| August 2, 2003 | Saturday | Jumadi-us-Sani 3, 1424 |
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Remembering Yahya Bakhtiar
New tax forms
Helpless welfare associations
Woman’s status in Islam
Need for a road hump
After making it to Camp David
Doctors for Iraq
The scramble
Macaulay’s ‘Minute on Indian education’
AN exuberant and exaggerated estimate and the notion of our strategic importance in the global power configuration often lead us to unrealistic expectations from the US. A correct appraisal of the foreign policy imperatives in the conduct of inter-state relations require resilience and flexibility as the norm of the foreign relations — a transient and ever-changing phenomenon.
The enigma of change in inter-state relations is the factor of permanence. The change of issues and events brings in a corresponding change in the re-ordering of the priorities of national interests. The US has its own concerns which influence the direction of its policies towards other countries.
In the historical context, Pakistan-US relations have all along shown many changes in its policy formulation and direction, sometimes detrimental to Pakistan’s interests. However, one may disapprove of such changes, but the question is, who needs whom? And for how long? Let us face the fact that we need the Americans more for a variety of reasons than they need us except for our geostrategic location.
This is an “unequal” relationship in which one who has relatively more power predominates. At Camp David the Americans have been helpful to us as far as they could by providing three-billion-dollar largesse. The US has its own limits to consider to tread tardily as it may affect the fine balance orchestrated by it in relations with other countries in the periphery.
Strong domestic strength carries considerable weight in relations with other states. The syndrome of dependence gradually affects the ability to see things in proper perspective and seek others for our economic sustenance, but for how long.
The US primary interest is to protect and expand its sphere of influence. Relationships improve in proportion to the convergence of Pakistan-US interest and shall conversely diminish in proportion of divergence. Pakistan, poised as it is in an unenviable position, has to seek to contain the level of friendship from sliding the gradient. Without comprising its vital interest by striking a fine balance between the two, for a stable and enduring relationship — systematically, reduce tensions to minimize conflict of interest and gradually work towards maximizing the points of convergence.
Pakistan and the US entertain and hold different views on many issues, but without tampering with the “essentials”. A workable long-term friendly relationship could be maintained. The viability and effectiveness of foreign policy depends on internal power inputs — it is a limiting factor — unless we override such constraints. Foreign policy is the active articulation of interest-aggregates in long- and short-term — a fluid and transient relationship.
FAZUL S. KAZI
Karachi
I WISH to share with your readers some of my fond memories of the late Mr Yahya Bakhtiar. I was introduced to him by a common friend when he was a student of F. C. College, Lahore, and was active in Muslim students’ politics. The year was 1946, if my memory serves right.
After a long span of time, one evening in 1972, I was surprised to receive a telephone call from Mr Yahya Bakhtiar, then attorney-general of Pakistan. He told me in confidence that the president (Bhutto) was furious over Altaf Gauhar’s editorial and has decided to take over Dawn through a Martial Law Order, “it would be a tauq-i-lanat around the necks of all of us”. He advised me to speak to Maulana Kauser Niazi, then minister for information, without disclosing his name. I rushed to Maulana Sahib and broke the news. He was aghast. Mr Bhutto was in Karachi. The Maulana immediately left for Karachi. He had separate meetings with the president, Mr Mahmoud Haroon and Khawaja Abdur Rehman and was able to avert a disaster.
I had an opportunity to work closely with Mr Yahya Bakhtiar in the National Press Commission of which he was chairman and I was Adviser in my position as principal information officer. Unfortunately, the press commission could not accomplish its task. Nevertheless, Mr Yahya Bakhtiar made a singular contribution to the freedom of the press by removing defamation as a constraint on the freedom of the press through an amendment to the Article 19 of the Constitution of 1973.
I cannot help narrating another incident. The government had instituted a criminal case against Mr Altaf Gauhar in the Sindh High Court. President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto arrived in Karachi, and summoned a meeting which was attended by Mr Yahya Bakhtiar, attorney-general, M. A. Alvi, information secretary, and Mr Muhammad Khan Junejo, Sindh home secretary. Mr Bhutto ordered that the prosecution case should be exploited to the fullest by the media — in order to destroy Mr Altaf Gauhar, once and for all. I was surprised when Mr Yahya Bakhtiar said he would personally write the report of the prosecution case for the APP. Mr Yahya Bakhtiar not only dictated a highly tendentious copy but also made corrections in the copy in his own hand.
Under a press advice all newspapers next day carried the APP report. As soon as the court began its session, Altaf Gauhar’s counsel drew the attention of the honourable judges to the identical coverage of the proceedings of the case by newspapers. The judges took due notice of the report and ordered contempt of court proceedings against the APP and the defaulting newspapers. Mr Yahya Bakhtiar was pale with terror. He heaved a sign of relief when the original copy written by him was recovered from the APP.
SYED AFZAL HUSAIN ZAIDI
Islamabad
THROUGH these columns I draw the attention of the CBR people who come up with new income tax forms almost every year without any reason. It is unfortunate that even after 56 years of existence the CBR is not aware of what information it wants from the taxpayers.
Every year the same information is required but in different forms. This requires a lengthy and time-consuming exercise for both the assessees and, in the case of salaried taxpayers, for their employers.
To give you an idea, for this year there are two forms titled “Certificate of deduction of tax from income chargeable under the head salary” and the other is “Form of employer certificate in lieu of return of income”.
It is important to note that one is a certificate and the other a form. The section requiring employer’s verification is included in both the certificate and the form and, hence, the employer is required to issue the certificate of deduction of tax and also verify the form of the employer’s certificate in lieu of return of income.
In order to simplify things at the taxpayers and employers’ end (and also for the department), can’t the certificate of deduction of tax be a conclusive evidence of salary income and income tax deduction thereon? In no other case(s) of income a person claiming deduction of income tax needs to get the return verified by the person making deduction. Why should the salaried class be required to do so when they are the most honest class of the taxpayers in this country with no voice of their own?
I would request the think-tank at CBR to remove the employer’s verification section from the form as they are already issuing the certificate of deduction of tax from income chargeable under the head salary. It is futile to ask the employers to verify something in the form that they are already certifying by way of issuance of the certificate.
MURAD
Karachi
THE letters published on the above subject in your issue of July 12 and 22 have aired one of the greatest problems faced by the residents’ welfare associations. The writers have done a yeoman’s service by highlighting the problem of the non-payment of the monthly maintenance dues to their respective associations by the residents.
Sometimes, it is a Herculean task to recover the arrears from some of the troublesome residents. They do not consider the payment obligatory but treat it as a ‘charity’ given to the association. Thus, the associations run into debts, if the arrears of the tankers, the KESC and the water board are not cleared in time and the wages are not paid regularly.
There is a serious lacuna in the law because of which the various residents’ associations are always kept at bay in the matter of making recovery of the current or the old arrears. The registered welfare associations need to be vested with magisterial powers to deal with the evaders/defaulters or the associations be empowered to refer all default cases to the provincial ombudsman to take the defaulters to task.
There should be a separate government body to look after the various problems of the apartments that are cropping up like mushrooms in this metropolis.
SHAMEEM AHMED
Karachi
WHAT a travesty of justice to declare women inferior
as simplistically as was done in a letter from Quetta on July 30.
As for the law of evidence, a woman has the privilege to seek help while bearing
witness in commercial cases only.
This is one of the reasons why both Allama Nasir ul Ijtehadi and Allama Razi had walked out of Gen Ziaul Haq’s Shoora when a discriminatory law of evidence was being passed requiring two women to give one evidence. Religious scholars on this side of the divide had gone hoarse opposing the law of evidence.
As for divorce too, not all sects and/or denominations interpret the rules for divorce similarly.
And, lastly, as for inheritance, women inherit not only from the father but also from the husband in which respect men are less privileged. Hence the equity in inheritance.
Also, no rule precludes a family or male siblings from dividing equally amongst their various children or siblings, irrespective of the gender and depending upon the circumstances.
And, where in God’s kingdom is status determined by inheritance and wealth? For,
if this was to be the case,
what would one make of the simple, austere, and often this-worldly resource-poor style of life preferred by the Prophet (Peace be upon him) and his progeny?
DR MAHNAZ FATIMA
Karachi
THIS is to draw the attention of the director-general of the National Transport Research Centre, Islamabad, to the need for building a speed hump on the road of the 7th Avenue near Cricket Ground, Lal Quarters, of G-6/2.
A busy road coming from Al-Habib Masjid G-7/3 crosses the 7th Avenue, having four dangerous curves and leading to the Melody Market through the bridge built on a nullah on which women, schoolchildren, patients and old persons pass through to polyclinic, model schools, Melody offices, etc., for being a short-cut.
The problem is that there are four turns around the hockey ground on the 7th Avenue and it is difficult to cross the road because of the fast movement of the vehicles on the 7th Avenue. Many persons have been hit by vehicles.
Although it is the single road, traffic is running on both sides. Similarly, the vehicles of the fire-brigade are passing through this dangerous point five times a week instead of using the straight and double road.
This road is in urgent need of a speed-breaker for the safety of the pedestrians.
RAJA GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN
Islamabad
I HAVE read with great interest Mr M. Zia Ispahani’s comment in Dawn of July 11. I disagree with the writer’s point of view.
The city governments have been formed exclusively to help solve all local problems, and one must bear in mind that all the problems cannot be solved at one go. There are priorities, all of which have already been set, and they are being pursued, step by step. I hope that the impatient public would give the man at the helm of affairs a fair chance.
Take, for example, the promulgation of the contempt of court law which initially is supposed to bring about harmony, understanding and brotherly love among the majority and the minority communities. Is not the head of the state endeavouring to patch up the barrier that exists at every level?
If our internal problems are not sorted out and effectively solved, we will not be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any nation in today’s nuclear world. If we are a little more humane, then much will be achieved for the over-all benefit of Pakistan.
PROF JOAQUIM DA CUNHA
Karachi
THIS is to draw the attention of your readers to the question of sending troops to Iraq.
In Somalia they lost precious lives, but when 40 Americans were killed, they left the country for home.
In Iraq there is no UN control, hence our soldiers will be at the mercy of the unruly gangs and armed nationalist groups. If there is a cross-fire, the US troops will sit and watch the show.
Politically, they will be regarded as outsiders helping the occupying forces.
It will be much better if medical units and doctors are sent to Iraq to heal the wounded and treat radiation cases. Who will look after thousands of homeless children on the streets in Iraq?
SYED HUMAYUN IRFAN
Karachi
“I REALLY do believe we will be greeted as liberators in Iraq”, so said US vice-president Dick Cheney while the US was massing its troops for an attack on Iraq. The opposite is the fact.
After 9/11, Pakistan has complied with 2,008 requests from the US for Afghanistan. Maybe many of these requests were in the above category.
Z. A. KAZMI
Karachi
I HAVE read with interest and shock the excerpts from Macaulay’s “Minute on Indian education”, reproduced by Mr Shuja Baig to support Mr Cowasjee’s thesis that madressah people are seeped in ignorance, which is not likely to vanish through reforms in their curricula (Dawn, July 12).
It should not take the wisdom of Socrates to refute the absurd claim of Macaulay that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of Arabia and India.” One wonders how these baseless and derogatory remarks given by a prejudiced employee of the East India Company could be taken as “historical facts”.
Macaulay, with a self-carved air of superior scholarship around his personality, seemed to be pathetically ignorant of the great works on literature and sciences produced by the excellent minds of India and Arabia when Europe, having “intrinsic superiority” in Macaulay’s words, had yet to know the names of Newton, Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, Auston and others. The works of Ibn-Sina, Razi, Ibul-Heithem, Ibn-Rushd, Jaber bin Hayyam, Al- Baitan, Alzahrawi, Ibn-Hazm and hundreds of their fellow scientists had already decorated the libraries of the developed world of that age. Macaulay and his “great” forefathers would have perhaps still not waken up from the deep slumber had they not seen the works of Ibn-Sina, Ibn-Rushd, Ibn-Baja and other great lights of Arabia. India had produced its great mathematicians and astrologists, when the Europeans lived in the dark ages and did not know even the Arab numericals.
Macaulay wrote these boisterous remarks in 1835 when a great part of Eastern Europe was still under the yoke of Ottoman Turks. He claimed to have “read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works” but this is again unbelievable. The most celebrated works of Arabic and Sanskrit remains yet to be translated. Macaulay knew that what he was writing was contrary to facts and historical record. But his mission was to distort facts in a manner as to create an impression that the English were superior by all standards. He wanted to detach them from their historical lore and tradition to promote the English language and culture in India.
He had no respect for the culture and literature of other nations. He was the man who introduced an education system whose primary objective was to produce clerks and people who may be Indian by race but English by their mindset. These are the generations of these Anglicised clerks which have proved to be a curse, not blessing, for the subcontinent. The ignorance of the “clerics” much scathed by Mr Cowasjee and Mr Shuja Baig is not the real cause of the backwardness of our nation. This is the “enlightened ignorance” of these clerks that has perpetuated the mental slavery and cultural servitude that has always been obstructing the growth of the people of this part of the world.
I do not know who the “distinguished men” were that Macaulay happened to meet in India. I wish only that he could see the scripts of the works of Muhandis (Engineer) Ahmad Khan and his grandson Muhandis Lutfullah who were the architects of Taj Mahal which still dazzles the eyes of the West. I believe, he must have thought twice before giving these megalomaniac remarks about India and Arabia.
Macaulay might have chosen to be ignorant about it. But now the world knows that Europe would never have passed through the renaissance, and reformation, had it not seen the works of those great men of Arabia who are still remembered as Moors in the nostalgic accounts of European history. Now the world has, at last, come to know that literary works of great European poets like Dante, Milton, Shakespeare and Goethe have the traces of the influence of Alf Laila, Futuhat-i-Makiya and other literary works of Arabia.
“A minute on Indian education” is not well-intentioned and well-conducted investigation of a pure scholarship. Macaulay was imbued with brisk enthusiasm to throw himself into the ignoble task of demolishing the foundations of Eastern and Indian culture. He often felt obliged to make such absurd judgments as that which he marshalled in his aforesaid essay. Macaulay says that he hardly met any orientalist who “ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanskrit policy could be compared to that of the great European nations”. This is again a biased estimate of a man who himself confessed that “he had no knowledge of Arabic and Sanskrit.”
Otherwise there are a number of orientalists who frankly admitted the superiority of the Eastern and Arabic literature. If anyone wants to know what the views of the eminent orientalists about Arabic literature are, he should consult “Literary History of Arabs” by Prof R. A. Nicholson — The views of Stanley Lane-Pool, Dozy, Washington Irving, P. K. Fitty and the greatest orientalist of the 20th Century, Prof Arberry, are well-known to the readers of Arab literature. Prof Arberry’s opinion may be quoted here. He writes: “A keen sense of rhythm is of course one of the most outstanding characteristics of the Arabs genius, it has displayed itself in a great variety of ways. No other people has evolved a prosody of comparable richness and complexity.
MUHAMMAD ATA ULLAH SIDDIQUI
Lahore
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