At this time of national crisis and emergency, Pakistani minorities stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the country as a solid shield in defence of Pakistan and particularly Kashmir — where the dangers of genocide and ethnic cleansing by the Narendra Modi regime are very clear. The caged Kashmiris face the full brutal onslaught of an entire army, and to their eternal credit, they have defied the barricades and the batons to express their cries for freedom.
All over the world, protests have been held against the collective punishments, communication blackout, dehumanisation, persecution and genocide of a whole people. While the Modi government’s annexation of Kashmir has outraged the international community, it has failed to awaken the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) from its deep slumbers.
Instead, one of its key members, the UAE, decorated Modi with its highest award. And Saudi Arabia also decided to invest billions of dollars in India.
As if this indifference of Muslim countries is not enough for Kashmiri Muslims to grudge about, France’s decision to invite Modi to G-7 meeting while India is neither a member nor has any credentials in a qualitative sense, is absurd. The Western countries that champion human rights have, through their inaction, enabled the butcher of Gujarat to carry on with crimes against humanity.
Similarly, G-7 members are least worried about the persecution of Christians in India. A significant number of incidents of violence against the Christian minority are candidly documented in the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Report 2018 on Persecution of Indian Christian minorities. What moral high ground these G-7 human rights defenders would have to say anything to any other violator of human and religious rights? Modi’s India is much more dangerous, not just for the minority Muslims in occupied Kashmir and India, but Sikhs and Christians have also felt the racist and hegemonic iron hands of the BJP’s goons even in Christian majority areas such as Nagaland. Prime Minister Imran Khan rightly identified the annexation of Kashmir by Modi in the context of his communalist agenda and fascist streak against the minorities. The message has gone far and wide that the secular, liberal and republican India, admired by many around the world, is no more. This fascist India will prove to be fatal not only for the minorities but eventually for the soul of India itself as well.
In recognition of this expansionist policy of India, the minorities in Pakistan have always contributed to make the country strong and powerful, for example, the Christians have played a prominent role in the armed forces of Pakistan. The Pakistani Army has a list of 52 Christian officers and soldiers who sacrificed their lives to protect the honour of the motherland.
Here I would particularly like to mention a Christian hero of Pakistan about very little is known — even among the Christians — Major William Brown who played a vital role in ensuring that the vast area of Gilgit joined the newly created state of Pakistan, rather than India; and he did that at considerable risk to himself.
In 1942, Brown was posted as a recently commissioned Indian army officer to the Gilgit Agency. Just prior to partition in early 1947 he was appointed acting Commandant of the Gilgit Scouts. To his horror he learnt that the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten had ruled that Gilgit, despite being 99 per cent Muslim, should be ceded to Hindu rule. Knowing that this was a disastrous and callous decision that would lead to insurrection, chaos and bloodshed, the 25 year-old acting major Brown took it upon himself to oust the Indian governor, fly to Karachi and offer Gilgit to the Pakistanis, who accepted it gratefully.
Brown knew that in the eyes of the Indians and Mountbatten, he was a mutineer who would have been executed had he fallen into Indian hands. This treachery in the eyes of Indians was never forgotten and later he was physically attacked on a visit to Kolkata, and left to die. However, a passing doctor rescued him and took him to hospital. He was thanked for his sacrifice by the Pakistani government and awarded the Sitara-e-Pakistan. Without his single handed efforts, Gilgit would have become a part of Kashmir and subsequently India, and northern Pakistan would have been circled by hostile states and without any physical border with its best friend — China.
Looking at the history of the Pakistan Air Force, its foundation was set up by a Catholic Polish officer Air Commodore Wladyslaw Jozef Marian Turowicz. Turowicz and 45 of his colleagues opted to move to Pakistan in 1948 on a three-year contract.
Turowicz set up technical institutes in Karachi. He taught and revitalised Pakistan Air Force Academy, where he worked as a chief scientist. He initially led the technical training in the airbase and a part of the Polish specialists in the technical section in Karachi.
In 1952, Turowicz was promoted to the rank of wing commander and then, in 1959, to the rank of group captain. In 1960, he became an air commodore and an assistant chief of air staff, in charge of PAF’s Maintenance Branch. In 1966, the Government of Pakistan transferred him to Suparco, Pakistan’s national space agency, where he worked as a chief scientist and an aeronautical engineer.
He, along with noted Pakistani theoretical physicist, Dr Abdus Salam, who later won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, met with the then president, where he successfully convinced him of the importance of a space program.
He, along with Dr Abdus Salam, travelled through to the United States to reach a space cooperation agreement. He successfully convinced the United States government to invest and train Pakistan’s scientists in the field of rocket technology.
Turowicz was appointed head of Suparco in 1967. As the administrator, he revitalised and initiated the space program as quickly as possible and upgraded the Sonmiani Satellite Launch Centre.
Turowicz started a project for the fabrication and launch of a Pakistani satellite. As a result, Pakistan mastered the field of rocket technology by the end of the 1970s. He was given several awards over the years including: Sitara-e-Pakistan, Tamgha-i-Pakistan, Sitara-i-Khidmat, Sitara-e-Quaid-e-Azam and Sitara-e-Imtiaz. All these efforts by the minorities have helped to make Pakistan a strong and unconquerable country. There is no doubt that when time comes again, the minorities will sacrifice their lives once again to ensure that no one looks at their country with malicious eyes.
During the present crisis over Kashmir, the Hindu minority in Pakistan even dedicated their religious festival to the cause of Kashmir, and have been prominent in their denunciation of the Modi regime’s illegal annexation of Kashmir.
As far as the Pakistani Christian diaspora in the UK is concerned, letters were written to the local parliamentarians and the UK Foreign Office to express their outrage at the illegal Indian action, and asking the UK government to play their role in reversing the Indian action. The church leaders were asked to say special prayers for Kashmir after the Sunday services on September 1. And the Pakistani Christians in the UK and Europe have announced a demonstration in support of their Kashmiri brothers and sisters outside the European Parliament on September 5.
Finally, the Pakistani Christian community in the UK vows to carry on working closely with the Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK Nafees Zakaria on preparing future strategies for the defence of the motherland.
Pakistan Zindabad.
The author is the former mayor of Rugby and the recipient of an MBE and the Sitara-e-Pakistan.
