Inaccurate Understanding of the Independence Movement

In the month of August Pakistani Electronic & Print media publishes articles and shows programs with a peculiar historical perspective. They try to distort history of the region by framing a certain angle of vision. Whatever goes as "Pakistan Studies" in this country is in fact not a very accurate presentation of the history of the region. Our official historians and think tanks have always presented history of this region in sectarian perspectives.

They are unable to comprehend the political, economic, social dynamics of the historical process. Their enmity of Hindus has blinded them to the evil character of colonial masters, the English . They have written the history in the framework of ideology of Pakistan. In order to justify division of the region and to defend imperialist interests, they divided humanity in the sacred name of religion. Sectarian historians are obsessed with their narrow-minded thoughts. Their obsession for one side of the picture distracts them from exploring the ground realities.

These days instead of this sectarian perspective a national perspective has started jolting the historical intellect of people. The new generation wants to identify the genuine characters of our region. If we want to study history according to the ground realities we need to divide it into two heads. The first one will be "Independence movement" and the second will be the "division of the country".

'Independence movement' started instantly after the hostile takeover by the English. This movement granted freedom to this region. This movement is considered as a national independence movement against British imperialism in the whole world. In this movement, almost all religious and regional groups played an important role and hence the history of the region should not be represented in a sectarian manner.

On the other hand, the other movement was a different one and that one was for a separate state. In this movement the Muslim elite parted itself from the national movement and strived for a separate country. They were successful due to the support by the controlling authorities. They were able to form a new country in the name of Islam and Muslims. The narrow-minded historians have confused these different topics. Due to this a student of history is unable to distinguish the struggle of independence from the movement of attaining a separate state. Our historians, thus, have created crafted characters to support their version of the story, instead of highlighting the genuine leadership which struggled for independence.

The leadership of subcontinent which sacrificed itself unconditionally for the independence of the region was neglected and others were given the credit. The independence movements of nations are spanned over a large number of years but our struggle for a separate country is spanned just over a period of seven years. In this period there were no arrests and none of our leaders were sent to jail. The independent nations of the world made a mockery of our baseless arguments of winning a separate country in mere seven years without causing any harm to our leaders. This new state neither threatened the imperialists of that time nor did it inflict any harm to current imperialists. In fact it is used as a tool to strengthen the imperialism of our times.