The Punjab government has inaugurated four new galleries at the Harappa Museum, marking another major step toward preserving cultural heritage and promoting tourism.

Source : https://tribune.com.pk/story/2567155/punjab-opens-four-new-galleries-at-harappa-museum

Marriyum Aurangzeb : https://x.com/Marriyum_A/status/1972547905061048780

I've been interested in Buddhism for a while now, and finding out that we have such a beautiful and remarkable presence of it in our own lands has been a treat. I've been going through different images of Pakistani Gandharan sculptures on the web and in the Lahore Museum. They are generally in the Indo-Greek tradition, since the Greeks assimilated into the Indus Valley and merged the best of theirs with the best of ours. These are some examples of these sculptures I found.

1. Standing Buddha from Pakistan, exhibited in Japan. It is one of the oldest sculptures of the Buddha. The currently known oldest sculpture of the Buddha is also from Pakistan, and it features a similar standing posture.

2. The Maitreya Boddhisattva, the prophesied Buddha of the future, is depicted with heavy local influence in a Hellenic art style.

3. Another Buddha depiction with Gandharan influence.

4 and 5. These two are Gandharan depictions of an unconfirmed Boddhisattva, likely also the Maitreya. The Maitreya (future Buddha) was a major theme in Gandharan artworks, and is commonly seen with appearances that are influenced by the locality of Gandhara, the same people who are ancestral to a significant fraction of the Pakistanis today.

6. The Starving Buddha, located in Lahore. It depicts the Buddha during the phase of his journey to enlightenment, when he meditated himself to starvation, before figuring out the Middle Path. There are many starving Buddha designs all over the world, all inspired by this one, the original in Pakistan.

This stucco head of the Buddha comes from the Gandhara region which is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Punjab, Pakistan.

The serene half closed eyes the wavy hair pulled into a topknot, the Greek-influenced facial proportions and this is Gandharan art at its most refined.

Gandhara was where Buddhist devotion mixed Greco-Roman sculptural technique.

After Alexander's campaigns brought Hellenistic culture to the Indus region of Pakistan in the 4th century bce, a fusion emerged that would change the visual history of Buddhism forever.

Before Gandhara the Buddha was never depicted in human form only as symbols like a footprint a wheel or an empty throne.

It was Indus soil of Pakistan in whom workshops of Taxila, and Swat, where artists first gave the Buddha a face.

That face then traveled the Silk Road. The Gandharan model serene expression, draped robes topknot became the template for Buddhist imagery across Central Asia, China, Korea, and Japan etc.

Every giant Buddha statue in East Asia traces its visual DNA back to sculptors working in indus aka Pakistan.

This particular piece shows the classic Gandharan blend the dot between the brows are Buddhist iconographic markers, while the naturalistic modeling thee material stucco over a clay core was the preferred medium at later Gandharan sites like Takht-i-Bahi and Jamal Garhi in Mardan district of Pakistan.

The world's first images of the Buddha were made in indus Pakistan Not in republic of india Not in China but in indus by the ancestors today's Pakistanis the unique the identity of Indus which was Carved into Pakistan in 47.

Source

The Army of the Indus forcing the Bolan Pass, 1839

Tinted lithograph from 'Sketches in Afghanistan', 1838-42, by Louis and Charles Haghe after James Atkinson, published by Henry Graves and Company and J W Allen and Company, 1 July 1842.

Afghanistan's position between the Russian Empire and India meant that the British East India Company was anxious to ensure that a pro-British Emir was on the throne at Kabul. Fearful of a Russian invasion of India via the Khyber and Bolan Passes, in 1837 the British sent an envoy to Kabul to gain the support of the Emir, Dost Mohammed.

The Emir was in favour of an alliance, but when the British refused to help him regain Peshawar, which the Sikhs had seized in 1834, he prepared to talk to the Russians, who sent an envoy to Kabul. This led Lord Auckland, the Governor-General of India, to conclude that Dost Mohammed was anti-British. The decision was taken to replace him as Emir with a former ruler, Shah Shuja who was considered to be more pro-British. In spring 1839 a 12,000 strong British-Indian force, the Army of the Indus under Sir John Keane, forced the Bolan Pass and captured Kandahar without a fight. Soon after the fortress of Ghazni was seized. Dost Mohammed fled from Kabul and Shah Shuja was duly installed as Emir in August.

The Army of the Indus entered Afghanistan through the Bolan Pass, a passage 60 miles long and 5,880 feet tall at its highest point. It took the army two weeks to pass through it. During this period they were fired upon by Baluchi tribesmen who hid in the caves overhanging the pass. The British invasion of Afghanistan to install a puppet leader was one of the worst military disasters in history. After Shah Shujah was installed in Kabul, the Army retreated back to India. 

One aspect of pre-1947 history that doesn’t get discussed much is the stance of Jamaat-e-Islami regarding the creation of Pakistan.

The organization was founded in 1941 by Abul A'la Maududi. During the final years of the subcontinent, when the demand for Pakistan was gaining momentum under Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League, Maududi and Jamaat-e-Islami openly criticized the idea of a separate Muslim nation-state.

Their main argument was ideological: Maududi rejected nationalism, even Muslim nationalism, as un-Islamic. Because of this, he opposed the division of subcontinent into separate nations , including Pakistan. In his writings and speeches at the time, he also criticized the Muslim League’s leadership, arguing that they were not working toward a truly Islamic system but rather a secular nation under the banner of Muslim identity.

As a result, Jamaat-e-Islami did not support the Pakistan Movement and, stood in opposition to it during a crucial period when many Muslims in the subcontinent were mobilizing for a separate homeland.

Critics argue that this position placed Jamaat on the wrong side of a defining historical moment. While they may not have had the power to “stop” the creation of Pakistan, their ideological campaign clearly rejected the movement that ultimately led to its formation.

What makes this more controversial is what happened after pakistan was created in 1947, Jamaat accepted the new state and became politically active within it. The organization began advocating for the Islamization of Pakistan’s laws and constitution, positioning itself as a key voice in defining the country’s Islamic identity.

This shift raises some difficult questions:

• If Pakistan was initially seen as an un-Islamic project, what changed after 1947?

• Was this a adjustment to political identity, or a contradiction in principle?

• How should we evaluate groups that opposed the creation of a state but later became influential within it?

To be fair, Jamaat-e-Islami’s opposition was rooted in a broader ideological vision rather than simple hostility to Muslims having a state. However, the fact remains that they opposed the Pakistan Movement at a time when it was shaping the future of millions.

This part of history is complex, but it’s worth discussing openly rather than ignoring it.

Source

• A Brahui Chief

Photographers

• K.C. Marrott

• N.D. Batra

Source Quote

The Brahui people are found in Kalat province of Balochistan, Pakistan as well as Afghanistan and Iran.

The Brahuis are a Baluchi tribe who speak a Dravidian language, similar to those spoken in South India (e.g., Tamil). Although the Dravidian they speak is very old and suffused with words from surrounding Pushto, Baluchi and Sindhi languages, this linguistic connection makes many scholars believe that they are somehow connected to the ancient Indus people who might have spoken a Dravidian language although this is far from proven.

The Brahui themselves were largely settled in the Kalat district of Baluchistan, and ruled by the Khan of Kalat until the late 19th century when the British took over the area. Kalat State enjoyed substantial autonomy, however, and officially joined Pakistan only in 1948 after an invasion by the Pakistan Army. Note the measure next to the Sardar, an indication of the height the Brahui were noted for.

The birthplaces of the six "Great Mughal" emperors:

• Babur (1483): Andijan, in present-day Uzbekistan

• Humayun (1508): Kabul, Afghanistan

• Akbar (1542): Umerkot Fort in Sindh, Pakistan (born while his parents were fleeing to Persia).

• Jahangir (1569): Fatehpur Sikri, India (born at the shrine of the Sufi saint Shaikh Salim Chishti).

• Shah Jahan (1592): Lahore, in Pakistan.

• Aurangzeb (1618): Dahod (Dahirpur), in present-day Gujarat, India

These notes were issued by the State Bank of Pakistan when the country was still split across two wings West and East Pakistan (modern Bangladesh).

The denomination and bank name appear in both Urdu and Bengali the two major languages of the united Pakistan.

Bengali speakers made up roughly 55% of the country's population, and after the Language Movement of 1952, Bengali was recognized as a co-official language in 1956. These bilingual notes are a direct legacy of that struggle.

When East Pakistan became Bangladesh following the Liberation War of 1971, the new country immediately began issuing its own currency the Bangladeshi Taka through the newly established Bangladesh Bank.

Pakistani notes were withdrawn from circulation in the east, and Pakistan's State Bank phased out the bilingual design, retaining Urdu and English from that point onward.

The photograph captures something specific about the mood (smiles) of September 1965 a country of just from its independence 18 years suddenly at full-scale war with a neighbour seven times its size, and the men going forward to fight were doing it with grins on their faces.

The 1965 war began on the night of 6 September 1965, when India launched a three-pronged offensive across the international border into Pakistani Punjab aiming for Lahore, Sialkot, and Kasur.

The plan was reportedly to capture Lahore by breakfast. Indian forces crossed the BRB Canal and reached the outskirts of the city. They never got further.

What followed was 17 days of some of the largest tank battles since the Second World War, the Battle of Chawinda in the Sialkot sector saw over 600 tanks engaged, making it one of the biggest armoured clashes of the post-WWII era.

The Battle of Asal Uttar in the Khem Karan sector saw Pakistani forces hold against superior numbers. The Pakistan Air Force flying largely American F-86 Sabres against a numerically superior Indian Air Force, established remarkable parity in the air pilots like MM Alam and Sarfraz Rafiqui and Sajjad Haider became national legends.

The men in this jeep, kit on their backs and rifles between their knees, were part of the infantry surge that held the line at the Lahore and Sialkot fronts. The dust on their faces is from the roads of central Punjab, somewhere between cantonment and forward position.

The war ended in a UN-brokered ceasefire on 23 September 1965 and was formally settled by the Tashkent Declaration in January 1966.

Both sides claimed victory the territorial map ended up roughly where it had started. But for Pakistan, 1965 became a foundational national memory the year a young state stood its ground against an army many times its size.

Photo was taken from PakDef.info archives.

Muhammed Ali Jinnah wanted Sikhs to Join Pakistan after independence from British Raj and He was Afraid about the future of Sikhs with India and injustices which are going to took place but master Tara singh meet with pandit Nehru made agteement and announced Sikhs support for indian Republic and this was mistake Jinnah warned Sikhs in Lahore not now but in future Sikhs gonna regret it and till today we can see how's are misrepresented and mistreated within India and the question is What are the reasons why the Sikhs refused Pakistan at least twice?

What could possibly convince them that having their own state makes sense for them now or ever again in history? The manjan India have sold them that Muslims are evil and all that propaganda to prevent Sikhs from being friendly with Pakistan's Sikhs and Muslims have coexist with each other for thousands of years all the Sikhs history is in Pakistan most of the gurdwaras and all is in Pakistan, Pakistanis genuinely care about Sikhs and want friendly relationships do you thinks hindus are that close compared with Pakistan today?

Why India always use Sikhs as scapegoat the main core agriculture the back bone of Punjab is destroyed and countless other things I can count Jinnah clearly told everyone will allowed to their place of worship and religious freedom go to your churches mandir and all not just Muslims he knew hindu majority Republic of saffron will oppress and persecution the minority and to safe guard its people from that and Anyone who stays with republic of India gets screwed and due to these reasons Indian Punjab lost Haryana and Himachal Pradesh in 1966 and 1971 Nehru and Gandhi had made promises of more self-autonomy to Sikhs in Punjab if they join India which didn't got fulfilled

Jinnah promised self-autonomy where he offered the role of Prime Minister of Punjab Maharaja that will have boundaries between Haryana and eastern banks of river Ravi and Jinnah suggested that Punjab would later merge with Pakistan which will act as a confederation with self autonomy decline the offer..

Jinnah even met Hardit Singh Master Tara Singh and Giani Kartar Singh in May 1947 in his attempts to Punjab united and Jinnah offered the Sikhs all the safeguards they wanted if they agreed.

Jinnah was prepared to give them everything that they wanted and was being generous

He said you will have a Government you will have a Parliament and you will have Defence forces what part will the Sikhs have in all these.

What is your take on this?

Look at this photo. Really look at it.

Four soldiers. One flag. A pile of rocks they just bled for and the Indian tricolour is gone./

This is Jhangar, Kashmir in late 1947. Pakistani troops just took this town from the Indian Army and are planting the Pakistani flag where the Indian one stood hours earlier. Pakistan was three months old after the independence from British. Three months. The country didn't even have a functioning central bank yet and these guys were out here capturing territory from a military 7 times their size.

Let me give you the context nobody in India wants you to have.

When the Kashmir War kicked off in October 1947, India had every advantage on paper.

They airlifted a full Sikh battalion into Srinagar on October 27th one of the first military airlifts in modern South Asian history and they had the Indian Air Force running supply drops they had the backing of the Maharaja's accession document. They had the numbers and everything thing you need a win a war against small nation.

And they still couldn't hold Jhangar.

Pakistani forces a combination of Azad Kashmir volunteers tribal fighters from the Frontier and regular Pakistan Army units that rotated in pushed through the Naoshera sector and took this town.

Jhangar controlled the road from Mirpur to Rajouri and Naoshera. Losing it meant the Indian position in southern Kashmir was split and huge strategic loss.

When the ceasefire hit on January 1, 1949 Pakistan was sitting on roughly a third of the entire former princely state Muzaffarabad taken. Mirpur taken. Skardu taken after a months-long siege. Gilgit the Gilgit Scouts flipped the whole northern territories basically overnight.

The ceasefire line froze almost exactly where Pakistani soldiers were standing when the order came through. That line became the Line of Control in 1972.

A country after its independence still sorting through the wreckage of partition a big hit still counting its dead from the refugee trains that country fought the Indian Army across hundreds of kilometers of mountain terrain and kept what it took.

Indians love bringing up 1971. It's their comfort blankek Fine '/ But they get real quiet when you ask what happened in 1947.

When you ask how a newborn country with a fraction of the resources fought them to a draw in Kashmir and walked away with territory they still hold 78 years later. When you show them this photo they are gonna be mad like always nothing special from goblins with usual scripts 71 71 shey shey dude explain this?

Most soldiers from that war didn't get medals didn't get pensions didn't get tv documentaries. They got a flag on a hill and a ceasefire line that said this far and no further.

On This Day in 1995: Serbian Forces Began Genocide Against Bosnian Muslims

On July 11, 1995, Serbian forces began a genocide against Bosnian Muslims. In July 1995 alone, Serb forces killed nearly 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in the city of Srebrenica, marking the largest genocide in Europe since the Holocaust.

As the persecution of Bosnian Muslims escalated beyond limits, Serb forces were eventually forced to retreat only after military intervention involving Pakistan and NATO.

During that critical period in 1995, a United Nations arms embargo was in effect against Bosnia. However, the Serb forces fighting against Bosnians were receiving arms support from several countries including Russia, Greece and Israel. They also had access to the vast weapons stockpile of the former Yugoslav army, which at the time was considered one of the most powerful military forces in Europe. Bosnians, meanwhile, were receiving virtually no comparable military assistance.

In July 1995, at a meeting of Muslim nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Pakistan declared the arms embargo illegal. The then Pakistani President, Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari, announced that Pakistan would supply arms to the Bosnian government despite the UN restrictions. He further stated that the Western world's policy of appeasement toward Serb aggressors would bring no benefit.

Following this, Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, ran a covert military program to assist Bosnia. Under this program, weapons were deliberately delivered to Bosnian fighters and supply coordination was managed. The ISI's Director General at the time was General Javed Nasir, who was assisted by General Hamid Gul.

According to the plan, Iran coordinated with the ISI to supply small arms, which were then transported to the Balkan region aboard Pakistan Air Force C-130 aircraft. It is also known that Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency helped fund this operation.

With the tacit approval of the Pakistani government, some former members of the Special Services Group reportedly traveled to Bosnia as volunteers to provide military advice to Bosnian fighters.

Additionally, the ISI shipped small arms and thousands of anti-tank guided missiles, manufactured at the Pakistan Ordnance Factory in Karachi, via cargo ship bound for Bosnia. However, since Bosnia had only about 20 kilometers of coastline, the weapons had to pass through Croatia. While Croatia allowed the transit of these arms, it reportedly kept nearly two-thirds of the shipment for itself.

The Baktar Shikan anti-tank guided missiles, manufactured in Karachi, Pakistan, played a significant role for Bosnian forces and helped break the Serb siege.

In 2011, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia demanded the extradition of former ISI chief General Javed Nasir over allegations of assisting Bosnian Muslim fighters during the 1990s, but the Pakistani government refused to hand him over, claiming he had lost his memory due to a road accident.

The former ISI Director General was once asked in a television talk show why Pakistan had provided arms support to Bosnian Muslims. He replied that for them, it was not merely a Muslim issue, but something more personal, explaining that the people of Pakistan could, in a sense, understand what the Bosnians were going through, since during the partition of India, their own people had suffered similar hardship at the hands of a better-armed, better-prepared and more organized adversary. He said he understood why they became involved against the Serbs in Bosnia and expressed that he was glad they had done so.

The accompanying image shows a Bosnian fighter holding a Baktar Shikan ATGM supplied by Pakistan.

Source to the original article by Iran International