Tagheyyur.

  (Int erview continues) SELF(BN): And does that also apply to defense? JINNAH: Of course it applies to defense. Once again I will ask you a question. How is Afghanistan defended? Well? The answer is not very complicated. By the Afghans. Just that. We are a brave and united people who are prepared to work and, if neces- sary, fight. So how does the question of defence present any peculiar difficulties? In what way do we differ from other nations? From Iran, for example? Obviously, there will have to be a transition period. We are not asking the British to quit India overnight. The British have helped to make this gigantic muddle, and they must stay and help to clear it up. But before they can do that, they will have to do a lot of hard thinking. And that reminds me I have something I would like to show you. He excused himself and left the room. I lit a cigarette and waited. And suddenly I realized that something very remarkable was happening, or rather was ...

This is the third part of the interview series. You can read previous parts here and here . Beverly Nichols interviewed Quaid-e-Azam in 1943 and included it in his book "Verdict On India". He was quite taken with Quaid's personality. Look how he describes him [Jinnah] in the chapter when he reached at his place to meet him.  THE most important man in Asia is sixty-seven, tall, thin, and elegant, with a monocle on a grey silk cord, and a stiff white collar which he wears in the hottest weather. [...] I have called Mr. Jinnah 'the most important man in Asia That was to ensure that you kept him spotlit in your mind. Like all superlatives the description is open to argument, but it is not really so far from the truth. India is likely to be the world's greatest problem for some years to come, and Mr. Jinnah is in a position of unique strategic importance. He can sway the battle this way or that as he chooses.    JINNAH: [with a smile] What other question...

My teacher Khurram Ali Shafique sahab recommended me a book, "Verdict On India". There was a chapter in which the writer,  Beverly Nichols interviewed Jinnah in 1943. Though Jinnah promised to give him just half an hour but they actually talked for three hours, concerning matters of wide range.  This post is part of a series where I am going to break down this interview into smaller posts for effective reading.  What I found profound about this interview is the stature of Quaid-e-Azam. The power in his answers is almost tangible. You can feel the strength of his argument and relive the faith which the Muslims of that time felt when they were in Quaid's presence.  Its also amusing (for me) that this interview is sort of an elder is admonishing a child of stupid behavior. Or may be Pakistan has been so much a reality for us that we almost (mentally) accuse different nations of not seeing it so. May be every national feels the same for their country which we fe...

In South Africa there are two million whites against almost thirteen million native people, and it has never occurred to a single black to consider himself superior to a member of the white minority. –  Frantz Fanon The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say it outright: It is the racist who creates his inferior. –  Frantz Fanon (First quote of Fanon really shook our spines to the core. This thought has never occurred to us! We must confess. Ask yourself. The second one is a ‘proven’ psychological fact.) There’s an undeniable existence of self-hatred, self-pity and total disregard for our Way (cultural and above all religious) present in many of us, especially those dazzled by all things ‘western’. Another term for this disease is  Occidentosis.  Speaking of which Jalal Al-i Ahmed writes in his famous  Occidentosis: A Plague from West : “Under [occ...

Image source Colonial Invasion & State Structures. Loss of self-confidence in Muslims is justifiably related to defeats on the battlegrounds at the hands of west. But a military defeat is not enough to enslave hearts and minds, as it can be an impetus for revenge. Today Muslims are envious of West’s power, which proves the fact that the real challenge of west is not of materialism, but of intellectualism (which modernity certainly lacks in the true sense of the world). However, what happened after the first phase of colonial invasion? How did colonials succeed in subduing large populations in vast areas? We’ve partial answers. Realizing the danger that native “monkeys” might overrun them by sheer numbers, colonizers had to play the games of perceptions and mind control. They had to look big and strong. Few in numbers, they developed railway and laid communication systems to travel fast over the huge mass of land to subdue any possible mutiny, which did take place and ...

I am talking of millions of men who have been skillfully injected with fear, inferiority complexes, trepidation, servility, despair, abasement. —Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le Colonialisme The independence movements in colonies and protectorates came into being, not through a return to indigenous values on the part of those concerned, but through the absorption of occidental ideas and ideologies, liberal or revolutionary … the process of modernization – a euphemism for Westernization – far from being halted by the withdrawal, was in fact accelerated. The enthusiasm of the new rulers for everything ‘modern’ was not restrained, as had been the enthusiasm of their former masters, by any element of self-doubt. —Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man The celebrated Algerian psychologist freedom fighter of blacks, Franz Fanon, saw only two parties in the battle between the colonialists and colonized: white and black. We, the brown, had pretty benign colonizers, w...