It has been said that the Nazis were radicals in the garb of the traditionalists. They placed emphasis on such things as honour and dignity as well as Christianity. In their scheme of things based on the Aryan Master Race, moral obligations are owed only to them but not to the inferior races. The Nazi attack on the Jews stemmed from the fact that they were superior and were committing all atrocities (which to them were glorious deeds) for the common good of the superior community. The genocide by the Pakistani Army in the then East Pakistan compares with the holocaust that killed millions of Jews in Nazi Germany. The genocide drove away 10 million Pakistanis, almost 70% of them Hindus, into India and killed several millions within East Pakistan. In her book, “Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh”, the Bangladeshi Author Yasmin Saikia says, “The Pakistan Army killed Bengali Hindus simply for being Hindus”. The West Pakistanis who always thought the East Pakistanis had lost their purity because of mingling with the Hindus and thus polluted by them, decided to re-establish the purity by exterminating the Hindus. Author Saikia says, “ Muslim Pakistani (read: Pure) men assumed that the sacrifice of the Hindu women was necessary to undo the malaise.” Apart from the hatred for the infidel Hindus, the contempt that the meat-eating, tall, fair and handsome West Pakistanis had for the rice-and-fish eating, small, dark and ugly Bengalis drove the policy makers in West Pakistan and the West Pakistani army to launch a massive genocidal programme. Again, much on Nazi lines.
Similarly, Pakistanis and their regimes were also religious fundamentalists in the disguise of “traditionalists”. Having sliced a secular Bharat into two to get his Islamic country, Jinnah could not have reasonably expected anything other than religious fundamentalism as time passed by, especially as Islam does not have the concept of separation of the Church and Caesar. On the contrary, Islam pervades every aspect of individuals, societies and governance. Jinnah himself adopted the Hitlerian techniques of ‘propaganda’ and ‘mass instigation to cause atrocity’. The traditional society that Pakistan inherited was already used to placing ‘honour and dignity’ above anything else and the federal government could not stop crimes being committed on that account. Barbaric practices of honour and dignity such as Wani, Swara, Karo-Kari thrived and were not curbed. ‘Honour and Dignity’ was used to inspire terrorism against India and possibly even other infidel countries.
Both placed too much dependence on the military might to achieve their goals. Both of them believed in their racial superiority and eliminated the minorities in their respective countries, Jews in the case of Germany and Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in the case of Pakistan. In fact, some of the hardline Deobandi clerics, like Zafar Usmani who wanted a separate nation felt that a union with the Hindus will erase their cultural identity and only when the Muslims were the rulers they could wipe out the majority Hindu’s culture. The draconian Balsphemy Law, though it did not result in actual execution of a blasphemer due to judicial ruling, nevertheless put minorities at an immediate disadvantage. Once somebody was accused of blasphemy, that person’s life was in danger even if finally acquitted by the Court of Law. They either were killed by fellow prisoners within judicial custody or were killed after release or they had to seek asylum in a foreign country. Most of the members of the judiciary were either conservative Islamists or were so afraid of them that they released terrorists and sectarian killers and those accused of blasphemy were almost always found to be guilty (only to be released by the highest court or upon Presidential pardon). In one case, that of the Christian Ms. Aisia Bibi, the Lahore High Court expressly prohibited the President from sanctioning any pardon to her. The Nazi judges were ultraconservative nationalists and there was very little Jewish representation in the judiciary. Even the few remaining Jewish judges were removed from their positions by Law in c. 1933. Similarly, the Pakistani judiciary was bereft of any Judges from the Hindu, Sikh, Christian or Ahmedi communities, save the sole Hindu judge Rana Bhagwandas whose tenure as an acting Chief Justice of Pakistan was hotly contested by Islamist leaders and parties.
Both Pakistan and Nazi Germany felt stifled by their geography and needed to expand space. It was ‘lebensraum’ in the case of Germany and “Muslim J&K” and ‘strategic depth’ of Afghanistan in the case of Pakistan. Both relied on a massive propaganda of half-truths and naked lies to not only hoodwink their own people, but the rest of the world as well. Both created a mass hysteria among their peoples to achieve the goals of a scheming few. Both misused religion to achieve their narrow ends, Germany, by condemning one religion and Pakistan by extolling one to the total exclusion of others. Both employed extensive, sometimes subtle and many times blatant, social engineering to condition the minds of their peoples. The Nazi Germans believed that their actions were morally correct helped by the intelligentsia and academic who justified Nazi actions. Same has been the case in Pakistan where the mullahs incite people and justify jihad, terrorism and suicide bombing. In addition to playing the religion card, the vested Pakistanis have been emphasizing aspects of honour and dignity, conecpts which are dearly held in a feudalistic country most of which is steeped in practices such as karo-kari, swara and wani. Both were evil powers bent upon death and destruction. Both talked of 1000-year wars. Both indulged in genocide and massacre, Nazi Germany those of the Jews and an Islamic West Pakistan, the Muslims and Hindus of East Pakistan, Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmedis, Shi’as and Christians in West Pakistan, and Christians and Jews all over the world. Some of the atrocities committed in the then East Pakistan, like eliminating academics and intelligentsia, closely parallel techniques widely employed by the Third Reich. The West Pakistani elite, by remaining mute, quietly supported these massacres. One of the worst massacres happened on May 28, 2010 when terrorists seized Ahmedis praying in their mosques on a Friday afternoon and killed in cold blood over 90 of them. There was stunning silence from the President downwards because condemning the Ahmedi killing would have invited the wrath of the clergy.
Both Pakistan and Nazi Germany developed WMDs (V2 rockets and almost a nuclear weapon in the case of Germany and nuclear weapons and missiles in the case of Pakistan) with the sole intent of using them, not merely for deterrence. Pakistan believes that there is miliataristic use value for nuclear weapons rather than merely a political deterrence value that the possession of such a weapon bestows on a nation. Even their tactics bear a lot of resemblance. For example, both resorted to circulating fake currency in their enemy countries to destabilize them, both spewed out lies to their own countrymen and the rest of the world etc.
Both were racists, Hitler’s Germany believing in their Aryan master race while Paksitan believed in their own martial race and held the Indians and the East Pakistani Bengalis to ridicule for being cowardly, dark, short and mostly rice-eating. Interestingly, both referred to their countries as “Fatherland”. Both gave international covenants and practices a go by and indulged in reckless actions. Both were appeased early on by world powers, by Neville Chamberlain of Britain in the case of the Third Reich and successive US regimes in the case of Pakistan, much against saner counsel from others. While Germany turned against Britain later on, we are yet to see Pakistan do the same against the US overtly. However, a large majority of Pakistanis, including influential members of the Pakistani intelligentsia and the armed forces, see the US as a villain. Both countries entered into “alliances” with others with the sole intent of pursuing their own war ambitions. Both of them wanted to rule the world. While Hiltler’s Germany believed that as the master race, they had the mandate to rule the rest, most Pakistanis felt that they were the uncrowned leaders of the ummah and hence were legal descendants of the Islamic caliphate. The rulers of both the countries conducted plebiscites to consolidate their power. Hitler conducted one on Aug. 19, 1934, after the death of Chancellor Hindenburg, to be ‘accepted’ by the Germans as the head of state or Führer (leader) and Reich Chancellor, both rolled into one. The Army rulers in Pakistan also resorted to the same tactics. Both Pakistan and Nazi Germany had an affinity for “Thousand Years”. While Nazi Germany’s Third Reich spoke of a “Thousand Year Rule”, Pakistani leader Z.A.Bhutto spoke of a Thousand Year War with India. Both nations blatantly violated international treaties or norms of diplomacy. Germany violated the conditions of the “Treaty of Versailles” and annexed Saar region and Rhineland, thus gaining valuable economic and industrial strengths. Again, in blatant violation of the Treaty, Hitler built up a huge Army and Navy. The European Powers simply registered verbal protests and did nothing beyond that. In fact, Britain went to the extent of appeasing Hitler by entering into a naval pact with Germany. Similar was the case in Pakistan. In blatant violation of the India Independence Act, Pakistan wanted to annexe Kashmir under the pretext of that area being Muslim-majority while the real reason was economic. Again, in blatant violation of international treaties, it proliferated missiles and nuclear weapons. The US and the friendly Western powers simply kept quiet but for occasional objections of a routine nature.
There are other similarities as well, like their belief in and propagation of a “bogus history” leading even to “fabricated” civilizational aspects. While the Nazis made their people believe in a superior Master Aryan race, the Pakistanis tried to inculcate among their people a myth that they belonged to races from Central Asia or even the Middle East. The attempt in both cases was to segregate and elevate one set of people from the others leading to xenophobia. The Nazi Germany went to great lengths to identify certain racial features that made them superior to the others. As Hans F.K. “Rassen” Gunther, a reputed Nazi anthropologist of those times describes Aryans in his The Racial Elements of European History, “talented and beautiful...slim, broad-shouldered, narrow hipped...chiselled features, shining skin flushed with blood etc..”, so too many Pakistanis believe that they are “tall, fair, well-built and handsome with longer penises” compared to Indians who are generally “short, dark-skinned and possessing shorter penises”. Similar to the Nazi obsession to introduce racism even in science by calling their brand of Physics as ‘Deutsche Physik’ and science as ‘Aryan Science’ and harass such brilliant physicists as Heisenberg or Einstein because they were Jews, the Pakistanis under Gen. Zia-ul-Haq introduced ‘Islamic Science’ and they also hounded out a brilliant and the only Nobel-prize winning Pakistani physicist Dr. Abdus Salam because he practised a brand of Islam unacceptable to the Sunni majority. Again, like the Nazis, especially Hermann Goering, the Pakistani top generals also looted precious antiquities from Afghanistan after 1992 when the Taleban had captured major cities. The atrocities committed by their Armies are despicable. The Pakistani army launched Op. Searchlight in the then East Pakistan on March 25, 1971 and implemented a pogrom of genocide. Nothing exemplifies the brutality of the Army more than what its top most commander in East Pakistan, Gen. A.A.K. Niazi, said of the rapes there insensitively: “You cannot expect a man to live, fight, and die in East Pakistan and go to Jhelum for sex, can you?”. Both Nazi Germany and Pakistan employed terror as a tactics by the State organs to make their people submit to the will of the State. While the much feared Gestapo and Schutz Staffel (SS) were the instruments of terror in Nazi Germany, Pakistan employed various intelligence agencies like the most powerful ISI, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) tasked with internal political activities and the Federal Investigative Agency (FIA) tasked with investigation corruption cases. These Pakistani agencies regularly kidnapped and murdered hundreds of Pakistanis and only a suo motu step by the then Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr. Iftikhar Chaudhry, in circa 2006 saved many of them. They even kept tabs on Pakistanis staying in other countries issuing threats to keep them from speaking openly about Pakistan’s government.
After the Potsdam Agreement of Aug. 1945, the victorious Allies, especially the Western powers, started the denazification process purging the bureaucracy and the military of these evil people. An almost similar process has been started in Pakistan as well after the 9/11 incident with the Western Powers, led by the US, forced the Musharraf regime to start the process of “enlightened moderation” including altering the curricula being taught to the students. Though the detoxification process was more easily and verifiably implementable in Germany as the Western powers were occupying the land, the same could not happen at all in Pakistan for obvious reasons including the duplicity of Gen. Musharraf. Both Nazi Germany and Pakistan have also employed the intelligence agencies extensively within their countries to suppress dissension, force disinformation and forcibly extract support for Government’s policies. It is no wonder therefore that the most widely respected clergy of Pakistan, Maulana Mawdudi of Jama’at-e-Islami (JI), admired the German Nazi and the Italian Fascist parties for their ‘blind faith’ and ‘totalitarianism’ because in an Islamic society as well, there can be no distinction between private and state’s affairs and masses must simply obey their rulers. The student wing of JI, Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) terrorize campuses in the same way the Hitler Youth Brigade of Nazi Germany ran rampant across the German academic institutions. The Waffen SS, the criminal organization that under the control of the Wehermacht indulged in war crimes and the Holocaust, had a parallel organization in Pakistan, the jihadi Islamists. While Waffen SS had about a million strength, Pakistan had three million jihadi Islamists. Like the Nazis, who justified the Holocaust by publishing white papers, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq also published the white paper, “Quadianiat, a threat to Islam” and then proceeded to outlaw their mode of worship.
One of the most striking similarities between Nazi Germany and Pakistan was in the way they both handled the judiciary. Both of them dismissed the judges who were not compliant with the State’s ideology. In the case of Pakistan, such behaviour was not restricted to just the military rulers though they were the ones who directly dismissed and threatened the judges. The civilian rulers like Nawaz Sharif and Ms. Benazir Bhutto also indulged in such behaviour. While Nazi Germany’s judiciary went by the three cardinal principles of the Fuehrer, superiority of the Nazi Party and the superiority of the Aryan master race, the Pakistani judiciary went by the cardinal principles of the superiority of the Army and the religion of Islam. There were some exceptions, in the Supreme Court, for the latter though. Every Army rule required the Judges to take a fresh oath under the Martial Law or the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO). Anybody who refused to oblige was summarily dismissed. Gen. Musharraf’s handling of the Chief Justice, Mr. Iftikhar Chaudhry, is well known as well as the handling of Chief Justice Sajid Ali Shah by Nawaz Sharif. For her part, Ms. Benazir Bhutto, during her two tenures as Prime Minister, had suspended 42 judges for various reasons.
Even in the field of art, music and dance, there is a close parallel between what happened in the Third Reich under Hitler and in the sixty year history of Pakistan. The Third Reich frowned upon ‘degenerate art’, that is any art that was not furthering the Master Aryan Race and/or Germany. So also in Pakistan, all forms of art, music and dance were discouraged that were not in conformity with Islam. The people of Pakistan inherited the same forms of music and dance that India had been well known for thousands of years and yet these art forms practically disappeared in Pakistan very quickly. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq banned music, drama and dance as they were considered haraam in Islam. However, there is another angle to discouragement of art forms in modern Pakistan. The reason is similar to that of Nazi Germany where art forms that were construed to be ‘not belonging’ to the same class as the Aryan race were explicitly banned. Similarly, most of the art forms of the Indian subcontinent have the Hindu or Buddhist heritage and were thus anathema in the Land of the Pure. For this very same reason, such historic civilizational sites as Harappa, Moen-jo-Daro, Taxila have been in a state of total neglect. In circa 1959, Ayub Khan setup the Auqaf Department to manage the waqf properties. The management of Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist shrines and temples belonging to the religious minorities was also handed over to the Auqaf. During the regime of the pseudo-secularist Z.A.Bhutto, the powers of the Auqaf were enhanced manifold. The Auqaf has totally neglecetd to preserve the Hindu temples and Sikh gurduwaras scattered all over Pakistan. In many places, once magnificent temples have been leased out to commercial activities bringing in money for the Auqaf which will be spent on other Islamic Waqf properties. This is very reminiscent of how the Nazis razed down Jewish synagogues and used that space for building parks, apartment complexes etc. In Dec. 2009, India was compelled to to voice its concern when 150 acres of land belonging to Lahore Sikh Gurduwara were taken over for a military housing project. During the 1965 war with India, Pakistan confiscated the properties of the Hindus through an ordinance called Enemy Property Act, an act that condemned its own citizens as enemies just because they happened to be Hindu minorities in a Muslim majority state that was in conflict with a Hindu majority India. In East Pakistan alone, the Pakistani government had seized 2.5 Million acres depriving properties of 10 million Hindus. It was only in circa 2009 that Bangladesh, the successor to the then East Pakistan, passed a law to return such properties back to the Hindus. In the summer of c. 1939, the Nazi state decreed that the Jews were to be excluded from involving in real-estate activities and that they could not henceforth own property. In Pakistan, Ahmedis are similarly being excluded from taking part in such activities. For example, sale of lands is prohibited to those who do not declare their faith in ‘Khatam-e-Nabbuwat’, thus automatically excluding the Ahmedis. Buyers also had to give an undertaking that they “would never resell it ever to Ahmedis.”
What is different though was the spectacular early military successes of the German Wehrmacht which the Pakistani war machine could not duplicate even remotely. Though it mounted some audacious but ill-conceived campaigns against India in the last six decades, it has been nothing but a string of wholesome defeats for the Pakistani military. It will not be very surprising if the demise of present day Pakistan will be as equally spectacular as the Third Reich.
), nothing prevents the IA from hitting with precison arty strikes all the near by TSPA posts. Its not escalatory and is proportionate response. In 1996 when Mulayam Singh Yadav was Def Minister there was an arty barrage for three days that wiped out many TSP bunkers. Right now AKA doesn't even want to lob ping pong balls in response.
Iqbal’s poetry derives Koranic authority and radicalises youth. In a Persian couplet, he says: “Muslims are ill-bred and dressed in coarse clothes/and whose activities have put Gabriel under tumult; Having come to demolish the mark of other communities/as if this community has become a burden on the world.”