HISTORY OF PAKISTAN

INTRODUCTION

Pakistan emerged on the world map on August 14, 1947. It has its roots into the remote past. Its establishment was the culmination of the struggle by Muslims of the South-Asian subcontinent for a separate homeland of their own and its foundation was laid when Muhammad bin Qasim subdued Sindh in 711 A.D. as a reprisal against sea pirates that had taken refuge in Raja Dahir's kingdom. The advent of Islam further strengthened the historical individuality in the areas now constituting Pakistan and further beyond its boundaries.

STONE AGE

Some of the earliest relics of Stone Age man in the subcontinent are found in the Soan Valley of the Potohar region near Rawalpindi, with a probable antiquity of about 500,000 years. No human skeleton of such antiquity has yet been discovered in the area, but the crude stone implements recovered from the terraces of the Soan carry the saga of human toil and labor in this part of the world to the inter-glacial period. These Stone Age men fashioned their implements in a sufficiently homogenous way to justify their grouping in terms of a culture called the Soan Culture. About 3000 B.C, amidst the rugged wind-swept valleys and foothills of Balochistan, small village communities developed and began to take the first hesitant steps towards civilization. Here, one finds a more continuous story of human activity, though still in the Stone Age. These pre-historic men established their settlements, both as herdsmen and as farmers, in the valleys or on the outskirts of the plains with their cattle and cultivated barley and other crops.

RED AND BUFF WARE CULTURES

Careful excavations of the pre-historic mounds in these areas and the classification of their contents, layer by layer, have grouped them into two main categories of Red Ware Culture and Buff Ware Culture. The former is popularly known as the Zhob Culture of North Balochistan, while the latter comprises Quetta, Amri Nal and Kulli Cultures of Sindh and South Balochistan. Some Amri Nal villages or towns had stone walls and bastions for defence purposes and their houses had stone foundations. At Nal, an extensive cemetery of this culture consists of about 100 graves. An important feature of this composite culture is that at Amri and certain other sites, it has been found below the very distinctive Indus Valley Culture. On the other hand, the steatite seals of Nal and the copper implements and certain types of pot decoration suggest a partial overlap between the two. It probably represents one of the local societies which constituted the environment for the growth of the Indus Valley Civilization. The pre-historic site of Kot Diji in the Sindh province has provided information of high significance for the reconstruction of a connected story which pushes back the origin of this civilization by 300 to 500 years, from about 2500 B.C. to at least 2800 B.C. Evidence of new cultural elements of pre-Harappan era has been traced here.

PRE-HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION

When the primitive village communities in the Balochistan area were still struggling against a difficult highland environment, a highly cultured people was trying to assert themselves at Kot Diji, one of the most developed urban civilizations of the ancient world which flourished between the years 2500 and 1500 B.C. in the Indus Valley sites of Moenjodaro and Harappa. These Indus Valley people possessed a high standard of art and craftsmanship and a well developed system of quasi pictographic writing, which despite continuing efforts still remains undeciphered. The imposing ruins of the beautifully planned Moenjodaro and Harappa towns present clear evidence of the unity of a people having the same mode of life and using the same kind of tools. Indeed, the brick buildings of the common people, the public baths, the roads and covered drainage system suggest the picture of a happy and contented people.

ARYAN CIVILIZATION

In or about 1500 B.C., the Aryans descended upon the Punjab and settled in the Sapta Sindhu, which signifies the Indus plain. They developed a pastoral society that grew into the Rigvedic Civilization. The Rigveda is replete with hymns of praise for this region, which they describe as "God fashioned". It is also clear that so long as the Sapta Sindhu remained the core of the Aryan Civilization, it remained free from the caste system. The caste institution and the ritual of complex sacrifices took shape in the Gangetic Valley. There can be no doubt that the Indus Civilization contributed much to the development of the Aryan civilization.

GANDHARA CULTURE

n, were virtually independent from the time of the Guptas in the fourth century A.D. until the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century. Gandhara Art, one of the most prized possessions of Pakistan, flourished for a period of 500 years (from the first to the fifth century A.D.) in the present valley of Peshawar and the adjacent hilly regions of Swat, Buner and Bajaur. This art represents a separate phase of the cultural renaissance of the region. It was the product of a blending of Indian, Buddhist and Greco-Roman sculpture. Gandhara Art in its early stages received the patronage of Kanishka, the great Kushan ruler, during whose reign the Silk Route ran through Peshawar and the Indus Valley, bringing great prosperity to the whole area.

DAWN OF ISLAM

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URDU: THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE OF PAKISTAN

Apart from religion, Urdu also enabled the Muslim community during the period of its ascendancy to preserve its separate identity in the subcontinent.

MUSLIM IDENTITY

The question of Muslim identity, however assumed seriousness during the decline of Muslim power in South Asia. The first person to realize its acuteness was the scholar theologian, Shah Waliullah (1703-62). He laid the foundation of Islamic renaissance in the subcontinent and became a source of inspiration for almost all the subsequent social and religious reform movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His immediate successors, inspired by his teachings, tried to establish a modest Islamic state in the north-west of India and they, under the leadership of Sayyed Ahmad Shaheed Barelvi (1786-1831), persevered in this direction.

BRITISH EXPANSIONISM AND MUSLIM RESISTANCE

Meanwhile, starting with the East India Company, the British had emerged as the dominant force in South Asia. Their rise to power was gradual extending over a period of nearly one hundred years. They replaced the Shariah by what they termed as the Anglo-Muhammadan law whereas Urdu was replaced by English as the official language. These and other developments had great social, economic and political impact especially on the Muslims of South Asia. The uprising of 1857, termed as the Indian Mutiny by the British and the War of Independence by the Muslims, was a desperate attempt to reverse the adverse course of events.

RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS

The failure of the 1857 War of Independence had disastrous consequences for the Muslims as the British placed all the responsibility for this event on them. Determined to stop such a recurrence in future, the British followed deliberately a repressive policy against the Muslims. Properties and estates of those even remotely associated with the freedom fighters were confiscated and conscious efforts were made to close all avenues of honest living for them. The Muslim response to this situation also aggravated their plight. Their religious leaders, who had been quite active, withdrew from the mainstream of the community life and devoted themselves exclusively to imparting religious education. Although the religious academies especially those of Deoband, Farangi Mahal and Rai Bareilly, established by the Ulema, did help the Muslims to preserve their identity, the training provided in these institutions hardly equipped them for the new challenges.

PARTITION SCHEME

In October 1946, an Interim Government was formed. The Muslim League sent its representative under the leadership of its General Secretary, Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, with the aim to fight for the party objective from within the Interim Government. After a short time, the situation inside the Interim Government and outside convinced the Congress leadership to accept Pakistan as the only solution of the communal problem. The British Government, after its last attempt to save the Cabinet Mission Plan in December 1946, also moved towards a scheme for the partition of India. The last British Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, came with a clear mandate to draft a plan for the transfer of power. After holding talks with political leaders and parties, he prepared a Partition Plan for the transfer of power, which, after approval of the British Government, was announced on June 3, 1947.

EMERGENCE OF PAKISTAN

Both the Congress and the Muslim League accepted the Plan. Two largest Muslim majority provinces, Bengal and Punjab, were partitioned. The Assemblies of West Punjab, East Bengal and Sindh and in Balochistan, the Quetta Municipality, and the Shahi Jirga voted for Pakistan. Referenda were held in the North-West Frontier Province and the District of Sylhet in Assam, which resulted in an overwhelming vote for Pakistan. As a result, on August 14, 1947, the new state of Pakistan came into existence.

Source: Ministry of Information & Broadcasting