CRS, I have to disagree with you on the part that "India is not doing anything to TSP for it to resist" and agree with Ms. Fair. The mere existence of India is resistance to Pakistan. How can a kafir land face a glorious army of Believers and not only survive but also thrive and, worse, inflict defeats?CRamS wrote:ArunJi,
Fair didi has it almost right, but for this:Its not about resisting India, because India is not doing anything to TSP for it offer any resistance, but rather, for TSP, defeat is that moment when it can no longer brazenly provoke India and get away with it.For Pakistan, defeat is that moment when it can no longer resist India
IMHO, there are multiple facets of Pakistani actions and thinking that lend multiple interpretations such as Ms. Fair's and yours. They are not wrong because we are the Seven Blind Men of Hindoostan figuring out en elephant. The Pakistani narrative has meandered and assumed (or at least presented to the external world) different appearances at different times. For example, is J&K an issue of Muslims not joining a Muslim Pakistan (however flawed that argument is), or is it a question of Pakistani irredentism, or is it to protect its water sources or is it to act as a buffer to Rawalpindi etc, or is it all of these? Pakistan has at various times presented these various arguments internationally.
However, I think that there is a very basic Islamist idea that wants to keep Pakistani arms at the Indian throat for ever. That idea is that 'only power, political & military, helps in establishing God's Law'. The loss of Muslim power, both in India and later in Turkey, agitated the Indian Muslims. Many believe that the Deoband (excluding people like Usmani who broke away) opposed the British to get India Independence but the motive was very ulterior. JI's Maulana Mawdudi has very openly and categorically said that. It is thus the entire Islamic literature speaks of Muslim lands as Dar-ul-Aman and the rest as Dar-ul-harb. The continued exhibition by the Muslims of a 'minority and persecution complexes' in one of the most liberal countries is a manifestation of this idea of power too. Gnaw your way through and incrementally acquire more power even if you cannot do it in one stroke through a war. It is this urge for power in the greater cause of Islam that could explain the change in attitude of some from being an 'Indian nationalist' to a 'separatist', as greater understanding of Islam dawned on them. The architects of Pakistan such as Iqbal, Sayyid Ahmed Khan, Raja of Mahmudabad understood this. Later, Islamists like Mawdudi et al propagated that.
My point therefore is that Ms. Fair may be right even if she did not anchor her argument on an Islamist perspective (I have not yet gone through that interview).