| June 28, 2003 | Saturday | Rabi-us-Sani 27,1424 |
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The tale of a raja’s daughter
Pornographic websites
HBFC interest rates
Edhi’s ambulance service
Katrak Hall residents
Cruelty to animals
A feather in the cap
Eventful things
NFC: ‘Sindh suffered the most’
Board and lodging
Where is justice?
A new beginning, old doubts By Kuldip Nayar
THE sabre-rattling between the federal government and the MMA-led provincial dispensation over the enforcement of Shariat has rekindled the debate on the role of religion in politics and statecraft. The spate of statements issued by President Musharraf against what he termed ‘Talibanization of Pakistan’ by the MMA clerics has spawned the conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios. It looks that the general’s tirade against the MMA’s Islamization drive is motivated more by his international compulsions in the context of his visits to Europe and the US than his innate desire to turn Pakistan into a progressive and tolerant country.
The clash between the conservative and the moderate forces has its origin in the conflicting approaches towards the question of revival of Islam in the subcontinent. Throughout the period of freedom struggle this compartmentalization characterized these two different mindsets. Exceptions apart, there were two opposite poles: one group was led by Allama Iqbal and the Quaid-i-Azam and the other was represented by Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
After Pakistan came into being, the religious leadership reviewed their position and considered it more appropriate to champion the two-nation theory for the sake of their political purposes. The understanding of Islam, its application in today’s cyber world and the leadership styles have shown clearer signs of divergence of views.
Iqbal’s concept of fusion between politics and religion has been grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted. The clerics have taken it to mean that being religious divines, it is their birthright to rule the country and it is only they who have the moral and religious authority to enforce Shariat without being questioned by anyone. This has led the so-called liberals to pontificate that religion and politics should be kept apart and never allowed to intermingle when it comes to the governance of the country.
Our clerics are unable to understand that no system of punishment can be enforced without first fulfilling the rights of the people. Today poverty is at its peak and the difference between the haves and the have-nots has grown wider to the unbridgeable extent. Law and order is in dismal situation with incidents of terrorism. In the presence of these irritants, can people be made to observe Shariat, and that too in a forcible manner?
AMANAT ALI CHAUDHRY
Lahore
THE visit of Gen Pervez Musharraf or of Mr Zafarullah Khan Jamali to Lahore reminds me of the tale of the daughter of a raja, which my mother used to tell me in my childhood. She used to start the story saying that once upon a time there was a raja who had a daughter. When she intended to visit the town, a drummer walked ahead announcing on the beat of drum: “Go inside your houses, shut the doors and windows, the daughter of raja has come”.
History repeats itself. The same scenario is being staged now on the visit of the two heads. Security forces are deployed along the route and on the roofs of the buildings on the way to shoot anyone suspected. The traffic police becomes more than active with white gloves and ankle covers. A pilot on a majestic motorbike patrols with a loud siren making a sweet shrilling sound.
The general public is pushed away from the route, the traffic is stopped and private cars are removed from parking places to deserted sites with fork lifters if the owners fail to respond to the warning of the police for doing so. Most annoying is the diversion of the public transport to far-flung routes, dropping the young, old, women and children at places far away from their destinations to walk in the scorching heat and under the blaze of the mighty sun.
From all these activities, it appears that Gen Musharraf, despite being a militaryman and, above all, the chief of the army staff, is scared of his own countrymen. The prime minister who says he is an elected representative is afraid of his voters. If this is not so, then this is a specimen of pomp and grandeur.
I am an aged man, a senior citizen as Mr Nawaz Sharif designated us. On the 13th of last month I was dropped by a bus one kilometre away on an alternative route where no other public conveyance was available, neither could I hire a taxi or a rickshaw because I had no money. I had to walk and many others like me did the same to reach their destinations.
On the 14th the same thing happened, but worse. This time I was dropped two kilometres away. One can imagine my plight. It is a cruel joke that the government is working for poverty alleviation. It is actually poverty elevation.
ASHIQ ALI
Lahore
RECENTLY, reports have been appearing expressing concerns over the access to pornographic material on the Internet. I also share these concerns as most cyber cafes are attracting teens in cities and towns as well. I would like to suggest that the PTCL alone, as provider of the bandwidth, cannot block these sites. The issue must rather be tackled from all directions.
The PTA as a regulator should make it a licence obligation for the ISPs, and promulgate, as well as enforce, laws restricting pornography. The cyber cafes should also be brought under the legal umbrella of the PTA regulations, restricting the availability of porno and unwanted contents. Furthermore, the licensing authority should develop a remote-monitoring mechanism for enforcing the regulations.
For home users, parents should install packages like net-nanny to block unwanted sites on home computers. The ministry concerned should arrange seminars to create awareness among the people and ensure licence-free availability of end-user packages over the net and a helpline for how to install and troubleshoot the software. The penalty for violation may include cancellation of licences and other punishments applicable under the law.
It is time society as a whole responded to its obligation to forestall the deluge of this menace, which is a threat to the social fabric of our society.
LIAQUAT ALI KHAN
Karachi
THIS refers to Mr K. M. Shariff’s letter (June 24) in which he has levelled accusations that the HBFC charges interest “ranging between 30 and 50 per cent”. The fact is that the highest rate/interest the corporation ever charged was 18 per cent, and the lowest five per cent in line or below the prevailing market rates. Over 400,000 customers have borrowed in excess of Rs30 billion on this basis.
The monthly payment of our schemes was so structured that it was in the interest of the borrower to make timely payments, because the instalments were first adjusted against rent (interest), and finally against principal. In order to better illustrate this point for the benefit of your readers, I am using a defaulter’s case history of a loan of Rs370,000 taken in 1998 for 20 years, with a monthly repayment of only Rs5,697. The defaulter’s payments to date total Rs188,697 instead of Rs279, 153 which he should have paid in this period at the rate of Rs5,697 per month. Because of this irregularity, in order to close his account today, the defaulter would need to pay Rs477,332 to the HBFC instead of Rs373,689 if he were regular.
When people regularly pay their electric and telephone bills for fear of disconnection, or school fees for fear of expulsion, it is difficult to understand why they do not take repayment of their dues to the HBFC more seriously.
The regular HBFC borrower considers his loan and repayments in the light of the rent saving that has occurred over the loan period end property appreciation over the 20 years. Finally, consider if a similar amount of Rs370, 000 was invested in 1998-99 in Defence Savings Certificates for 10 years, and rolled over on maturity for a further 10 years at today’s rates, the return over 20 years on Rs370,000 would be over five million rupees, i. e. 13 times more, whilst Mr K. M. Shariff has complained that the borrower “pays three times more” of the loan amount over 20 years.
SOHAIL OSMAN ALI
Managing Director,
HBFC, Karachi
IT was Jan 21 this year when my grandson, about six months’ old, was crying endlessly with stomach trouble at midnight (about 1am) and needed immediate medical treatment. It was too cold and the visibility was reduced owing to a heavy fog. I do not have a car, and we did not know how to reach a children’s hospital which is about 30 kilometres from my house. To hire a taxi or a rickshaw at that odd hour was impossible in Faisalabad as I live at a place which is far off from the main city.
Suddenly, an idea came to me and I rang up the Edhi Foundation, requesting it for an ambulance at the earliest. Surprisingly, within 15 or 20 minutes, the ambulance was at my doorsteps. Because of a heavy fog and inclement weather, driving was very risky.
However, we reached Ghafoor Bashir Children Hospital within half an hour. Doctors and nurses gave immediate medical treatment to my grandson and we returned home by the same ambulance at 3am. We thanked God and heaved a sigh of relief.
No doubt we had to pay the nominal fixed charges for the ambulance which might be hardly sufficient to cover the price of the petrol consumed. However, but for the timely availability of the ambulance, we would have been in great trouble.
Long live Abdul Sattar Edhi — the saint social worker!
PROF (R) A. H. SUBHANI
Faisalabad
IT is very depressing to see that the old residents of Karachi are suffering enormously as a result of the lawlessness in our city. An old Parsi lady, a resident of Saddar, told me that because of enormous noise of horns, it is just not possible to take rest and relax at home.
I appeal to the nazim of the Saddar town, the chief minister and the governor of the province to visit the area and see for themselves how the buses with their pressure horns are creating noise pollution.
It is the duty of the government to protect its citizens from all kinds of harassment.
DR SHERSHAH SYED
Karachi
JUSTICE rendered relentlessly to humans but sheer inhumanity being meted out to animals in the so-called “entertainment area — zoo of the SIUT — is what I observed, having had the fortune to visit the place.
The so-called “zoo” is situated on the rooftop of the old SIUT building. A rooftop is not quite an ideal place for a zoo, as the environment is just not conducive to animals there. The habitants there are the deer (all long dead now), the monkeys and some species of birds, cats (caged) and some hens and turkeys.
The deer needs a running space and not confinement measuring a few feet by a few feet. Foremost, the cemented flooring, which the cage has, was detrimental for the hooves and leg bones of the deer. Because of this, all the deer developed foot and bone infection and died. One deer we managed to rescue.
The most mortifying existence is that of the monkeys there. The cage seems as if the poor beings are not being homed but jailed for no fault of their own and little can they understand why they are being made to suffer.
Specially the ones to be used for experimentation — they live day in and day out in a barred jail around four feet by four feet within a room. This is injustice. They have no line of vision and are imprisoned in an environment which provides them with no facility for any exercise.
Even if they are to be used for experimentation, to benefit us, it doesn’t mean that till such time they are not being experimented upon, they be traumatized .
Likewise the monkeys in the entertainment area are also heavily jailed. Confined to a restrictive environment, with no room for movement and exercise, these sensitive beings are condemned for the rest of their life to a deprived existence.
The SIUT no doubt has its priorities of serving human beings but by no means does it mean that insensitivity and inhumanity be rendered to the unfortunate beings who can only whimper at their painfully sad existence.
NADIA YUNUS
Karachi
I DO not find words to express my feelings for the courageous efforts made by the Sindh police for the recovery of my son, Vinod Kumar, and his friend, who were kidnapped for ransom by some dacoits two months back.
We are indebted to two senior police officers of Hyderabad, Mr A. D. Khwaja, DPO, and Pir Farid Jan Sarhandi, SP (Investigation), and their teams, for the successful recovery of the kidnapped youths without payment of any ransom.
Their achievements should not go unacknowledged and they should stand as examples for other officers in the department.
DUNICHAND
Hyderabad
“THE man is 150 years old this month”, proclaims Majid Sheikh in his recent column.
Let us celebrate this occasion in a befitting manner. Let us salute this great Shahrah of Asia.
Forget about Fort Road, Mr Karam, and concentrate more on eventful things.
ABDUL JALIL
Lahore
THE remark in a front-page report on the National Finance Commission (June 26) that its 1997 award had “pauperised” Sindh is flippant and not supported by facts.
The NFC award of 1997 was based on population as were all previous awards. It is a pity that Sindh was made to put up with a pauperising award for two more years after it had expired. The caretaker government of 1997 should not be blamed for that at least.
If Sindh’s representatives on the 1997 commission could not get the basis of allocation changed, the governments that followed could not get even what was promised in that award. It was then agreed that whatever the shortfall in the revenue receipts, it would be to the account of the federal government. The provinces were to get the committed amount in full. They didn’t. Sindh suffered the most. Over five years it received Rs80 billion less than the amount then calculated. Shahid Javed Burki, the then financial adviser of the federation, and Dr Hafeez Pasha, then the consultant to the commission, would confirm it.
It is my hope and wish that, though two years too late, Sindh gets a better deal in the new commission. The finance minister and the member chosen are both experienced and energetic.
KUNWAR IDRIS
Karachi
RECENTLY, a top university and two premier colleges of the country have been advertising for admission. The G. C. University and Kinnaird College, Lahore, have included students passing “Senior Cambridge” in their eligibility lists. Pray, what is this examination, and/or degree? The Chand Bagh School offers “boarding and lodging”. The usage is “board and lodging”.
AGHA KHALIL AHMED
Karachi
I AM 70-year-old widowed mother of my only son, Abdul Saqab, who is serving 10 years’ RI in the Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi.
I am a TB patient and, instead of getting treatment, I have to work in various houses to earn bread for my grandchildren. One of my granddaughters is of marriageable age but I am unable to get her married in the absence of his father.
I swear to Allah that my son is innocent. The facts briefly stated are as follows:
My son was a labourer, working at a mandi in Rawalpindi. On May 19, 1999, the Banni police arrested five persons: Tajul Haq, Hassan Muhammad, Ajmal Khan, Rana Ashraf and Bakht Nawaz. It was disclosed that they were the culprits and had a strong backing of some influential persons. They reportedly paid money to the Banni police and were released.
On May 20, 1999, the Banni police arrested my son, with Kala Khan, owner of the Serai-i-Kala Khan. According to reports, Kala Khan paid them Rs10,000 and was released. The police also demanded the same amount from my son. As he was a poor daily wage earner, he could not pay any money.
As a result, the police started torturing him. The Banni police kept my son in illegal custody without registering any case till June 16, 1999, and later handed him over to the Golra police. The Golra police kept him in custody till July 15, 1999, and on July 16, 1999, produced him before a court in Islamabad. When the judge asked about the remand, investigation officer Bashir Bhatti told him that the accused (my son) was ill and might be sent to jail. The IO had already threatened my son not to say a word before the judge. If he did, he would be killed on some pretext. My son did not tell anything to the judge.
After two months and three days, an identification parade was held in the Adiala Jail on Sept 19, 1999, but my son was not identified. The other accused was identified.
Later, the IO was changed and the new IO, Malik Bashir of Golra PS, requested the judge for five days’ remand of my son. My son had the courage to tell the judge that he was innocent and was not identified in the identification parade. The judge granted five days’ remand to the Golra police and perhaps in revenge the IO beat him severely and threatened him with consequences in case if he spoke again before the judge.
Afterwards, the said IO asked my son to pay him money so that he might acquit him but when the money was not arranged, he told the court that a carpet and a VCR had been recovered from the possession of my son.
The IO also instituted two more cases against my son under Section 322 but before the court he changed it to Sections 382 and 392, and added terrorism clauses.
Before the court, when the prosecutor asked the complainants to identify the real accused, they pointed out the other accused person and not my son. The judge asked my illiterate son to put his thumb-impression on a piece of white paper and he did so. My son was convicted by the court without the evidence of any eyewitnesses.
The following cases were registered against my son: (a) Case No.74 (22.7.1999) Section 389/4 police station Golra (my son was acquitted); (b) Case No.160 (15.7.1999) Section 13/20/65, Golra police station (my son was acquitted); (c) Case No.89 (15.7.1999) Section 392/411, Golra police station (my son was convicted).
I request the president, the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the chief justice of the Lahore High Court to make an impartial inquiry and provide justice to my son.
ZAIBUN NISA
Kandowala, NWFP
IT is good that Indo-Chinese relations have turned over a new leaf. The agreement just signed by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Wen Jiabao, prime minister of China, is certainly a new beginning — the much-wanted thaw after 30 years of glacial silence.
The details of the agreement, which were released after Mr Vajpayee met President Hu Jintao of China, mentions, apart from the steps for trade and other things, that the two countries will “explore, from the political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship, the framework of a boundary settlement.”
From the Chinese side Dai Bingguo and from the Indian side Brajesh Mishra will undertake this exercise. But this new beginning also brings in its wake the old questions and doubts that will not down.
After some sittings with China on the border last time, I asked a senior foreign office hand about the progress. His comment was: “If it were left to the government of India, our territory would shrink to Palam airport!” The official has retired since. But his words often come back to me. They are uppermost in my mind these days in connection with Vajpayee’s China visit.
Nobody is opposed to a settlement of borders with China, our strong neighbour. Yet I have often wondered whether it would be at the expense of the land which is ours from the hoary past. Someone high up once told me that the territory lost in war is seldom recovered in peace.
I am sure that some day parliament will be brought into the picture. Will the new agreement measure up to the unanimous resolution of the two houses that India must get back every inch of territory it lost to the Chinese in the 1962 war?
After defeat, there is defiance. Some note of chauvinism would have come in our response. We probably overstated our case when China stopped firing unilaterally, having chased our troops down the hills, almost to the outskirts of Tezpur, Assam. But we then sheepishly accepted the ceasefire because there was no will to fight. Even then, there was never any doubt that some of the territory where the Chinese frontier guards stood was India’s. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China is not like the Line of Control with Pakistan in Kashmir.
The first one is dictated by Beijing. The second is the positioning of Indian and Pakistani troops where the UN effected a ceasefire on January 1, 1949.
My case is not that the McMohan Line is sacrosanct and that it has to be preserved as the north-eastern boundary. China probably did not accept it when Sir Henry McMahon announced it in 1914 on behalf of the British.
Still the LAC is not the traditional customary line. Some of our territory lies on the other side of the line. The status quo only accepts the fruits of aggression.
If Beijing accepts Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh as parts of India after having claimed them all these years, it is not making up for the Indian territory it has occupied. Claims do not supplant realities. Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh were never part of China. The LAC can never be a new border. It is imposed by Beijing. The middle and eastern sectors of the LAC will have to undergo changes.
And what about Aksai Chin in the north of Ladakh, where China forcibly built a road to connect Xinjiang with Tibet? True, without that road China had no way of reaching Sinkiang. But India was at one time willing to accept Biejing’s suzerainty over the area where it had built the road.
Maybe, our concession on Aksai Chin can be exchanged with China’s concession in the eastern sector.
This is nothing new. New Delhi has hinted at it in the past. Nearly five years before hostilities between the two countries, the support to this idea came from the least expected quarter. Then I was information officer with Home Minister Govind Ballabh Pant. The Polish ambassador at that time conveyed to Pant his suggestion through me.
At the very beginning of the conversation, he said that the opinion he would express was the view of his and other communist countries and he specifically mentioned Russia. His proposal was that India should accept a package political deal, getting “recognition for the McMohan Line” in exchange for giving over control of some areas in Ladakh. He said whatever the odds, China would never part with control of the road it had built because that was the lifeline between Xinjiang and other parts of China.
I think that the matter could have been sorted out peacefully at that time. Jawaharlal Nehru, in fact, tried his best to accommodate China to the farthest limit. Even after Trade Representative Lakshman Singh informed the government in 1954 about the building of the Aksai Chin road, the ministry of external affairs under Nehru refused to entertain “information” about China’s inroads into Indian territory. Nehru would get enraged even at the mention of the border dispute.
Still China attacked India in October 1962. Was it territory or something else? Beijing drowned the age-old slogan of ‘Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai’ in the war cries. If Prime Minister Zhou Enlai could go to the extent of letting down his age-old friend Nehru, who introduced him to the non-aligned powers at Bandung, the new leadership in China can do anything because it does not carry any emotional baggage of the past. Prime Minister Vajpayee had earlier met the new Chinese president, Hu Jintao, at St Petersburg.
Both had looked forward to the Beijing meeting and both had expressed warm sentiments.
Officials on both sides are already studying the border maps of each other’s country. But even if there is a settlement on borders, China will have to do something to repair the bruised feelings of Indians. The 1962 war has gone deep into their psyche. They will remain suspicious of China because they once depended on it blindly. Beijing’s attack — presuming New Delhi provoked China — will need to be analysed and explained to the people in the country. Why a friendly country should be attacked whatever the provocation?
Nehru once wrote to the state chief ministers to explain the reasons: It is a little naive to think that the trouble with China was essentially due to a dispute over some territory. It had deeper reasons. Two of the largest countries in Asia confronted each other over a vast border. They differed in many ways. And the test was as to whether one of them would have a more dominating position than the other on the border and in Asia itself.
Still there is no reason why the two countries cannot live in peace and harmony. Whatever the irritations, both should resolve them peacefully. So should be the attitude of give and take on the boundary problem. The 21st century can be the Asian century as Vajpayee and Hu have said, provided China realizes that violence cannot possibly lead today to a solution of any major problem, because violence has become much too terrible and destructive.
If the society we aim at cannot be brought about by big-scale violence, will small-scale violence help? I don’t think it will — partly because that itself may lead to big-scale violence and partly because it produces an atmosphere of conflict and of disruption. China should realize this.
The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.
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