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How to murder democracy before it commits mass suicide: DATELINE NEW DELHI
WE have the authority of India’s learned pundits of Sanskrit to posit that there is no word in Hindi or Sanskrit to define shaheed, a martyr. The word Balidaan, or gift of sacrifice, comes as close to the word as any in Hindi or Sanskrit expression, but no closer. Brahmins prescribed aahuti, but it could be anyone being sacrificed, not excluding your neighbour. Is there a word for the one who gives that aahuti of himself? Also, balidaan in common parlance need not necessarily entail death. But before the paranoid West begins to see hope in India’s aloofness from martyrdom of the kind sought by the folks of Sept 11 notoriety, it would do well to pause. Look again and you will find that Bhagat Singh, an Urdu-speaking Sikh, became Shaheed Bhagat Singh nevertheless, so did the Hindus, Shaheed Rajguru and Sukhdev, all hanged together for alleged terrorism against the British.
There have been two Hindi films, both huge hits, titled Shaheed, about freedom-fighters against colonialism who were summarily hanged by the British. In the older version of the 1950s film, Dilip Kumar, a legend himself, played the character of an Urdu- speaking Hindu rebel Ram, who robbed trains to fund the freedom struggle until he was sent to the gallows. He became shaheed. In the second version Manoj Kumar played Bhagat Singh, the terrorist or freedom-fighter, depending on your point of view, who was defended by Mohammad Ali Jinnah in the still British-managed national assembly in 1929. He too was hanged and became shaheed. His memory continues to taunt millions all over the world about Gandhi’s pacifism, but that’s another sad story.
So Urdu is not a language of Muslims alone, but it would not have been there without Muslims either. Hence shaheed, shahaadat, etc, began with a religious connotation. But as it turned out, they spread the notion rightly or wrongly to other cultures that have all produced self-styled martyrs in India and in its neighbourhood. You would notice that Tamil is the only non- religious category in this community of potential martyrs. True and ironical, the Tamil people in Sri Lanka who glorify martyrdom are Hindus and Christians, definitely not Muslims. Tamil speaking Muslims for some reason have been given a religious category in Sri Lanka, they are Sri Lankan Muslims, not Tamil Muslims. And not being Tamil they have no reason to favour shahaadat for a non-issue with them.
America’s celebrated Gen Patton — some Pakistanis and Indians would recognize him for the Patton tanks of the 1965 war fame/notoriety — evidently did not believe in martyrdom although his forebears did and we’ll come to that in a moment. There is a famous line ascribed to Gen Patton: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He always won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” That’s what Rambo would say too. But it’s not true.
The logic of Patton’s argument attempts to steal the halo of valour from his soldiers, since it implies that an American soldier killed in action had died in vain and had not really won the war for his country, including the one the Americans hope to win in Afghanistan, for example. But the sad truth is that the whole wretched doctrine of armies, not just American armies or Bin Laden’s militia, but the military doctrine all over the world is based on the foot soldier’s willingness to lay down his life for his country, or for a great non-negotiable cause, whichever comes first.
As for the American media which regards the notion of martyrdom as peculiarly Islamic, was it not Patrick Henry, the legend who fought the British masters to get freedom for the modern United States from debilitating colonialism, who had cried — Give me liberty or give me death? Death? That Henry got liberty for his adopted country is laudable. If you must quibble, you could question Patrick Henry’s concept of liberty for which he was ready to die. That liberty for many years thereafter would continue to count the vote of five black slaves as equal to three ballots.
Sure slaves were given the right to vote, but only as slaves, and with a little bit of fudging too. It’s a mystery though how in the absence of pocket calculators those votes were divided up in the House of Representatives. It took Martin Luther King to lay down his life for some more and as yet incomplete advance to be made in the realm of American civil liberties. Had the revered civil rights leader strayed even a bit from his Gandhian pacifism, he would have run the risk of being branded by the same people who eventually empathized with his assassin, as a terrorist.
Prof Noam Chomsky has been speaking in New Delhi on the subject of terrorism and its narrow definition as proffered by the United States. “In the Reagan years alone, US-sponsored state terrorists in Central America left hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated corpses, millions of maimed and orphaned, and four countries in ruins. In the same years, Western-backed South African depredations killed 1.5 million people. I need not speak of West Asia, or much else.”
According to Prof Chomsky, terrorism like most terms of political discourse has two meanings: a literal one and a propagandist one.
“A literal meaning can be found in official US documents, which instruct us that terrorism is ‘the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature (carried out) through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear’. But the literal definition cannot be used, for one reason, because it is a close paraphrase of official government policy, called ‘low-intensity’ war or ‘counter- terrorism’. Another reason is that the definition quickly yields conclusions that are wholly unacceptable, such as those I mentioned, a tiny sample,” Chomsky told a large meeting in Delhi.
The propagandist version of terrorism, says Chomsky, is as clearly defined by the United States, its friends and allies. Only its underlying philosophy is not entirely untainted by completely anti- democratic influences. “The Nazis, for example, bitterly condemned terrorism and conducted what they called ‘counter-terrorism’ against terrorist partisans,” says Chomsky. “The US basically agreed. It organized and conducted similar ‘counter-terrorism’ in the post-war years. And it drew from the Nazi model, which was treated with respect: Wehrmacht officers were consulted and their manuals used in designing post-war counter-insurgency programmes worldwide, typically called ‘counter-terrorism’”.
Recent anti-terrorist measures taken in India are equally worrying, if also a bit ironical. The government wants a new anti-terrorist law but continues to blame much of the suffering on Pakistan — cross-border terrorism is the refrain. If that is a fact, India will need a lot of help from the department of posts to deliver summons across the border. If it is only a ploy to mobilize consent for the rightwing Hindutva that the leadership advocates, it is a cynical violation of civil liberties. Still, however, if there is indeed a serious domestic problem of homegrown terrorism, then it is precisely that — a serious problem.
How do you produce a law that stops people from blowing themselves up in your face. The only certain antidote to modern terrorism can come with a fair degree of awareness of the minds of people who are willing to die, not for the promise of an uncertain paradise as a few mocking journalists would have us believe, but a willingness to die so as to be able to demonstrate and redress their raging anger.
The human mind is a peculiar thing. A few hundred years ago, John Milton’s Satan said in Paradise Lost: The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” How could Mrs Indira Gandhi have known that her own bodyguard would turn upon her? How could John Lennon have divined that the glint in the eyes of an avowed fan was that of his own assassin?
Prof Chomsky told us the other day that a few million innocent people in Afghanistan face death by starvation and cluster-bombing in a vendetta for the outrage of Sept 11. Will the survivors of the American wrath become good citizens of a modern new world, or will they perpetually bear a grudge against the world’s most powerful democracy, awaiting their turn to get even?
Confining the DPs to their camps: DATELINE QUETTA
BALOCHISTAN has no other option but to accept and, finally, accommodate the Afghan refugees, as many of them as manage to reach any part of the province. The government is taking half-hearted measures only to pacify the local population, on the one hand, and to mount pressure on international agencies and the world public opinion, on the other hand, that it had sealed the borders with Afghanistan.
On the contrary, the borders are wide open. The unfrequented routes are used, with the Afghans flooding the neighbouring districts and tehsils in large numbers after the United States has intensified bombing in regions close to Balochistan. Even the Chaman border is not sealed as claimed by the government. There is hide-and-seek between the border security people and the Afghan refugees crossing the barrier at will. Only a hundred or so are caught and pushed back into Afghanistan in the late afternoon.
There is no truth in the government claim that borders with Afghanistan have been formally sealed and the entry of refugees into Balochistan is checked. In fact, the entry of the Afghan refugees into this province is ignored wilfully. Similarly, a transit camp has been established where the refugees are being registered by the UNHCR at the centre before they are shifted somewhere else. The transit camp was established at Killi Faizu in Chaman and closed to the Afghan borders. It is done on the pressure from the UNHCR and the world community as a whole.
The local population is bitterly opposed to the policies in regard to the Afghans as they were given preference over the local people for political reasons in the past. A sizable population or a section of public opinion opposed the Afghan policy in the past as the “Afghans were considered defenders of Pakistan while a section of the local population was dubbed ‘unpatriotic or less patriotic’ by the decision-makers.”
The main reason was the different perceptions on the Afghan war following the induction of Red army contingents of the defunct Soviet Union. The past government interfered in the internal affairs of Afghanistan at the behest of the Americans and its allies. They put at stake the destiny of the people by provoking the Red army contingents. It was opposed by leaders of public opinion in this province and thus called ‘unpatriotic’. Double standards were visible by two different organs of the state, the foreign office and those managing the covert operations inside Afghanistan.
Since the Afghans were best suited to the second category of the decision-makers, they gave preference to the Afghans allowing them to carry into Pakistan their weapons, do the gun- running and find market for their finished product of heroin in Balochistan and other provinces of Pakistan.
Once again, Pakistan is back to square one, with additional refugees entering Balochistan and the NWFP. Last time the Soviets were bombing Afghanistan. This time the Americans are bombing the Afghan territories. The difference is that the defunct Soviet Union was a hostile and unfriendly country while the United States is an ally and “we are a partner in the coalition against terror”. The bombing by the Soviets was condemned while air strikes by the US are condoned.
The main issue is how to compensate the people of Balochistan for their unwarranted sufferings for the past quarter of a century. Balochistan has been a frontline province since the overthrow of monarchy by Sardar Daud. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had invited Gulbadin Hekmatyar, Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ahmed Shah Masud and others as guests, given them weapons, shelter and money to wage a war against the nationalist government of Sardar Daud. Since then, the territory and resources of Balochistan have been used for destabilizing the situation in Afghanistan as the Kabul government is considered unfriendly.
In the backdrop of these facts, the people expect some relief in economic terms as they have no say in foreign policy issues. It is simple that all the range land destroyed by the Afghans with their herds of cattle be restored and adequately rehabilitated. The water resources have remained under severe strains for the past many decades in the presence of a million or more refugees. The water resources should be developed and more water made available for drinking, domestic uses and agriculture.
The Afghans are competing for every job in Balochistan. Since they are ready to work as cheap labour, they have destroyed the delicate balance between the nature of work and wages in a given environment. Thousands of push-carts and donkey-carts owned by the Afghans are operating in the main cities and townships, almost chasing away the local workforce. According to one estimate by independent economists, the Afghans have captured over 50,000 jobs in this provincial capital alone.
The same is the case with the pressure on health care in Balochistan. The Sandeman Hospital of the provincial government is the biggest hospital. It is consuming more than 60 per cent health budget of the province.
A visit to the hospital will confirm that more than 60 per cent patients are from neighbouring countries, mainly Afghanistan.
In other words, the Afghans are taking away over 50 per cent annual budget of the provincial health department. The government of Pakistan and its Afghan policy should be blamed for most of the problems for the people of Balochistan.
The Afghans, mainly the Taliban, have huge dumps of heroin and weapons. They can export it to Pakistan only. It is not possible to sell heroin in Iran which has lost over 3,000 soldiers fighting the drug mafia but did not allow the free or open sale of heroin.
Before the Afghans become a security risk to Pakistan itself, the government should keep all the refugees in the camps fenced with barbed wire near the Afghan borders, restrict and regulate their movements, denying them contacts with the local people.
As winter approaches
PALE WATERY sunshine in the late afternoons, a slight early morning chill hints at a slowly creeping Karachi winter. September 11 still casts a numb spell over the city. Evening traffic is scanty. Early winter evenings stretch endlessly. Shopping malls wear a deserted look. Halloween, already a non event in Karachi, passes without a whimper (wasn’t it an occasion for children to trick and treat? Adults appear to have infringed on kid’s domain in a blurring of roles). Some municipalities in Italy have awarded schools who haven’t celebrated the event, Seems the concept is not suited for children.
However, last year the mood was different. Restaurants had strung themselves out in orange and black, complete with pumpkins, dark grotty interiors and masked waiters decked in ghouls and vampire costumes who sprang at you from nooks and shadows to scare you away. No one seemed to be in the mood this time. Only a few eating places made half-hearted attempts to conjure up the ambiance. Park Towers was bare as usual, the sea side as lonely. Life continues in a seeming interim.
The same refrain ‘business is down’ is heard from the milk man, cloth merchants meat sellers. A resignation at spiking costs, of electricity, gas and basic amenities against lower sales. One moaned of how bakeries and other shop owners had turned to using wood as fuel to light their ovens to avoid high gas bills.
For restaurants, though, it seems to be business as usual. Is it a case of seeking consolation in food? Post September 11 New York brought a similar convergence on pubs, cafes and other eating places as people sought comfort in company. (To erase reality? We perhaps have our own demons that we are fleeing- ubiquitous references to across the border activities.) But there is no escape.
One of the fallouts of the war has already made its presence felt. A slew of Afghan handicrafts pervade the Sunday bazaar at dirt-cheap prices. Beads, embroideries, jewellery by the bucketful, while jostling Afghan kids test your nerves with their persistent offer of services. There are too many of them, at least five attach themselves to each prospective customer before one of the bazaar supervisor shoos them away.
Another Golden Gate rears its head. The ninth McDonald’s emerges in Mohammad Ali Society. If Marie Antoinette lived now she would have said “Feed them McDonalds”. Another Dunkin Donuts is also scheduled to open on the Arabian sea. Funny how these multinational franchises seem to flourish on our shores. Attacked world over (in Spain, Italy and France — to name a few ) as symbols of US cultural invasion, do their presence here signify our strengthening bonds with the USA? At least the security agencies will be happy. More such places mean more business with more guards needed for their protection.
On a more positive note, government hospitals appear to be getting their act together with the help of concerned citizens. After the paediatric ward of Civil Hospital, various departments in Jinnah Hospital are following suit by organising themselves to overhaul their facilities and offer better services. The eye care centre, cancer ward and the X-ray laboratory are in various stages of change. At least something else in happening.
Contrary to popular opinion, success stories in our megalopolis are not confined to those who make it big and live conveniently ever after. Such success stories are personal and do little else for others besides burning up the less affluent.
The revamping of Karachi zoo however is not just the achievement of the management behind it, but in a general sense, a success for those who live in this vast ill-treated city. Some three years back, the zoological gardens were in a shambles. Animals had died and were dying, and there were possibly more empty cages than occupied ones. Sick animals with festering sores, wrappers flying about, slimy stinking water and general filth were everywhere.
The grass was scorched and other vegetation was left to grow and take its own course. Popularly known as Gandhi Garden, the city’s sanctuary for animals epitomized neglect. But then, the few that visited the place expected otherwise, in a city where even public areas set aside solely for human beings suffer from apathy and negligence. In fact, the zoo then confirmed all the preconceived notions held by pessimists who would avoid going to what they considered slightly low-brow public places.
A recent visit to the zoo, however, was an uplifting revelation. The first thing that strikes one upon entrance are the trimmed hedges interspersed with pretty landscaped spots. The pathways are generally clean and there are signs everywhere asking people to keep the zoo clean. Looks like most of them are complying, since if not spotless (zoos nowhere in the world, are!) there aren’t any dumps of obvious filth anywhere. More surprisingly the animals’ cages are also clean and occupied by the animals.
Besides the regular lions, bears, and tigers (a royal Bengal) that every zoo should have, they also have some less mainstream animals like green monkeys, porcupines (huge ones), raccoons, and Bactrian camels. In addition to that there is a wonderful collection of glamorous and exotic birds worth seeing. And yes, the elephant is still taking kids for a ride. Signs guide people to different sections and there are trash cans everywhere.
Tickets are priced at a ridiculously low Rs.3 and children under three go in free, so one can’t be forgiven for not going — and then complaining that there’s nothing affordable and worthwhile to do. So this weekend do your children and yourself a favour, take them to Karachi zoo. It deserves your visit and support.
THE US-led military strikes against Afghanistan, which commenced on Oct 7, spawned, among other things, a raft of publications, especially evening newspapers, in the country that are clearly pro-Taliban. Brought out by faceless propagandists, fired by jihadi zeal, these evening newspapers contain news-stories and articles which reek of ill-conceived hatred against the West.
Their unabashed partisan style notwithstanding, these evening newspapers make a good read. However, their aggressive style of reporting, and graphic accounts of the battle, turn the stomachs of the squeamish. A journalist friend recently learnt something very interesting about these evening newspapers.
At a function in the Haji Muslim Gymkhana recently, the journalist friend was yawning with boredom. One after another, the speakers harangued with undiminished gusto. The president of the Haji Muslim Gymkhana, Siddiq Balwani, spoke at length why an auditorium at the gymkhana had been named after nuclear scientist, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the chief guest at the function. The honorary joint secretary of the gymkhana, Khalid Latif, also expatiated on the services rendered by Dr Khan. Then the interior minister, Moinuddin Haider, held forth for quite some time.
Just when the journalist friend was about to doze off, the former president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Zubair Motiwala, drew the attention of the interior minister to the plethora of incendiary evening newspapers. Instinctively, the interior minister turned to the Sindh information secretary, Mirza Karim Baig, and demanded: “Why don’t you cancel the declaration of those evening newspapers which tend to sensationalize the war against Afghanistan?” The Sindh information secretary replied: “Sir, we cannot cancel the declarations of incendiary evening newspapers because they don’t have one.” —By Karachian
The smart bomb-dumb bomb cycle!: LETTER FROM ISLAMABAD
WHY DO they want a pause in bombing during Ramazan? Why can’t they try to end the war before the advent of Ramazan itself? It is almost four weeks since the bombing began and by the advent of Ramazan it would be more than seven weeks. What more do they want to bomb in Afghanistan except the mountains and their 20,000 peaks? And if the Taliban have holed themselves up in the reported 8,000 caves in Afghanistan then no amount of bombing is going to affect them.
However, President George W. Bush wants to continue bombing until he achieves his yet-to-be-announced ‘objectives’, Ramazan or no Ramazan. The original objective of the US-led coalition campaign against terrorism was to ‘smoke out’ Osama Bin Laden and bomb his protectors, the Taliban, out of Afghanistan. The first of this objective — smoking out Osama — has already been abandoned. And the second part of the objective appears to be going out of coalition’s reach with the passing of each bombing day. So, the bombing, which is going on at present, is seemingly being carried out without any achievable objective. And it seems that as long as the US does not fabricate such an objective and then achieves it in front of the TV cameras for its citizens to see, the bombing will continue.
For the Americans what happened on September 11 in New York was not a political statement but out and out a criminal act of stupendous proportions. The immediate victims of this criminal act, the Americans held Osama Bin Laden as the prime suspect. They vowed to smoke him out and bring him to justice. So far so good. But how do you smoke out a criminal and bring him to justice? Certainly not by bombing the country in which he is holed up. But by hunting him out by pressing into service your law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Remember how the Israelis hunted and brought to justice the Nazi ‘criminals’ who perpetrated inhuman crimes against the Jews during the Second World War?
The continuous bombing of Afghanistan has conferred a high degree of respectability on both Osama and his protectors, the Taliban. From criminals they quickly became victims of bombardment from the most powerful country in the world. And the US from being a victim of a stupendous crime is gradually graduating into a war criminal as the civilian casualties keep rising. The collateral damage has started going up without any collateral victory for the coalition forces to show. This is making the sympathy factor for the people of Afghanistan ever more overwhelming which the Taliban is successfully using to its own advantage. And when the efforts to instigate an uprising from within the Taliban by sending in former Pakhtoon commanders like Abdul Haq and Kharazai failed to produce the desired results, the perceived ‘invincibility’ of Osama and Taliban became an irrefutable reality at least in the eyes of those who had never subscribed to the allegation that Osama was behind the September 11 tragedy and also in the eyes of those who since have been looking up to Osama as the long awaited Islamic Redeemer.
In panic the US-led coalition has changed tactics. It has now stopped targeted bombing and has started carpet bombing. Dumb bombs have replaced smart bombs. Efforts to topple Taliban clandestinely have now given way to efforts to facilitate the Northern Alliance to take the control of Kabul. It is now a full-fledged war. But the Northern Alliance, a motley crowd of minority Afghan ethnic groups, does not want to move forward an inch towards Mazar-i-Sharif or Kabul unless all the Taliban have been taken care of. But this is not possible as long as they are not confronted on ground. And there seems to be no coalition plans, for the time being, for on the ground confrontation with the Taliban unless the last Taliban is killed in the bombing! So, it has all degenerated into a question of what should come first. A chicken and egg question, so to say. And while both the Northern Alliance and the US seem to have worked up an appetite for an omelet, neither of them wants to break the egg to make the omelet.
A long-drawn stalemate, therefore, seems to be in the offing. Very soon the US-led coalition having failed to achieve the objective through carpet bombing would once again switch back to targeted bombing which they will continue for two to three weeks and then they will return to carpet bombing. This smart bomb-dumb bomb cycle is expected to continue well beyond Ramazan and well beyond winter into many springs and Ramazans to come. Next year, this time the coalition would still be bombing the Afghan mountains to smithereens but without making any dent in the ranks of Taliban. But by that time things are likely to deteriorate in Pakistan beyond recognition.
Pakistan and Britain, the most active members of the US-led coalition and their top leaders are likely to suffer the most by this stalemate. In Pakistan the regime of President General Pervez Musharraf has already started losing touch with the people and with the ground realities. This is reflected in the latest bid of the government to use the dust that has been kicked up by the war in Afghanistan to arrest Javed Hashmi of PML(N) on charges of corruption. He did not make all that money in the last 24 months. So why did the regime take two years to apprehend him? And would it state in full honesty that there are no corrupt politicians in the PML(LM), the party whose leaders were invited to meet the president last week? But then did the arrest of Javed Hashmi have anything to do with his party’s decision to join the wheel-jam protest called by the religious fringe parties for November 9? If this so, then the regime is giving the organizers of the protest call undue credit and presenting them with brand new heroes. The war is becoming unpopular. So, there is all the possibility that even if the organizers of the wheel-jam do nothing between now and next Friday to make the protest a success, the country would still grind to a halt on November 9.
But that is all. This would neither pose a threat to the regime nor make any difference to the on going bombing. What would, however, make any difference to the regime and pose a threat to its hold on power would be the Junta’s continued indifference towards the need for national unity at this hazardous point in our history. If the regime continued to refuse to bring on board the mainstream political leadership the institution ruling the country at present would soon find itself isolated and then the man leading the institution would see himself cut-off from the institution. This situation would then become a serious threat to our nuclear assets and our Kashmir case. What is being advocated here in the name of national unity is not the induction of ‘discredited’ leaders into the government, but establishment of a system for a regular structured consultation with these leaders with the aim to secure our strategic interests in the aftermath of the on going war on international terrorism.—Yours etc.
Where there is a will...
THE SOUTHERN part of G-9 sector consists of a large children’s park that always reminds me of poet William Blake’s The Village Green. Sweet little children frolic about the undulating land, scream with joy as they rise higher and higher on the swings and play games so dear to the hearts of kids. Occasionally you may witness a reluctant child being dragged off the park by an elder brother or sister who decides it’s time to go home.
Adjacent to the park is a mosque for the people living nearby. It is also a great convenience for the older people who may have come to the park to keep an eye on their children and can say their prayers while the young ones are having a jolly time. Even if you are alone and have an hour or so to meditate, pray or just “kill” time until your next planned activity, the G-9 Children’s Park is an ideal place for the purpose.
And now for the dark side. Surrounding the park are several manholes, one of which you can see in the photograph. See the two youngsters leaving the mosque after their prayers?
The katcha footpath passes within a couple of feet of the yawning well of death. Nimazis who are regular in offering their prayers, pass quite close to the uncovered manhole.
Imagine one of the faithful rising for his Fajr prayers and deciding to spend a few moments reading the Holy Quran in the mosque. It is still dark and he makes one slip when he is passing the manhole. You can visualise his physical condition after he has plunged six feet down to hard concrete that breaks his fall. If he falls feet first, he might get away with a pair of limbs fractured out of shape but if the fall is headlong, Inna Lillahe Wa Inna Ilaihe Raji’un.
As for a child who in his innocence, happens to stray from the nearby playing field and approaches the manhole — or any of the five or six of the same kind around the park — let’s leave the macabre thought and talk of what the authorities have done about it.
If memory serves, an advocate, president of the Citizen’s Welfare Association, was reported five years ago, to have filed a writ petition on the subject which was accepted for regular hearing. The judge was reported to have directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation to cover all the manholes in their jurisdiction within seven days and submit reports to the court in this regard. Perhaps the court’s directive said seven years, not seven days, in which case there are still two years to go before compliance with the directive. In the meanwhile just pray and hope for the best.
Now then, for the answer to who does away with the iron covers? Obviously not a person who is building a house. He won’t risk his reputation by stealing the cover when he is spending millions on his house. And who’d need six manhole covers anyway? So it is obviously someone who pilfers them to sell them. And who’d buy them except foundries in Islamabad.
Perhaps this should suffice to facilitate the authorities to nab them. If there is a will, that is. —N.A. Bhatti
Anyone for a Namibia-Bangladesh World Cup final?
HAVE you seen the draws for the 2003 World Cup to be played in South Africa and partly in Zimbabwe? Well, I saw them in Dawn, October 28. Fourteen teams have been divided into two pools of seven each. Let us first consider the pools.
POOL A
Australia, Pakistan, India, England, Zimbabwe, Holland and Namibia.
POOL B
South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Kenya and Canada.
Put in the same pool, India and Pakistan both cannot possibly make it to the finals. Both of them cannot do so because Australia are in the way. Both of them cannot make it to the Super Six round because one of them must be relegated to the No 4 position. The only way they can qualify for the Super Six round is to finish second and third behind Australia, the reigning world champions. The possibility of an India-Pakistan final can be ruled out here and now. Can India and Pakistan upset Australia? Ask me another.
Six sides in the tournament are merely there to prolong the agony — Zimbabwe, Holland and Namibia in Pool A and Bangladesh, Kenya and Canada in Pool B. You could ask: Why not Zimbabwe? They have the Flower brothers, haven’t they? Well, all right. The two brothers put on 146 for the third wicket in a Sharjah Cup match against Pakistan only the other day. OK. Let’s have Zimbabwe. But what about Bangladesh? Or Namibia? or Namibia, Holland or Kenya and Canada? Perhaps the Bangladeshis will spring a surprise or two like they did by beating Pakistan in the 1999 World Cup. Perhaps they will beat South Africa and perhaps Namibia will win against Pakistan. So anyone for a Namibia-Bangladesh World Cup final? A million to one. Any takers?
Still on cricket, do you know what are the worst starts to Test matches? Well, according to Wisden 2001, the worst-ever was seven runs for six wickets that Australia were reduced to at Manchester way back in 1888. In 1952, India were six for five at The Oval and none for four at Leeds. England were two for four at Johannesburg in 1999-2000. England were five for four against Australia in Melbourne in 1903-04. Australia made seven for four against England at The Oval in 1896 and again seven for four at Brisbane in 1936-37. England slumped to eight for four against India at Bangalore in 1976-77. Australia were nine for four against Sri Lanka at Moratuwa in 1992-93. And finally the West Indies made nine for four against Australia at Brisbane, also in 1992-93. (Note: England’s two for four is the only instance in which the visitors to South Africa made a horrendous start in their first innings. All other instances are second innings slumps).
Then Wisden 2001 gives us the highest scores by No 7 batsmen in Test matches. Top of the list is B.G. Bradman with 270 against England in Melbourne in 1936-37. He is followed by D. St. E. Aktinson with 219 for the West Indies against Australia at Bridgetown in 1954-55. Jack Ryder of England made an unbeaten 201 against Australia at Adelaide in 1924-25. D.L. Lindsay made 182 against Australia for South Africa at Johannesburg in 1966-67.
For England, K.S. Ranjitsinghji made 175 against Australia in Sydney in 1897-98. Lance Klusener of South Africa made 174 against England at Port Elizabeth in 1999-2000. For England again, Joe Hardstaff made an unbeaten 169 against Australia at The Oval in 1938. Derek Randall of England hit 164 against New Zealand at Wellington in 1983-84. Kapil Dev of India hit 163 against Sri Lanka at Kanpur in 1986-87. And finally, Ian Healy of Australia hit an unbeaten 161 against the West Indies at Brisbane in 1996-97.
The record for the longest Test innings still belongs to our very own Hanif Mohammad who took 970 minutes to make 337 against the West Indies at Bridgetown in 1957-58. The latest instance is Gary Kirsten of South Africa who took 878 minutes in making 275 against England at Durban in 1999-2000. Len Hutton of England made his famous 364 in 797 minutes against Australia in 1938.
Interestingly there are three Sri Lankans in this go-slow list — Sanath Jayasuriay (799 minutes for 340 runs) against India in Colombo in 1997-98, D.S.B.P. Kuruppu for an unbeaten 201, in 775 minutes, also against India at Colombo in 1986-87 and Roshan Mahanama (753 minutes for 225 runs), once again against India in Colombo in 1997-98.
And now for one-day internationals played in 1999-2000.
In February, 1999 England beat Zimbabwe 3-0 with one match abandoned because of rain. In October the same year, Australia beat Zimbabwe 3-0. And so on down the line. At a rough estimate, 141 one-day internationals were played in 1999-2000 — a hundred too many, if you ask me. And how many one-day games have been played todate in 2000-2001? And mind you, the 1999-2000 figures donot include the World Cup matches. Dawn (October 28) reported that 42 games were played. That put the total for the year at 183.
It is amazing that there should have been no burnout cases after such a ceaseless, round-the-year cricketing activity. There have been injuries, yes, but no burnouts. I think the ICC should reduce the number of one-day matches drastically.
And do you know where else is cricket played apart from the known centres of the game? Let’s begin in alphabetical order: Argentina, Belgium, Brunai, Canada, Cayman Islands (where are they?) Chile, Costa Rica, Estonia, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the United States and Vantan. Let’s go to Vantan to have some fun.
KHUSHWANT Singh, the noted Indian author, wrote the following in his book, We Indians:
“In 1962, India fought a brief war with China and suffered a humiliating defeat. In 1965, there was another war with Pakistan which ended in a draw. And in 1971, there was a third confrontation of arms with Pakistan in which India gained a decisive victory. These wars with their neighbours made the Indians very conscious of their Indianness but they also realized that by resorting to violence, they had proved false to their profession of Gandhism. Gandhism was as dead as Gandhi.”
One could not agree with him more. Had Gandhi lived, he would have gone on a fast unto death to make India settle the Kashmir dispute and he would have succeeded. And now more than 50 years down the road, the Indians are refusing to play cricket with Pakistan. At the height of the Kargil frenzy superstars like Kapil Dev and Tendulkar joined the anti-Pakistan chorus. Kapil Dev went to the extent of saying that there should be no Muslims in any future Indian cricket team.
As William James once said: “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely re-arranging their prejudices. That’s it. From hima to ahimsa and back again to himsa — from violence to non-violence to violence”.
WE now hear that the head of UN observers group in Kashmir has apologized to the Indian army for his forthright views in which he had said that Kashmir was a tormented country and that Indian and Pakistan were “playing political games in a volatile region.”
His excuse? He was not aware of the ‘ground realities’ because he had been only recently appointed to the job. Come, now, Gen Loidolt (for that’s his name), you have nothing to be apologetic about. First impressions are nearly always the right impressions. Kashmir is a tormented territory. It is a statement of fact. To Gen Loidolt I will say
Nikal jaati ho sachi baat jis ke munh se masti main
Faqih-i-maslehat bein se woh rind-i-baada khwar acha
