| 20 January 2005 | Thursday | 09 Zilhaj 1425 |
Poetry collection launched
The army is all over the place - over stretched from end to end to give the country shades of a garrison state. Rangers' pick-ups and armoured cars parked at major city intersections outside foreign missions and patrolling the city, with jawans astride holding their guns at the ready, are all too common a sight.
Army and the para-militaries - the Pakistan Rangers and the Frontier Corps (FC) - are deployed almost all along the sprawling tribal belt from the north-western to the south-western extremity and beyond up in the distant Northern Areas.
Waziristan which appears to be relatively quiet is yet to be fully pacified. The 'miscreants', foreign as well as local, are variously reported to be either on the run or in the process of re-grouping themselves for a fresh flare-up.
Not to speak of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenant Aiman al-Zawahiri, even the fugitive one-legged Abdullah Mehsud, at one time said to be in close contact with the authorities, remains elusive. Artillery and small arms exchanges along the Pakistan-Afghan border, though few, are reported every now and then.
Gilgit in the far north and Sui, the main source of natural gas on the south western extremity, stay in the grip of serious trouble. Whereas the Gilgit flare-up is essentially a law and order problem, Balochistan, with its flash point in and around the Sui area, poses a serious threat to the principal source of energy nationally and the projected construction of a gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan all the way to India, regionally.
On January 11, President and Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf during the course of a TV interview spoke at some length on the worsening situation in Balochistan.
General Musharraf, off to a gentle start, soon yielded to a military commander's strident tone and idiom. He said he (the army that is) might be forced to deal with the recalcitrant tribes in the Sui area in a way that "...they will not even know what and from where something has come and hit them".
Authority in the context of an internal contingency serves its purpose best in avoidance than in actual application. The door to a negotiated political settlement must never be slammed shut.
Balochistan had been through the largest number of military operations from 1948 onwards, climaxing in the long-lasting 1972-1977 insurgency. Launched by the civilian government of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, it was called to a halt by the martial law regime of General Ziaul Haq.
Yet another operation is under way to restore the writ of the government in the area of turbulence already 'under siege'. The mercurial Nawab Akbar Bugti estimates some 5,000-10,000 Frontier Corps men and over 7,000 DSG (Defence Service Group) men already deployed in and around the area.
Another 3,000-4,000 Rangers would further reinforce the troops available for the operation. The Sui crisis must have engaged the attention of the corps commanders and principal staff officers at their recent conference in Rawalpindi.
The question before them should have been whether all the available political means have been exhausted before the die is cast. Were the elected government and assembly functioning in the province consulted in any meaningful way on how to deal with the crisis?
Yet another point to consider is that by resorting to a military option, Islamabad could sideline the provincial authority on the one hand and give Nawab Akbar Bugti perhaps the opportunity of a lifetime to speak for the whole province. The media coverage being given to Bugti must exceed his fondest expectations about ever being projected as Balochistan's sole spokesman.
The gas fields are not Akbar Bugti's property. Shouldn't Islamabad blame itself for giving a tribal sardar the opportunity to monopolize the issue and derive political mileage out of it? Above all, to let the situation to come to such a pass as to resort to compulsory load-shedding of natural gas for the first time ever? Such acts of sabotage and subversion under the nose of the supreme military authority would be hard to condone and still harder to understand. Have not the 'miscreants' already upstaged the authorities by hitting before they even knew what and from where something came and hit them?
- The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.
Poetry collection launched
Trasheeda harf, a collection of ghazals and verses by Iqbal Peerzada, a practicing physician, was launched on Tuesday at the Arts Council. Yusuf Jamal, Sindhi ombudsman was in the chair and famous poet Himayat ali Shaer was the chief guest.
Among those who addressed the gathering included Ms Shahida Tabassum, poet Rehana Roohi, Tajdar Adil, a known TV director and Rizwan Siddiqui. Shahida Tabassum presented an exhaustive paper on Peerzada's poetry, quoting extensively from collection.
Rehana Roohi, to whom Peerzada was familiar for more than a decade, analysed his poetry, reflecting modern sensibilities and the society at large. She was highly impressed by the poets' personality and good manners. So was Tajdar Adil who admired Peerzada's insight into poetry.
Hemayat Ali Shaer, recalled his stay in Hyderabad during the decade of the 60s and the poetry sessions held at the residence of Shad Sahib, himself a poet and many others. Hemayat Ali Shaer came to know Peerzada, Shad's talented son in those sittings and developed a liking for him.
Peerzada, he said, had a good taste for literature and one could rightly hope that the poetry 'Trasheeda Harf' in future will turn into a "Trasheeda poet" (a chiselled poet) compose some new ideas and expressions into ghazal, but the young poet had done well, not to be influenced by what others had written.
Mohabbat (love) was the central theme of Peerzada's verses and a poem under the same title reflected the poet's genius, Shaer said. Yusuf Jamal also admired Peerzada's ghazals with reference to other poets' verses. Raashid Noor did the compering. The launch was hosted by Edara-i-Yadgar-i-Shad and monthly Dunya-i-Adab.