| October 8, 2001 | Monday | Rajab 20, 1422 |
Return of the gun twins, police join: KARACHI FILE
The lone crusader
New police system lacks key elements for success: COMMENT
The Kaghazi Bazaar of yore
Reaping the bitter harvest: MARGALLA CHATTER
Let’s play education education
Terrorism of a kind
IT took the Vatican over four hundred years to accept that Galileo was right, that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way round. But Galileo was dead and gone by then. You can’t un-ring the bell. He died a harassed, hounded man. It’s difficult to recall the exact reason that had persuaded the Pope to make the belated confession, but it was conveyed to the world one fine morning, perhaps 10-15 years ago, by Alistair Cooke on the BBC’s Letter from America programme.
AFTER a brief respite, we are again in the grip of gunmen who kill and escape. Once again, first the killing was right inside a place of worship. Then, there was mayhem in the streets. This as the followup to settle the scores.
KARACHI: Proper planning, simple and comprehensible laws that serve the nation, allocation of adequate funds, incentives to the workforce and the will to implement a system in true letter and spirit are the key elements to introduce and make any new system a success.
KARACHI: Though once a newsprint market, Kaghazi Bazaar was also one of the oldest shopping centres of embroidered clothes and Banarsi saris. Rich in variety, it was once a thriving shopping centre in the city. Members of the elite used to frequent Kaghazi Bazaar, located in Kharadar, for shopping. Popularity-wise it was only next to Bohri Bazaar.
By comparison, it took Madeleine Albright relatively less time, but still nearly half a century, to confess that it was the CIA that toppled a popular government in Iran in 1953, paving the way for the Shah’s reinstatement as an autocratic ruler, and thereby sowing the seeds of the 1979 Islamic revolution. But even in her confession Albright was not contrite. Her justification for the overthrow of the Persian Gulf’s first elected government was curiously American.
“In 1953, the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh,” she said in a rare Nowruz address to the Iranian-American Council, a week before visiting New Delhi and Islamabad with president Clinton last year. “The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”
No apologies. Just a reaffirmation of the truth everyone already knows too well, not unlike the revolution of the earth around the sun. Naturally, a key element of the so-called Third World syndrome, of which India and Pakistan are both a chronic and an acute part, is a deep and abiding mistrust of the West, not merely because of the countless instances of brazen perfidy, from Allende’s Chile in Latin America to Africa, Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Asia, east, west north south, everywhere. But even in its integrity in the basic first step towards creating a civil society across the world, in its battle against the kind of obscurantism it accuses the Taliban of practising.
The last time the West fought a major battle against terrorism, against Nazi Germany, it created Israel as a solution, based on the tenets of religion, the Promised Land. Goodness knows what holy scriptures will guide the post-Osama bin Laden involvement in Afghanistan. The cynics would notice though that not unlike Israel, Afghanistan too is sitting on the edges of an oil-rich region, which imbues the current standoff there with an air of suspicious coincidence.
One of the core beliefs of civil society is equal justice for all. And yet, even after it was accepted as a most desirable international covenant in 1945 in San Francisco, equal justice remains one of the most elusive ingredients of democracy, not to speak of mediaeval monarchies and dictatorships that still dot the global map.
The Secret Evidence Act introduced by the Clinton administration was the anti-thesis of the world’s quest for equal justice, targeting and trapping foreigners as suspects and denying them access to any evidence or proof of the alleged suspicion of terrorism. That such foreigners mostly turned out to be Arab immigrants is a curious coincidence. After the attacks in New York and Washington, almost the same principles of American justice are being sought to be imposed on the global war against terrorism.
The short message is, believe us. We have proof, those guys are guilty. We have shown some select evidence to your governments. But we cannot, will not, need not give any further proof to proceed with our objective to annihilate terror. Terror as we define it. Sounds so much like British law as it evolved in India.
Remember that it was the British who practised slave trade. They practised racism. Their offspring hunted and annihilated the native inhabitants in America, Australia and on countless islands across the world inhabited by the so-named aborigines. Even worse was this Western habit of looking at the pre-September 11 Afghanistan primarily as a source of illicit drugs. But was it not the British who massacred the Chinese during the Opium Wars because of their refusal to hawk opium to their people. Weren’t the British of the civil society fame, the world’s original drug peddlers? These gurus of civil society, what were they doing and practising in India? Let’s look up a few paragraphs from their manuals of justice and see if anything has changed.
The reforms of 1772 introduced by Warren Hastings included one significant foray into substantive law, in the form of Article 35, for punishing dacoits.
An address which Hastings made to the Council on July 10, 1773, suggests that the kazis and muftis of the faujdari adalats, the criminal courts, were not using Article 35 very enthusiastically. The article prescribed capital punishment but “the moulvis in the provincial courts refuse to pass sentence of death on dacoits, unless the robbery committed by them has been attended with murder. They rest their opinion on the express law of the Koran, which is the infallible guide of their decisions.”
Some months later Hastings was complaining that the maulvis of the courts did not draw a distinction between the raiat (peasant) who, impelled by strong necessity, in a single instance, invades the property of his neighbour and, on the other hand, the dacoit, robbers on the highway, and especially to such as make it their profession. But on what criteria, after all, did Hastings want the judge to distinguish between the one-time offender and the professional robber. His loaded conclusion could be relevant to the way the arriving anti-terrorist coalition looks to solve the problem they face, or believe they face.
“The dacoits of Bengal”, said a government committee reporting to Hastings, “are not, like robbers in England, individuals driven to such desperate courses by sudden want: they are robbers by profession, and even by birth; their families subsist by the spoils which they bring home to them; they are all, therefore, alike, criminal wretches, who have placed themselves in a state of declared war with our government and are, therefore, wholly excluded from every benefit of its laws.” That is the thinking that must have been dominant during Britain’s first engagements with Afghanistan. More than 200 years later little, if any, of the colonial mindset seems to have changed.
ART IN WAR TIME: I do not know if Cassius, one of the assassins of Julius Caesar, was a religious fundamentalist but he certainly had no ear for music, according to William Shakespeare. And it was the Bard who said such men are dangerous people. Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb had banished music from his empire altogether, something so caringly nurtured by the dynasty’s founder, Babar. Indian classical music was elevated to its present rich form by Mian Tansen, court musician during Emperor Akbar’s reign, Aurangzeb’s great-grandfather.
Similarly in Afghanistan, the musical tradition thrived in the court of King Zahir Shah and even later, during communist rule, with Mohammed Husain Sarhang and Moosa Qasimi regaling their knowledgeable audiences.
Music is a great healer. So when the TNT cable channel planned “Come Together,” its tribute to John Lennon, the show was going to be a benefit for gun-control groups, a concert “in support of a non-violent world.” According to some reports, after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, it inevitably changed.
The rescheduled concert, which was broadcast live on Tuesday night from Radio City Music Hall on the WB network and on TNT, became a benefit for relief efforts through the Web site www.helping.org.
Lennon’s yearning to give peace a chance, and his conviction that “love is the answer,” made an uncomfortable fit with the prospect of imminent war, one newspaper said. Instead, the tribute found a new focus: mourning both a murdered musician and the thousands of victims in New York and Washington.
Of course, music is not the only means to cope with trauma. An art exhibition in New Delhi has become the talk of the town for its efforts to revive hope and spiritual grace in the aftermath of calamity. Susan Gillerman Boggs whose water paintings are drawn from her vast experience and keen observation of life and people in South Asia is not any ordinary diplomatic spouse. Her art like her ready smile has an immediately soothing quality. Leading the inauguration of her paintings last week was American Ambassador Robert Blackwill, Pakistan Ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the diplomatic corps and dilettantes at large.
“Coming after three weeks of unhappy visitations on our society, Susan’s paintings are a means to transcend the human experience,” Blackwill said. For the artist herself, it was an occasion that reminded her of a lone cellist playing to himself in the rubble of Bosnia. “Art transcends politics, it transcends war,” she said wistfully.
Again, first it was the killers Vs the mourning survivors. Then, predictably, it was between the perennial antagonists in Karachi — the people and the people’s very own police. Thus last Thursday, Friday and Saturday made it the “week that was.”
This recollection is only a re-run of the gun-play show in this city running for some years. This would be the dream play for any ambitious impresario. Some viewers suspect slight change in the script. Of late, there may have been a certain acceleration in the speed of the usual action. Going by the current idiom, call it the incidence of terror.
One shouldn’t be surprised if our genial interior minister is once again around here soon to embalm our heartaches and assure us that really has happened to give us melancholy idea. All’s well because he knows it is going to end well. Meanwhile, if you insist, he will have no hesitation to reiterate his steel resolve and unshakable determination to root out this terror.
This twin phenomenon of resolve and determination of the government and the same of the killers in Karachi is beginning to look rather like the two banks of the same river. They go along, side by side, peacefully and endlessly, never to meet. Let us thank goodness for having given us an extra-smart police. Even smarter rangers. How much more smart the twain would look if these damned killers were not vastly smarter.
So firmly set is the theme of this play, and the vocabulary of reporting it for the public, that we might get NADRA to work out a standard proforma for the FIR in the police stations, and for the crime reporter in the newspapers. It is like this. They come on motorcycles/scooters; invariably in twos. They shoot/ spray the target with bullets. Then, they ride away, unscathed — because unchecked. Simple.
And as far as is known todate, they (the killers) live happily after — and promise to visit us occasionally in the same irresistible style. Like the style of the gunmen, the pattern of those killed is also set and duly followed. Those to be killed are more often than not caught in prayer. A sitting duck was never so easy for a marksman to get as the faithful in prayer.
The view from the other side is equally impressive. Who are these killers? The killers insist they are divine instruments to teach the wayward the ultimate lesson. What is this act? It is Jehad. What is their reward? The act itself. Any bonus? Certainly, a place in paradise. Who promised that? Our Mua’llim (teacher) or Salar (commander). Curtain.
Ask the minister of the interior how he looks at all this killing? He has no doubt this is sectarian violence. Certainly not very nice. However, he would rather not use the indelicate term “terror.” This kind of squeamish shyness about words tends to be deceptive. Our ministers are beguiling themselves and no one else. This is calculated terror and it would be as deadly by any other name, as rose would be sweet by any other name.
What makes this Pakistani terror infinitely more terrible is that it is perpetrated in the name of the religion of peace, which Tony Blair has said Islam is. If we do not wish to see terror and recognize it for what it is, what do we have these anti-terrorism courts for? What on earth is this Anti-terrorism Act in aid of?
In Karachi police and allied agencies and services act more manfully against people protesting against terror than they do against the terrorist. In the face of the terrorist, police consider it ill-advised to make their presence felt. Again, as is the set drill, after the killing in Mehmoodabad, there was the inevitable public protest.
Public presence in the streets brings police out in strength. If the idea was to round up 500, you had to be in proportionately strong numbers and to act tough in order to accomplish the mission. The gentlemen in uniform are always very good at that, and this time, too, they were impressive. Now they have 500 in their care. This sort of catch is convertible into cash. Again, nothing new.
Even with all that, the drill is not complete. There has to be some tyre- burning, some bus-burning (the preferred expression now is ‘torching’), then some baton charge, some tear gas shell-tossing, some injured to be disposed of, some wounded to be sent to hospital. But those in hospital are not exactly safe. The arms of law are long, their grasp unyielding. So, whether it was to get the target of 500, or some other consideration, they took away quite a few from the hospitals. Investigation brooks no formalities.
You must not insist on results of investigations. Instead, read court news. Everyday some case is thrown out because the learned judge finds the investigation poor, incompetent, incomplete, casual, partial and what not. We do not investigate to get to the truth. Our motives are loftier. What are they? Remember, we are in Karachi. Few questions are asked, fewer answered. What our police have done is done. Period.
We have been pretty altruistic about our own agonies. But it is a different kind of world since Tuesday, September 11, 2001 AD. Terror, terrorism, terrorist now come with a different tag. It would not be awfully wise to be so nonchalant about terror, even if our terror is sanctified in the hands of religious operators. Remember, our Islamic republic is now solemnly committed to condemn, counter, contain and exterminate international terror.
What about domestic terror? What about Karachi terror? Wait till we have made the rest of the world safe.
THE pamphlets that he and his friends distribute around Jacob Lines read: “Stop giving dowry to your daughters. Meet us. We will take you to those who did this and now live a happy life.”
Hanif Murad’s mission is to root out dowry. So far he has been able to convince some twelve families around his middle class neighbourhood. He started soliciting support on his own, one fine day, going door-to-door. Soon others joined him. “Many youngsters and families who find dowry to be an abhorrent custom are on my side,” he says.
“Initially people just laughed at me, but I was convinced I’d be able to convert at least a few. Some people were a little suspicious and thought I was doing this for some personal gain or publicity. Once I gained their confidence, and others came to know of it, my work became easier. Now people come with me to convince families about this.”
Hanif, who is from a fairly well-to-do family, says, “I am witness to many a family break-up due to financial problems, which invariably crop up during weddings, specially when people take loans for their daughters’ marriages. The poor father ends up entrenched in money matters for the rest of his life.
“Jacob Lines is in itself a fairly large area and we are only focusing on this area. Once our mission is accomplished here, we will think of expanding,” he says.
THE war on terror seems to have shifted its focus from the actual attack to the post-Taliban era as leaders scramble to discuss the future of Afghanistan minus the Taliban. But until an attack happens, many Karachiites are expressing serious concern about the law and order situation in their city. Take one concerned primary school teacher in North Karachi who is frightened by the emergency evacuation drills the school has started practising in case of an event.
“I didn’t realize we would need to have any drill since we’re not at war but the administration wants to take precautions in case any riots take place.” Although politics is too complex an issue to explain to young children, this particular teacher has discussed certain things with her class in light of the two practice drills they have taken. “You can’t tell children how to get out of school in an organized manner without telling them why they have to do so, specially if there’s no fire. And children today are very aware of their surroundings, thanks to television,” she says.
Perhaps this is a good time for all parents to sit with their children and discuss the impending situation and any disturbances it may cause in their lives. Another teacher added, “While it is important to protect children from violent images, you do have to talk to them about what may happen if there are riots and so on, so as to prepare them for any eventuality. This way if something happens, they are somewhat prepared and not so frightened.”
“I was a student during the 1971 war,” says a teacher from one of the prestigious schools. “And I remember the drills we had to go through and being so frightened. I can still remember that fear, and as a teacher today, I am trying to help students deal with any impending fear. Initially students wanted to know every day when the Americans would attack but now they’re somewhat relaxed.”
It is indeed heartening to note that schools are taking the necessary steps to ensure the safety of their children. Karachi schools aren’t immune to violence as many have turned children away when there were strikes but it seems that there is a new fear that now hangs in the air.
A vast majority of the city’s cinema houses are operating without any suitable fire fighting arrangements or facilities. It reminds one of a tragic incident at a cinema house in Delhi a few years ago when many lives were lost because no provisions had been made for fire.
A colleague says that at present only two of the city’s 63 theatres have their fire certificates from the fire brigade department. This certificate is a pre-requisite for issuing a cinema a licence to operate in the city. It is astounding that as many as 61 cinema houses, including some prestigious ones, should operate without the required fire certificate. It seems obvious that the cinema owners grease the palms of the city administration and are running their business without any concern for public safety.
The fire brigade officials complain that the city administration does not respect the fire regulations and issues licences to cinema houses illegally. However, it is interesting to note that despite some of the cinema houses having fire certificates, no one has the proper firefighting equipment or facilities.
Every cinema house has to have a full-fledged hydrant system, at least eight fire extinguishers, dry chemicals, carbon dioxide cylinders, emergency escape exits and at least one trained firefighter. At present no theatre has all these facilities, while some have no facilities whatsoever. Records show that only Alif Laila cinema in Baldia Town and Gulistan cinema in Quaidabad received their fire certificates this year. Interestingly, these cinemas had been operating without their certificates for two years.
Two years ago, Rang Mehal, Kumar, Nigar, Roxy, Godeon, Society and Ghalib theatres received their certificates but have yet to renew them. Last year, another batch of four cinema houses — Odeon, Venus, Tasweer Mehal and Kiran— got the certificates and they too opted to ignore its renewal this year.
This shows that the number of “safe” cinema houses is declining. The number of fire certified theatres in 1999 was seven which soon decreased to four last year and now stands at only two.
How bad can life have treated you for you to be seen walking out naked in the street? There she was, walking naked on the bustling Burns roads. Indeed an ungainly spectre in an Islamic republic. Pakistan claims that women are paid the due respect and cannot be maltreated at all. The government boldly states this but one cannot even begin to count how many cases are merely shoved under the carpet.
While people stood by this naked woman — some laughing at her — there were many who turned and quickly drove away to avoid embarrassment. Some probably thought she had to be mentally ill because why else would she do such a thing? Yet no one seemed to be pushed enough to give her a piece of cloth to cover herself with. It pinched for a moment as to why she was in such a state and whether she could have been helped. Perhaps the problem is that in a city of 12 million there’s only one Edhi, who is supposed to cover for everyone else’s lack of social responsibility. By Karachian
Unfortunately, all these ingredients lack in the new proposed police system and one can visualize its imminent failure. Those making the new police system are not clear in their mind and frequent changes are being made as to whether there would be two inspector generals of police — one each in Karachi and Sindh — or one for the entire province, whether IG Karachi would be assisted by six, four or five DIGs and how the system would work.
The volatile law and order situation in the country, in general, and Karachi, in particular, is one of the major causes of economic recession, creating a sense of insecurity, increasing lawlessness, house robberies, carjackings, target killings, etc.
The police make all-out efforts to paint the grim situation as an encouraging one by fudging crime figures. To turn a blind eye to problems is not a solution and just makes the situation worse.
The one-and-a-half century-old police system has been left obsolete and attempts are being made to replace it with a new one that can meet the requirements of the contemporary world.
Although the proposed change has received a mixed response by different sections of society — as some expressed hope for the good and some are disappointed — a majority of the people think the new system might not be successful.
One cannot expect better output without putting in good input. Expectations of the police and the government are very high from the new police system and they are of the opinion that things would improve after its implementation.
On the other hand, the government is not ready to allocate adequate funds to implement the new police system — in other words, to mend the deteriorating law and order situation in the country, in general, and Karachi, in particular. The government also has not envisaged improvement in the existing training institutes of the police and imparting of training of the existing force.
Everyone knows about the training standards and the level of corruption in such training institutes where trainees are exempted from classes in exchange for a certain amount of money.
The scarcity of funds has remained as one of the major factors, among several others, behind the failure of the existing police system devised way back in 1861. Besides, misuse of power, making police a tool of successive governments, abuse of power by officials, violating human rights, implicating innocent into cases of heinous crimes are some of the factors which have eroded public confidence in the police and led to the failure of the system.
Police are free to implicate any person in any of the blind FIRs or institute a case for keeping illegal weapons, etc. A person who is picked up following his failure to grease the palms of police officials may be implicated for possessing an illegal weapon (as a routine), and a fake FIR is registered against him. The victim then has to prove his innocence in court.
The extremely complicated and slow pace of legal proceedings and delay on part of the police to submit Challan force the victims to remain in jail for at least two years after which he can be bailed out by court orders.
For two years, an innocent person is lodged in jail with hardened criminals. When he comes out of jail, society no longer accepts him as a person of repute. He is held guilty of a crime which he never committed in the first place and this gradually transforms him into a criminal. Most certainly, the police play an all-important role in breeding criminals.
People are very much frightened of police behaviour for a number of reasons and they do not opt for police help in many cases. For instance, if during a house robbery no proof of the victim’s identity is taken away, he/she would rather not go to the police to report the incident. This is because of police behaviour and their terror in society.
Apart from this, the police also play an important role in nurturing brothels and gambling dens, patronize land-grabbers to encroach upon land belonging to civic bodies and private individuals, encourage pushcart vendors to carry out their business by encroaching upon roadsides, allow reckless driving of commercial vehicles, etc.
A number of police officials posted at various police stations claim that they patronize such illegal activities to ‘generate funds’ to meet the recurring expenses of the ‘thana’ (police station) as the government does not grant them adequate funds.
Around 81 per cent of the police budget is spent on distribution of salaries and 12 per cent goes towards meeting utility expenses. The remaining seven per cent of the total budget is allocated for the purchase of new vehicles, weapons and other necessary apparatus. There is no allocation for police stations in the budget.
One finds several police officials at various police stations who claim that they receive orders for increased patrolling and heavy deployment whenever the law and order situation worsens in the city, but are never allotted funds. They often complain about not getting fuel for police mobiles to patrol their respective areas and have to arrange it on their own.
If they do not comply with orders from the high-ups, they are placed under suspension and sometimes they have to face demotion in ranks as well.
The common feeling among the officials is that they are forced to extort money from people to meet the expenses originally meant to be borne by the government. When a police official extorts money for his police station, why would he hesitate to keep a portion of it for himself and his family.
The present scenario reflects the approach of the police department officials who are bent upon looting people rather than serving the nation. They use the law and interpret it to complicate cases and extract money from suspects as well as from complainants.
The exercise of recruitment, whenever held in the police department, always manages to attract those who want to influence society by wearing the official uniform and earn through illegal means.
Officials from the rank of constable to the high-ups are often heard saying that although the salary structure in the police is pretty low, they enjoy a lot of power. Since they cannot meet their domestic expenses with what they earn, they are forced to look for other means to earn their livelihood.
This lame excuse does not have gravity in its own perspective. If an official, irrespective of his rank, is not happy with his salary structure, why is he in the police. Who has forced him to remain with the department. When he joins police service, he agrees to the salary structure along with other terms and conditions. Then why does he get annoyed later and starts looting people.
The idea behind joining police service is just to gain influence by his rank, harass people, cover up misdeeds and earn through illegal means.
Does the new police system have the capability to bring about a change in the approach of the officials? Has it made sure that those who will be appointed in the future will not indulge in corruption? Is it possible that the police will not be used as a tool by the present and future governments? Is it possible to allocate adequate funds to run police affairs and increase the salary structure of the officials? If not, then the enforcement of any successful police system, enforced in any part of the country, would not yield favourable results and the whole exercise would prove futile.
Ram Lal, who was a firm believer in old values, had a shop of Gathias, the most tasty of its kind in the city. He had his workers and staff from his own community who had clean-shaven heads with only pig-tails on their heads.
It looked both amusing and amazing.
His customers would come from far-off places. Children of the locality would gather in the evening at the shop to look at Ram Lal and his workers.
A lean and lanky, Mathrak, had a shop of white halwa, at a little distance from Kaghazi Bazaar. He had a roaring business. Asoo’s sweetmeat shop was quite popular with those with a sweet tooth. He was a big name in the sweetmeat business. Towards the bend of the Bazaar, Hemoo had a shop of pickles and sweetmeats.
Kaghazi Bazaar was also a favourite shopping centre of dock workers. Two big names associated with the Indian film industry, playback singer C. H. Atma and Sheila Ramani, were born in Kharadar area.
Once when an emerging film artiste had turned up at Kaghazi Bazaar for shopping, the youths of the area, out of sheer affection, surrounded her just to have a glimpse of her. This emerging artiste, hailing from a rich family, after she got married to a cricketer settled down to a domestic life.
The market had several shops of stationery, and also there were shops of book binders owned by “Kaghazis.” It had old buildings where the shops were housed. Young men and young girls, dressed in their best, would frequent the Bazaar in the evening. But there was never any indecent incident.
Those were the days of peace and tranquillity. Gunfire was not known then. Of course, there were a few rough-toughs, but in street brawls, sometimes, only sticks and knives were used.
But after partition, things began to go downhill at the Bazaar where once trade and business flourished with all the accompanying hum and drum of the marketplace. The salesmen who would be on their toes to attend to their customers started yawning and slumbering. The shopkeepers had no option but to sit on their haunches and wring their fingers.
Now several shops of Banarsi saris have come up in different parts of the city. The present generation would only know that once there was a traditional thriving market known as Kaghazi Bazaar, where shopkeepers ran their shops in harmony, not in rivalry. That was the symbol of their unity.
Elderly resident of the locality say that those days will not come back. We can only recall those days of love and simplicity when society was not driven by materialism and selfishness.
ON September 7, 1999 the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, while speaking at a news conference at the PM house asked the Taliban government in Kabul to “immediately close down the camps set up in Afghanistan for training of sectarian terrorists” who, he said, had resorted to terrorist activities in Pakistan during the past few days. On October 7, that is almost two years from today, the then interior minister, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain accused the Taliban government of using Pakistan as a conduit for drug smuggling. But then within a matter of four days, on October 12, 1999 to be precise, he and his prime minister were sent home packing by the Pakistan Army. The question one could ask in retrospect is: Did Sharif’s ouster and his subsequent exile to the country, which had itself exiled Osama bin Laden earlier, had anything today with the sudden change in the then government’s Afghanistan policy? And what about the recent Washington Post story which says that Clinton had assigned Nawaz Sharif the task of sending into Afghanistan trained Pakistani commandos to kill Osama but that just before the mission could be undertaken General Pervez Musharraf removed the Nawaz government and cancelled the mission? And there is also this accusation frequently levelled by Benazir Bhutto that Osama had funded the failed no-confidence motion against her first government and that he had also financed generously her opponents in the 1997 elections.
And just imagine where would we be today had not the Lahore Declaration been overtaken by the Kargil war, or if even earlier we had not followed India into the nuclear blind alley! Certainly not in the tight corner in which the September 11 terrorist attacks have landed us. No one could have thought while watching on TV in real time the terrorist destruction in New York that its immediate and long term repercussions would be felt thousands of miles away in the other corner of the world where Pakistan is located. Are we then reaping the bitter harvest of our highly myopic and muddle headed Afghan policy shaped so painstakingly over the last 20 years, not by the collective wisdom of the nation, but by one single institution which is not trained to indulge in such cerebral tasks?
Here is what the Christian Science Monitor in its Wednesday’s edition said (mind you, CSM is published from America our born again friend and not from India our perpetual foe!!): “For their expertise, the ISI has been funded handsomely. From their official staff of 2,000 operatives and administrative personal, the ISI grew to 20,000 employees during the height of the fight to remove the Soviets. Even though US funding for Afghan operations was cut off in 1989, after the Soviets departed, the ISI continued to grow, with an estimated 40,000 employees and a $1 billion budget for maintaining influence among the now-victorious Mujahideen groups. In the process, the ISI grew into a powerful institution with the ability to direct foreign policy, influence local news coverage, blackmail enemies, and even topple governments.”
The last sentence tells it all.
Of course, the new found interest of the rich world in Pakistan because of its proximity with Afghanistan and the prospect of a new flood of dollars flowing towards this country once again would be used by the authors of Pakistan’s now defunct Afghan policy to insist that at least before it fell flat on its face it had, after all, yielded massive economic benefits. But how would these benefits help us in coping with the socio-political upheavals that would be unleashed in the region after the ‘successful’ completion of actions against Osama and the Taliban government?
The assurance of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that Pakistan would be on board while the world engineered a new government to replace the Taliban in Kabul, does not assuage the fears that each one of the countries that ring the land-locked Afghanistan has its own view of what kind of government there should be in Kabul. And at any given point in time these views could come in direct conflict with each other resulting in another Taliban-like disaster. Long time allies, Pakistan and Iran, had remained in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation mode these past five years because of their disagreement over the Taliban government. All these matters require political handling rather than martial solutions. So, while we are at it, let us advance the election date and quickly bring in a government which will have the collective wisdom of the nation behind to cope with these challenges in the best national interest.
There are still many in Pakistan who believe no country or a coalition, no matter how powerful, can mount a successful invasion of Afghanistan. Their belief is based on the history of two failed invasions of historic proportions, one by Britain when it was the superpower of the world and the other by another superpower, the Soviet Union in recent times. They forget, however, that Ranjeet Singh had not only conquered Afghanistan but had actually ruled it from Lahore for many years. Even the two failed invasions can be explained away. The British ‘failure’ was more a strategic move to facilitate the setting up of a buffer state between itself, the then great sea power and the Czarist Russia, the then great land power of the times. The Soviet defeat, on the other hand, was actually a collapse of an ideology rather than a military defeat. But even if viewed as a military defeat the credit in this case would go more to the international coalition rather than to Afghanistan.
Unlike the invading Soviets who had no knowledge or experience of the Afghanistan terrain when they went into that country in 1979, the leading coalition partners this time, including the US, know very well the geography of the country and also have a good idea about what kind of personnel and equipment are needed for smoking out Osama and toppling Taliban without causing any collateral damage of significance or losing many lives. Moreover, today all the neighbours of Afghanistan including, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, are against the Taliban while all of them except the three Soviet satellites were on the side of Kabul during the Afghan war. In fact Taliban do not have a single friend left in the world today. Even the majority of those thousands of Muslims who are protesting on the streets the world over seem more concerned about the safety of innocent Afghans rather than the fate of the Taliban rulers. The small crowds which gathered on Sunday in some cities of NWFP, protesting the house arrest of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, reflect the ground reality in this country.
In fact, according to President Musharraf, such people do not make even one per cent of our population. But then the bigger than life political image of these fringe elements and the exaggerated street power, which they have been enjoying in this country eversince the military takeover on October 12, 1999, is the direct outcome of the military regime’s deliberate policy of pampering these elements while at the same time bashing the mainstream parties both physically as well as politically. —Chatterbox
THE Lahore Nazim, Mian Aamir Mahmood, says that he is constituting a commission for the development of education. This is as it should be because Mian Aamir has made his millions in education. The Mian comes to Lahore from Rahim Yar Khan and did his B.Com from the Hailey College of Commerce and later did his MBA. Then, in league with Mr Liaquat Baloch, he established the Punjab College of Commerce. Using his Jamaat-i-Islami connection, he had the college affiliated to the Punjab University which was a near-impossibility. After the commerce college came the Punjab Law College and the Punjab College of Computer Sciences and then come fame and fortune.
Mian Aamir Mahmood’s modus operandi is brilliant. For admission to his colleges, he prepares two separate merit lists. In the first list are a hundred so students who really are top class. After admission, they get free education — I mean they don’t have to pay a penny. In the second list are students who are low on merit but have the means to pay their fees and other dues and it is they who have made the Mian so fabulously rich. His campuses are open and free while the atmosphere in the Punjab University is restrained, even constipated. So the Mian has captured the Education Bazaar where he is the leading merchant. And he is expanding all this while.
I propose that the Mian should appoint himself chairman of the education commission he intends to set up. There could be no better candidate. He should then appoint Khwaja Hassaan his deputy chairman because as lord mayor, he did some splendid work to improve education in the city. Together, the two could go far — the Mian’s money and the Khwaja’s acumen. What an unbeatable combination! I also suggest that Mian Aamir should keep the commission just a two-man affair. Too many cooks spoil the broth and we want things done in a hurry.
MR Ejaz Ahmad writes from Islamabad:
Dear Lahori
In your column dated September 24, your friend from Multan, Mohammad Nawaz Qasmi, has lamented the sad demise of the bureaucracy after more than a hundred and fifty years. His lament seems to be based on some misunderstanding. The bureaucracy still reigns supreme under the present dispensation.
Very recently, the spineless board of directors of the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) waived Rs1.5 million outstanding in residential telephone dues against three former directors-general and two directors. There is no accountability on this count from any quarter. I hear that journalists are a very strong community in our country. Will you please refer this case to NAB for further action? This is just the tip of the iceberg. Radio high-ups, throwing all rules to the wind, have given a year’s contract with Rs2.7 million to a former prime minister’s crony who is a journalist. He has been commissioned to produce commercial news bulletins for the national broadcasting network. His so-called firm, believe you me, produces trash four times a day. No tenders were called to give this contract which is essential under the existing rules.
I hope this will set at rest all of Mr Qasmi’s fears that the bureaucracy has died. He must draw some solace from the instances I have given. The bureaucracy is dead: long live bureaucracy!
I have taken these lines in good faith and I hope Mr Ejaz Ahmed can substantiate his charges when called upon to do so. But I know it for certain that Mr Qasmi will not be pacified because Mr Ahmad has not refuted any of the facts given by my friend from Multan, as he puts. As for the new district administrations, I am keeping my fingers crossed. Furthermore, I cannot refer the cases cited above to NAB.
I received the following poem from an anonymous correspondent the other day. Therefore, I don’t know who is the author but I think it is well worth sharing with Dawn readers. Titled ‘Peace on Earth — U2’, it reads:
Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I’m sick of all this hanging around
Sick of sorrow
I’m sick of the pain
I’m sick of hearing
Again and again
That there’s gonna be
Peace on Earth
Where I grew up
There weren’t many trees
Where there were we’d tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you
And it’s already gone too far
Who said that if you go in hard
You won’t get hurt
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
DR Muhammad Reza Kazimi, to whom I referred in my last column (Oct 1), about a ghazal written by Pervez Shahidi, has very graciously sent me the following brief note:
“In compliance with your instructions (it should have been request) I am sending you the title page of Shahidi’s collection, Taslees-i-Hyat, and the page on which the ghazal, Rah guzar hi rah guzar appears. This ghazal appeared under Pervez Shahid’s name in Funoon’s Jadid Ghazal edition also. It may be noted here that Ahmad Nadim Qasmi alone among Pakistani writers accorded due recognition to the late Pervez Shahidi.
ALL OF us have read in our school days the story of ‘an Arab and his camel’ but in case you haven’t or have forgotten it, a recapitulation would be in order.
On a cold winter night in the desert, an Arab sat on a warm comfortable rug inside his tent while his camel sat on the sand dune outside, shivering with cold.
“Master,” pleaded the camel, “may I put my head inside? It’s so cold outside.”
“Yes, you may do so,” replied the master.
After a while the camel made a further request. “Master, will you allow me to put my neck inside, too?”
“Yes, I suppose there’s no harm.”
A short while later, the camel made another request that was granted and so the drama went on and on with the wily camel getting one concession after another until the whole of his huge body was inside the tent.
“Master, this tent is not enough for both of us, so I think you better get outside,” said the camel and pushed the Sheikh out of the tent.
Although this is only a fable it shows how even human beings behave under certain circumstances. Taking only one example from modern European history, Kaiser William II, a German grandson of Queen Victoria of Britain, fought against his English cousin George V, lost the World War I along with German territories and was exiled in disgrace. Twenty years later arose the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler who reconstructed the shattered German army and mesmerized his people with his philosophy of Lebensraum (living room). He annexed Austria, seized Czecho-Slovakia and invaded Poland in the name of Lebensraum, triggering off World War II.
An example of seizing Lebensraum is to be found in the shopping areas as well as residential areas of Islamabad, although here we call it encroachment. Eliminating it from the federal capital is a well-nigh mission for the Capital Development Authority (CDA). A perpetual game of hide-and-seek goes on between the administration and the business community, the latter out to occupy space more than authorized under the rules, and the former bent on demolishing the encroachments and restoring the status quo.
See the first photograph that clearly shows the steel shutters behind which this butcher may carry on his business. Then notice the iron pole and hooks installed overhead for hanging the carcasses of the slaughtered animals and the large section of three trunk used as a chopping block. Don’t miss the wicked steel meat chopper on the top as this is his trademark as well as weapon of aggression if need be.
This is the scene that presents itself to a shopper at nine o’clock in the forenoon. As the day progresses and business becomes livelier, our local “Hitler” expands the part of the footpath under his control and displays his wares well beyond the public thoroughfare, down the cement stairs and on to the road. Under the tarpaulin he has stretched beyond the pillars, he has placed wooden platforms on which you can see, in the second photograph, bags of flour, live chickens stuffed into a cage, Siri (grinning heads of goats) and Ojhri (stomach linings).
Shoppers have to walk past this gruesome display very carefully to avoid having their cloth is soiled by the blood dripping down from the goat heads and the lungs and windpipes. You can imagine how the place stinks from the way the lady customer is holding her Dopatta (veil) to her nose and mouth.
This scene in the second photograph shows the same location three hours after the first picture was taken but by the evening, the place becomes impassable, at least by any self-respecting lady customer. The hooting young loafers hanging around are an effective deterrent to any girls daring to navigate through the crowds.
The world is engaged in fighting international terrorism. How about fighting this kind of commercial terrorism? I was lucky to have a telephoto lens to my camera and thus avoid the man with the vicious steel chopper to enforce his philosophy of Lebensraum. —N.A. Bhatti