US – Pak Spat: Another Repeat
Saeed Naqvi
US-Pak relations are like high risk aerobatics. The plane nosedives, loops up, cruises at varying altitudes, takes a few spins and steadies.
Relations are going through a similar turbulence these days following a helicopter strike which killed three Pak soldiers. Pakistan, in anger, blocked the supply route to the US deployments in Afghanistan. US, or NATO or ISAF (take your pick) trucks were set on fire by militants.
The US has been bending repeatedly in apology, looking rather like the Japanese handing someone a visiting card.
Shooting off target and bending over in apology is a routine ritual eversince the US entered the Af-Pak turf after 9/11.
The US troops are under pressure from the White House to show results in Afghanistan. Pakistan is equally adamant to demonstrate its indispensability towards this end.
The perilous path from Karachi port through Balochistan into Afghanistan is territory totally mapped by the Pak Army. That the route is never far from Kandahar and Quetta means it is within the surveillance range of Taleban and Quetta Shura on which a section of the Pak establishment would like to project as having some influence.
Billions that Pak receives from the US for this partnership and billions more it earns by being a supply route is not enough recompense.
Islamabad would like to have a decisive say on who occupies the gaddi in Kabul. Hamid Karzai does a the moment and he has obtained from the International Community, at the July Conference in Kabul, that he would remain on the throne till 2014.
If the Americans were to scale down in Afghanistan by 2011 as Barak Obama has ordained, who will protect Karzai in Kabul? The US will, ofcourse, because it is only “scaling” down not departing by that date.
What is the White House demanding Gen. David Petraeus to achieve that would help Democrats in the November Congressional elections? I bet Gen. Petraeus does not know. So he expands special operations, another expression for Commando raids and flies drones into Pakistan’s mischief areas like Waziristan and occasionally pulls out his handkerchief to wipe egg from his face when poor targeting dependent on poorer intelligence, kills Pak soldiers, civilians, children for the umpteenth time.
In this fashion, running to stand still, Gen. Petraeus will see the Congressional elections through. Should he still be at the job, he will see the US Presidential election through in 2012 too.
It is conceivable the choreography will look even more untidy with Hamid Karzai getting more strident in his studied anti Americanism. Finally American cartoonists appear to be getting a hang of things in Afghanistan. A recent cartoon shows Karzai, his Afghan cape over his shoulders, seated on a carpet with a bearded Taleban. Karzai says “Down with America”. The Taleban responds: “Death to the infidels”. Behind the foliage a grinning American and US military officer say to each other. “Good they are talking”.
Karzai has been complaining to all and sundry, that the Americans are not striking at Pak terrorist bases. Mullah Omar’s confident, Abdus Salaam Zaeef, and Karzai’s bitter critic, the former Tajik Head of the National Security Services, Amrallah Saleh, all converge on this point: the US is not striking at Pak bases.
Hence the recent Drone and Helicopter gunship attacks, inviting a roar of disapproval from Pakistanis for loss of military lives and invasion of sovereignty.
Every voice in Afghanistan says: the enemy is headquartered in Pakistan. But Pakistan says we are your allies in this war; don’t violate our sovereignty. The message from Washington is: show results in Afghanistan. What does Gen. Petraeus do in the circumstances? A little bit of this and a little bit of that – until the Congressional elections are over.
In the midst of all these complications, why is Karzai calling the US names? Because, the US is no longer out to defeat the Taleban. It wishes to weaken it. At that point Karzai can start negotiating with the Afghan Taleban. To harmonize with the broad Anti Americanism of the Taleban, Karzai must build an anti US plank too.
It is quite extraordinary, that Hamid Karzai, handpicked by the Americans nine years ago must now stoke anti Americanism in the interest of the US.
For how many more decades will successive US administrations succeed in keeping away from the American people the harsh truth that Zillions of dollars worth of their money is spent in expeditions in far off lands where their nations is hated? Pakistan is another such.
# # # # # #
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
What Should Muslims Do?
What Should Muslims Do?
Saeed Naqvi
What should be the Muslim attitude to the Ayodhya verdict? He had, at the very outset, agreed that he would accept a court verdict. The verdict is out. And now?
“Bahut khamosh, bahut pursukoon samandar hai,
Magar woh shor jo paani ki teh ke andar hai!”
(The sea is silent, peaceful. But, oh, the turbulence beneath the surface!)
Justice Sibqat Ullah Khan in his 285 page judgment has given the example of the Treaty of Hudaibiya which Prophet Mohammad signed with the hostile tribe of Quraish in 628, barely four years before his death. It had been six years since the prophet and his followers left Mecca for Madina.
After these years, the Prophet with a caravan of 1,000 men on his way to Mecca for Haj reached Hudaibiya. Quraish had made it known that they would block Muslim entry to Mecca. The Prophet consulted his companions: should the caravan return to Madina or proceed, risking a battle. Intermediaries carried messages both ways. All that the Muslims wanted was to perform Haj at Mecca. This the Quraish were adamant to prevent. Eventually a truce was agreed upon. Ali, the Prophet’s cousin, drafted a treaty. The prophet dictated that it was a treaty between “Mohammad, the Prophet of Allah, and Quraish”. Interlocutors for Quraish objected. They did not recognize him as God’s prophet. Ali, his cousin, refused to drop the preamble. The Prophet intervened and himself deleted the phrase, thus paving the way for a Treaty which declared a truce between the two sides.
The terms of the treaty were obviously insulting to the Muslim. For instance, despite the compromise, they would not be allowed to perform Haj that year. Next year they could, provided they stayed in Mecca for only three days. There were other apparently demeaning clauses. The pact was loaded in favour of the Quraish. Many described it as abject surrender.
In modern military terms, the treaty turned out to be a sort of tactical retreat, because in a matter of a few years Muslims had conquered Mecca.
What “conquest” is recommended in Justice Khan’s sermon, for that partly is what it is? If you study the parable of Hudaibiya alongside Iqbal’s couplets Justice Khan so aptly quotes, his message is clear: communal disharmony has to be conquered. What tactical surrender must Muslims make towards this end?
Where is the national leader of sufficient stature who can distil the message from the treaty of Hudaibiya and from Iqbal, and give it contemporary relevance? Or, in a more narrow focus: where is the Muslim leader to manage the post verdict mood? I believe the Congress has two or three but the nation has not seen them in the past week.
Ofcourse, the judgment is faith, folklore, mythology superceding facts. How should the Muslims cope with the verdict? Bear the judgment with dignity. Ofcourse, go in appeal to the Supreme Court, but let the secular Hindu occupy the foreground. See how many there are willing to take up cudgels for the rule of law. It is not only a Muslim battle after all.
There is a great deal in Justice Khan’s judgment which makes for fascinating reading.
For instance, Tulsi Das (1532-1623) wrote Ram Charit Manas from 1574 to 1577 less than 50 years from the date of the building of the mosque after the alleged destruction of the Ram temple. Would a Ram Bhakt like Tulsi not have been aware that a temple to the Lord of his adoration been destroyed five decades ago? And if he knew why would he not write about it?
The judgment records:
“Several learned counsels appearing for different Hindu parties tried to explain this vital omission on the ground that Tulsi Das was afraid that in case he mentioned it, the Moghul Emperor of the time would not like it and he would be harmed.”
In other words, cowardice has been attributed to Tulsi Das by the defenders of Ram before the Allahabad Bench. If they only knew that Tulsi Das was one of the most respected names in the Moghul court. Surely the considerable rapport between Tulsi Das and Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana, possibly the most influential nobleman in the Moghul court, is proof enough. The greatest Sanskrit Poetry in praise of Ram in the medieval period was written by Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana, Tulsi’s contemporary.
So, what should the Muslim do? Take a back seat in the Babari Masjid – Ram Janambhoomi arena. Why? Because while you remain embroiled, the communalist will use you as a fulcrum for his politics. And the secular Hindu?…………… well, let him stand out and be counted. Rule of Law is very much his business too.
When the Monsoon session of Parliament opened, the Prime Minister invited opposition leaders for dinner. The BJP declined because of action against Gujarat Home Minister, Amit Shah. Result: not once was Amit Shah mentioned throughout the session by the ruling party. On foreign policy, Palestine, economy, Nuclear Liability, forward trading in food grains, Kashmir, Pakistan. Can you locate the dividing line between the BJP and the Congress? Also, remember the Ayodhya related dates: 1949, 1986, 1992 and now 2010 – Surely you know which party was in power on these dates, just as you know the Rath Yatris.
Step out of the Ayodhya arena. Justice Khan suggests, remember your Prophet at Hudaibiya. Then watch the intra-Hindu dynamics without anyone blaming you for communalism. Watchfully, take stock of friends and foes and respond electorally, in the most democratic manner available.
Ghalib said:
“Laag ho to usko hum samjhein lagao.
Jab na ho kuch bhi to dhoka khaaen kya.”
(If there was even an inclination, I would have accepted it as affection. When there is neither, why should I fool myself.)
Saeed Naqvi
What should be the Muslim attitude to the Ayodhya verdict? He had, at the very outset, agreed that he would accept a court verdict. The verdict is out. And now?
“Bahut khamosh, bahut pursukoon samandar hai,
Magar woh shor jo paani ki teh ke andar hai!”
(The sea is silent, peaceful. But, oh, the turbulence beneath the surface!)
Justice Sibqat Ullah Khan in his 285 page judgment has given the example of the Treaty of Hudaibiya which Prophet Mohammad signed with the hostile tribe of Quraish in 628, barely four years before his death. It had been six years since the prophet and his followers left Mecca for Madina.
After these years, the Prophet with a caravan of 1,000 men on his way to Mecca for Haj reached Hudaibiya. Quraish had made it known that they would block Muslim entry to Mecca. The Prophet consulted his companions: should the caravan return to Madina or proceed, risking a battle. Intermediaries carried messages both ways. All that the Muslims wanted was to perform Haj at Mecca. This the Quraish were adamant to prevent. Eventually a truce was agreed upon. Ali, the Prophet’s cousin, drafted a treaty. The prophet dictated that it was a treaty between “Mohammad, the Prophet of Allah, and Quraish”. Interlocutors for Quraish objected. They did not recognize him as God’s prophet. Ali, his cousin, refused to drop the preamble. The Prophet intervened and himself deleted the phrase, thus paving the way for a Treaty which declared a truce between the two sides.
The terms of the treaty were obviously insulting to the Muslim. For instance, despite the compromise, they would not be allowed to perform Haj that year. Next year they could, provided they stayed in Mecca for only three days. There were other apparently demeaning clauses. The pact was loaded in favour of the Quraish. Many described it as abject surrender.
In modern military terms, the treaty turned out to be a sort of tactical retreat, because in a matter of a few years Muslims had conquered Mecca.
What “conquest” is recommended in Justice Khan’s sermon, for that partly is what it is? If you study the parable of Hudaibiya alongside Iqbal’s couplets Justice Khan so aptly quotes, his message is clear: communal disharmony has to be conquered. What tactical surrender must Muslims make towards this end?
Where is the national leader of sufficient stature who can distil the message from the treaty of Hudaibiya and from Iqbal, and give it contemporary relevance? Or, in a more narrow focus: where is the Muslim leader to manage the post verdict mood? I believe the Congress has two or three but the nation has not seen them in the past week.
Ofcourse, the judgment is faith, folklore, mythology superceding facts. How should the Muslims cope with the verdict? Bear the judgment with dignity. Ofcourse, go in appeal to the Supreme Court, but let the secular Hindu occupy the foreground. See how many there are willing to take up cudgels for the rule of law. It is not only a Muslim battle after all.
There is a great deal in Justice Khan’s judgment which makes for fascinating reading.
For instance, Tulsi Das (1532-1623) wrote Ram Charit Manas from 1574 to 1577 less than 50 years from the date of the building of the mosque after the alleged destruction of the Ram temple. Would a Ram Bhakt like Tulsi not have been aware that a temple to the Lord of his adoration been destroyed five decades ago? And if he knew why would he not write about it?
The judgment records:
“Several learned counsels appearing for different Hindu parties tried to explain this vital omission on the ground that Tulsi Das was afraid that in case he mentioned it, the Moghul Emperor of the time would not like it and he would be harmed.”
In other words, cowardice has been attributed to Tulsi Das by the defenders of Ram before the Allahabad Bench. If they only knew that Tulsi Das was one of the most respected names in the Moghul court. Surely the considerable rapport between Tulsi Das and Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana, possibly the most influential nobleman in the Moghul court, is proof enough. The greatest Sanskrit Poetry in praise of Ram in the medieval period was written by Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana, Tulsi’s contemporary.
So, what should the Muslim do? Take a back seat in the Babari Masjid – Ram Janambhoomi arena. Why? Because while you remain embroiled, the communalist will use you as a fulcrum for his politics. And the secular Hindu?…………… well, let him stand out and be counted. Rule of Law is very much his business too.
When the Monsoon session of Parliament opened, the Prime Minister invited opposition leaders for dinner. The BJP declined because of action against Gujarat Home Minister, Amit Shah. Result: not once was Amit Shah mentioned throughout the session by the ruling party. On foreign policy, Palestine, economy, Nuclear Liability, forward trading in food grains, Kashmir, Pakistan. Can you locate the dividing line between the BJP and the Congress? Also, remember the Ayodhya related dates: 1949, 1986, 1992 and now 2010 – Surely you know which party was in power on these dates, just as you know the Rath Yatris.
Step out of the Ayodhya arena. Justice Khan suggests, remember your Prophet at Hudaibiya. Then watch the intra-Hindu dynamics without anyone blaming you for communalism. Watchfully, take stock of friends and foes and respond electorally, in the most democratic manner available.
Ghalib said:
“Laag ho to usko hum samjhein lagao.
Jab na ho kuch bhi to dhoka khaaen kya.”
(If there was even an inclination, I would have accepted it as affection. When there is neither, why should I fool myself.)
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Between Caesar and God
Between Caesar and God
Saeed Naqvi
Premature punditry on the Ayodhya verdict is a little bit like writing commentaries on Shakespeare after only reading Lamb’s Tales
Rapid readers will take days and weeks to digest approximately10,000, 4,000 and 260 pages of the judgments on Ayodhya delivered by Justice Dharam Vir Sharma, Sudhir Aggarwal and Sibqat Ullah Khan, respectively.
An impression had been created by a sideshow in Lucknow since September 15 that somehow the judgment was going in favour of the Muslims. On that day Justice Sharma, an avid Ram Bhakt or devotee of Lord Rama, accepted an application that the judgment, due to be delivered by three judge bench on September 24, be deferred so that the parties to the dispute can arrive at out-of-court, compromise settlement. He did this without consulting the other two judges.
The matter reached a two judge bench of the Supreme Court which was divided on whether or not a compromise was possible. The quest for a compromise on an issue which had defied settlement for decades, indeed centuries, was seen as a desperate desire to “defer” the judgment – because deferment would, for a variety of reasons, be for years. The engine for deferment was an undiluted Ram Bhakt, Justice Sharma. He was on the bench and therefore knew exactly which way the judgment was inclined. Why else would he seek deferment? It was therefore assumed that the verdict was “not” going in favour of the Hindus. It followed, in simple minds, that it was probably favouring the Muslims.
It is against this background that the responses aired by the two sides so far must be placed. Hindus, who thought the tide was turning against them, are relieved at the verdict. This sense of relief is being given a “spin” of triumph. Conversely, Muslims, expecting victory, are disappointed.
Had Justice Sharma succeeded in “deferring” the verdict, the response of the Muslims would have been loaded with irony. They would then have nursed a grievance that the higher judiciary had denied them justice.
The astonishment handed down by the court is coming across as stunned reflection. Time, in any case, has proved a healer. Even though there was much hype, most of it generated by an otherwise restrained media, there was no frenzy.
The leaderless Muslim community, before it could reflect, was hustled into continued litigation by the lawyer for the Sunni Waqf Board, Zafaryab Geelani, who proclaimed that he would go in appeal to the Supreme Court. Good luck to Geelani and the Sunni Waqf Board. I propose an international award to him for having read, digested and produced a legal response to atleast 15,000 pages of legalese penned by the Ayodhya Bench. And he performed this feat within the space of three hours!
Where was the need to rush when the verdict itself gives three months to all sides to, first, read the judgment, then consider, deliberate, accept or appeal. The pre emptive announcement is a function of fear that alternative, possibly more sensible views might begin to emerge from within the Muslim community.
Let me give you the reaction of my mother, now 94, who lives in our village, Mustafabad in Rae Bareli. She was cryptic: “Saanmp marey, na laathi tootey” (Kill the snake; don’t break the stick). In other words, kill the “snake” of Hindu-Muslim tensions without breaking the stick. It is difficult to explain ancient aphorisms but the “stick” in her approach is Hindu-Muslim harmony.
Yusuf Muchhala, convener of the legal cell of the Sunni Waqf Board, says the three judgments appeared to be a “mix of facts, principles and mythology”. This may be a succinct observation but, like, Geelani he is making observations without having read the judgments, the reasoning behind what the lordships have concluded.
As far as I am concerned, I grew up in Lucknow and never heard of Babari Masjid until the locks to the temple were broken. The subsequent story is charged with communal politics – on both sides.
Ayodhya is both, a matter of Hindu faith and grist to the mill of communal politics so long as Muslims are the foil. That is the complication. Babari Masjid, on the other hand, is a matter of Muslim hurt. Scabs form over bruises. Wherever the Muslim turns towards Kaaba is his mosque. Reflect for a month. Think of ways to bring down the edifice of communal politics.
Unless the community disenges itself from the grip of backward leaders, it will be left holding, Babari Masjid, Shah Bano, Muslim character of Universities, Salman Rushdie, corrupt Waqf Boards, while the country and the world move on, into another zone almost.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
Premature punditry on the Ayodhya verdict is a little bit like writing commentaries on Shakespeare after only reading Lamb’s Tales
Rapid readers will take days and weeks to digest approximately10,000, 4,000 and 260 pages of the judgments on Ayodhya delivered by Justice Dharam Vir Sharma, Sudhir Aggarwal and Sibqat Ullah Khan, respectively.
An impression had been created by a sideshow in Lucknow since September 15 that somehow the judgment was going in favour of the Muslims. On that day Justice Sharma, an avid Ram Bhakt or devotee of Lord Rama, accepted an application that the judgment, due to be delivered by three judge bench on September 24, be deferred so that the parties to the dispute can arrive at out-of-court, compromise settlement. He did this without consulting the other two judges.
The matter reached a two judge bench of the Supreme Court which was divided on whether or not a compromise was possible. The quest for a compromise on an issue which had defied settlement for decades, indeed centuries, was seen as a desperate desire to “defer” the judgment – because deferment would, for a variety of reasons, be for years. The engine for deferment was an undiluted Ram Bhakt, Justice Sharma. He was on the bench and therefore knew exactly which way the judgment was inclined. Why else would he seek deferment? It was therefore assumed that the verdict was “not” going in favour of the Hindus. It followed, in simple minds, that it was probably favouring the Muslims.
It is against this background that the responses aired by the two sides so far must be placed. Hindus, who thought the tide was turning against them, are relieved at the verdict. This sense of relief is being given a “spin” of triumph. Conversely, Muslims, expecting victory, are disappointed.
Had Justice Sharma succeeded in “deferring” the verdict, the response of the Muslims would have been loaded with irony. They would then have nursed a grievance that the higher judiciary had denied them justice.
The astonishment handed down by the court is coming across as stunned reflection. Time, in any case, has proved a healer. Even though there was much hype, most of it generated by an otherwise restrained media, there was no frenzy.
The leaderless Muslim community, before it could reflect, was hustled into continued litigation by the lawyer for the Sunni Waqf Board, Zafaryab Geelani, who proclaimed that he would go in appeal to the Supreme Court. Good luck to Geelani and the Sunni Waqf Board. I propose an international award to him for having read, digested and produced a legal response to atleast 15,000 pages of legalese penned by the Ayodhya Bench. And he performed this feat within the space of three hours!
Where was the need to rush when the verdict itself gives three months to all sides to, first, read the judgment, then consider, deliberate, accept or appeal. The pre emptive announcement is a function of fear that alternative, possibly more sensible views might begin to emerge from within the Muslim community.
Let me give you the reaction of my mother, now 94, who lives in our village, Mustafabad in Rae Bareli. She was cryptic: “Saanmp marey, na laathi tootey” (Kill the snake; don’t break the stick). In other words, kill the “snake” of Hindu-Muslim tensions without breaking the stick. It is difficult to explain ancient aphorisms but the “stick” in her approach is Hindu-Muslim harmony.
Yusuf Muchhala, convener of the legal cell of the Sunni Waqf Board, says the three judgments appeared to be a “mix of facts, principles and mythology”. This may be a succinct observation but, like, Geelani he is making observations without having read the judgments, the reasoning behind what the lordships have concluded.
As far as I am concerned, I grew up in Lucknow and never heard of Babari Masjid until the locks to the temple were broken. The subsequent story is charged with communal politics – on both sides.
Ayodhya is both, a matter of Hindu faith and grist to the mill of communal politics so long as Muslims are the foil. That is the complication. Babari Masjid, on the other hand, is a matter of Muslim hurt. Scabs form over bruises. Wherever the Muslim turns towards Kaaba is his mosque. Reflect for a month. Think of ways to bring down the edifice of communal politics.
Unless the community disenges itself from the grip of backward leaders, it will be left holding, Babari Masjid, Shah Bano, Muslim character of Universities, Salman Rushdie, corrupt Waqf Boards, while the country and the world move on, into another zone almost.
# # # # # #
Monday, September 27, 2010
Masochism and Commonwealth Games
Masochism and Commonwealth Games
Saeed Naqvi
The gratification derived from ones own humiliation is called Masochism. That this esoteric form of perversion would bubble over in such copious torrents on our TV screens, front pages of newspapers quite beats me.
During the test events in 2003 as a run upto Athens Olympic Games, a quarter of the volunteers quit due to transportation problems. E. Sreedharan, Managing Director of Delhi Metro, deserves applause for having put together an elegant, efficient Metro network in good time.
You would have to be blind not to see the pressure on our roads ease just a wee bit, despite the unprecedented rains.
Dogs who peed in beds Athletes would have occupied have also been in the news. Did you know that Athens authorities did not know what to do with 60,000 or so stray dogs one of whom bit the Ukraine Archery coach in the midst of a competition?
An outbreak of Salmonella led to the German rowing team from pulling out of the test events. A month before the games, Athens was hit by a massive power outage. The Greek Transport Minister was stranded while showcasing the test run of the Olympic rail link connecting Central Athens to the airport. At CWG weightlifting stadium, the ceiling would have to fall on Suresh Kalmadi’s head to compare with this one.
Ofcourse, the games were covered in the most positive light by the Western media. Remember, Greece is the very fount of Western civilization!
Contrast this with the all out war by the same media on the Beijing Olympics. A strand of hair a reporter found at an eatery was telecast worldwide as a gastronomical catastrophe.
Pall of dust from storms arising in Mongolia were described as lung busting pollution. When Beijing mounted the most spectacular show the world had ever seen, the same great media covered it, tail between legs, weakly applauding.
I am not for a moment suggesting that public anger at CWG mismanagement is misplaced. Excess of it is, when the baby is thrown out with the bath water. Those awkward smile of anchors, a sort of disguised self denigration, is actually a function of acute inferiority complex which has deep roots in colonialism and beyond. How we are, is not important; how the West sees us is. This “us” is exactly the rootless middle class which has not progressed beyond the lady who told V.S. Naipul in The Area of Darkness: “I am craze for foreign; simply craze for foreign”. In fact this middle class, aspiring from Maruti to Mercedez, has got much worse. It is totally disengaged from Bharat, 70 percent of which, as the Arjun Sen Gupta report has made famous, lives on less than Rs.20 a day! It is the top 30 percent who are going hysterical at photographs of toilets that have appeared in Britain. Oh! What will they think of us?
Lalit Bhanot of the Organizing Committee, of course, does not know that personal hygiene is an eastern virtue. The Inquisition in Spain, among its first acts, shut the Hamams in Cordoba. Mozart’s brothers died because bathing them with water was a taboo! English Kings carried their own “piss pots”. Sorry, their servants did.
And why blame the new middle class. What about our elite. Name an Indian Editor whose photographs would appear in Western publications. Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian, was all over our newspapers even as his fawning Indian hosts looked on. Why, junior anchors like Zain Vergi were all over the feature pages because they had come down to us from their BBC, CNN elevation.
Five mainstream Indian newspapers regularly publish, several times a week, columnists from New York Times, The Guardian or Newsweek. These publications do not have a single regular Indian columnists. Such intellectual servility!
And do you know the obstacles in the way of cleaning up the toilets in the games village? In our entire hospitality sector there is no system to hire toilet cleaners who can be promoted, say, to barmen, waiters, lobby managers. Toilet cleaner is a toilet cleaner – Mehtar, bhangi.
Deviously, the sector has approached a Malaysian company which hires the lowest in our caste structure and as part of a contract, then loans out their services to the service Industry.
Face these realities, twit! These are more embarrassing than the falling of a tile. Incidentally learn Kar seva, dignity of any labour, from Sikhs.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
The gratification derived from ones own humiliation is called Masochism. That this esoteric form of perversion would bubble over in such copious torrents on our TV screens, front pages of newspapers quite beats me.
During the test events in 2003 as a run upto Athens Olympic Games, a quarter of the volunteers quit due to transportation problems. E. Sreedharan, Managing Director of Delhi Metro, deserves applause for having put together an elegant, efficient Metro network in good time.
You would have to be blind not to see the pressure on our roads ease just a wee bit, despite the unprecedented rains.
Dogs who peed in beds Athletes would have occupied have also been in the news. Did you know that Athens authorities did not know what to do with 60,000 or so stray dogs one of whom bit the Ukraine Archery coach in the midst of a competition?
An outbreak of Salmonella led to the German rowing team from pulling out of the test events. A month before the games, Athens was hit by a massive power outage. The Greek Transport Minister was stranded while showcasing the test run of the Olympic rail link connecting Central Athens to the airport. At CWG weightlifting stadium, the ceiling would have to fall on Suresh Kalmadi’s head to compare with this one.
Ofcourse, the games were covered in the most positive light by the Western media. Remember, Greece is the very fount of Western civilization!
Contrast this with the all out war by the same media on the Beijing Olympics. A strand of hair a reporter found at an eatery was telecast worldwide as a gastronomical catastrophe.
Pall of dust from storms arising in Mongolia were described as lung busting pollution. When Beijing mounted the most spectacular show the world had ever seen, the same great media covered it, tail between legs, weakly applauding.
I am not for a moment suggesting that public anger at CWG mismanagement is misplaced. Excess of it is, when the baby is thrown out with the bath water. Those awkward smile of anchors, a sort of disguised self denigration, is actually a function of acute inferiority complex which has deep roots in colonialism and beyond. How we are, is not important; how the West sees us is. This “us” is exactly the rootless middle class which has not progressed beyond the lady who told V.S. Naipul in The Area of Darkness: “I am craze for foreign; simply craze for foreign”. In fact this middle class, aspiring from Maruti to Mercedez, has got much worse. It is totally disengaged from Bharat, 70 percent of which, as the Arjun Sen Gupta report has made famous, lives on less than Rs.20 a day! It is the top 30 percent who are going hysterical at photographs of toilets that have appeared in Britain. Oh! What will they think of us?
Lalit Bhanot of the Organizing Committee, of course, does not know that personal hygiene is an eastern virtue. The Inquisition in Spain, among its first acts, shut the Hamams in Cordoba. Mozart’s brothers died because bathing them with water was a taboo! English Kings carried their own “piss pots”. Sorry, their servants did.
And why blame the new middle class. What about our elite. Name an Indian Editor whose photographs would appear in Western publications. Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian, was all over our newspapers even as his fawning Indian hosts looked on. Why, junior anchors like Zain Vergi were all over the feature pages because they had come down to us from their BBC, CNN elevation.
Five mainstream Indian newspapers regularly publish, several times a week, columnists from New York Times, The Guardian or Newsweek. These publications do not have a single regular Indian columnists. Such intellectual servility!
And do you know the obstacles in the way of cleaning up the toilets in the games village? In our entire hospitality sector there is no system to hire toilet cleaners who can be promoted, say, to barmen, waiters, lobby managers. Toilet cleaner is a toilet cleaner – Mehtar, bhangi.
Deviously, the sector has approached a Malaysian company which hires the lowest in our caste structure and as part of a contract, then loans out their services to the service Industry.
Face these realities, twit! These are more embarrassing than the falling of a tile. Incidentally learn Kar seva, dignity of any labour, from Sikhs.
# # # # # #
Monday, September 20, 2010
Back to Square One on Kashmir
Back to Square One on Kashmir
Saeed Naqvi
Wednesday’s all-party meeting on Kashmir followed the Cabinet Committee on Security, which dithered on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act but said something about “governance deficit” in the state which, in simple English, means that the state Government is incompetent, weak or indifferent. The all-party meet was silent on that one. I am not for a moment suggesting that the participants had been gagged by Rahul Gandhi, who, by hint and gesture, had given his support to Omar Abdullah. Now that he has come out openly in his support, it will be interesting to see whether this reinforcement enables Omar to control the Valley.
The Wednesday meet in New Delhi must have been preceded by some back channel dialogue. The biggest success of the meeting is a matter of considerable significance: for the first time the PDP attended a meeting called by New Delhi.
Why has it taken New Delhi six weeks to hold such a conclave? Violence was expected on Eid day. 17 people died. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah all but threw up his hands.
It all seemed so manageable when I was driving up and down parts of the valley early June. Hotels were full. Queues for a gondola ride up to the higher reaches of Gulmarg were so large you needed a taxi to slot yourself at the very end. Roads looked ample, well paved (much better than parts of New Delhi these days) and the newer houses could well have been located in some of the posh colonies of India’s capital. Hunger was not an issue.
The chain of restaurants with an unlikely name, Hat Trick, had spread to over a dozen locations in Srinagar. Some of the management and kitchen staff were non Kashmiri. “Because our men prefer Government jobs,” a professor of political science at the Kashmir University explained. This fixation on “Government jobs” resembles an all-India fixation about 30 years ago when only “Government jobs” were considered secure enough in the controlled marriage market.
All of this normalcy was in large measure neutralised by check posts, sentries, Constantine wires and soldiers ringing the mountains, not always visible but always in everybody’s knowledge.
As for the Kashmiri angst, that anti-India sentiment, it is a phenomenon which waxes and wanes, but is always there. The gloomy turn of events in Pakistan, unfortunate for that country, have denied the Kashmiri of an occasionally flourished Pakistani option. Here was a chance for New Delhi to reach out to people nursing various degrees of grievances since 1953.
Oh, the anger of youth whether in newspaper offices or in university auditoriums! Why can’t “Bharat” let us be? Why are we in this prison house? Do you know that every house in the valley has a painful story to tell? Where was the Chief Minister during Shopian? There are mini Shopians strewn across the state. Do you know all this?
Sometimes their anger may have been unreasonable. But give them an honest, sincere, hearing and they are willing to be mollified. In fact they bought me a meal just outside the campus — at Hat Trick.
There was no anger with Omar Abdullah then. Yes, Srinagar journalists had begun to call him Pilot Project II. The implication was that just as the late Rajesh Pilot was a “buddy” of Farooq Abdullah, so is Sachin Pilot a close friend of Omar’s. Indeed Sachin’s wife is Omar’s sister. Pilot projects were mentioned with humour.
I would be lying if I did not mention one common complaint. Since Omar’s children study in a school in New Delhi, his wife has to live with the kids. This involves his having to spend his weekends in New Delhi — from Friday noon to Monday. As the administration moves to Jammu for six months of winter, the weekly absence of the Chief Minister leaves the valley without an on-hand administrator for extended spells.
It can be nobody’s case that this is a happy state of affairs, particularly when the valley is in the grip of unspeakable anger and violence which has taken a toll in lives which could soon touch 100.
It is my belief that both father and son, Farooq and Omar, are not sufficiently “provincial” to manage a province. They are cosmopolitan men with considerable potential on the national turf — and we are short of such personalities on the national stage. Imagine Omar campaigning alongside Rahul Gandhi throughout the country. The minority vote would be electrified — as would voters across the spectrum.
Well, the all party meet has accorded Omar protection to the extent that, if he can, he has a brief chance to redeem himself. It may not have been said but he should know that is the case.
Otherwise, state, and National Conference political dynamics will take their toll. The NC block president in Tanmarg had taken out the procession in which five people were killed. Will the NC not be in turmoil on this issue? What does the NC Chief Minister have to say?
As for New Delhi, the less said the better for its profound inaction. But now that it has stirred, let us keep our fingers crossed.
So far administrative inefficiency, absence of focus, irrelevance of possible moderates like Mirwaiz Omar Farooq have given oxygen to the hardliners. Mirwaiz was invited by New Delhi for “top secret” talks. Then the story was leaked. Mirwaiz’s credibility came hurtling down. And now an FIR against him will not make him a David standing up to the Delhi Goliath!
But slowly, as Kashmir comes sharper into the PMO’s focus, with a possible setting up of a Special Task Force for Kashmir, one must take recourse to all the optimism which lies somewhere at the bottom as a residue.
But let’s not forget, for the politically motivated among the Kashmir protesters an almighty global audience is in readiness. The UN General Assembly meets soon.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
Wednesday’s all-party meeting on Kashmir followed the Cabinet Committee on Security, which dithered on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act but said something about “governance deficit” in the state which, in simple English, means that the state Government is incompetent, weak or indifferent. The all-party meet was silent on that one. I am not for a moment suggesting that the participants had been gagged by Rahul Gandhi, who, by hint and gesture, had given his support to Omar Abdullah. Now that he has come out openly in his support, it will be interesting to see whether this reinforcement enables Omar to control the Valley.
The Wednesday meet in New Delhi must have been preceded by some back channel dialogue. The biggest success of the meeting is a matter of considerable significance: for the first time the PDP attended a meeting called by New Delhi.
Why has it taken New Delhi six weeks to hold such a conclave? Violence was expected on Eid day. 17 people died. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah all but threw up his hands.
It all seemed so manageable when I was driving up and down parts of the valley early June. Hotels were full. Queues for a gondola ride up to the higher reaches of Gulmarg were so large you needed a taxi to slot yourself at the very end. Roads looked ample, well paved (much better than parts of New Delhi these days) and the newer houses could well have been located in some of the posh colonies of India’s capital. Hunger was not an issue.
The chain of restaurants with an unlikely name, Hat Trick, had spread to over a dozen locations in Srinagar. Some of the management and kitchen staff were non Kashmiri. “Because our men prefer Government jobs,” a professor of political science at the Kashmir University explained. This fixation on “Government jobs” resembles an all-India fixation about 30 years ago when only “Government jobs” were considered secure enough in the controlled marriage market.
All of this normalcy was in large measure neutralised by check posts, sentries, Constantine wires and soldiers ringing the mountains, not always visible but always in everybody’s knowledge.
As for the Kashmiri angst, that anti-India sentiment, it is a phenomenon which waxes and wanes, but is always there. The gloomy turn of events in Pakistan, unfortunate for that country, have denied the Kashmiri of an occasionally flourished Pakistani option. Here was a chance for New Delhi to reach out to people nursing various degrees of grievances since 1953.
Oh, the anger of youth whether in newspaper offices or in university auditoriums! Why can’t “Bharat” let us be? Why are we in this prison house? Do you know that every house in the valley has a painful story to tell? Where was the Chief Minister during Shopian? There are mini Shopians strewn across the state. Do you know all this?
Sometimes their anger may have been unreasonable. But give them an honest, sincere, hearing and they are willing to be mollified. In fact they bought me a meal just outside the campus — at Hat Trick.
There was no anger with Omar Abdullah then. Yes, Srinagar journalists had begun to call him Pilot Project II. The implication was that just as the late Rajesh Pilot was a “buddy” of Farooq Abdullah, so is Sachin Pilot a close friend of Omar’s. Indeed Sachin’s wife is Omar’s sister. Pilot projects were mentioned with humour.
I would be lying if I did not mention one common complaint. Since Omar’s children study in a school in New Delhi, his wife has to live with the kids. This involves his having to spend his weekends in New Delhi — from Friday noon to Monday. As the administration moves to Jammu for six months of winter, the weekly absence of the Chief Minister leaves the valley without an on-hand administrator for extended spells.
It can be nobody’s case that this is a happy state of affairs, particularly when the valley is in the grip of unspeakable anger and violence which has taken a toll in lives which could soon touch 100.
It is my belief that both father and son, Farooq and Omar, are not sufficiently “provincial” to manage a province. They are cosmopolitan men with considerable potential on the national turf — and we are short of such personalities on the national stage. Imagine Omar campaigning alongside Rahul Gandhi throughout the country. The minority vote would be electrified — as would voters across the spectrum.
Well, the all party meet has accorded Omar protection to the extent that, if he can, he has a brief chance to redeem himself. It may not have been said but he should know that is the case.
Otherwise, state, and National Conference political dynamics will take their toll. The NC block president in Tanmarg had taken out the procession in which five people were killed. Will the NC not be in turmoil on this issue? What does the NC Chief Minister have to say?
As for New Delhi, the less said the better for its profound inaction. But now that it has stirred, let us keep our fingers crossed.
So far administrative inefficiency, absence of focus, irrelevance of possible moderates like Mirwaiz Omar Farooq have given oxygen to the hardliners. Mirwaiz was invited by New Delhi for “top secret” talks. Then the story was leaked. Mirwaiz’s credibility came hurtling down. And now an FIR against him will not make him a David standing up to the Delhi Goliath!
But slowly, as Kashmir comes sharper into the PMO’s focus, with a possible setting up of a Special Task Force for Kashmir, one must take recourse to all the optimism which lies somewhere at the bottom as a residue.
But let’s not forget, for the politically motivated among the Kashmir protesters an almighty global audience is in readiness. The UN General Assembly meets soon.
# # # # # #
Monday, September 13, 2010
The Stuck Afghan Turnstile
The Stuck Afghan Turnstile
Saeed Naqvi
Ever since I have returned from Kabul, I am frequently asked by friends: when are the Americans leaving? When I say, “I don’t know”. I am dismissed like someone who has wasted his time in Afghanistan and returned without finding an answer to a universal query.
Even though President Barak Obama remains committed to July 2011, as the date for withdrawing American troops, those whose job it will be to supervise this withdrawal have introduced caveats:
That July 2011 is not cast in stone; withdrawals will be conditioned by the situation on the ground; only combat troops will be withdrawn; Afghan National Army has to be ready to takeover and so on.
While Gen. Stan McCrystal openly stated that a high profile in Kabul by New Delhi distracts Pakistan from its war-on-terror focus, even Gen. David Petraeus has done his bit to keep Pakistan humoured by talking privately of India’s “Cold start“ doctrine, a doctrine buried in Indian military archives, never mentioned in serious Indian discourse. But Islamabad has been able to sell this lemon to Petraeus until such time as the US switches off on this one – possibly near the Obama visit.
Augmentation by 30,000 troops has taken place. That is a fact. Withdrawal will depend on a variety of factors – including how well the “surge” works. That is speculation.
The Bonn Conference, convened by the UN Secretary General, set up, in President Obama’s words, “a provisional” government under President Hamid Karzai.
But that “provisional government” has lasted nine years. Indeed, at the July 20, 2010 Kabul Conference, convened by the UN, Karzai almost established his indispensability by obtaining a mandate (from the conference) that he would continue as President until 2014.
If President Karzai is to remain in Kabul till 2014, surely he will require protection till then. If US and NATO are to start withdrawing in 2011 or even 2012, given the caveats listed above, there will still be need for Karzai to be protected or accorded safe passage. Surely it is nobody’s case that by 2014 Karzai will capture the hearts and minds of all Afghans. We have some sort of script until 2014. But the script could change after the 2012 US Presidential elections.
Yes, mounting death toll (2000 coalition soldiers) and costs of war ($ 337.8 billion) against the backdrop of a declining western economy, are all good reasons for the US to leave Afghanistan.
Supposing, the death toll is brought down to, say, double digits annually and the costs of combat are substantially reduced, will the Americans still leave?
According to Russian estimate there are 30 US bases in Afghanistan. Of these, the ones at Bagram, Jalalabad, Kandhar, Helmand, Shindand (Herat), Mazar-e-Sharif are, by the sheer volume of masonry and architecture, not temporary. These bases will remain. Are we then talking about a qualified departure?
If the US is actually plotting departure, why is it building a consulate in the heart of Mazar-e-Sharif on a scale which would dwarf large embassies. Renaissance is the only reasonable hotel in Mazar-e-Sharif. An entire section has been transformed into a dormitory for labour working on the US consulate. To the two gigantic blocks in the fortified embassy in Kabul with 700 personnel, a larger block is being added! US diplomats and Army officers in large numbers are learning Pushto and Darri back in the US.
If all these preparations for an extended non combat stay in Afghanistan are, in some parlance, tantamount to military departure, so be it. The US was to have left Iraq. But 50,000 will remain in the various bases which are, ultimately, like country houses – open the locks and they are fully functional again.
I have seen the US, after 72 days of relentless bombing of Serbia, create an independent state of Kosovo. But while departing they left behind Bond Steel, then the largest US base since the Vietnam War, in Kosovo, abutting Macedonia. Also, an entire hill had been taken over in Skopje, capital of Macedonia, to build an embassy larger than a medium size Indian Fort. Guarding energy routes from the Black Sea or elsewhere are one obvious strategic interest in this area.
Russians must be digging in likewise in Abkhazia and Ossetia.
Supply lines to these bases will have to be secured. This means control over Karachi port and reports from Karachi are incrementally alarming. The rest of the route from Karachi through Balochistan to Afghanistan is never too far from Taleban and Al Qaeda friendly areas whether in Quetta or in Kandahar. This leads to another major US requirement: the security of Pakistan, at present fighting on multiple fronts. The unprecedented floods are aggravating all these fronts.
The supply route also gives Islamabad considerable leverage over the US. But to retain this leverage Pakistan must have control over this strategic territory. This leads to finger pointing at real or imaginary “mischief” from India. Balochistan’s border with Iran has occasionally livened up. What is not discussed sufficiently is the internal instability, the insurgency in Balochistan.
In the absence of alternative supply routes, Americans have an abiding interest in Baloch indeed, Pak stability. There is, of course, no dearth of theorists suggesting this route may also have a diversionary potential toward the Gawadar port the Chinese are building.
After listening to all this, my friends ask: But when are the Americans leaving?
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
Ever since I have returned from Kabul, I am frequently asked by friends: when are the Americans leaving? When I say, “I don’t know”. I am dismissed like someone who has wasted his time in Afghanistan and returned without finding an answer to a universal query.
Even though President Barak Obama remains committed to July 2011, as the date for withdrawing American troops, those whose job it will be to supervise this withdrawal have introduced caveats:
That July 2011 is not cast in stone; withdrawals will be conditioned by the situation on the ground; only combat troops will be withdrawn; Afghan National Army has to be ready to takeover and so on.
While Gen. Stan McCrystal openly stated that a high profile in Kabul by New Delhi distracts Pakistan from its war-on-terror focus, even Gen. David Petraeus has done his bit to keep Pakistan humoured by talking privately of India’s “Cold start“ doctrine, a doctrine buried in Indian military archives, never mentioned in serious Indian discourse. But Islamabad has been able to sell this lemon to Petraeus until such time as the US switches off on this one – possibly near the Obama visit.
Augmentation by 30,000 troops has taken place. That is a fact. Withdrawal will depend on a variety of factors – including how well the “surge” works. That is speculation.
The Bonn Conference, convened by the UN Secretary General, set up, in President Obama’s words, “a provisional” government under President Hamid Karzai.
But that “provisional government” has lasted nine years. Indeed, at the July 20, 2010 Kabul Conference, convened by the UN, Karzai almost established his indispensability by obtaining a mandate (from the conference) that he would continue as President until 2014.
If President Karzai is to remain in Kabul till 2014, surely he will require protection till then. If US and NATO are to start withdrawing in 2011 or even 2012, given the caveats listed above, there will still be need for Karzai to be protected or accorded safe passage. Surely it is nobody’s case that by 2014 Karzai will capture the hearts and minds of all Afghans. We have some sort of script until 2014. But the script could change after the 2012 US Presidential elections.
Yes, mounting death toll (2000 coalition soldiers) and costs of war ($ 337.8 billion) against the backdrop of a declining western economy, are all good reasons for the US to leave Afghanistan.
Supposing, the death toll is brought down to, say, double digits annually and the costs of combat are substantially reduced, will the Americans still leave?
According to Russian estimate there are 30 US bases in Afghanistan. Of these, the ones at Bagram, Jalalabad, Kandhar, Helmand, Shindand (Herat), Mazar-e-Sharif are, by the sheer volume of masonry and architecture, not temporary. These bases will remain. Are we then talking about a qualified departure?
If the US is actually plotting departure, why is it building a consulate in the heart of Mazar-e-Sharif on a scale which would dwarf large embassies. Renaissance is the only reasonable hotel in Mazar-e-Sharif. An entire section has been transformed into a dormitory for labour working on the US consulate. To the two gigantic blocks in the fortified embassy in Kabul with 700 personnel, a larger block is being added! US diplomats and Army officers in large numbers are learning Pushto and Darri back in the US.
If all these preparations for an extended non combat stay in Afghanistan are, in some parlance, tantamount to military departure, so be it. The US was to have left Iraq. But 50,000 will remain in the various bases which are, ultimately, like country houses – open the locks and they are fully functional again.
I have seen the US, after 72 days of relentless bombing of Serbia, create an independent state of Kosovo. But while departing they left behind Bond Steel, then the largest US base since the Vietnam War, in Kosovo, abutting Macedonia. Also, an entire hill had been taken over in Skopje, capital of Macedonia, to build an embassy larger than a medium size Indian Fort. Guarding energy routes from the Black Sea or elsewhere are one obvious strategic interest in this area.
Russians must be digging in likewise in Abkhazia and Ossetia.
Supply lines to these bases will have to be secured. This means control over Karachi port and reports from Karachi are incrementally alarming. The rest of the route from Karachi through Balochistan to Afghanistan is never too far from Taleban and Al Qaeda friendly areas whether in Quetta or in Kandahar. This leads to another major US requirement: the security of Pakistan, at present fighting on multiple fronts. The unprecedented floods are aggravating all these fronts.
The supply route also gives Islamabad considerable leverage over the US. But to retain this leverage Pakistan must have control over this strategic territory. This leads to finger pointing at real or imaginary “mischief” from India. Balochistan’s border with Iran has occasionally livened up. What is not discussed sufficiently is the internal instability, the insurgency in Balochistan.
In the absence of alternative supply routes, Americans have an abiding interest in Baloch indeed, Pak stability. There is, of course, no dearth of theorists suggesting this route may also have a diversionary potential toward the Gawadar port the Chinese are building.
After listening to all this, my friends ask: But when are the Americans leaving?
# # # # # #
Monday, September 6, 2010
Cricket, A Metaphor For Pak
Cricket, A Metaphor For Pak
Saeed Naqvi
It is not a matter of four, eleven or all Pakistani cricketers failing the morality test. It reflects on a nation where the inner fibre is ruptured, a rudderless people, a system in putrid decay, an inner collapse being monitored closely from above, as if from a geostationary flying station, call it the Rawalpindi GHQ.
In geological time, when man reflects on the region so fertile in cricketing genius and so much else, there will be a footnote on the Army: it lost East Pakistan and then, in cussed pursuit of perpetuating itself, liquidated all that remained. The rot set in real deep during Gen. Zia ul Haq days.
When the first Pakistan cricket team under skipper Abdul Hafiz Kardar visited India in the 50s, my autograph hunting years, a test match was allotted to Lucknow. The team stayed at the Royal hotel, now some kind of an office block. In those days Lucknow had three very Anglaise hotels – Carlton, Royal and Burlington.
In the middle of a large, open lounge at the Royal, was a semicircular bar, occupied by some of the Pak cricketers. A constable or two (for that was all the law and order machinery required those days) kept at bay a motley crowd of students, mostly from the nearby Islamia college, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Hanif Mohammad a 16 year old batting sensation, and others like Fazal Mahmood and Maqsood Ahmad.
Some of the boys, one Habib among them, an off break bowler at Lucknow’s famous Morning Star Club, found their way to the bar through a cavernous route from the pantry. Habib buttonhold Maqsood even as Maxi (as he was called) tried to balance his beer mug, froth spilling over.
“Aap ko sharm nahin aati, Musalman hote hue sharab peetey hain?” (You should be ashamed of yourself – drinking even though you are Muslim.)
This was not fundamentalism versus enlightenment. It was more of a class thing. Here was a cricketer from North India’s most cosmopolitan hub, Lahore, facing a provincial hick from Lucknow, in decay since 1857. They were both Muslims representing distinct social evolutions, conditioned by acceptance or aversion to Western education. Government college Lahore accepted it; Islamia college Lucknow didn’t.
These distinctions have remained in Pakistani society to this day. Maqsood was always in a minority in Pakistan as in most Muslim societies. But it was this minority which determined the social tempo in Lahore, Islamabad even Karachi despite Karachi’s socially variegated spread.
Maqsood (poor fellow had to admit to Habib) was not averse to Namaz or Ramadan. In this he was rather better than Ghalib who, when asked by the Magistrate to state his religion, replied: “I am half a Muslim; I drink but don’t eat pork”.
Waris Ali Shah, the Pir of Dewa Sharif, the splendid Sufi shrine outside Lucknow, had a remarkable reason for not saying his Namaz. “There is no space to go down in supplication” he said, “He is in me”.
There was space in Pakistan for open discourse upto the Zia period. It is from Zia’s Pakistan that poets like Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Ahmad Faraz began to leave for other countries. From London, Farigh Bukhari wailed:
“ Ab to yun lagta hai Farigh, ki ayaz an billah,
Jaise Islam Yazidon ke liye aaya ho!”
(God, forgive me: these days it seems that Islam was only for tyrants and murderers like Yazid)
The faith Farigh laments was foisted on Pakistan by Zia partly to atone for Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s murder, but much more to consolidate the Idea of Pakistan, as he saw it, a confirmation of the two-nation theory, that Pakistan was created because the sub continent’s Muslims could not live with them, the “Kafirs”. “We are because we cannot live with them.”
The theory was punctured, if not exactly buried, within 24 years of the nation’s founding.
The Punjab dominated army came down so hard on the East Bengalis for having won the election of 1970, that India’s intervention was sought to help create Bangladesh in 1971.
Now, relative to the terrain it had to look after, the Army became disproportionately larger. An army so huge for what purpose? To sustain the two-nation theory, ofcourse, now with greater vigour, to justify itself.
Bangladesh was just one blow to the two-nation theory. The bigger one was the survival of the world’s second largest Muslim population in India.
The great cultural commerce on the sub continent which has embellished both Islamic and Hindu cultures with shared motifs had, in Zia’s framework, to be terminated by a policy of a “perpetual” war with India. Pakistan has to dress itself in a West Asian, Saudi, double distilled Islam. Towards this end Maqsood, Ghalib, Waris Ali Shah, Faiz, Faraz, Farigh Bukhari, all had to be repudiated.
So now we have, in Ahmad Rashid’s words, “the mother of all insurgencies in seven tribal agencies”. Gunmen slaughtered 100 Ahamdias. Hundreds of Shia are killed in mosques routinely. Some days ago devotees of the Wahabi school blew themselves to kill dozens, wound 100s in a Shia religious procession. Ethnic political and sectarian violence takes the toll of a 100 in Karachi, the entry port for supplies to US troops in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Mister ten percent, Asif Zardari will not budge. Politicians and their minions are making money like there will be no tomorrow. Sensible Pakistanis, who I believe are still in a majority, watch the country sink and queue up outside western embassies for visas, never to return. In cricket, a home series is played in England.
A sense of doom prevails and tragically, one of the great finds of swing bowling, Mohammad Aamer, sings his swan song at 18.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
It is not a matter of four, eleven or all Pakistani cricketers failing the morality test. It reflects on a nation where the inner fibre is ruptured, a rudderless people, a system in putrid decay, an inner collapse being monitored closely from above, as if from a geostationary flying station, call it the Rawalpindi GHQ.
In geological time, when man reflects on the region so fertile in cricketing genius and so much else, there will be a footnote on the Army: it lost East Pakistan and then, in cussed pursuit of perpetuating itself, liquidated all that remained. The rot set in real deep during Gen. Zia ul Haq days.
When the first Pakistan cricket team under skipper Abdul Hafiz Kardar visited India in the 50s, my autograph hunting years, a test match was allotted to Lucknow. The team stayed at the Royal hotel, now some kind of an office block. In those days Lucknow had three very Anglaise hotels – Carlton, Royal and Burlington.
In the middle of a large, open lounge at the Royal, was a semicircular bar, occupied by some of the Pak cricketers. A constable or two (for that was all the law and order machinery required those days) kept at bay a motley crowd of students, mostly from the nearby Islamia college, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Hanif Mohammad a 16 year old batting sensation, and others like Fazal Mahmood and Maqsood Ahmad.
Some of the boys, one Habib among them, an off break bowler at Lucknow’s famous Morning Star Club, found their way to the bar through a cavernous route from the pantry. Habib buttonhold Maqsood even as Maxi (as he was called) tried to balance his beer mug, froth spilling over.
“Aap ko sharm nahin aati, Musalman hote hue sharab peetey hain?” (You should be ashamed of yourself – drinking even though you are Muslim.)
This was not fundamentalism versus enlightenment. It was more of a class thing. Here was a cricketer from North India’s most cosmopolitan hub, Lahore, facing a provincial hick from Lucknow, in decay since 1857. They were both Muslims representing distinct social evolutions, conditioned by acceptance or aversion to Western education. Government college Lahore accepted it; Islamia college Lucknow didn’t.
These distinctions have remained in Pakistani society to this day. Maqsood was always in a minority in Pakistan as in most Muslim societies. But it was this minority which determined the social tempo in Lahore, Islamabad even Karachi despite Karachi’s socially variegated spread.
Maqsood (poor fellow had to admit to Habib) was not averse to Namaz or Ramadan. In this he was rather better than Ghalib who, when asked by the Magistrate to state his religion, replied: “I am half a Muslim; I drink but don’t eat pork”.
Waris Ali Shah, the Pir of Dewa Sharif, the splendid Sufi shrine outside Lucknow, had a remarkable reason for not saying his Namaz. “There is no space to go down in supplication” he said, “He is in me”.
There was space in Pakistan for open discourse upto the Zia period. It is from Zia’s Pakistan that poets like Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Ahmad Faraz began to leave for other countries. From London, Farigh Bukhari wailed:
“ Ab to yun lagta hai Farigh, ki ayaz an billah,
Jaise Islam Yazidon ke liye aaya ho!”
(God, forgive me: these days it seems that Islam was only for tyrants and murderers like Yazid)
The faith Farigh laments was foisted on Pakistan by Zia partly to atone for Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s murder, but much more to consolidate the Idea of Pakistan, as he saw it, a confirmation of the two-nation theory, that Pakistan was created because the sub continent’s Muslims could not live with them, the “Kafirs”. “We are because we cannot live with them.”
The theory was punctured, if not exactly buried, within 24 years of the nation’s founding.
The Punjab dominated army came down so hard on the East Bengalis for having won the election of 1970, that India’s intervention was sought to help create Bangladesh in 1971.
Now, relative to the terrain it had to look after, the Army became disproportionately larger. An army so huge for what purpose? To sustain the two-nation theory, ofcourse, now with greater vigour, to justify itself.
Bangladesh was just one blow to the two-nation theory. The bigger one was the survival of the world’s second largest Muslim population in India.
The great cultural commerce on the sub continent which has embellished both Islamic and Hindu cultures with shared motifs had, in Zia’s framework, to be terminated by a policy of a “perpetual” war with India. Pakistan has to dress itself in a West Asian, Saudi, double distilled Islam. Towards this end Maqsood, Ghalib, Waris Ali Shah, Faiz, Faraz, Farigh Bukhari, all had to be repudiated.
So now we have, in Ahmad Rashid’s words, “the mother of all insurgencies in seven tribal agencies”. Gunmen slaughtered 100 Ahamdias. Hundreds of Shia are killed in mosques routinely. Some days ago devotees of the Wahabi school blew themselves to kill dozens, wound 100s in a Shia religious procession. Ethnic political and sectarian violence takes the toll of a 100 in Karachi, the entry port for supplies to US troops in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Mister ten percent, Asif Zardari will not budge. Politicians and their minions are making money like there will be no tomorrow. Sensible Pakistanis, who I believe are still in a majority, watch the country sink and queue up outside western embassies for visas, never to return. In cricket, a home series is played in England.
A sense of doom prevails and tragically, one of the great finds of swing bowling, Mohammad Aamer, sings his swan song at 18.
# # # # # #
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