| 3, April 2005 | Sunday | 23 Safar 1426 |
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Sectarian murder?
Raking up Ayodhya
THERE was little new in President Pervez Musharraf’s statement in Kalat on Friday when he said that his government wanted to solve all problems relating to Balochistan by peaceful means. We have been hearing this from government leaders for a long time. But unfortunately nothing substantive has been achieved so far. The parliamentary committee has been meeting off and on, and PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Secretary General Mushahid Hussain have met Nawab Akbar Bugti several times. At their last meeting, both sides had indicated that some understanding had been reached but that it was premature to go public with the details. Since then, there have been no acts of violence, but politically there appears to be a stalemate. Unless something specific is announced and a deal is clinched, there is every possibility that the continuation of the stalemate could lead to misgivings and perhaps violence.
The president’s speech dealt exclusively with Balochistan and touched upon a number of factors that have led to an accumulation of grievances among the Baloch people. There is no doubt that Balochistan has had a raw deal. It has vast mineral wealth and a 600-kilometre coastline. It does not have much rainfall, but sometimes there is an unusually long wet spell. This winter alone saw heavy rains and snow. Unfortunately, most of the water goes underground or flows into the sea. If trapped in dams, this water could be used for agriculture and help the rural community. This is just one of the examples of how Balochistan’s economic development has suffered. Incidentally, the president had gone to Kalat to inaugurate the supply of gas to the city. That Kalat should get gas from Sui several decades after other areas in the country have been getting it points to the short-sightedness of our policy-making apparatus.
Mercifully, this government has given priority to Balochistan’s development, and several mega projects are under way, including the Gwadar port, Saindak copper mines, the coastal highway and the Mirani dam. While the effects of decades of neglect cannot be undone overnight, the development process, must go ahead. Any attempts to disrupt them by acts of terrorism — killing foreign experts and blowing up power transmission lines and railway tracks — deserve to be condemned. Those doing this should know that they are not helping Balochistan’s cause; Baloch rights can be better advanced by democratic means in which Baloch leaders must seek to involve parties, personalities, intellectuals and NGOs in the rest of the country. The basic issue is the overriding need for improving the lot of the Baloch people and safeguarding their interests. The Baloch worry that labour for the mega projects may come from outside the province, and this could alter the demographic complexion of the province. To allay Baloch fears, the government should give preference to locals in employment in the mega projects. One must welcome here the president’s assurances that it is the Baloch youth who would get jobs in development projects, and that vocational training institutes would be set up for them.
As for provincial autonomy, there are two aspects to it: one is the denial of the rights already enshrined in the Constitution; the other is the need for amendments in the basic law. This would need a consensus, and one hopes that the parliamentary committee will talk to all sections of the Baloch people before coming out with its recommendations.
THE killing on Friday of a seminary vice-principal Maulana Ghulam Hussain Najfi in Lahore by unknown assailants is a sad reminder that the genie of terrorism refuses to be bottled. That the scholar belonged to a Muslim minority sect has led the police to state the obvious in its preliminary report: that this was another sectarian murder. Regardless of the veracity of the claim, the killing with impunity in this manner, in broad daylight, is an act of terror, and the truth remains that the government has failed to stop the recurrence of such violence. One would have thought that the coming together of the religious right in a multi-sect alliance under the MMA banner would help put an end to sectarian violence. But this has not been the case, lending credence to speculation that Al Qaeda and disgruntled jihadi groups may be out to settle scores with the government for the latter’s role in the global war on terrorism by committing such murders. Last year was particularly gory in terms of sectarian killings. More than 200 people succumbed to the menace in what appeared to be tit-for-tat attacks in Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Multan, Sialkot and Gilgit. The question remains: when will it all end?
There is a dire need for the Punjab police to launch a thorough probe into the latest murder. It has come at the end of the 40-day mourning period observed by the Shia community following Muharram. Does this mean that the high security alert sounded by the government during Muharram has been dispensed with? If the past is any guide, most sectarian killings last year took place in months other than Muharram. Also, it defies all logic that multiple intelligence agencies should be found to be in deep sleep when such an act of terror takes place. Have they had no training for pre-empting terrorism? Surely, there is a lot that is wrong with the way these agencies operate that needs to be corrected on a priority basis. Citizens of this country deserve at least half the security reserved for the VIPs. It is on this score that the government has been found lacking.
THE Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, should know better than to stoke the fires of communal differences. In the run-up to April 6, when the BJP will celebrate the 25th year of its existence, he has threatened to “rake up the issue” of building a Hindu temple on the ruins of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya. More than 2,000 people had died in the riots that followed the demolition of the 16th century mosque in December 1992 by hard-liners among the Hindu community, who believed that the mosque had been built on the remains of a Ram temple. Choosing to disregard the potential explosiveness of the situation, and the fact that bitter memories of the more recent Gujarat carnage could further aggravate matters, Mr Mahajan has said that the building of the temple was an unattained goal — one that took precedence over other national achievements.
The Congress government, which was in power during the riots of 1992, should be more vigilant this time round, and ensure that Mr Mahajan’s statements and an upcoming BJP convention will not exacerbate existing religious tensions between the Hindus and Muslims. Besides emphasizing the overall secular nature of Indian polity, it can also cite the views of experts that claims of archaeological evidence of a temple at the disputed site remain controversial. Moreover, the term of the Liberhan Commission, set up to look into the Ayodhya incident, has been extended. At least until the judicial body presents its final report, it would be unwise to let the debate flare up again. In the meantime, while there is a ban on religious activity on the site, the government would do well to enhance security in the area to prevent any outbreak of violence.