India has no time for Musharraf, period: COMMENT

NEW DELHI: India is definitely not a stakeholder in the unprecedented $200 billion US warplanes project that has become the most significant fallout of the global anti-terror campaign. Nor is it the only country whose leader is preparing to meet President George Bush in Washington next month. Yet, New Delhi effectively declared on Monday that Indian Prime Atal Behari Vajpayee was unlikely to meet President Pervez Musharraf in New York because there appeared to be no time for the meeting.

Compared with the global quest to benefit, even profit from the current standoff with Afghanistan, official sources told Dawn that the Indian leadership would be satisfied and consider it sufficiently face-saving for it to resume talks with Pakistan if Islamabad somehow hands over Maulana Masood Azhar to New Delhi. The bespectacled Maulana was one of the jailbirds set free by India in the 1999 IC814 hijack deal.

The contrast between global concerns and India’s doesn’t end there. Official sources said another person whose repatriation to India could ease ties between Vajpayee and Musharraf was Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, whose presence in Pakistan Islamabad denies but Delhi swears by. There was no public confirmation, only hints that these were indeed India’s concerns with Pakistan for the moment.

On the other side of the world, the multi-billion-dollar American contract to Lockheed Martin to build 3,000 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft was also reported to be planning to take help from Britain’ Rolls Royce’s aero-engines firm and the Bae systems. It would mean 8,500 jobs to a recession-hit Britain too. Thus the most obvious of subjects for any two heads of states to take up, at this crucial time for everyone, did not figure between visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Vajpayee, according to sources.

Vajpayee leaves for Moscow on Sunday where he will finalize costly deals on tanks, warplanes, an aircraft carrier and perhaps submarines too.

But on Monday the delegations from Germany and India discussed Jammu and Kashmir and the World Trade Organization and intelligence-sharing. On the first point, Schroeder urged India strenuously to resume talks with Gen Musharraf. Going by the foreign ministry spokesperson’s briefing he may well have been told to change the subject.

Asked to comment on Gen Musharraf’s suggestion for a meeting with Vajpayee in New York, foreign ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao said: “We believe that for such dialogue to resume, an atmosphere conducive to the resumption of such talks has to be created by Pakistan. Apart from this of course there does not appear to be any time for such a meeting,” spokesperson Nirupama Rao told reporters.

She declined to confirm though her answer implied that all efforts to hold an India-Pakistan summit in New York had been finally shelved.

Emerging from talks with Shroeder later, Vajpayee told reporters in response to a question: “If I have to meet Gen Musharraf I don’t have to go to New York. We could meet in Islamabad or Delhi.” It was not clear why then were the two due to meet in New York in September when the terrorist attacks on America derailed the tour.

Shroeder on his part told reporters after a guard of honour on Monday: “I have always been very much in favour that the process begun in Agra is resumed and it is continued in improving Indo-Pak relations.”

Schroeder’s concerns over India-Pakistan tensions coincided with the 50th anniversary of the annual winding up in Srinagar of the UN office that watches the Line of Control between the two countries.

Maj-Gen Hermann Loidolt, chief of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), said on the occasion that the situation along the LoC would become more tense in the coming days.

“My assessment is that the situation will become more tense in the coming days, not only along the LoC but also in the entire Jammu and Kashmir state,” Loidolt said in a statement at the UNMOGIP headquarters in Srinagar. The statement was quoted by India Today magazine’s online newspaper.

“That means for us to continue implementing our tasks in the same correct manner as we did before,” said Loidolt, who is the chief military observer. “And I can assure you UNMOGIP will implement to the full extension the whole spectrum of peacekeeping and administrational tasks,” he said during the winding up ceremony.

UNMOGIP will carry out its operations for the six months from Rawalpindi. “Pakistan and India have fought three wars and the ceasefire line is now metamorphosed into the actual Line of Control ‘though it is yet to become the international border,” he said. Relations between India and Pakistan “continue to revolve around those temporary agreements some of which had the UN involvement”. Loidolt said that at the moment Kashmir seemed to have become an important issue again. “This time presumably under the auspices of the USA.”

Coming down heavily against India and Pakistan, Loidolt said: “All of us are aware of the situation in Kashmir and the games both parties (India and Pakistan) are playing with this tormented country.” He said: “We all know there is no easy solution and especially war is absolutely no solution for the issue of Kashmir.

“Whatever the reason is for playing political games, may it be diversionary manoeuvre on the Pakistani side, to make India the real enemy instead of the US, or may it be the dawning of next election in India. It will be an issue for the US to solve it,” he said.

This is the first political statement by UNMOGIP since its landing in Kashmir in 1951, the newspaper said. Liodolt said the job of UNMOGIP was to report the “ceasefire violations” to UN secretary-general. “That means we do not report to any party involved in the dispute over Kashmir,” he said, “and we are not reporting to the US, let alone we are part of the US.

“UNMOGIP’s mandate is indefinite and its termination would require a decision by the Security Council,” Liodolt said. “Without the UN presence, the development on the situation in J & K could be unpredictable,” he said. “If there would be no UNMOGIP here, in my opinion, in case of a new conflict, a new UNSC resolution and peacekeeping mission, in the light of the standing Indian view, would be almost unimaginable.”

Wasim’s Sharjah spell was most magical: SWINGING DRIVES

I THINK that television footage of Wasim Akram’s spell of six overs for seven runs against Sri Lanka should be sent to all those learned critics who have been shouting from house-tops that this great fast bowler is over the hill. Over the years that I have seen Wasim bowl and this includes his match-winning performance in the 1992 World Cup final, this spell at Sharjah was the most magical.

The television commentators ran out of adjectives. And I could visualise them rubbing their eyes in disbelief. He was focused, on target and lethal, as well as being desperately unlucky. Wasim had something to prove and he did it in spades.

I was surprised that he was not brought on for a second spell. He was no slouch in the field either. He may be 35-years old but he showed he had young legs and his throws from the deep came in like tracer-bullets, on top of the stumps and into the wicket-keeper’s gloves.

Without Inzamam-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s batting looked brittle against Sri Lanka but worse, was undisciplined and there was no one who seemed prepared to assume the responsibility of shoring it up except Yousuf Youhana but he too perished playing extravagantly. Against Zimbabwe, there was more purpose but the quality of the bowling could hardly be described as fearsome. It was honest but poor. Still, Abdur Razzaq played an innings of pure joy.

Against Sri Lanka, I was baffled to see Rashid Latif batting ahead of him. Razzaq has been shunted up and down in the batting order like an engine at a railway-siding. Surely the time has come to give him a settled place and it should be at number five with Youhana coming in at one-wicket down. Nor should the opening pair of Saeed Anwar and Shahid Afridi be disturbed.

As I write this, it is all but certain that Pakistan will meet in the final and it promises to be a fascinating final. After the 1999 World Cup, Sri Lankan cricket went into the doldrums, as if nursing a broken heart. But the team has picked itself and Sanath Jayasuriya has done a great job and he has led from the front.

Sri Lanka gives the impression of playing as a unit. A sure sign of this is in the fielding. When the fielding is of the highest order, it is a sign that a team is playing together, playing as a team. Credit for this must go to the coach and, of course, the captain.

My good friend Ranjit Fernando who is a fair-minded television commentator cannot conceal the pride in his voice and why should he? In fact, the commentary standard is high. One reason for this is that none of the commentators are behaving like school-masters nor is the criticism uncharitable. The job of a commentator is to improve on the pictures we see and expert opinion should not be so expert that it becomes unintelligible to most viewers like Latin would be to all but Latin scholars. The one who seems to get it right is Sunil Gavaskar, who is in Sharjah but not in the commentary-box. He is wearing a different cap this time. In fact, he has become a man of many caps and I hope he is able to keep count of them. More power to him. He and Imran Khan still remain role-models, an inspiration for the present generation of cricketers from the subcontinent and beyond.

India still can’t win anything big away from home and one can’t help feeling that it is beginning to play on its mind. One had expected a better performance in the final of the triangular at Durban. It was bad enough losing to Kenya but it was one of those embarrassing off-days. But India should have been primed for the final and with their spinners, I felt that they had an edge.

The South Africans look pretty clueless against quality spinners and when it plays against Australia, I would not be surprised if Australia played both Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. The Indian batting still revolves around Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid. In the one-day game India has the best opening pair in the world, the new Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes. But once this pair is parted, the batting seems to lose its nerve. The depth in its batting is on paper.

Dravid kept wicket in the final so that an extra batsman could be played. I don’t think that either in Test or one-day cricket, a team should go in without a specialist keeper. Dravid is a key batsman and he should be allowed to focus on his main job which is anchoring the Indian innings. Besides, there is a risk of injury for a part-time or occasional wicket-keeper. India choked in the final and let the big one slip away.

What a lot of fuss is being made of the England players who seem reluctant to tour India. It will not be held against those who choose to opt out of the team. I believe that the ECB should have been tougher with the players. Either the entire tour is unsafe and should have been called off or it was safe and the players were not in any kind of danger. The decision should have been that of the ECB.

If it is to be left to individuals to decide whether it is safe or not safe, it undermines the authority of the ECB. And a precedent will be set and players will feel free to pick and choose their tours. There is not the slightest danger to the players in Sharjah and yet Sharjah is pretty close to where the action is in the region. Technically, it should be twice as dangerous for the Middle East too is a pretty hot region and I don’t mean the weather. The baseball World Series is being played and before capacity crowds despite the anthrax scare. Sportsmen have a great responsibility in stressful times. They can help in restoring the appearance of normalcy. What a great relief it has been for so many to switch on their television sets and see cricket rather than bombs falling on Afghan cities.

Tribute to the memory of Hakim Said

A MEMORIAL lecture on the theme of Central Asian culture and history is assured of more than a general interest. More so when Prof Emeritus Riazul Islam of the University of Karachi is the speaker, with Hakim Mohammed Said, founding father of the Hamdard University, as the person in whose memory the lecture was instituted.

Dr Riazul Islam, the octogenarian scholar and secretary of the Institute of Central and West Asian Culture and Studies, University of Karachi, has many outstanding works on Central Asia to his credit, eg, Shamlu Letters, South Asian Travelogue, A Calendar of Documents of Indo-Persian Relations, Tawarikh Badia, Miratul Istilah and Central Asia: History Politics and Culture. He did justice to the memorial lecture by recounting Hakim Said’s interest in Central Asia.

Hakim Sahib had a number of friends in the academic circles of Central Asia, and he had organized many international conferences. His travelogues — 50 in number — shed much light on the countries he visited. For example, in one such travelogue, Inside Russia, he had drawn the conclusion that the USSR would disintegrate much before it actually happened.

Dr Islam recounted the many international conferences Hakim Sahib had organized on the luminaries of Central Asia during the Soviet era. Hakim Sahib was awarded the Ibn Sina award by the USSR, and he had donated half the amount of that award to educational and cultural institutions of the region.

Hakim Sahib set in motion a regular intellectual interaction when he started the series of Sham-i-Hamdard. His another achievement was the creation of a complex, the Madinatul Hikmah, leading to the establishment of a university which has its campuses and affiliate institutes in Islamabad, Faisalabad and Lahore.

According to Dr Islam, ever since Hakim Sahib’s chairmanship of the Institute of Central and West Asian Culture and Studies, Pakistan has come to acquire a central place in the studies on Central Asia. Hakim Said had organized conferences on Al-Beruni and Al-Farabi, and also evenings on Amir Khusro, Rudaki and numerous Arab scientists and thinkers.

Dr Islam said Pakistan would have benefited greatly had it paid attention to Hakim Sahib’s Reports on Central Asia.

Earlier, Dr Ismail Saad, Vice-Chancellor of the Hamdard University, said the university was aware of the cause of enlightenment which was dear to its first chancellor, and thus the institution of the memorial lecture was in fact a reiteration of the university’s resolve to pursue steadfastly the goals which Hakim Sahib had set for himself.

Former chief justice of Pakistan Ajmal Mian delivered the presidential address. He said the university believed that Pakistan, as well as the world of Islam, was faced with a great challenge and the only way to survive was to come up with a response which should more than offset the possible dangers of sloth and inaction. He said the causes dear to the late Hakim Said would continue to enthuse us to pursue the goals of enlightenment.