Police need better training

A wave of anger against police has swept across the city since Monday night when a mobile police party fired upon a car and killed a man of Iranian origin, Feroze, and his sister Sabiha. His brother Bhola and daughter Afsana were wounded in the shooting.

People in the neighbourhood immediately took to the streets and gave vent to their anger by torching a bus and pelting passing vehicles with stones near Sakhi Hassan in North Nazimabad, where the deaths occurred.

Officials tried to cover up the crime by making conflicting statements on TV channels instead of outrightly condemning the incident. They also said the police party was chasing a gang of robbers and the victims were killed in ‘crossfire’. When public pressure grew, they took into custody three policemen and declared that the ASI in charge of the police party, had disappeared. And a case was registered against unknown persons.

With Ayaz, son of the slain Feroze, still scrambling to acquire the possession of the two bodies kept in police custody and complaining of harassment by police, it was only by Thursday night that the three policemen believed to be responsible for the killing were formally arrested.

The family holding dual nationality of Iran and Pakistan has been living in the city for the last four decades, and for the last 10 years in a Malir locality.

Why did the policemen fire so blindly after suspected bandits that they hit four innocent persons? Even if they were targeting the car the victims were travelling in, they were supposed to aim at its tyres.

The previous Tuesday police killed six robbers in three different incidents. A police officer was quick to respond when he heard shots fired by suspects on their victims. The police gunned down three of the four robbers who had deprived two men of Rs250,000 they had drawn from a bank branch in Clifton. The desperate unarmed men were chasing the robbers when they were shot to death.

Here, too, police cannot be praised for what they did. With sophisticated weapons, rapid vehicles and an efficient communication system at their disposal, police could have arrested some of the suspects. Do they lack proper training, or have they been given orders to kill people on the slightest of suspicions?

It is difficult to sympathise with dacoits. They kidnap people for ransom, rob and even kill them. But killing suspects without first trying to arrest them is not justified. Nor does it deter robbers from committing robberies. There have been several incidents since the shooting of the six suspected outlaws. The latest victim was a popular labour leader of yesteryear, Gulzar Begum, also known as Gulzari. She was gunned down in Defence last Thursday when she resisted an attempt to take away her car.

Mega events in city

Karachiites have been given a feast of literary, cultural and social events. There was the annual international mushaira at the cricket stadium on Wednesday night. Thousands of families enjoyed the poetry recitals by poets from across the globe, chiefly from India. More mushairas were held at different places to benefit enthusiasts of Urdu poetry.

Shubha Mudgal, the renowned Indian singer, enthralled a select audience at the Parsi Institute on Friday evening with classical sufi poetry, particularly that of Amir Khusrau.

But the mega event in the city is the World Social Forum, that began at the KMC sports complex on Friday. With its related events spread over six days, the open plenary session attracted thousands of social and political activists and other people. The session was presided over by Kumari Nirmala Deshpande, a member of the Indian upper house, and the speakers included such inspiring names as London-based writer and film producer Tariq Ali, British MP Jeremy Corbyn, HRCP Chairperson Asma Jehangir, Kenya Debt Relief Network’s M.S. Waha Kaar, WSF Brazil’s Jose Correia and Palestine Stop the Wall Campaign’s Jamal Juma.

In all, more than 400 events, including rallies and cultural activities, conferences and workshops on disaster management, water issues in South Asia, bonded labour, peace and conflict, inter-religion dialogue, women in resistance movements, rights’ situation in Pakistan, globalization and farmers, challenges to regional peace and fishermen detention, were planned to be held during the six days.

With such a huge gathering to manage, it will be after the event that a verdict on how well it was organised will be possible.

As exam confusion ends

The composite exam confusion is finally over. The Sindh cabinet has unanimously rejected the system proposed to be imposed by the federal education ministry.

With the assurance that the 9th class examination will be held according to the previous practice, tens of thousands of students and their parents have heaved a sigh of relief.

There is a consensus among academics, students, teachers and parents that the composite mode of examination is damaging for students. The world over educational institutions have adopted the semester system. The Cambridge examination system, having an increasing number of candidates in Pakistan, holds examinations twice a year. In the Middle East, except for schools affiliated with the Pakistan federal board, all local and foreign-registered schools follow a system split into more than one session. In Pakistan, too, many government and private universities follow this system. Most private schools also base their pre-matric pupils’ results on term tests.

Short-term examinations keep students engaged throughout the session. They can better concentrate on the subjects and learn effectively. It would be ideal if the two-year matriculation course is broken up into four terms. But, if that is not feasible, it is not wise to keep students tense for two full years and then expect a good performance in all the 10-14 papers. Private students, having to work to finance their education as well help their families, will particularly be hard hit by the composite system.

Wisdom demands that the issue should have been debated in parliament as well as in the media. It was not done and the abandoned system was re-imposed on the provinces by Islamabad in a highly arbitrary manner. This is reported that at an inter-provincial meeting some six months ago, the idea was forwarded by Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi and President Gen Pervez Musharraf had endorsed it.

Students, school managements and parents had been agitating against the decision and demanding its rollback. Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad took personal interest in the issue and the Sindh cabinet also responded to the popular demand and rejected the composite exam system.

Gole-guppas

‘Gole-guppas’ may not be as popular as they used to be. But occasionally a stray vendor pushing a cart manages to attract attention. Repeatedly playing the thrilling song of Ahmed Rushdi, the vendor himself seems to be enjoying it as he swings from side to side in the style of Allauddin, on whom the song was picturised, “Gole-guppay-walla aya, gole guppay laya….”

The gole-guppa young man, Akram, lives with his wife and a child in a rented house in Qayyumabad. He buys the guppas in Liaquatabad in the evening, prepares the spicy and mouth-watering solution at home and sells the stuff the next day in nearby settlements and at recreational spots.

He likes his job as the song keeps his spirits high. A fair tribute to Ahmed Rushdi, believed to be the first pop singer of the country.

— Karachian
email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com

Impact of the WSF process

THE World Social Forum (WSF) being held in Karachi from 24-29 March could possibly have a significant impact on Pakistan’s political scene, if past WSF meetings are anything to go by. The annual WSF gathering was born in January 2001 in the city of Porto Alegre in Brazil as the poor man’s counter to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the annual gathering of the world’s political and economic elites at Davos in Switzerland.

In contrast to the WEF, the WSF is a low budget anti- neoliberalism forum usually attended by tens of thousands of social and peace activists.

Multinational brands such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi are known to be banned from WSF functions, while WSF conference computers are run on Linux, a free-operating system that is an alternative to Microsoft Windows.

The first three WSF gatherings were organized in Porto Alegre but in 2004, it shifted to Asia where it was organized in Mumbai in India, where the Pakistani rock group Junoon performed in an opening concert.

The year 2006 is the first time that the WSF gathering is polycentred in three continents with meetings held in Caracas (Venezuela), Barnako (Mali) and Karachi.

Given our government’s economic policies, which have tended to be neo-liberalist, benefitting the upper and middle classes to the detriment of the poor, it is significant that such an event like the WSF is being held in a city in Pakistan.

The decision to hold the WSF in Karachi, however, seems to have had the blessings if not approval of the government. President Musharraf had visited Brazil in November 2004 and two months later, it was announced that the decision of having a polycentric WSF in 2006, with Karachi being one of the three centres, was made during a meeting of the WSF International Council in Porto Alegre held in 24-25 January 2005.

Activists in Egypt had apparently also tried to vie for the WSF 2006 to he held in Cairo but could not succeed. WSF 2007 is due to be held in Kenya.

Apart from anti-neoliberalism, the other prominent characteristic of the WSF process is its anti-imperialist and specifically anti-American nature. The success of the global anti-war mobilizations in February 2003 just before the occupation of Iraq, as well as the anti-war demonstrations in major cities of the world in March every year marking the anniversary of the occupation of Iraq, have been attributed in large part to the Social Forum process.

More than just an open platform for activists and intellectuals to discuss peace and strategies of resistance to globalization and imperialism, WSF meetings have proved to be precursors to significant domestic political changes in the countries where WSF gatherings have taken place.

The first two WSF meetings took place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2001 and January 2002 respectively, at a time when Brazil was undergoing a political transformation, moving towards the left.

Eventually in October 2002, socialist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party won the presidential elections in a wide ranging political alliance with other left-leaning political parties under a social platform.

Similarly in India, the WSF meeting was held in January 2004 in Mumbai. Five months later in May 2004, the centre-right BJP government headed by Prime Minister Vajpayee was surprisingly defeated in general elections which brought into power a new left-leaning coalition led by the Congress Party called the United Progressive Alliance.

The WSF process in Brazil and India seemed to have helped stimulate the development of a national left-leaning front against the ruling right-leaning governments. The results of the elections in Brazil in 2002 and in India in 2004 had voiced a rejection of the previous governments’ neo-liberal economic reforms that were seen to benefit the countries’ upper and middle classes only.

But it remains to be seen however whether this socialist front is just only an electoral bloc or whether it will be a long-term collective alliance of left-leaning parties, social movements and progressive non-governmental organizations. And it also remains to be seen how far the economic policies of the new left-leaning governments are different from the policies of the governments they replaced, and how far the former economic policies are actually benefiting the poor.

With soaring elite consumption and widening inequality in Pakistan, can WSF Karachi 2006 help to bring the same kind of socialist forces together to make an impact on the general elections in 2007?

Birth of India’s right-ward lurch

GURU GOLWALKAR was born a hundred years ago. Since then the RSS, which he helped found in the 1920s, has successfully displaced vast spaces of India’s liberal ethos of the Nehruvian era and supplanted it with an unalloyed rightist agenda. RSS leaders and their growing number of cadres are celebrating their guru’s birth centenary this month with characteristic earnestness.

For many years the RSS has flirted with political power through proxy parties like Bharatiya Jana Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party. Leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Kishan Advani were members of all three organizations indicating the umbilical connection between them. After a false start in 1996, when they took power for 13 days (without actually winning a mandate to rule) the two leaders finally consolidated the hold of the RSS on Indian polity for six years with the 1998 mid-term polls.

Golwalkar’s legacy is palpable across the country today as never before. He has millions of followers among rightwing Hindus across the globe, many of them rich Indians who nurture RSS’s financial resources. The group is consolidating its hold gradually but steadily in Dalit ranks and among India’s tribes-people. The RSS is known as a Muslim-hating group. But in many respects its point of view is similar to that of Muslim groups in India, particularly those Muslim groups that existed in pre-partition India.

To begin with both the RSS, led by Golwakar, and the Jamaat-i-Islami were opposed to the partition of the subcontinent.

The RSS still adheres to its belief in Hindu Rashtra in Akhand Bharat or a Hindu nation in undivided India. The Jamaat was seeking an independent India with Muslims playing the dominant role. After India’s Supreme Court ruled that Hindutva was a nationalist ideology and not a religious category, the RSS has been emboldened to advance the theory that all Indians who love their motherland implicitly believe in Hindutva, which includes Muslims and Christians among others.

It is tempting to use the centenary celebrations for Guru Golwalkar to recall some of his ideas preserved in authentic records that go to show how similar they were to Maulana Maududi’s and other Muslim leaders’.

From Jinnah to Zia, a small book by Pakistan’s former chief justice Mohammad Munir contains a summary of interviews with Muslim leaders he conducted in the wake of anti-Ahmadiya violence in Punjab in the 1950s.

Take for example Amir-i-Shariyat Syed Attaullah Shah Bukhari’s testimony. He was asked, albeit obliquely, whether it was mandatory for Muslims to obey the orders of a ‘kafir’ government, a description used by the Muslim leaders and not by Justice Munir, for the Indian government.

“It is not possible that a Muslim should be a faithful citizen of a non-Muslim government,” was the prompt reply.

Maulana Abul Hasnat Syed Mohammad Ahmad Qadri, president of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Pakistan, was asked: “Will you admit for the Hindus, who are in a majority in India, the right to have a Hindu state?” The answer was a resounding ‘yes’.

“Will you have any objection if the Muslims are treated under that form of government as malishes (untouchables) and shudras (lowest of the low castes)?” he was asked. The answer this time was a resounding ‘no’.

Then came the turn of Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, Amir, Jamaat-i-Islami. Justice Munir asked him: “If we have this form of government in Pakistan (treating non-Muslims as zimmis), will you permit Hindus (in India) to have their constitution on the basis of their religion?”

“Certainly,” retorted the intrepid Maulana. “I should have no objection even if the Muslims of India are treated in that form of government as shudras and malishes and Manu’s laws are applied to them depriving them of all share in the government and the rights of a citizen.”

The various maulanas interviewed by Justice Munir in the context of their support for anti-Ahmadiya decrees seem to have stolen the words from Guru Golwalkar’s mouth, but which were aimed at the religious minorities of undivided India.

In his 1939 book, We, Our Nationhood Defined, years before the Munir Commission was constituted, Golwalkar had said more or less the same thing, except that he had also used a racial context to debunk Indian minorities.

He said: “From this standpoint, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race; or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment — not even citizen’s rights.”

Unlike the Muslim ulema who rooted their ideas in religion, Golwalkar extolled a shadowy living history of the times to pursue his ideals of a pure society.

“To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.”

Supporters of Golwalkar plead he was misunderstood. That is the best hope we have. All through this book Golwalkar uses the term ‘Hindu’ and ‘Aryan race’ synonymously. He thus sets out to show that the Aryans did not migrate to India from anywhere but originated here. The RSS guru, however, had to contend with Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s theory of the Arctic origin of the Vedas. Unable to reject the thesis of a popular leader, who was also a Hindu, Golwalkar came up with the incredible assertion that the Arctic zone was originally that part of the world which is today called Bihar and Orissa.

As we reflect on his contribution to India’s evolution as a right-ward leaning state, we cannot ignore that some of the people applauding him are Muslim and Christian. Also, the fact that Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf sells like hot cakes on Indian train stations today would seem to mark a celebration of a Nazi idea in its Indian avatar.

SOME leading lights of the World Social Forum are not attending the Karachi conclave now going on. Is it because of fatigue or growing cynicism? Indian writer Arundhati Roy spoke at the Mumbai meeting in January 2004. Her call to resist American occupation of Iraq was loudly applauded by all present, but that was the end of the story.

Here’s a bit of what she said: “I suggest that at a joint closing ceremony of the World Social Forum and Mumbai Resistance, we choose, by some means, two of the major corporations that are profiting from the destruction of Iraq. We could then list every project they are involved in. We could locate their offices in every city and every country across the world. We could go after them. We could shut them down. It’s a question of bringing our collective wisdom and experience of past struggles to bear on a single target. It’s a question of the desire to win.

“The Project for The New American Century seeks to perpetuate inequity and establish American hegemony at any price, even if it’s apocalyptic. The World Social Forum demands justice and survival. For these reasons, we must consider ourselves at war.” So what’s the state of play in Karachi?
jawednaqvi@gmail.com