| January 19, 2002 | Saturday | Ziqa'ad 4, 1422 |
Was Nadir Shah an American or a Jew?
It’s time India did the same
AFTER a long layoff, mostly because of Ramazan and the various holidays which followed, the Lahore Arts Forum resumed its activities this month. Starting with the usual Tuesday evening programme of Sing-Along-Kaafi in the Alhamra Cultural Complex, related to Shah Husain, it invited Ashfaq Ahmad last Thursday for a dialogue. It was evidently because of the attraction the guest speaker holds for people that there was an unusually large crowd that evening in the Model Town Library auditorium, including a wagonload of boys and girls from the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
THE ambassador of Greece, Dimitrios Michail Loundras, who was scheduled to leave Pakistan in autumn, after the completion of his tenure, is finally on his way back home. He must be relieved, as his family went back in summer and he has been living alone, the reason of his extended stay being the events that took place after the September 11 attacks in the United States. An ambassador who knows the country and the way its government operates serves his own country’s interest better than an envoy that is new to both.
To bid farewell to friends and colleagues he hosted a reception at his residence, which was fairly well-attended. The residence was crowded with guests who had come to wish him ‘bon voyage’ and best wishes for the future. Unlike the host, the new ambassador has not come to do a ‘rehki,’ or survey, of his ‘territory’ which includes his residence and the office. His predecessor introduced Dimitrios Loundras to Islamabad about two months before he came here officially as ambassador. Some residents of the capital had the opportunity to meet him at the residence of senior politician, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi and found him a pleasant, soft-spoken person who was looking forward to his tenure in Pakistan. Has it been up to his expectations? “Yes, and more” said the ambassador, “My tenure has been very satisfying both officially and personally, because I have made many good friends for life.”
Asked to comment on the current ditente between his country and Turkey regarding the Cyprus issue, he said it was a step in the right direction and peace was the only solution and a mending of fences would be beneficial for all concerned. This answer was expected as he has always advocated an end to the conflict that was keeping both the main contenders and Cyprus hostage.
While the outgoing envoy had many good things to say about Pakistan he was very upset with the Foreign Ministry. A career diplomat, he was mindful of diplomatic protocol, which stipulates that an outgoing envoy should pay farewell calls on the President and select ministers of the country he has been serving in. “On November 19, I requested the protocol office to arrange my meetings as I would be leaving in two months time. To this day I have had no response.” He has written a letter to Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar, regretting this slip-up and also hoping that the non-compliance of his request was ‘not a change in attitude of the Pakistan government towards Greece’ as he had made all efforts to promote bilateral relations between the two countries. “I wish the President success in his vision for the country and for the good of the people of Pakistan,” he concluded. It is a sorry reflection on those concerned that an ambassador, who had such a positive stance on Pakistan, should leave the country so disappointed because of an oversight. Maybe his letter will prompt the foreign minister to take notice and ensure that this kind of blunder does not occur again.—Diplomatic dispatcher
Ashfaq Sahib arrived on time and did not disturb the punctuality about which the organizer, Muzaffar Ghaffar, is so particular. Besides being an intellectual and an excellent speaker, Ashfaq Sahib is an entertainer as well. He straightaway guages the mood of the audience and tries to keep them happy. Although he said in the beginning that he had no particular topic in mind to talk about, yet whatever he said was topical and covered the prevailing situation in and around the country. He had a fling at the Americans for what they were doing in Afghanistan. He compared them with a dakoo who also behaves as Robin Hood. They drop bombs over the Afghans and also airdrop gift packets for them.
Closer home, he said, the prevailing conditions were such that everyone in the country was suffering from depression as was evident from the increasing number of signboards of psychiatrists appearing in the city. But, he added, depression seemed to be a worldwide phenomenon. Newsweek, he said, had forecast that the time was not far when there would be more deaths in the world because of depression than those caused by cancer.
Reverting to the Americans, he said that they happened to be extremely cruel as they had no qualms of conscience while dropping atomic bombs on Japanese cities. He also chastised the Jews for their atrocities on the Palestinians. But what he said in the same breath did not go well with people like me. He said that against the Americans and the Jews a Muslim could never be cruel. That was something I could not buy. (I may be hard of hearing but his words were loud and clear). All the same, since everyone was accepting what he was saying I did not deem it proper to interrupt and remind him of a famous line: Shamat-i-aamal-i-ma surat-i-Nadir garift or Punishment for our misdemeanours took the shape of Nadir (Shah). After all, Nadir Shah was not an American or a Jew, or was he?
SHAHNAZ Muzzammil’s literary organization, Adab Serai, seems to be attracting more and more poets. Last Monday, it was almost a ‘full house’ at her residence. Karamat Bukhari and Munir Saifi, two top class poets, have been attending these sessions off and on but this time made their appearance after a long time. Mehshar Zaidi was there and recited a ghazal in behr-i-taveel. I don’t think I have seen him in the gathering earlier. Anjum Hasan, a young woman devoted to Punjabi poetry, the veteran Nisar Akbarabadi with a lilting tarranum, and Imtiaz Alam Siahposh, were definitely first timers. It was an enjoyable meeting.
SHAGUFTA Nazli is a bilingual poet. Although holding a master’s degree in Urdu, and having taught the subject at college level, she is equally fluent in Punjabi and produced her first collection in the language. Titled Soachan Dian Soortan, it was published in 1999. It was followed by a collection of Urdu poetry, Gufta Nagufta. Not content with that she tried her hand at prose and produced a collection of mini-stories in Punjabi, Roop Saroop. And now she has come up with Harf Harf Joat Jaley, a collection of her ghazals, nazms, quatrains, haikos and mahiyas, all in Urdu. That means she has produced four books in three years. Well done.
In the present book she has dealt with a variety of topics and even gone to give a word of advice to the G-8. That reminds me of what Munir Niazi had to say about her first collection. According to him, “She dwells upon everyday topics and remains aloof from cheap romanticism.”
THE city these days is mourning the sudden death of one of its most colourful personalities, Dr Faqir Husain Saga. Wearing a Sindhi cap, he was seen at every function, literary or otherwise, sporting a wide smile. He was a broken man after the death of his young son in an air crash but never expressed his feelings openly. He will be missed.
NOW here is a flash — Mustansar Husain Tarar has just completed his 34th book, a novel inspired by the horrific stories coming out of Afghanistan. It starts with the massacre of prisoners huddled in a fort in Mazar-i-Sharif. I cannot say anything more about it for the time being.
RIGHT after US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh held their press conference, BBC World managed to get on air India’s minister of state for industry Ravi Paratap Rudy to ask for his comments. A BJP hardliner, from the way he was talking, Mr Rudy went about saying, without giving any kind of justification, that unless Pakistan took some “action,” the Indian government would not pull back its troops from the border. He also said that the first of a series of such actions would be if Pakistan handed over to India those on the list of 20 alleged terrorists.
The surprising thing about what the junior minister was saying was that he was more hawkish than even his own foreign minister. He went so far as to say that any dialogue between India and Pakistan would not include Kashmir at all — something already accepted be New Delhi — and if any reference was to be made to it then it would be in relation to the “cross-border terrorism” allegedly going on there.
Jaswant Singh, in his now trademark style of reticence mixed with arrogance, had been slightly more forthcoming in his remarks regarding the action taken by the Pakistan government and of Gen Musharraf’s speech. However, the minister seemed to make little sense when a Reuters correspondent asked him if and when New Delhi would rescind the decisions it took regarding the bus and train service between the two countries and the restriction on its airspace. For starters, the foreign minister said that people could still travel from one country to the other (apparently a reference to the fact that the train does go to Wagah and then people walk across the border with their belongings and board the train at Attari for the onward journey). He made no reference to the airspace restriction, only saying later that India would respond positively if and when it saw that what Pakistan had done was sufficient for a de-escalation of the military build-up.
The BBC news anchor, however, seemed to put a slightly pro-India spin on the matter by leading off the news bulletin following the press conference with the opening lead which said that the US had left it to India to make whatever it wanted of Pakistan’s actions and of Musharraf’s speech. Anyone who heard and saw Colin Powell, especially his reference to a series of “actions” that he listed Islamabad had carried out, would have come across with the impression that the he was gently nudging the Indians to acknowledge what Pakistan had done and respond accordingly. Of course, he couldn’t really say something like: “Can’t you see that Pakistan and Musharraf have done quite a bit. You would be foolish to not respond because that would only end up strengthening the hardliners in Pakistan, who will then use India’s reluctance to respond to tell the Pakistani people, “Look, we told you so that the Indians can never be trusted, you give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.”
Now that America’s attention is on making sure that the conflict between India and Pakistan doesn’t get out of hand, it probably should now be India’s turn to get rid of extremist organizations within its own polity. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Bajrang Dal and parties like the Shiv Sena who espouse an ideology of domination and superiority of a particular faith and a culture over all others, and whose activists have been accused (sometimes proven) of destroying property belonging to members of India’s minorities or even indulging in actions that caused their deaths should now also be placed under a strict watch and eventually banned. Two examples that come immediately to mind are the demolition of the mosque in Ayodhya in 1992 and the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two children by a member of the Bajrang Dal in Orissa.
After all, if a military dictatorship like Pakistan can take the first step and expunge all extremist groups taking part or even accused of terrorist acts, what prevents a ‘secular democracy’ like India from doing the same? Hopefully, our new-found allies in Washington will press this point to their close allies in Delhi. — OMAR R QURAISHI