| September 15, 2006 | Friday | Sha'aban 21, 1427 |
To send a letter to the Editor
Click here
Unlawful conversion of land use
Role of madressah in education
An avoidable accident
One country, different standards
Blasphemy in the National Assembly
Questions need answer
Carnage at Indian mosque
Bird gazers
Saudabad Road
Improving infrastructure
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
I READ Mr Ehsanul Haq’s response (Sept 13) to Mr Ayaz Amir’s column with great interest. I respect the fact that Mr Haq is an idealist, and in his world if we had truly followed the teachings of Islam we might not be in the position we are in today.
However, I feel he misunderstands the meaning of secularism for it certainly isn’t the equivalent of atheism. As defined in the dictionary, the word secular means “worldly rather than spiritual”. Mr Amir’s article called for the government to be secular in its approach and policies.
Too often our politicians and military junta have couched dubious policies with spiritual overtones to dampen public scrutiny, thereby mixing religion with politics to devastating effect.
Religion can be a powerful binding force but surely Mr Haq must realise that this never worked for Pakistan and most certainly never will.
From its very creation the religious elite have gravely pondered as to who is a Muslim and who isn’t and haven’t yet come up with answers that have helped bind the nation. Instead they have divided the nation even further.
Mr Haq’s views on Bangladesh exhibit the same degree of short-sightedness that landed us in trouble in the first place. Just because the people of that nation support Pakistan in sporting activities doesn’t mean that they want to be a part of us.
Integrating means respecting each other’s cultural traditions, language, etc. We couldn’t do this back in 1971 and today it seems even less likely. Just as in 1971 nationalism and patriotism will always trump religion.
We fool ourselves that this is not true in Kashmir, but ask a Kashmiri would they rather be ruled by India, Pakistan or be independent. What do you think they would answer?
What about Balochistan and the tribal areas; they are all Muslims, so why isn’t Muslim unity enough? I would propose that these people value their individual freedom far greater than their religious affiliation. Again it is politics, not religion, that drives these choices.
Before any Pakistani troops head off to defend the freedom of Muslims elsewhere, I would first task them with the more difficult task of defending the freedom of Muslims and everyone else right here at home. That is something they haven’t managed to do in 59 years of independence.
So while I agree that it’s unfair to blame our problems on Islam, its even worse to use the mantle of Islam to guise our shortcomings.
Wouldn’t it, therefore, be better to create a government that administers on widely accepted legal and ethical principles that incorporates cultural and religious diversity of the citizenry and that is ultimately accountable to the people?
It makes sense then to separate politics from religion. And that is the very secularism which we as a nation have never practised.
After 59 years of pointless chaos under the mantle of Islam it is now time for something completely different.
OMAR MOONIS
New York, USA
ZUBEIDA Mustafa in her article ‘Why Karachi turned into a cesspool when it rained’ (Aug 31) has correctly identified some of the issues concerned which brought about the overpowering of the storm drainage systems in this beleaguered city.
The most remarkable flooding occurred in the Clifton/ Bath Island area (the habitat of the rich and powerful, including the commander, Five Corps, high court judges and senior bureaucrats) owing to what she termed “the most serious theft” of Nehr-i-Khayyam.
On Oct 29, 2005, the city government, through a public notice in the press, invited objections and comments on a ‘public interest’ (!!) proposal to ‘upgrade’ and channelise” Nehr-i- Khayyam so as to create residential/commercial plots. We filed objections and asked for some additional details:
1. Copies of the technical justification studies made in the light of the planning of the area (as per Regulation 18-4.2.2 of KBTPR 2002, and other town planning laws), including availability of utilities (electricity, water, sewerage, etc), infrastructure (road traffic handling capacity, parking, garbage collection, etc) and amenities (parks, playgrounds, police stations, hospitals, schools, etc).
2. Data on the present overloading of the above facilities/infrastructure in the residential area around the proposed conversion.
3. Copy of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) carried out in accordance with item H-1 of Schedule-II of Review of IEE and EIA Regulations, 2002 notified under PEPA 1997 (noise, air pollution, utilities, infrastructure, crime, introduction of strangers into the neighbourhood, etc) of the proposed conversion, with public participation.
Shehri’s preliminary objections to the proposed commercialisation of the storm drainage nullah were:
a. “Upgradation of the sewage water channelisation” falls under the purview of the KWSB and not MPGO/CDGK.
b. “Blocking of sewage water flow into Boating Basin and sea by directing the same towards treatment plant in Block 9, Clifton” is impractical as the treatment plant in Block 9 does not have the capacity to handle the excess sewage. As the land in question is within the jurisdiction of the KPT, has it been included in this plan or is it another unilateral decision?
c. “Development of residential/commercial scheme on the reclaimed/recovered land to generate funds by disposing of the plots through public auction” is not possible as the KDA (now CDGK) was restrained from doing the same in constitutional petitions CP No.392/90, CP No.424/90 and CP No.433/90, on the basis of an undertaking dated 5.9.91 given in court by the director (land management) and director (planning and urban design) of the defunct KDA (now the DO (land) and DO (P&UD) of the CDGK).
d. Nehr-i-Khayam is a sewerage/drainage trunk classified as municipal amenity land. Under law, it cannot be converted to residential or commercial use.
Greed, pelf and contempt of law have overwhelmed our society.
AMBER ALIBHAI SHEHRI
Karachi
MANY leading Muslim scholars and legislators in India have shown courage and vision by refuting the terrorism charges levelled by Islamophobes against Muslim-run madressahs in India. Well-attended conferences have been held in India to refute the propaganda against the Muslim-run madressahs.
The theme song of the communalists who propagandise against the madressahs is that (1) they breed terrorism and (2) harbour terrorists, (3) their curricula are deficient and do not respond to the educational requirements of modern education.
In the propaganda against the Muslim-run madressahs in India, the frontline position is held by the right-wing Hindu groups and the communalistic section of the Indian media.
One of the very effective moots in defence of the madressahs was held recently in New Delhi and its theme was “the humanistic role of Islamic madressahs.”
According to the Milli Gazette of Aug 15, Muslim scholars of the Ahle-Hadis, Deobandi group and Nadwatul ulema of Lucknow and the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board attended the conference in New Delhi.
Speakers at the conference denied that madressahs were ‘terror dens’. The Milli Gazette pointed out in its report of the conference that in contrast to madressahs in India, thousands of schools run by right-wing Hindu organisations instil in their students hatred of Muslims, Christians and other non-Hindu communities.
Many speakers gave impressive figures of enrolment of non-Muslims in the madressahs, their good results in the examinations. The need for reform in the curricula was stressed.
Some speakers emphasised that madressahs were rendering a great service to education in India by giving education to the unlettered in places where government schools were too few. Two Indian federal ministers, Messrs Patil and Arjun Singh, also defended the madressahs for educating many thousands in India.
QUTUBUDDIN AZIZ
Karachi
AT almost the same spot that a container fell on a businessman’s car and killed him a couple of years ago, young Amir Parekh died in the same manner. A close analysis of the incident will show that if authorities had only been firm in enforcing the law, this accident could have been avoided.
Take the Korangi Road, for instance. The Korangi Industrial Area, which some say is the largest in Asia, contributes billions in revenue to the exchequer. Yet what passes for roads here should make us hang our heads in shame. This road has been in a bad shape for a very long time and the recent rains only worsened its condition.
The unfortunate young man was going home at sunset with his driver on Aug 4 when the container fell on his car (owing to the driver swerving his trailer to avoid a ditch created by the recent rains).
A crane arrived exactly an hour later, and after it had lifted the container a few feet, its cable snapped and it fell on the car again, so if even if the poor Amir had survived the first impact, the second one ensured that he wouldn’t live.
The law enforcers could have taken necessary steps to prevent such accidents. Take, for example, the case of containers being transported on vehicles. There’s a law making it mandatory for containers to be firmly fixed to the trailer, but anyone driving on Karachi’s roads knows that the cops are not even aware of this rule. It’s really scary, seeing those swaying containers on recklessly driven trucks. Somewhere in the statute books, there is a law according to which container-laden trucks and trailers are to operate only at night, but whenever they try to enforce this rule, the transporters resist with all their might.
I hope someone reading this will at least try to enforce the rules so that such accidents do not occur again.
SHAKIR LAKHANI
Karachi
WITH reference to Mr Siddiqui’s letter regarding disparity in doctors remuneration (Sept 4) I would like to clarify that the governor of Sindh has lately but rightly sanctioned the Basic Medical Science Allowance (BMSA) for teachers (non-clinical sections) in medical institution at par with the government of Punjab formula.
It may be pertinent to mention here that this BMS allowance has been sanctioned for all employees of basic medical science departments in public sector medical college, since 1998 by the government of the NWFP, and by the government of Punjab since 2005.
Now only Balochistan’s Bolan Medical College is left to be offered the same allowance. We, the Basic Medical Science teachers of Bolan Medical College, expect that the higher authorities in Balochistan will consider sanctioning such an allowance for the staff of the medical college. This will bring the employees of Balochistan at par with their counterparts around the country.
PROF NIRMAL DAS
Quetta
THE punishment in Pakistan for blasphemy by law, and almost invariably by convention, is death. Thus I was wondering why so many more than four, all deeply honest and upstanding adult male Muslim witnesses of the National Assembly had not, as is fashionably standard here, summarily executed the sacrilegious mullahs who had defiled the Word.
That too, in the sanctum of all Pakistani sanctums: our own National Assembly.
The act, being enforced on our lawbreakers by our other lawmakers within parliament, would immediately have achieved legally absolving status.
The perpetrators, hereinafter known as saviours, would have been adulated and received instant public approval of a further quantum leap in temporal privileges that they, from time to time, provide themselves with.
Since this did not then happen and this is an important issue, by the same law and conventions should not those adult male Muslim legislators who witnessed, permitted, and so approved, this act of ultimate sacrilege also be put to death?
This, I believe, is the principle of collective punishment so successfully applied by the US and its surrogates and meekly accepted as international law by the United Nations.
The mass execution of the entire parliament would be the ultimate act of national catharsis and spiritual cleansing. There is little doubt that the nation would benefit enormously from such expiation. It would also go a long way to relieve our sorely tested courts of the generally unsuccessful need to protect the minorities from extermination.
I feel even more strongly about this following two recent acts of our assemblymen. United, as one man, they again raised their perks and privileges for doing nothing in seven years.
Then, in a drowning country that cannot feed itself but thrives on false and superficial values, they have restored the ostentatious meals that the Supreme Court resisted for so long.
Since the majority of the women parliamentarians would seem to have approved of the continuation of all the Hudood laws, there is little reason for their retention.
If the others of the national ‘jirga’ balk at doing the ‘kari’ thing, I would recommend that they commit the equivalent of collective ‘sattee.’
The only members who should not be executed are the Christians, Hindus and the sole Parsi. Their communities are usually at the receiving end of blasphemy and their fragile status forces their representatives to take on the colour of the majority.
In sparing them and the few secular women we will instantly become a ‘democratic’ darling of the West and will live happily ever after.
Quite possibly as a united, progressive and democratic nation ruled, at Bush’s pleasure, by our military.
DR MERVYN HOSEIN
Karachi
I HAVE a few questions for Pakistani citizens for a change, and not for the government.
1. Why is it that after haphazardly building hundreds of houses in each and every nook and corner of land we cry about not having adequate sewerage systems?
2. Why is it that after conceitedly hooking ‘kundas’ for the entire colony, we complain about the ‘usual incompetence of the KESC’ and about having ‘no electricity for several hours?’
3. Why is it that some feel pride in evading taxes yet they blame the local body offices as soon as something goes wrong?
4. Why aren’t we burning a local franchise or petrol station given the same verbal battering as given to the government for even a minute human error in management?
5. Why is it so that our media caters to all the whims and woes of people who step out of their houses to ‘protest’, but not even once do they acknowledge the ‘emergency action’ taken by the very same local government people?
6. Lastly, why is it that this will be read by people who are not being addressed in this letter? While those who know how to read don’t realise the depth of this situation because ‘it’s all in the system’?
The people in this country seriously need to learn something that I was taught while still very young: owe up to your mistakes by not putting the blame on everyone else, and realise the responsibility of not only being a proud citizen of this beautiful country, but also a human being.
SHOAIB DURRANI
Karachi
THE editorial ‘Carnage at Indian mosque’ (Sept 10) should really get the people of both nations thinking. Politics in India has become very unethical.
Playing of vote bank politics has become the trend. When this happens at the expense of ordinary people’s lives, something needs to be done.
The very people who can make changes are encouraging this trend. From where do we find solace then?
The ‘saffron’ parties that base their politics on a very narrow-minded Hindutva agenda have tried their hands at disrupting the peaceful co-existence between the Muslims and Hindus. And many a time they’ve been successful in doing so.
One thing I would like to say is that political parties like the BJP and the VHP do not represent the Hindu population in India.
What they preach reflects the feelings of only a very small part of the Hindu population. It should be understood that even among the people of a particular community persons with diverse identities are present.
It was heartening to read in the editorial that people on both sides of the man-created border have a common desire not to see the peace talks fail due to such unscrupulous activities.
A. J. NAMBIAR
Tamil Nadu, India
ALL bird gazers are invited to the lake districts of Karachi to watch rare exotic birds. These lakes have evolved out of the accumulated rainwater, and are located on both sides of Saba Avenue, Phases V and VI in the DHA.
The best time to watch them is between sunrise and 9am. Hurry before these lakes dry out.
A BIRD GAZER
Karachi
RECENTLY the city government has completed a good quality two-way road from Kala Board to Saudabad in Karachi’s Malir area but the island/green belt in the middle of the road is being covered with red bricks instead of trees and plants which are more necessary to keep the environment clean and healthy.
The green belt in the middle of the road is hardly used by the general public.
The trees and plants will also give a beautiful look to the area and development of green belt is much cheaper than using bricks.
Hope the city government will reconsider the plan in the best interest of the area.
MUHAMMAD ALEEM
Karachi
NO one while living in Lahore is unaware of the commercial, economical, social, and industrial importance of the Quaid-i-Azam industrial estate at Kot Lakhpat, Lahore, and its contribution to the development of Pakistan.
The area around it needs to be improved in terms of infrastructure. The most serious problem to be considered at this time is the condition of the roads around the industrial area.
Hamdard Road is the busiest road in the area as it is used by several buses and, therefore, it requires the special attention of the authorities concerned.
I request the higher authorities to take serious note of the issue and solve it as soon as possible as it is a problem that is being faced not by an individual but by all the people living and working in the area.
ZUBAIR AHMAD QURESHI
Lahore
You can also send letters to the Editor
Just send your message to the following address: letters@dawn.com
Make sure you include your full name, postal address, e-mail address, and in the case of Pakistan your day-time telephone number.