Problems in Misleading Freedom Narratives
of Indo-Pak
How One & Two Nation theories mislead us
The News on Sunday published a good piece written by Mahmood Awan and it is a review of Romila Thapar famous book Somnath. No doubt, we have few names in subcontinent who tries to challenge court historians and Romila ji name is in the top list. Since long she is writing, giving lectures yet it is a time to further expand work of few independent historians. Mahmood Awan in his article Politics of reconstructed memory rightly mentioned Lord Ellenborough, then Governor-General of India, James Mill, K.M. Munshi and V.N Moore, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Raiding of temples even by Hindu Rajas, construction of Hindu and Muslim Identities. The author finish his article as; Thapar concludes her reading of the Somnath myth making with these lines: “There have been traumas related to hostilities between communities in the last hundred years and we are familiar with the aftermath of these. They do not reflect what happened a thousand years ago but emerge out of contemporary origins. We should be wary of projecting onto the past that which emerges out of the experiences of the present”.
Although Romila wrote extensively on this topic since long and personally students like me learn a lot but she looks reluctant to challenge One nation theory. She rightly wrote that we interpret past with refrence to present. It is true across the border in both India and Pakistan but Nation state phenomenon is also a present invention. There were no fixed borders in past but impression from Romila writings is in favor of India as One Nation which is problematic in many ways. She talk about construction of Hindu and Muslim identities but did not mention construction of Sikh identity in the Punjab. She mentioned well regarding Ellen borough and Mill yet failed to link it with Frontier Forward Policy under which British Empire want to conquer areas between Sutlej and Oxus or Amu. Interestingly that area was predominantly a Muslim majority area. In that area a strong government was working and that is why they had to sign an agreement on equal footing with them in 1808. They even supported a Jihad, in their own clever style to destabilize that government. They knew very well that Kabul and Oxus are far away. Their government was not strong enough ,so they had fear of any attack from the back too. So they constructed theory of Invaders first. Construction of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh identities was based on theory of invaders. Who was invader and who was not is still a multi million question yet they projected past with present nation state theory. Fixed borders is an essential part of Nation state. In 1753 Marhatas conquered Lhore (Lahore) and after few years Ahmad Shah Abdali of Qandhar conquered Lhore too. Qandhar and Kabul are nearer to Lhore comparatively yet according to Mill Abdali was invader rather Muslim invader but Marathas were not. Are we not explaining past with reference to present while talking about invaders theory? Secondly construction of historical continuity by Hindu, Sikh and Muslim fundamentalists was based on construction of Hidu, Sikh and Muslim identities coined by the Empire. Liberals in both Muslim League and Congress largely relied on those continuities. After getting freedom, approved by the British Assembly in July 1947, both Pakistan and India largely opted in favor of theories based on constructed historical continuities coined by fundamentalists and made them part and parcel of nation buildings.
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