New equation with Dhaka

BY all indications, the recent visit of President Gen Pervez Musharraf to Bangladesh went off very well and appeared to have generated plenty of goodwill and cordiality between the two countries. This is more than what could be said of earlier visits to Dhaka by the heads of Pakistan government and augurs well for future relations between the two countries.

President Musharraf set the tone for his visit by his statement expressing hopes for “the peace, prosperity and prosperity” of the host country which he recorded in the visitors book after laying wreaths at the National Martyrs Memorial at Savar outside Dhaka. The Savar monument is dedicated to the memory those who died fighting the liberation war in 1971.

The memorial is a grim reminder of the circumstances in which the eastern wing broke away from the rest of Pakistan. There was no sign of acrimony at the wreath-laying ceremony which all visiting heads of state and government are expected to perform on arrival in Dhaka. Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia on Bangladesh, along with the President of the country, greeted the President of Pakistan and Begum Sehba Musharraf on their arrival at the Dhaka airport which was marked by a 21-gun salute.

Before leaving Dhaka two days later, President Musharraf had prepared the ground for the consolidation of Pakistan’s economic and cultural ties with Bangladesh. The two countries formally entered into a protocol providing for consultations every year at the foreign secretary level, worked out the modalities of a regular cultural exchange programme, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set up a Pakistan-Bangladesh joint business council to promote trade and other forms of economic cooperation between the two countries.

Talking to newspaper editors shortly before his departure from Dhaka, President Musharraf announced that Pakistan had decided to write off the payment of Rs 84 million which Bangladesh owed to Pakistan as the cost of defence material supplied by this country. There was no clear indication of what purchases had been made by Bangladesh, but going by reports, part of the payment had to do with Bangladeshi officers coming here for higher training at the military institutions in Pakistan.

In his message to Bangladesh, President Pervez Musharraf categorically said: “We should put the past behind us and look to the future” — a theme he repeatedly emphasized while in Dhaka.

However, knowing the bitter memories still lingering in both countries because of the events of 1971, it would not be surprising if there are elements on both sides who would not readily endorse the point of ‘forgive-and-forget’.

President Musharraf was quite explicit in his expression of regrets on arrival in Dhaka over the excesses committed in 1971. However, it would be unrealistic to believe that the demand for an ‘apology’ made by some Bangladesh leaders would be abandoned in view of President Musharraf’s regrets. A section of the Bangladeshi leaders can be expected to persist with the demand, particularly because a former prime minister of Pakistan, after his meeting with Bangladesh leaders, was believed to have agreed in principle to Pakistan tendering such an apology. Why that assurance was later side-stepped is not quite clear.

Since Gen Musharraf’s observations concerning the events of 1971 had a clear ring of sincerity, it may be in the interest of friendly relations between the two countries for Dhaka not to press its demand for a formal apology. In any case, the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report on the 1971 crisis in East Pakistan, which has since been made public, has acknowledged the culpability of a number of senior Pakistan army officers who were serving in the then eastern wing of Pakistan. The Commission also indicted several of them, asking for their public trial. This could not be done mainly for the reason that several of those held culpable had died by the time the report was made public nearly 30 years after its submission to the government.

Nonetheless, it is obvious that President Musharraf feels deeply disturbed at the events of 1971. This was evident from his choice of words for his speech delivered at the banquet given in his honour by the Bangladesh president. In an emotional strain, President Musharraf said: “We were a family faced by a whirlwind of unfortunate events. It takes time for truth and wisdom to reassert their sway. It takes time for peace, real peace and reconciliation, to return. That time, I believe, has come.” These are words spoken out of conviction rather than for reasons of circumvention.

The question of reparations and division of assets between the two countries is a complex matter. Perhaps it could be taken up by the foreign secretaries of the two countries in accordance with the framework agreed during the President’s visit to Dhaka. Bangladesh should be expected to take a realistic view of the huge lot political and legal complexities involved in working onto a reasonably fair award on the substantial amounts by way of reparations division of assets and liabilities acceptable to both sides.

As for the question of losses on account of the private assets abandoned by individuals and industrialists in both countries, this could perhaps be taken up for a review by the Pakistan-Bangladesh Joint Business Council which has now been set up.

In the mood of euphoria following President Pervez Musharraf’s visit to Bangladesh and the warmth and geniality with which he was received there, a section of the intelligentsia in Pakistan seems to believe that Bangladesh may be ready to evolve some sort of a common working arrangement with Pakistan in respect of its future policies and its overall geo-political orientation. Such thinking is premature, if not altogether unrealistic, at this stage Bangladesh is fiercely protective of its independence and sovereignty.

This is primarily the reason why it has not been able to establish friction-free relations with India even though it acknowledges the debt it owes to that country for the help it provided for the success of Bangladesh’s liberation movement. Some individuals in Bangladesh may cherish fond memories of their past association with what was then West Pakistan but there is nothing to suggest that many in Bangladesh regret having parted company with Pakistan.

Besides, the factors which in the past clouded and strained relations between the two wings of a united country — ultimately continue to a breaking point — continue to be there and cannot be wished away. For instance, Bangladesh is extremely proud of its language and culture, which have a great deal in common with the Indian part of Bengal and which were a major barrier to the average member of the urban intelligentsia in West Pakistan forming common affinities and a sense of identity with the erstwhile East Pakistanis, even when they both belonged to the same country and shared the same national identity. The culture of Bangladesh has not undergone any dramatic metamorphosis in the past 31 years since 1971, while a more distinctive and cohesive sense of ideology and nationhood has taken hold of the minds and consciousness of the people of today’s as an unchangeable reality.

However, if in the coming years both Pakistan and Bangladesh continue to treat each other with the same respect and fraternal feelings that President Pervez Musharraf expressed for the people of Bangladesh during his Dhaka visit, the lingering feelings of alienation may gradually disappear and a common ground emerge for the peoples of the two countries to work in concert with each other for the common good.

Incidentally, what is perhaps not commonly known in Pakistan is the extent of confusion that prevailed among various sections of the ‘freedom fighters’ in the erstwhile East Pakistan in the last week of March 1971 when a radio broadcast from Chittagong proclaimed the independence of the eastern wing. According to one of a series of articles under the title “Declaration of Independence” written by well-known Bangladeshi author Badruddin Umar and published in the weekly Holiday of Dhaka in its issue of July 12, M.R. Siddiqi received a message in Chittagong purportedly from Shaikh Mujibur Rahman on the morning of March 26, 1971. It was passed on to the Sangram Parishad (Committee of Action) which immediately decided to broadcast it as a proclamation of independence.

The message was apparently in English and it was translated into Bangla. It was read out by M.A. Hannan, general secretary of the District Awami League, over a relay station of Radio Pakistan as the main station was already under the control of the army. Hannan was helped by some senior-ranking activists of the Awami League in Chittagong. But the broadcast was heard only over the Chittagong relay station and there was apparently no similar announcement from anywhere outside Chittagong.

It appears that Hannan’s announcement “failed to have any impact on the people”. Badruddin Umar is of the view this fact could be attributed to “the vagueness of the message as a declaration of independence and the inconsequentiality of the man who announced it”.

On March 27, Major (later Maj General) Ziaur Rahman of the east Bengal Regiment (apparently the senior most officer based in Chittagong) made another declaration of independence. Umar contends: “From available evidences it is not clear what made him do so, although he (the Major) had ‘some contact’ with the Awami League leaders. It seemed that Major Ziaur Rahman, having access to the radio transmitter in Kallurghat, made a Declaration of Independence of his own and declared himself the president and gave a call for a freedom fight.”

A.K. Khan — once industries minister in Pakistan — who heard the news, said that it will be interpreted as an army coup and there will be no support (for it) nationally or internationally. He made out a new draft in English (and) Major Ziaur (Rehman) read out the new draft saying Shaikh Mujibur Rahman was the president and the call was on his behalf.”

The whole episode, if correctly reported, seems most enigmatic and raises several questions: who actually sent the draft message in English as apparently Shaikh Mujib’s supporters in Chittagong expected a message from him to be in Bangla? Who authorized Major Ziaur Rahman to broadcast it on March 26 declaring himself to be the president? What made him make another draft and broadcast it on March 27? Why was his second draft in English and not in Bangla?

These questions may not be relevant to the present and future relationship between Pakistan and Bangladesh but they are important for a fuller understanding of the factors and forces, twists and turns, and many acts and omissions that set the pace for the tragic denouement that began to unfold following the start of the army crackdown on the night of March 25, 1971 in what was then the east wing of Pakistan.

Manipulating the judiciary

WHEN Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan a letter was sent by the Chief Justice of Pakistan to the federal law minister in which a complaint was made that the Chief Justices of the High Courts, who were comparatively young in age and had a long way to go before retirement, declined to be inducted in the Supreme Court as judges.

Instead, they recommended the names of other judges junior to them for appointment in the Supreme Court. The letter said that this trend should be discouraged and appointments in the Supreme Court be made on the basis of seniority in the High Court. Consequently, notes were prepared, summaries made and approval obtained from the cabinet for moving amendments to the Constitution. Accordingly, the Constitution (Fifth Amendment) Bill 1976 was moved to amend several Articles relating to the superior judiciary.

Article 179 envisaged the age of retirement of a judge and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as 65 years. This Article was amended to provide that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall have a fixed tenure of five years and if he completes that tenure before he is 65 years old, he will step down as the most senior judge enjoying the same perks and fringe benefits as the Chief Justice. Likewise, Article 195 of the Constitution fixing 62 years as the retiring age of a judge and of the Chief Justice of the High Court was amended to provide a tenure of four years for the Chief Justice and if he completed his tenure before reaching that age, he would step down as the most senior judge with the same benefits and perks as he enjoyed as Chief Justice.

This was done with the object that young chief justices of the High Court should not continue as such indefinitely and should not refuse to move to the Supreme Court, when called upon to do so. Those who supported the amendment quoted the precedent case of Justice Mohammad Muneer who continued as Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court while acting as the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Pakistan as the Supreme Court was called then.

As a result of the amendments made in the Constitution, Sardar Mohammad Iqbal, Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court, and Syed Safdar Shah, Chief Justice of the Peshawar High court, refused to step down and opted for retirement. For the appointment of Acting Chief Justices the relevant provisions were amended. Article 130 provided that any judge of the Supreme Court could be appointed Acting Chief Justice of Pakistan when the Chief Justice was unable to perform his functions. Likewise, Article 196 was amended to provide that any one of the judges of the High Court or a judge of the Supreme Court could be appointed Acting Chief Justice of the High Court instead of the most senior judge of the court as was allowed earlier.

The obvious intention of the government was to maintain a complete grip on the superior judiciary and favour the appointment of judges of their choice as Chief Justices. After Sardar Mohammad Iqbal stepped down and retired, the next most senior judge, Moulvi Mushtaq Hussain, was not appointed Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court. Instead the number seven on the seniority list, Justice Aslam Riaz Hussain was appointed. Before that feelers were put out to the effect that Justice Dr. Javed Iqbal, who was close to the bottom of the seniority list, be appointed Chief Justice. But later the government changed its mind and Justice Aslam Riaz Hussain was appointed. This shows to what extent the government — and a democratically elected one at that — could go in manipulating appointments in the superior judiciary.

Now I come to the Sixth Amendment, which was passed as the Constitution (Sixth Amendment) Act 1976. Justice Yakoob Ali Khan was appointed Chief Justice of Pakistan and he was nearing the retiring age of 65 years, while still he had not completed his tenure of five years as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Somehow or the other, the matter was brought to the notice of the government and steps were taken and the way was paved for the Sixth Amendment which was brought in to accommodate the Chief Justice of Pakistan and it was provided that if the Chief Justice had not completed his tenure of office and reached the age of superannuation, he would be allowed to continue his tenure and this applied to both the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court and the High Courts.

There was criticism in the parliament that the amendment was person-specific and that the Constitution should not be amended for the benefit of individuals, but no heed was paid to it and the government went ahead and accomplished its objective. It was clear that by this amendment the Judge, who was next in line and who was expecting to be Chief Justice was sorely disappointed as his prospect of promotion was blocked, particularly when he reached 65 years of age before completing his tenure.

All obstacles thus removed, the government of the day went on making itself stronger and stronger, in the process weakening the institutions and particularly the judiciary. In the latter case, the methodology of appointment was modified in such a way that the government had total control over the appointment of judges, particularly the Chief Justices, who could be appointed as desired by the government. The end-result was that too much power was concentrated in the hands of the government while institutions were undermined and their authority eroded.

This gave rise to anger and resentment among large sections of the people who felt aggrieved. Finally, as elections of 1977 were announced, all the opposition parties joined together and made common cause against the government party in the shape of the Pakistan National Alliance and obtained a common election symbol. The PNA accused the government of having rigged the elections and boycotted elections to provincial assemblies. This resulted in a serious law and order situation and finally the army intervened on July 5, 1977. It suspended the Constitution, dismissed the government of Mr Z.A. Bhutto and declared martial law in the country.

Begum Nusrat Bhutto challenged the validity of martial law and the detention of her husband and other ministers and partymen in the Supreme Court. During the pendency of this petition, General Ziaul Haq, the chief martial law administrator, quietly annulled the Sixth Amendment and as a result, Chief Justice Yakoob ali Khan of the Supreme Court had to step down and was replaced by the next senior judge, Justice Anwarul Haq. He was very happy being so elevated and was administered oath of office as Chief Justice of Pakistan. The CMLA assumed the office of President of Pakistan and there was a very good working relationship between the military government and the judiciary. The Supreme Court validated martial law as a deviation from the Constitution on the basis of the ‘law of necessity’ and left it open to the President and Chief Martial Law Administrator to hold elections as and when he thought fit to do so.

Elections were not held until after eight years and that too on a non-party basis. The equation was so good between the government and the judiciary that even under that military set-up whenever General Ziaul Haq as president went abroad, the Chief Justice of Pakistan took over as acting president.

The Supreme Court also empowered the CMLA to amend the Constitution just to avoid a return of Justice Yakoob Ali Khan as Chief Justice of Pakistan. Unmistakably, that part of the judicial history is being repeated in the same manner as in the past and nobody seems to learns any lessons from it.

The writer is a former Chief Justice of Pakistan.

Autobiography as history: OF MICE AND MEN

HOW much of recorded history owes itself to the efforts of those who wrote about their times and came to be known as historians, and how much of it depends for facts on autobiography and personal memoirs can be a subject for scholarly research. The latter writings may not have played the main part in providing grist to the mill of modern historians but they did have an important role in furnishing reliable first-hand sources.

Maybe that is why in civilized countries those who have been at the helm of public affairs in any way deem it their duty to leave behind accounts of life as witnessed by them, even though these accounts may be subjective or biased.

The very fact that they are available in great numbers and in different versions gives the historian many points of view on the same event or time period, and enables him to draw his conclusions for arriving at the truth. This does not happen in Pakistan. Maybe we are not civilized enough.

It is only recently that public figures have taken to autobiographies and we have a book of this genre coming out every now and then. But even so, we continue to see important personalities completing their allotted span of life and meeting their Maker without leaving an account of their role in the country’s affairs. These include politicians, former government leaders and retired military officers, and even writers, poets and journalists. What a loss to posterity!

So when a book like Purani Mehfilein Yaad aa Rahee Hain appears on the publication horizon and is the story of a unique man at once a political activist, a committed Marxist and an idealistic working journalist, besides being a friend beloved of innumerable men and women from all walks of life, there is occasion to rejoice. At the age of 81 Abdullah Malik has written his memoirs from birth to 1947, and promised another volume from 1947 onwards — a marvellous achievement of over 400 pages in print, and the promise of relieving himself of a still more onerous burden to follow.

Abdullah Malik’s memoirs are not just the story of his personal and public life but, in the context of my opening remarks, a valuable contribution to the scanty corpus on the history of this part of the subcontinent. It is a book of history and, at the same time, an exhaustive (and inexhaustible) source material for those wishing to write about the political and religious movements which made their presence felt in Punjab during the 27 years preceding Partition.

What is remarkable about Purani Yaadein is the author’s complete frankness about personalities, movements and events that he came in contact with. Of course he cannot help being subjective about people he admired and looked up to for their idealism, their courage and the firmness of their views, but so far as his own person is concerned he makes no excuses, offers no justifications and holds nothing back that could reflect adversely on his own personality and role in the happenings he describes.

Abdullah Malik has a sharp and incisive mind and a very good memory, but had he relied on memory alone for this book he would have encountered many pitfalls through doubting his own recollection of people and events. However, like a raconteur who does not wish to leave anything to chance or to the tricks that a hazy memory can play with the facts available to a prolific writer, he has been in the habit of keeping a detailed journal from his earliest days. Thus you may or may not agree with his verdict on what men and women said or did in their time, or his strictly personal views and opinions about so many things, but you cannot blame him for inaccuracy.

As for being prolific, Abdullah Malik has more than half a dozen books to his credit, and all of them the products of painstaking research, including one on the Saur Revolution of Afghanistan which ended with the retreat of the Soviet army from that country. That way he is one of the truly outstanding Pakistani scholars of the age. His only book that required no research and was based on immediate quasi-spiritual experience was on the Haj pilgrimage with his late wife.

Many of his friends remember it because of what that irrepressible wag of Lahore, Saadat Khyali, had once said. When asked by someone how he would describe Islamic Socialism, Khyali quipped: “When Abdullah Malik goes for Haj, that is Islamic Socialism!”

Apart from details of family and early education and a childhood spent in the walled city of Lahore, Purani Yaadein goes into the almost day-to-day association of Abdullah Malik with the Communist Party of India, the influence of the firebrand leaders of the Majlis-i-Ahrar on his youthful enthusiasm, the minor flirtation with the socialist objectives of the Indian National Congress as epitomised by Jawaharlal Nehru and the final allegiance to the All-India Muslim League at the behest of the CPI which began to advocate autonomy for Indian Muslims after Russia was dragged into World War II. All this is graphically dilated upon in a vast panorama of experience and sensitive involvement.

Malik’s stint as a journalist occupied only a couple of years before this volume comes to a close. Those whom this first volume excites and interests can look forward to the publication of the second, which will cover half a century and more of Pakistan in which journalism and authorship have occupied more of his time and attention.

Given Abdullah Malik’s penchant for the truth and nothing but the truth, that should be a true and faithful history of his country, with a host of inside stories about conspiracies, the wizardry or idiocy of those engaged in politics and the struggles for power and authority among those who wanted to rule Pakistan without having done anything for its masses. He is well into it and hopes to publish it before the end of the year.

Reverting to my opening paragraphs, I hope Purani Yaadein acts as a stimulus to other public figures also and provokes them into recording their thoughts and views and their experiences, thereby adding to the corpus of historical material for both research scholars and the ordinary readers who can certainly do with greater knowledge of what this benighted country has gone through.

From the future to the present: NOTES FROM DELHI

FOR some reason an old Talat Mahmood song has been humming in my mind: Tasweer banata hoon, tasweer nahin banti, tasweer nahin banti... (I paint, but the picture never forms). And then this line morphs in the mind, almost without permission from the brain: Kashmir banata hoon, Kashmir nahin banti, Kashmir nahin banti...

Since we have exhausted all options, and failed, when finding the way forward by starting from the beginning, let us try a different route map. Let us begin from the end. Is there an endgame? Indeed, is there any end to this utterly dangerous game?

Common sense — or should we redefine common sense as rank optimism? — suggests that any journey should end in peace. Is that the real intention of all concerned? It is necessary to address this basic dilemma at the start, because if there is any confusion about the end, then every effort will be only another exercise in volatile confusion, with all its attendant consequences. Let me declare my personal interest in the matter, unambiguously and without the clutter of any higher virtue.

I have two children in college; the elder has just completed her studies, the younger has two years left before he graduates. I would like both my children to return and live in their country, India, rather than in England or the United States. And I would like my India to be a peaceful home to them for the rest of their lives, where they can prosper, succeed, and, most important, enjoy the sheer fun that life offers to the fortunate in my country. I do not want them to live in the penumbra of nuclear war. I must work on the hypothesis that this is a perfectly sane desire, and that everyone who is sane on the subcontinent, and everyone sane in the rest of the world with an interest in the subcontinent, shares this hope.

If peace is the objective, then long before it happens on the ground it must take root in the mind. This is tricky, because war, or at least confrontation, has been the dominant fact of minds fixed in the past. India and Pakistan have always gone to their messy, uncertain, tripartite origins in their search for solutions to any present problem. They have never permitted the future to shape the present. The difference is considerable. Are we still going to fight battles started in the nineteenth century, or are we going to look ahead to the rest of the twenty-first century? Take one look at an imagined future and visualize the difference if there is, may I dare say it, peace and economic and military cooperation between India and Pakistan.

Suddenly every equation from the Andamans to Arabia and Iran changes. This becomes the largest economic market in the world, with a potential bigger than that of Europe or China, and the capability of raising living standards to the levels of the twenty richest countries. Together, the subcontinent can harness and use the greatest natural resources, from the Caspian, Iran and Central Asia to the eastern waters of the Indian Ocean.

If there is military cooperation, then even the United States might feel a slight twinge at having encouraged friendship between India and Pakistan, just as some Republicans might wonder today about whether helping China join the world did not actually provoke a potential that might have been best left dormant. This will never happen as long as we are defeated by the hatreds of our past.

To change a set mind is not easy. Two bits of evidence will suffice. Take, first, the Congress reaction to the statement made by Colin Powell in Delhi, that Kashmir was on the world’s agenda. The principal opposition party reacted as if Powell had insulted India. What else has the world been doing for the whole of last year except treating the problems arising out of Kashmir as part of its agenda? Why did Colin Powell turn up in Delhi in the first place? Not because he wanted to ease his jet lag on the way to the Asean meeting. Why did we accept the commitment made by General Pervez Musharraf on reducing support to cross-border terrorism and brought to us by Richard Armitage?

Why are we holding Pakistan to that commitment, and doing so consistently, if we do not accept that the world has a role to play in the pursuit of peace on the subcontinent? Why was Donald Rumsfeld in Delhi and Islamabad? Why was Jack Straw in both capitals? It is extraordinary to suggest that Kashmir has never been discussed by any of these men on their visits to the subcontinent. If Kashmir was not on the international agenda, India and Pakistan would probably have blown each other to nuclear bits by now. We may have argued for decades that we do not need international mediation, but the only aeroplanes that scurry to and fro between India and Pakistan these days are the government aircraft of leaders from Britain and the United States.

Did the Congress object to Powell’s visit? Or Straw’s? There is a new reality that must be recognized: a nuclear war is not a bilateral issue. The world does not want to talk on our behalf; that in fact would be stupid. But the world does want India and Pakistan to talk to each other when a million men are battle-ready on the border and nuclear arsenals are primed for assault. As it so happens Washington believes that these talks must be held in the framework of the Simla Agreement of 1972, which is consistent with India’s position and which in turn will shape the nature of the dialogue. Delhi welcomed this statement when it was made in Washington.

Pakistan’s reality check relates to a different aspect. Unless Pakistan begins to believe that there is no military solution to the problem, there will be no solution. The ifs of history taunt those who must suffer the consequences of mistakes; but if Pakistan had not arbitrarily sent across raiders in the third week of October 1947, there would have been a peaceful resolution of the problem fifty years ago. War, either declared or undeclared, did not succeed then, and it is not going to succeed today.

It is clear that something is needed to end the dangerous stagnation in which this problem is trapped. There has to be change; equally change cannot be artificially engineered. It must emerge from a logic that is acceptable, not least to public opinion in India. The September elections, a constitutional requirement of democracy, are the obvious key to change. Delhi’s responsibility is to ensure that they are free and fair in the sense that there is no King’s Party that must be protected by rigging if it cannot win a legitimate mandate.

Both Prime Minister Vajpayee and his deputy, Mr Advani, have given such a commitment, and done so repeatedly. The world will watch and make sure that they deliver on this commitment. But free elections are not going to be possible under a hail of jihadi bullets either.

And this is where we return to basics: does Pakistan want peace in Kashmir and over Kashmir or not? If it does then Islamabad will cooperate with Delhi in ensuring, to the best of its ability, that the September-October elections pass off with minimum violence and maximum participation. It will tell the Hurriyat that a boycott is not an answer; it is an irresponsible waste of a rare and possibly historic opportunity. If the Hurriyat believes that it represents the will of the people, then it must prove this in the elections in order to claim a legitimate place at any future table. There cannot be progress if all sides do not move forward.

There will be a table. This much is obvious, whether anyone admits it or not. By October the process of elections in Jammu and Kashmir as well as in Pakistan, and conditions can be created, if all goes reasonably well, for a structured dialogue, this time beginning at the bottom and going up rather than the other way around (the fatal flaw of the Agra summit!).

There is a story about Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted that might be considered useful for the future, and it is not apocryphal. Richard could not fulfil two ambitions on this crusade. He failed to conquer Jerusalem and he failed to meet Saladin. All negotiations on behalf of the Muslim cause were conducted by Saladin’s brother Malek. After the failure of his last assault on Jerusalem, when Richard had made up his mind to return to England, he expressed a last wish to Malek: he wanted to meet the great Saladin.

Saladin still refused. He had a reason that he conveyed to Richard. After kings meet, said Saladin, there must be peace. And until every condition for peace has been created, kings should not meet. Saladin was ready to exchange any and every courtesy, but not exchange a visit.

The war continued after Agra. If there is another summit, the leaders of India and Pakistan must come down from it with a smile for their countries, not press conferences for the press.

We have waited an eternity for that picture to be painted.

Central Asian politics

The Central Asian republics that once were part of the Soviet Union keep marching backward politically, jailing opposition leaders or forcing them into exile, guarding against independent media that, no matter how irritating they are to the powerful, are a bulwark of democracy and a voice for those ruled.

The latest blast of bad news came this month from Kazakhstan. The government sentenced opposition leader Mukhtar Ablyazov to six years in jail, claiming he abused his power and conducted “illegal entrepreneurial activity” as energy minister from 1997 through 1999. —The Washington Post