In the year 712 AD Raja Dahir Sen, our last Maharaja of Sindhudesh, was killed by Arabs when they invaded Sindh. In order to legitimize their attack on Sindhudesh, Arabs gave several reasons and the most famous was that Raja Dahir Sen was a Hindu tyrant ruler who persecuted innocent people in name of religion and he looted and massacred Muslim traders, and so poor victims wrote letters to Arab caliphs who then came to rescue the people of Sindh. So till today history books in Pakistan teach us that Arab invader Muhammad bin Qasim was our liberator and a “Hero”!
But Muhammad bin Qasim just looted the temples, killed thousands of innocent people and abducted daughters of Sindh as slave to be sold on in the Arab streets. Hundreds of Sindhi girls were presented as “gift” to royals and several thousand Sindhi women were sold on the Arab streets.
History is two-edged sword, historical boundary precedents play a central role in the outbreak, character, and long-term consequences of territorial disputes. The general concept about history is that it is written by the rulers or by the occupiers who then insert lies and twist facts to suit their political and ideological agenda, rather than present facts before the people. History written by Arab invaders, Persians and Pakistani Muslim Scholars (mostly) support their ideology and justify their political narrative. This is clearly visible in the case of Sindh and Sindhi people, and also how our history has been distorted by writing fictitious stories about our last King Raja Dahir Sen of Sindhudesh.
This same story has been repeated by Pakistan in the case of Jammu & Kashmir. On October 22, 1947 tribesmen and Pakistan Army attacked and invaded Jammu & Kashmir and yet lies, twists and misleading propaganda against the last Hindu Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir Hari Singh has been circulating. It has been propagated that Maharaja Hari Singh was a tyrant and he was persecuting innocent Muslims of Kashmir and to liberate Kashmiri Muslims a lashkar (militant’s group) of approximately 20,000 tribesmen with the support of Pakistan military entered J&K. However, it is never mentioned that this Pakistani lashkar looted, vandalized places of worship, raped thousands of women and massacred hundreds of thousands of innocent Kashmiris in the name of Jihad (holy war). Yet in the history books of Pakistan these tribal lashkars are known as liberators and messiah!
Indo-Pakistan war of 1947-48
Also known as the Kashmir war, this war was fought between India and Pakistan over 1947 to 1948. Pakistan precipitated the war a few weeks after its creation by launching tribal lashkar (militia tribesmen) in an effort to capture Kashmir. The inconclusive result of the war still affects the geopolitics of both countries. On 22 October 1947, Pakistan’s Pashtun tribal militias crossed the border of the state. These local tribal militias and irregular Pakistani forces moved to take over Srinagar. They kept on looting and plundering Kashmir till they reached Baramulla, where they halted for a few days. During this time Maharaja Hari Singh made a request to India for assistance and subsequently signed the instrument of accession with India.
General Tariq real name (Major General Akbar Khan) of Pakistan Army was in charge of the attack on Jammu & Kashmir, the plan was famously called as the armed revolt inside Kashmir against a non- Muslim tyrant ruler who is persecuting Muslims of Kashmir. Words such as “Hindu”, “tyrant” and atrocities against Muslims ignited the naïve people and tribesmen to fulfill their religious obligation jihad (holy war). But they started attacking and looting homes of both the Hindus and Muslims, even places of worship were not spared and they entered and took whatever they could lay their hands on. These jihadi lashkars vandalized Mandirs (temple) and desecrated several Masjids (Mosques).
In their lustful search for gold, silver and money the tribal attackers dug up the stone floors of shops, homes and temples. Several Hindus thought that since the attackers are Muslim so they would spare mosques and hid their gold and valuable things there but the tribal attackers did not spare the mosques also. In fact, the first President of “Azad Kashmir” Sardar Ibrahim Khan appointed by Pakistani military praised the invaders.
“Tribesmen played an important role in the movement of Azad Kashmir, They came all the way from different parts, from settled and unsettled areas of tribal territory to fight in Kashmir. Suleman Khel tribesmen came all the way from Afghanistan to take part in this Jihad but when the Indian Army came in the region on the request of Maharaja Hari Singh and encountered the tribesmen they retreated with great speed. They disintegrated into smaller groups and vanished leaving the territory entirely defenseless. All the tribesmen reached Abbottabad safe and sound,” said Sardar Ibrahim Khan the first president of Azad Kashmir (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) in his statement soon after the tribal attack on Jammu & Kashmir.
This statement of Sardar Ibrahim Khan totally exposes the aggression and involvement of Pakistan military wherein they started the war and then the agenda against Kashmiri people about capturing of Kashmir. It was not India rather it’s Pakistan that started the war and yet till today the Pakistani history books and media portraits that it was India that massacred Muslims in Kashmir. Pakistani media and history books talks about November 6, 1947 when a few Muslims were killed in Kashmir in reaction to the slaughtering of hundreds of thousands Hindus and Sikhs and mass rapes by the Pakistani tribesmen and the Pakistan Army during the fortnight October 22, 1947.
I want to salute Muhammad Saeed Asad, author of “Wounded Memories” and Dr Shabir Choudhry, author of “Tribal Invasion and Kashmir” for their efforts to bring out truth through their invaluable books.
Muhammad Saeed Asad who interviewed the people who had either suffered during the tribal attack on Kashmir or witnessed the carnage writes, “This ill-fated and pre-conceived plan of the 22nd of October 1947 was designed to dismember our body. It totally disintegrated our society. It turned our history on its head and it buried our dignity.” In another place he writes; “Many eye-witnesses of the time along with a number of writers have opined that the tribal invasion of Kashmir was an ill-thought out and idiotic plan, which has proved fatal for Kashmir and Kashmiris in my opinion, there remains no doubt and there is no room for a second opinion that the planners and perpetrators of the tribal invasion on Kashmir, stand out as enemy number one of the Kashmiris, I would go further to say that if this invasion didn’t take place, a dispute on Kashmir would not have arisen.”
Muhammad Saeed Asad writes further; “The planners of the tribal invasion and their Kashmiri agents are the original and actual culprits of Kashmiri people, it is important for the nation to identify these criminals, bring them forth and make them stand in the court of time … I have strong hope that the new generation of Kashmir will not remain ill-informed or misdirected, as to who are foremost in killing their future and the enemy of their future.”
And just like the wrongs in Kashmir, Pakistan committed similar crimes in Sindh. Look what has happened with the people of Sindh, their history was been destroyed, they were used in a fake two nation theory, Pashtuns were used by Pakistani military in name of Jihad” and people of Bangladesh (earlier East Pakistan) were trapped by falsities of Pakistani Muslim narrative. However, Bangladesh attained its freedom in 1971. The people of Kashmir and Muslims of India should read these books and try to understand the reality, and not fall for the only narrative creative by Pakistan. Because the history books of Pakistan and their media is misleading and fake.