Dist govt not playing effective role

THE district government is running without the district Nazim who has almost disappeared from the political scene. He has never attended any monthly District Council session, except the inaugural one.

The reasons for the withdrawal of district Nazim Alhaj Jamal Khan Leghari are not clear. But it is a fact that his father and Millat Party chief, Tumandar Farooq Khan Leghari, along with Federal Minister for Telecommunication and Information Technology Awais Khan Leghari are defacto district Nazimeen. The district administration attended at least two meetings at the Nazim House in Choti Zaireen before the byelection, which were unofficially presided over by the Millat Party chief.

It is a matter of record that funds worth millions of rupees could not be utilized due to the alleged negligence of the district Nazim and his team.

On the other hand, district coordination officer Saqib Aleem has also disappointed the people as he could not play an effective role in the uplift of the district despite having authority in many affairs.

Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi presided over a meeting of DCOs and legislators of PML-Q from southern Punjab after assuming the office of chief minister. He directed the DCOs to obey the orders of the legislators of the area. This has created a dilemma for the district administration, whether to act upon the demands and desires of the Legharis of Millat Party or follow the instructions of the legislators of PML-Q. This mismatch is creating problems for the people.

A team of consultants of the Asian Development Bank for south Punjab basic urban services project led by Sara Fatima Azfar visited the district last week. The team conducted a survey of the socio-economic and financial management and assessment of infrastructure institutions.

The team is tasked to take stock of the functioning and needs of administrations of 22 tehsil municipal administrations of south Punjab. In Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur, according to the team leader, they met the staff of TMAs, members of tehsil councils and traders. The team conducted a survey of streetlights, roads, drinking water and solid waste.

The team told Dawn that there was one common problem in all TMAs of Punjab, specially in south Punjab. They had no maps of infrastructure. The operational and maintenance issue of basic civic facility needs to be addressed.

When this correspondent contacted Sara Fatima Azfar, she said the new local government system had potential for the uplift of urban civic facilities as all relevant departments which played a basic role in the establishment and maintenance of basic facilities, had gathered under the umbrella of Tehsil Municipal Administration. Due to this reason, development work could be executed harmoniously, she said.

But facts tell a different story. Dera Ghazi Khan and Taunsa Sharif TMAs could not act harmoniously in removing the hardships of the people. Dera Ghazi Khan is situated on the west-east slope between Sulaiman Range and river Indus. Its sewage system cannot be choked, but the city is facing acute sanitary problems. Last year before the referendum, the governor visited the city and allowed TMA to purchase a sucker machine to run the sewerage system, but it could not buy one. Contaminated water is mixing with drinking water, as the underground sewerage and drinking water pipes are lying side by side. TMA and its representative have failed to provide a neat and clean environment to the dwellers of Dera city. On other hand, corruption charges are being levelled against tehsil Nazim Aasim Zubair Khosa by Naib Nazim Hafiz Khalid Raouf with documentary proof.

Jamaluddin Afghani in a new perspective

MAULANA Jamaluddin Afghani is credited with spearheading the Pan-Islamist Movement and any Muslim leader of his epoch who chose to differ with him has been, by and large, branded a toady of imperialism.

In our Indo-Pakistan subcontinent Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had to bear the brunt of Maulana Afghani’s too subjective a denigration and ‘character- assassination.’ I am afraid that the word ‘character-assassination’ would be deemed a bit atrocious but a study of Maulana Afghani’s Risala Radd-i-Nachuriat and an article Ek Nachuri Musalman should convince one that in denigrating Sir Syed, Maulana Afghani had crossed the limits of propriety. He had called Sir Syed an ‘abominable atheist’ on the basis of self-defined beliefs Firqa-i-Nachuria. Actually there was no such sect as Nachuria in Islam at that time, and if the advocacy of the laws of Nature and scientific outlook was to be condemned, then Maulana Afghani was more scientific in his approach than Sir Syed. Maulana Afghani stood for the abolition of monarchy and its replacement with constitutional government and adoption of the scientific outlook of the West. If that be so, then the question arises what made him so hostile to Sir Syed.

The newly-shared archives about Maulana Afghani’s mercurial dashes from one Muslim country to another throw a new light on the Pan-Islamism of the latter half of the 19th century. Maulana Afghani was definitely a stakeholder in the big power politics of the 19th century. He was on the side of Russia and wanted Iran, Afghanistan and Muslim India to support Russia against the British. Isn’t it curious that Maulana Afghani was fully aware of the imperialistic machinations of Czarist Russia and the brutalities it had committed in the subjugation of the Turkish principalities of Central Asia from the fall of Tashkent (1865) to the fall of Merv (1884). So much blood had been shed by the Russian forces in Central Asia that the British, in spite of their atrocities in the 1857 War of Independence, appeared far less tyrannical in their sins against humanity than the Russians.

One wonders what made Maulana Afghani a sympathizer of Russia that in none of his writings up till his fourth visit of India in 1870 we come across any mention of Russia as a colonial power. All of his fuming and fretting is against Britain and France as if Russia had done nothing wrong on the comparative scale. It was this selective approach that anyone who supported the British had to be an imperialistic agent and hence worth bashing, not only bashing but worth throwing out of the pale of Islam.

Sir Syed got his drubbing by all who favoured Maulana Afghani’s Pan-Islamism forgetting that why this movement didn’t single out Russia as an imperialist power. Was it not a case of deliberately shutting his eyes to the barbarities of Russia? It is not understandable when Central Asian poets of Maulana Afghani’s time such as Khoja Jan Nor Mohammed, Mulla Hali, Ghaib Bardi, Miskeen Qaleech, Kor Mulla, Mir Yaqoob, Daulat Auli and Bek Olu were composing firebrand poems against the Russian invaders in the period 1840-1900, why was it that Maulana Afghani did not take any notice of this anti-Russian fervour.

The archives in Tehran and Ankara prove that it was Maulana Afghani’s failure in India, Iran and Afghanistan which prompted him to move to Istanbul and pass the rest of his life in Turkey. It was during his Turkish sojourn that he dropped his guards against Britain and France and singled out Russia for containment. Why? Because Turkey of those days had come round to believing that Russia was its Enemy Number One. In fact Russia had been Turkey’s Enemy Number One for centuries and Britain had been a traditional friend of Turkey for the last 250 years. Was it a delayed act of choosing Russia as the target of Pan- Islamist concern? Had Britain and France turned friends of the Islamic World by then. Nothing had happened for the situation to take this turn except the sad eventuality that Maulana Afghani was turned out of India, Afghanistan and Iran because none of these countries was prepared to share his concerns against the British. The Muslim India thought that it was too early in the day after 1857 to take on the British with the imaginary collaboration of Afghanistan and Iran. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Sir Amir Ali, Nawab Abdul Latif and Samiullah Khan - important Indian leaders exhorting modern education and a policy of friendship with the British - were not prepared to support any adventurism as the Pan-Islamist movement desired.

New articles on Maulana Afghani in Persian and Turkish research journals, while appreciating Maulana Afghani’s emphasis on constitutionalism and modern education, appear to be suggesting that Maulana Afghani’s befriending the Russians in the first phase of his Movement - which lasted up to 1881-82 - was a flagrant disregard of the Russian danger. The Russians harboured a deep- seated ambition of driving out the British from India. Sir Syed proved himself a visionary and statesman by turning a deaf ear to Maulana Afghani’s salesmanship of Russian collaboration in the second round of adventurism against the British. Hence Maulana Afghani’s well-orchestrated campaign against Sir Syed depicting him to be an enemy of Islam.

Shahid Husain Razzaqi’s book on Maulana Afghani has, to some extent, tried to grasp the reality behind Maulana Afghani’s war of attrition with the Aligarh Movement. It is surprising that very few Muslim intellectuals of that period - and even afterwards -, including Allama Iqbal, were alive to the fact that Maulana Afghani was in league with Czarist Russia. It amounted to his condonation of the Russian conquest of the Central Asian principalities and he saw no harm if India could be yet another ‘diamond’ in the Tiara of Czar’s Crown. His writings are silent on Czarist Russia’s colonial ambitions.

Looking into the poems and articles written by Urdu poets and writers one really wonders whether the eulogies of “Russian designs” of the 19th century could be a productive exercise which our writers have been so keen to take up.

Pakistan’s lack of consistency main concern

THERE is a holier-than-thou self-righteousness about the Darren Lehmann case. If we are honest with ourselves, we have all been guilty of racial vilification in one way or another. It was Lehmann’s misfortune that someone heard him and the mills of moral outrage started to grind and ultimately a five-match ban was slapped on him. He must now go through life branded as a condemned racist.

Lehmann gave vent to his feelings in an honest way. He is a white man, a product of a system of values of a white community. What is bred in the bones must come out in the flesh.

I have no doubt that the Sri Lankans in their private feelings have much the same opinion of the white man as Lehmann has of the blacks. No community or society is free of bigotry and it is impossible to legislate against bigotry.

The ICC code of conduct against racial vilification is the equivalent of a commandment against sin. Racism is a fact of life, admittedly an ugly fact, but racism is about what is in one’s’ heart. Racism can even be affectionate.

George Headley, the great West Indian batsman was called “the black Bradman” and Allan Donald “white lightning.” When I played cricket for a club in Hastings, I was a favourite with the supporters of my club and when I would go into bat, some of them would cheer: “Go on Darkie,’ have a bash.” They liked me, loved me but they never made me forget that the colour of my skin was brown.

With the World Cup round the corner, giving so much prominence to racial vilification will accentuate the negative. To the strident nationalism that will be unleashed, one more divisive factor will be introduced. I am sure Darren Lehmann was ashamed of his outburst, made in the heat of battle. That seems punishment enough.

This seems to be a troubled World Cup. Hopefully, the matter of playing matches in Zimbabwe has been resolved but it has left a bitter taste. Whether the England team will shake hands with Robert Mugabe or not has acquired a symbolic importance. It is a way of making a political statement.

It may be entirely possible that Mugabe may not want to shake hands with England and Australian players. So what? Perhaps, all concerned should wear gloves while shaking hands. That way, no one will be infected.

Then there is the matter of the contracts row concerning Indian players and the pay-dispute of Sri Lankan team. Why has all this not been resolved earlier? It is mind-boggling. Instinctively one finds oneself on the side of the players. They are the ones who create the wealth.

Theoretically, cricket boards are not business concerns nor is the ICC. Their job is to promote the game of cricket and the bottom-line is not to show a profit. But cricket, like other games, has created a bureaucracy and to maintain this bureaucracy, costs a great deal of money. And we find ourselves in a vicious cycle.

The players need the cricket boards and the cricket boards need the players and with so much money in the game, thanks to sponsors, conflict of interest is bound to arise. Australian players are paid far more than Sri Lankan players, for example. But they do the same job. But this injustice is not confined to cricket or any other game. Like racism, it is a fact of life.

Pakistan had a horrendous tour of South Africa as did India of New Zealand and Sri Lanka has crashed out of the triangular in Australia. Each of these teams, it is hoped, has learnt some hard lessons. In conditions that are unfamiliar, there is a need for adjustment and the best way of doing so is to go back to the basics.

But Australia considered to be invincible, and an odds-on favourite for the World Cup, does not quite have the bench-strength that we imagined it had. Without Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, the bowling may not be pedestrian but it lacks sharpness and the batting, without Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting is not as menacing.

Most of all, I think that Australia is missing Steve Waugh, his steely resolve and ice-man temperament. He would have been to this Australian team what Imran Khan had been to the Pakistani team in 1992 and what Arjuna Ranatunga was to Sri Lanka in 1996. Cricket is a team game but a team needs leadership, a safe port in a storm.

Besides, Australia is already feeling the pressure of being the favourites. Its performance in the tri-series has been scratchy. I think it’s going to be a wide-open World Cup.

But my concern is Pakistan, the lack of consistency in a very talented team. Pakistan will need Wasim Akram to be on top of his game and Shoaib Akhtar to be at his explosive best, not in one or two games but throughout the tournament. And runs are due from Inzamam-ul-Haq. A batsman of his class should not be getting out to careless shots after he has done all the hard work.

There is no reason why Pakistan cannot win the World Cup. But this can be said of other teams as well. In the end, it will be about remaining focused. That’s what should be drilled in the Pakistan team. Winning is hard work.