Talk:History of Pakistan/Archive 2

message: I want to know why someone thought it was a good idea to put such an enormous and obtrusive rainbow-hued "History of the Indian Subcontinent" box, complete with photo of the Taj Mahal (which is neither in Pakistan nor has anything to do with Pakistan's history), on the very top of this article. I want to know because I would prefer that it be removed. It suggests, inappropriately and wrongly in my opinion, that the most important thing about Pakistan is it's place in the Indian subcontinent. I think this article should describe the history of Pakistan in its own terms and shouldn't burden either the editors or the readers by imposing a cumbersome conceptual framework in which Pakistan's history can only be viewed as a mere part of some essentially arbitrary larger aggregate (the Indian subcontinent) which too many people imagine to have always been an integral whole . I know that the alleged eternal unity of the Indian subcontinent is a popular POV among Indian nationalists and those who sympathize with Indian nationalism, but it is still a POV, and this article shouldn't have to be buried under it.--Bhola 16:53, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please check the other country pages for related templates, and good luck --Falcon007 19:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

text: There is already a template titled Historical subdivisions of Pakistan, which is used in East Pakistan, West Pakistan and other articles. Since that serves as a good, relevant template of expressing at least some of Pakistan's history, I think, for the time being, that can be used here. Thanks. --Ragib 19:10, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: the Taj Mahal and the "History of the Indian Subcontinent" box

message: Currently the page is 65 kilobyte long – longer than the preferable article size. Naturally, we will have to do appropriate editing to bring the page to the recommended size. BTW, I have also updated the lead section to reflect the correct position. --Bhadani 05:39, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you updated the lead section to reflect the view of irridentist Bharatiya nationalists, which is not consistent with NPOV.--Bhola 02:08, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It has nothing to do with NPOV, it is a fact. And, it has nothing to do with Irredentism. Please contribute with a global perspective, and not from the Indian or Pakistani perspective - we are here not to re-write the history. --Bhadani 13:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This article should be written from a neutral POV. I don't believe that this article should be written from the POV of any brand of nationalism, not even Pakistani nationalism - and certainly not Bharatiya nationalism. There are Bharatiya nationalists who would prefer to claim ownership of Pakistan's past for their nation, and who would deny that Pakistan owns its own past. You might not have consciously intended to inject such an attitude into this article, but the wording you chose is consistent with it, whether you care to admit it or not. Among other things, the term "undivided India" is an unambiguous red flag of irridentist Bharatiya nationalism, even if that's not what you consciously intended, and even if you can't see why that's inconsistent with NPOV. --Bhola 15:47, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My reply to Mr. Bhola: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bhola#History_of_Pakistan --Bhadani 15:42, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Size

message: My dear Bhola, I know that you are a nice editor, and you do not have to indulge in edit-wars. You appear to be really Bhola, which means the innocent one in Hindi and also used in Urdu. Please do justice to this important state of the Indian subcontinent. Regards. --Bhadani 16:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that you should read the real meaning of state. I feel that you are mistaking a state for a province, Please update your self by reading about our page name state. I can understand that you have used the word in its restricted sense whereas I used the word state wikified by me was used in its real sense. Cheers. --Bhadani 17:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A request

message: When Vasco De Gama came he was looking for India, The spanish were looking for India when they found America. Its called the India Ocean. Pakistan has no reference in history and i challenge anyone to provide it. Pakistan's creation and history begins with the sidelining Jhinna in the freedom struggle and continues with decades of military rule and an identiny that is defined as "anti India".
I have rolled back an edit which removed the extent of a particular civiliztion. This removal has undermined the extent of the history of Pakistan, a country which came into being 6 decades before, but has a long history. Please also see Ancient Pakistan. Regards. --Bhadani 16:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wish that someone should create at least a stub about the Ancient Pakistan 0- currently it takes one to Ancient India - a link created by me so that the world may at least know a little about Ancient Pakistan as the Pakistan has a recorded histroy of hardly 60 years. Please create a stub at least and kindly remove the the redirection link. Thanks and regards. --Bhadani 18:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I would not like to comment on  above comments as they are not worthy of any comment, particularly in view of being out-of-context, and specifically on account of an absolute mis-understanding of the concept of POV as enshrined in the spirit of wikipedia. However, I may inform that I have created a stub of 1100 words about Ancient Pakistan, based on the page History of Pakistan. I may further add that removing my comments was vandalizing the talk page. Do we the wikipedians expect that a vandal shall build the Project! --Bhadani 16:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do not think that I am pro-Indian or pro-Pakistan. While doing edits here, I am pro-wikipedia. Who did this page about the founding father of Pakistan? It was Bhadani from India. I despise vandals. Regards. --Bhadani 17:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes Yar, thank you for your messages:  and my reply. I have done this to make it clear that we all can work together to give wikipedia the best. This is the spirit of wiki. --Bhadani 16:23, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rollback

message: This is how I see it. Pakistan formerly constituted the bulk of what was once traditional northwestern India or northwestern Hindustan, as it was known locally and throughout neighboring countries. The subcontinent then, was, as it is now, a large diverse area with different regions and different local histories often interlapping with each other. Northwestern India, as a region, was like the other regions in that it had its own uniqueness while having enough in common with the others to be apart of the greater fabric of Hindustan, as the entire country was known. Its uniqueness included its geographic location next to Central Asia and (to some extent) West Asia, making it a cultural overlapping area. It was the gateway for most invaders and migrants to the subcontinent, making it a racial crossroads as well. Nevertheless, all of these foreign people were absorbed into the dominant Hindu/Buddhist culture that thrived in this region. Indo-Aryan languages dominated the area prior to the arrival of the present day Iranian populations of Pashtuns and Baloch during the millenia after Christ. Even then, Indo-Aryan languages are more influential. In fact, the common language of Pakistan today is Urdu, which is Indo-Aryan. The common culture of Pakistan or the cultural customs mostly identified with Pakistan are what were traditionally customs and cultures associated with Indian Muslims, or more specifically, Muslims from the Indo-Aryan Punjab and Sindh. The history celebrated by Pakistanis is the same as India history, just an over appreciation of the Muslim conquerors rather than a condemnation. (not to say that it is wrong). Which is no different from what is now northeast India. There, Sino-Tibetan languages come into contact with Indo-Aryan tongues. The Muslim history of this region is really no different from what is talked about as the Muslim period for India. The "different histories" such as the Durrani invasion and the Mongol occupation west of the Indus or the Achaemenid colonization are local events unique to both Pakistan and modern northwestern Indian regions such as Rajputana and the Indian Punjab. Northeast India, unlike the rest of India, was occupied by Ahoms from Thailand, South India, unlike North India, was ruled by Hindu Dynasties for centuries into the Middle Ages and had thriving trade relations with Southeast Asia and the Near East. That's how I see it. The French version of this article seems to direct the ancient history of this region to the article dealing with the history of ancient India. Perhaps, we should do the following. When introducing this article, we should say somewhere in the paragraph that Pakistan constitutes the bulk of what was once northwestern India and was the gateway to the subcontinent. Its frequent exposure to the brunt of foreign invasions and its borders with outside regions gave this part of India a multicultural face of its own, somewhat distinct from other parts of the subcontinent. Something like that could work. However, I dont think this regional history had anything to do with the formation of Pakistan. Pakistan was founded primarily as a state for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. It also included east Bengal, which has nothing to do with the local history of northwestern India. So I dont think the founders had the local pre-Islamic history in mind when considering this area a "separate" nation from India. Hope that helps! Afghan Historian 14:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Overall view of the history of Pakistan

message: Which river does India get its name from? Its Indus not Ganga. So it means Indus and India have an inseparable association from ancient times when Indus was more important to Indians than the Ganga. So to create a history of region around Indus totally separate from India is wrong. India and Pakistan have an almost unified cultural history. It's only in the last 60 years that there has been a schism and Pakistan has broken away. India continues to have a syncretic culture to this day.Bollywood songs have more Urdu than Hindi .Indians and Pakistanis are not racially different. They are children of the same ancestors.So please don't increase the devide by creating history to separate the two.
I agree with AfghanHistorian's perspective.
Hari
Thanks Hari. Nevertheless, today it is a separate state and does have a significant history of its own following partition. And, all nations on this planet have some local history. Therefore I think we should have a History of Pakistan article, with all the ancient history features. We should talk about its unique local history, but I dont believe we should use that history to make open statements in an encyclopedic article that thats what makes it different from Indian civilization and a separate civilization of its own. This is an encyclopedia, not a nationalist propaganda website. Many articles with Indian bias are on wikipedia as well, so I've dealt with both sides of the south asian rival coin for a while. Also, to say Indian civilization is whole and distinct and the same throughout is also erroneous, as India is made up of different regions as distinct from each other as the northwest (Pakistan) differs from Bengal. Many Pakistanis like to say the entirety of what is now India is a separate and distinct civilization and what I just said about different regions in India counters this argument. Nevertheless, India and Pakistan were more or less historically the same civilization. Afghan Historian 16:18, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Indus & India

message: This wikipedia page looks more tinted with partisan colours than an objective piece. Just to site two examples - 
1- It says the region of present day Pakistan in ancient times had more cultural, economical and political links with West Asia than with the Gangetic valley. If that is so then why is it that the Arab influences in Pakistan today can be traced to the introduction of Islam there and the non-Arab South-Asian influence in Pakistan and India don't have any seeming link with the Arab lands. So the point mentioned in the page seems to be there for a political purpose meant to assert the separation of present day Pakistan from present day India without any logical backing behind it.
2- The page says that Aryans before crossing the Sutlej river weren't Hindus. Then how come the vedas composed during those times are considered a part of Hinduism? So this point is another logical fallacy.
This article does not confirm to a neutral or even correct point of view and is biased.
I agree with what the person above says. The languages of Pakistan are related to India - Sindhi,Punjaabi and Urdu. It is true that some Arab words have crept in over the last millenium but the structure of the languages are still very Indic. Also the physical appearance of most Pakistanis is similar to that of others in the Sub continent. 
The only difference is the religion which if taken to account makes them identical to Indian muslims. Pakistani non secular historians suffer from selective amnesia.
Hari
59.178.1.162 12:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know whether what 59.178 says is true, but I do know one thing: this article is not about the history of Pakistan, which is an idea concieved in 1933. It is the history of the region now defined by Pakistan. The language in the lede, "The Pakistan and its people possess an extensive and continuous history that can be traced back to very ancient times," shows an extreme nationalist bias. Since the anonymite and I agree, I'm going to slap a  tag on this for review. Sorry. Ashibaka tock 22:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So Lothal was on Mars,then? Hkelkar 20:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So is the name Pakistan derived from Indus or is the name India. Was Vedic society founded on the Indus region or was Islamic society? Nobleeagle  [TALK] [C] 04:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Pakistan has no glorious pre-Islamic history. Look at what their textbooks talk about. Pakistan has a history from 1947 onward (or 1930 for the naming).Bakaman 03:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: uh, pakistan didn't exsist before 1947.  If you call genocide enriched, I'd hate to see what you call negative.--D-Boy 10:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article sounds very partisan 

message: How long is this article going to be locked?
I mean its been over 3-4 weeks....
Any news? Mercenary2k 19:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The chap who has been edit-warring here User:Siddiqui (see this) has not shown up for any discussion or dispute resolution.Hkelkar 19:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: PLease WP:AGF and stop trolling. Hkelkar 01:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: May be we should make this an indian collaboration of the week.  History should be uniform throughout wikipedia.--D-Boy 18:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: biased...what ever do you mean?  wikipedia is fair and balanced...for the most part...--D-Boy 10:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How long is this article gonna be locked? 

message: I feel uncomfortable with using all those other countries flags in the History of Pakistan page.Why are they stuck here? If there is to be a refference for the history of south asian countries and not just Pakistan,then I suggest all those other flags be moved to the History of South Asia page.The whole purpose of this article is to talk aobut Pakistan's history only and not all of South Asia.Nadirali 01:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All the flags are there in the template tag on History of India. Wikipedia is not the place for Xenophobic paranoia, thanks. Hkelkar 01:38, 9 December 2006 
(Note, this is in response to previous statement made by above user, which he hastily "corrected" thus).Hkelkar 01:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Nadirali is correct on one thing. It is for talking about Pakistani history. Lets start it at 1933 with Choudhury Rahmat Ali and work on the stuff after 1947 .Bakaman 03:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your insinuation hat I was trying to provoke you is quite flimsy, given the fact that I wrote two articles on Pakistan itself and have contributed more to articles on the country than you. You're trying to use Pakistani textbooks as sources under the false pretext of "reasserting our hijacked history". Another thing, I'm not a one-minded troll bent on harrassing usersBakaman 22:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Sent Kumarnator" - lol, I interacted with him after I ran into you and his talk page was filled with your guys' sniping anyways. The 1930's was when the word was coined up, and 1947 was when it was created. Also kumarnator is Christian lol, not even a Hindu like me. I thought twice though. Is it me, merely stating the facts, or the user that accuses Indian editors of "hijacking Pakistan's ancient history" (the one that is no different than India's making this page redundant) and spends their time ranting on user talk pages? On another note, India is a secular nation and I have never called you guys ISlamic extremists either. I will take offense at lies propagated by you and will view all your "re-asserting Pakistan's glorious heritage" as the same.Bakaman 23:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Lol, there is no place called Khalistan in India, India is secular by all mainstream and reliable sources and definitions. Please provide refs for "persecution ...sport" (another fantasy). Bakaman 00:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Nadirali, now that's a classic example of "The pot calls the kettle black", indeed (Pakistani Caste System links below) Ashraf/Ajlaf divide+ Arzal untouchables in Pakistan:
#
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#Pakistani Raped because of Caste
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Persecution of Christians in Pakistan (way more brutal and barbaric than anywhere else in Asia):
#Cartoon Protestors in Pakistan Target Christians
#Religious intolerance in Pakistan
#Young Christian arrested for blasphemy in Pakistan
#Gunmen execute Pakistan Christians
#Sangla Hill attack on Pakistani Christians
#Islamic extremists still unpunished 40 days after the Sangla Hill attack
#Pakistani Christian attacked for polluting well
#Do
#Church attacked by Muslims in Lahore Hkelkar 00:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: The caste system is itself declining in Hinduism. The groups like RSS, VHP, Arya Samaj, Narayana Guru society, Swadhyaya Parivar, etc. (mainstream Hindu groups) have all cast away this socio-economic phenomenon. Skapur, your implied assertion that there is no caste in any of the above religions is incorrect. Please do take a look at Indian cast system.Bakaman 03:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove the other flags  

message: I realise that there is no mention of Genghis Khan in the Pakistan history article.I know that Genshis Khan moved across northern Pakistan around the 12th century AD.However,I am unable to find much on his presence in Pakistan.
I have a Pakistani cultural profile and Genghis Khan is mentioned in the history page,but again lacks detail.
If someone has some information regarding Gneghis Khan's occupation in Pakistan along with how he is viewed today with some reliable sources,then they should put it in the article since he is an important historical figure.Nadirali 05:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: farthest he went was afghanistan.--D-Boy 11:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genghis Khan should be mentioned 

message: I have been asked to unprotect this article by User:Siddiqui.   I am doing so because of the length of time the article has been protected.  Please do your level best to work together, it would be a shame if it had to be protected again. Rich Farmbrough, 18:03 28  December 2006 (GMT).
: Is it possible for us to create an objective article on the History of Pakistan? If people are willing, we can. The first thing we have to do is remove the revisionist notions that the modern nations of Pakistan and India did not exist five thousand years ago. Any claims of an unbroken cultural thread from the Indus Valley Civilization, the Vedic civilization, the Gupta period, the Persian satrapies, the Ummayyid period, etc. to the cultural domains of present Pakistan and India need to be substantiated. It is easy to cite historians; the difficulty lies in identifying historians and their ideologies. Claiming the roots of modern India and Pakistan in the Indus Valley is like saying that the modern United States is linked to Iroquois Confederacy; that modern Italy has its roots in Troy; and that the modern political culture of Iran is linked to Persepolis. Sarayuparin 21:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotect

message: I would like to invite those who write on "Ancient Pakistan" to discuss the reasons for using such terminology in this article. Is it necessary to present a discourse of Pakistan vs. India when discussing something like the Indus Valley Civilization? In order for this article to be successful, we have to refrain from injecting religious ideology into a history that pre-dated the advent of such ideology. Islam has no place in discussions of the Indus Valley Civilization. For that matter, neither does Hinduism. Write about "Ancient Pakistan" but leave out the religious vitriol. Sarayuparin 04:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There was a sentence in the introduction of this article that stated: "The Pakistan region in ancient times had more connections—cultural, commercial and political—with the Sumerian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Central Asian civilizations than with the Gangetic Valley." It's evident that there is an attempt being made here to divorce the Indus Valley civilization from the Gangetic civilizations. Where is the proof? What is the real connection between IVC and the Gangetic Valley? What is the value in making such a statement? Yes, the Pakistan region has inherited so much from Babylonia! This sentence quoted above also conflates the Indus Valley Civilization with the Pakistan region. This is obviously political. What about pre-1971 Pakistan? Even though Bangladesh is no longer part of Pakistan, shouldn't the region it now inhabits still be considered part of the grander Pakistan heritage? Leave out the politics, folks. Step away from the neediness to defend Pakistan and India. They're doing just fine without your biased points of view. Sarayuparin 04:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

text: No.--D-Boy 14:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text: so instead of History of pakistan, this article should be called history of Bharat?  I would agree to such a change.--D-Boy 19:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ancient Pakistan