After Clinton, All Eyes on Pakistan’s Hina Khar
Saeed Naqvi
For the first time in my recollection, the Pakistan Foreign Minister visiting New Delhi will attract more notice than US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton did exactly a week earlier.
There could be several reasons for this, the most compelling being that Hina Rabbani Khar is the first woman Foreign Minister of Pakistan. At 34, she also happens to be the youngest ever. Then, the Clinton visit coincided with the 24X7 focus on Rupert Murdoch’s trial by fire, taking the spotlight away from her.
It is just as well that the Secretary of State’s visit was in a low key, investing it with realism divorced from the hype which generally imparts to Indo-US relations exaggerated expectations.
The US has, in its history, vacillated between global dominance and isolation. A phase of inwardness may be in the cards.
Everyone knows the Civil nuclear deal is in a bit of a jam and Clinton almost said as much. There was nothing new in the US supporting India as a Permanent member of the UN Security Council. What was heartening was the imagery she used for India’s Election Commission: “it is the global gold standard for running elections.”
Without in any way offending China she spelt out roles for India in theatres of Chinese proximity – Pacific and Central Asia. India “straddling the waters from the Indian to the Pacific Ocean is, with us, a steward of these waterways”. Will this region “build the regional architecture of institutions and arrangements to enforce international norms on security, trade, rule of law, human rights and accountable governance?” Chinese know how to decode “human rights”!
She then talks of interlocking triangles: US, Japan (a treaty binds them) and India, also US, China and India. Similar co-operative linkages are sought with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. What Clinton sketched at the library in Chennai is a comprehensive document of intent.
It is in this context that she spelt out a scenario for the Af-Pak region after US withdrawal. “We and the Afghans are making progress on a new strategic partnership declaration that will define our relationship after 2014.”
What the US seeks is in fact a contradiction in terms: how to stay on in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US troops?
This explains extensive construction at the Consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif and at US bases. According to Russians, who know the terrain well, the US has 30 bases in Afghanistan of which the ones in Bagram, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Helmand, Shindand and Mazar-e-Sharif are, by the sheer volume of masonry, not temporary. There is nothing new in all of this. US diplomats in the Af-Pak have for the past five years been fairly vocal about their being in the region for the long haul. Yes, the counter insurgency phase maybe getting a new look, but the entire question of the US withdrawing from Afghanistan is, in my view, an open one.
Yes, there will be photo ops of Marines clambering onto departing aircraft or Gen. David Petraeus looking pensive in a helicopter about to take off. These would be effective visuals on US TV preparatory to the 2012 Presidential election but only if viewers had interest left in anything other the plummeting economy – at home, across the Atlantic or the Pacific where Japan has yet to find its feet after the nuclear disaster.
Some things are not likely to happen soon. The agreement that Americans seek with the Afghans on the bases they wish to maintain in the country is not a document President Hamid Karzai can ink in a hurry given the anti American sentiment. A puzzle for the Americans seems to be “Karzai’s state of mind”. Yes, the Americans are unpopular but not as much as the Pakistan army looking for “strategic” depth in Afghanistan. This is my personal observation after visiting Afghanistan. By playing both sides of the street, the Pakistan Army has lost credit both ways – with the Americans and the Afghans.
The Pakistan Foreign Minister will have met the US and Chinese Foreign Ministers in Bali before arriving in New Delhi. Who knows, Ms. Khar may begin to open up many regional possibilities if she is able to gauge the sincerity with which Dr. Manmohan Singh and his team contemplate Indo-Pak relations in a world changing at dizzying speed.
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Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Tokenism For Muslims Now Counter Productive
Tokenism For Muslims Now Counter Productive
Saeed Naqvi
In these unsettled times, it is always reassuring to be invited to banquets at the Hyderabad House hosted by the Prime Minister or members of his cabinet. It boosts ones sense of self, ofcourse, but it also enhances a sense of communal well being because, as one ambles up the carpeted staircase, one meets other Muslims in suits of reasonable cut. Next week, the beginning of Ramadan, will see the appearance of Shervanis and headgear peculiar to certain Sufi Shrines.
Would unsuspecting Presidents, Princes or Prime Ministers, from any one of the 54 Muslim countries, return suitably impressed with the well being of the world’s second largest Muslim community, having seen so many of them at a banquet meant only for the country’s highest echelons?
The Sachar Committee report into the socio economic condition of Indian Muslims would not make for such depressing reading had Justice Sachar taken into account Muslim attendance at VIP banquets and Iftar parties. In the interest of accuracy, a caveat must be inserted. For the Sachar report, flattering data would only emerge from banquets in honour of visiting Muslim dignitaries. If Justice Sachar were to ferret the guest list under Right to Information, he would find that a banquet for the Cypriot, Armenian, Serbian or even Israeli leaders would probably not have a solitary Muslim on the list. There would not be such self conscious deletion of the Muslim when other Western leaders visit but there would be no premium on them either.
The deep design behind the hospitality list for a visiting Muslim leader could possibly be that India is good to its Muslims and would therefore be good to the visiting leader’s country. But, snicker my non Muslim friends, this communal outreach flies in the face of the secular ideal which entails even handed treatment. Is it a nagging awareness of deviation from the equal-rights ideal, which results in dollops of tokenism doled out? Invitations to banquets and Iftar parties are the tiniest part of this tokenism. And, above all, having been in the drill of democracy for 60 years, Muslims have caught onto tokens as pacifiers. Tokenism is now counterproductive. Do an opinion poll!
Most pernicious of all is institutionalized tokenism. A special Haj terminal at the Indira Gandhi airport for instance. This sort of stuff invites the chorus “appeasement!”
Further, there are Haj subsidies and special VIP Hajis on freebies to facilitate their passage to paradise. Does the government believe that such favours ensure Muslim support during elections? Yes, a benefit once conferred upon a group is difficult to withdraw because such a withdrawal would provoke editorials in Urdu newspapers. This, a government on sixes and sevens may not like to risk on the eve of the critical 2012 UP Assembly elections. After all, 14 of the 21 seats Congress won from the state have a decisive Muslim vote share.
If such fears are to determine policy, I am afraid other tokenisms will also have an extended lease of life. A government so pulverized on the issue of Muslims is not likely to alter a totally untenable policy that the ambassador to Saudi Arabia must be a Muslim. The argument that a Muslim ambassador is an enormous asset during Haj is about as convincing as the presumed requirement for a full fledged air terminal for Hajis. If the state pulled itself out of this area of patronage, it would make immense sense for private enterprise, Muslim or non Muslim, to step in to facilitate Haj. Business by its very nature is secular. Witness Indians in Saudi Arabia: senior management of Indian origin are increasingly non Muslim because they are better educated, they do not seek five breaks in a day for namaz nor a month for Ramadan.
There is a lesson here somewhere for the short sighted Muslim leadership which has, by converting a remarkably secular, internationally known university, Jamia Millia Islamia, into a “minority institution” has gifted a dud to the community. Graduates from this institution will be discriminated against even in Saudi Arabia. A Muslim minority institution faces resistance in the secular job market.
As for a Ministry of Minority Affairs the less said the better! It is grist to the communal mill whenever it stirs out to serve the community. I have said this before: a non Muslim with a secular image in this slot would be able to chart out an agenda for minorities which is free of the odour of tokenism, which would really enthuse the community, not bluff it.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
In these unsettled times, it is always reassuring to be invited to banquets at the Hyderabad House hosted by the Prime Minister or members of his cabinet. It boosts ones sense of self, ofcourse, but it also enhances a sense of communal well being because, as one ambles up the carpeted staircase, one meets other Muslims in suits of reasonable cut. Next week, the beginning of Ramadan, will see the appearance of Shervanis and headgear peculiar to certain Sufi Shrines.
Would unsuspecting Presidents, Princes or Prime Ministers, from any one of the 54 Muslim countries, return suitably impressed with the well being of the world’s second largest Muslim community, having seen so many of them at a banquet meant only for the country’s highest echelons?
The Sachar Committee report into the socio economic condition of Indian Muslims would not make for such depressing reading had Justice Sachar taken into account Muslim attendance at VIP banquets and Iftar parties. In the interest of accuracy, a caveat must be inserted. For the Sachar report, flattering data would only emerge from banquets in honour of visiting Muslim dignitaries. If Justice Sachar were to ferret the guest list under Right to Information, he would find that a banquet for the Cypriot, Armenian, Serbian or even Israeli leaders would probably not have a solitary Muslim on the list. There would not be such self conscious deletion of the Muslim when other Western leaders visit but there would be no premium on them either.
The deep design behind the hospitality list for a visiting Muslim leader could possibly be that India is good to its Muslims and would therefore be good to the visiting leader’s country. But, snicker my non Muslim friends, this communal outreach flies in the face of the secular ideal which entails even handed treatment. Is it a nagging awareness of deviation from the equal-rights ideal, which results in dollops of tokenism doled out? Invitations to banquets and Iftar parties are the tiniest part of this tokenism. And, above all, having been in the drill of democracy for 60 years, Muslims have caught onto tokens as pacifiers. Tokenism is now counterproductive. Do an opinion poll!
Most pernicious of all is institutionalized tokenism. A special Haj terminal at the Indira Gandhi airport for instance. This sort of stuff invites the chorus “appeasement!”
Further, there are Haj subsidies and special VIP Hajis on freebies to facilitate their passage to paradise. Does the government believe that such favours ensure Muslim support during elections? Yes, a benefit once conferred upon a group is difficult to withdraw because such a withdrawal would provoke editorials in Urdu newspapers. This, a government on sixes and sevens may not like to risk on the eve of the critical 2012 UP Assembly elections. After all, 14 of the 21 seats Congress won from the state have a decisive Muslim vote share.
If such fears are to determine policy, I am afraid other tokenisms will also have an extended lease of life. A government so pulverized on the issue of Muslims is not likely to alter a totally untenable policy that the ambassador to Saudi Arabia must be a Muslim. The argument that a Muslim ambassador is an enormous asset during Haj is about as convincing as the presumed requirement for a full fledged air terminal for Hajis. If the state pulled itself out of this area of patronage, it would make immense sense for private enterprise, Muslim or non Muslim, to step in to facilitate Haj. Business by its very nature is secular. Witness Indians in Saudi Arabia: senior management of Indian origin are increasingly non Muslim because they are better educated, they do not seek five breaks in a day for namaz nor a month for Ramadan.
There is a lesson here somewhere for the short sighted Muslim leadership which has, by converting a remarkably secular, internationally known university, Jamia Millia Islamia, into a “minority institution” has gifted a dud to the community. Graduates from this institution will be discriminated against even in Saudi Arabia. A Muslim minority institution faces resistance in the secular job market.
As for a Ministry of Minority Affairs the less said the better! It is grist to the communal mill whenever it stirs out to serve the community. I have said this before: a non Muslim with a secular image in this slot would be able to chart out an agenda for minorities which is free of the odour of tokenism, which would really enthuse the community, not bluff it.
# # # # # #
Monday, July 11, 2011
How Not To Project The Party or PM
How Not To Project The Party or PM
Saeed Naqvi
The invitation by the Prime Minister to five newspaper editors to share his thoughts or, months ago, TV editors seated around a rectangular arrangement for a televised transmission of ideas, are two recent examples of effort at building a communication link between reticent leaders and a precocious public.
TV, particularly its 24X7 variant, is a recent phenomenon, beginning around the mid 90’s. In other words, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and, contrary to the general perception, even Rajiv Gandhi pre dated the barrage of 24X7 channels rained on us the past sixteen years.
The first Prime Minister who completed his full term in the 24X7 age was P.V. Narasimha Rao, articulate in several languages but singularly indifferent to media arc lamps. Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh’s arrival on the scene coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of (it seemed then but no longer) a lasting unipolarity, accompanied by bugles of undiluted capitalism, which needed advertising which needed the amplifying media. The balance of power in news establishments shifted radically from the editor to the marketing manager.
It seems difficult to believe that before the “total” market takeover of the media in the mid 90s, newspapers were more free. True, the then 20 year old Doordarshan however largely remained a government department.
Overwhelmed by the market, print and electronic media began to serve partisan interests on key issues, leaving just that much space in between – a bit like the speaker’s corner at Hyde Park.
Having an “independent” media is one thing but having one held on the leash by Business Houses quite another. One does not necessarily need dictatorships to have a controlled media.
The quest for media management in an environment of a media so controlled is a quest for the impossible. Even assuming that the Prime Minister’s conversation with the chosen five last fortnight had helped clear the air on issues and that the unfortunate statement on Bangladesh was just that, unfortunate, how will the PMO justify conferring Prime Ministerial favours selectively, five at a time?
As the media is structured today, it calls the shots.
The culture of obsequious eager-beaver spokesmen for the major parties, hopping from channel to channel, gives power to anchors disproportionate to their grasp of the subject.
A private market survey will reveal, the channel hopping spokesman does himself and the party more harm than good. It imparts to anchors, not always informed, the role of arbiters. If a political party does not send its spokesman to defend an issue will it concede an advantage to the opposition which will? Quite the contrary. In fact the channel concerned will carry the episode only on pain of being accused of being biased.
Will this tactic remove the issue from public view? Not at all. Political parties must wrest the initiative and hold weekly briefings themselves rather than turn up in channels, cap in hand. The idea is to avoid the shouting match, the tu-tu-maen-maen format from which our Parliament has begun to take its cue.
The PMO, and relevant ministries must likewise hold regular briefings.
Briefings, by their very nature, are tepid and can be dull unless handled by someone interesting – and there are such talents available. Sometimes their being an asset outweighs the risks involved in having them bat for you. The person I have in mind reminds me of Mir Taqi Mir’s line: “Hai aib bada usmein, jsey kuch hunar aawey”. In other words he is cursed by his own ability. Talent inspires jealousies. No hierarchy likes to keep in its stable someone who can run away with the show!
Then, an essential requirement of a developing society and country is a public service multi-media, an idea that Rajiv Gandhi, Inder Gujaral, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Dr. Manmohan Singh have all endorsed. The Prime Minister himself announced it twice during UPA I. Regular meetings were held in which PMO officials participated. Then what happened?
As for the Prime Minister, his interaction with the media must consist in a projection of the future, not 2G and “haan ji”.
To quote Jean Genet, “as for living, my servants will take care of it.” The PM’s response to 2G like queries should be: “As for recent scandals, my minions will take care of them.” Find suitable “minions”. Don’t place the Prime Minister on show, pinned and wriggling against the wall, allegedly blundering on Bangladesh.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
The invitation by the Prime Minister to five newspaper editors to share his thoughts or, months ago, TV editors seated around a rectangular arrangement for a televised transmission of ideas, are two recent examples of effort at building a communication link between reticent leaders and a precocious public.
TV, particularly its 24X7 variant, is a recent phenomenon, beginning around the mid 90’s. In other words, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and, contrary to the general perception, even Rajiv Gandhi pre dated the barrage of 24X7 channels rained on us the past sixteen years.
The first Prime Minister who completed his full term in the 24X7 age was P.V. Narasimha Rao, articulate in several languages but singularly indifferent to media arc lamps. Narasimha Rao and his Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh’s arrival on the scene coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of (it seemed then but no longer) a lasting unipolarity, accompanied by bugles of undiluted capitalism, which needed advertising which needed the amplifying media. The balance of power in news establishments shifted radically from the editor to the marketing manager.
It seems difficult to believe that before the “total” market takeover of the media in the mid 90s, newspapers were more free. True, the then 20 year old Doordarshan however largely remained a government department.
Overwhelmed by the market, print and electronic media began to serve partisan interests on key issues, leaving just that much space in between – a bit like the speaker’s corner at Hyde Park.
Having an “independent” media is one thing but having one held on the leash by Business Houses quite another. One does not necessarily need dictatorships to have a controlled media.
The quest for media management in an environment of a media so controlled is a quest for the impossible. Even assuming that the Prime Minister’s conversation with the chosen five last fortnight had helped clear the air on issues and that the unfortunate statement on Bangladesh was just that, unfortunate, how will the PMO justify conferring Prime Ministerial favours selectively, five at a time?
As the media is structured today, it calls the shots.
The culture of obsequious eager-beaver spokesmen for the major parties, hopping from channel to channel, gives power to anchors disproportionate to their grasp of the subject.
A private market survey will reveal, the channel hopping spokesman does himself and the party more harm than good. It imparts to anchors, not always informed, the role of arbiters. If a political party does not send its spokesman to defend an issue will it concede an advantage to the opposition which will? Quite the contrary. In fact the channel concerned will carry the episode only on pain of being accused of being biased.
Will this tactic remove the issue from public view? Not at all. Political parties must wrest the initiative and hold weekly briefings themselves rather than turn up in channels, cap in hand. The idea is to avoid the shouting match, the tu-tu-maen-maen format from which our Parliament has begun to take its cue.
The PMO, and relevant ministries must likewise hold regular briefings.
Briefings, by their very nature, are tepid and can be dull unless handled by someone interesting – and there are such talents available. Sometimes their being an asset outweighs the risks involved in having them bat for you. The person I have in mind reminds me of Mir Taqi Mir’s line: “Hai aib bada usmein, jsey kuch hunar aawey”. In other words he is cursed by his own ability. Talent inspires jealousies. No hierarchy likes to keep in its stable someone who can run away with the show!
Then, an essential requirement of a developing society and country is a public service multi-media, an idea that Rajiv Gandhi, Inder Gujaral, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Dr. Manmohan Singh have all endorsed. The Prime Minister himself announced it twice during UPA I. Regular meetings were held in which PMO officials participated. Then what happened?
As for the Prime Minister, his interaction with the media must consist in a projection of the future, not 2G and “haan ji”.
To quote Jean Genet, “as for living, my servants will take care of it.” The PM’s response to 2G like queries should be: “As for recent scandals, my minions will take care of them.” Find suitable “minions”. Don’t place the Prime Minister on show, pinned and wriggling against the wall, allegedly blundering on Bangladesh.
# # # # # #
Monday, July 4, 2011
Taleban’s Hurrah at Kabul Intercontinental
Taleban’s Hurrah at Kabul Intercontinental
Saeed Naqvi
The dramatic attack on Kabul’s Intercontinental hotel earlier in the week ties in somewhat convolutedly with the arrest in Karachi in February 2010 of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a Taleban commander who led the Quetta Shura and directed the insurgency from Pakistan. Let me explain.
The dream of strategic depth in Afghanistan, nurtured by the ISI, which helped train the Afghan Mujahideen against Soviet occupation, was eventually to be realized by “installing” a government of its choice in Kabul whenever an opportunity arose.
Towards this end, the Taleban that the ISI was nurturing, would be helped and protected to climb up the ladder. This facile game plan was blown to smithereens after 9/11 when President George W. Bush, egged on by the neo-cons, mounted a massive military retaliation in Afghanistan and the Pak-Afghan border which became the sanctuary for the Al Qaeda-Taleban operations.
The US could not have thought of a more menacing figure than Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to deliver the threatening message to Pakistan. If Pakistan did not support the US-led war against Islamic terrorism, the country would be “bombed back to the stone age”. This quote would be unbelievable had it not been repeated by Musharraf himself on CBS News 60 minutes in September 2006.
The complications of what Musharraf was being asked to do are clear as daylight. He was being asked to eliminate exactly the force his ISI had helped create and nurture over the past two decades. Double dealing was built into Musharraf’s response – shoot the Taleban (or their look-alikes) when the Americans were watching, hide them behind the sofas when they were not. Ambidexterous though he was, he could not avoid participating in the “rendition” programme or in helping American’s ferry Afghan Taleban to Guantanamo Bay. Remember, when the lawyers agitation began to destabilize Musharraf, a sensitive issue the Army and the ISI had to duck concerned “missing persons”. If the Army’s hand in the “missing persons” came to public notice, the army would invite public anger on a massive scale.
Over the years much more came to light. Some sort of a crescendo was reached with the Lal Masjid affair. The blow-back from the Afghan war, which was by now raging in the North West Frontier Province and FATA, eventually consumed Musharraf.
Despite Musharraf’s departure, neither the ISI nor the Army, could disengage itself from its dream – strategic depth in Afghanistan. For this, Baradars, Haqqanis and their tribe had to be pampered as well as kept on a leash.
Pushtoons in Afghanistan have had to cope with so many traumatic shifts since the ouster of President Daud in 1978 that the traditional social structure has broken down. Pushtoon society on the Pakistan side has been relatively less unsettled. This explains why the Pakistani Pushtoons were able to open their “hujras” or hospitality quarters for their cousins escaping disturbed conditions in Afghanistan. A large Pushtoon population has therefore spread as far as Karachi where Al Asif is a Pushtoon ghetto on an epic scale, like Dharavi, in Bombay. Al Asif is one of the many.
This Pushtoon Diaspora is sensitive to the “misfortunes of our brothers” at the hands of the US and Pak military. Since all Taleban are Pushtoon this hurt for “our brothers” includes, in many instances, the trouble visited up on the Taleban.
It is therefore not surprising that the former Taleban Ambassador to Pakistan, Abdus Salaam Zaeef, on the terrace of his Kabul hideout, froths in the mouth at the mention of a Pakistani role in Afghanistan. Not only did the Pakistan army facilitate his deportation to Guantanamo, where he was prisoner for four year, “Pakistan has proved to be unreliable – it has no role in Afghanistan”.
And now that President Obama has indicated a dialogue with the Taleban without mentioning a role for Pakistan, the Pakistan Taleban and their handlers are flaring at the nostrils. They will snap the leash and rush into exactly the sort of demonstration, blazing flames and billowing smoke, that was on display at the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul. This is desperation, not some well thought out long term strategy.
As I said at the outset, the latest outrage in Kabul ties up with Baradar’s arrest in Karachi in February 2010 because that was the showdown with CIA who had started establishing direct contacts with the Taleban, circumventing their Pakistani handlers.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
The dramatic attack on Kabul’s Intercontinental hotel earlier in the week ties in somewhat convolutedly with the arrest in Karachi in February 2010 of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a Taleban commander who led the Quetta Shura and directed the insurgency from Pakistan. Let me explain.
The dream of strategic depth in Afghanistan, nurtured by the ISI, which helped train the Afghan Mujahideen against Soviet occupation, was eventually to be realized by “installing” a government of its choice in Kabul whenever an opportunity arose.
Towards this end, the Taleban that the ISI was nurturing, would be helped and protected to climb up the ladder. This facile game plan was blown to smithereens after 9/11 when President George W. Bush, egged on by the neo-cons, mounted a massive military retaliation in Afghanistan and the Pak-Afghan border which became the sanctuary for the Al Qaeda-Taleban operations.
The US could not have thought of a more menacing figure than Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to deliver the threatening message to Pakistan. If Pakistan did not support the US-led war against Islamic terrorism, the country would be “bombed back to the stone age”. This quote would be unbelievable had it not been repeated by Musharraf himself on CBS News 60 minutes in September 2006.
The complications of what Musharraf was being asked to do are clear as daylight. He was being asked to eliminate exactly the force his ISI had helped create and nurture over the past two decades. Double dealing was built into Musharraf’s response – shoot the Taleban (or their look-alikes) when the Americans were watching, hide them behind the sofas when they were not. Ambidexterous though he was, he could not avoid participating in the “rendition” programme or in helping American’s ferry Afghan Taleban to Guantanamo Bay. Remember, when the lawyers agitation began to destabilize Musharraf, a sensitive issue the Army and the ISI had to duck concerned “missing persons”. If the Army’s hand in the “missing persons” came to public notice, the army would invite public anger on a massive scale.
Over the years much more came to light. Some sort of a crescendo was reached with the Lal Masjid affair. The blow-back from the Afghan war, which was by now raging in the North West Frontier Province and FATA, eventually consumed Musharraf.
Despite Musharraf’s departure, neither the ISI nor the Army, could disengage itself from its dream – strategic depth in Afghanistan. For this, Baradars, Haqqanis and their tribe had to be pampered as well as kept on a leash.
Pushtoons in Afghanistan have had to cope with so many traumatic shifts since the ouster of President Daud in 1978 that the traditional social structure has broken down. Pushtoon society on the Pakistan side has been relatively less unsettled. This explains why the Pakistani Pushtoons were able to open their “hujras” or hospitality quarters for their cousins escaping disturbed conditions in Afghanistan. A large Pushtoon population has therefore spread as far as Karachi where Al Asif is a Pushtoon ghetto on an epic scale, like Dharavi, in Bombay. Al Asif is one of the many.
This Pushtoon Diaspora is sensitive to the “misfortunes of our brothers” at the hands of the US and Pak military. Since all Taleban are Pushtoon this hurt for “our brothers” includes, in many instances, the trouble visited up on the Taleban.
It is therefore not surprising that the former Taleban Ambassador to Pakistan, Abdus Salaam Zaeef, on the terrace of his Kabul hideout, froths in the mouth at the mention of a Pakistani role in Afghanistan. Not only did the Pakistan army facilitate his deportation to Guantanamo, where he was prisoner for four year, “Pakistan has proved to be unreliable – it has no role in Afghanistan”.
And now that President Obama has indicated a dialogue with the Taleban without mentioning a role for Pakistan, the Pakistan Taleban and their handlers are flaring at the nostrils. They will snap the leash and rush into exactly the sort of demonstration, blazing flames and billowing smoke, that was on display at the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul. This is desperation, not some well thought out long term strategy.
As I said at the outset, the latest outrage in Kabul ties up with Baradar’s arrest in Karachi in February 2010 because that was the showdown with CIA who had started establishing direct contacts with the Taleban, circumventing their Pakistani handlers.
# # # # # #
Monday, June 27, 2011
Will Obama Fall Between Stools?
Will Obama Fall Between Stools?
Saeed Naqvi
President Obama has tried to reconcile the irreconcilables – the requirements of his domestic audience and the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. It will take a while before we know whether he has fallen between stools.
After all 1,500 American lives lost and $450 billion spent in Afghanistan, will need to be explained in the run upto the US Presidential election in November 2012. As President Obama has said, some sort of a beginning will have been made when 10,000 troops begin to return home in the coming six months. The subsequent choreography is also geared towards 2012 election: in May of that year, six months prior to the election, “in Chicago we will host a summit with our NATO allies and partners to shape the next phase of this transition”.
Obama dwells at length on the “terrorist safe – havens in Pakistan”. And he leaves no one in any doubt that “so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve”. Notice, only those in Pakistani safe havens who “kill us” are the objects of the President’s ire.
In his speech delivered on December 1, 2009 at the Military Academy at West Point, Obama promised an induction of 30,000 additional troops. That surge did take place. So, on the induction of troops Obama was able to keep his word. But on the drawing down of troops? Let us wait and see.
President Hamid Karzai has grown in confidence which is largely because the American media, which takes its lead from the establishment on critical issues, no longer calls him “the Mayor of Kabul”. But is there evidence that his popularity is growing, even in arithmetical progression, in such a way that he will be able to survive in Kabul after 2014, the deadline Obama indicates for the final withdrawal? Surely, between now and 2014, another script will be written, most certainly after the results of 2012 election is known.
US diplomats in Islamabad were pretty frank in 2008 – 2009. “It will take atleast 10 years to train the Frontiers Guard.” Clearly all this training was focused on Afghanistan. A more straightforward statement was: “We are here for the long haul”.
This “long haul” becomes quite transparent when you travel in Afghanistan. The huge block which passes for the US embassy in Kabul, with 700 hands, is being doubled. In Mazar-e-Sharif the US Consulate under construction would dwarf large embassies elsewhere. Not quite the looks of folk saddling up to leave!
The current “talk-to-the-Taleban” incantation also resonates differently with ethnic groups and regions. The Rais or the Chief Priest of Mazar-e-Sharif, Atiq Ullah Ansari, abruptly ends his conversation on mystic elements in Hindustani classical music at the very mention of Taleban. Mention Serajuddin Haqqani, Taleban leader in Pakistan, to Hamid Karzai, and he sees red.
Pakistanis insist on inserting themselves as interlocutors with the Taleban, something the entire spectrum of opinion in Afghanistan firmly resists, the Afghan Talebans most of all.
“Talk-to-Taleban” has another dangerous dimension. During my stay in Kabul a riot broke out between the “Hazaras”, a Shia sect and nomadic Pushtoons called Koochis. Where would the Koochis turn for protection – Hamid Karzai or the Taleban who are being projected as the future rulers?
All Taleban are Pushtoons. Further, Pushtoon is synonymous with “Afghan”. Herein lies another potential for future conflict. Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmans constitute 60 percent of the population. Consider the complications.
For instance, any talk of regional conference to address the Afghan problem is anathema to the Taleban (Pushtoon) because Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will never accept Pushtoon dominance. Also, Pushtoon dominance conceptually opens up a cross border Pushtoon link up which is neither totally under the control of Kabul nor of Islamabad.
And yet it need not be a tidy tie up. King Amanullah, greatly influenced by Mustafa Kemal Pasha Ataturk’s strategy of submerging all ethnicities under the over arching Turkish identity, tried to knit a Pushtoon nation by transferring Pushtoons to regions dominated by other identities. Likewise, minorities were transferred to Pushtoon dominated areas. Pushtoons coming on top can lead to retaliation against them in the regions. Ethnic cleansing and civil war could follow.
There is yet another complication. The Saur (April) revolution of 1978 ousted Daud Khan, and paved the way for Noor Mohammad Taraki and other Khalq and Parcham, Communist parties of Afghanistan to come to power. Outsiders do not notice that history was made in a sense that seers Afghan memory. Daud was the last in the chain of Durranis, the ruling class from among the Pushtoons, who ruled Afghanistan without a break for 200 years. Taraki, who broke this chain, was from another line of Pushtoons called Ghilzais. The Talebans, including, Mullah Omar, are Ghilzais. The Bonn Conference on Afghanistan, proposed a “provisional” government under Karzai, who is a Populzai, from the Durrani line. He was imposed, in a manner of speaking.
Will the Taleban (Pushtoons) of their own free will, settle under a Durrani?
These are just some of the complications. And I haven’t dwelt on Pakistan yet.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
President Obama has tried to reconcile the irreconcilables – the requirements of his domestic audience and the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. It will take a while before we know whether he has fallen between stools.
After all 1,500 American lives lost and $450 billion spent in Afghanistan, will need to be explained in the run upto the US Presidential election in November 2012. As President Obama has said, some sort of a beginning will have been made when 10,000 troops begin to return home in the coming six months. The subsequent choreography is also geared towards 2012 election: in May of that year, six months prior to the election, “in Chicago we will host a summit with our NATO allies and partners to shape the next phase of this transition”.
Obama dwells at length on the “terrorist safe – havens in Pakistan”. And he leaves no one in any doubt that “so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve”. Notice, only those in Pakistani safe havens who “kill us” are the objects of the President’s ire.
In his speech delivered on December 1, 2009 at the Military Academy at West Point, Obama promised an induction of 30,000 additional troops. That surge did take place. So, on the induction of troops Obama was able to keep his word. But on the drawing down of troops? Let us wait and see.
President Hamid Karzai has grown in confidence which is largely because the American media, which takes its lead from the establishment on critical issues, no longer calls him “the Mayor of Kabul”. But is there evidence that his popularity is growing, even in arithmetical progression, in such a way that he will be able to survive in Kabul after 2014, the deadline Obama indicates for the final withdrawal? Surely, between now and 2014, another script will be written, most certainly after the results of 2012 election is known.
US diplomats in Islamabad were pretty frank in 2008 – 2009. “It will take atleast 10 years to train the Frontiers Guard.” Clearly all this training was focused on Afghanistan. A more straightforward statement was: “We are here for the long haul”.
This “long haul” becomes quite transparent when you travel in Afghanistan. The huge block which passes for the US embassy in Kabul, with 700 hands, is being doubled. In Mazar-e-Sharif the US Consulate under construction would dwarf large embassies elsewhere. Not quite the looks of folk saddling up to leave!
The current “talk-to-the-Taleban” incantation also resonates differently with ethnic groups and regions. The Rais or the Chief Priest of Mazar-e-Sharif, Atiq Ullah Ansari, abruptly ends his conversation on mystic elements in Hindustani classical music at the very mention of Taleban. Mention Serajuddin Haqqani, Taleban leader in Pakistan, to Hamid Karzai, and he sees red.
Pakistanis insist on inserting themselves as interlocutors with the Taleban, something the entire spectrum of opinion in Afghanistan firmly resists, the Afghan Talebans most of all.
“Talk-to-Taleban” has another dangerous dimension. During my stay in Kabul a riot broke out between the “Hazaras”, a Shia sect and nomadic Pushtoons called Koochis. Where would the Koochis turn for protection – Hamid Karzai or the Taleban who are being projected as the future rulers?
All Taleban are Pushtoons. Further, Pushtoon is synonymous with “Afghan”. Herein lies another potential for future conflict. Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmans constitute 60 percent of the population. Consider the complications.
For instance, any talk of regional conference to address the Afghan problem is anathema to the Taleban (Pushtoon) because Iran, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will never accept Pushtoon dominance. Also, Pushtoon dominance conceptually opens up a cross border Pushtoon link up which is neither totally under the control of Kabul nor of Islamabad.
And yet it need not be a tidy tie up. King Amanullah, greatly influenced by Mustafa Kemal Pasha Ataturk’s strategy of submerging all ethnicities under the over arching Turkish identity, tried to knit a Pushtoon nation by transferring Pushtoons to regions dominated by other identities. Likewise, minorities were transferred to Pushtoon dominated areas. Pushtoons coming on top can lead to retaliation against them in the regions. Ethnic cleansing and civil war could follow.
There is yet another complication. The Saur (April) revolution of 1978 ousted Daud Khan, and paved the way for Noor Mohammad Taraki and other Khalq and Parcham, Communist parties of Afghanistan to come to power. Outsiders do not notice that history was made in a sense that seers Afghan memory. Daud was the last in the chain of Durranis, the ruling class from among the Pushtoons, who ruled Afghanistan without a break for 200 years. Taraki, who broke this chain, was from another line of Pushtoons called Ghilzais. The Talebans, including, Mullah Omar, are Ghilzais. The Bonn Conference on Afghanistan, proposed a “provisional” government under Karzai, who is a Populzai, from the Durrani line. He was imposed, in a manner of speaking.
Will the Taleban (Pushtoons) of their own free will, settle under a Durrani?
These are just some of the complications. And I haven’t dwelt on Pakistan yet.
# # # # # #
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Ramdev, Hazare and JP Movements
Ramdev, Hazare and JP Movements
Saeed Naqvi
Are there traces of the 1974 JP movement in the anti corruption show mounted by Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare?
First, the backdrop. In 1969, Indira Gandhi split the Congress to sideline the regional leaders like Atulya Ghosh, C.B. Gupta and a host of others more to the right of Indira Gandhi’s pronounced socialism at that stage. Congress split was accompanied by nationalization of banks and stopping of Privy Purses of Princes.
To keep the Congress buoyant in Parliament, Indira Gandhi fell back on Left support. One of her cabinet colleagues, Mohan Kumarmanagalam and CPI leader S.A. Dange devised a formulation – unite and struggle. In other words, the left would “unite” with the Congress’ “pro peoples” policies like the nationalization of banks and “struggle” against its “anti Peoples” stand.
This leftward lurch of the Congress coincided, more or less with the Tet offensive bringing the US closer to its sad conclusion in Vietnam. This was also the period of anti Vietnam restiveness among the Youth – Kent state university, Grovesnor square, London, the barricades in Paris. In the early 70’s in India too, youth anger, on another issue, erupted as the Nav Nirman Samiti agitation in Gujarat.
Then came the Bihar movement.
After the Bangladesh operations in 1971, Indira Gandhi was “Goddess Durga”, invincible. To beat Indira Gandhi’s charisma, another charismatic persona had to be placed on a pedestal. In those days Socialist, Gandhian Jaya Prakash Narayan had retired into Acharya Vinoba Bhave’s “Bhoodan”, a voluntary land distribution movement. Also he made for a rather lonesome seminarist in New Delhi.
Crafty minds got together, notably Ramnath Goenka, powerful newspaper magnate, and his friend, the senior RSS leader, Nanaji Deshmukh. Later, Managing Director of the Statesman, C.R. Irani also joined as Goenka’s sidekick.
JP’s house in Kadam Kuan in Patna, became the headquarters of a movement with various names – JP movement, Bihar Movement, total revolution, anti corruption movement. For its target, the revolution chose a rather innocuous, without any history of corruption, Abdul Ghafoor, the Congress Chief Minister.
The global, national situations were reflected in Bihar as well. When Indian Communists split into CPI and CPM, the CPI in Bihar remained intact, making it a powerful block in the state assembly.
To defeat Indira Gandhi and her Left affiliates, in the guise of fighting corruption, a coalition was forged in which JP was a “Mukhauta” or mask, and the organizer was Nanaji Deshmukh who mobilized Akhil Bharatiya Viyarthi Parishad and RSS cadres as the primary foot soldiers. Socialists, Swatantra supporters, Congress(O), the right wing of the Congress discarded by Indira Gandhi in the 1969 split, sedentary, wheel spinning Gandhians–all joined to mount “total revolution” built up by the Indian Express and The Statesman. After the Railway strike led by George Fernandez, an atmosphere of anarchy was created which caused an unnerved Indira Gandhi to declare a state of Emergency in 1975. Yes, it was only after Allahabad high court disqualified Indira Gandhi on technical grounds from membership of parliament that emergency was declared. She lost the 1977 General Elections. Morarji Desai led the Janata Government as Prime Minister in which Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani became Foreign and Information Ministers respectively. The project promoted by Ramnath Goenka and Nanaji Deshmukh, among others, in response to Indira Gandhi’s 1969 congress split and leftward swing, had borne fruit. It is another matter that India’s first non-congress coalition collapsed in 1980 and Indira Gandhi bounced back.
Compare the situation today.
There is no Left surge, rather Left decline in India unless we begin to regard Maoism-Leninism with more seriousness. In the 70s, the US was under pressure - détente was working against it. This time, there is an overall dissipation of western power. In other words there is a global constant linking JP movement to the present – western decline. It was true then, it is true now. Worry of worries, China has risen.
In those days, the infection of youth anger in the west spread to India and it were the youth who manned the JP movement.
Corruption in 1970’s was built up as an issue to be placed at the service of politics. Today it dwarfs all other issues. Shockingly, ruling UPA partners, the DMK has produced record breakers in corruption. Cabinet Ministers are in jail on that count without the UPA having the courage to part company with the DMK. Abjectly subservient to morality is power at all costs. And now Jayalalita has taken a direct shot at the Union Home Minister’s credibility.
The infection of youth anger in the west spread to India and it were the youth who manned the JP movement.
Again it is the “youth bulge” which has dramatically altered the political landscape in North Africa and West Asia. The idea has been transmitted by the media.
JP’s strong point was his innings in public life and, ultimately, his “tyag”, renunciation, willingness to work outside public glare. The Indian mind reveres renunciation.
Anna Hazare is also on the renunciation path, having stepped out of Gandhian stables, but doesn’t quite measure up-to JP’s stature.
Baba Ramdev is better known but more for his yoga feats. Renunciation is not quite his forte. He is a millionaire. His saffron image has also been compromised when he donned a white salwar-kurta and covered his face in a white chunni to escape the police. In this he followed in every detail the principal mullah who tried to escape wearing a burqa from Lal Masjid in Islamabad in 2007.
It was Indira Gandhi’s charisma that JP was set up to challenge. Whose charisma were the Hazare-Ramdev duet expected to challenge? Sonia Gandhi is not invincible; she is irreplaceable as Congress President. In that position her future is secure either as leader of the ruling party or leader of opposition. Jayalalita and Mamta Bannerjee have charismatic potential but within their states. The person on whom most eyes are riveted is Mayawati because her durability in UP blocks alternative game plans from 2012 to 2014. That is where all political interests would like to derive mileage from the current anti corruption campaigners, provided Ramdev does not sully his saffron and is found escaping, this time in a burqa!
In brief, JP movement was to replace a left lurching Indira Gandhi. Hazare-Ramdev ball is being tossed up for political parties to smash it on a deft and durable Mayawati. Also, remember, all puritanical movements will be eventually exploited by exactly the right wing groups who rallied around JP.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
Are there traces of the 1974 JP movement in the anti corruption show mounted by Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare?
First, the backdrop. In 1969, Indira Gandhi split the Congress to sideline the regional leaders like Atulya Ghosh, C.B. Gupta and a host of others more to the right of Indira Gandhi’s pronounced socialism at that stage. Congress split was accompanied by nationalization of banks and stopping of Privy Purses of Princes.
To keep the Congress buoyant in Parliament, Indira Gandhi fell back on Left support. One of her cabinet colleagues, Mohan Kumarmanagalam and CPI leader S.A. Dange devised a formulation – unite and struggle. In other words, the left would “unite” with the Congress’ “pro peoples” policies like the nationalization of banks and “struggle” against its “anti Peoples” stand.
This leftward lurch of the Congress coincided, more or less with the Tet offensive bringing the US closer to its sad conclusion in Vietnam. This was also the period of anti Vietnam restiveness among the Youth – Kent state university, Grovesnor square, London, the barricades in Paris. In the early 70’s in India too, youth anger, on another issue, erupted as the Nav Nirman Samiti agitation in Gujarat.
Then came the Bihar movement.
After the Bangladesh operations in 1971, Indira Gandhi was “Goddess Durga”, invincible. To beat Indira Gandhi’s charisma, another charismatic persona had to be placed on a pedestal. In those days Socialist, Gandhian Jaya Prakash Narayan had retired into Acharya Vinoba Bhave’s “Bhoodan”, a voluntary land distribution movement. Also he made for a rather lonesome seminarist in New Delhi.
Crafty minds got together, notably Ramnath Goenka, powerful newspaper magnate, and his friend, the senior RSS leader, Nanaji Deshmukh. Later, Managing Director of the Statesman, C.R. Irani also joined as Goenka’s sidekick.
JP’s house in Kadam Kuan in Patna, became the headquarters of a movement with various names – JP movement, Bihar Movement, total revolution, anti corruption movement. For its target, the revolution chose a rather innocuous, without any history of corruption, Abdul Ghafoor, the Congress Chief Minister.
The global, national situations were reflected in Bihar as well. When Indian Communists split into CPI and CPM, the CPI in Bihar remained intact, making it a powerful block in the state assembly.
To defeat Indira Gandhi and her Left affiliates, in the guise of fighting corruption, a coalition was forged in which JP was a “Mukhauta” or mask, and the organizer was Nanaji Deshmukh who mobilized Akhil Bharatiya Viyarthi Parishad and RSS cadres as the primary foot soldiers. Socialists, Swatantra supporters, Congress(O), the right wing of the Congress discarded by Indira Gandhi in the 1969 split, sedentary, wheel spinning Gandhians–all joined to mount “total revolution” built up by the Indian Express and The Statesman. After the Railway strike led by George Fernandez, an atmosphere of anarchy was created which caused an unnerved Indira Gandhi to declare a state of Emergency in 1975. Yes, it was only after Allahabad high court disqualified Indira Gandhi on technical grounds from membership of parliament that emergency was declared. She lost the 1977 General Elections. Morarji Desai led the Janata Government as Prime Minister in which Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani became Foreign and Information Ministers respectively. The project promoted by Ramnath Goenka and Nanaji Deshmukh, among others, in response to Indira Gandhi’s 1969 congress split and leftward swing, had borne fruit. It is another matter that India’s first non-congress coalition collapsed in 1980 and Indira Gandhi bounced back.
Compare the situation today.
There is no Left surge, rather Left decline in India unless we begin to regard Maoism-Leninism with more seriousness. In the 70s, the US was under pressure - détente was working against it. This time, there is an overall dissipation of western power. In other words there is a global constant linking JP movement to the present – western decline. It was true then, it is true now. Worry of worries, China has risen.
In those days, the infection of youth anger in the west spread to India and it were the youth who manned the JP movement.
Corruption in 1970’s was built up as an issue to be placed at the service of politics. Today it dwarfs all other issues. Shockingly, ruling UPA partners, the DMK has produced record breakers in corruption. Cabinet Ministers are in jail on that count without the UPA having the courage to part company with the DMK. Abjectly subservient to morality is power at all costs. And now Jayalalita has taken a direct shot at the Union Home Minister’s credibility.
The infection of youth anger in the west spread to India and it were the youth who manned the JP movement.
Again it is the “youth bulge” which has dramatically altered the political landscape in North Africa and West Asia. The idea has been transmitted by the media.
JP’s strong point was his innings in public life and, ultimately, his “tyag”, renunciation, willingness to work outside public glare. The Indian mind reveres renunciation.
Anna Hazare is also on the renunciation path, having stepped out of Gandhian stables, but doesn’t quite measure up-to JP’s stature.
Baba Ramdev is better known but more for his yoga feats. Renunciation is not quite his forte. He is a millionaire. His saffron image has also been compromised when he donned a white salwar-kurta and covered his face in a white chunni to escape the police. In this he followed in every detail the principal mullah who tried to escape wearing a burqa from Lal Masjid in Islamabad in 2007.
It was Indira Gandhi’s charisma that JP was set up to challenge. Whose charisma were the Hazare-Ramdev duet expected to challenge? Sonia Gandhi is not invincible; she is irreplaceable as Congress President. In that position her future is secure either as leader of the ruling party or leader of opposition. Jayalalita and Mamta Bannerjee have charismatic potential but within their states. The person on whom most eyes are riveted is Mayawati because her durability in UP blocks alternative game plans from 2012 to 2014. That is where all political interests would like to derive mileage from the current anti corruption campaigners, provided Ramdev does not sully his saffron and is found escaping, this time in a burqa!
In brief, JP movement was to replace a left lurching Indira Gandhi. Hazare-Ramdev ball is being tossed up for political parties to smash it on a deft and durable Mayawati. Also, remember, all puritanical movements will be eventually exploited by exactly the right wing groups who rallied around JP.
# # # # # #
Monday, June 13, 2011
Hussain: Death Of An Exile
Hussain: Death Of An Exile
Saeed Naqvi
Maara dayar e ghair mein mujhko watan se door
Rakh li mere khuda ne meri bekasi ki sharm!
“Mirza Ghalib”
(I breathed my last in alien lands,
My god protected me from disgrace at home)
There are no instruments to gauge the pain Maqbool Fida Hussaid must have experienced in abandoning for good the country he strode, barefoot (he was averse to wearing footwear) like a colossus among artists. But pained he was. This was clear from the manner in which he avoided conversation on his exile.
I knew him since the 60s but never well enough which remains one of my regrets. In those days, Sapru House was New Delhi’s only rendezvous. Standing applause for a superb rendering of Tilak Kamod by Vilayat Khan accompanied brilliantly by Shamta Prasad on the tabla had barely subsided when a bearded man, tall and very upright, walked up the side staircase to embrace a cross-legged Sitar Maestro. It made for an awkward arch, leaning across Shanta Prasad. It was then I noticed that Hussain, wore no footwear. It was the image of a barefoot artist which remained etched in my mind as a sort of motif for Hussain. This eccentricity of his occasionally created problems, as in the instance when a Mumbai club asked him to leave for being inadequately dressed.
In my impressionable 20s, I found his iconic figure compelling except for a slight squeamishness I experienced when I saw him walk past the filth of Jama Masjid’s fish and chicken market, greeted by senior Imam Bukhari, in his booming voice and by Delhi Congress Chief, Mir Mustaq Ahmad, drunk as a sailor, leaning from the balcony of his house, just above the paan shop at the corner of the street that leads to Karim’s: “Jootey pahen lo, mian, sardi hai” (wear shoes, dear man, it’s cold), he would yell. Hussain, never a great one for quips or repartees, would mumble a greeting and walk the grimy path leading to Naaz hotel where he lived. This was much before his paintings began to sell for millions. From Naaz he graduated to the Taj.
One of life’s unwholesome realizations is the invasion of personal jealousies in the world of art. It is a long list. They even pitted Zauq as Ghalib’s equal simply because he (Zauq) was the Mughul Emperoro’s “ustad”. History is replete with Mozart-Salieri sequences.
Hussain always towered above his peers in every sense of the term. Being particularly deficient in appreciating painting and sculpture, I am hesitant to compare his works with those of his contemporaries. But in his earlier phase, I found his horses compelling because I saw them as “Ablaq” or “Surang”, the Arab steed Mir Anis sketched in his “Musaddas” or “sestet”, the style of epics in which Marsias were written, describing every detail of the battle of Karbala, including the horses of Imam Hussain and his brother, Abbas. He liked the comparison.
Hussain enjoyed these recitations. He had a sense of poetry but of a lighter, less complex variety. This made for a kind of balance: he knew just a little more about poetry than I did of painting.
He dismissed with a shrug my simple thesis that muslims, even from culturally emancipated backgrounds, knew little about painting or sculpture because of the Islamic taboo on visual representations of reality as the thin end of the wedge towards idolatory. Hussain was not the world’s most articulate man, but in his grunts and mumbles, interspersed with a jab of his elbow in your ribs to seek appreciation for the mischievous point he had made, he would say: “yeh bakwas hai”, or “This is non-sense”. He thought I was imposing my Lucknow parochialism on a vastly varied country.
After all, many of his contemporaries like Raza, Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee and Sadeqain, were all from muslim backgrounds. In fact Raza never stops talking about the “high class” Brahmins who influenced him, his tantric interests, his preoccupation with the “bindu” or the dot.
Indeed, Hussain himself had painted Bharat Mata in the 70s. He painted Indira Gandhi as Durga after Bangladesh. His Mother Theresa series is steeped in universal devotion. After a poetry session, Pavan Varma had organized at London’s Nehru Centre, he asked for a line that would describe Madhuri Dixit. Here was a sweet adolescence resident in a man in his late 80s.
That devotional painting of Bharat Mata and goddesses were, in the highest Hindu tradition, painted with pure intent which later political mischief makers distorted as irreverent nudity. Hussain was pained not so much by the lumpen demonstration as by the silence of the majority and its elite.
The intolerant streak evident from Salman Rushdie to Lelyveld’s Gandhi had never really been met headon by the elite which showed itself as cowering and bogus once again in the Bhandarkar institute case.
And the media, which builds up a national movement around a boy in a well or Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev – where was it when Hussain was being hounded? During the Gujarat riots, mobs razed to the ground the grave of Wali Dakkhini, just outside Ahemadabad’s main police station. One of Wali’s poems says:
“kooch a e yaar ain Kashi hai,
Jogia dil wahan ka baasi hai.”
(The street where my beloved lives is like the holy city of Varanasi. And the yogi of my heart has made his house there!)
Where is the movement to restore the grave, indeed, build a tomb right there?
Hussain, who lived his life on an epic scale, was pained by his own exile, but he never allowed himself to be cast in a tragic mould.
“In life’s tavern, they sat frozen, holding their cups.
I came, drank, spilt and left.
# # # # # #
Saeed Naqvi
Maara dayar e ghair mein mujhko watan se door
Rakh li mere khuda ne meri bekasi ki sharm!
“Mirza Ghalib”
(I breathed my last in alien lands,
My god protected me from disgrace at home)
There are no instruments to gauge the pain Maqbool Fida Hussaid must have experienced in abandoning for good the country he strode, barefoot (he was averse to wearing footwear) like a colossus among artists. But pained he was. This was clear from the manner in which he avoided conversation on his exile.
I knew him since the 60s but never well enough which remains one of my regrets. In those days, Sapru House was New Delhi’s only rendezvous. Standing applause for a superb rendering of Tilak Kamod by Vilayat Khan accompanied brilliantly by Shamta Prasad on the tabla had barely subsided when a bearded man, tall and very upright, walked up the side staircase to embrace a cross-legged Sitar Maestro. It made for an awkward arch, leaning across Shanta Prasad. It was then I noticed that Hussain, wore no footwear. It was the image of a barefoot artist which remained etched in my mind as a sort of motif for Hussain. This eccentricity of his occasionally created problems, as in the instance when a Mumbai club asked him to leave for being inadequately dressed.
In my impressionable 20s, I found his iconic figure compelling except for a slight squeamishness I experienced when I saw him walk past the filth of Jama Masjid’s fish and chicken market, greeted by senior Imam Bukhari, in his booming voice and by Delhi Congress Chief, Mir Mustaq Ahmad, drunk as a sailor, leaning from the balcony of his house, just above the paan shop at the corner of the street that leads to Karim’s: “Jootey pahen lo, mian, sardi hai” (wear shoes, dear man, it’s cold), he would yell. Hussain, never a great one for quips or repartees, would mumble a greeting and walk the grimy path leading to Naaz hotel where he lived. This was much before his paintings began to sell for millions. From Naaz he graduated to the Taj.
One of life’s unwholesome realizations is the invasion of personal jealousies in the world of art. It is a long list. They even pitted Zauq as Ghalib’s equal simply because he (Zauq) was the Mughul Emperoro’s “ustad”. History is replete with Mozart-Salieri sequences.
Hussain always towered above his peers in every sense of the term. Being particularly deficient in appreciating painting and sculpture, I am hesitant to compare his works with those of his contemporaries. But in his earlier phase, I found his horses compelling because I saw them as “Ablaq” or “Surang”, the Arab steed Mir Anis sketched in his “Musaddas” or “sestet”, the style of epics in which Marsias were written, describing every detail of the battle of Karbala, including the horses of Imam Hussain and his brother, Abbas. He liked the comparison.
Hussain enjoyed these recitations. He had a sense of poetry but of a lighter, less complex variety. This made for a kind of balance: he knew just a little more about poetry than I did of painting.
He dismissed with a shrug my simple thesis that muslims, even from culturally emancipated backgrounds, knew little about painting or sculpture because of the Islamic taboo on visual representations of reality as the thin end of the wedge towards idolatory. Hussain was not the world’s most articulate man, but in his grunts and mumbles, interspersed with a jab of his elbow in your ribs to seek appreciation for the mischievous point he had made, he would say: “yeh bakwas hai”, or “This is non-sense”. He thought I was imposing my Lucknow parochialism on a vastly varied country.
After all, many of his contemporaries like Raza, Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee and Sadeqain, were all from muslim backgrounds. In fact Raza never stops talking about the “high class” Brahmins who influenced him, his tantric interests, his preoccupation with the “bindu” or the dot.
Indeed, Hussain himself had painted Bharat Mata in the 70s. He painted Indira Gandhi as Durga after Bangladesh. His Mother Theresa series is steeped in universal devotion. After a poetry session, Pavan Varma had organized at London’s Nehru Centre, he asked for a line that would describe Madhuri Dixit. Here was a sweet adolescence resident in a man in his late 80s.
That devotional painting of Bharat Mata and goddesses were, in the highest Hindu tradition, painted with pure intent which later political mischief makers distorted as irreverent nudity. Hussain was pained not so much by the lumpen demonstration as by the silence of the majority and its elite.
The intolerant streak evident from Salman Rushdie to Lelyveld’s Gandhi had never really been met headon by the elite which showed itself as cowering and bogus once again in the Bhandarkar institute case.
And the media, which builds up a national movement around a boy in a well or Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev – where was it when Hussain was being hounded? During the Gujarat riots, mobs razed to the ground the grave of Wali Dakkhini, just outside Ahemadabad’s main police station. One of Wali’s poems says:
“kooch a e yaar ain Kashi hai,
Jogia dil wahan ka baasi hai.”
(The street where my beloved lives is like the holy city of Varanasi. And the yogi of my heart has made his house there!)
Where is the movement to restore the grave, indeed, build a tomb right there?
Hussain, who lived his life on an epic scale, was pained by his own exile, but he never allowed himself to be cast in a tragic mould.
“In life’s tavern, they sat frozen, holding their cups.
I came, drank, spilt and left.
# # # # # #
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