This is the nameless story of nameless people.
When this story began and what its end will be no one knows.
It is a lament, a tragic tale.
It is not about the joyous characters of kings’ courts; rather, it is the cry of those who have been crushed for centuries.
It is not a story of jesters it is a tale of sorrow of those who shed their blood and sweat.

Where should I begin when gold flowed in the Lion River Sindh, and giant vultures guarded that gold?
Let’s start from Mohenjo-daro.
This is the story of one nameless laborer who laid the bricks in the temple’s pool in such a way that even after thousands of years, they remain joined together in the same manner.
When Sai Sindhu, wearing a curly beard and a flower-filled Ajrak, wrapped himself in the sheet of sanctity, the laborer who built the pool was forbidden from entering there.
Where was freedom, and where was equality?

This battle began from eternity and will continue till eternity.
The entire story of human civilization, as Will Durant tells it, says nothing else but that humanity has a deep desire to attain freedom and equality.
Human civilizations have always been caught in this struggle sometimes they gained freedom but not equality; sometimes they gained equality but lost their freedoms.
And many Karbala-like tragedies still exist today, where oppression and injustice are in full measure but there is neither equality nor freedom.

In the same era, the story of the artisan of Harappa is exactly the same.
This craftsman of the land of indigo and teen-patti booti used to make indigo, which was exported to the land of the Tigris and Euphrates Mesopotamia.
This craftsman wore only a dhoti, yet from his indigo-dyed cloth, shrouds for the dead in Egypt were made.
He, though alive, was forced to wear only a dhoti, his body otherwise bare while in Egypt and Iraq, even the dead were buried with clothes and possessions.
Inequality between the living and the dead it existed then, and it exists now.

William Dalrymple has written that the indigo-dyed cotton cloth of that very Harappan artisan has been discovered from the Tigris and Euphrates meaning the Harappan and Indus Valley civilization engaged in international trade.
Then also, the world had trade agreements with them now too there are defense and trade agreements, and there will be more.
But the question is what will the indigo artisan and the Mohenjo-daro laborer get?
Will common people ever be blessed with the gifts of justice and equality?

Then, in the history of this region, there comes a long, dark night.
If any explosion, any cannon, or any spark of light appeared, some half-word would enter history but the long silence tells that there was neither freedom nor equality.

Time kept passing, and then on the bank of River Jhelum, a battlefield was set.
On one side, upon a horse named Bucephalus, was Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Greece.
On the other side of the river was King Porus, mounted upon a massive elephant brought from South India.
The ruler of the nearby state of Taxila, King Ambhi, had already met Alexander the Great and had joined him in attacking King Porus.
The complete account of this war fought in 326 BC is not known to anyone did the elephants of Porus defeat Porus himself, or did the bravery of Porus make Alexander the Great taste the first defeat of his life?

Ahmad Hasan Dani, Aitzaz Ahsan, and our local intellectuals and historians declare Porus as the victor, while in Greek histories as always Alexander the Great has been regarded as the victor.
Whatever the truth may be, all agree that even after the war, King Porus remained the ruler of this region.
Bucephalus the horse died, and today’s Phalia town is named after it.
King Ambhi’s dream of removing Porus could not be fulfilled.

In this story, there was also a foot soldier from the land between the rivers Jhelum and Chenab who never understood the outcome of that war.
What did he get from that war?
Did his poverty end?
Did he receive justice?
The same grinding mill of oppression, the same circle of poverty nothing changed, nor will it ever change.

This is also the story of that nameless, half-naked man from Multan who wounded Alexander the Great with a spear at the Qila Kohna (Old Fort) and the conqueror of the world had to postpone his dream of conquering more lands and return.
Who was that spearman?
Neither the name of Porus’s foot soldier was written in history, nor was the spearman recognized because history too belongs to kings and rulers; where is there mention of common people?
These nameless ones live nameless and die nameless.

This is also the story of a Jat of the tenth century AD perhaps among them were the ancestors of today’s infamous and nameless people.
History records that when Mahmud of Ghazni (917–1030 AD), after conquering Somnath, was returning to Afghanistan through Sindh, while crossing the Indus River, half-naked boatmen Jats attacked his army.
In this unorganized battle of 1025 AD, the Jats initially inflicted losses upon Mahmud Ghaznavi’s army, but when he struck back with his full strength, then according to Chach Nama, one hundred thousand Jats were slain, and the rest fled.
Most of them came to Punjab and became peaceful farmers.
This is the story of that same resister who, after suffering defeat after defeat, forgot rebellion.
Defiance faded away, and slavery became destiny.
The wheel of history traveled through centuries, yet the cot of that Jat has gone nowhere.

This is also the story of that Shudra who sometimes is Hindu, sometimes Christian, sometimes Musalli (Muslim Sheikh) and remains the victim of both Hindu and Muslim Brahminism.
In prejudice and injustice, he never receives a way to survive.
Like the characters of Thomas Hardy, he is born unfortunate and dies unfortunate.
Where is freedom, and where is equality?

This is the story of Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb Alamgir.
A disciple of Mian Mir Qadri and Mulla Shah Qadri Kashmiri was among the soldiers of Dara Shikoh.
He was both an eyewitness and a participant in the battle fought at Deorai in June 1659.
The soldiers of the dervish Dara Shikoh, due to his lack of knowledge of war strategy, were weary under the direct heat and light of the sun, while the sharp and agile troops of Aurangzeb were fresh and fully trained in the tactics of war.
That Qadri disciple lost this battle and such a loss it was, that in all the following history, Aurangzeb kept winning and Dara Shikoh kept losing.

The twentieth century’s most prominent philosopher and historian, Will Durant (1885–1981), if alive today, the nameless one would surely ask him this question:
What kind of history is this in which the nameless always lose?
What kind of order is this where the oppressor always wins and the oppressed always face defeat?
Why is it that Mohenjo-daro’s Sambara, Harappa’s Neel Pari, Sindhu River’s Sona Kumar, the Jats’ Jeeto, the Shudras’ Dr. Ambedkar, the Mughals’ Dara Shikoh, and today’s nameless will they ever win or not?

My question to Will Durant remains:
Will the dream of equality and freedom ever come true or not?