love in life. It is not only that the sights and scenes we are familiar with come crowding to the mind when des- cribed in poetry and make the poetic experience richer and more significant. By far the greatest function of poetry, as I take it, is to send us back to life with an increased zest for it: it is a training for a fuller and more significant life. Your heart will not dance with the daffodils unless you have seen them disporting in the air, like Words- worth; and if you have seen them under the lead of the poet’s imagination, then your observation of them in future will acquire associations which it did not have before. In this respect the poverty of Urdu poetry is too palpable to require further comment."
"Although Urdu in form of Zuban-I Urdu-yi Mu'lla was already in use during the reign of Emperor Shajahan and referred to as Lashkari Zaban, Muhammed Shah made it popular among his people, declaring it to be his Court Language. In his respect, Lashkari or Urdu replaced Farsi or Persian, which was being used and understood by fewer and fewer individuals."
"Urdu literary culture from the late eighteenth century on- ward does place an unfortunate stress, which is also entirely disproportion- ate to their value, on “purism,” “language reform,” “purging the language of undesirable usages,” and—worst of all—privileging all Persian-Arabic over all Urdu. Urdu is the only language whose writers have prided themselves on “deleting” or “excising” words and phrases from their active vocabulary. Instead of taking pride in the enlargement of vocabulary, they took joy in limiting the horizon of language, to the extent of banishing many words used even by literate speakers or their own ustads."
"After he (Abdul Haq) migrated to Pakistan, he said, at a meeting in Karachi held to celebrate the 92nd birth anniversary of Ghalib on 15 February 1961, something quite different —as this short extract from the press report appearing in the official fortnightly bulletin of the Anjuman Taraqqui-e-Urdu (Pakistan) shows: In his presidential speech Baba-e-Urdu [Abdul Haq) expressing his unhappiness over the disregard shown to Urdu in Pakistan said that Pakistan was not created by Jinnah, nor was it created by Iqbal; it was Urdu that created Pakistan. The fundamental reason for the discord between the Hindus and the Muslims was the Urdu language. The entire two-nation theory and all other differences of this nature issued solely from Urdu. Therefore, Pakistan owes a debt of gratitude to Urdu. Coming from the father of the Urdu Movement this was a stunning revelation."
"In fact this mixture of locals and foreigners gave birth to the language later known as "Urdu" in Lahore that was called Lashkari Zaban (language of the army) at that time."
"The word Punjab is a compound of two words-Panj (Five) and aab (Water), thus signifying the land of five watrers or rivers. This origin can perhaps be traced to panch nada, Sanskrit for 'Five rivers' the word used before the advent of Muslims with a knowledge of Persian to describe the meeting point of the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej rivers, before they joined the Indus."
"The earliest mention of five rivers in the collective sense was found in Yajurveda and a word Panchananda was used, which is a Sanskrit word to describe a land where five rivers meet. [...] In the later period the word Pentapotamia was used by the Greeks to identify this land. (Penta means 5 and potamia, water ___ the land of five rivers) Muslim Historians implied the word "Punjab " for this region. Again it was not a new word because in Persian speaking areas, there are references of this name given to any particular place where five rivers or lakes meet."
"The Panjáb, the Pentapotamia of the Greek historians, the north-western region of the empire of Hindostán, derives its name from two Persian words, panj (five), an áb (water, having reference to the five rivers which confer on the country its distinguishing features.""
"That part of India which today we call by the Persian name Penjab is named Panchanada in the sacred language of the Indians; either of which names may be rendered in Greek by Πενταποταμια. The Persian origin of the former name is not at all in doubt, although the words of which it is composed are both Indian and Persian ... But, in truth, that final word is never, to my knowledge, used by the Indians in proper names compounded in this way; on the other hand, there exist multiple Persian names which end with that word, e.g., Doab and Nilab. Therefore it is probable that the name Penjab, which is today found in all geographical books, is of more recent origin and is to be attributed to the Muslim kings of India, among whom the Persian language was mostly in use. That the Indian name Panchanada is ancient and genuine is evident from the fact that it is already seen in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the most ancient Indian poems, and that no other exists in addition to it among the Indians; for Panchála, which English translations of the Ramayana render with Penjab, ... is the name of another region, entirely distinct from Pentapotamia, as we shall see below."
"If all the Punjabis were to die to the last man without killing, Punjab will be immortal. ... Offer yourselves as non-violent, willing sacrifices."
"‘I am grieved to learn that people are running away from the West Punjab and I am told that Lahore is being evacuated by the non-Muslims. I must say that this is what it should not be. If you think Lahore is dead or is dying, do not run away from it, but die with what you think is the dying Lahore. (…) When you suffer from fear you die before death comes to you. That is not glorious. I will not feel sorry if I hear that people in the Punjab have died not as cowards but as brave men. (…) I cannot be forced to salute any flag. If in that act I am murdered I would bear no ill will against anyone and would rather pray for better sense for the person or persons who murder me.’"
"“The Punjab Muslims do not believe in non-violence and should not, therefore, be given cause for grievance because once the Muslim lion is infuriated it would become difficult to subdue him.”"
"Let no Sikh be allowed to remain in Western Punjab. “Koi Sikh rehne na pae Maghribi Punjab men”."
"We do not know why Mr. Ghulam Mohammad thought it his duty to anticipate the verdict of history regarding the responsibility of Lord Mountbatten for the tragedy of the Punjab. He is reported to have stated at a Press Conference in London that when the history of the events of this dark chapter comes to be written ‘a part of the blame-would rest on Lord Mountbatten.’ He has made two specific charges. The last British Viceroy was aware of a deep laid conspiracy by the Sikhs and Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh “to throttle Pakistan by eliminating Muslim” and refused to take action. The other charge is that Lord Mountbatten forced partition too quickly. The British Commonwealth Relations Office has repudiated both charges. It has pointed out that it was the then Governor of Punjab who had proved himself to be an avowed partisan of Muslim League, and had looked on impotently while sanguinary riots organized by the Muslim League and the Muslim National Guards took place in North Punjab in March and April 1947. It may be convenient for Mr. Ghulam Mohammed to forget that what happened in August 1947, was a mere continuation of the bloody chain of reaction which was set in motion by the Muslim League at Calcutta in August 1946. In March and April 1947, Sikhs had been brutally massacred and looted and they were abused as cowards because they had not reacted at once with violence. As a matter of fact Lord Mountbatten yielded to his pro-Muslim advisers and stationed the major portion of the Punjab Boundary Force in East Punjab with the result that there was no force to check or control the terrible massacres of Hindus and Sikhs that occurred in Sheikhupura and other places. We should certainly like an impartial investigation into the events of those days and we have no doubt it will be found that while, on the Indian side, it was the spontaneous outburst of a people indignant at what they considered the weakness and the appeasement policy of their leadership, on the Muslim side, the League, the bureaucracy, the police and the army worked like Hitler’s team with the tacit if not open approval of those in charge of the Pakistan Government."
"But the systematic manner in which Pakistan leaders are attempting to paint the people of this country as demons out to destroy innocent Muslims, while hiding, it not defending, the horrible outrages perpetrated by members of their own community from Calcutta to Sheikhupura is nothing but an attempt to defame this country and throw dust in the eyes of the outside world regarding the crimes committed by their co-religionists. They also know, as does everyone in this country, that the Punjab disaster was but the culminating act of the tragedy which began with the unprincipled campaign of communal hated and violence which they and their party leaders had been preaching for years as the only means of securing the ambition of their heart, namely, the separation of a part of this country where they could play the role of rulers, even though at the cost of unexampled suffering and misery to their own co-religionists both in Pakistan and India."
"Sikhs have some of their most sacred Gurdwaras in the West Punjab. The freedom of these Gurdwaras and access to them for purposes of worship forms the sorest point of grievance which the Sikhs have at present against the Pakistan Government, and what is regarded as the easy attitude which the Indian Government is adopting with regard to this matter so deeply vital to Sikh religious sentiment."
"The Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province had been through a brutal process of ethnic cleansing."
"In Pakistan’s television landscape, often dominated by melodrama and sanitized morality, “Case No. 9” has emerged as a rare beast: a prime-time drama that dares to confront the unspoken. Episode 11 of the hit series, already gripping audiences with its central storyline of Seher’s courageous legal battle against her rapist—a powerful businessman named Kamran—takes an even bolder turn. It introduces a subplot so politically and socially volatile that it’s rarely touched on screen: the weaponization of blasphemy accusations against religious minorities in Pakistan."
"..."In the context of Pakistani dramas, especially for women, the leads are boring. You're either crying, or somebody is inflicting violence upon you – which is not boring but it’s a very one-tone role....there are not many opportunities for character-based acting, and to play a leading role, one has to fit into "a very good-looking mould."
"..I feel that I have done the same role over and over again for 26 years — the submissive mashriqi aurat being able to absorb everything and who keeps sacrificing while people take advantage of her — the crux of the character is the same and it does not interest me..."
"At the time of partition in 1947, almost 23 percent of Pakistan’s population was comprised of non-Muslim citizens. Today, the proportion of non-Muslims has declined to approximately 3 percent."
"Pakistan is supposed to be homogeneous because 97 percent of the population is Muslim. It is in fact shot through with lines of division that aggravate the destabilizing effects of its demographic growth. Islam is not a sufficiently unifying force to silence identity politics in a country that came out of two secessions. In these circumstances, the ideal of pu- rity expressed in the name of the country might seem to be a dangerous defiance of reality. The fertility rate in the peripheral provinces and groups—Baluchis, Siraikis, Pashtuns—is higher than that among the central ethnic groups—Punjabis, Sindhis, and Urdu-speaking Muhajirs driven out of India after the 1947 partition. The taboo is so powerful in the “country of the pure” that, without apparent reason, the govern- ment postponed a census scheduled for 1981 to 1991, and finally carried it out in 1998. It was a matter of putting off delicate questions about the representation of ethnic groups in parliament and the resulting budget allocations, the resolution of which traditionally favored the central provinces. All of this oddly recalls the situation in Lebanon."
"The unspoken fact of Pakistani demography is rivalry with India. The Pakistani atom bomb is only one symptom among others, and per- haps not the most important one. Questioned about their view of their country’s demography, Pakistani authorities tirelessly repeat that they fi nd the fertility rate too high. This is a well-rehearsed refrain, composed and sung to satisfy the suppliers of funds: the World Bank, the IMF, and USAID. It is indeed worth asking whether the high fertility rate does not refl ect the deep aspirations of leaders who are at bottom more concerned with geopolitical power relations in the subcontinent than with the well-being of their population. In the Sunni Arab world, the fertility rate fl oor below which the most patrilineal countries have not been able to fall is 3 children per woman. In Pakistan it is not yet certain that it will go below 4, even if it is too soon to assert that Pakistan is going to devi- ate from a trajectory matching its level of development. The situation is in fact worrying, whatever the scenario."
"The Pakistani fertility rate is slowly declining: In 1988 it was at 5.56 children, and since then it has lost only 0.9 percent annually. With 4.6 children in 2005, 6 the Pakistani fertility rate, the highest in this group, is far above that of the Arab world, except for Yemen. One cannot fail to be impressed by the alignment of the fertility of the Muslims of northern India with that of Pakistan: In 1998 –1999, it was 4.8 in Uttar Pradesh, 4.9 in Rajasthan, and 4 in Bihar. One might suggest a slight boost from the combined effect of minority status and the fact that Muslims in these states belong to the least privileged strata in social and educational terms. The minority effect must play the leading role, because elsewhere in India, in states where Muslims enjoy higher than average educational status, in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, they also have a higher fertility rate than their Hindu neighbors."
"Pakistan is Asia's fastest-growing non-Arab country, doubling its population every 24 years."
"In Pakistan, family planning is a joke. The responsible ministry is at present headed by a fundamentalist Muslim, Saddar Niazi, who boasts of being one of fifteen children. He has declared that the pressure for family planning was a holdover from the liberal secularism of Benazir Bhutto, and that he did not intend to implement the policies of a woman charged with corruption and overwhelmingly voted out in the 1990 election.265 His stand is not exceptional, rather it is the rule among Muslim governments. At any rate, Pakistan's birth rate stands at 3.2%, almost the doubt of India's."
"In other parts of the world, conservative Islamists clamour for population growth. In Sunni societies, they continue to castigate family planning. Pakistan is a prime example. There, Abu Ala Mawdudi, founder of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Party, in his The Birth Control (1937) savaged contraception as a Western plot against Islam. Family planning, he maintained, would introduce Western promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases and women’s liberation to Muslim lands. Mawdudi’s opposition to abortion derives from a Qur’anic verse which instructs families not to kill children during times of want. He also quotes verses and hadiths extolling the virtue of children and marriage. Taking their cue from him, fundamentalists have attacked Pakistan’s family planning policies as a Western import linked to decadence, painting it as an imperialist attempt to control Islam. In stark contrast to Iran, no Islamist scholars have come out in support of family planning. In the words of Abdul Hakim, ‘the family planning programme in Pakistan works under a severe threat from religiosity … people are afraid lest they are considered irreligious for advocating family planning … whereas in Indonesia and Bangladesh the approach has been to convince religious leaders of the importance of this [family planning] programme and its compatibility with religion.’"
"The contrast between Pakistan and poorer Bangladesh is stark. Pakistan’s religious authorities resisted family planning far longer than their counterparts in Bangladesh, who are much less influenced by Mawdudi and the fundamentalist theology of the Deobandis.17 There was also a close link between Mawdudi and Pakistani military ruler Zia ul-Haq. Zia admired Mawdudi, and co-opted Mawdudi’s JI into his administration. Mawdudi was a willing partner, and Zia’s long reign between 1977 and 1988 oversaw the progressive implementation of sharia in Pakistan. Nourished by the fat of American aid in support of the Afghan mujahidin, Zia gave the Salafists a free hand in social policy and diverted funds from social services to Deobandi madrasas. The result was sharia in all its glory: education and the economy were Islamised and a new Islamic penal code became law. This included the usual raft of medieval punishments known as hudud, such as cutting off the limbs of thieves, stoning women for adultery and whipping drinkers of alcoholic beverages. Though Zia was assassinated in 1988, his Islamisation policies rolled on –driven by popular demand from Salafists, the devout middle class and Islamised rural migrants... Next door in Afghanistan, and in north-west Pakistan’s tribal areas, local religious leaders exercise enormous influence over people’s perceptions of contraception. In Taliban-dominated southern Afghanistan, locals tend to accept the prohibitionist views of their conservative imams.21 Tragically, Taliban insurgents have taken Islamist opposition to family planning to new heights, or rather depths. A favoured tactic is to assassinate clinicians. Threats, kidnappings and assassinations have brought family planning to its knees in disputed areas."
"In reading the genetics literature on South Asia, it is very clear that many of the studies actually start out with some assumptions that are clearly problematic, if not in some cases completely untenable. Perhaps the single most serious problem concerns the assumption, which many studies actually start with as a basic premise, that the Indo-Aryan invasions are a well-established (pre)historical reality. The studies confirm such invasions in large part because they actually assume them to begin with."
"[T]he present-day linguistic affinities of different Indian populations per se are perhaps among the most ambiguous and even potentially controversial lines of evidence in the reconstruction of prehistoric demographic processes in India."
"Most genetic studies are built on unstated, unproven (and often unwitting) assumptions: not only that migration is the supreme mechanism to account for the spread of genes and languages, but also that, in India’s case, the said genes could only have spread unidirectionally. The studies then proceed to marshal evidence to ‘prove’ the assumption, in a classic case of circularity."
"South Asia has indeed been at the crossroads for much of modern human prehistory."
"Confusing language movements with demographic movements was a childhood disease of Indo-European linguistics before 1945. Especially after Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), race thinking came to dominate the Humanities. There were warnings from Indo-Europeanists, including the much-maligned Friedrich Max Müller, to maintain the distinction, but the public and many professionals started speaking of “the Aryan race”, not in the vague sense common earlier (race = any group of hereditary belonging, from family to nation and race to humanity, Sanskrit jāti), but in the biological sense. After 1945, this went completely out of fashion in the West, but in India, not encumbered with the guilt about Nazi racism, time has stood still."
"Nothing in the osteometric data shows that relationships existed between the populations of the Oxus Civilization and those of the steppes: these populations are separate, different. This would prove that if there were migrations, they were not significant at that time. Mixtures of steppe and oasis populations do not become significant until the time when corpses disappear through cremation or exposure."
"Unfortunately, genetic studies sometimes draw conclusions about language, which is entirely incorrect. Genetics addresses the history of a population’s formation, including migration to new regions, mixing with other populations, and the processes involved—but nothing beyond that... A similar situation arises in palaeogenetics, where study results indicate that the population of the Indian subcontinent formed from neighboring substrates, yet the conclusions still incorporate the steppe homeland hypothesis. This notion may have delayed a successful resolution of the problem for many decades. It is necessary to establish a framework in which archaeological, palaeogenetic, and linguistic data do not contradict one another, as occurs with the Steppe theory. Since this is primarily a linguistic problem, the starting point should be language."
"Only 5% of the Y chromosomes of the R1a-Z93 subtype that occurs at 100% frequency in the steppe population are present in the Swat Valley population. Therefore, it is assumed that women were incorporated there. But if we assume that this population was responsible for 30% of the Indian population, a possible proportion of steppe genes decreases to 6-7% and the proportion of male chromosomes become infinitesimal... However, with such a low male contribution, even for the population of the Swat Valley, language change is doubtful, so it is an almost unbelievable proposition for India... [A]gainst the background of the lack of archaeological and genetic data on mass migration to the region with a high population density, it is more logical to assume that the ancestors of the North Indians lived somewhere close to South Asia."
"The data provide no support for any model of massive migration and gene flow between the oases of Bactria and the Indus Valley. Rather, patterns of phenetic affinity best conform to a pattern of long-standing, but low-level bidirectional mutual exchange."
"As for the question of biological continuity within the Indus Valley, two discontinuities appear to exist. The first occurs between 6000 and 4500 BC [with another discontinuity] at some point after 800 BC but before 200 BC. In the intervening period, [the data] reveals clear indications of interaction with the West and specifically with the Iranian Plateau."
"Overall percentages [of steppe ancestry] are generally very low, and in South Asia also too late for a plausible first arrival of Indic languages here (let alone Indo-Iranic as a whole). But however small and late, and however implausible that they replaced all languages from Iran right across to northern India, that is what has to be claimed for these weak signals, for the Steppe hypothesis to be right."
"[The ancient Harappans] are not markedly different in their skeletal biology from the present-day inhabitants of Northwestern India and Pakistan... Of the Aryans, we must defer to literary and linguistic scholars in whose province lies the determination of the arrival and nature of the linguistic phenomenon we call the Aryans. . . . But archaeological evidence of Aryan-speaking peoples is questionable and the skeletal evidence is nil."
"In short, there is no evidence of demographic disruptions in the northwestern sector of the subcontinent during and immediately after the decline of the Harappan culture... All prehistoric human remains recovered thus far from the Indian subcontinent are phenotypically identifiable as ancient South Asians... How could one recognize an Aryan, living or dead, when the biological criteria for Aryanness are non-existent?"
"For me and for Toomas Kivisild, South Asia is logically the ultimate origin of M17 and his ancestors; and sure enough we find the highest rates and greatest diversity of the M17 line in Pakistan, India, and eastern Iran, and low rates in the Caucasus. M17 is not only more diverse in South Asia than in Central Asia, but diversity characterizes its presence in isolated tribal groups in the south, thus undermining any theory of M17 as a marker of a ‘male Aryan invasion’ of India. One average estimate for the origin of this line in India is as much as 51,000 years. All this suggests that M17 could have found his way initially from India or Pakistan, through Kashmir, then via Central Asia and Russia, before finally coming into Europe."
"So, in the migration scenario females with steppe-related ancestry move down across the [Indus] by the end of the bronze age and this leads to the formulation of the “patriarchal-steppe-warrior-chariot” bronze age hymns somehow in iron age India? And Iranians ... somehow manage to compose the Avesta before the Iranians migrate to western Iran and somehow the Medes and Persians separate around 1000 BCE. Also, by some miracle, the Mitanni reached West Asia around 1760 BCE. This is simply impossible."
"The anthropologists who have recently described the skeletons from Harappa remark that there, as at Lothal, the population would appear, on the available evidence, to have remained more or less stable to the present day."
"Genetic variation in contemporary South Asian populations follows a northwest to southeast decreasing cline of shared West Eurasian ancestry."
"We will, hopefully by next year, introduce a core syllabus for all schools that will be mandatory for students apart from the additional subjects each institution chooses to teach. This is how you create a nation. This is how you end rival cultures from developing. The that just happened… a different culture was visible in it. this is a cultural issue and this comes from the schooling system."
"... And if we are keen to make so many allowances for foreign women to experiment in the public space in Pakistan, why do we come down so hard on the local female organisers of the ?..."
"Aurat March is a sham...Khalilur Rehman Qamar sahab is a modern day philosopher and I don’t think she (:w:Marvi Sirmed) should have used women’s rights to further her own agendas.."
"“The Aurat March is the need of the hour because it is a voice against extremism....It showed the men in power back then that you cannot trample over women,..”"
"A recent examination of school textbooks in Pakistan has uncovered that problematic content persists in the curriculum, leading to the marginalization of religious minorities from the nation’s social fabric and historical narrative. Conducted by the Lahore-based research and advocacy group Center for Social Justice (CSJ), the study, titled “What Are We Teaching at School?”, evaluated 145 textbooks across mandatory subjects for Grades 1 to 10. The Evangelical Christian Daily International reviewed and praised the report."
"My dream is for my land and my people to cease fighting and allow our children to reach their full potential regardless of sex, status, or belief."
"Our country's healthcare spending is less than one per cent of GDP, even though the WHO recommends 6pc. And only 4pc of Pakistani children receive a 'minimally acceptable diet'. These poor healthcare and standards expose the flaws of the prime minister's reasoning that our youthful demography will protect us against the worst of the pandemic; malnourishment can hardly boost immunity."
"The Muslim League, therefore, had this two-pronged thrust to make in its assault on the non-Muslims of the Muslim majority areas. In the first place it was preaching its two-nation theory and its uncompromising opposition to the Hindus, and in the Punjab, to the Sikhs as well. It tried to write off all such things as a common Indian Culture and an Indian Nationhood. In the name of self-determination for the Muslims of India, it inculcated in them the creed of intolerance, arrogance and hate. All this made any compromise with Hindu India an impossibility for the Muslims; they must fight against the Hindus to enforce their extreme demands."
"“In the North-West and North-East zones of India which are our homeland and where we are in a majority of 70% we say we want a separate State of our own. There we can live according to our own notions of life. The differences between Hindus and Muslims are so fundamental that there is nothing that matters in life upon which we agree. “It is well known to any student of History that our heroes, our culture, our language, our music, our architecture, our jurisprudence, our social life are absolutely different and distinct. We are told that the so-called one India is British-made. It was by the sword. It can only be held as it has been held. Do not be misled by anyone saying that India is one and why, therefore, should it not continue to be one. What do we want? I tell you, Pakistan. Pakistan presupposes that Hindustan should also be a free State. “What would Hindus lose? Look at the map. They would have three-quarters of India. They would have the best parts. They have a population of nearly 200,000,000. Pakistan “is certainly not the best part of India. We should have a population of 100,000,000, all Muslims. “On July the 27th, we decided to change our policy and to resort to “Direct Action”-a big change of policy-and we decided to tell our people this on August the 16th. “Reviewing the whole position, there is no other way but to divide India. Give Muslims their homeland and give Hindus Hindustan.”"
"I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India."
"It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religious in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian nation has troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, literature. They neither intermarry nor interdine together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspect on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Muslims derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different ethics, different heroes, and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other and, likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built for the government of such a state.""
"Here I may add an interesting footnote to the sociological history of modern Muslim India and Pakistan. Almost every Muslim of any importance claimed, and still claims today, in his autobiography reminiscences, memoirs, journal and bio data, that his ancestors had come from Yemen, Hejaz, Central Asia, Iran, Ghazni, or some other foreign territory. In most cases, this is a false claim for its arithmetic reduces the hordes of local converts (to Islam) to an insignificant number. Actually, it is an aftermath and confirmation of Afghan and Mughal exclusiveness. It is also a declaration of disaffiliation from the soil on which the shammers have lived for centuries, and to which in all probability, they have belonged since history began. If all the Siddiquis, Qureshis, Faruqis, ... have foreign origins and their forefathers accompanied the invading armies, or followed them, what happens to the solemn averment that Islam spread peacefully in India? Are we expected to believe that local converts, whose number must have been formidable, were all nincompoops and the wretched of the earth—incapable over long centuries of producing any leaders, thinkers, or scholars?"
"Pakistanis are the custodians of the ancient civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, not Madain Saleh in Saudi Arabia or Giza in Egypt. When Pakistanis deny their Indianness, it is equivalent to the French denying their Europeanness."
"In attempting to forge an identity that defies language, geography, culture, clothing, and cuisine, many Pakistanis, especially the second generation in the West, have become easy pickings for Islamist extremist radicals who fill their empty ethnic vessels with false identities that deny them their own ethnic heritage. I am hoping that potential recruits from the diaspora of Pakistani youth will realize they are being taken for a ride by the Islamists and are nothing more than gun fodder for the supremacist cults that use Islam as a political tool to further its goals."
"Pakistan has to export a lot of uneducated people, many of whom have become infected with the most barbaric reactionary ideas."
"I remember vividly being called a 'Paki bastard' in the school playground. Like Sayeeda, and so many others, I know what it's like to face prejudice – as a child, in the workplace and in politics. I pay tribute to all those calling out discrimination wherever they see it. We will only defeat racism by working together."
"I tell you, the Pakistanis are fine people, but they are primitive in their mental structure. They just don’t have the subtlety of the Indians."
"The Pakistanis are a different breed. The Pakistanis are straightforward—and sometimes extremely stupid."
"It is commonly and, I believe, accurately said of Pakistan that her women are much more impressive than her men."
"Another significant statement was made in this regard by Maj. Gen. Rao Barman Ali, Adviser to the Governor of East Pakistan namely: "Harrowing tales of rape, loot, arson, harassment, and of insulting and degrading behaviour were narrated in general terms.... I wrote out an instruction to act as a guide for decent behaviour and recommended action required to be taken to win over the hearts of the people. This instruction under General Tikka Khan's signature was sent to Eastern Command. I found that General Tikka's position was also deliberately undermined and his instructions ignored...excesses were explained away by false and concocted stories and figures.""
"The use of excessive force during the military action and the conduct of some of the officers and men of the Pakistan Army during the sweep operations had only served to alienate the sympathies of the people of East Pakistan. The practice of the troops living off the land, in the absence of a proper organisation of their own logistic arrangements during their operations in the country-side, encouraged the troops to indulge in looting. The arbitrary methods adopted by the Martial Law administration in dealing with respectable East Pakistanis, and then sudden disappearances by a process euphemistically called "being sent to Bangladesh" made matters worse. The attitude of the Army authorities towards the Hindu minority also resulted in large-scale exodus to India. The avowed intention of India to disember Pakistan was only too well known, but even then the need for an early political settlement was not realised by General Yahya Khan."
"The statements appearing in the evidence of Lt. Col. Aziz Ahmed Khan (Witness no 276) who was Commanding Officer 8 Baluch and then CO 86 Mujahid Battalion are also directly relevant. "Brigadier Arbbab also told me to destroy all houses in Joydepur. To a great extent I executed this order. General Niazi visited my unit at Thakargaon and Bogra. He asked us how many Hindus we had killed. In May, there was an order in writing to kill Hindus. This order was from Brigadier Abdullah Malik of 23 Brigade.""
"15. Lt Col. Mansoorul Hag, GSO-I, Division, appearing as Witness No 260, has made detailed and specific allegations as follows: "A Bengali, who was alleged to be a Mukti Bahini or Awami Leaguer, was being sent to Bangladesh-a code name for death without trial, without detailed investigations and without any written order by any authorised authority." Indiscriminate killing and looting could only serve the cause of the enemies of Pakistan. In the harshness, we lost the support of the silent majority of the people of East Pakistan.... The Comilla Cantt massacre (on 27th/28th of March, 1971) under the orders of CO 53 Field Regiment, Lt. Gen. Yakub Malik, in which 17 Bengali Officers and 915 men were just slain by a flick of one Officer's fingers should suffice as an example. There was a general feeling of hatred against Bengalis amongst the soldiers and officers including Generals. There were verbal instructions to eliminate Hindus."
"Days after the shooting stopped, Bhutto set up a judicial commission to investigate the battlefield defeat in East Pakistan. Led by Pakistan’s chief justice as well as two other eminent judges, it produced a scathing official record condemning the military for corruption, turpitude, and brutality, and demanding courts-martial for Yahya, Niazi, and other disgraced military leaders. While the report concentrates on military defeats, it includes frank testimony on the atrocities from senior army officers and civilian officials. This judicial commission, convinced that “there can be no doubt that a very large number of unprovoked and vindictive atrocities did in fact take place,” urged Pakistan’s government to set up a “high-powered court or commission of inquiry” to “hold trials of those who indulged in these atrocities, brought a bad name to the Pakistan Army and alienated the sympathies of the local population by their acts of wanton cruelty and immorality against our own people.” But nothing happened. The report was so harsh on the military that it was suppressed..."
"There is a Muslim family living in front of a temple in Hyderabad. The area also housed some Hindu families and they filed a complaint to the authorities that sacrificing [a] cow in front of the temple should not be allowed... The majority too has rights ..."
"We do not deny the rights given to the minority communities in Islamic laws and the laws of the country, but denying the rights to the majority community too was not fair... The minority community in the country has complete freedom."
"For example, in Peshawar and other cities, newspapers offices are often trashed by madrassa trained youth in retaliation for some perceived transgression. Also when Nawaz Sharief was prime minister, he ordered the arrest of Najam Sethi, the editor of Lahore newsweekly. The Friday Times, simply for being critical of the ruling party, the Muslim League. Sethi's arrest and detention caused an international uproar."
"What is peculiar to Pakistan, …as a few independent voices have bravely noted, is that art and culture are not free, no matter how high is their quality and [no matter] how respectful they are of Islam (as the film ['] is). Groups such as Tehreek-e-Labbaik are officially condemned, yet in fact they keep an entire country hostage, and the government is too weak to resist them."
"Confronted with criticism by the United Nations and other international bodies, Pakistan vowed to prevent kidnapping for the purpose of converting members of religious minorities to Islam and to regard conversions of minors forcibly separated from their parents as legally invalid. The Shahdadpur verdict goes in a different direction."
"…blasphemy allegations are increasingly employed as avenues for extortion. Organized entities often manufacture charges to extract financial gain or seize property, leaving both Muslim and non-Muslim victims with limited avenues for recourse, as defending against such allegations frequently invites further persecution."
"There is a new business in Pakistan, and it plays with the life and death of innocent people. It goes like this: hackers post online contents blaspheming Islam in the name of persons who do not even know what is going on. Then they report their victims to the police, who arrest them based on the fabricated blasphemy charges. At this stage, the hackers offer to retract the allegations and tell the police they were based on a “mistake” if the victim pays a significant sum of money. If [the] victims do not pay, [then the] cases go on and they face blasphemy charges which may lead to the death penalty under Pakistani law."
"The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s (HRCP) report, “Caught in the Crossfire: Civilians, Security and the Crisis of Justice in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Merged Districts” (Lahore: HRCP, 2025), reads like a tragic script for a play the state insists on performing over and over again. The title, “Caught in the Crossfire,” is apt: civilians are literally and figuratively trapped between militants who kill in the name of religion and a government that kills in the name of security. The statistics alone are chilling. In July 2025, 82 militant attacks nationwide—two-thirds of them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. By September, 45 attacks in the province killed 54 people, while “security forces reportedly carried out 22 operations… killing 88 militants” but also 24 civilians. The arithmetic of counterterrorism in Pakistan has always been brutal: militants dead, civilians dead, justice dead."