Rewind To 1999 Bus Journey That Never Happened

Rewind To 1999 Bus Journey That Never Happened

                                                                                        Saeed Naqvi

She walked into my study with a sort of aggressive authority that has become the hallmark of younger TV interviewers, custom made for shrill current affairs chat shows.

“Should our Prime Minister accept the invitation of Nawaz Sharif who invited our Vajpayeeji by bus and then stabbed him in the back in Kargil?” She started. This is the rough translation of her question in Hindi.

As anyone can see, she is all over the place on facts. That evening I gasped when she shrieked on her TV show titled “Kargil ka Hathyara” or the Murderer of Kargil. This was about Nawaz Sharif. Thank God, the infection has not spread. One or two did jump the gun just in case they were left behind in the TRP stakes but were pulled back by someone in the wings.

Since Nawaz Sharif has anchored his friendship overture to 1999, the date of the so called Amritsar-Lahore bus journey, the journey will be brought into focus repeatedly. Because I was on that bus, it may be useful to clarify that the Amritsar-Lahore journey did not exactly take place.

Yes, a bus with Vajpayee and his impressive entourage did drive from Amritsar but the journey was terminated at Wagah border. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Information Minister, Mushahid Hussain, received Vajpayee in the no-man’s land between Attari and Wagah. From this safe location the two Prime Ministers travelled by a Pakistan Army helicopter to the VIP Government Guest House in Lahore. The rest of the Indian delegation drove in cars. There were no crowds along the 25 Km highway.

Obviously, in Pakistan, there was some tension with the security apparatus which could not guarantee an incident free journey for the Indian Prime Minister, if crowds were allowed to assemble along the route. The easiest way to avoid any complications was to airlift Vajpayee, exactly from no-man’s land.

In Lahore, the establishment was unable to manage the crowds mobilized by the Islamists. This was before 9/11, mind you and the global anti Jihadist Jihad. Vajpayee did visit Minar-e-Pakistan as a grand gesture. But the gesture caused the Jamaat-e-Islami to respond most inelegantly: they washed the Minar to cleanse it of whatever taint may have stuck to it. The evening’s banquet hosted by Vajpayee in the Lahore Fort was delayed because mobs obstructed the Indian delegation.

Following their respective nuclear tests in May 1998, leaders of both the countries had come under severe international pressure to yoke themselves under a treaty for friendship and nuclear restraint. That is why, the Lahore Declaration is a historic document signed by Nawaz Sharif under domestic circumstances and a national mood he was not totally in control of. In retrospect, there appears to have been so much pressure on both sides that pre summit preparations were clearly inadequate. On his side, Sharif was unable to bring all major internal stakeholders like the Army on board. Vajpayee hoped that Sharif would somehow cope.

Pervez Musharraf therefore started out on the wrong side of President Bill Clinton and had his ears tweaked when the US President spent five days in New Delhi and only five hours in Islamabad.

Ofcourse, Musharraf proceeded to become something of a pet with George W Bush. He took on himself the blowback from the Afghan war climaxing in the post Lal Masjid catastrophe.

Sharif escaped being implicated with the Americans at a time when Pakistan was in the grip of anti Americanism on a scale unknown before. It was a potent combination of this fact along with spiraling Punjabi chauvinism which has enabled him to trump Imran Khan’s even more strident anti Americanism.

This verdict for Sharif is heavily concentrated in Punjab, a situation custom made for centrifugal pulls.

It is deft of him to have extended a hand to Imran Khan. But the verdict for the MQM in Karachi is developing into a confrontation. MQM’s Altaf Hussain has congratulated Sharif and nurses a grievance that his gesture has not been reciprocated. Altaf Hussain’s plaintive cry “Let us go if you don’t like our election results” is a repeat of his speech at Acton Town Hall outside London in 2000. “Pakistan is a historic mistake, if all of us do not have an equal share”. He had Baloch, Pushtoon and Sindhi leaders on that platform. Today he is all alone, jabbing out like a cat which is cornered. For the MQM this is an existential battle?

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Washington and Moscow Trying To Square A Circle in Syria

Washington and Moscow Trying To Square A Circle in Syria

                                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi

After 70,000 Syrians have paid with their lives in the foreign induced conflict in Syria, why has the American perspective changed? Even so, it was nice to see Secretary of State, John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, embrace each other last week in Moscow. Kerry also met President Vladimir Putin who, in Kerry’s presence, asked Lavrov to take over the task of navigating the Syrian crisis towards a peaceful resolution.

At about the same time two years ago Hillary Clinton, with an imperious wave of the hand, was demanding that “Assad, get out of the way”. Why then would the US, and its allies, accept the Geneva Communiqué, which envisages an end to violence and creation of a transitional government which could include members of the Assad regime.

If Israeli air strikes inside Syria and allegations of use of chemical weapons either by the regime or the opposition had not captured recent headlines, there would be pretty little for Kerry to discuss with the Kremlin leadership. What transpired in Moscow under the circumstances, appears to be an endorsement of the Lavrov-Assad line on Syria which has, in essentials, remained unchanged over the past two years.

What was the purpose of Israeli air strikes on Syrian targets? They were a reminder that the splintered opposition needed help because it was no longer being able to hold ground.

The strikes came in the wake of an anti Assad regime whispering campaign about chemical weapons having been used. The situation was confused with deliberation to accommodate air strikes. Just when this rumour began to acquire wings, appeared from within the ranks of an otherwise supine United Nations, one Carla del Ponte, member of the UN panel investigating the conflict in Syria. She threw a monkey wrench right into the heart of all the chemical weapons propaganda.

She said there were “strong, concrete suspicions” that Syrian rebels had used poison gas. When the plot boomeranged, a shiver went up and down many spines. White House spokesman, Jay Carney, introduced a delightful bit of ambiguity: “We are highly skeptical of any suggestion that the opposition used chemical weapons.” But he banished skepticism in the next observation: “We think it highly likely that the Assad regime was responsible…….” This is one White House attitude and Kerry’s in Moscow quit another. Which one do we believe? No condemnation of use of chemical weapons? Such global indifference?

Diplomatic grapevine has been abuzz with President Barack Obama’s telephonic exchange with President Putin urging the Russian leader to restrain Damascus from any retaliation which would cause the region from spiraling out of control. The UN has been told that Syria had the right to retaliate but it would choose its own moment. Damascus has already declared it can no longer restrain Palestinian Resistance along Israel borders on the Golan Heights.

Kerry-Lavrov duet has, after months of stalled co-operation, announced an International Conference, possibly by the end of May, to bring the civil war to a close and pave the way for a peaceful settlement. The question that will plague the conveners of the conference will be: how to create a coherent delegation out of 148 disjointed groups.

Assad will be able to put together his representation at the conference quite easily. This contrast will cause deep consternation in Congressional circles in the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, UK, France and, quite undisputedly after the recent air strikes, in Israel. After the airstrikes, Israel is very much in the frame.

The idea clearly is for Washington and Moscow to be armed with a positive document on Syria at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland on June 17 to 18.

On current showing, there is no coherence between the White House and the State Department even on the issue of chemical weapons in Syria. Place the US Congress, Pentagon, CIA in this calculus, and parties arrayed behind the Syrian opposition have enough time, upto mid June, to wreck whatever architecture Kerry may have in mind for the G8 summiteers to consider. Who knows, the arch wrecker may be within that August body itself.

Remember, Iranian Presidential election results will be out on June 14, by which time Riyadh, Doha, Ankara and Tel Aviv will have worked themselves into a frenzy about their red-hot Syrian project taking a disastrous route to peace. Are Obama and Kerry strong enough to withstand pressure from the rest of the Washington establishment plus Saudi Arabia, Qatar and, more tepidly, Turkey.

Incidentally, the establishment does have a handful of peaceniks and they can be certified. With us in Damascus two years ago was a senior US ex Ambassador to several Arab countries – Ed Peck. In those days, US ambassador in Syria, Robert Stephen Ford, with his French counterpart in tow, was driving from Dera to Homs to Hama, presumably stoking a popular rebellion.

Peck shared with a friend his personal impressions of Americans in Damascus: “I have been dismayed by the accolades and support given to Ambassador Ford, our man in - and now out of Syria, for stepping well out of the traditional and appropriate role of a diplomat and actively encouraging the revolt/insurrection/sectarian strife/outside meddling, call it what you will, that is still going on. It is easy to imagine the US reaction if an ambassador from anywhere were to engage in even distantly related activities here. I fear my country remains somewhat more than merely insensitive, and is sliding into just plain rampant and offensive arrogance.” Well, here is potential support for Kerry in his peace seeking incarnation. But on what the future portends, I shall reserve judgement atleast until the summit in Northern Ireland. I am even willing to wait until the Obama – Putin summit in Moscow in September possibly before the UN General Assembly session.

After Ben Ali in Tunis and Hosni Mubarak in Cairo became casualties of the so called Arab Spring, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia emerged from convalescence in Europe and, along with the Emir of Qatar, took charge. They rented NATO for the Libyan action and coaxed Washington and Europe to help stoke internal conflict in Syria. This column had argued then why Assad would not fall. Well, he is not about to fall quite yet. But Riyadh and Qatar have been encouraged to invest too much in the conflict to call back the dogs of war. They have nothing to show as a trophy except a destroyed nation. They face a greater existential crisis today than they did in February 2011. A looming spectre of peace in Syria will cause them to beat their breast and throw a ginger fit on the other side of the presidential desk right inside the Oval office.

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Does Intemperate Hysteria Guarantee Viewership

Does Intemperate Hysteria Guarantee Viewership

                                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

I was in Lucknow when Sarabjit Singh died in Lahore.

My purpose in visiting the city of my childhood was to address a much milder agenda: to attend a seminar organized by the local Urdu Media Guild on May Day or International Workers’ Day. Since May Day this year coincided with celebration of Prophet Mohammad’s daughter Fatima Zehra’s birthday, the organizers made this coincidence the theme of the seminar.

Trust Lucknow to have preserved in its nooks and corners, here and there, a little bit of the cultural togetherness which was once the dominant feature of its social attractions.

Despite all my efforts at accommodating change, I have often despaired at standards of political demonstration organized, for example by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati against each other. Mulayam Singh’s was “dhikkar” (damn) rally some years ago, which Mayawati reciprocated with a “thu, thu” (spit on you) rally.

That is why it was such a relief to be at the seminar searching for common ground between workers’ Day and dignity of labour enunciated by founders of Islam. Earliest Islam had itself attempted to build on a “respect for the poor” available in the Bible, even though the likes of Bernard Shaw aptly rebutted romanticization of poverty: “modern poverty is not the poverty that was blest in the Sermon on the Mount”.

There was, however, no ambiguity in the minds of the organizers. The seminar dwelt on the example set by the prophet and his daughter in maintaining an exemplary simplicity in their own lives. Even though Fatima’s mother, Khadija, was one of the richest women in Arabia, Fatima worked out a unique division of labour with Fizza who shared her household chores: they rested on alternate days. Daily chores in those days included grinding grain for dough.

In these days of growing intolerance, citing parts of history from the religious domain could well be misunderstood but not in some enlightened arenas of Lucknow. Among those who held forth on the theme were former High Court Judge Pradeep Kant and former Vice Chancellor of Lucknow University Dr. Roop Rekha Verma among a host of others.

What I found particularly enchanting was the poetry on the family of the Prophet, linking it to Workers Day. This was composed and recited by Sanjay Mishra “Shauq”. An Urdu poet with a name like Mishra still reaching across religious boundaries? I rubbed my eyes with disbelief. Sad to reflect, how Sanjay Mishra “Shauq’s” literary ancestors from Chunni Lal Dilgir in the 19th century right upto Krishen Behari “Noor” only decades ago, writing on themes of the Prophet and Karbala, have become part of our collective amnesia. Abdul Rahim Khane Khana, Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Qazi Nazrul Islam have, in our minds likewise, been separated from compositions on Lord Rama, Krishna, Shiva and Shakti.

The next morning, just when my mother, now 94, brother and others in the family were talking about the previous evening’s seminar, I received a message on my mobile from a friend in Delhi: “switch on the TV because Sarabjit Singh has died”.

We looked at each other with sadness, ofcourse, but it was tinged with a sense of foreboding. We did not have to exchange a word to realize that the same thought crossed our minds when the TV came alive in a menacing sort of way. The anchor with angry, threatening faces in the five windows on the screen, demanded action, sought vengeance and generally mobilized political leaders on an ultra hardline platform towards an indefinable end. Were they inducing a societal, nervous breakdown for TRP ratings?

Political leaders on the eve of a make-or-break election, out of touch with the people, are liable to mistake a noisy media for public opinion. Therefore, on cue, came BJP President, Rajnath Singh. “We should call back our High Commissioner from Islamabad” he thundered. Not to be left behind, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh decried Pakistani leaders for not having listened to “our pleas” to save the “brave son of India”. No one thought of placing in perspective a simple fact: Sarabjit’s conviction and sentence are a twenty three year old story. It has been invested with so much media attention only recently.

Into this generally torrid atmosphere jumps Yasin Malik demanding the remains of Afzal Guru hanged and buried in Tihar jail. He is taken into “preventive custody”, even as agitations gather momentum in New Delhi and Punjab against the court verdict on the 1984 anti Sikh riots.

To take the sting out of this agitation which cannot but have a potent anti Congress thrust, Amrinder Singh, former Congress Chief Minister of Punjab, raises the pitch: Sarabjit’s death is “officially decreed, cold blooded murder” by Pakistan.

In the midst of this singular lack of balance does Sanjay Mishra “Shauq”, come across as escapism? Are there others like him ploughing a lonely furrow in their enclaves, who deserve to be identified and linked to a bigger grid?

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Commemorating 1857: Will People Succeed Where Government Failed?

Commemorating 1857: Will People Succeed Where Government Failed?
                                                                                                  Saeed Naqvi

As the anniversary of 1857 approaches on May 11, my mind goes back in time. In 2006, within two years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule, a high level meeting was held at 7, Race Course Road, residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to chalk out a plan of action to celebrate on a national scale, the 150th anniversary of 1857, India’s first war of Independence, which would fall the next year, 2007.

In my four decades of journalism I have not seen such a galaxy of national and state level leaders, representing every political shade, endorse an extensive agenda without demur. Among those present were Sonia Gandhi, L.K. Advani, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Prakash Karat, A.B. Bardhan and a host of others – academics, poets, artists, senior journalists.

The Prime Minister in his concluding remarks said the occasion be used to celebrate “our diversity, our liberalism, our civilizational inheritance and the values of integrity and service to man that defined the national movement.”

The Prime Minister made special mention of the role played by the “Rani of Jhansi who fought against British attempts to implement gender biased laws of inheritance.”

The official briefing dwelt on the suggestion that Pakistan and Bangladesh should be included in celebrating 1857. Noted Gandhian, Nirmala Deshpande’s idea was particularly well received. She suggested that soil should be brought from Bahadur Shah Zafar’s “mazaar” in Yangon for a memorial in Delhi’s Mehrauli where the poet-King had marked the “two yards of land” for his grave near the shrine of Sufi Saint Khwaja Bakhtiar Kaki, disciple of Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer.

With so much bipartisan support, implementation of ideas appeared to be feasible. But as I embarked on a script for TV, taking up the Rani of Jhansi trail at the very outset, I received the first big shock.

Her flag or Insignia, with Hanuman embroidered on it, came into British hands after the valiant Rani fell in battle. The British Army High Command placed the priceless tapestry in the custody of Rajputana Rifles. As I pursued the story I found that this, most valuable of trophies kept at the Raj-Rif Centre had been “stolen” some years ago. The Insignia of Rani Lakshmi Bai stolen from the Indian Army?

The next stop in pursuit of this script was equally disturbing. My village, Mustafabad, happens to be in Rae Bareli, where I had, in my childhood, been shown a large tamarind tree within the premises of the magistrate’s office as the symbol of local participation in 1857. Rebellion in this famous district was led by Rana Beni Madho Baksh Singh, the zamindar of nearby Shankarpur. He escorted Begum Hazrat Mahal to Nepal where he was killed fighting the Gurkhas.

Clandestine crucial help in men and material to Beni Madho was provided by Mir Baqar who, along with his 22 supporters, were eventually captured and hanged from the tamarind tree. The bodies were left in this state for three days. My jaw dropped when I reached the location. There was no memorial. The tree had made way for a common electric transformer, next to a gutter.

There was no point pursuing other ideas that had been accepted at the Prime Minister’s meeting because nothing worthwhile was ever implemented. For example: the entire route from Meerut to Delhi’s Red Fort taken by the Indian soldiers, and civilians in their support, be named “Kranti Path” or “Revolution Path”.

Among those present at the meeting, Shashi Bhushan, wrote a stinging letter to the Prime Minister: “It is regrettable that there exist memorials for those who fought for the British, including India Gate at Delhi, but there is no monument for hundreds of thousands killed fighting for freedom.”

After the painful inability of the government and all political formations to be able to make anything of the spirit of 1857, I am heartened by an episode or two recently.

The other day, after a packed hall at the India International Center, had been regaled to an evening of poetry by Nida Fazli the popular Urdu/Hindi poet, I found that most of audience that lingered after the recitation for a conversation with him were mostly from the world of Hindi media. Whatever critics may say of Nida’s poetry, he has emerged as a firm bridge between Urdu and Hindi audiences. “A common language, Hindustani, divided by two scripts” Nida says. An idea tossed up that evening and endorsed by Nida, harmonized with the mood set by his verse.

It focused on May 11 as a day to be commemorated this year. This would kickstart a process that should then be taken up each year. On this date in 1857 soldiers of the British Indian army, after having captured the Meerut cantonment a day earlier, reached Delhi and proclaimed Bahadur Shah Zafar as their leader and Emperor. This was the first pan India uprising of the people – the first war of Indian Independence. Groups of journalists here and there, some political formations, publishers of a new Urdu daily, activist figures like Kuldip Nayar and Justice Rajinder Sachar are on board to commemorate May 11. What has to be devised is an agenda which discards the cliché that secularism has become – a system of merely “tolerating” or “accommodating” each other. This has to be replaced by a secularism of shared aspirations which is what India’s First War of Independence was.

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Nothing Became Musharraf Less Than His Return To Inhospitable Pakistan

Nothing Became Musharraf Less Than His Return To Inhospitable Pakistan

                                                                                                                               Saeed Naqvi

How will the Pervez Musharraf tragi-comedy affect events in Pakistan? To gauge the future, the past should be something of a guide.

Richard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of State, flew into Islamabad and left Musharraf with no option after the global War on Terror was launched after 9/11: Pakistan would have to join the war on America’s terms.

This imposed a paradox on Musharraf. He was required to exterminate exactly those Jihadists, who had been armed to the teeth by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, since the 1980s, to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. These had been diligently shaped into an Islamist fighting machine. This machine, once a favourite of the Pak army, for a low level conflict in Kashmir for instance, was now required to be destroyed.

So, Musharraf began to play both sides of the street. Occasionally he was found out and had his ears tweaked by Washington.

Washington’s requirements were two fold which, sometimes, dictated distinct approaches. With egg on its face in Iraq, it was important to muffle, terminate stories of rising militancy in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Musharraf had to be spurred on in this war.

Washington’s other requirement grew out of the Republican desire for a magical outcome: namely – end to militancy plus a democratic Pakistan growing into a full blown oak. This could be advertised as an achievement on the eve of the November 2008 US elections.

Some sympathetic souls in the US realized Musharraf was taking too much of the blowback from the Afghan war on himself. That is how the idea grew out of a three way power structure – the President, Army and a Prime Minister who, in this case, was to be Benazir Bhutto.

Just compare the return of Benazir Bhutto with that of Musharraf: both equally botched up. There is a universal delusion that establishments, whether in Islamabad or in Washington, are absolutely on the ball as far as intelligence is concerned. Ofcourse they are not. Otherwise Bhutto would not have been assassinated nor would Musharraf have landed himself in boiling, witches’ cauldron.

But wait a minute. Bhutto’s return was part of a deal between the Army and the US. Which interests had struck the deal with Musharraf?

Remember, when Bhutto’s participation in the February 2008 elections had been cleared, Nawaz Sharif was sent back to Jeddah from the airport. His candidature was initially not kosher. Saudi Arabia pushed for him and thereafter, with his hands tied behind his back, he came up trumps in Punjab and, nationally, second only to the PPP which gained because of sympathy on account of Bhutto’s assassination.

In other words, Sharif won despite the Army and the US being in opposition to him. After all it was Gen. Pervez Musharraf who had ousted him in a coup.

His proximity to the Saudis had also given him access to elements who had mutated into Al Qaeda and Taleban. Since the US was pushing for an all out war against militant Islam, Sharif’s softer tone was not popular with the Americans.

The situation has changed. The US is preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan after stitching up some kind of an arrangement with the Taleban. This is a pipe dream, but on that later. In these circumstances, is Sharif’s chance of remaining a front runner for the May 11 elections a source of comfort to Washington?

There is, however, an awkward complexity. In an atmosphere of rampaging anti Americanism in Pakistan the only way to advance electorally is to be perceived by the electorate to have steered clear of the US. The paradox involved is exquisite: advance on an anti American platform to be able to help Washington find interlocutors influential with the Taleban.

Where does Musharraf fit into this scenario? If he had not become something of a political cipher, he may have helped the Muslim League (Q) to steal some of Sharif’s thunder in Punjab.

Unless the plot is so high and deep as to be beyond the capacity of available instruments to gauge, on the face of it, a homesick Musharraf has returned to everybody’s utter embarrassment.

Armed with faith, Abraham jumped into the fire of Nimrod and found himself wreathed in flowers. Musharraf has leapt into a fire, but it looks increasingly probable that he will emerge wreathed in street dirt.

He deserved better. He had gone farther with both, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh than any Pakistani leader in reaching an agreement with New Delhi. He could not upturn laws but he liberalized conditions of living in Pakistan. There was only a government TV when he took charge. By the time he left, Pakistan had a thriving, lively media which too has turned upon him. He has placed himself in a situation where he cannot be helped even by the Army, of which he was once master.

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“Muslims Attack” Another Revered Shrine In Damascus

“Muslims Attack” Another Revered Shrine In Damascus

                                                                                               Saeed Naqvi

Millions of Muslims will, in the next few days, observe the birth and death anniversaries of Fatima Zehra, Prophet Mohammad’s daughter. But during this period, the world famous shrine of her daughter, Saiyada Zainab, outside Damascus, holy to millions around the world, will be in grave danger. That remarkable chronicler of London’s “Independent”, Robert Fisk, ascribes the danger to “Salafist mortar fire”.

The news some days ago was alarming but the shrine had not been “destroyed”, as extremist propaganda claimed. Let Fisk speak: “Mortars crack and rumble around us but save for a few marble squares, the place (shrine) stands untouched. There’s a T-72 tank down the road and a clutch of government soldiers outside”. But that is the picture today. What’s to come is still unsure.

The mischief that is afoot in Damascus is part of the sequence which caused the destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas and the shrines of Timbuktu. But there is a major difference: Bamyan and Timbuktu were swift acts of vandalism. Damascus, the world’s oldest continuous urban habitation, has been in the eye of the storm for quite some time.

And all of this, even as the Security Council peers over the rampage for nearly two years? Would the world’s leaders have been as insensitive if, say, Santiago de Compostela in Spain were under siege?

Indeed, when an Australian fanatic set fire to the Al Aqsa mosque in the 60s, the Jerusalem municipality organized visits by foreign journalists to demonstrate how Israel had protected the mosque. And they had.

When Michaelangelo’s masterpiece at St. Peter’s, the Pieta, was desecrated, the outrage was global, cutting across religions.

How deafening by comparison this silence on the desecration of Prophet Mohammad’s granddaughter! Should the silence in a large section of the Muslim world surprise us? A frightful reality should not be allowed to be obscured: the perpetrators of the desecration in Damascus claim to be Muslims manufactured specially for the “houris” of paradise.

Remember the folk who threatened Lahore with thunder and brimstone just in case the city celebrated Basant with colour and kite flying? The tradition was declared as un-Islamic by exactly the variety active in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Mali.

A poet friend of mine derives comfort from the fact that this lot will never inspire literature, only ghastly terror films. While Zainab’s defining role, along with her elder brother Imam Hussain, in the battle of Karbala, in 680 AD, on the banks of the Euphrates in Iraq, has inspired some of the greatest poetry in Urdu literature.

Since Karbala happened barely 48 years after the Prophet’s death, it lent itself not as a mythical, but a live, historic battle between good and evil. It opened up for scrutiny the inherent conflict between ideals and Empire.

Josh Malihabadi, an iconoclast and agnostic, succinctly summed up the meaning of Karbala:
“Koi keh de ye hukumat ke nigehbanon se
Karbala ek abadi jung hai sultanon se.”
(Warn the self appointed keepers of People’s interests
Karbala symbolizes an eternal war against feudalism and injustice)

Much the finest poetry on Karbala is in the form of epics called Marsias which dwell on Hussain, Zainab and their entourage. Men were martyred but the women, like Zainab were, shackled and paraded through the long journey to the Omayyad court in Damascus.

The journey provided Zainab with an opportunity to bring into play her charisma and eloquence. Karbala, which might have remained a story buried on an obscure Iraqi river bank, became a turning point in Islamic history because of Zainab’s exceptional oratory. This gave her the additional title of being the world’s first woman war chronicler.

The manner, in which the battle of Karbala is observed as Moharram every year, bears some resemblance to the way in which Serbs preserve the memory of the battle of Kosovo, 1389. In both instances, “apparent” defeat is celebrated as transcendental or a higher victory. Hussain’s martyrdom at the hands of the Omayyad armies, “cleansed” the faith of the deviations which had crept in within four decades of the “message”. Serbs celebrate the battle of Kosovo because, even though they “apparently” lost, they nevertheless waged such fierce battle that they blocked Turkish armies from advancing into Europe. This was their victory.

Today, even though Kosovo is an independent Muslim country, the Serbian monument of Kosovo and some of the most exquisite monasteries like Decan, are totally secure, protected by the Kosovars along with European military help. Should Decan even be scratched, the reverberations, not only in Serbia but the entire Eastern Orthodox Church will be techtonic.

Why then this helplessness in the ranks of those whose adoration for the valiant Saiyada Zainab is so real? Another point: she brought her brother’s martyrdom to light. But the attack on her shrine is blocked even on websites in most Arab countries. Such tragic irony.

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What If Rahul Has Ten Year Plan To Build Party?

What If Rahul Has Ten Year Plan To Build Party?

                                                                                   Saeed Naqvi

Not more than 200 people select the 5000 or so candidates who are elected as members of Parliament and State Assemblies. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, in his 75 minute talk, walking up and down the stage, at the Confederation of Indian Industries, on Thursday, was trying to make a simple point: an abysmal gap exists between the elected representatives and the country’s one billion people.

As opposed to the Parliament and State Legislatures there were 2.4 hundred thousand village Panchayats. It were these that had to be “empowered” as the nodal points most in contact with the people. Legislators and policy makers, have to develop institutional mechanisms to liaise with the Pradhans who implement policy at the village level.

Sensible thought, you would say. But this was not why the Captains of Industry had packed the hall. They had come for hints of economic reforms, his prime ministerial intentions. On both these counts they drew a blank. But none of this distracted the evening show hosts from their fixation: a Rahul Gandhi versus Narendra Modi showdown in the May 2014 General Elections!

The Indian middle class has been encouraged by the media to dream up a falsehood, that the country has miraculously acquired a two party system. This makes for lazy TV shows. Panels on these shows exhaust their lung power on Modi vs Rahul, when neither is a declared Prime Ministerial candidate.

There is, after all, the Karnataka state election next month. These will be followed by elections to Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh. If either Rahul or Modi (or both) are launched as star campaigners in these contests, pundits will have some data to legitimately gauge what is going on in the two main political parties. That still leaves out all the regional parties without whose support no government at the centre can be given shape.

It would not be too reckless to assume that the 2014 elections will yield a UPA III or an NDA II. An inversion of these formations is also possible, that is, coalitions supported from the outside by either of the two main parties. The tremendous sense of purpose with which Mamata Bannerjee has set about destroying her own image, opens up the possibility of the Left Front resuming a balancing role. Winning of 49 seats by the CPM out of 60 in Tripura Assembly last month should not be ignored.

Congress General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi’s touching endorsement of a dual power center flies straight into Digvijay Singh’s belief in Rahul Gandhi being projected as the next Prime Minister. This has been his position since 2009.

How does one explain this open tiff? Expectations were low in the Congress prior to the 2009 elections. Manmohan Singh had asked his handpicked economic experts to look for pastures outside the government. He was himself surprised to find himself in harness post 2009.

At this time a three way tussle began between three coteries. Since the Congress’s quantum leap from 145 seats in 2004 to 206 in 2009 was attributed to the Rahul factor, the PM’s men by way of tactic reached out to absorb him in the cabinet. If Rahul were thus contained in the cabinet system, a third power centre would be obviated. This would also be less bothersome to the coterie around Sonia Gandhi. Despite machinations on all sides, the triangle could not be rubbed out.

And now that the post 2014 power structure is being contemplated, the Congress is once again examining various options. Manmohan Singh, not given to rash statements, has himself encouraged a line of speculation in which the “dual power structure” is not ruled out for the third time. This is where Janardan Dwivedi derives his confidence to endorse the Sonia-Manmohan duet.

What does Digvijay Singh do in these circumstances? Rahul Gandhi, just 43, has time enough to design the “Beehive” (as he told the CII) where a billion Indians will busy themselves. He will undertake countless train journeys like the one from Gorakhpur to Mumbai where Girish the carpenter opened his eyes to Indian optimism. This will be the material for his Discovery of India. Remember the Duke in As You Like It? In his idyllic life “exempt from public haunt”, the Duke found “tongues in trees” books in the running brooks and sermons in stones.

Rahul will likewise, not waste his time chatting up the media but build structures of governance reaching the last of the billion Indians in the remotest hamlet.

He will be 48 during the 2019 elections and only 53 for the 2024 election. By that time all other parties will have exposed themselves as rotten. Only the structures Rahul will have built will deliver unto him the absolute majority without which Prime Ministership is a crown of thorns.

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