Daily Times

Science and Technology Minister Fawwad Chaudhry has stirred a controversy demanding that Mehmood Khan Achakzai be removed from the PDM because he presumably insulted Punjabis in the Lahore jalsa.  Achakzai had said in the speech that some of the people from Punjab were hand in gloves with the British rulers while people in modern-day Afghanistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa fought the foreign invaders. It is prudent not to hold a mirror to others when we all share the same glasshouse. Lines have been drawn to define our border with Afghanistan and to divide Punjab between Pakistan and India. Tragically, these borders are well guarded and people from either side of the divide have connections with the other side. In protests in New Dehli, Punjabis regret that they should have heeded the offer of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah to join Pakistan. Similarly, on the Afghan border, moving scenes are captured. Afghans throng the Pakistan embassy in Kabul seeking to cross into Pakistan to carry out business and meet their relatives. People from Pakistan also cross into Afghanistan in a large number. Both Punjabis and Pashtoons fought the invaders fiercely and made them go back to their countries. Achakzai is right that the British rulers ravaged their lands and brought about draconian laws to control them. But then they did the same with Punjabis and all others on their command. Though no lines were there before the Second World War, Punjabis can post a complaint of the bloodshed that Afghan and Persian warier did on their lands.

Later at the time of the creation of Pakistan and India, about a million Punjabis, women and children alike, were cut down on both sides of the divide. Over 70 years on, no one has ever bothered to apologize to them.

These are the questions that we need to keep on seeking answers to. But care must be taken that we keep ourselves from falling into any kind of chauvinism on their basis. Punjabis, Pashtoons, Sindhi, Balochs, Seraikis all have a past to be proud of. The past should be taken as a step in the ladder that takes you up. We, after all, cannot drive forward-looking into the rearview mirror. *