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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

What is the bone of contention here?

This page is either always locked, or threatened to be locked.

Exactly which area is there bone of contention?

I haven't edited this page so I am clueless as to what this whole fight is about.

Please elaborate Mercenary2k 00:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

the term ancient pakistan.--D-Boy 02:04, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The term Ancient Pakistan is valid, I have provided sources countless of times, its not my fault that you wish to ignore the sources. However, the main reason for this page being locked is certain Indian users who cant stop editing the page to fit their POV.
--Unre4LITY 02:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

(RfC)Dispute of "what is now Pakistan"

Certain users keep replacing the term Pakistan with "what is now Pakistan" or "modern Pakistan". There is only one Pakistan and I think its enough to simply say Pakistan. Even though Pakistan is a day older than India, we dont see statements like "What is now India"
I would like to point out that the article always referred to Pakistan as Pakistan, however recently an admin was banned, and the protection was lifted off this page. Before this page was protected, User Dangerous-Boy managed to edit the article and replace the terms. I am requesting comments from people who havent been involved in Edit wars here before. Unre4LITY 02:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

For people coming here, note that people used to call India (the CIA World Factbook says that the proper local name for India is Bharata) India or Bharat long before the word Pakistan was coined (in the 1930s), it is absolutely false to say that the great Pakistani civilization of the second millenium BC thrived in the Indus while the Indian civilization was based in the Gangetic plains (note that India is derived from Indus). Such comments existed in this article before numerous users (many Indian), in collaboration with User:AfghanHistorian who edited a lot of this article, decided to make it make sense to improve Wikipedia. Also note it is Partition of India (indicating the pre-1947 land was known as India), British India, Indian subcontinent. India was the successor state to British India, RoI received British India's UN place. The Pakistani cricket team needed approval from the ICC while the Indian cricket team played their first series as an independent nation in the 1940s. On the topic of cricket, the team that toured England in the 1930s was the Indian cricket team. The Indus Valley Civilization is known as the first Indian civilization. The origins of the Indo-Aryans is speculated in the Out of India theory. There was said to be united land in India, known as Bharatavarsha, yes, that word is still used to describe India (Bharat), the nation is officially named by the Constitution of the Republic of India as Bharata Ganrajya. Meanwhile, no-one had heard of the word Pakistan before the 1930s. So when the British defeated the Sikh Confederacy, they didn't say "YES! THE LAST PAKISTANI DEFENCE IS DEFEATED" or something to that extent, they would have said "We have conquered India under the name of her majesty the Queen". And I don't know what admin banning Unreal is talking about but I may just have forgotten. If you can find sources (reliable academic sources) which state that Pakistan claims that it is Bharata or Hindustan (lol), as India was referred to prior to the use of this Anglicized term by the Europeans, then maybe you'll be making more of a point here. Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 03:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Whats your point- British India had TWO successor states. India was not the only one. India the country was born in 1947, and whenever you are referring to Republic of India, you should actually be saying "What is now India", because it clearly isnt what used to be India.
I really hoped that you would understand that Pakistan is not being used in a political context, but a term to describe the people if Pakistan, since India refers to the country 99% people will point to on a world map.
If you have a third term to refer to the Pakistani people, and which doesnt already clash with another group of people, Believe me, I will be delighted to hear it.
--Unre4LITY 04:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you disagree that the British used to call the inhabitants of Lahore and Karachi Indians in the year 1900. Anyway, we've already argued this, now the RFC people have an idea of the situation. Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 04:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Pakistanis were Indians, but only during the British Raj, and since Indian implies Republic of Indian, its best to stick with British Indian imo. Unre4LITY 05:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Compromise? - I think the use of "what is now Pakistan" in the first paragraph is good... it defines the region the article is talking about. After that, I would use more generic terms such as "the area" or "the region" and avoid the term Pakistan altogether when talking pre-1947. Where more detail is called for, why not use the historic provincial name such as Punjab, Sind, etc. Given that, for most of history, these regions were seperate states, this makes sense to me. Blueboar 18:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

A compromise would be to use the term "What is now Pakistan" once in the introduction, and delete the 40 entries in the main text. Unre4LITY 18:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Blueboar has a point. Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 22:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

No offence Blueboar, but you have obviously not read up on any arguments. When people here refer to India, they refer to the country India, which didnt exist before 1947 either. Then people here prefer to think India before the British Raj was a country, when it was a subcontinent, never united as a country.
And since India is being used, it leaves us no choice but to refer to the land of Pakistan, as Pakistan no matter what era. Note, Pakistan is not being referred to in a political context, but the only term which doesnt clash with another group of people.
Consider this. A country in Asia calls itself Asia. Obviously there has to be a way to differentiate between the 2, not encouraging misleading people to promote the term. Unre4LITY 23:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Here I paste my reply regarding the "two successor states" story of Unre4L from Talk:History of India.

On Successor States: Unre4L, there are other avenues where creativity is better appreciated. Wikipedia is a serious place where creativity is hardly required. Please read about the Succession of states theory, and know what the official situation is. Let me refer you to [1]:


(Thomas RGC, Nations, States, and Secession: Lessons from the Former Yugoslavia, Mediterranean Quarterly, Volume 5 Number 4 Fall 1994, pp. 40-65, Duke University Press)

This is turning out to be clearly a case of Argumentum_ad_nauseum. Conveniently ignoring all replies, and sticking to the same absurd argument borders on trolling. deeptrivia (talk) 03:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

We have been through this argument before. Even if India is the successor state and Pakistan was carved out of India, (Which doesnt really makes sense since Pakistan gained independence a day before India), This only joins Pakistan and India, during the British Raj, not an era 5000 years ago, e.g Indus Valley, which has nothing to do with India, except it was a part of British Empire for a while. According to your logic, Iran can claim Indus Valley aswell.
It should be clear who the history belongs to, in this case, not Indians. --Unre4LITY 03:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, again a paste from my comment here will do:

Interestingly, the part which is now Pakistan was more "India" that the present Republic of India itself, since the India many Greco-Persian sources describe as the one they came in direct contact with, which was "the territories in the vicinity of the Indus river east of Arachosia and west of the deserts of Rajasthan", which corresponds to what became Pakistan in 1947.deeptrivia (talk) 02:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Herodotus-Indiana
Hecataeus - India
Eratosthenes - India
Ptolemy - India

Some excerpts from the first page of Indica (Note: 1 stade = 231 m):

"Towards the south the ocean bounds the land of India, and eastward the sea itself is the boundary. The southern part near Pattala and the mouths of the Indus were surveyed by Alexander and Macedonians, and many Greeks; as for the eastern part, Alexander did not traverse this beyond the river Hyphasis. A few historians have described the parts which are this side of the Ganges and where are the mouths of the Ganges and the city of Palimbothra, the greatest Indian city on the Ganges."
"India extends over about ten thousand stades; but farther north its length is about twenty thousand stades. But Ctesias of Cnidus affirms that the land of India is equal in size to the rest of Asia, which is absurd; and Onesicritus is absurd, who says that India is a third of the entire world; Nearchus, for his part, states that the journey through the actual plain of India is a four months' journey. Megasthenes would have the breadth of India that from east to west which others call its length; and he says that it is of sixteen thousand stades, at its shortest stretch. From north to south, then, becomes for him its length, and it extends twenty-two thousand three hundred stades, to its narrowest point. The Indian rivers are greater than any others in Asia; greatest are the Ganges and the Indus, whence the land gets its name; each of these is greater than the Nile of Egypt and the Scythian Ister, even were these put together; my own idea is that even the Acesines is greater than the Ister and the Nile, where the Acesines having taken in the Hydaspes, Hydraotes, and Hyphasis, runs into the Indus, so that its breadth there becomes thirty stades. Possibly also other greater rivers run through the land of India."

We are not historians, and at wikipedia we only reflect mainstream scholarship, and do not pass judgements on it. I do not propose any changes to wikipedia "according to my logic". This is called original research. So if you want to discuss whether it is right to call the Indus valley a part of historical India, please do that on pakhub. deeptrivia (talk) 03:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The sentence, "The five thousand year history of the region that is now Pakistan begins with the Indus Valley Civilization." reminds me that the present national borders are recent constructions. The question I ask is, "What is best for the encyclopedia?" and I think its easiest reading an article that makes it clear that much of the history of this area occured before the nation of Pakistan existed. The phrasing "what is now", is commonly found for situations where 1 state is delineated out of a previous larger state that continues to exist, "In 1850, Congress organized the territories of Utah (what is now Utah and Nevada), New Mexico (what is now New Mexico and Arizona),"[[2]] or to make it clear that the state didnt exist when the events were taking place, "1845-1846, took him north from Sydney into what is now Queensland"[[3]]. SmithBlue 06:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I like "what is now Pakistan" term. It's sounds intelligent and doesn't warp history.--D-Boy 07:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Scope of this article

In its scope, this article is analogous to History of the Republic of India. (See also History of the People's Republic of China and History of the Republic of China vs. History of China and History of Taiwan. Article on Taiwan's early history is based on it being an island, not because it is a separate state presently). What I see here is a lot of redundant stuff that should better be covered elsewhere. Are there any reasonable justifications for having IVC, Vedic age, Mauryan empire, etc. on this article? deeptrivia (talk) 04:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

true, i think this article should cover from 1947 on.--D-Boy 07:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I Totally disagree. The History of Pakistan should encompass everything that happened on the territorial area of Pakistan. The History should not start from 1947 but should cover everything that happened on its present territory since recorded history. Mercenary2k 07:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Reason for disagreement? deeptrivia (talk) 11:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Guys. I Thought I made it clear that I wanted opinions of people who hadnt participated Edit warring this article, and gotten it locked in the first place. D-Boy, you are the reason for the "What is now Pakistan" statement coming up 40 times in this article, since it wasnt there before. You vandalised the page before the protection was put on the page, and now you are vandalising this discussion.
We already have a History of South Asia Article, within it contains links to the articles of History of Pakistan within its borders, and history of Republic of India, which seems to contain the history of South Asia. Doesnt make much sense.
I would appreciate it, if you didnt try to vandalise this article, and I am still looking for a comment from someone who wasnt behind this article getting locked.
--Unre4LITY 11:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Mercenary2k. I would have nothing against calling Pakistani history, Indian, if there wasnt a country beside us called India. The term clashes and confuses everyone. History of Pakistan is not the political one. Its the history of the people. Unre4LITY 12:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism? excuse me?! I wasn't the first editor to start using the term what is now pakistan. You 50 google linked references were weak. As for getting the article protected, it was probably your fault for asking for protection. How is history of pak not a political one? It was formed because of political infighting. Jinnah wanted power. He didn't get it. Before 1947, pak did not exsist. this is a fact. It's not in a historical references of the greeks, the romans, and the european colonial explorers. lets face it, you might have turk, arab, persian blood in you if you ever claim to, but your great grandfather was an indian. he was born in india. there was no pakistan around that time.--D-Boy 18:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


Pakistans People exist, do you agree? What do you want to call Pakistani people before British Raj?, because there certainly wasnt anything called India back then. I dont see how you dont find it misleading to call Pakistani ancestors Indian. India is the country you see on the world map, and this is what people refer to 99% of the times they say India. Pakistani ancestors had nothing to do with that India. Simply because Pakistan was a part of the British empire, doesnt mean it claims the Pakistani peoples history before the British Raj.
Besides, your edit was a case of Vandalism [4]. You even put Ancient India in, and deleted quite a lot of the text to fit your POV.
--Unre4LITY 20:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

While an article focusing soley on the history of the nation Pakistan is valuable, an article giving a comprehensive history of the region now called Pakistan as well as the history of the nation seems even more valuable, as long as the vital information on the formation and development of Pakistan is not neglected. Can a thorough article on both the history of the region and the history of the nation remain friendly in terms of WP:size (about 50KB of prose)? SmithBlue 07:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
This article starts dealing with history of Pakistan section 10.3 onwards. The entire history of Pakistan movement is summarized in a tiny paragraph, and there are similar tiny paragraphs on Pakistan resolution, partition, and such events that led to the creation of Pakistan. "Pakistan" serves as the "main article" for the history of Pakistan after it was created (sec 11)! The article covers next to nothing of the history between 1947 and 1971 -- an eventful time when Pakistan fought two wars. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 is not mentioned at all, and one line is written about Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. There is little information about Pakistan in the 1980s. There is little economic history, society, advances in technology, agriculture, etc, little about the problems like the one in Balochistan, etc. Looks like the history of Pakistan is given secondary importance in the article. Pakistan is a big country, and certainly, a comprehensive article about History of Pakistan would by itself require much more than 50kb. deeptrivia (talk) 14:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Thats the political history of Pakistan, which can be found here, Pakistan. Like I have said before. This article is the history of the Pakistani people , so it has to cover everything. Why do you wish for us to ignore the history of our people, before 1947 ?. Unre4LITY 15:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Pakistani people do exist. I agree. I call pakistani people during the british raj Indian and some of them afghan in the pashtun areas. British raj called the indian subcontinent India. There's nothing more to say. the development and and the formation of the country started during the 1930's at the very least. No one is ignoring the history of your people. we're just making it correct. the pakistan article itself only covers a general history. it doesn't go deep into it. That's what this article is for. deep is right. the wars are barely mentioned. the history of the 1980's is barely covered as well. there needs to be more detail in the areas deeptrivia mentioned. those are more relevant to pakistan as of now.--D-Boy 22:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I am not talking about the British Raj. Pakistanis might have been called Indian during that era but before this, they were knowns as Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathan, and Kashmiris. And all of these people are essentially Pakistani, and thats the only name you can refer to them by. Just like all the ethnic gruops in India are called Indians.
West Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathan, and Kashmiris are not Indian. But dont worry. You will see it all becoming clearer soon. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 23:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
There is no major ethnic group that is only native to PAkistan. Pathans are in Afghanistan and India, Sindhis are in India as well, Kashmiris are Indian (no matter what Afzal Guru thinks) and Punjabi is out of the question. Baloch are mostly found in Iran. There is no such thing as a West Punjabi either. Are all Hindu/Sikh and Jain punjabis "east Punjabis"? Is Nehru PAkistani? Is Shah Rukh Khan Pakistani? Is Guru Nanak Pakistani? no.Bakaman 23:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, Pashtuns are NOT found in India, just people who are of Pashtun descent (i.e. Pathans which is the Hindi-Urdu variant term). Kashmiris also live in Pakistan so calling them Indian is POV. Indeed then Pakistan is a hodgepodge of peoples who overlap with their neighbors and so I don't see what the problem is. India ends at the Attock Bridge as western Pakistan WAS Afghanistan not India. The region is an overlapping one. Tombseye 16:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I believe it's alright to be lenient. I suggest this article has the following guidelines for editing:
History of the Region
Indus Valley
Greeks
Magadhans
Islamic conquest
Sultanates, Caliphates, Empires, etc etc
Pakistan movement
Beginnings
Negotiations
Partition
History of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Early years (1947 - 1956) (Prior to Constitution)
Martial law (1957 - 1970)
Independence of East Pakistan
1980s
1990s
Post-Sharif Era (1999 - present)

Or something to that sort (someone with more knowledge of Pakistan should be able to do better than that. It just should be clear and not misleading. Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 03:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Some problems with this scheme. It is too-East centric. It leaves out the Persians and the Magadha may not have been an influence in the region at all. Also, the Anglo-Afghan wars are important to discuss as they are the reason why western Pakistan is part of Pakistan now. The main issue here is that Pakistan is not just derived from what was once India, but also from what was once Afghanistan and Iran (the NWFP and Baluchistan). Also, the hegemonic view of a larger state claiming the history of its neighbors is WRONG. I saw this when I was helping with the History of Azerbaijan and all I heard was that there was no such thing as it was all the History of Iran. This is not a good trend as these new countries (with new names) still have their own regional histories with many events that never impact the larger areas they neighbor. Also, encyclopedias vary on this. Britannica ignores large parts of the history of Pakistan and subsumes it into India, while Encyclopedia Americana does the opposite. The problem with much of this is that suddenly there are events that are important in India, but have no relevance in what is today Pakistan. Keep in mind that the British created this situation. Before them there is no real historical precedent (in fact Indian historians make not that there is no viable Indian entity just the construct of a continuity that has to go back to ancient times (Mauryans) in order to create a precendent as the only thing that existed were Islamic empires, and if the British had not come you'd either have a bunch of little countries in South Asia or something else no resembling what we have today. For example, the Mongols don't go past the Indus. Alexander doesn't go past Sind and neither to do the Arabs. The Persians stop at the western Punjab. This adds up to a 1000 years of history that is regional. I'm afraid that simply shirking that off as inconsequential is exactly the reason why regions have their own histories and can't be subsumed for what appears to be the hegemonic views of larger countries who see their own histories as going far beyond their borders, often for political reasons. Also, I've been seeing this with History of Afghanistan which some people want to incorporate as well (with some wanting to include in Iran's history as well). These are separate countries and their histories are sometimes the same as that of their neighbors and sometimes it's not. Pakistan may be a new country, but the region is not new and the name is inconsequential. Because it a country now it is relevant to explain the history of the country and its disparate regions so that readers can understand what makes it different and why it exists. I see no reason why the article should be changed from what it is now. Tombseye 16:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Cultural regions in the Indian subcontinent
I had this in mind when I started this discussion. A historically permanent cultural division runs through Pakistan, and currently, around 140 million of the 170 million of Pakistan's population lives on the eastern side of this divide. If the history we are talking about here is the history of STATE, then obviously, this article's scope should be limited to 1930 onwards. If we are talking about the history of a socio-cultural region, then the idea of Pakistan is anachronistic in that context. Past history of the entire territory forming the state should ideally redirect to history of its regions like History of Punjab, History of Sindh, History of Balochistan, etc. Doesn't the etymology of the name Pakistan, which is an english language acronym, itself suggest this? There was a fair chance that East Pakistan would not have become Bangladesh. In that case, would this article have included parallel histories of that region too apart from Punjab, Sindh, etc? How meaningful would that be? My point is, Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, Bengal, etc are culturally the divisions of the Indian subcontinent. A further classification based on boundaries of modern states is anachronistic. That NWFP and Baluchistan do not quite fit into these divisions is evident from what is going on there right now (1, 2). Besides this, unlike in the case of Iran and Azerbaijan, here we're talking about states divided by a line drawn arbitrarily on a map which sometimes put some rooms of a house on one side, and some on the other. So, in some aspects, it is like having a separate History of East Germany and History of West Germany starting from the Bronze Age. deeptrivia (talk) 16:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. There should be an article for the pre 1947 history, and another article for after 1947. I dont see why you want to delete content of this article.
Similar to what you have done with the Indian history article.
You have a history article for India (I mean south asia but that will be corrected soon) History of india
Then you have a history article for India after 1947 History of independent India
And note how the History of india has its own section for History of independent India.
--Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 11:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


Just thought I would mention the scheme britannica has adopted on this for comparison. See this and this. deeptrivia (talk) 00:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Just thought I would point out something really obvious. Britannica doesnt link the history of India page to Republic of India. And it makes it very clear its referring to the Indian Subcontinent. Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 12:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


Oh, that can surely be done.. but this discussion is on the scope of History of Pakistan. deeptrivia (talk) 13:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I doubt you would support renaming the History of India article to History of Indian Subcontinent. I will let you take your words back.
Regarding this discussion. This article has been vandalised by D-Boy, and does need to be edited. History of Pakistan is the history of the Pakistani people and their ancestors. You cant remove any of our history because it doesnt satisfy your POV. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 15:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Indian Posters

Just a Question to all Indians here. Why are you guys so obsessed with Pakistani related articles anyways? Do we come to Indian articles and start changing things around? This Article certainly requires a lot of work and major re-structuring but your continual interference has shown that your sole purpose to edit Pakistani related articles is not to make them better but put in mis-information. Mercenary2k 21:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I never change anything in the India article, but I do suggest changes. However I certainly dont go around vandalising the India article. Besides, this article might need structure changes, but we dont have anything in this article which doesnt belong here already. Some people are trying hard to get this article deleted altogether. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 21:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is any reason why there is a need to highlight the Indian posters here as they all vary and its divisive rather than constructive. Some are quite willing to work and compromise and nationality shouldn't be a factor imo. Some nationalist sentiment may exist with some, but working together to find solutions is a better way to go about this and dialectic exchange should work as it then breaks down to what is viable or not. Being Indian doesn't equal nationalist as writers and historians like Romila Thapar are pretty neutral on how they view matters (probably because they study things in detail). The main question here appears to be: Is there a regional history and can it be subsumed into some larger history and if so why or why not? For example, if one thing is taking place in Sri Lanka and another in Pakistan, how are the two part of a single history? From what context? Modern historians write from a starting point of current national boundaries and also consider historic political entities. This article includes the periods that link Pakistan to India and then also consider events that don't. I don't see anything wrong with this approach as it is both realistic and factual. I also don't see the point of adding information that has no real relevance (the Magadha situation) to the region. Tombseye 21:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Mercenary2k 21:09, 22 on Indian Posters

Mercenary2k your question is valid and here is my perspective on it . Please appreciate that there is a very large living population of Indians who have been displaced from their traditional homelands in what is now Pakistan .While Pakistan has achieved an ethnic cleansing of unparalleled magnitude changing the religious and demographic composition to have a 1-2% non Muslims left , were you to look at census figure of 1921 ,1941 ,you may be amazed yourself .

Therefore while it may have been possible to ethnically cleanse the Pakistan areas of Hindus and Sikhs, how are you going to ethnically cleanse the collective social , cultural , historical , consciousness and memory of this displaced population of Hindus and Sikhs .Please understand then that what you consider exclusively Pakistani , is erroneous .Indians are only dealing with their own History .

Similarly refugees from India who now living in Pakistan have roots in India , this same rationale applies to them as well .

The road taken by many Pakistani posters on wikipedia is indicative , completely skip Hindu ,Sikh reference , or undermine it ,sometimes to ridiculous levels . Skip grom Indus valley to Islamic period ??!

On a different note Pakistani support for Palestinians right to their homeland seems contradictory and is a related issue here then considering the question you have raised . Pakistan is a country established with ethnic cleansing of its indigenous population, that denies a homeland to its own Pakistani Muslims stranded in Bangladesh for last 40 years .If Pakistani support to Palestinian homeland is based on principals, then let it first recognize the homeland rights of Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan, or the Bihari Muslims stranded in Bangladesh first . Please let me have your views on this because it relates to whom the historical heritage of what you refer to as Pakistani belongs.

Articles must not be vandalized, but lets have some balance here my friend.Regards Intothefire 05:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is skipping Hindu and Sikh references, but out of the 3.5 Million [5][6][7][8] people who left Pakistan, why do 160 million have to be denied their history? --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 09:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Point

One point. This essay written by the editor-in-chief of Pakistan Today is interesting [9], particularly:
"Pakistan is not a natural country. It is composed of regions, sects, ethnic groups and linguistic factions who, in the absence of social justice, have never felt a part of the Pakistani nationhood. It is only the iron hand of the armed forces that has prevented them from seceding."
Thus, "History of Pakistan" has no meaning in ancient times. Should be History of India (as defined by Greeks thousands of years ago). "History of the Republic of India" begins from 1947, "History of Pakistan" begins from Iqbal etc in 1930s. Articles should show that. They don't.Rumpelstiltskin223 05:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, he's referring to the modern construct, not the history of the region. Also, you might actually mean the History of India and the History of Afghanistan and the History of Iran because it really intersects with 3 countries and not just India (in this case Sind and the Punjab). In ancient times, it's the history of the region. Most of the time the people who lived in ancient times are the ancestors of those who live in the region today, at least to some degree. Tombseye 05:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I think History of India mostly incorporates the Sindh, Punjab and Kashmir region. Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 06:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Kashmir to some extent. Kashmir's northern extremities are more Central Asian and pagan and really peripheral (the Kalash, Burosho, Hunzakuts etc. aren't really Indian), but the regions to the southas well as the Punjab and Sind yes they are very much Indian and South Asian. No argument from me. I still believe though that regions have a unique history of their own as well, especially when they exist as nation-states. I also believe that both India and Pakistan and other countries in general area are still suffering from a case of jingoistic nationalism (unfortunately like many Americans ala George Bush) and so attach grand narratives to history. For example, we could very easily say that the History of Austria is the History of Germany since they basically speak the same language etc. Or that the History of France and the Walloons is the same. Hell, we could even apply this to the British Isles. It's a matter of subjective opinion and ANYTHING can be rationalized in this way. As the people of Sind and the western Punjab did experience Indian events on the periphery and because the country as a whole is an artificial construct (as most countries are anyway), it has a distinct history as well. Tombseye 06:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

So do you agree that a distinctly Indian culture did exist from Punjab-Sindh to Bengal-Assam to Tamil Nadu-Kerala? Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 06:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes and no. I believe the similarities have varied and I'm not sure how fluid they were because even historians aren't sure. For example, Buddhism survived, possibly as a majority religion into the Islamic period in the region whereas in India it was stamped out early. Religion of course does not necessarily divide regions entirely, but this is something of a distinction when talking 'culture'. Also, to some degree India's history could be divided up simply because often one thing takes place in one place and something else in another. Much of the history of the region is also speculative. the reliance upon religious texts (the rig veda) is often simply a leap of faith rather than verifiable history. When someone asked me to help with the Sinhalese people article I realized just how much mythology is passed off as history in this regard. What we do know is that the languages are closely related from the Punjab to Bengal and the people show a strong degree of genetic similarity (though the Punjab and Kashmir seem to show the highest degree of West Asian admixture in the region) that ends at the Indus again paralleling what you are referring to as the cultural region so there is a lot of interaction. Now the cultures though have diverged simply because Islam came and replaced the Buddhism and Hinduism in the area to the point that a majority was formed at some point. This occurred because of geography. it's on the western periphery of the subcontinent. SO while the Persians, Greeks, Arabs and Mongols invade what is today Pakistan, they don't go further east. Then the massive and lengthy unification of what we may term the Indian subcontinent takes place largely with the Muslim empires and the British (who in fact draw the modern borders) whereas the Indian empires are very short, but Ashoka's long term influence is probably the most profound upon Pakistan whereas his influence in India vanishes quickly after his death (his conquests are more admired than the fact that he was a Buddhist for example). I would say though that if one was to write a history of India and include the Punjab, Sind and portions of southern Kashmir, then that would not be out of order as we do have a lengthy time of overlap. Ultimately, though now that we are dealing with a modern state there is no reason why the focus cannot be upon the region as a whole as well. The rationale being that when covering a large area, one event MAY be important in most of the region, but not all of it. So what to do of the area outside? I believe though that in the History of India, it already is the case that the Punjab and Sind are included anyway so this may all be a moot point anyway. There's no reason why their histories can't be discussed in both to some extent with larger articles focusing upon certain events. Tombseye 06:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)


Tombseye is more or less correct on this matter. He has in fact visited Pakistan and as a non-South Asian can provide a neutral voice on the matter. Pakistan, specifically eastern Pakistan, is apart of Indian civilization. Balochistan though a key part of Pakistan by land mass, is historically just a transit region between South Asia, West Asia and Central Asia, overall its people are tied to Middle Easterners rather then Indians/South Asians. The NWFP is often tied to India in ancient times but with the arrivals of Pashtuns in the first millenium of the Common Era onwards, develops equal ties with Central Asia and the Middle East. But yes, Pakistan is the northwestern segment of a common ethno-linguistic/cultural continuoum from the Khyber pass to Bengal, from Kashmir to Sri Lanka. Afghan Historian 00:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes that makes some sense. The Balochis are definitely more connected to Iran than India as such. The problem here is regarding the applicability of the term Pakistan to periods when the very concept did not exist. The term "India" (not the Bharat Ganarajya of today) existed from the time of the ancient Greeks and was applicable to the entire South Asia including what is today Pakistani Punjab and Sindh and even the northwestern tribal areas, since they were part of "Gandhara" Mahajanpada and so on. We should merge History of Pakistan to History of India where India is as defined by Greeks. Maybe we shuld leave out Balochistan from this article and let it have it's own separate history, or merge it with History of Iran where "Iran" not meaning Iran of today but historical "Persia".History of the Republic of India and History of Pakistan shuld begin from 1947 with a background section on the pasts of the respective regions. Rumpelstiltskin223 01:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I've read some interesting things about the term "India". It was not applied to South Asia in ancient times, but to the region of the Punjab the Persian and Greeks conquered. To them, as Arnold Toynbee puts it, that was India and the area to the further east something else. I was looking over the History of India and I'm not sure there is a viable purpose in creating a larger single history because a lot of events seem to take place in one region that have nothing to do with another. It's very much a modern grand narrative perspective to link say the Punjab intrinsically to say Bengal which is really sporadic in the historical events area. I think the articles are all okay as they are. The History of India already covers everything, while this article specifically focuses only upon the region that became Pakistan in modern times. If you merge them some of the information will get diluted, most likely with more focus on the east rather than the region that Pakistan inherited. As for Balochistan and the NWFP, these areas may be more western, actually they are more western as Peshawar felt very much like a Middle Eastern city to me in contrast to eastern Pakistani cities like Karachi, but I digress. The histories of the region are that of two peripheries, the Iranian world in the west (represented by AFghanistan and Iran) and the Indic civilization in the east. Pakistan is in a way a meeting place of the two, which is why I'd say the article is okay as is and in fact could use MORE focus upon region events of importance that are missed or glossed over. The Magadha situation is just not even relevant from the context of this article for example. Tombseye 04:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
There is that. One thing is for sure that Sindh-Punjab were and are culturally very very different from Balochistan and NWFP, that part is true.Let all involved editors ruminate on your points for a while since they are interesting points. Rumpelstiltskin223

No need to merge an articles. Pakistan constitutes the bulk of the region historically known as northwestern India and has a unique history of its own, much like how South India has its own history or Northeast India has its own history. Just keep a History of Pakistan article, but make sure to include the words or something to the effect of "the area now known as Pakistan" or "northwestern South Asia", etc. And Tombseye is right, the term "India", "Hindustan", "Indikos", et all, originally referred to the part of the subcontinent now known as Pakistan. With regards to Peshawar and the Middle East, I confess I dont know exactly how one would define what constitutes a "Middle Eastern city". Afghan Historian 21:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding your statement abt Greek India meaning Pakistan, that is not correct, because Megasthenes was in Pataliputra and referred to full Maurya Empire as Indikos, which was mostly modern day India with a lot of modern-day Pakistan as "outlying territories". Of course, one could use that argument to include Afghanistan into India also. Where that argument would fail is that Afghanistan has a unique geographical identity separate from the rest of South Asia bcoz of Hindu Kush/Khyber Pass but modern-day Pakistan is not geographically distinct from modern-day India (borders are political not geographical). Rumpelstiltskin223 18:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
For the Greeks, Indus and Ganga were two big rivers of India and Pataliputra was the biggest city (read for example Indica of Arrian). The entire Indo-Gangetic plain has been extremely well culturally-integrated throughout history. Using the 60-year old Radcliffe Line to separate history starting from the Bronze age is anachronism. (It's like having separate articles on History of East Germany and History of West Germany, or History of North Korea and History of South Korea, each of which start from the bronze age.) There is clearly a sharp divide between the eastern and western parts of Pakistan (see map and discussion posted by me in section 25). One point to be noted, however, is that 140 million of the 170 million people in Pakistan live on the east of this sharp historical divide, and many of the remaining 30 million (corresponding to regions acquired from Afghans by the British less than 150 years ago, have other affinities that are more important to them (this is not my argument). deeptrivia (talk) 18:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

True, true. Mainstream Pakistani culture is generally what comes from the eastern more strictly South Asian areas. But it would be wrong to deny the influence of the western Pakistanis on the trends of this region. The Pashtuns have played a key part in the construction of this country, whether it be the Pakistan movement, the army, politics, literature, food, etc. One of Pakistan's greatest 20th century poets, Ghani Khan is a Pashtun. The chapli kebab from the NWFP has become a common fast food snack in Pakistan, much more so then the South Asian samosa and in the same manner as the hamburger in America. It was the Pashtuns who were among the first peoples to consolidate Islam in this area, as well as in greater northern India in general. Part of the reason why many Indians want to put Pashtun areas within a "greater India" is because of these historical contributions to Indian Islam made by the Afghans. That is why I've decided to view the Afghans as a non-South Asian group of people with undeniable constant historical links to the Islamic culture of the subcontinent. Besides, some of the Iranian ancestors of the Pasthuns, the Scythians, are also the ancestors of many Punjabi and Rajput clans as well. Baloch food is also becoming widely popular in Pakistan and many Baloch have reached prominent positions in the Pakistani establishment, despite current problems with the province and certain over emphasis on Punjabis. It would be wrong to buy into commonalities and declare South Asian Urdu Islamic culture as the norm of Pakistan, and deny the impact of these periphary Iranic groups. These areas, however, were incorporated into mainstream India by the British, during the 19th century, as peripheral border regions to protect their Indian empire from foreign attack. They may have had little ties with mainstream India, but they served the British geo-political purpose well. The northeastern areas of modern India, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tripura, Burma etc. were also incorporated in this fashion, as northeastern buffers against China and Southeast Asia. Had Balochistan been a bit stronger, it could have easily seceded from India and developed as its own country, much like Burma. Afghan Historian 23:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure, Pakistan is fast developing a more integrated culture that mixes all people together. Any description of modern Pakistan would be incomplete without mentioning the Pashtun and Baloch influence. There's also no denying of strong historical Afghan influences on what is now Pakistan. These historical influences, however, did not end on the Radcliffe line. Rohilkhand would probably have more Pashtun influence than Cholistan. It is hard to find things about the regions that constitute Pakistan on the east of the "cultural divide" that are not applicable to most of the rest of Indo-Gangetic plains. It should be easier to find things about Baluchistan and NWFP that do not apply on the rest of Pakistan. How important should the modern political borders be in the context of the long history that this region has? Same applies to Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, etc.deeptrivia (talk) 01:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Ultimately, modern borders ARE what define historical context because the history of a region is linked to the modern state. In fact, most histories were only written in the last few centuries mirroring the rise of the modern nation-state. Most historians of India make note that while a vague country called India was alluded to in the past, its borders were never exact and this is the case of Germany, Italy, Russia etc. too. Their modern incarnations are what defined them and how their people viewed the world later. Before we had vague borders that were based upon neighbors agreements rather than a solid int'l border that all nations agreed to. The histories are linked to the regions as well. Now of course, we have historical claims as well to contend with. For example, the Russian state's history begins NOT in Moscow, but in Kiev in what is today the Ukraine. To the Russians, there is no Ukrainian history just Russian history whereas to the Ukrainians there is a separate Ukrainian history that intersects with that of Russia (as well as their independent ocurse, Poland, Austria and of course ancient tribes that spanned throughout eastern europe. The Rohilkhand situation is indeed unusual, but in a country of a billion people its consequence is almost strictly localized whereas in the Pakistan context somewhere between 1/5 to 1/4 of the population is Iranic and this puts things more in the context of the Persian-Azeri situation in Iran. And in the modern context we have evolving cultures as well as globalization will accellerate changes even moreso. Tombseye 19:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Then by the same logic History of India shuld be merged with History of the Republic of India. Rumpelstiltskin223 19:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I believe they should be merged, BUT you could keep the two separate if one article is for strictly the modern period, but all of this could get very confusing for people. I would merge the two and mentioning areas that are not part of modern India is not out of the question because remember the History of Russia does mention the Kievan state. It's not mutually exclusive that things of historical importance took place outside of the modern state. In fact, the Kievan State is seen as BOTH the precursor to Russia and the Ukraine just as the Indus Valley civ can be seen as a precursor to both the region of modern Pakistan and of India. In short, these historical entities that are important can be shared. That's the problem with these articles is that various peoples "claim" things as if history can be owned. It merely is. India's history is linked to the Indus Valley civ, while the other peripheral things that take place only in Pakistan are a subjective interpretation as to how relevant they are to India (often the "western" influences are exaggerated b/c the British made them seem so important). Tombseye 20:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I think we disagree here. I feel borders are political and volatile (at least on the time scale of centuries). Politics has become such an important thing for common people only during the last 200 years or so, before which it did not affect most people in any way. Any changes in borders should not imply a rewriting of history. The existence of Ukraine's separate history along with its importance in Russian history is obvious and is comparable to Punjab or Bengal's separate history along with its importance in the Indian history. Any understanding of the Indian history would be incomplete without understanding Bengal's history, and independence of Bangladesh shouldn't imply writing a history of India that doesn't include Bengal. Also, if Bengal and Punjab together form one country (which actually did happen), it would not be such a great idea to try to combine their two histories and try to look them from the same perspective, excluding the breadth of the subcontinent lying between the two regions. Would you have proposed that if the 1971 break-up of Pakistan had not occured? "India" has multiple meanings apart from "Republic of India" in a sense that "Pakistan" cannot have. Pakistan is a modern idea not associated with the region's history beyond the 20th century. "Pakistan" is a term that corresponds to the term "Republic of India". Seeing it in this way, it appears that "History of Pakistan" should correspond to "History of Republic of India". I understand that we have different perspectives of looking at history and what it is supposed to mean, so perhaps it would be hard to get to a quick conclusion. deeptrivia (talk)
It's not a rewriting of history though. Regions inherit the events that took place there. What's the point of discussing something that happened in one place if it has no bearing upon another? Why the emphasis upon Indo-Parthians etc. when their impact is very limited in what is today India? In part, it is the British legacy that made all things western more important. Bengal and Punjab diverge for centuries whereas Russia and the Ukraine are neighbors. A better comparison would be bordering areas near the Punjab. Bengal and Punjab sometimes are part of a single country, but so what? Their histories aren't necessarily the same. Italians and Spaniards speak a language that is based upon Latin and is as similar as the Indo-Aryan languages are (closer than Punjabi and Bengali even) and yet they have separate histories. The only reason the history has been merged is because the British united the region and expanded it further and thus we have the modern perspective of a single History of India when that's a region with countries and each country has its own history ultimately. I don't agree that History of Pakistan should correspond mainly because it is, as we've got through discussing above, an intersecting state. IF it is subsumed into India (and it seems this is more of a hegemonic view rather than a pragmatic perspective as the History of India already discusses events relative to India), then what of the regions that aren't Indian? They will be lost in the shuffle as events of no conquence get discussed and the region's focus lost. It's the wrong approach to take and is generally the view of people of larger states to look at neighboring regions as their own, historically and sometimes geopolitically regardless of whether that is the case or not. History can be shared and that's the crux of the problem here. Two modern countries who sometimes share history and sometimes don't. Thus you need two histories. Tombseye 22:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's pretty clear to me. If France and Spain, with a common border, were to form a single state, it would be pretty naive to look at their history as one and separate from the rest of Europe starting from the ancient period, or to assume that Spain's history is any closer to that of France than Italian history is. The only level from which their history could be looked from the same perspective is History of Europe, a context that will treat France, Spain and Italy at the same level, despite their current political situation (likewise, Gujarat might have influenced Sindh more than Baluchistan). "India" and "Europe" are similar terms in many respects (read, for example: Halbfass, 1988, India and Europe: an essay in understanding, State University of New York Press; Doornbos et al, 1997, Dynamics of state formation: India and Europe compared, Sage Publications). Since a few people ignorant about history might confuse India with Republic of India (unlikely since the article clearly disambiguates on this in the lead), renaming it to "History of the Indian subcontinent" would be acceptable. What do you think of the ancient history of erstwhile United Arab Republic? Cheers, deeptrivia (talk) 15:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
PS: Someone needs to work on the article on History of Balochistan. There seems to be little on the pre-1947 history of the region. If HoP article were to deal with pre-Pakistan history at all (it shouldn't), it is indeed too east-centric, and that would need to be corrected. deeptrivia (talk) 16:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

What Tombseye says is correct with regards to Pakistan, but we must remember, India, as a whole, doesnt have one common history, according to his definition of overlapping history between India and Pakistan. Different events happened in different parts of India. Northwestern India (ie; Rajputana, Punjab and Kashmir) have a historical trend more or less identical to what is in the history of Pakistan. South India has a history that is somewhat different from other parts of India. Northeast India has a history that is almost 100% different from mainstream North India. Like, what happened in what is now Northwestern India is identical or very similar to what happened in Pakistan, even with the unique "Indus-oriented" events taken into consideration. What happened in South India is very different from what happened in North India. For example, the Chola Empire has nothing to do with North India. The Ahom invasion is unrelated to the affairs of the South Indians or the North Indians. While the history is generally the same, the various little differences are not just between India and Pakistan, but between all the different regions of the subcontinent. Pakistan constitutes the bulk of what would have been considered the region of northwestern India pre-Partition, so of course it has a local distinct history. Same with other regions. But its not like, all of India had a 100% common set of events going on that differed from Pakistan. India is a collection of related South Asian regions. Pakistan constitutes a distinct region of South Asia, the northwest, where the subcontinent and both Central Asia and the Middle East meet. Therefore of course you'll have a distinctive history there with a meeting place of ethnicities and languages. Some of what happened in Pakistan may not have occurred in the rest of the subcontinent, yes, so it may not make a lot of sense to include it in a history of India. But, there were parts of India, such as Punjab and Rajputana, where those events did have such an effect, as opposed to other Indian areas. Its for those regions that we should include it. And, Pakistan was in many ways the focal point and base for events in the subcontinent. Much if not most of what happened in this region would undoubtedly affect what happened in the rest of the subcontinent. The drying up of the Indus resulted in the shift of early South Asian civilization to the Gangetic valley. The Aryan migrations into this area soon culminated into an Aryan migration and Aryanization of almost the entire subcontinent. Persian Achaemenid invasions may have only politically affected the Punjab and Sindh, but they allowed for things from those areas to reach the rest of the subcontinent. Persian ideas with regards to political science, architecture, art and certain religious practices soon spread to other parts of the subcontinent, giving certain Indian groups the structure they needed for building a vast and stable pan-subcontinent empire such as the Maurya empire and influenced later Indian poltical science such as the ideas in the Arthashastra. You had art such as the Mauryan Lion columns and the columns at Pataliputra, which certainly had origins in the architecture of Persepolis. Greek invasions allowed for the diffusion of Greek traits in architecture and drama to diffuse. Scythian invasions in this area precipitated Scythian spillover throughout the entire region. Same with the Parthian invasions. Now what may have happened in certain parts of northern and central India did not have an effect in the northwest. The Gupta Empire didnt really touch the northwest such as Punjab or Sindh. The Sassanians, ehh, were probably the one northwestern event that didnt really effect the whole subcontinent or most of it with their control in the area, but there was a distinct blending of Indian and Persian culture here. But, the Muslim invasions did. Arab and Ghaznavid invasions set the stage for the gradual Islamicization of India. The Mongol dip probably didnt make an effect either, but then again that was more in the northern reaches of the Northwest frontier province, that didnt have much tie to India proper anyway. Yet Timur's invasions did, as did the Mughal and Persian invasions of Nadir Shah. The Durrani invasion didnt seem to have much effect in the rest of the country, but it did set the stage for the anarchy in the north that allowed for the competition between Ranjit Singh and the British. Afghan Historian 20:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

As for the regions that dont have direct or even existent connection to the Indian civilization, such as the North West Frontier Province (which in Pre-Pashtun days, actually did via Taxila and the ancient Mahajanapadas) and more importantly, Balochistan (which is tied to Persia), these are probably the main regions that keep up the need for a separate History of Pakistan article. Balochistan does have events that do not tie in with India. It has a separate kind of culture and civilization too. Balochistan has always been known to be a border country between India and Persia. But the thing is, where is this history even mentioned in the History of Pakistan article? The reason some people want to merge the history articles together is that the pre-1947 history in the Pakistan article is almost the same as the history in the pre-1947 India article. Almost every event overlaps. Even the Durrani event is shown, as is the Hun invasions. At most the only discrepancies are the Mongol dip in the 1200's and the greater details involving the Arab invasion of Sindh, even though the India article also talks at shorter length about this event as a whole. Someone needs to be more indepth about the distinctly non-Indian aspects of Pakistan's history when writing this article. We cant just expect to keep to articles separate that almost talk about the same thing, word for word, top to bottom. I guess all this hullaballoo comes from the writing of these two articles. Afghan Historian 20:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Totally agreed. Different events happened in different parts of the subcontinent. That's why History of Punjab, History of Sindh, History of Baluchistan,History of Bengal, History of Kashmir, History of Bihar, History of Karnataka, etc. are (and should be) separate articles. These regions have separate histories at a regional level, and are naturally distinct cultural entities. These histories can be looked together only in the wider context of the subcontinent as a whole (or at least North / South). This "History of the Indian subcontinent" is similar in concept to History of Europe. Pakistan is not a natural cultural entity (contains two strikingly different cultural zones, Indo-Aryan and Iranian, and does not contain the whole of either}. History of Lahore has everything to do with History of Amritsar and little to do with History of Quetta. Modern political borders drawn on the map by the British (even passing through middles of houses) 60 years ago is not a good criterion for classifying ancient and medieval history. As far as the historical growth of culture, language and even empires is concerned, this border is of no significance. deeptrivia (talk) 12:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Side comment: This is not a part of my argument, but apart from the fact that Britannica follows exactly what I am suggesting here, I recall that the Dorling Kindersley's Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia that I had as an 12 year old also only had a single article on "History of the Indian subcontinent", and separate articles about modern states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (which included history starting from 1947.) deeptrivia (talk) 13:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No, not exactly deep trivia. I think a separate History of Pakistan article talking about pre-1947 history is needed. I just think we have to trim and stuff from and to both India and pakistan articles to make sure they dont overlap almost 100% of the time. Afghan Historian 16:29, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

History of Republic of India does not have any overlapping stuff with this article. One suggestion is to concentrate on adding information related to ancient and medieval history of Balochistan and NWFP in this article that is relevant to the entire Pakistan context, and let us see if it works out with the rest of the regions. Regards, deeptrivia (talk) 17:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The History of India proper article talking about pre-1947 history almost matches the History of Pakistan article in pre-1947 content, word for word. Regardless the region of Pakistan is in many ways its own region of the subcontinent, much as South India or the Northeast is, while still tied to civilization of greater India. I think we can have a History of Pakistan article where we can talk about the history in both the Indic and Iranic regions and see how they work together to form what was once Northwest India and greater Iran but now constitutes a separate state. We should trim all miscellaneous northwest related Indian material from the History of India page and instead put back all post-1947 material fromt the History of the Republic of India article. The Indian history books talking about the northwestern Indian historical events such as the Sassanid invasion, the Indo-Parthian era, the era of the Indo-Greeks, the Durranis, the Pashtuns, the Baloch, etc, were all written in the era preceding 1947, when what is now Pakistan was still apart of India. Its 2007 now, 60 years later. We have to treat these histories and label them according to there effects and legacy of today. Here's what the History of Pakistan article should kind of look like from the Table of Contents, with regards to pre-1947 material; this isnt exact, its kind of sloppy, but it should be close enough: I. Mehgarh/Prehistoric II. Indus Valley Civilization III. Aryan migration and Vedic Civilization IV. Mahajanapadas (very very brief however as these areas were exposed to foreign domination early on, but talk about Gandhara, etc.) V. Achaemenid invasions VI. Alexander's Invasion and Selucid Period 

   a. Porus and Omphius
   b. Gedrosia and Arachosia (now part of Pakistani Balochistan)
   c. Pactyans (Pashtuns?)

VII. Mauryan Empire 

    a. Ashoka and Buddhism
    b. Taxila

VIII. Indo-Greeks and Bactrians, etc. 

   a. Greco Buddhism
   b. Gandhara School of Art
   c. More on Taxila?

XV. Indo-Scythians X. Indo-Parthians XI. Kushan Empire 

   a. Kanishka and Buddhist revival

XII. Gupta Empire (kind of brief) XIII. Indo-Sassanians Afghan Historian 22:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, but I've been busy with other stuff. Anyway, I like the idea of concentrating more on the region and filling in gaps. It's exactly what this article needs. I would divide the Aryan invasion from the Vedic age as they have something of a gap between them and the Aryans may have included a smattering of groups that split off early into Dards and possibly eastern Iranians. Also, rather than Mahajpandas the section should simply be Gandhara as that's the only old kingdom in question. Also, the section on Bactria should be Bactria, Greco-Bactrians and then Indo-Greeks (who come last in the sequence). Next the sections should be Scythians and Parthians and then in the article discuss a regional development into Indo-Scythians and Indo-parthians (as they didn't arrive as "Indo-Scythians" etc.). Same with Sassanians. Also, the Kushan period doesn't beign with Kanishka, but other than these few things, the plan looks good. I would take out The Magadha empire since the Mauryans is the only relevant period, particularly with Ashoka's Buddhist influence that lasted well into the Arab period. Along with the Pashtuns, some mention of the Hindkowans could be warranted as well. Tombseye 04:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Indians Are Vandalizing This Page

I am bloody sick and tired of this garbage is there anyway we can get these brats banned please? All the time I see things changed, without even posting anything in the talk section...talk about insecure.

When people break up Pakistan, and then have a section on wikipedia that talks about its history as if it existed before they broke away from you, then you'll understand why some Indians are supposedly "vandalizing" 71.119.255.31 20:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

User:BK2006 - 02:03, January 27, 2007

Actually, one might plausibly make an identical argument about India before its independence, asserting that there never was an "India" per se, but rather an immense patchwork of ethnic groups, principalities, and empires before independence. I'm not sure you want to go there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.119.255.31 (talk • contribs) - 21:31, May 23, 2007

1947 to 1956 and the Language movment

The article makes zero mention of the period 1947-1955. There were significant incidents during this period, like the 1954 election, the unstable democracy that saw a surprisingly high number of cabinets being organized and ousted. It also saw the big cultural movement : Language movment, that was the first rift between the West Pakistan and the East Pakistan. Considering the significance of the time period, it is surprising that the article mentions nothing about the time period. --Ragib 10:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point. These are exactly the types of things this article needs more of. Tombseye 15:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

In general, the coverage between 1947 and 1971 leaves a lot to be desired. And the 70s and 80s need a lot of expansion too. I agree with Tombseye -- this is the kind of things this article is supposed to be about. I quote myself from above: "The entire history of Pakistan movement is summarized in a tiny paragraph, and there are similar tiny paragraphs on Pakistan resolution, partition, and such events that led to the creation of Pakistan. "Pakistan" serves as the "main article" for the history of Pakistan after it was created (sec 11)! The article covers next to nothing of the history between 1947 and 1971 -- an eventful time when Pakistan fought two wars. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 is not mentioned at all, and one line is written about Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. There is little information about Pakistan in the 1980s. There is little economic history, society, advances in technology, agriculture, etc, little about the problems like the one in Balochistan, etc." These things will take an entire article to cover satisfactorily, and such an article is badly needed. (This would be comparable to History of the Republic of India or History of the People's Republic of China.) deeptrivia (talk) 16:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Half the article should be about pre-Partition history and the other half should describe purely Pakistani history such as the Pakistan movement, the early years, the middle years plus the coup, the first two wars, the constitutional struggle, the ethno-linguistic clashes, the East Bengal independence movement, the simultaneous tensions in Balochistan, the 80's, etc. While much of the Indian history in Pakistan is local based, as much if not a little more is tied with the mainstream history of the subcontinent. All common eras to the subcontinent such as the Indus civilization, Vedic India/Aryans, Alexander, maybe Achaemenids, Mauryans, Kushans, Guptas, and Muslim invasions, (minus Arab conquest of Sindh) should be rather brief and northwestern India-specific events should get more coverage. At the end of pre-1947/Muslim League history, there should be a note stating something to the effect of "for more information on pre-independence Pakistani history, see "History of India", "History of Afghanistan" etc. Especially since most of the detailed pre-1947 history is tied to Indian and Afghani eras. History of Balochistan should also be added to external links. Afghan Historian 21:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

"All common eras to the subcontinent such as the Indus civilization, Vedic India/Aryans, Alexander, maybe Achaemenids, Mauryans, Kushans, Guptas, and Muslim invasions, (minus Arab conquest of Sindh) should be rather brief and northwestern India-specific events should get more coverage." While this is very justifiable in terms of efficiency/economy, it will be quite misleading for any reader who hasn't much of an idea about the history of the region, since many less important events will be given more prominence than major events. Almost all of the most important events of the region are common to atleast the entire Indo-Gangetic region. E.g., most inhabitants in the region are Indo-Aryans, and speak Indo-Aryan languages, yet Iron-age Aryan culture will not be adequately covered. Delhi sultanate and Mughal empire are definitely more important to the history of this region than Arab invasion of Sindh. Mauryans and Kushans have ruled almost the entire region for longer periods than perhaps any other single dynasty. Attempts to focus on events specific to northwest of the subcontinent (a) cannot be neatly done, (b) would be misleading since it gives relatively minor events too much importance at the cost of events that have really shaped the culture, language, religion, etc. of the region. In fact, the entire exercise of coming up with a separate ancient and medieval history of Pakistan is a POV not accepted by many outside those educated on textbooks shaped by a political agenda like the Two Nation Theory in mind. deeptrivia (talk) 16:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Dentistry in Mehrgarh

I've added a paragraph on early proto-dentistry in Mehrgarh. I've also added the link to the announcement—a one-page pdf—in the journal Nature (April 2006). The Nature article is fascinating and well worth reading. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Protected

Because of the blitz of edit warring, I have protected the page. Thanks. --Ragib 19:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Some people want to bombard the article by using terms like "Modern Pakistan" and "What is now Pakistan", at least 30 times in the article. Pakistan has been known by dozens of names; and "India" for less than 100 years. I dont see the point of doing this, however the "modern Pakistan" explanation has been given at the top of the article, and these nationalists are still not happy. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 20:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It is confusing to explain such things at the top and then talk of "Ancient Pakistan" in the rest of the text. — Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 21:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Its not confusing. Just like "Ancient India", when there was no land on the face of this plant called "India" until 1850. Ancient Pakistan is a valid term, and to make Indians happy, an explanation has already been given. Only certain people seem to be making the compromises here, and you are not one of them. I dont remember ever editing anything on the Indian history article, I always discussed the matter. Please make this a habit also.
Your edits would be classed as vandalism since you are not doing anything constructive, but editing (in groups mind you) to promote your own agenda.
--Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 22:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

You say there was no land on the face of this planet called India until 1850. I assume this map was made post-1850. — Nobleeagle [TALK] [C] 22:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Map of the wolrd in 200 BCE

Why do you keep posting this revised map all the time? Does it never occur to you how all the spellings are exact same as modern maps?. I.e Its a translated map.
Here is an Original British Map from 1808. Note, how the term India was used for the Ocean only, and there is NO land called India. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/asia_1808.jpg
Here is an Arabic map. Once again note, No India. http://www.conncoll.edu/academics/departments/relstudies/290/theory/worldmaps/118.gif
--Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 23:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice job Unre4L. I don't know why Indians are so obsessed with Pakistani related articles. Its not like we go to their articles and edit it. Mercenary2k 00:15, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem?

No one is trying to 'mislead or confuse people'. The first sentence mentions that Pakistan was founded in 1947. Why is their a need to mention modern day or present day every single time? Should we change the aticle of Lahore, and mention that it is located in modern day Pakistan? More on this later. IP198 16:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I found the qualification "what is now the land area comprising modern-day (Pakistan)" inserted in the narrative! Come on, guys, if "ancient Pakistan" has to go, then so do these ridiculous and redundant characterizations. Either use "what is now" or "present-day," but not both. Also, it is fine to use such qualifiers in the introduction and in the first section, but, really, there's no need to keep repeating it again and again. If you insist on doing this again and again, we will have to have an RfC at the Village Pump. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Fowler that mentioning the fact (what is now, present day) early in the article is good enough. Repeating it every time a mention is made makes the prose awful, and ridiculous. Good writing practices would involve mentioning it at the start of the article, and later use just "Pakistan". Similar examples can be seen in History of Germany. For example, it talks about "Around the beginning of the 16th century there was much discontent in Germany with abuses in the Catholic Church and a desire for reform." There was no single country named Germany back in the 16th century, the article is clearly referring to the region that is modern Germany. Unless the article is written exclusively for kindergarten students, there is no practical need to repeat the phrase "what is now" every time a mention of Pakistan is made. Thanks. --Ragib 23:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Lead

The lead is too detailed, but also omits the quite important post 1947 event summaries. --Ragib 12:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Will work on that and add some comments here. Thanks! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:54, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Clarification in the first sentence

After discussions with user:Deeptrivia, I added a clarification in first sentence of the article: "The history of Pakistan—which for the period preceding the nation's founding in 1947 is (presented here as) the history of the region that is now Pakistan and therefore overlaps with the histories of Afghanistan, India, and Iran—traces back to the beginnings of human life in South Asia."[1] However, that was reverted by user:Bakasuprman with an edit summary, "(Pakistan cant have a history so long if the word was not coined up until 1933. nadirali-esque edits are not appreciated)." Since I had discussed some of these issues with user:Deeptrivia, I will (if he doesn't mind) post part of that earlier discussion here.

First, is there precedence for such a history? Yes, there is. Of the four large encyclopedias, three—Encarta, Columbia Encyclopedia, and World Book Encyclopedia—do have a histories of Pakistan, more or less along the lines of the Wikipedia article (although less detailed). The Encarta article, written by Saeed Shafqat, full professor at Columbia University, begins with:

The World Book Encyclopedia article on Pakistan, written by Ayesha Jalal, Professor at Tufts and author of The Sole Spokesman, begins with,

Similarly, the Columbia Encyclopedia (6th edition, 2001-2005) has a History of Pakistan which begins with:

These articles are written by people in mainstream scholarship, tenured professors at major American universities. The point is that it doesn't matter that Pakistan or Bangladesh were not even a gleam in anyone's eyes before the 20th century, the histories of the regions now occupied by these countries can nonetheless be written, and will necessarily be different—not by POV, but by their focus—from a larger history of (historical) India or South Asia. That has already begun to happen with new sub-topics like Mehrgarh, which were excavated in the 1970s and 80s, long after the partition, and whose current archaeological expertise is either in Pakistan or in France, but not in India. The emerging historiography is already focusing (and will likely focus even more) on links to other contemporaneous Neolithic cultures in Iran and Central Asia rather than later cultures in the region of current-day India.

The History of Pakistan can be written by focusing on all the histories that intersect in the region that is now Pakistan. That means that sometimes that history will be a part of the History of Punjab. Other times, that history might be part of a history of Iran or Aghanistan. For example, Mehrgarh was a part of the History of Neolithic Iran in its early phase, but became a part of the History of the Indus Civilization (as a precursor) in its later phase. The problem arises when someone tries to impute a historical or cultural imperative to the region that is now Pakistan and looks for seeds of Pakistan in events of long ago. That is not what we are doing on this page. We are simply presenting the history of the region. Lastly, as pointed out perceptively to me by user:Deeptrivia, we are not making any false connections, or providing an artificial unity to the history, just because the region later became a country.

I am therefore undoing Bakasuprman's reversion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

  1. ^ Jalal, Ayesha. "Pakistan." World Book Online Reference Center. 2007. <http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Article?id=ar410880>

Fowler&Fowler did you get a chance to consider rephrasing the lead yet? Arguments such as " The point is that it doesn't matter that Pakistan or Bangladesh were not even a gleam in anyone's eyes before the 20th century," could easily be debated (e.g., I presented several sources like UC Berkeley, Britannica, who start Pakistan's history from the 1930s, and explicitly point people to Indian history for events before that), but for the moment, I would suggest let's try to fix up problems that could be easily be fixed. Let's at least have a disclaimer telling people properly what the article is dealing with at the moment. One problem, as I mentioned yesterday, is that for A and B to "overlap", we should have some notion of separate existence of A and B first. deeptrivia (talk) 04:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I forgot about the "overlap." I have now changed the first disclaimer sentence to: "The history of Pakistan—which for the period preceding the nation's founding in 1947 is presented here as the history of the region that is now Pakistan and therefore part of the histories of Afghanistan, India, and Iran—traces back to the beginnings of human life in South Asia." How does that sound? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks better. Let's see if we can put this into better perspective. The current population of Pakistan is 170 million, of which about 30 million (18%) live in Baluchistan and NWFP and 82 % live in Punjab and Sind. However, this has been very different in past. For example, the population of Baluchistan has increased by a whopping 900% in the last 50 years -- it was just over a million in 1951. It seems we know little about the History of Baluchistan at wikipedia anyway. This article mentions nothing, and the article on it starts on the day of the British conquest. We see the same thing in all encyclopedias. At any rate, Balochistan has been more of a buffer zone between India and Persia rather than a part of either. On the other hand, Punjab and Sind (currently over 80% of the population, and historically a much higher share of population of the region) have been parts of India proper, in fact, perhaps the only "India" known to most Persians and Greeks. If all these things could be made clearer in the lead without complicating it too much, that would be great. deeptrivia (talk) 15:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Fowler, you are putting too much detail in the lead. Mentioning that Pakistan was founded in 1947 is enough, no need to put in "as the history of the region that is now Pakistan" as well in the same sentence. IP198 17:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The Unref tag

Aparently, we have had this tag at the top of the page since December. And there is only one missing citation in the whole of article. So, can't we just remove the disputed text and the annoying template altogether? --IslesCapeTalk 20:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree. I can't see any ongoing discussions about unreferenced material or neutrality, and the article looks fine to me on those accounts. deeptrivia (talk) 21:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
PS: Except that I just noticed that some things that were changed by agreement after much discussion are back again, probably by accident. deeptrivia (talk) 21:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Deeptrivia, What are those things that are back? Let's set them right. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It should have been obvious :) We've been talking about words like "overlaps", and the whole tone in the lead that leaves a misleading impression . deeptrivia (talk) 16:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

PS. Also, how did the article get a "B" rating? Is there a discussion for that? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Caucasoid Mumbo-Jumbo

In the Golden Age section of the article there is a paragraph:

The cited paper compares the allele frequencies of four genes (which although popular in recent anthropological studies are but four out of the 25,000+ genes in the human genome): HLA-A, -B, -DQB1, and -DRB1 and showed that for those genes the Baloch of Iran are very similar to Baloch and Brahui of Pakistan, and concluded, "This may reflect an admixture of Brahui and Baloch ethnic groups of Pakistan in the Balochistan province of Iran." It says nothing about Caucasoid which is not a molecular-biological term, but rather a much older physical-anthropological notion. The paragraph above claims that "this makes the Baloch region distinct from the rest of South Asia." The paper in fact makes exactly the opposite point, that the Baloch of Iran have an admixture of South Asia. I am therefore removing that entire paragraph which is full of bogus surmising. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

PS. I have also removed the next paragraph, which is full of similar surmising:

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The (featured) article on Pashtun people makes references to Herodotus and even Rig Veda in this context. That article mentions that these people were in eastern Afghanistan, but remember that there's no clear line dividing the region. The A in Pakistan is for Afghania, and that most Afghan governments have declared the line invalid. I don't have much information about the Baloch region. Let's see if we can find references for this, but it doesn't look like information that should be removed straightaway. deeptrivia (talk) 16:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, the text I removed sounds like late 19th-century anthropology. The point is that we have a neolithic culture in Mehrgarh, Baluchistan (c 7000 BCE) with links and contacts with similar neolithic cultures in Iran and Central Asia, which later gives rise to the Indus Valley Civilization. In other words, we have a late neolithic/chalcolithic culture 30 miles south in Nausharo, Pakistan, with knowledge of pottery (c. 4000 BCE), and we a string of coastal sites from the Makran coast in Baluchistan to the Indus delta with shell-work bangles (dating 7000-4000 BCE). I quote from the chapter on Mehrgarh in my copy of The Ancient South Asian World by Kenoyer and Heuston (OUP, 2005), "By 2800 CE these trading centers would grow into South Asia's first cities." In addition, later, you see IVC sites in Sutkagen Dor in Western coastal Baluchistan. To say, as the text does, that Balochi tribes did not arrive at least until the first millennium CE and expand as far as Sindh until the second millennium doesn't make any sense. There may have been a later migration, but human migrations and movement are built layer upon layer. Baluchistan is a part of Pakistan, therefore the history of the region that is now Baluchistan is a part of the history of Pakistan. It may or may not be a part of the History of (historical) India or even that of Indian subcontinent (if you think of the Indian subcontinent only in geophysical terms and identify it with the continental crust of the Indian plate), but it is part of the history of the region that is now Pakistan. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
PS And according to Jean-Francois Jarrige, "For the first time in the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent, a continuous sequence of dwelling-sites has been established from 7000 – 500 BCE, (as a result of the) explorations in Pirak from 1968 to 1974; in Mehrgarh from 1975 to 1985; and of Nausharo from 1985 to 1996." That speaks to continuity not disjunction between Baluchistan (or at least the Bolan River Valley) and the Indus Valley. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

PPS. Finally, Encyclopaedia Britannica's section on "Neolithic Agriculture in the Indus Valley and Baluchistan," says:

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure, Fowler, not doubts about any of this. There is evidence of continuity between Mehrgarh and IVC, and that obviously links Mehrgarh with Indian history too, regardless of whether the site was excavated before or after 1947, or whether Mehrgarh lies on the Indian plate or the Iranian plateau ((Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir do not lie on the Indian plate either. Indian subcontinent lies predominantly on the Indian plate, but that is not the defining criterion for it. ) My question is, how are all these obviously true statements related to removing the mention of Pashtun people by Herodotus et al, material that survived FAC on Pashtun people? How do these facts contradict with any of the following: "Iranian tribes existed in western Pakistan during a very early age and that Pakhtun tribes were inhabitants around the area of Peshawar prior to the period of Alexander the Great as Herodotus refers to the local peoples as the "Paktui" and as a fearsome pagan tribe similar to the Bactrians. Iranian Balochi tribes did not arrive at least until the first millennium CE and would not expand as far as Sindh until the 2nd millennium." ? All that is being refered to here is the fact that the Balochi people migrated into the subcontinent in the 11th century due to the Seljuk invasion of Kerman. This is regardless of the Mehrgarh culture that existed 6000 years before that. deeptrivia (talk) 00:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was responding to many things (and being in a hurry didn't clarify). I was replying among others to your statement in a section above, "At any rate, Balochistan has been more of a buffer zone between India and Persia rather than a part of either. On the other hand, Punjab and Sind (currently over 80% of the population, and historically a much higher share of population of the region) have been parts of India proper, in fact, perhaps the only "India" known to most Persians and Greeks." Sorry if I misinterpreted you, but I'm not sure what point you were trying to make there, if not that Baluchistan shouldn't be a part of the History of the-region-that-is-now-Pakistan, because the History of the-region-that-is-now-Pakistan should really be the history of the historically populated part of Pakistan, which in any case is subsumed in the History of (historical) India. The point I was trying to make is that since Mehrgarh is in Baluchistan, that since Baluchistan was not always sparsely populated and therefore historically unimportant (given the history of Mehrgarh and its later morphing into IVC), that since Baluchistan was not considered a part of (historical) India until the British acquired it, (or at the very earliest until the Mughals sporadically subdued it), that since no old world map includes it in Indikos, Indicus, Indiana, etc., but rather as Gedrosia, it makes an even stronger case that the History of the-region-that-is-now-Pakistan be not just the History of (historical) India, but rather a mix of Histories of (historical) Iran, (historical) Afghanistan and (historical) India.

Yes, I know about the Indian subcontinent all too well (having copy edited it recently and having removed claims that Baluchistan was not a part of the subcontinent because it was not on the Indian plate). And I apologize if there was a spill-over of my frustration from copy editing that article. You are right that what I wrote above doesn't apply to the the second paragraph that I removed. I will put the second paragraph in. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now. So you are saying that since 7000 years ago there was a settlement in Mehrgarh that is strongly related to IVC refutes the fact that the region's history is overwhelmingly related to the rest of the subcontinent. Or, maybe, the evidence that people lived there 7000 years ago on a 500-acre settlement refutes the fact that Balochistan was always sparsely populated, despite census figures showing that even 50 years ago the population in that region was just over a million. I agree there must have been strong contacts between neolithic and chalcolithic civilizations in West Asia and South Asia. It is also obvious, regardless of Mehrgarh, that human beings did not evolve in South Asia, so they must have migrated from West Asia. Well, why go 7000 years back when even today there is strong influence of Persian culture in the region. However, let's remember that the influence is the same all over north India, and in fact, the nodal centers from which this Persian influence spread into regions like Punjab and Sind were not Isfahan or Herat or Quetta, but the Persianized courts and sultanates of Delhi, Lucknow and Agra. Are we, then to say that "the History of India overlaps with the History of India, History of Iran, and History of Afghanistan"? Adding Iran and Afghanistan is completely redundant as far as Punjab and Sind are concerned. Histories of NWFP and Balochistan, on the other hand, are directly related to Afghanistan and Iran respectively in a way that the history of rest of the subcontinent is not. My point was, that when those two regions just have 18% of the country's population now, and it's known that historically it was an even lower share, and also that these regions were added to the British empire barely over a century ago (1890s), then why give a sweeping impression of overlap of entire Pakistan's history with Afghanistan and Iran. A more extreme version of this will be to open the article on History of India by saying that the History of India overlaps with that of China, because Ladakh or Sikkim are in India and Tibet is now under Chinese administration. It seems like even the word "overlaps" is not going to be removed now. deeptrivia (talk) 05:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
By the way, Mehrgarh is an interesting word, that combines the Persian word for Sun "Mehr", with the Sanskrit suffix for hill fort "garh", the same word that you find all the way up to Chhattisgarh. deeptrivia (talk) 05:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Lead

The lead of this article is could be made more accurate without making it too detailed. We had agreed to some changes, which have not yet been implemented. I am proposing some changes here again. Please point out any problems or inaccuracies in this lead:

The state of Pakistan was created when British India was partitioned in 1947. The region's history traces back to the beginnings of human life in South Asia.[1] The lands of present-day Pakistan belonged to both the heartland and frontier of the ancient South Asian world.[2] Spanning the western expanse of the Indian subcontinent and the eastern borderlands of the Iranian plateau, the region served as South Asia's gateway to the Middle East and Central Asia. This attribute of geography would, in turn, greatly influence the region's history.

The only major change here is that, as Fowler&Fowler and I had agreed, the assertion that Pakistan had a pre-1947 history that "overlapped" with Indian, Iranian and Afghan histories, is removed. Again, as we can see in the lead itself, writing a general pre-1947 history for Pakistan is inherently problematic and is best not done. Baluchistan and Punjab have served entirely different roles in history, and now "the region" as a whole is generalized as a gateway to the Middle East. For now, let's see if this lead is fine. deeptrivia (talk) 16:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

BTW, (I'm in a hurry right now) but the changes we agreed to were reverted by Bakaman and IP198. Will reply to your new suggestion later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks like there are no suggestions on improving this further. I should wait for one more day, since I do feel this is still not the best solution. Following that I'll replace it on the article, and any improvements could be directly made there. deeptrivia (talk) 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I have reworded the lead and added the information about the partition of British India in a footnote (which is where I think it belongs and not in the lead proper). The new lead sentences now read:

I think this gives a balanced view of the history and doesn't over-stress the connection to the Middle-East etc. Also, I have replaced the word "overlaps" with "shared." The links Afghanistan, India, and Iran now link to the current-day countries, and so the statement that the history is shared with those countries is accurate. I have also added 6 maps of the region from 1765 to 1909 (five from the Imperial Gazetteer of India) in the Colonial Era section, which show that what is current-day Pakistan was not covered in the traditional definition of India, or for that matter Afghanistan or Iran. Therefore, the words, "... was shared with those of ..." is more accurate than the previous version "... is a part of the histories of Afghanistan, India, and Iran," since regions like Baluchistan, were not exclusively a part of the histories of Afghanistan or Iran. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

  1. ^ Jalal, Ayesha. "Pakistan." World Book Online Reference Center. 2007. <http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Article?id=ar410880>
  2. ^ Kenoyer, J. Mark, and Kimberly Heuston. 2005. The Ancient South Asian World. Oxford University Press. 176 pages. ISBN 0195174224.
  3. ^ Pakistan was created as the Dominion of Pakistan on 14 August 1947 after the end of British rule in, and partition of, British India.
  4. ^ Jalal, Ayesha. "Pakistan." World Book Online Reference Center. 2007. <http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Article?id=ar410880>
  5. ^ Kenoyer, J. Mark, and Kimberly Heuston. 2005. The Ancient South Asian World. Oxford University Press. 176 pages. ISBN 0195174224.
I think this is reasonable for now. Good job. Of course, the issue of the article as a whole being misleading remains. Fowler&fowler rightly said that people do want to look at read a history specific to the country they belong to, and such history sells very well in a world deeply rooted in nationalism. The purpose purpose of wikipedia is not to serve such readers on a gold platter but to make them understand that theirs is a wrong way of looking at history. These are the places where the difference between articles written by a single professor for an encyclopedia much criticized for pandering to local prejudices, and those from highly peer-reviewed encycolpedias that have evolved over decades becomes evident. For now, let's keep this lead, and consider this resolved :) deeptrivia (talk) 14:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, a minor issue, could we be more specific about the South Asian world. I know it corresponds to the Indian subcontinent in American universities, but it's not clear enough for anyone because the article for South Asia provides many different meanings of the term not applicable in this context. Also, the word "partition" in the footnote could be lined to Partition of India. deeptrivia (talk) 14:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the new lead is good, though i did not see a problem with a previous one. The one word that i believe should be taken out is "heartland". The heartland of South Asia is the Delhi, UP region not Pakistan. IP198 02:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, the sentence says, "... heartland and frontier of the ancient South Asian world." The word "heartland" according to the OED is, "A (usually extensive) central region of homogeneous (geographical, political, industrial, etc.) character." And according to Webster's Unabridged, "heartland" means, "an area of decisive importance : a pivotal or nuclear area <the entire heartland of the country, the Mississippi Basin -- A.W.Baum> <the German industrial heartland in the Ruhr valley -- Henry Wallace> <the temperate highlands which are the heartland of the republic -- A.P.Whitaker> <the heartland of Eastern duck and goose shooting -- Newsweek>"
I would say that Sind and Punjab would definitely belong to the heartland of Ancient South Asia, whereas the region of present-day Baluchistan and NWFP would belong to the frontier. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
One potential problem could be due to the multiple definitions of the term South Asia, which sometimes include Iran and Afghanistan. Baluchistan and NWFP are no longer frontiers of South Asia in that case. Claiming them to be so in this article would be preferring one definition of South Asia over all others. I'd like to know what's the problem with using Indian subcontinent, a much less ambiguous term. deeptrivia (talk) 13:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, it seems the second sentence was problematic for all kinds of reasons, not least that it made the lead repetitive. I have removed it. It should also take care of some of the objections of both Deeptrivia and IP198. The "Indian subcontinent," as you can tell was (and is) mentioned, and "heartland" has been removed. Also, no matter which definition of "South Asia" you prefer, the sentences make sense and don't need to be modified. BTW, the term "Indian subcontinent" is not without problems either. The politically correct term is increasingly becoming, "South Asian subcontinent," or just "subcontinent," if the context is understood. The OED, for example, in its entry for subcontinent, gives three examples of usage: 1971 R. RUSSELL in Aziz Ahmad's Shore & Wave 7 "The novel in Urdu, as in all the modern languages of the South Asian sub-continent, is of very recent growth." 1972 Times of India 28 Nov. 11/4 "Mr. Azad outlined his Government's views on the political problems of the sub-continent." 1978 L. HEREN Growing up on The Times v. 175 "Many Indians refused to accept the partition of the sub-continent." Notice that they don't mention, "Indian subcontinent." This omission is not accidental. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if political correctness could be one of the reasons for your case for "South Asia" or "South Asian subcontinent", but doubted it since it's common knowledge that political correctness is one of the things we are not bothered about at all at wikipedia, and it is not a criterion we ever use to decide on things here. The case for naming is simple -- we use Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). So, even while people in a part of the world are elated with words like "South Asian Ocean", "South Asian summer", "South Asian ink", "American South Asians", we are not going to do that here until it starts conforming with the naming conventions. deeptrivia (talk) 23:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not using the term politically correct in the usual pejorative sense, but in the sense of inclusive language. Political correctness has a good side too, since it is based on sensitivity to the various implications of a term. Words like "African-American" (for "black," and "black" itself for "Negro"), "Disabled" (for "crippled"), "Mute" (for "dumb"), "Mentally handicapped," (for "retarded"), "Down's syndrome," (for "mongoloid"), were all considered politically correct once, and they are all standard usage now. We are very much concerned with usage on Wikipedia: try changing disabled to crippled. The OED is very much a test of usage, not political correctness in the pejorative sense. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

If you seriously think there's a case for name change of Indian subcontinent, please discuss it on the talk page of that article. However, given 541 google hits on .edu sites for the proposed name compared to 128,000 for the current title, it shouldn't be hard to predict the outcome. deeptrivia (talk) 01:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Obviously I am not, otherwise, I would not have used "Indian subcontinent" in the lead. "South Asia" as I have mentioned before, is used more often in the context of history. If you do a similar Google search on "South Asia" you get 848,000 hits. Anyway, I don't think any more changes need to be made in the lead. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Two Pages?

I'd like to get various editors' opinion (especially the ones who have worked on this page like Tombseye and IP198) of the following idea. Since this article includes both the history of the Pakistan region until 1947 and that of the republic(s) of Pakistan thereafter, and since it is beginning to burgeon, I thought it might be a good idea to split the page into two pages: History of the Pakistan region (which would have the history of the region until 1947) and History of the (Islamic) Republic of Pakistan, which would have the history from 1947 onwards, but with (and this is important), the History of Pakistan page redirecting to History of the Pakistan region. In addition, the History of the Pakistan region page would have a dab note at the top saying, "For the history of the region after 1947, please refer to History of the (Islamic) Republic of Pakistan".

I'd also like to know what you feel about having a History of South Asia page, which would include more histories and be written along the lines of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. South Asia: A Timeline In Art History 8000BC-Present. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

PS I've created a sample page, History of the Pakistan region, for your viewing. It is 64 KB and with copy editing and pruning could be reduced to 40-45 KB, making it eminently readable. Note that it is quite different from the History of India (approx. 67 KB), and more focused on the region of current-day Pakistan. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to have two articles? If their are two articles i believe some people will want to remove the pre 47 Pakistan article, and just keep the post 47 one. Also if size is the problem we can summarize some of the sections. if that is not enough what we could do is create a seperate article for the preIslamic history of Pakistan. You cant have an article for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan without mentioning the reason why it was createad. To do that you would have to start with Muhammad bin Qasims liberation of Sindh, all the way to partition. As well as adding post 47 material.

btw fowler, i was looking at the pg history, and i think u have done a great job on this article. IP198 22:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

P.S - I dont mind their being a South Asia history pg. IP198 22:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't Muhammad bin Qasims "liberation" of Sindh too recent an event in Pakistan's long history. I suggest we would have to start with the Big Bang to explain why Pakistan was created. :) Jokes apart, I too am impressed by the quality work Fowler&fowler is putting into this article. deeptrivia (talk) 00:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Deep, while that was funny, i dont know why you didnt take the idea seriously. I think the article is fine as it is but you want to change it to start from 47. Thats fine, buy you have to mention the reason why Pakistan was createad. It boils down to this the founders did not create Pakistan because of the Indus Valley Civilization, Gandhara, etc. They createad Pakistan because Muslims ruled the subcontinent for centuries, and they did not want to be part of a "Hindu Raj". No history of Pakistan will be complete without mentioning Muslim rule, which begins from Muhammad bin Qasim.

btw how is Muhammad bin Qasim viewed in India? IP198 17:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Fowler's work and other matters

Great work so far Fowler! You've clearly put in a lot of work and I'll help when I can and time allows. The Pashtuns article took a lot of out me in terms of free time and I was going to work on the Persians and help with History of Azerbaijan and this article as well I guess! I'd recommend not making two articles as that will confuse laypersons and I think anyone with any semblance of comprehension will understand that the modern nation called Pakistan has inherited a history that is both its own and is often shared with various neighbors, which is probably universally true. Great lead by the way. Very complete. So far the article is really shaping up and I guess at some point will constitute a good article at this rate! I'll check in from time to time and help out and if there's anything specific you need help with let me know. Probably more citations would be cool as well. I added the bibliography at the end as I consulted many of those books when I wrote some of the previous versions of this article. If possible, citing from them and other sources could help matters further. I like your neutral academic rendition and wording. Good job! Tombseye 17:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Still unaddressed problems with lead

Although I won't like doing this, I might have to put a neutrality tag on this article. "shared with" is almost synonymous with "overlaps with" which we had decided to remove. Why can't we adopt NPOV here? I think a convincing explanation on "shared with" more accurate than "shared between" will suffice. I'll wait for 24 hours. deeptrivia (talk) 17:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is NPOV issue really. Most histories written simply go with Pakistan's history etc. but here we have added that it is a shared history which seems to be a good explanation and rendition. It's pretty neutral given the many different sides of the argument presented here and how this is rendered in academia and history books. Since the modern country exists in an area that has had independent kingdoms centered in its immediate vicinity as well as being part of larger entities that spanned South Asia and the Near East, this seems like a logical approach. The local names of the regions reflected either local ethnic groups, dynasties and kingdoms as well so the rendition that is currently at the intro seems pretty good to me. Tombseye 18:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
If looked upon carefully, the sentence has an easily resolvable logical contradiction that I am trying to point out. Consider these two cases:
Proposition 1: I was born in 1947.
Proposition 2A: Before my birth, I shared my apartment with X and Y.
Proposition 2B: Before my birth, my apartment was shared between X and Y.
Assuming propositon 1 to be true, which of the two proposition (2A or 2B) appears to have a logical contradiction.
The first sentence of the article appears to me to bear the same contradiction. Perhaps it would be made more evident by a rephrasing that does not alter the meaning: "before 1947, when Pakistan was created, it shared its history with X, Y and Z." I am proposing using "shared between" instead of "shared with". This is so obvious (one doesn't need to know anything about history to get this right), that I thought this is what F&F had intended. Even if one believes that it makes sense to consider the history of the region itself as distinct from others and that this article is about "Pakistan region", between 1880s and 1947, the region was a part of British India, and before that the region was shared between Persia, India and Afghanistan. "shared with" has problem no matter which way one looks at history. deeptrivia (talk) 18:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
No, it is not: "I was born in 1947," but rather "I changed my name in 1947, before that date I had many names, which I will describe in these pages." More later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Again, if you are serious with "I changed my name in 1947", propose changing the phrase from "country's creation" to something else. Please try to have the same academic standards regarding Original Research for talk pages as for the article. deeptrivia (talk) 21:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The reason why it has to be "shared with" and not "shared between" is that the history of the region is not reducible to the histories of Iran, Afghanistan, and India. Baluchistan, for example, was only sporadically considered a part of the History of Iran, and never a part of the history of India until the late 19th century. Same with NWFP—it is not reducible to the histories of India and Afghanistan, although it was included in the histories of each during certain periods. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Such overwhelming significance to Baluchistan (with roughly a million people in 1951) and NWFP, for which you propose to make a sweeping generalisation for the entire region (rest 90% of the population) is reflected nowhere in the content of the article. Let's try to ensure that readers who are ignorant about the subject are not completely misguided about the history of the region. Even if Baluchistan was so important, the statement with "shares with" still remains self-contradictory. It remains self-contradictory regardless of any historical fact. At least, let's try to correct the language to remove obvious logical fallacies. deeptrivia (talk) 23:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand, what is illogical and self-contradictory about a region sharing its history with those of Afghanistan, India, and Iran? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:18, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Their is nothing wrong with the lead. Deep him/herself said that the lead was reasonable before. IP198 23:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I noticed the changes you made before posting the last comment, which removes the self-contradiction but is equally worse regarding the factual correctness. Almost all the history this article talks about is simply history of India, and "history of India" is not "Pakistani history shared with History of India", but is itself history of India. It goes without saying that when we talk about history "India" does not mean "Republic of India". If you bring into this article a lot of History of Baluchistan or other fringe regions, then this argument would not hold, but that would require an unjustifiable overemphasis on Baluchistan, an almost uninhabited region until recently. I said it was reasonable on the assumption that the logical fallacy was unintended, but was surprised to find that the language was intended to be self-contraictory. deeptrivia (talk) 23:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
But which India? That of the modern nation-state that projects an ancient past that expands to any place that had an Indo-Aryan language and a Hindu presence? The India of ancient times was the Punjab, while Sind was Sind etc. Also, Baluchistan, though having a small population HAS to be considered as we don't know what the population concentration was in ancient times and histories are written as a land collective and not simply where most people live. In addition, the region sometimes has a local history that is not shared with others so what do about that? Keep in mind that the British dub the region India and give a collective consciousness that was previously based upon imperial dominions, often of a foreign variety. Otherwise, the earlier rendition was pretty accurate. Tombseye 23:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Deep, no one is saying that the history of Pakistan is not part of the history of India. Look at the History of India pg, it has the history of Pakistan in it. "Shared with", in my opinion, means that it is also part of the history of India, as well as Afghanistan. Iran i think is mainly their for cultural reasons. "Shared between" is incorrect because Afghanistan, India, Iran are modern nations. No one is trying to divide history modern borders. Look at the Delhi Sultanate, it is mainly within India, but is included in this article as it is important part of Pakistans history. IP198 00:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Baluchistan's history definitely has to be considered. At least 10 days ago (can't say of now) Fowler&fowler agreed that it should be done in a way that we don't create any "false historical connections between two regions just because they happen to fall in present-day Pakistan." By using Baluchistan as an excuse for generalizations for the whole of Pakistan, exactly this is being acheived. This, at the same time when little is being said about pre-1880 Baluchistan in this article. IP198, are you still confusing India (disambiguation) with Republic of India and Islamic Republic of Iran with Persia/Iran. When history article speak of these terms no reader mistakes them for modern nations. Tombseye, I completely agree with your analysis of growth of this kind of collective consciousness (nationalism), and I've been proposing to rename History of India to History of the Indian subcontinent. However, as long as we are using these terms let's use them properly, or let's do away with them completely. When X shares its history with Y and Z, it implies that all X, Y and Z exist, either physically or as a concept. While this is quite consistent with the claim that Pakistan was founded in 712, it doesn't conform with any mainstream versions of history. deeptrivia (talk) 00:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I understand all of what you say, but my main point (and I think Fowler's as well) was that sometimes this region DOES not share a history with neighboring entities and thus it become altogether difficult to say the region now called such and such as that is implicit at the very least. It's not a lapse as academic usage varies as some subsume the history of Pakistan with its neighbors while others mention both its overlap and its distinct regional past. The nation-state is something that fluctuates obviously, but given the easiest level of comprehension, history is written with modern borders as a beginning starting point of orientation that is then expanded into the past before the name in use. Thus, before Afghanistan we have various names like Kabulistan, Khorasan, Aryana etc., but people recognize it as Afghanistan. Thus, the way it is rendered is fine in this regard. Additionally, if you look under the references section there are many mainstream histories that do exactly what we are doing, give a history of the region as both distinct and overlapping. Tombseye 05:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
I understand the case of Afghanistan. In stark contrast to what is now Pakistan, although it's known by different names, but has remained more or less a distinct cultural region. On a finer level of resolution, the constituents of Pakistan are distinct regions too. This is the reason we can talk of ancient and medieval histories of regions that are now called Sind and Punjab, regardless of the fact that Punjab was called Saptasindhu in the Vedic period -- it was still a distinct region. Such historically stable distinctions do justify history articles spanning millenia. If we go one level higher than this, we hit levels such as Indo-Gangetic plains, South India, etc. I have completely failed to understand the statement "sometimes this region DOES not share a history with neighboring entities", except if you are refering solely to Baluchistan. While I was assured by Fowler&fowler that Baluchistan would not be used as an excuse to draw all kinds of unjustifiable conclusions about other parts of Pakistan, my argument would still stay the same. It's Baluchistan's history that overlaps with India and Iran, and generalization of this for all of Pakistan is entirely misleading. Especially because in spite of the fact that in the last 50 years the population of Baluchistan has increased by a mindboggling 10 times (could be a world record), Karachi on its own still has 1.5 times more people than the whole of Baluchistan. There's no evidence or reason to believe it had over a million inhabitants at any point in world history. History of Baluchistan article talks nothing of pre-British conquest history. "The nation-state is something that fluctuates obviously, but given the easiest level of comprehension, history is written with modern borders as a beginning starting point of orientation that is then expanded into the past before the name in use." Correct, but the nation-state, or even the nation has to exist first for this. There is good reason why the article on History of Poland starts from the 10th century, History of Saudi Arabia starts from the 18th century, after a minor background in lead, History of Turkey redirects to the History of the Republic of Turkey, which starts from the 20th century, History of South Korea and History of North Korea start from 1948, History of Qatar starts from the 19th century, History of Luxembourg and History of Hungary start from the 10th century, and so on. These centuries coincide with the developments of their national identities or identities as distinct peoples. History of Germany starts from the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" of the 9th century, and does not include the rich history the region has had before that (Roman empire,Pre-Roman Iron Age, Germania). If people realise this elementary thing, our problems are solved, but even in the other case, let's not make obvious mistakes. Even if we make the misleading generalization, the overlap of histories occurred between India, Afghanistan and Iran, not between Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Iran. That won't make much sense, and that is what "shared with" or "overlaps with" clearly imply deeptrivia (talk) 15:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I changed the lead to "The history of Pakistan—which for the period preceding the nation's founding in 1947, is also part of the histories of Afghanistan, India, and Iran—traces back to the beginnings of human life in South Asia." I hope this is good enough to end the dispute. IP198 17:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

How does it change anything? deeptrivia (talk) 01:28, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Bravo Gentlemen a very well written article, It was very informative and there wasn't a hint of bias in it which I found pleasantly suprising.

You know what would have been better? If right after Partition, India abandoned the name "India" and took up the name "Bharat" not just as an official local name but as its international name for all countries to use and instead the term "India" should have been used by scholars and historians as a regional label (rather then "South Asia" or "Indian subcontinent" or whatever) with the term "Indian" being used to describe the collective history and heritage of the subcontinent countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. That way, we would avoid this messy confusion. Ha ha. But that's not my main point for this post. I think, deeptrivia, you have to understand that Tombseye's point is that the area of what we call "Pakistan" is a region that has its own unique history which is true if you think about it. Just like South India has its own regional history distinct from other parts of the subcontinent or like northeastern India, the area called Pakistan occupies the bulk of the northwestern parts of the subcontinent, an area that historically served as South Asia's racial, cultural, linguistic, religious and sometimes national crossroads with other countries - in essence, its main gateway to the outside world. Even in pre-Partition histories, historians acknowledge this particular region as the subcontinent's share of the cultural highway that marked the region between the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia (Xinjiang, Afghanistan, southern Turkistan, Khorasan, northwestern India). The reason we acknowledge this area as a separate history of a nation state is because, simply, it IS a nation state TODAY. The history of Qatar was an interesting fact that you mentioned. This isn't directly related, but if you read the history article for the related recent nation state of the UAE (United Arab Emirates), you'll also find that it mentions pre-colonial Arabian merchant history and the old Phoenician trade, etc as its own despite its nonexistence in that era. Afghan Historian 18:10, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


Also, as a country, it simply is an overlap between an Iranian speaking west and a Indo-Aryan speaking east. The history of the western areas still constitute essential parts of Pakistani history despite holding only 18% of our country's population. Also, that 18% isn't as insignificant as you think. Pashtuns have played a key role in our country's history and development. They were the ones who techinically introduced and entrenched Islamic culture into this region. Afghan kings definitely ruled parts of Punjab along with the frontier and Balochistan in their domains, particularly Ahmed Shah Durrani. Lahore and other parts of the Punjab are of strong significance to Afghanis and their history, despite being linguistically removed from them. There is definitely shared history here. But overall, yes, I agree with you that the region is "overall" (note the emphasis) historically closer to what is now India. Afghan Historian 18:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that had "India" not been the official name of the current republic, it would be easier to convince people who bring in their nationalist feelings into academic history discourse to stick to academic standards. This doesn't imply however that their current position is justified. The claim that northwest of the subcontinent was a distinct region historically like South or Northeast (if the northeast except Assam could even be called "India" in a historical context) isn't supported very well by scholarly sources. There is a cultural divide that runs right in the middle of what is now Pakistan. It is reasonable to use this historical divide to classify history. The Indo-Gangetic plains constitute a reasonably uniform cultural zone, and ought to be treated as one in historical contexts. For every article like UAE that got it wrong, I can list (and have listed) a bunchful that got it right. At the risk of seeming repetitious, there is good reason why the article on History of Poland starts from the 10th century, History of Saudi Arabia starts from the 18th century, after a minor background in lead, History of Turkey redirects to the History of the Republic of Turkey, which starts from the 20th century, History of South Korea and History of North Korea start from 1948, History of Qatar starts from the 19th century, History of Luxembourg and History of Hungary start from the 10th century, and so on. These centuries coincide with the developments of their national identities or identities as distinct peoples. History of Germany starts from the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" of the 9th century, and does not include the Roman history the region has had before that. Anyway, I think I've already made that point I wanted to. I just don't recommend people any more to rely on wikipedia in history and other such areas. deeptrivia (talk) 05:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Tags

I've added a few tags on the article to make readers aware that there's an ongoing discussion related to the content of the article. I hope that we all atleast agree that that there is a discussion. deeptrivia (talk) 22:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I would like to invite everyone's attention to this edit "rv unilateral tagging". Tags added to make readers aware of a long ongoing discussion were simply removed before any of the discussions were concluded. This was not discussed on the talk page, and not even the editor that had added the tags was informed. deeptrivia (talk) 03:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Understandable

Technically, Pakistan was created in just 1947, so its history should start from then or from the Pakistan movement. To lay claim to ancient Indian history as exclusively Pakistani history is patently absurd, but also understandable. Everyone wishes their nation had a past - and a glorious one too. (Jvalant 09:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC))

Around half or less of the events relevant to Indian history take place in what is now Pakistan. It is as much our history as it is India's. No more no less. Afghan Historian 19:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I stated that to EXCLUSIVELY term it Pakistani history is absurd. I agree to your point that Pakistan is nothing but a part of the Greater Indic civilization, and hence the history can be SHARED as part of the Ancient Indian history. To say that half of relevant Indian history happened in what is now pakistan is also just a way of making pakistanis feel better about pakistan. Absurd, but understandable. Jvalant 19:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree with User:Jvalant. I think that half of this article should be moved or merged with the history of the India and Pakistan or history of South Asia, or History of the Indian subcontinent. Let us confine the history of Pakistan to the time when it started i.e. in the thoughts negotiations about independence from Britain. Distinguishing the history of India and the history of Pakistan before that time is highly artificial and meaningless Andries 18:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This is what the Goverment of Pakistan states [10]

I think their should be one article for the preIslamic history of the subcontinent, but after 711 the history of the 2 countries is very different. The hero of one is the enemy of the other, and vice versa. IP198 01:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not beholden to the Government of Pakistan or any other government. This is the history of the region that is now Pakistan. The history of the region began long before Muhammad bin Qasim turned up. South Asia is too large an area to cover in one WP article. The History of India page, which I recently help edit and revise, observes the following tacit guidelines (see their talk page):
  1. Give more importance to events that were wholly centered within India's current day boundaries, or had a majority control of Indian territory. (eg Hoysala Kingdom, Mughal dynasty)
  2. Give less of an importance to kingdoms that overlapped into India and had less of a bearing (eg Indo-Greek Kingdom)

The History of Pakistan, by the same token, gives more importance to to topics like Mehrgarh, the Indo-Greek kingdoms, the Parthians, ..., Ahmad Shah Durrani, Anglo-Afghan Wars. There is plenty of room for both histories, as has been observed countless times above by countless people in countless discussions. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Mistry of Pakistan

This article is a justification for Pakistan Theory, an entity that never existed before 1930, rather than History of Pakistan. Only rewrinting it on unbiased terms would be the solution. ~rAGU

India didnt exist prior to 1947 either. You just took the former name of the sub continent.
While neither country existed, the people did, therefore this history belongs to the Pakistani people. Which takes Indias right away :from claiming Indus Valley for themselves, and thats why you cant tolerate this article.
Comment by [User:Unre4l]
India didnt officially exists, but it was still known as bharat or India anyway. I mean the people were united in a sense that they knew they were part of the same land just like the native americans on north america. I mean just because theres no offical country, doesnt mean its not a land of people living together.....Paksitan on the other hand is a made up nation that came out of India for Muslims because they didnt want to live side by side. 71.119.255.31 20:34, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

turkmenistan

Maybe this is the wrong place to bring it up but the indus civilization also had colonies in Turkmenistan so we can bring it up.--Vmrgrsergr 04:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Off Topic Tag

Deeptrivia, Don't know what your act is dude, but it seems (from the history of this page) you've been repeating the same tired arguments for the last two years. Why don't you go bark up the History of India tree instead? As I have mentioned above, on the History of India page, they observe the following guidelines:

  1. Give more importance to events that were wholly centered within India's current-day boundaries, or had a majority control of Indian territory. (eg Hoysala Kingdom, Mughal dynasty)
  2. Give less importance to kingdoms that overlapped into India and had less of a bearing (eg Indo-Greek Kingdom)

The History of Pakistan, by the same token, gives more importance to to topics like Mehrgarh, the Indo-Greek kingdoms, the Parthians, ..., Ahmad Shah Durrani, Anglo-Afghan Wars, as well at the history of the various republics of Pakistan. There is plenty of room for both histories of India and the region that is now Pakistan. So, my advice is that stop wreaking mischief on this page. If you are obsessed with this issue, bring it up on the Village Pump etc. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:36, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, I know I should have expected the use of this kind of language, and silly phrases like "kingdoms that overlapped into India", instead of trying to understand the simple HIST 101 concept that using current-day boundaries for ancient history as simply wrong and academically unacceptable, especially if those borders have no historical/cultural/linguistic basis whatsoever. Anyway, because of these attempts to hide even the fact that this issue is being discussed, I think I would better discuss this elsewhere. deeptrivia (talk) 20:59, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not my language. It is the History of India talk page language. I'm not saying that there is nothing to discuss here, but that everyone, including you, is just repeating themselves. And, when I looked at the history of the article, I realized that this has been going on for 2 or 3 years, with you as an active initiator of the same discussion. You must know (as a Wikipedia veteran) that there are better ways to deal with the issue than periodically slapping on a tag. Sorry, I should have been less impatient, and my apologies for the language, but this is just not very productive, in my opinion, that is. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:39, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, perhaps it doesn't matter, but in fact this discussion was started by User:Dbachmann almost exactly 2 years ago [11]. I, at that time, was in fact adding and copyediting stuff to ancient history e.g., [12], [13], [14]. I have become aware of how absurd this is only recently after taking some (online) history courses from UC Berkeley. In case you think we are repeating ourselves not finding a way out, it's all the more reason to have a tag informing others to know about it so that they can provide some input. Removing the tag and calling it trolling doesn't quite indicate that you want any discussion to happen on this, but rather maintain things the way they are by brute force. Phrases like "slapping a tag" also indicate that you're takiing the presence of a tag on the article much more negatively that it actually is. Well, sorry again for this rather straight language :) deeptrivia (talk) 21:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
PS: Also, [15] this tag, perhaps the only other tag from me, was for an entirely different reason. The article already had a POV tag at that point due to serious problems with the content. If you read that version (which has since then been almost completely rewritten), probably you'd agree. Regards, deeptrivia (talk) 22:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

My point is simply that this is not the best forum for that discussion. The problems exists for all South Asian national histories. India too didn't exist both as a name and as a polity before a certain time, but the history of events occurring in the region before that time is included in the history of India. I think this discussion belongs to some other forum, perhaps a South Asia-wide forum. I think experienced people like Nichalp, Ragib, Dab, and others should be asked what that best forum might be. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:30, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

You're right about the India thing, about which I've been saying the same thing on History of India article (PS: My latest comment on that page was before I read your reply). As far as why the content of this article shouldn't be discussed on this talk page, I can't be so sure about it, but I agree that a wider discussion would help. I still can't understand the problem with a tag that says the article may be off-topic. deeptrivia (talk) 00:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Vedic Civilization

I thought pakistani punjab was the cradle of the vedic civilization. I am surprised that there is no mention of it at all in the history of pakistan. The Indo-Greeks come suddenly after the Indus Valley Civilization, and there's a gap of a couple of thousand years.

==> Please remove this after reading.

I have page at http://www.travel-culture.com/pakistan/history.shtml which is chronology of Pakistan history with all dates. The Vedas (Ragveda) were written in Indus valley by Aryans and Punjab has no relation to it. Todays so called Punjab is in no way region that was in the past It was all Sindh in those days. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.143.113.212 (talk) 01:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Anti-Ahmadiyya Riots (1953)

Please do not remove this section. This is one single most import set of events that defined the future of Pakistan and for the next sixty or so years. This was the turning point when;

  1. so called religious parties took an extremists outlook first the first time in Pakistan’s history and at the same time achieved unprecedented power to even black mail the government.
  2. the otherwise moderate society of Pakistan took a turn for extremisms.
  3. the Military intervention in the affairs of the country began.
  4. role of corrupt politicians in attempting to destabilising national government became apparent.

All the above elements are present to this day and are likely to continue for the foreseeable future. To say this is not important is to be naive of the underlying mechanics at work. Please read Justice Munir report before making up your mind. Both Urdu and English version are available under external links.

Indeed there are not very many events in the “1000 year” history of Pakistan which are so deserving of study to those interested in the development of the mind set of the Pakistani nation today and the problems it currently faces. Lastly, an event that caused the very first martial law in the history of the country is certainly worth mentioning in the history of a country which had martial laws for much of its life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Malik07 (talk • contribs) - 15:01, October 3, 2007

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