CHUGHTAI MUSEUM ANNOUNCES WITH GREAT PLEASURE RESTORATION OF OUR WEBSITE WITH LATEST TECHNOLOGY
The website started in 2008 and was visited by art lovers from all over the world. But that site was based on Adobe Flash and when the facilities for same came to an end, the website faced many glitches. A lot of friends offered to help, but our trusted expert worked on it day and night to restore it to its present heights. It was ahead of its time in year 2008, and it is still ahead in this year 2023.
MAILING LIST OF CHUGHTAI MUSEUM; TIME TO UPDATE THINGS FOR FUTURE; YOUR ENDURING COOPERATION THERE; REVISE ADD YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS.
Our first mailing list was created in 1976. Information Officer at USIS and the Director American Centre Lahore, helped us in revising our first mailings. From time to time we kept revising it, and at one time it went to 2000 cards posted from us. All visitors volunteered their address and these were added to the list. But times change.
Preparing Mailing listGlimpse of Mailing list
Many people die, many go away to other places. In Pakistan there is no formula for people to leave their new addresses. Inevitable cards get lost, or returned to us. Nowadays sending a printed card is a high cost process, not only in printing the same, the cost of envelopes, the higher postal stamps, or courier charges. And a newer thing that cards get stolen by post offices for stamps on them, reflecting the present pitiable economic circumstances, literally of the post people. This wastage can be avoided with update lists.
Our process is not sending invitations by email or by phone call. We like to send you something which can be kept as a record and here too we give you a catalogue, and for many years printed brochures of our research. We also had times when we invited international scholars from abroad to lecture on the Art of Chughtai. Higher costs have made that venture of seating 500 people, giving air tickets to foreigners and their stay at a five star hotel, literally impossible. Obviously any non commercial organization will run out of their liquid reserves.
Mailing list writtenGet into mailing listA long chain of foreignersAssorted viewersYoungest art loversEven babies came to showsGuess WhoOnce a regular visitor
We like to keep sending you invitation cards. Cooperate with us by sending us your name and full address, no other information is required by us. Our priority is you being an art lover, and not part of that crowd which goes to destroy the tranquility of any function, rather than enhancing it. Interesting feature is that instead of art lovers, we get more of those kinds of people, who are at the roots of cultural terrorism in the country. Yes you must have heard of all kinds of terrorisms, but these are times of high signs of people encoding themselves to undo our ideology in Culture as well as the Arts. These people fear Ideology more than other things prevailing in our country. We are not only an Islamic country, we are not a religious country based on the outdated concept of same. Our thoughts are Iqballian, that is the reconstruction of religious thought in Islam, and we consider in light of thinking scholars of Islam as a challenge to Religion. It is not a relation between Allah and humanity, but a code of life, prescribed by Allah for the welfare of humanity.
HOWEVER MUCH A CONFUSION, CLARITY REMAINS; TWO NATIONS CAN CO-EXIST BUT NOT BECOME ONE; AN ANALYSIS OF MANDIRS AND MOSQUES.
The Two-nation theory is a Quranic fact, and pseudo intellectuals and secular extremists, and Mullah bigots, tend to try to confuse Pakistan and the people of the world. The Quran forbids other ways of life to be imposed upon, having every right to live their way of life. But that does not mean that our way of life can be the same. Our beloved leader Quaid-e-Azam simply told us long ago:
“Hindus and Mussulmans belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature. They neither intermarry nor inter dine and indeed, they belong to two different civilizations. which are based namely on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their concepts on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Muslims derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They are different epics, different heroes, and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other and likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a simple state, one as a numerical minority, and the other as a majority may lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the Government of such a state.”
This was crystal clear to the Muslims of the region, and most of them left their geographical homes, for their ideological ones. The internet and printed sources are at hands of foreign lobbies to confuse people. While India has been busy destroying Muslim relics in India, including a number of mosques (even the Taj Mahal is a target), along with graves of Muslim Kings, like one of Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgeer itself. All through built up false narratives to boggle minds and hearts of people. Here their protagonists are exploring Hindu Havelis, and Mandirs, in quest to restore the Mandirs here. Our broad mindedness can be seen by the fact that we have already restored many MANDIRS in Pakistan. That includes Katas Raj, and even the broken Jain Mandir has been rebuilt with pride. Before the destruction of the Babari Masjid in India, most of the Mandirs in Lahore were intact. Even the golden pinnacles could always be seen from the roof tops. Aggression invited retaliation, and that from emotional crowds, not in any way intellectuals of our country.
Obviously, a number of scholars have given their views, including very objective intellectuals. For example, Percy Brown, enumerates it like this:
“Nothing could illustrate more graphically, the religious and racial diversity, or emphasize more decisively the principles underlying the consciousness of each community, than the contrast between their respective places of worship, as represented by the mosque on the one hand, and the temple on the other. Compared with the clarity of the mosque, the temple is an abode of mystery; the courts are open to light and air, with many doorways inviting publicity, the latter encloses a ‘phantasma of massive darkness’ having sober passages leading to dim cells, jealously guarded and remote.
In view of such n antithesis of spiritual and aesthetic concepts as are embodied in these typical structures, it will be clear that any syncretism between the two communities, would present almost insurmountable difficulties, and that even after the first antagonism has subsided, they could rarely meet on the same intellectual plane. On the one hand the rhythmic mind of the Hindus, and the other the formal mind of the Mussulman.”
Scholars have delved in the history of the arrival of Islam into India with various causes. We will take the matter in another blog. But the main reason is not the Sword as hardly a limited number in the invading army, but the actual stroke was EGALITARIANISM, the quality in Islamic structure, compared with the class system of the Hindus. It was not ordinary thing for the deprived Hindu of lower class being treated as human beings, resulting in massive conversions and acceptance without malice of any kind. Yes, a place where SLAVES became KINGS, not with their DNA, but with their merits in various fields. Yes, it was a victory of sympathy, compassion and empathy which won the game without any sword.
There are persons seeking Mandirs in Lahore. You will find most of them belonging to the 19th century. WHY? For after the War of Independence or the Mutiny, the Muslims were totally suppressed by the British rulers, and Hindus patronized as a class. Hindus were rich after the Mutiny, Muslims mainly remained poor, except a small minority on the payroll of the ruling class. The same continues to this day.
