| April 03, 2007 | Tuesday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 14, 1428 |
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Kashmiri leader and US
Woolmer’s death
Lakes under Antarctic ice
Champions of the faith
The Lahore Resolution
Dealing with the menace
Flawed policies
Damage control
Junk food
Stopping the madness
When justice prevails
Dead phone
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
THIS refers to the rejoinder of Mr Ritesh Kumar and the talk by the physician, Dr Abdul Jamil Khan, about his book and thesis that languages are independent of religion and Hindi/Urdu are one language, both of March 25.
Mr Kumar says he watches PTV World and except for the language used in Urdu news bulletins, he can enjoy serials and songs, etc., without difficulty. Also, that they use the same language in India in daily life and in movies, as of Shah Rukh Khan or Hrithik Roshan.
We have difficulty in following Hindi service of the BBC and All India Radio, because they use its pure version. However, I am surprised that someone who can comprehend our TV programmes has difficulty in understanding the news. There is no difference between the two. Perhaps the news contains more names of people and places than Mr Kumar is familiar with and is boring for us, too.
What actually happened is that, given the pragmatic need to attract both Urdu- and Hindi-speaking audiences, Bollywood adopted more of the Urdu element, which became popular. That’s why Indians find it easier to understand Urdu. It would only be fair if, as already suggested by some, that what now passes for Hindi should be renamed Urdu.
While studying overseas, I had, among others, many Indian friends including some from southern India. When I tried to talk to the latter in Urdu, they would say: "I don't understand Hindi." It is amazing how any highly educated Indian would not be able to speak ‘Hindi’.
However, some Muslims from Hyderabad state told me that the study of Urdu is discouraged and they have to learn Hindi in the Devnagri script, so the younger Muslims can't even read or write Urdu in its original form.
Before the British rule, Persian was the court language of India and even my grandfather's and father's generation, who were from India, tended to be versed in it, but the second and third generation Pakistanis don't know it. We should also remember that in 1867 the Hindus had started an agitation demanding that Hindi, rather than Urdu, be made the official language, which was conceded by the British. If both were the same, why agitate?
Urdu is more progressive than Hindi and has retained many words from English and other languages. As examples, railway station and letter-box are known as such, rather than "chhakchhak adda" and "patar ghusayroo", respectively, as they are called in traditional Hindi. Some Japanese universities have recognised the distinct status of Urdu and renamed their courses of "Hindustani" as "Urdu".
Our friend has admitted to not having travelled around much. I've been more fortunate and have interacted with people from all over the world. In case of Indonesia and Malaysia, they are both predominantly Muslim nations and even use roman script to write their languages. Some comparisons may be interesting.
News is called "Khabar" in Malay, Bahasa Indonesia as well as in Urdu, but "Samachar" in Hindi. The world is "Dunia" in the first three languages but "Vishwa" in Hindi. Shirt is "Baju" in Malay but "Kemedja" (pronounced "kemeja") in Indonesian. While a wife is "Isteri" in the two Southeast Asian nations, "Beevi” in Pakistan and "Patni or “Isteri" in India.
The people and languages of Indonesia and Malaysia are closer to each other than Pakistanis/ Indians and Urdu/Hindi are and can communicate easily, yet they firmly emphasise the separate identities. It should be clear to Dr Jamil Khan that the Muslims of Indonesia, Pakistan and Malaysia aren't saying their languages have a divine origin but are a matter of identity and can't be relinquished. The case of Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese may also be mentioned. The speakers are all Chinese and genetically the same and the languages are written in Chinese characters, their speakers can communicate with each other, but the difference in the dialects remains. The real reason for all this fuss about Urdu and Hindi appears to be the desire to subsume Urdu as well as the Muslims of India and Pakistan, in keeping with the Indians' conscious and unconscious opposition to the two-nation theory and wish for hegemony and creation of "Akhand Bharat" . Since it can't be done militarily, they are using a soft approach.
A PAKISTANI
Karachi
The 78-year-old Kashmiri resistance leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was admitted to a Mumbai cancer hospital after the US denied him a medical visa due to being an Islamist (Dawn, March 22).
This is very regrettable and illustrates the American establishment’s hostility towards Islam. The gentleman has only been striving to secure Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. According to my knowledge, he has never advocated the killing of any innocent persons. Nor has he ever slayed, or caused to be slain, any Christian.
He is certainly worthy of much greater respect than some of the American evangelists because, unlike them, he has never insulted anybody's religion.
America has lost a golden opportunity to display the principles it claims to espouse and to win over an Islamist perceived as a foe. "The true and noble way to kill a foe is not to kill him, you, with kindness, may so change him that he shall cease to be a foe, and then he is slain."
Incidentally there was a report on May 19, 1999 about the visit to Karachi sponsored by a wellprivate university about Mr Davendra Vohra who is an Indian expert in acupressure and natural medicine. He had said that he has treated cancer (up to the extent of 85 per cent) and other deadly diseases by his methods.
In his book, Health in Your Hands, whose foreword was written by the late Indian prime minister Morarji Desai, his address is given as C-7, Vasant Kunj, North Avenue, Santa Cruz, W. Mumbai; Tel, 6491564 where he treats patients for free twice a week. Your India correspondent, Mr Javed Naqvi, is requested to convey this information and our prayers to him.
A PAKISTANI
Karachi
AS if the tragedy of Bob Woolmer's death wasn't enough, we are now faced with a new worry. It was initially said that there was vomit and blood in the bathroom and on the walls of his hotel room, but no marks of strangulation or fracture of a bone in the neck were indicated after the initial autopsy.
However, now it is being claimed he was strangulated, possibly by more than one person. Also, that there were no signs of resistance by Mr Woolmer nor any sounds heard by Danish Kaneria who was staying in an adjacent room, which means they were no strangers. Furthermore, some pages are reportedly missing from the book he was writing, but nothing else was removed.
Obviously, if the coach was choked first, he would not have been able to walk around and vomit or bleed that way. One possibility is that the person(s) who visited him first offered the dejected man alcohol or some other beverage tainted with a drug and, after he got sick, finished him off. These could be people who did not want certain secrets to be revealed in his book.
In view of that, Islamabad should immediately rush some good detectives and forensic medicine experts to Jamaica to join the investigation, since the two Pakistani diplomats sent from Washington won't be able to help. This is extremely important because some criminals may be exploiting the reaction resulting from our loss to Ireland to shift the suspicions on to Pakistanis.
ABDUL RASHID
Karachi
MY grandmothers used to tell me that clouds of water are driven by winds to infuse life in dry lands; and some rain water down the surface to be drawn out gradually by farmers with the help of bullocks for drinking and cultivation. However, my curiosity remained when I thought of deserts and other inhospitable regions from where thousands of animals run hundreds of miles every year in search of water and greenery.
Also, I wondered about constant sources of subsoil water flows such as Zam Zam in Makkah where, apart from satisfying the needs of locals, it quenches the thirst of millions of pilgrims who go for Umrah and Haj. All devotees return with full bottles of this water without any restriction on quantity. This is indeed a miracle in a country where a human killed another for a sip. Stories about springs gushing forth from rocks are commonly a part of mythology.
But this latest discovery by lasers of huge sloshing fresh water lakes underneath the Antarctic ice at a depth of 2,300 feet of compressed snow and ice, unaffected by surface temperatures, is a proof of Nature’s perfect designs to sustain life on this globe, e.g., humans, animals, fish, plants and trees. These big lakes are being filled and drained relatively much faster under the ice cap that contains 90 per cent of earth water. The glaciers melt slowly to keep rivers and streams running all the year round.
W.H. ANSARI
Karachi
THE ostensible religious fervour of the assistant coach and captain of the disgraced cricket team (Dawn, March 28) makes very disturbing reading, but such displays are fairly common in all strata of society now.
The assistant coach's fanatical symbolism reminded me about a very similar experience with the dean of a well-known business school where I worked.
In the midst of a serious academic policy discussion, the turbaned scholar with uncovered ankles would look me in the eye and say 'Janaab, hashar nashar kee baat kartay hain', or utter sombre remarks like ' Iss ko chhorain, aakhrat kay baaray mein sochtay hain'. He would also leave important meetings with his brood of tableeghis at their chosen times for prayers, ignoring all appeals that another hour remained for offering the compulsory prayers and the matter being debated needed their attention.
Just like the assistant coach and captain of the Pakistan cricket team, the scholar ran the once-famed business school to the ground and then promptly announced that he was resigning because he had failed.
I wonder when these champions of religious showmanship will understand that doing one's job to the best of one's ability is as good if not a better way of serving Allah, as their wanton public displays of religiosity.
WASIF M. KHAN
Lahore
AS a corollary to S. Irtiza Hussain’s letter (March 30), the 1940 demand for a separate homeland for Muslims of India had nothing to do with any lurking fear that a Hindu-dominated state would interfere in the practice of their religion. Fears principally lay in the economic, political and representational fields.
Understandably these fears were spawned by an experience of repeated failures — Lucknow Pact of 1916, generous flexibility shown during the Round Table Conferences of 1930-32 and indeed up till the League’s unencumbered acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 — on the part of Muslims to obtain a credible, composite guarantee from the Congress safeguarding their legitimate economic, political and civil rights, not merely as a large minority but possessing an unmistakable identity.
In the then prevailing political geography and climate with colonial overtones, Sir Zafrulla Khan in his presidential address at the All India Muslim League Session, held at Delhi in December 1931, ably described the situation of the Indian Muslims in these words:
“The position which the Muslims hold in this country is both peculiar and unique. It would be difficult to point out a parallel in the contemporary or past history of any other country or community.
“Our numbers exceed the numbers of many communities which are today enjoying and have in the past enjoyed the position and privileges of a nation. Our religious, cultural, social and, I may add, even linguistic unity supplies us with all the essentials that go to form a nation. Our common civilisation, traditions, and history furnish additional factors that bind us together.
“We are anxious to preserve intact all these factors; and past experience has taught us that special provisions and safeguards are necessary for such protection, although we feel that, even with these provisions and safeguards in the Constitution, the protection afforded will not be complete or even adequate.
“This, however, is a disability to which all political minorities are subject, and it is not capable of being remedied by constitutional safeguards. For this reason, it is all the more imperative that any Constitution that may be framed should contain provisions safeguarding these matters to the fullest limits to which constitutional safeguards can extend. In framing our proposals in this connection, however, we have been careful not to trench upon the legitimate rights of other communities.”
M.J.AS’AD
Karachi
THE female madressah students in Islamabad have become vigilantes. First they occupied the children's library in Islamabad in the name of Islam, then they demanded ‘Islamic law’ and now they have started attacking video shops and supposed brothels, as well as kidnapping people. I am shocked at the creeping Talibanisation in Islamabad, the most "enlightened” and “moderate" city of Pakistan and the seat of the presidency.
The government is scared to deal with these women and its backing down on the mosque razing issue encouraged these women to do more of what they want. They are taking the law in their own hands and this state of affairs needs to be stopped. The president needs to tackle this problem now before things get out of hand. We cannot afford to overlook this menace as their actions will only encourage others like them to attack people and enforce their beliefs on others.
Pakistan's female commandos and policewomen can be sent to knock some sense into these fanatics, since sending men can be problematic and the fundamentalist men may respond with an attack.
FAWWAD SHAFI
Lahore
THE Waziristan killings are an example of the flawed internal policies most of Asian countries are following which have led to internecine in-fightings, death and destruction. The same is true for India as is it for Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia.
After long-fought struggles all these countries got themselves independent from the yoke of foreign rule, but sadly they forgot this fact within no time of having become so.
The result was a biased and arbitrary thinking about how to rule the various parts of the newly-formed countries keeping in view their exact needs and requirements. Thus the widening gap between the aspirations and reality lead to disgruntlement, protests and finally conflict.
It is a sad story everywhere and can be gotten over only when the powers that be realise that they need to completely change their outlook, retune their thinking in accordance with local necessities.
AMITABH THAKUR
Lucknow
YOU can tear-gas and lathi-charge protesting lawyers. You can barge into the offices of a private TV channel and destroy its property, but you cannot ‘control’ burqa-clad criminals who are illegally occupying a government building, openly kidnapping people and refusing to recognise any worldly authority?
S. SAMIUDDIN
Karachi
RECENTLY, while out shopping, I could not help notice a throng of young people at a local restaurant. Most of them were teenagers and young children. I decided to sneak in and see what was attracting such a crowd. The deals on offer were burgers and rolls with chips that had the youngsters enthrall.
Most people know by now that junk food contains high contents of saturated fats, sugar and salt and very low nutritional value.
Western fast food fads have reached Pakistan through the electronic media and now people of every class consider it fashionable to eat junk food. Young people should be made aware that this junk food that they consider to be so ‘cool’ is very harmful for their health.
NAUREEN RASHID
Karachi
I LIKE to listen to music because it inculcates softness in my soul. I feel the soft moon lights up my heart, I like my surroundings and I like the people around me. The students of Jamia Hafsa don't like music; I wouldn't force them to listen to it but rather I would respect their feelings.
But would they reciprocate my forbearance if I say that I don't like their interpretation of Islam? Will they respect my feelings? Absolutely not. And that seems to be one of the differences between music-listening, easy-going person and the vanguards of medieval brand of Islam.
With regard to the events of Islamabad, somebody needs to tell them that this is not helping their cause, rather putting people off. What kind of education are they receiving? Islam teaches us to cover up the sins of people and not propagate them. Has somebody in the teaching staff of Jamia Hafsa ever taught this to their veiled students? We need to tell them that the FM radio they have established and its technology were not invented in Jamia Banori Town or Jamia Al-Azhar. It was the work of somebody who doesn't agree with their faith.
Our rulers are always trigger-happy when it comes to establishing the writ of the government, what has happened to their writ here, just a few miles away from the presidential palace? It is time for the sane elements of society to stop this madness. We cannot afford to let our society drift towards Talibanisation.
BAHADAR ALI KHAN
Toronto, Canada
IN view of your bold and refreshing representation of events back home, I have become totally addicted to reading your paper. I also happen to be a highly concerned citizen from the minority community, presently stationed in England to complete a one-year refresher programme. Being deeply disturbed at the chain of events back home, I hope good sense will prevail all around to ensure early normalcy.
You may agree that nations often prosper when justice through the few learned people in our courts is made available with a high degree of fairness and humility, and not while under fear, false pride or merely to retain and relentlessly promote self-grandeur in that office.
The fact remains that we are still wondering after over half a century as to why there is a subdued approach adopted by the senior and able members of the higher judiciary, whereby they often showed us the wrong direction and on to a path never prescribed by the founder of the nation.
G. FREDRICK
Kent, UK
MY telephone (2568595) has been out of order for the last five months. Although I have lodged a number of complaints with the PTCL, there has not been any response from their side, and the problem persists.
I hope the authorities concerned would do the needful.
MOHAMMAD SALEEM BALOCH
Karachi
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