| April 13, 2008 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1429 |
To send a letter to the Editor
Click here
Renaming the NWFP
Cheap energy
Tulip garden
Student terror
Tibet demos
Jinnah’s Pakistan
Empty minds
Send a message into the future
Whither the PCCC
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 Ahmad Faruqui’s article, ‘Rethinking defence’ (April 7). The writer has contended that there is no nuclear dividend reaped by Pakistan vis-à-vis India. I will point out at the outset that since 1971 India has not invaded Pakistan, why? Not because of India’s love for Pakistan.
There were two very critical moments when India’s invasion had become inevitable, one was at the time of Kargil and for a second time in 2002 when India had massed its two million-strong army on the border of Pakistan. It was an eyeball to eyeball confrontation, still India chose not to attack Pakistan despite its preponderance in armour and air.
I ask Mr Faruqui what stopped India from its misadventure, the answer is simple. Indians didn’t want to get vapourised. The writer has discussed strategy and grand strategy and emphasised that the principle of war should be discussed in the parliament.
I am sorry to inform Mr Faruqui that our parliamentarians are not so serious-minded as to understand Clauswitz, Moltke, Sen Tsu, Monty or Rommel or to grasp the difference between tactics, strategy and grand strategy.
They don’t have the capability to even decide whether to restore the judges or to let Pervez Musharraf mark his time in the presidency. They are too scared to impeach the beleaguered president, let alone decide to wage a war against another country.
Mr Nehru, without understanding the implication of Himalayan terrain, had ordered the Indian army to evict Chinese from Thag La Ridge in NEFA in 1962. This was a gross miscalculation by the Indian prime minister who always thought he was either an Aristotle or Socrates.
The net result was the India army was humbled by the Chinese. WW-1, WW-2, Korea, Vietnam and recently Iraq and Afghanistan wars, all were conceived and directed by civilians. Millions perished, where was the brilliance of civilian mind.
It is true that Bhutto and Dr Qadir initiated the case to acquire nuclear capability but the army also played a pivotal role in its acquisition. In a nutshell, it is a fact that whatever the fault of the army, it is the most organised institution in Pakistan, we should not demean it.
SAFIR A. SIDDIQI
Karachi
(II)
THIS is apropos of the articles, ‘What’s minimum deterrence’ by Ayesha Siddiqa (April 4), ‘Rethinking defence’ by Ahmad Faruqi (April 7), ‘Resource geopolitics and security’ by Zeenia Satti (April 8), ‘The supremacy myth’ by Cyril Ameida (April 8), ‘No good blaming Pakistan’ by Tariq Amin Khan (April 9) and the letter, ‘Two gains, two pains’, by Khalid Naqshbandi (April 6).
Most of these pertain to the defence and geopolitics of Pakistan.
I am surprised at the naivete shown by Ms Siddiqa in some of her arguments. For instance, she says: “The days of territorial invasion are over. An Indian government will be ... stupid if it tries to threaten Pakistan’s security. Furthermore, ... the international community will (not) allow India or anyone else to jeopardise Pakistan’s security.”
She has also advised that the order for F-I6s should be cancelled and the plan for a new GHQ is shelved: the money saved should be spent on building schools and hospitals.
Perhaps she has forgotten how Israel had invaded Lebanon in 2006 with the active help of the US and the UK, how Afghanistan and Iraq have been occupied directly by western forces and Somalia overrun by Ethiopia, mainly with American support and how Iran is being threatened with military attacks by the US, Israel and even France?
Also, India’s nexus with Israel and Afghanistan, machinations against Pakistan, claim of Kashmir being its inseparable part and the maltreatment of Indian Muslims.
It would be very foolish to depend on these very powers to save Pakistan. They had looked the other way during the Gujarat pogrom and intervened during the standoff with India only to prevent a nuclear war but would not hesitate to let Pakistan go down if or when it suits their game plan.
The wonderful article by Zeenia Satti reveals just such plans and is a great eye-opener that must be read extremely carefully by Ms Siddiqa, Mr Faruqi and everybody connected with the country’s security. Likewise, the write-up by Mr Amin Khan is quite enlightening. But, I heartily agree that savings should be made wherever possible, such as in the case of GHQ, if it is not really required.
Mr Almeida seems to be an enthusiastic supporter of America’s ‘war on terror’ and would do well to carefully peruse the last two articles cited in the preceding paragraph.
I. RAHIM
Karachi
THE issue of changing the name of the NWFP has surfaced again as it does after every four or five years. It began by a single sentence of Dawn’s Feb 28 editorial which has been commented upon by a number of people in these columns. This debate has brought me back from my hibernation. I too have to say something.
Almost everybody, including myself, agrees to the change of the name of the NWFP, but to what name, that is the question. Many countries such as Burkina Faso, Zambia and Zimbabwe have shed off their old names.
Also the names of the cities like Ho Chi Minh, Dhaka, Jakarta, Harare, Mumbai, Chinnai, Kolkata, Faisalabad, Sahiwal and Chenab Nagar have been renamed by their town councils, municipal corporations or local governments. Even the roads have been renamed. Karachi’s McLeod Road has become I. I. Chundrigar Road.
Most places are known by the names of rivers and valleys like the Indus, the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris and the Huang Ho. ‘Abbassin’, a river or ‘Khyber’, a pass (or Khyberan, it does not matter if it is a plural of Khyber), could just as well be the name of the Frontier as Sindh (the River Indus) is the name of the province of Sindh.
Abbassin is nature’s gift – full of life, serenity and beauty whereas Khyber or Khyberan sounds majestic and has a great historical value. The Frontier people seem to have accepted ‘Khyber’ as they have opened a bank and TV channel by the names of Bank of Khyber and Khyber TV.
Changing the name of any place is not much difficult. You pass a unanimous resolution and announce the change – like Rhodesia decided to bifurcate itself into Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia which later were named Zambia and Zimbabwe.
In case of the Frontier, all members of the provincial assembly have to agree on one name, pass a resolution, move it through the National Assembly, the Senate and finally to the president who will announce it.
In case they do not agree on one name, they have to take all possible alternatives, shortlist them to two and go for a referendum.
S. M. KAZIM NAQVI
Karachi
I READ with great interest an article in the Financial Times on an experiment in producing biofuel from the nut of a shrub-like tree called the jatropha.
Unlike biofuels made from crops such as soybeans and maize, jatropha is inedible, grows on non-arable land and needs little water or care.
Jatropha produces three times more oil per hectare than soybeans, about 4kg of jatropha nuts yielding a litre of oil.
It is far less polluting than fossil fuels, can create jobs in remote areas, does not divert arable land or food crops to fuel and can be used by the rural population to run farm machinery and even generate electricity. Countries such as South Africa, Ghana, Brazil and Madagascar have jatropha projects.
The Indian state of Chattisgarh runs its entire fleet of some forty cars, jeeps and other vehicles on jatropha oil and India is trying to launch one of the biggest jatropha biofuel projects by spending $375 million over five years to plant 1.2 million acres of jatropha across India and research the crop’s viability as a biofuel.
If the experiment is successful, the government would aim at 30 million acres of jatropha plantations and seek to commercialise cultivation.
India has 148 million acres of non-arable land and if even 10 per cent is cultivated for jatropha, the country could produce four to five million tons of bio-diesel a year, equivalent to 10 per cent of current diesel demand.
If a significantly larger percentage of non-arable land proves to be cultivable for jatropha, it could change the face of the economy.
I would have thought that parts of Balochistan, Thar and Cholistan among others were ideal for growing jatropha. With some luck, our government is already on to the joys of jatropha, but if it is not, it needs to get cracking on this unique nut.
M.K. HUSSAIN
Karachi
THE April 10 issue of Dawn carried a beautiful picture of a tulip garden in Srinagar that was inaugurated last month and is said to have 1.2 million tulip bulbs planted in it to woo tourists to the region.
As a lover of nature, this image was a feast for my eyes, for we have nothing like it in Karachi.
However, it also made me sad, for it brought to mind some painful facts about Kashmir.
A couple of years ago, a member of European Union parliamentarians’ delegation that had visited this Indian-held Kashmir had said: “Kashmir is the most beautiful prison in the world.”
Now on April 8 the Human Rights Watch has called on the UN Human Rights Council to insist that the Indian government should hold members of its security forces responsible for the killings, torture, disappearances and other abuses in Kashmir and other parts of India.
Before that, there was the news that nearly 1,000 unmarked graves have been found in occupied Kashmir that are suspected to be of the disappeared Kashmiris.
The local people have been agitating for the past several days to get an independent inquiry conducted in order to find out the identity of those buried in these graves.
Bernard Shaw had written: “The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for Him there.”
Unfortunately, in the vast garden and ‘paradise on Earth’ that is Kashmir, instead of ‘finding’ God, we are more likely to find bodies of poor natives killed in fake encounters with, or tortured to death by, India’s 700,000 security personnel.
A much better and humane way to attract tourists to the region would be to respect the freedom and other rights of the Kashmiris and resolve this old conflict according to their aspirations.
KHALID NAQSHBANDI
Karachi
A STUDENT of a topmost government college in Karachi has complained of facing the same derogatory and terrorising treatment (April 10) that was meted to fellow students in the late 1980s, and later one of our erstwhile prime ministers pulled the ban on student unions.
Although one can only sympathise with Umar Farooq Khan on being physically abused, the incident is of specific import with respect to the current government’s decision regarding the lifting of the ban on student unions.
Now, as then, these gun-totting teenagers, aloof in their self-perceived ideas of machoism and grandeur, continue to resort to violence of the most unbecoming kind with fellow classmates and teachers as their targets.
From this and other incidents, it is evident that the mental outlook of the students has not changed in the last 20 years when instead of being involved in studies they kept busy manning the gates to their institutes, preparing lists of fellow classmates who were to be beaten up just because they talk to people from a different ethnic background and other meaningless ‘union activities’.
The recent lifting of a ban on student unions should be seen in this light, and the government should first try to cultivate some civic sense in these supposed future political leaders of ours.
That is a painstaking and time-consuming exercise. Merely lifting bans is not going to work.
The idea may sound appealing to the less than five per cent of students studying in elite private colleges, who in any case have ample opportunities to ‘express’ themselves, but for the majority who are at the receiving end of this unsolicited violence, it is nothing but organised terror often leading to permanent mental, let alone physical, scarring of the victims.
HASAN BIN HAMZA
Australia
PRESENT isolated demonstrations in parts of Tibet and Beijing have a very clear signs of involvement of some foreign hands, which planned these demos, but were exposed by their own media.
The only purpose is clearly to sabotage Beijing’s efforts to organise Olympic games in a much grand manners to highlight China’s economic and technological progress, which is a source of serious worries for many across the globe.
Historically, Tibet is under nominal Chinese rule since 1700. From 1979, leadership in Beijing adopted a more liberal and pragmatic policy towards Tibet.
Traditional agriculture, livestock, and trading practices were restored under the 1980 slogan “Relax, Relax, and Relax again”.
A number of older political leaders and rebels were rehabilitated or pardoned. In addition, more tolerant attitude was adopted towards Lamaism (temples damaged during 1965-68 cultural revolution are being repaired).
Present Dalai Lama’s deputy, the Panchem Lama, has cooperated with Chinese throughout the period.
The West and the US have suddenly woken up to Tibetans’ human rights, only to divert world attention from the USA’s and NATO countries’ own dismal human rights record in Iraq (Abu Ghraib), Afghanistan and the notorious Guantanamo Bay.
ABID MAHMUD ANSARI
Islamabad
IF Jinnah came back to life, he would be shocked to see what happened to Pakistan that he had created. There is no faith, unity and discipline.
There are too many political parties struggling for power. The victim of this mess is the common man. Hunger and starvation is knocking at his door. Pakistan rupee has become almost like a toilet paper with little purchasing power.
Industries of essential services (like electricity and telephone) have been sold to foreigners.
MANSAB ALI KHAN
Karachi
US sailor held in Tokyo over murder (April 4). The US military has been maintaining its presence in Japan since the end of World War II.
Some of these soldiers were also arrested on different occasions for crime against Japanese women.
The probable reason for such crimes appears to be what is known as an empty mind is the devil’s workshop.
Z.A. KAZMI
Karachi
WHILE we continue to wage war and other unspeakable horrors upon ourselves on a daily basis, some of us could perhaps take some time out from our busy schedules of non-stop violence to check out what the rest of the world is doing.
I urge all those desirous of some good news to check out KEO. KEO is a space satellite project supported by Unesco, and the European Space Agency, among others. The plan is to send messages from all of earth’s human inhabitants to humans 50,000 years later, when the satellite will fall out of orbit. Humans (if we’re still around then!) will read the messages we send now. The satellite has enough room to carry four pages of text for each of the earth’s four billion humans. It invites people from all over the world to submit their message for our future descendants. The name ‘KEO’ is composed of the three sounds most common to all the languages of earth... k, e and o. Just type KEO on google or Wikipedia and find out more.
Incredible! I cannot cease to marvel at the forward thinking and positive imagination of civilised societies and where they wish to go. Where do we wish to go? Heaven?
HUSNAIN LOTIA
Karachi
THE Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) emerged under the Cotton Cess Act of the Government of Pakistan 1948 in 1949, with headquarters at Karachi. The minister for food and agriculture acts as its president. The committee was given a mandate to bring about “improvement and development of the growing, marketing and manufacture of cotton in Pakistan”, including the part what is now Bangladesh.
Interestingly, the foundation stone of the Pakistan Institute of Cotton Research and Technology at PCCC headquarters was laid by none other than the late Khwaja Nazimuddin, the then governor-general of Pakistan, and the formal inauguration of the new building was done by the late Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, the then prime minister.
Since then, the world’s top cotton breeders, technologists and the other dignitaries visited and applauded the achievements of the PCCC, as the visitors’ book shows today.
Unfortunately, about two years ago the spacious and leased land on which the PCCC and its laboratories stood for over five decades was chosen for relocation of the US consulate in Karachi, the building of which is now in full swing.
No second thought was ever given by the relevant authorities at what they were going to do and no other option was explored to save the PCCC. Having left with no choice, the PCCC yielded to the despotic action of the ministry of ports and shipping and the ministry of food and agriculture, which is supposed to look after the interests of the PCCC and cotton crop in the country.
The PCCC, having no other alternative, vacated the designated plot of land with all its structures and is now temporarily housed in a commercial plaza on Sharea Faisal, which has been designed more to house commercial concerns than to house any research institute or research organisation.
The PCCC’s majestic building on M.T. Khan Road, Karachi, was a source of joy to every passerby and the motorists passing through this road.
Now that the new regime is said to be looking into the wrongs done in the past 10 years, the ministries concerned may like to take a fresh look into the unfortunate case of the PCCC for its redressal.
The committee is said not to have got a dime in the bounty received by the KPT in the deal. Such a wanton use of discretion or power by the authorities involved needs not only a thorough probe, but the PCCC has also to be fully compensated by the authorities concerned for sacrificing its own interests founded by the national heroes.
The PCCC need not be left to found its shore. It should be helped at the earliest to build its own building and to rehabilitate itself at the earliest in the interest of cotton and cotton fibre research. The policy of rob Peter to pay Paul should be condemned.
M. SHAFIQUE AHMED
Karachi
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.
