| May 01, 2007 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1428 |
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No threat from within
Denigrating Pakistanis
Conserving energy
Misrepresentation of history
Broken drains
Buses arrival delayed
New port
Lawyers
Gandhi’s remark
No good can come out of it
Damaged roads
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 your editorial entitled ‘The politics of exile’ (April 27). That the interim Bangladeshi government revisited its controversial decision is indeed praiseworthy, though prompted by reported visa denial by authorities of conventional destinations. However, in view of public importance of the issue, and in the context of Article 4 regarding constitutional obligations, I would like to draw the attention of your esteemed readers and lawmakers to its legal dimensions which have somehow not been highlighted in the public domain. In the context of colonial rule in the subcontinent, the word exile essentially reminds us of transportation, which was one of the many punishments laid down in the Indian Penal Code 1860 and enforced by dumping convicts in one of the Pacific colonies. The punishment (also known as kala pani) was executed after giving a right to trial in a sessions court, preceded by an open magisterial inquiry that endorsed the substance of allegations established by police investigations.
The accused could demand a trial by jury as a right. The punishment awarded would be reviewed by a division bench of the high court and eventually sealed by the Privy Council, in the House of Lords, where an appeal was filed if the mercy petition also failed. At the relevant time, fundamental constitutional rights were not admissible to crown subjects. After independence our very first parliament deleted this punishment and instead adopted the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) with appropriate adaptations, as was done in India. In 1971 the Bangladesh government retained the basic structure of our penal code. It was no longer possible to reinvent 'transportation' of any form, until a country has colonies of its own; individual consents. Even when voluntary, it was not possible to re-introduce this discarded punishment.
The only option to expel a person, including a citizen, from national boundaries after 1947 is through 'extradition' to a country that has subsisting reciprocal treaty obligations. However, to invoke that dispensation, a local inquiry into alleged offence(s) followed by judicial scrutiny is mandatory. An agreement with a detente would not dispense with Article 10 regarding constitutional obligations. There are no shortcuts for the movement of arrested persons within various districts or provinces, much less expelling them to other countries, even if they are foreigners on our soil.
Further, an agreement not enforceable in a law court is not worth the paper on which it is inscribed. For enforcement in a court, it has to qualify to be a contract as defined in the Contract Act 1872. Any instrument agreement effected through alleged coercion, threat or inducement is void ab initio. Also, an agreement to do an illegal act by legal means or to do a legal act by illegal means would not constitute a contract.
In this view of the matter, Article 4 dictates all 'ignocents' should understand the implications of supporting exile or any such expedient. Those under constitutional oath may wish to learn from the Bangladesh government's retreat by revisiting the text of their oaths, which were signed under the glare of the media, and opt to act wisely before it is too late. The dormant mischief of Article 6 and the current judicial crisis cannot be ignored for too long.
KH. ZAHEER AHMED
Advocate, High Court
Islamabad
THIS refers to Mr Shyam's letter ‘Pakistan at a crossroads’ (April 27). I would like to disagree with the writer and reject his notion that there is a threat to Pakistan's internal stability from a group of religiously-motivated individuals.
It is impossible to make a correct assessment sitting far away on a sofa in the confines of your apartment in your chosen country with the airconditioner running at your desired cooling level and a favourite soft drink by your side.
One must always take into consideration all the ground realities. The general perception among the masses in Pakistan is very clear that the issue of Lal Masjid is being used as a means to achieve a certain end; hence there is no truth in the fact that we are facing any threat from within.
India claims to be the largest secular democracy in the world. The truth is that religious extremism also exists in India, but the difference is that we do not sit and watch the destruction of Babri Masjid and start killing people of other faiths.
We would never tolerate fellow humans being burnt to death or allow RSS and BJP workers to dishonour and abuse women like they did in the Gujarat massacre.
Our government does not take action on places of worship like the Indian government did when the Golden Temple was attacked.
The list is long but I am sure Mr Shyam will remember the golden rule that one should only worry about one's own country.
Islam teaches us to analyse our behaviour and correct our mistakes before pointing fingers at others. May peace be with you and may good sense prevail.
S. NAVEED AHMED
Kowloon, Hong Kong
I cannot help but reply to ‘A Reader’ from Karachi who wrote the letter (April 27) with the above title. First, I would like to say that if the writer really had the conviction of his views, he would not have written the letter under a pen name.
Second, I would like to dispute his assertions that Ardeshir Cowasjee denigrated Pakistanis in his column. The reader is perhaps writing under the assumption that only Muslims are Pakistanis. That is not the Pakistan of Jinnah.
Mr Cowasjee is a Pakistani and chooses to live in his home country despite the dangers that speaking the truth entails there. When he says that we are "living amidst the uncouth yahoos and rowdies who greatly outnumber us", one only has to read the newspapers to understand what he is talking about.
The uncouth yahoos who sit in our parliament, supposedly to safeguard the rights of Pakistanis, are actually only safeguarding the rights and wrongs of the rowdies of Lal Masjid and their ilk.
We should learn to laugh at our nation’s shortcomings, but for that we would have to accept them first.
To compare the philanthropic efforts of the Muslim Dawoods to those of the Zoroastrians was perhaps the last nail in the coffin of the letter writer's bad taste.
Maybe he should compare the number of Muslims living in Pakistan to the number of Zoroastrians.
Where does Muslim philanthropy in Pakistan stand now? Let’s learn to appreciate those who do good in our country without looking at their religious affiliations After all, there aren’t that many who do good there to begin with anyway.
BUSHRA A. QAMAR
Georgia, USA
THIS refers to Shakir Lakhani’s letter, ‘It can be done’ (April 23), which refers to an earlier letter of April 19. May I suggest another method of conservation.
Instead of the torturous loadshedding, why not limit the power available to each consumer by an equitable, workable formula. For example, a residential unit of say three bedrooms (or worked on the covered area) be provided a limited load of 5Kw by means of a sealed cut-off switch, the tampering with which should be treated as much a criminal offence as tampering with the meter.
This limit should allow the use of one airconditioner and a reasonable number of other appliances. An external switch could be provided to switch back on the power after cutting off the excess appliances which caused the cut-off switch to trip with the excess load.
When using generators/UPSs, there is a limit in any case. Larger residential units can be proportionately allowed higher limited loads. Similar formulae can be worked out for commercial users.
For the richer and more extravagant segments of society who wish to use more appliances, there is the option to cover the additional load required by them through generators, which could be done by segmenting the power cables in the premises between the main lines and those provided by the generator.
RAFI AHMED
Karachi
IN a chapter entitled ‘India and the West’ (The Oxford History Project, Book 3; page 80), Peter Moss writes: “The Hindus themselves were deeply divided by the caste system and until 1707 persecuted by their Mogul rulers, who were fanatical Muslims.”
I take objection to this. Peter Moss needs to educate himself significantly about the Mughal rulers. To group them all together as fanatics shows poor critical analysis and indeed sheer ignorance.
I am further surprised by how this unqualified and biased statement has been overlooked by the OUP. How can our children study our subcontinent’s history accurately if their very textbooks sound unmistakably prejudiced?
Surely labelling an entire era as ‘fanatical’ is unjustified. I concur that particular rulers of this dynasty were overzealous, but what about Akbar and Shah Jehan?
Why are dynasties of other religions not labelled ‘fanatical’? Has this word forever become synonymous with Islam and reserved for Muslims alone? A historian’s creed calls for objectivity and transparency, above all. It is a shame that Peter Moss does not practise this and that the OUP does not care to check for it.
NOREEN MIRZA
Karachi
ENCROACHMENTS along Gujjar Nullah from Shafique Morr to Piala Hotel in North Nazimabad town are fast developing. Blockage of sewerage lines is a serious issue, in addition to electricity and water problems.
The whole drainage system is broken at different points to get unauthorised connections which disrupted the sewage flow.
Besides, natural outlets for rainwater have been closed by wall-to-wall construction along the nullah which creates heavy pools of stagnant water on surrounding streets.
Will the authorities concerned look into the matter before the rainy season sets in.
AZHAR ARIF
Karachi
APROPOS of the report ‘Delay in the arrival of buses’ (April 19), the Karachi city government has said that the arrival of the first consignment of 250 buses, out of 8,000, has been delayed. It is also confirmed that no new bus has been added to the transportation fleet since 2001.
Several questions arise. It adequately establishes that the government cares very little for the low- and middle-income groups who use buses.
The capacity of the government to ensure smooth implementation of a procurement plan is also very limited. This raises the further question about the competence of the government to build the various mega projects that it is harping for long.
And it also raises the issue that we cannot manufacture enough buses for our needs. We have to acquire them from India.
This is quite unbecoming for a nuclear power that claims to manufacture and proudly displays ‘sophisticated’ weapon systems and ammunition of sorts and also exports the same to the world. Anyone listening in the power echelons?
I.R. QURESHI
Karachi
THE ministry of ports and shipping has announced new and fourth port. This has been proposed by the KPT. The project is not very essential at this point of time as the Karachi Port remains unutilised and its occupancy is less than 50 per cent.
So is the Port Qasim, but a little better. Gwadar, with impromptu inauguration, has only helped the land mafia to induce innocent buyers whilst there is no port operation -- the port may be operative by 2008/09 for sub-business, with second-hand gantry.
Growth of container last year was 18 per cent, which is now hardly four per cent. Rice export is stagnant and trade deficit may swell to $15 billion.
The Allaudin Port will be an environmental disaster as the proposed site is protected for fish haven and birds.
The president and the prime minister must intervene to stop such projects and instead concentrate on utilising the existing ports to their optimum capacity. It appears all such announcements are politically-motivated.
SAEED GHANI RIZVI
Karachi
IN his letter (‘Putting hope in lawyers’, April 25), Aslam Minhas has put all his hope in lawyers. Hasn’t he read the following couplet by Akbar Allahabadi? Paida hua vakil to Shaitaan naay kaha Lo aaj hum bhi sahibe aulad ho gaey
NUSRAT BEG
Ottawa, Canada
MR PRANAV Sachdeva has merely tried to control the damage caused by the remarks of Rahul Gandhi regarding his family's role in the splitting of Pakistan in 1971 by attributing it to his immaturity (April 20).
However, this spin is belied by several facts. First, that after the event, his grandmother, who was the prime minister of India at the time, had triumphantly declared that the two-nation theory, which said Hindus and Muslims were separate nations, had been sunk in the Bay of Bengal. Her father Jawaharlal Nehru can, in turn, as the first PM, be credited with the occupation of several independent territories, as an indicator of his intentions, to be carried ahead by his daughter after him.
Thus, the then foreign minister of Pakistan had made an observation, according to a report of Dec 8, 1956, while strongly supporting the immediate creation of a permanent UN police force to protect smaller nations. "The first person who will oppose the creation of such a force will be Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, because it does not suit his policies" of aggression, which manifested themselves in Kashmir, Hyderabad, Junagadh, Manavadar, Mangrol and Pondicherry, he had said Dawn, Dec 8, 2006).
Mr Noon continued that Mr Nehru "is definitely out to destroy smaller countries" and wished to establish "a brown imperialism in Asia" by creating a vacuum into which he can walk. Also, that his support of Russian aggression in Hungary was because of his own aggression in Kashmir. It may be further noted that Goa was annexed thereafter, in 1962, while his daughter Indira Gandhi was responsible for gobbling up Sikkim during the early 1980s, after breaking Pakistan. Unfortunately for her, the newly independent Bangladesh did not opt to merge into India, thereby leaving her family's greater dream unfulfilled.
The second fact, as again noted in the "50 Years Ago Today" column (Feb. 13), was presented way back in 1957 by a politician from East Pakistan, Mr. Hamidul Haq Chowdhury of the United Front party. He revealed in a speech lasting two hours that Pakistan's enemies were working "to absorb East Pakistan into India and that a political party of West Bengal had publicly declared that that was its aim, and that this party had political allies in (the rest of) India.
Third, beginning with Mr Nehru, the Indian leaders were never serious about resolving the Kashmir issue, as also pointed out about him by the then American president Kennedy to Ayub Khan during his state visit to Pakistan in 1962.
Qudratullah Shahab had noted in his memoirs Shahab Nama, that after a banquet, president Ayub asked Kennedy: "Mr President, you have good relations with India. Couldn't you use your influence to have our Kashmir dispute resolved?" Kennedy smiled sheepishly and said: 'We have tried, Mr President. When we mention Kashmir dispute, Mr Nehru hangs his head down, looks at the toes of his shoe and keeps looking at them (and does not answer). What can you do about such a man?" (Letter, June 29, 2005).
This line of thinking was further reinforced by Indian opposition leader L. K. Advani when he declared last year that when India had held 93,000 Pakistani POWs after the 1971 war over Bangladesh, it should have resolved the Kashmir dispute by bargaining over them. He has conveniently forgotten that Pakistan could easily have taken Kashmir when India was busy fighting China in 1962.
A top leader of the BJP had also said about a year ago that his party did not accept the twonation theory. All of the foregoing should leave no illusions in anybody's mind as to what the Indian politicians have been trying to do since 1947.
HAFIZULLAH
Karachi
POLITICALLY apathetic, I have never felt the need to write to any newspaper or periodical.
Recently, however, a very poignant incident deeply aggrieved me. One of my friends, who had decided to spend the Easter break with his family, was robbed at his residence in Karachi.
The tragedy was painful on its own but the attitude of our law-enforcement agencies intensified it.
I wonder how helpful Madadgar can be if it takes five hours for a policeman to show up.
The visiting inspector wanted thanda (a cold drink) on arrival and his lack of interest in the situation only supported the belief that, like always, the culprits will go unpunished.
I wonder where our beloved Karachi is headed. Cellphone snatching has been increasing exponentially.
The crime rate is accelerating. If not earlier, may be now is the perfect time for the government to analyse the situation and take remedial steps accordingly.
Unlike Ayaz Amir (column, March 30), I obviously fear my fate now after mentioning the issues facing the masses and not just mentioning about a cousin.
The answer to his article is easy: no good can come out of it. Not for us at least, as we are merely citizens of Pakistan.
ZAWAR MUNAWAR
London, UK
ALMOST all main roads and service roads in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar are damaged, causing extreme mental torture to the residents.
These roads also cause damage to vehicles, lead to increase in fuel consumption as a result of massive traffic jams.
The main roads coming in Gulistan-i-Jauhar from Jauhar Morr, University Road and from airport through Rabia City, Jauhar Chowrangi, Safari Park Road are not suitable for any vehicles.
The green belts are allocated for garbage collection which also burns at the spot causing extensive air pollution. It causes nasal allergy, respiratory tract infection, asthma, bronchial carcinoma, etc.
The damaged roads and traffic jams are a source of mental irritation and high blood pressure that can lead to heart diseases.
Some of the roads are also filled with overflowing sewage that makes it difficult for nearby residents and passersby to breathe in the presence of foul smell.
DR S.M. QAISAR SAJJAD
Karachi
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