| 17 May 2004 | Monday | 26 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
Sonia's tryst with Indian destiny
The farmer poet
In an article entitled "Is Pakistan's nuclear programme dying?", Paul Anderson, BBC's Islamabad-based correspondent, has served a timely note of warning: "So far, there is no official pressure on Pakistan to embark on nuclear reduction or a rollback. But that could come, if and when revelations about its proliferation history come to light. The country could also come under pressure to open its facilities for inspection..."
Anderson's warning cannot be dismissed as mere speculative comment. There has been much uproar over Pakistan's role in nuclear proliferation in western diplomatic circles.
While the director-general of the IAEA has observed, "We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use," the EU has provided fresh proof of the West's biased intentions against Pakistan's nuclear programme.
The European Union has raised what it calls the "core" question: "Whether a country incapable of guarding nuclear secrets can be trusted with nuclear weapons?" The EU members have pleaded that multilateralism, the cardinal principle of the "EU strategy against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," should be put to practice with its full force in the context of Pakistan's nuclear programme.
There are 23 countries engaged in nuclear weapon activity - as testified by the Nuclear Threat Initiative whose two co-chairmen are former Democratic senator Sam Nunn and founder of CNN, Ted Turner - and irrefutable evidence to confirm that "Abdul Qadeer Khan has been demonized in the West for selling atomic secrets, but the trade began in Europe, not Islamabad, according to court documents and experts who monitor proliferation."
But Pakistan's nuclear programme continues to be singled out time and again as the country is painted as the culprit in the game of nuclear proliferation. There are quite a few disconcerting trends and developments, and it appears that the proliferation crisis is not going to end any time soon.
This will swing the US policy pendulum further against Pakistan and in favour of India, painting the former as an irresponsible and the latter as a responsible state.
Certain sections of the American media have already started calling for redefinition of ties between the US and Pakistan, and this could result in restrictions, even legislation, containing provisos similar to those of the Pressler Amendment.
This could further limit the transfer of dual-use technologies and cooperation in areas of development and have a negative impact on knowledge transfer as the number of student visas will be reduced and admission to high-tech disciplines will be altogether restricted or severely curtailed.
Trade, investment, travel and tourism would also be adversely affected. All these developments would create a negative environment and increase the pressure on Pakistan for unilateral de-nuclearization.
Pakistani-Americans cannot do much about the source of this crisis but while protecting the interests of their homeland, the United States, they could seek to restore a sense of perspective and proportion about their country of origin, Pakistan.
In dealing with the emerging crisis, the Pakistani-American agenda should be to:
- Work with the US foreign policy community to create a balanced view of nuclear proliferation in South Asia.
- Work with fair-minded members of Congress to prevent anti-Pakistani legislation.
- Work with the peace movement and non-proliferation constituency to develop a strong support for a nuclear-free South Asia.
- Work with the media to improve Pakistan's overall image.
- Support community media in a wholehearted way.
Can the Pakistani-American community meet the challenge? Is it prepared to brave the gathering storm?
To answer this, one must look at the complexion of the Pakistani community in the United States.
There are those who make it to the new world in search of a better life - those who work in dingy factories or corporate ventures at a low rung and are content with sputtering a few incoherent words of American English to qualify for a vehicle of scholarship of higher learning.
Such Pakistanis, or "Pakistani Americans" as they pride themselves on being called, have two obsessions: to loathe everything that is Pakistani and to praise anything that is American.
The razzle-dazzle of posh American malls impresses them more than the inspirational vision of America's founding fathers. Then there are those Pakistani Americans who have obtained higher education and struck gold in entrepreneurial undertakings - wealth quite disproportionate to their academic or personal attainments - and who have generously and laudably contributed to community causes.
And if individual vision is to be cited, the name of Dr. I H. Usmani springs to mind who as early as the 1960s drew the blueprint of a nuclear power programme for Pakistan.
Thanks to his foresight and the establishment of centres of excellence like the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) - described as the "best of both the worlds" by Time magazine - Pakistan succeeded in joining the nuclear club and warding off Indian military adventurism.
Another Pakistani visionary who deserves to be mentioned is Professor Abdus Salam who not only won the coveted Nobel Prize but, more importantly, set up the UN International Centre of Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, to act as a one-man multinational corporation busily transferring intellectual technology to the less developed countries of the world.
It is a pity we don't have someone quite like him in the community of Pakistani Americans though there are many who are many times richer than him.
Perhaps that explains why the singular obligation of the affluent business class of Pakistani Americans to the community is restricted to the construction of buildings.
But do bricks and mortar create institutes pulsating with creative impulse? And can schools established by the rich for the children of the rich be anything other than a self-defeating exercise? How many Pakistanis can afford to send their children to the Islamic schools set up by the community's "philanthropists"?
One may also ponder the serious question: Are the more affluent among us conscious of the obligation thrust upon the community in the post-9/11 period? The Muslims took, and continue to take, a terrible bashing at the hands of the media because their own press has been too fragile, almost non-existent.
Has anyone done anything to support the fledgling Pakistani and Muslim media? Barring exceptions, our papers continue to be mere rags and television programmes a theatrical portrayal of our strivings. A sorry spectacle resulting from the indifference of the community's well-to-do ignoramuses.
Finally, there is the younger generation which seems to drift listlessly while yearning for an intellectually stimulating environment that could lend meaning to their newfound Pakistani American identity with a wholesome Pakistani input.
Prominent Pakistani Americans have to seriously address social and cultural issues touching on the lives of the Pakistanis in the United States. Arriving in the US is not an achievement; honourable survival is.
And in the ensuing process the "melting pot" experience does not have to be a wholly one-sided affair. Will the Pakistani community rise to the occasion and create a more positive picture of their country of origin?
email: afaruqui@pakistanlink.com.
Sonia's tryst with Indian destiny
The tussle for the prime minister's job in India comes with the full force of the country's racial and religious prejudices. Remember that this tussle had partitioned the country in 1947. At that time the dominant Congress leader Sardar Patel had concluded that Mahatma Gandhi's proposal to make Mohammed Ali Jinnah undivided India's first prime minister would lead to civil war.
In other words, Patel argued that a predominantly Hindu India could not accept a Muslim prime minister even if that was the only way to remain united. To be charitable to Patel, it is sometimes argued that his objection to Jinnah stemmed from the Qaid's leadership of the Muslim League and not his religious persuasion as a Muslim.
But the Sardar's subsequent deification by rightwing Hindu fanatics in Gujarat has helped rob even this argument of its validity. Anyhow, the job went to Jawaharlal Nehru and India was divided. It is ironical that today, Nehru's own kin is facing the same racist assault from the Hindu right, which had once tormented Jinnah.
The argument that Sonia Gandhi is ineligible to become India's prime minister because she was not born here is not only unconstitutional but is soaked in the self-same bigotry that lies dormant in much of upper crust India. This prejudice could be whipped up at short notice for petty gains unmindful of the blood and mayhem it lets loose.
Last week's call by the Hindu sanyasin Uma Bharti to all nationalist politicians to obstruct Ms Gandhi's path to the prime minister's office was laced with the same racism that upper crust leaders of her own Bharatiya Janata Party have used to target her low caste ranking. If Sonia Gandhi should not rule India, we have to give valid reasons, not proffer prejudices.
There was also a time, but a fleeting moment in history, when a senior and respected Dalit politician did come to sniffing distance to the top job. But eventually that was not to be.
Jagjivan Ram, who had successfully run the 1971 war as India's defence minister, was trumped by Moraraji Desai and later by Charan Singh, both of higher caste than his, when it came to the crunch. Jagjivan Ram died a bitter man but not before he proclaimed famously: "Main ye tau jaan gaya hoon ki chamar is mulk ka pradhan mantri nahi ho sakta hai." (At least I will die in the knowledge that a low caste 'chamar' cannot become prime minister of this country).
Forget the 5,000-year-old caste prejudices. They are there for all to see and feel. Even more recently, historically speaking, in the Mughal era and later in the colonial period, the way the upper crust Indian rushed to help the new rulers to crush their own people gives a peep into the mind of a congenital slave driver. The betrayal of nationalist fighters by a senior BJP politician in 1942 was the subject of recent election debate.
However, if anyone believes that these are only Hindu traits, they should travel to Aligarh to see how the Rohila Muslims of Rampur abuse their counterparts from Bihar. Their racial prejudices never really left the Indians when they travelled abroad.
It didn't matter whether they were Hindus or Muslims. They were very much part of the racial parliament in South Africa, kowtowing to the apartheid regime in South Africa, often joining the whites in targeting the blacks. We are not discussing here the revolutionary role of a few Indians who fought as allies and members of the African National Congress.
For, how can we overlook the fact that in June 2002, black South African songwriter Mbongeni Ngema wrote racist lyrics in his song 'AmaNdiya', which means 'Indian' in Zulu.
The song, which was banned by some record shops and radio stations, has lyrics that describe the country's Indian population as abusive to black people, and being more racist than the whites.
Nelson Mandela to his credit called for Ngema's apology, but the artist replied that he stood by the issues he brought up in his song. We may not agree with Ngema's response to his alleged tormentors, but can we ignore his hurt completely and that Indians were often perceived as sometimes more racist than whites?
Some years ago my Brahmin journalist friend B.N. Uniyal went looking for a Dalit journalist. His quest led him to the Delhi Press Club but he found no joy. Finally he examined the Accreditation Index, 1996, of the Press Information Bureau.
The index contained 686 journalists, in which 454 bore their caste surnames, but of those none was a Dalit. Of the remaining 232 names, Uniyal checked out 47 names at random, and none of them turned out to be a Dalit.
So why should we be surprised if as a result we have a media which does not have a clue which way the country is headed, or what the average voter is plotting. Why should we be surprised when we are suddenly told by the same upper crust media, for subtle effect, that Y.S.R. Rajshekhar Reddy who stormed his way to become the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh is not a Hindu as his name suggests but a 'converted Christian', whatever that means. Does anybody care? Yes, some cussed fellows in the media do.
They will show Vajpayee's farewell speech by the side of a Mahatma Gandhi portrait, and not with the picture of a Hindu deity he worships. But Reddy's TV interview will be splashed with images of Christ adorning his drawing room.
This is what Hindutva leader Narendra Modi kept reminding us about. That J.M. Lyngdoh, the election commissioner who made a few negative observations on his government was actually James Michael, a Christian whose neutrality could not be trusted.
This is the minefield of prejudices that Sonia Gandhi has waded through. This is also going to be the staple menu after she becomes prime minister. Just as the Hindu right finds it convenient to whip up hysteria against the minorities for its own consolidation, it can't be too difficult to target her in the myopic framework of jingoism.
Ms Gandhi has to lean on the secular left to fight the communal right. That may be the only way to overcome her racial handicap in a country that is littered with strange prejudices.
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Heard at a meeting of left supporters trying to get the CPI-M to change its widely criticized policy against joining the federal government: "The CPI-M is like the old Jamaat-i-Islami. They both gave similar reasons for keeping away from government. One sees India as a kafir state, the other sees it as a bourgeois state."
The farmer poet
On May 12 as Muttahida and Jamaat-i-Islami workers were busy attacking each other on the day of the by-elections, some citizens of Karachi gathered to honour Mr Mehmood Futehally for his "significant contribution to civil society".
Mr Mehmood Futehally who is 89 and still active was presented the Citizen's Award 2003. Mr Ardeshir Cowasjee, the first recipient of this award in 2001, was invited to make the presentation. As is his brusque style the first thing he demanded to know from Mr Futehally was which of them was older. Mr Futehally turned out to be senior by 10 years, though he hardly looks it.
But age was not the reason for the admiration given to Mr Futehally that evening. A self-employed farmer, he has made an outstanding contribution to low-cost farming by devising natural and indigenous methods that inspired the five-member jury to select him from about 20 or so nominees that evening.
Mr Futehally developed a windmill way back in 1973. A small sized windmill can pump 18,000 litres of water from a depth of 30 feet. Since the fields are irrigated by the drip system, very little water is used to cover a substantial area. He makes fertilizer with his own technology using organic waste and earthworms.
In the heart of Gulshan-i-Iqbal stands Suhana farm. Its lush green beauty is a living testimony to Mr Futehally's ingenious farming methods. A short documentary by Nazli Jamil vividly captured the low-cost technology devised by this champion of organic farming. His goal? To form Kashtkar (Cultivators') Trust and through that help small farmers learn his low-cost technology to grow food.
Mr Futehally is also a poet. He read out a poem he had written 35 years ago but which is still relevant. "I dreamt a dream," said Mr Futehalley, "A man arose, equipped by nature herself to save our hapless globe." His weapon was "human love" and "shining truth" because of which "human hearts began to thaw, love and brotherhood blossomed everywhere".
"True, it was but a dream, but we can, we shall, make it also true,/ Though it was futile to wait for such a man, of a thousand times our stature,/ Yet a thousand of us can strive, and acquire each a thousandth of his power,/ And, joined each to each by steely bonds of faith, make the dream come true."
What a pity, the students of the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture who had been expected to fill the hall and be inspired were absent because the administration had declared it a holiday because of the by-elections.
Ray of hope
When a powerful blast rocked a Shia mosque in the city earlier this month, the first batch of rescuers to rush to the site consisted of namazis from the Sunni mosque next door. Before the arrival of ambulances at the site, people started taking the injured to hospitals in private vehicles and at least one of the victims was shifted on a thela.
As the news of the horrifying incident spread in the city, a large number of blood donors rushed to the Civil Hospital and there were so many volunteers that a queue had to be formed at the blood bank.
When ambulances started shifting the injured to the Liaquat National Hospital and the Aga Khan Hospital, groups of citizens gathered on the M.A. Jinnah Road between the Civil Hospital and the Jail Chowrangi, to direct the drivers to keep a lane free for ambulances.
These may be small gestures, they provide a ray of hope in the wilderness of indifference which is seeping into our social conduct. They prove that the common citizen has nothing to do with the sectarian animosities and hatred being whipped up by a handful of fanatics.
And the episode once again shows how helpful the ambulance service of the Edhi Foundation is in an emergency. It also makes one ponder over our attitude to the service in normal conditions as reflected in an attack on one of the Edhi centres and the PTCL's efforts to change the toll-free telephone number of its ambulance service.
A child's perspective
Some Indian street children came to Pakistan recently through the efforts of a coalition of NGOs from India and Pakistan. This was basically a cricketing event which aimed to spread the message of peace and love through a game equally popular on both sides of the border.
A team of six child reporters also came with the 26 cricketers. These children, unlike the players, were school-going children with a sound educational background.
This Children's Media Unit was coordinated by Vedabhya Kundu, programme officer, Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti (an organization that aims to take the message of Mahatama Gandhi to the young generation).
The children belonged to various well-known Indian schools and were roughly between 14-16 years of age. They sent their reports regularly to various Indian newspapers, including the Indian Express.
The organizers of the event claim that some of these reports have also been published. The criterion of selection, according to Kundu, was pure merit.
Besides reporting on the event these children extensively interviewed people to write features and stories. They also developed press releases for the local media in Pakistan.
They interviewed well-known personalities. They also did a few features on Godh, an NGO in Lahore, and on livelihood issues of Pakistani fisherfolk and their families who land up in Indian jails. These stories carry the perspective of the children - the way they view these issues and why they think they make news.
According to Kundu, the purpose of the Children's Media Unit within the Cricket for Peace Programme was to highlight peace and also child rights. The children were not just excited to cross the border and play cricket matches, they were happy to be a part of all these activities.
Akshat Jain, a child who was part of the Children's Media Unit, told a colleague: "I am proud to be a part of this event. Now I can figure out my thoughts about Pakistan".
The organizers of the event plan to have a cricket series in India, and in that case wouldn't it be wise to take our own children's media unit along to encourage participation in peace moves?
email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com.