| 21 November 2004 | Sunday | 08 Shawwal 1425 |
A question on Kashmir
Asian MPs, Pakistan and Fiji
Note for contributors
'A love-hate relationship'
Washington stopover
New US secretary of state
Wedding feast ban
Kolkata spectators' silence
'Welcome Indian move'
Neglected park
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In their reactions to president Yasser Arafat's death, political commentators differed on every aspect of his life except on the fact that he symbolized in an immortal manner the Palestinians' demand for an independent state.
Arafat was accused of not grooming a successor. Divorced from historical realities, the argument has merit but not if one accepts that his chosen person would have become the target of vilification by US and Israel, as indeed happened to those whom he showed special consideration. Carrying the 'Arafat-groomed' label would have been a disqualification for any future Palestinian leader. Arafat knew this only too well.
Israel didn't honour the Madrid and Oslo accords which the PLO did. Yet, Arafat was faulted for not honouring the US-brokered Camp David accord. Critics overlook that since 1948, US foreign policy has remained blatantly focused on passing every benefit to Israel to the detriment of the Palestinians. Arafat was therefore not allowed by the Palestinians to honour the Camp David accord. Later events proved that they were right.
CNN's Walter Rogers says that Sharon told him to forget about the roadmap-promised Palestinian state for another 25 years. Rogers believes that Sharon was hinting at an Israeli plan of keeping the Palestinians divided until they forget about statehood. Arafat had kept the Palestinians focused on this demand. Now Israel can activate this divisive plan. Rumours about Arafat being poisoned to death provide ideal grounds for creating suspicions about the integrity of the Palestinian leaders.
This plan can be stopped in its tracks only by the EU spearheaded by France - a country that won the praise of Arabs and Muslims the world over by the exemplary grace with which France bade farewell to Arafat. A US-led initiative, especially under Bush Jr., will be suspect in the eyes of Palestinians, Arabs and the Muslims. Any Palestinian who accedes to this initiative will be discarded by the Palestinians.
Finally, accusing Arafat of encouraging suicide bombings is nonsense. A BBC commentator said that when he warned Palestinians about the political fallout from suicide bombings, they said: "Give us fighter planes and Apache helicopters that you have given to the Israelis and we will stop suicide bombings. Until then our only weapon is suicide bombing." Besides, with his hands tied behind his back, Arafat could neither encourage nor stop suicide bombings by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. All he could do was to condemn them, which he did.
A.B. SHAHID
Karachi
A question on Kashmir
This refers to the letter by Mr Anu Soman from Mumbai, India, titled "A question" (Nov 17).
He asks if there is any example in history where a country which is territorially larger and militarily stronger has "ceded territory to a smaller adversary in order to avoid war".
Yes, a few years back, Israel ended its 22 years of occupation of a strip of Lebanese territory and withdrew. Israel is territorially larger than Lebanon and militarily stronger. Yet Israel vacated it - not to avoid war - but because Israel's mighty war machine could no longer take the casualties it was suffering, besides the cost of maintaining the occupation.
India, according to its own spokesmen, has suffered more casualties in the Kashmir insurgency than in the 1965 or 1971 war, besides putting up with the economic cost of occupation.
It is these considerations that should govern Indian policy toward Kashmir and not what Mr Soman calls in a bid "to avoid war".
As for the military situation, with both being nuclear powers, India has lost whatever military advantage it had over Pakistan.
YASIN RIZWAN
Karachi
(II)
The most recent example of a superior economic, geographical and military power giving up territory for peace is Indonesia which gave up East Timor in May 2002. As hard as it may be for some people to believe, if the desire for peace is honest, land means nothing to a great nation. Is India ready to be a great nation?
Besides, Anu Soman incorrectly refers to Kashmir as Indian territory. Kashmir does not belong to India; it belongs to the Kashmiris who should decide if they want to unite with Pakistan, gain independence or stay with India.
ALI QAZI
El Dorado Hills, California, USA
(III)
This is regarding the three letters "A question on Kashmir" (Nov 19) where writers have compared India's position in Kashmir to Britain's position over India.
The British did not free India solely under international pressure; they left because India had been awakened by Gandhi and Britain was reeling under the German onslaught during World War II. India is growing economically and militarily at a rapid pace and in due course of time Pakistan will begin to need India much more than it needs Pakistan for the upliftment of its citizenry.
VAIBHAV SRIVASTAVA
Raleigh, NC., USA
Asian MPs, Pakistan and Fiji
Pakistan has invited 54 countries to the fifth five-day conference of the Association of Asian Parliamentarians for Peace (AAPP) being held in Islamabad from Nov 29. Several countries have declined to participate, including the tiny Fiji islands. One wonders why.
Over four years ago, armed men stormed into the Fijian parliament and announced to the bamboozled parliamentarians that a coup had taken place and the military had taken over.
The constitution was abrogated, martial law imposed and curfew clamped in the main island. The 80-year-old president, Ratu Mara, fled for life while all the 35 MPs and Prime Minister Mahendra Chaurdhruy were arrested by the coup plotters. That was on May 19, 2000.
Soon an Indo-Fijian by the name of Chandrika Prasad challenged the abrogation of the constitution and the military takeover. Within weeks the Fiji High Court ruled that the abrogation of the constitution was unlawful, parliament was intact legally, and Sir Ratu Mara was still the lawful president of Fiji. The ruling was given by Justice Gates of the high court.
The military-installed government moved the court for stay orders. This plea was rejected by Justice Gates and the matter went to the Court of Appeals, Fiji's Supreme Court. The issue before the Supreme Court was whether the constitution could be abrogated or suspended under the "doctrine of necessity" or for reasons of "public safety". On March 2001 the Court of Appeals not only dismissed the plea of the military-installed government but also ordered it pay $50,000 to appellants "to cover the appeal and interlocutory applications".
"We agree with Justice Gates that this doctrine (of necessity) could not justify the abrogation of the constitution," the Court of Appeals ruled.
Could it be that the Fijians have refused to participate because they abhor the rewriting and legitimizing of a country's constitution under the doctrine of necessity and dislike the subservience of a nation's parliament?
SENATOR FARHATULLAH BABAR
Islamabad
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'A love-hate relationship'
Mr Ayaz Amir has rightly suggested ('A love-hate relationship', Nov 12) that the nation has now attained maturity. If something was considered heretical before 9/11, it isn't so today. Thus, certain ideological slogans are now becoming obsolete. We now have the right to know the truth by analyzing mindsets which were once politically and socially not only forbidden but also remained camouflaged and reeked of secrecy for more than half a century.
Whether it is about the subcontinent's division on religious lines, the "two-nation" theory or the Kashmir issue, Mr Altaf Hussain is just speaking the bitter truth. It is worth pondering as to why 450 million Muslims of the subcontinent are today divided among three sovereign countries.
I believe that the two-nation theory was never implemented. Last week I accompanied Mr Hussain on his visit to New Delhi. During his meetings with politicians, his stress was on people-to-people contacts, conflict resolution, including troop reduction in Kashmir, permanent peace in the Valley, negotiations on Kashmir by keeping the LoC as a temporary border.
However, my study of historical records has given me a greater insight into the events leading to partition and its attendant miseries than my meetings with the politicians. Through these records we come to know in a different light about our founding fathers' role, their dialogue and stated positions and decisions on partition, the two-nation theory and also on Kashmir.
Here are some excerpts from the record of an Indian cabinet meeting of the emergency committee held at New Delhi on Oct 7, 1947. Those present at the meeting were Indian governor-general Lord Mountbatten, prime minister Nehru, home minister Patel, and minister in charge of relief and rehabilitation Neogy. The record of the meeting is available in the Lord Mountbatten Papers, Broadland Archives Trust, Broadlands, Romesey, Hampshire, UK. It was also quoted in Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, second series (volume 4), published by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund and distributed by Oxford University Press, Delhi:
"K.C. Neogy said that at the conference on October 5 Liaqat Ali Khan took exception to the dumping of Meos (a migrant Muslim community from the then Rajputana state which was forcibly sent back to India) across the Pakistan border and, according to the Pakistan government's understanding of the situation, members of a minority community who wished to leave East( Indian) and West( Pakistan) Punjab, the Punjab states and the NWFP province, would be given facilities to do so but this arrangement should not be extended to include other places (states).
"Vallabhbhai Patel saw no reason why Delhi should not also be included if the NWFP was.
"The PM asked what Mr Liaqat Ali Khan's views on the matter would be if he knew that Muslim refugees wished to leave Delhi. Neogy replied that he had asked Mr Liaqat Ali Khan whether he would make a public announcement to the effect that Pakistan was not prepared to receive Muslims who wanted to go there, other than East Punjab.
"Mr Liaqat Ali Khan parried to the effect that there would be time enough to consider this if the Indian government declared their inability to protect Muslims.
"He (Neogy) added that Mr Liaqat Ali Khan had also objected to the movement of Indian Muslims from the United Provinces( UP). The PM (Nehru) pointed out that these refugees had originally come from East Punjab. So far as Delhi was concerned, the position of the government of India was that all those Muslims who wished to go should be granted full facilities."
Out of 120,000 Muslims staying in Delhi camps, only 60,000 were able to make it to Pakistan. The rest were re-shifted to Delhi's Muslim mohallas. In the process, many who had escaped in the first bout of massacres were not lucky in the second.
As far as the two-nation theory is concerned, it ceased to exist on Oct 5, 1947 - barely 52 days after partition and the emergence of a sovereign Muslim country - when the government of Pakistan chose to decline and bar Muslims from other Indian states. Was the ideology of Pakistan and its territory built on the two-nation theory evolved for Muslims living only in East Punjab?
Some years after partition when the Indian media once asked Mr Nehru about the citizenship status of Hindus and Sikhs who were still left behind in Pakistan and could not come to India, his reply was straight: "They are Indian citizens and they are welcome to India, any time they wish." Last year, the Indian government honoured their leader's historical commitment by giving Indian citizenships in the thousands.
I believe that the Indian leaders, past and present have adopted the theory in question in a practical sense while ours was never raised beyond the theoretical stage. The proof is that while there are fewer than two million Sikhs and Hindus in Pakistan, Muslims in India number about 180 million, with their numerical strength not exceeding three digits in Indian Punjab except in Malir Kotla.
KUNWAR KHALID YUNUS MNA,
Karachi
Washington stopover
This is with reference to the news item "Washington stopover may prove beneficial" (Nov 18).
I hope President Musharraf doesn't bring a loaded 747 plane when he lands in Washington. For one, it costs a lot of money to entertain all those who would like to claim a seat on the plane with the president, and, secondly, the American media, cognizant of such wastage, tells the taxpayers here how badly their tax money is being squandered by aid recipient nations.
We still remember when hordes of 'mians' and 'waderas' used to accompany past corrupt heads of state of government from Pakistan.
SYED SAULAT SHERE
Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA
New US secretary of state
The nomination of US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to the position of secretary of state for President Bush's second term raises many an eyebrow. This move has dashed all hopes that the second Bush administration will be fair and accommodating.
Unlike her predecessor, Mr Colin Powell, Ms Rice belongs to the camp that endorsed Bush's decision to wage war in Iraq. No wonder that with the likes of Ms Rice getting such influential positions, Pakistan and the Muslim world cannot help worrying. A hawkish administration emboldened by the re-election and the securing of a huge majority in the Senate will not shy away from attacking nations and changing regimes which it thinks may be a threat to US absolutism.
In the aftermath of Bush's victory, countries such as Iran, Syria and Pakistan should act warily as they could very well be the next US target due to the presence of extremist elements in these societies. Syria's support to anti-US factions, Iran's efforts to achieve nuclear capability and the increasing number of US-bashers in Pakistan provide grounds aplenty.
MISBAH NOMANI
Karachi
Wedding feast ban
I thank the Supreme Court judges for striking down lavish wedding feasts. The devil always quotes the scriptures for his own purpose. The sanctity of valima will be touted in support of expensive feasting. When I was in Islamabad a petition addressed to the president (Ziaul Haq) once descended on my desk. A case had been made out in support of horse-racing (with bets). Written in an attractive Urdu hand, it cited a Quranic verse: "By the (steeds) that run with panting breath." Ergo, horse-racing with totalizator has divine sanction!
Price means nothing to the rich. If some of them can send a valima invitation pasted on a bottle of whisky to the guests, they can even feed them on quails or venison. But the honourable justices will receive the gratitude of the millions who had already forgotten how mutton (at Rs230/kg) or even beef (at Rs120/kg) tasted. Now they had been watching with horror as poultry prices spiralled to Rs70/kg for a live bird. The MMA is no more going to bring back the 1972 prices as promised in 1977. So the Supreme Court was the only hope for the underdog.
SUFFERER
Karachi
Kolkata spectators' silence
While lamenting the Kolkata spectators' silence when Salman Butt reached his brilliant century in the one-day cricket match played between India and Pakistan to mark the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Nov 13, Mr Omar Kureishi ('Salman passes test with flying colours', Nov 17) was himself equally silent on the Indian batsmen's commendable performance. His column did not even have a single word of praise for any of the Indian batsmen who helped achieve a huge score of 292 runs in the first place. He could have at least found some complimentary words for Yuvraj Singh's batting which won as much praise in the media as Salman Butt's knock.
It is indeed a credit to the Pakistani batsmen that they successfully chased down a huge score, thereby turning a seeming defeat into victory.
MALIK AKHTAR
Dubai, UAE
'Welcome Indian move'
This refers to your editorial "Welcome Indian move" (Nov 13). It appears that the military and the foreign office have reversed their roles. The army welcomed the Indian move (of troop reduction) as a confidence-building measure while the foreign office said "it would be looking forward to a physical manifestation of the announcement in the days and weeks to come".
There are times for diplomacy and there are times for genuine and plain talk. I think the verbiage adopted by the foreign office was in bad taste.
FAQIR AHMED PARACHA
Peshawara
Neglected park
Lahore's Nawaz Sharif Park used to be a beautiful recreation place for the general public. It was no less than a paradise for visitors because it had a large lake, wild animals, big grassy fields, walking tracks, flowers and what not. But on a recent visit to the park I was disappointed, rather surprised, to see that it now is in a very bad condition.
The Lahore administration and the Punjab governor are requested to allocate funds for immediate renovation of the park.
BASHIR BIN QUTAB
Lahore
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