shiv wrote:But let me add a revisionist twist to the narrative. Until very recently - 1970s-80s IIRC people from Pakistan, Muslim as they were, were called "Hindus" by Arabs. I personally met a Palestinian who said that Pakistanis are Hindus. To him, the language and culture of Pakistan was not shia, it was not Arab. It was "Hindu". This angered Pakistanis a great deal, but it remains a fact. The idea of Pakistan may have existed in Djinnah's brain, but not among Arab peoples.
shiv saar,
this is true. Until recently, and you have mentioned the right time-frame 1970s-80s, the Arabs used to refer to Pakistanis as Hindus!
The term for the whole region, starting from even West of Indus all the way to Bangladesh and beyond was for the Arabs
'Hindistan' and the natives were 'Hindus'! It was not predominantly a marker of religion of the native, but of his origin!
The Islamization of Pakistan is still a recent development, i.e. looking at it historically. One can orient oneself according to the
1941 census. Until 1947 Lahore was 34.7% Dharmic (Hindu+Sikh). Karachi was 51% Hindu.
A couple of hundred years back it was just the ruling clans who were Muslims, who either claimed their ancestry from out-of-India (Central Asia, Persia, Arab Peninsula), or were those clans (Rajputs, Jats) who had converted to Islam. The vast majority of lower castes remained Hindu till about a couple of hundred years ago.
Rape and Abduction were on the one side Islamically-sanctioned means for fulfilling the infernal requirements of the mighty, but these were also instruments used to coerce the people into converting to Islam, thus enabling them to save themselves. In the end, such instruments, jiziya, brutality all ensured that more and more people did convert, but still till 1947 there still remained a substantial number of Dharmics in Pakistan.
We have to differentiate how the word 'Hindu' was used among the various people. For the Arabs sitting in far off lands, all Pakistanis were Hindus. There was no concept of Pakistan, and it did not take root until the 1970s-80s. Among the Hindus there the
Kufr and the
Muslims. But the land continued to be defined historically and by the majority in the region - Kufr Hindus! Of course the Arabs knew that this ocean of Hindus (both Kufr and Muslims) were being ruled by true Islamic Ghazis from Central Asia, to whom they could go and look for employment.
Even those clans which had converted still saw themselves as Natives, as Of-the-Land, as Bhumiputras and only started then differentiating themselves from Dharmics, in order to assert their higher status and their right to freedom from oppression, and started using the terminology Muslims for themselves and Hindus for others. This terminology of differentiation was however still not widely used either among Arabs far away or even in the Mughal ruling class, which came from outside. They still used to call even the converted as Hindus, due to their origin, and only used the word 'Kufr' as religious differentiator.
Those who retained their original Dharmic faiths, they had no need for the use of such terminology. They were all Bhumiputras, and in the language of the foreigners, they were willing to call themselves Hindus as well. Their faiths were Sanatan Dharma, Sikhism, or whatever. For them, for us, 'Hindu' was not a religious marker. It only became a religious marker when the Converted started this differentiation - Muslim vs. Hindu, to escape their own external identification with the faith of the natives. Later on the British institutionalized this differentiation and the use of 'Hindu' to pertain not only to ethnicity but also to faith.
The Pakistani felt irritated by the Arab's use of term 'Hindu' to refer to him, because he saw it as being a statement on his faith, as well as repudiating his higher status he had in Pakistan as different from the 'Hindu'! For the Arab it was just an ethnic designation.
The Hindus themselves came to accept the term 'Hindu' only because it was widespread among the rulers to refer to them, among Mughals, among the Converted and later on among the British, where it got institutionalized.
We have to keep the use of the term 'Hindu' in perspective! It has/had different connotations for
- those living outside Indian Subcontinent,
- those non-Subcontinentals who were rulers in India,
- the Native Converts from the Local Power Elite,
- the Native Converts from among the masses,
- Dharmics in the Indian Subcontinent.
shiv wrote:RajeshA wrote:I really don't understand the point about "Indian" slaves being taken to Pakistan! Pakistan was India Central! The place was teeming with Indians already! What is the point of bringing slaves for further corners of India to that place?
In fact this was the point of talking about it in the Pakistan thread. (This thread is a change of direction) The area that was Pakistan was teeming with "Indians" who were Hindus. Once the Ghaznavids came in using Islamic fervor to subjugate, kill or enslave, being "Indians" in India did not matter. It was Hindu slaves in India. What mattered was loot and religion. With an outsize number of Hindus, the enslavement, rape or killing of Hindus in the area that is now Pakistan became the norm since Hindus were in a majority at the outset.
As far as I can figure out the Hindus in the area called Pakistan has three choices
1. To flee east into what is now Indian Punjab and thence onto the plains or the south. These were the people who brought the stories of atrocities and their descendants retain the memories posted on BRF
2. To get killed
3. To get enslaved and converted by force.
The Pakistanis of today are not the descendants of the Hindus who fled and retained their religion in India. They are also not the ones who were killed straight off. The Pakistanis of today are the descendants of those who were raped, enslaved and converted by force. Theer is overwhelming genetic evidence for this. This group - born from rape and mayhem, who call themselves "Pakistani" now have an Islamic narrative of their own. This Pak-Islamic narrative is something like this:
"
Our glorious ancestors came from the north and west. We defeated the inferior Hindus and took their lands. We enslaved them and subjugated them."
This narrative leaves out some fundamental facts. The "we" who came from central Asia raped and enslaved the Hindu people of what is now Pakistan. During the initial decades and centuries the area likely remained predominantly Hindu, and that allowed the local rulers to use those Hindus as slaves, as well as to export them to other lands. The area that is now called Pakistan served as a rich source of Hindus for enslavement, until slave trade became difficult.
Add to this fact the narratives of the slave trade by sunni central Asian slave traders. They considered Hindus as well as Persian shias as good for slavery. Slaves came from both areas.
Clearly Islam alone was not a factor in grabbing slaves. To me this means that any SDRE from the Pakistan area could have been a "Hindu" who could be enslaved. It is likely that the mere naming of oneself as Abdul or Ayesha did not exempt the person living in the area called Pakistan from being grabbed as slave. If I was resident there - getting my tip lopped off and reciting the culleemer would not be enough for a slave trader to say "
Hey this strong young man is circumcised and recites the culleemer. Let me leave him out and look for an uncircumcised dhoti"
The point I am making here is that not only were the people in the area called Pakistan enslaved, they were also exported in large numbers under the name "Hindu slaves". Their specific religion may not have mattered much.
This is where our views diverge.
The naming of oneself as Abdul and Ayesha did exempt one from slavery! If it did not exempt, then the people would have had no reason to convert to Islam.
You are mixing up the designations Arabs used sitting in West Asia to refer to natives of the Indian Subcontinent with the local dynamics in the Subcontinent, or in current Pakistan. There were still many many Hindus to trade as slaves in the region. There was no need to target the Converted. It is only recently that Hindus have become 'extinct' in Pakistan, and the earlier abuse of Hindus to the same level is not possible, i.e. in percentage and numbers. Even in British times the abuse had come down - to some extent due to the Brits needing to show who is the boss, but largely due to the thrashing Maharaja Ranjit Singh gave to the Pushtun, Punjabi Converts, and 'Mughals'!
shiv wrote:If this were true, why do Hindus complain so much about Islamic slavery? Why are the people of Pakistan not complaining that their ancestors were taken as slaves? Only two explanations come to my mind
1. Pakis have no intention of being critical of Islamic raiders because the identify themselves with those rapine Islamic raiders despite overwhelming genetic and cultural evidence that they are Indians.
or..
2. Pakis were the conquerors and rulers. Hindu Indians were the slaves, the subjugated. To hell with genetic and cultural evidence.
What do you think folks?
Both are true. There were many Pakjabi Clans which Converted and they adopted the ways of the Outsiders (Central Asians, Persians, Arabs, Pushtuns)!
Obviously the process of conversion wiped out the memory of oppression, enslavement, rape and abduction. Through conversion the victim came to identify himself with the perpetrator. But among those who did not convert the historical memory is still alive, as it should be!