Animals have no sense of history. Memory inseparably linked with history is generally for them what has happened recently. The past for them is a sort of past that ceases to stimulate the brain. So the past is past, dead and gone, something that shortly after coming into existence becomes non-existent.

Humans, on the other hand, in their evolutionary process have developed two distinct and distinguishing things; enduring memory and imagination. The former keeps humans connected in some way with the bygone eras i.e. with the activities of their forebears making them realise that what they are is in a large measure the result of the past. The latter invests them with the capability to make plans for their future by enabling them to have imaginative construction of what they want to do in the days to come. It shows the dynamism and initiative humans have in determining the course of their life. They cannot change the past but they can surely subvert it if they choose to do so by erasure and interpreting it in a subjective manner i.e. to impregnate it with the meanings of their choice at the cost of being objective.

The societies which have smooth continuity generally do not fall victims to such a delusion. But the ones that depart from their natural course or have rupture with what was their previous existence are found prone to develop collective amnesia. Our society falls in the latter category as it suffered an excruciatingly painful rupture with the society it was part of previously a little more than seven decades ago.

The act of separation proved so bloody that it changed its entire perspective on its own history.

Subsequently, Pakistan, a new state with ancient people, developed a peculiar view of its history underpinned by two distinct features; selective approach and distorted interpretational method.

First, the selective reading of history! As Pakistani state came into being on the basis of religion i.e. by distinguishing itself as Muslim and separate from Hindus and people of other faiths, it refused to own what it shared with other non-Muslims. Under the influence of its ideological stance, it deliberately started disowning what it has/had common with the peoples of diverse faiths. It in fact undertook the task of erasing its own 5,000-year old shared history. In doing so it conveniently forgot that its people started accepting new Islamic faith only in the 8th century CE after the Arab invasions from the south. The result is that it has willingly disowned what legitimately belongs to it; a great civilisation.

The undeniable concrete signs of such a civilisational march can clearly be seen in Mehergarh, Harappa, Mohenjo Daro and Gandhara. The history of human society in this part of the world goes back even further; it had its beginnings in the Pothohar region of Punjab. All such invaluable historical assets have been sacrificed at the altar of ideology based on the perceived separateness. Our selective approach to history means we arbitrarily begin to read and own history not in its entirety but from a certain point in time and sanitise it in a way that it suits our current ideological goals which stand on what is comparatively of recent origins if seen in the perspective of development of civilisation.

Consequently, we deprive ourselves of the contribution we made in the evolution and development of human society. We love to impoverish ourselves while we have inherited cultural assets that can enrich us tremendously. Firstly, we take a likeable fragment of history and offer and treat it as if it’s our complete history. The attempt is a shenanigan to conceal history in favour of ideology. The desired goal is the erasure of long shared history and culture evolved over millennia.

Secondly, what we take as our history is explained and interpreted in such a manner that it becomes glaringly distorted as it is seen exclusively through the lens of faith and ideology that emphasise our estrangement from non-Muslim society, conflict with it, not togetherness. We do ourselves a grave damage by forgetting that human groups can change their religious beliefs but not their history. They can change their way of living but not their DNA. We do all such cultural cleansing in the name of faith but become oblivious of Muslim societies’ history which offers a different picture.

In the seventh century, majority of Arabs converted to a new religion called Islam but they kept all the worth keeping things they inherited from their past, their language, names, dress and many cultural practices.

Away from Arabia something similar happened in the Indonesian archipelago. People converted to Islam but they retained their names and cultural practices. Have you heard of Indonesian’s former president called ‘Megawati Sukarnoputri’? Does it remind you of her Hindu past? Surely, it does. ‘Megawati’ in Sanskrit means rain bearing cloud and ‘Sukarnoputri’ means Sukarno’s daughter. We have the same word ‘putri’ for daughter in Punjabi. Her Sanskrit name doesn’t make her a lesser Muslim.

Iranians similarly have some of pre-Islamic names such as Ardeshir, Drab, Farhad and Javid, for example. They happily celebrate the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian New Year festival ‘Navroz’.

Those who insist on maintaining the religion-driven separateness from the sub-continental society must learn a lesson or two from the Arabs. What we call Arabs share faith and dialects of the same language but have a score of independent states. No Arab state denies the culture and civilisation shared by other Arab states and societies for being an independent state.

In a nutshell, separate states with common civilisation can co-exist. And they do co-exist if historical evidence is anything to go by. So the question is to both, Pakistani and Indian ruling cliques. Why can’t they co-exist in separate states while sharing the same civilisation? Pakistani ruling clique can come out of its ideological cocoon hardened by fear if it cares to remember that sub-continental civilisation had its glorious origins in the regions that now comprise the state of Pakistan. It will lose nothing but gain tremendously if it sheds the skin of its specious argument in favour of exclusivity and owns what legitimately belongs to it; Harappa civilisation as it objectively is. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2024