Fourth estate, fifth columnist & an alternative view: DATELINE NEW DELHI
IMTIAZ Alam’s free media movement for South Asian journalists (SAFMA) began its bumpy ride in Islamabad in July 2000. Its first meeting began in the august company of Messrs K. R. Malkani and Tarun Vijay, representing India’s Hindu nationalist point of view. It also had people like Dilip Padgaonkar, Vinod Mehta, Prem Shankar Jha among the luminaries, representing New Delhi’s more subtle but still strident nationalist face.
By the time we met albeit inconveniently in Kathmandu, sacrificing a New Year’s evening with our families, all of the above leading lights had deserted the movement, some to press home their nationalism, others to welcome 2002 in more bacchanalian environs. Remember that the choice of Kathmandu as the venue for the second SAFMA conference was an afterthought, when other senior members from India had expressed their inability to host the meeting in New Delhi because of alleged tensions between India and Pakistan, which they saw several weeks, mind you, before the world changed with the events of Sept 11.
To allay standard Indian fears of ISI funding for the SAFMA conference, Imtiaz, always a tenacious campaigner, got out the money from an unusual, if a thoroughly impeccable source — the United Nations itself — who picked up the $93,000 bill for the Kathmandu meet. That the budget overshot by about $10,000 because of a circuitous route the Pakistan delegates had to take to Kathmandu, thanks to the Indian ban on PIA flights, was small beer compared to the enormity of the squandered opportunities witnessed at the conference that went ahead anyway, even with a hurried, less impressive Indian contingent.
The problem with any conference involving South Asian or Saarc representatives, including media conferences, is that they get inevitably overshadowed by the domineering presence of Indian and Pakistani teams and their exclusively bilateral love-hate agenda. This has also been true of SAFMA conferences. There was that hugely familiar wrangling for the right words in Kathmandu that went into the final declaration; the wrangling happened between India and Pakistan with barely an input worth noting from others. The three-day-long discussions too almost overlooked the presence of very senior and respected journalists from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. By all accounts the press in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is as open and free as, if not more than, its Indian and Pakistan counterparts. Nepal is also quickly learning to flirt with the theory of free media if not its practice yet. So what goes wrong at these meetings that we have to go back again and again to the same basic (some would say airy fairy) issues each time we meet, without getting anything concrete in return from these discussions?
One strong feeling that flows out at the end of these and similar meetings is that the media in South Asia, as in most other countries of the world today, is not truly free. Much of the media corps is tied to the apron strings of their respective governments, or to the state itself or to a dominant ideology, which in the last few years has seen a clear and unmistakable rightward lurch. Rightwing media is conducive to, and derives benefits from, free-market ideologies.
Newspapers and television channels would be nowhere as prosperous, a key objective of most proprietors, had they continued to pamper and support an untenable socialist command economy. This contention can be easily verified in our part of the globe. In such a scenario, issues such as peace and democracy, strictly relative terms at best of times, get even more marginalized. Peace as interpreted by the mainstream media can be more easily hammered out within a society by bludgeoning it with a sinister legal mechanism and by giving the police the role of judge and jury.
The function of anti-terrorist laws promulgated recently in most South Asian countries, usually through state decrees and rarely through parliament, have the support of dominant sections of the media. The media in India that people like Imtiaz Alam want to deal with has by and large supported the draconian anti- terror ordinance POTO, ostensibly meant to crush religious terrorism and, as Prime Minister Vajpayee said, economically motivated groups too, thereby targeting trade unions and Maoist groups also.
Most South Asian media, including the one in Pakistan, periodically connive with the state to help attain what Noam Chomsky calls the manufacturing of consent. The “national mood” which the media claims to reflect with such casual ease is a duplicitous ploy to manufacture this consent. In a worst-case scenario, a hysterical media would go to the extent of supporting the use of nuclear weapons to defend their motherlands, all in the name of national mood. This was the phrase used in Nazi Germany in the early 1930s. The team that Imtiaz Alam had collected represented both categories, the hawks and the poor namby-pamby peaceniks that the other side is made out to be by their own strident clued-in-with-the-reality- of-statecraft- colleagues.
The horrifying reality of the so-called mainstream media in South Asia is that they hardly ever give any space to stories that do not vibe with their free-market philosophies. The tendency is to prefer five cover stories in a year that take a critical look on slimming and weight reduction clinics, for example, almost to the complete or relative exclusion of people starving to death due to drought or poverty. There is a complete mismatch within the media’s stated objectives to raise public consciousness on social issues and their quest to excel in market-moving stories. The national mood of the Horlicks-drinking class and thereby advertising friendly section of society prevails over the vast body of opinions that barely, if they are lucky get a warm cup of tea, oftened a euphemism for sweetened dishwater.
Imtiaz Alam and the UNDP’s Paragon programme that organized the SAFMA conference have a laudable objective of promoting free media and movement of journalists within the Saarc member-states. But look at the irony of what they did — getting the conference endorsed and addressed by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of Nepal, someone known for locking up dissenting journalists at the drop of a hat.
I do not know if there is a similarity between the Indian example and yours, but in India the lowest of the low castes — the Dalits — are not represented in any notable way in the mainstream English or even vernacular media. It is not surprising, therefore, that the largely upper caste media, ironically a relic of the freedom movement, supports the POTO anti-terror laws with or without the knowledge that the People’s War Group and other Maoist groups in the country that are going to be targeted by POTO are truly representing the lowest and thoroughly disenfranchised castes of India.
It is this insensitivity to basic issues that will play havoc with any effort to liberate the media from its own confining worldview whether at a South Asian forum or a national one. In SAFMA the discussion happens between the standard-bearers of the national mood. It ignores the ground reality and the clout of the alternative media. It is this ignored media that represents the really democratic and peace-craving people of India, and I guess of other countries too. But do not be surprised that they have no interest in attacking terrorism, the latest SAFMA theme, as the mainstream media has projected the menace.
It is not widely understood that the mainstream media of Imtiaz Alam, unwittingly maybe, is campaigning to choke and throttle democracy and prospects of genuine peace, by voicing partisan demands of the states and governments that speak through them. Please correct this anomaly next time, Imtiaz. Call people who are genuinely interested in peace and who could really do with some genuine democracy to liberate them from their killing circumstance. Don’t waste your time and mine with a junket, which would be welcome if life was a little easier in this time of religious and nationalist fanaticism.
UNOCAL stands for UNion Of Cia and AL qaeda! This theory was posted to me on the e-mail by someone with an unlikely name like Tom LaRussa. The funny thing about conspiracy theories is that they have all the trappings of credible-sounding details and even objectivity. So what is Mr LaRussa trying to say? In his own words in a message copied to me by someone else:
Dear Tarek:
Thank you for providing the illuminating articles on the connections between UNOCAL and Hamid Karzai. Unfortunately, these articles leave out the most important pieces of the puzzle. Fortunately, I am able to provide the missing pieces. I am not able to reveal who my source is, (for reasons which should soon become obvious), but I will say that this person lived “inside the beltway” for several years, met quite a few people there with very “interesting” jobs, and still keeps in contact with several of them.
First, let me summarize the information you have provided:
1. UNOCAL wants to build an oil pipeline across Afghanistan
2. The international business community would never finance such a venture with the Taliban in power in Afghanistan.
3. Obvious solution, get rid of the Taliban — but how?
Militarily, the solution was obvious, and we have all witnessed how easily it was accomplished. The potentially difficult part was providing the pretext for this military action. After all, even UNOCAL cannot simply order the US military to subdue another country just because it so desires — at least not publicly. This is where the services of Mr Karzai as a “consultant” to UNOCAL were invaluable.
A choosy seller
THE auto parts market on M A Jinnah Road, more popularly known as Plaza or Magazine Lane (because of a now-demolished cinema and a non-existent ammunition dump dating back to the British Raj) is a flourishing place for buyers of all sorts of automobile parts and accessories. The market caters to the requirements of the entire country.
As you enter the area boys begin chasing your vehicle, offering all kinds of things for your car, from seat covers and alloy rims to mechanical repairs. Be warned, though, they are con artists par excellence, capable of ripping your car apart and swapping good parts with defective ones right under your unsuspecting nose, so says someone who went there recently.
However, there are some clearly redeeming qualities about the whole place. One is this very old shop specializing in antique cars and hard-to-find parts, for even pre-Partition vehicles. Not to worry, if your car’s prehistoric automatic gearbox is giving you trouble or the old body panels, pistons, gaskets need work, this place will have everything. Just don’t be discouraged by the looks of the shop, Perfect Motors will have whatever you need.
Another shop by the name of Cheap Autos deals exclusively in Volkswagen parts, especially those of the Beetle. The owner is in fact quite an authority on Volkswagens. Since he is the one who buys and sells VW parts it’s only natural that he becomes an authority on individual cars offered for sale by various owners. One can ask him to verify the individual history of each and every roadworthy Beetle in Karachi and he will be able to do it. But there’s more to it because this is one shop where the seller decides whether you are even worthy enough of buying the product. Sort of like the imperious chef in Seinfeld who refused his incredible soup to people who offended him or whom he thought were not ‘qualified’ to buy it. This had nothing really to do with the fact whether they could afford to buy what he was selling, but rather on what he thought of them, and if he didn’t like them then that was it, and they had to get out of his shop.
The same thing happens in this case. A prospective buyer will be evaluated and interrogated about his current job, the money he makes in a year and his or her driving skills to insure the car will be maintained well. This man — the proprietor of Cheap Autos — really feels for the vehicles he deals in, more than he might feel for the owner of that vehicle.
A man truly dedicated to the art of the machine.
Wearied of the old party scene with the usual clouds of neon coloured smoke, with music so loud that you can’t think leave alone chat? Tired of the beach party scene with the usual bonfires on New Year’s eve? A friend ventured to the haunt of the ordinary Karachiites — Seaview — to celebrate her New Year’s eve.
Some restaurants were not taking people after 10 while a safe crowd of chattering families filled those that were open. If you were lucky, you could have won a pair of buffalo wings if you were there in the draw. Well, the road to Sea view was easy to find. A steady stream of lights snaked its way to the shore. People were packed in vans, taxis, on bikes, scooters, whatever form of transport they could find. Children of all ages and sizes were there, and so were women including those driving themselves, and hundreds of families; who said it was a place for desperate men? Shrouded women in black could also be spotted as were groups of bearded maulvis, complete with caps and high shalwars. No one wanted to miss the action.
From one end to the other, the Seaview drive was lined with cars parked on either side. All the side-lanes from the main road were blocked by tankers so that once you entered the drive you had to go through the entire length lined with hoards of police. For a change, though, the men in uniform stood back and let people have a good time.
Motorcycles whizzed their way through as firecrackers crackled. The plethora of tobacco ads on PTV seems to be finally paying off as many of these men had a television also seem to be kicking in as these flickering slender tubular creations figured prominently. Carefully balanced on the finger tips of most men had a cigarette in their mouths.
The New Year was seen in with dancing, cheering and even people spraying the sea foam on each other. It must have taken a long while for the crowds to disperse for even past midnight a steady stream of cars seemed to be making its way on to the long Seaview drive.
My friend couldn’t help but wonder how many of these men were out of jobs. But it didn’t really matter.
The annual slew of foreign returned students has become evident in all the markets and at the ‘see and be seen’ weddings. A visit to the Sunday Bazaar reveals their presence in large numbers. One does not have to look at their clothes, or their hairdos or their glasses, nor hear the nasal cadences lacing their speech. These people are unmistakable by their walk, exuding an air of incredulous awe and discovery as they peer at their newly rediscovered homeland.
The come to accompany their mothers, carrying huge bags of groceries, taking immense interest in the purchase of vegetables ad fruits, something that they would not have deigned to do before. Others crowd the handicraft stalls looking for gifts to take back to their foreign abodes while the odd tall blonde can also be spotted accompanying her Pakistani friend/host.
Apart from going to the Sunday bazar and rummaging through Saleem’s Book corner or the CDs stalls, these young twenty-somethings are here for another purpose and which is to attend the many shaadis, mehndis, dholkis, parties and balls that are happening and scheduled to happen this winter.
Sometime back there was a notice on the wall of the clinic next to Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s mazar. It said something like after taking a leak one should wash their hands with soap. It’s not there anymore. Either billboards hide the message or some people who found it offensive must have removed it. It’s now been replaced with a new slogan: ‘Safai nisf eiman hai’ and the wall around the empty plot has a line that says ‘Don’t relieve yourself here as you’d be sitting in the direction of the Qibla’.
Since we were small, I remember we were bombarded with commercials on radio and television, then magazines and newspapers, and now giant-sized billboards proclaiming the virtues of using soap. In fact, for the very gullible who would do anything to get a gori chamri a fairly (pun intended) well known company has launched a soap which also promises to act as a sunscreen.
According to experts, washing hands with soap can save a million lives a year because improved hygiene can be quite instrumental in preventing disease. In fact, the soap industry can do much more than the ministry of health to save lives in Pakistan too.
If the same multinationals that are now trying to sell soap masquerading as sunscreen were to concentrate more on providing the bulk of the population with something to wash their hands with, and improve their level of hygiene, then nothing like it. But why should they, some might ask, since the profit motive is usually what drives their business, and certainly there can’t be too many profits in making soap more affordable and catering to a mass market. Or, is there? —By Karachian
Land mafia planning to sabotage Lyari project: COMMENT
KARACHI: The land mafia occupying a vast tract of land along the Lyari River has planned to subvert the Lyari Expressway Project despite the fact that the president gave the agencies concerned the go-ahead at a high-level meeting recently, so that the much-awaited project can be completed at the earliest, a survey conducted by Dawn shows.
A study conducted by the previous project company in 1997 shows that in reality there are 8,000 to 10,000 families that will be affected.
Indeed, there are a number of illegal commercial and business ventures which are bound to be disturbed. They have been operating in this area for a long time and must have earned quite a lot without contributing anything to the uplift of the area. Being illegally commissioned, they must have affected the economy very badly by evading all types of taxes.
A report has been sent to the Sindh government for early action. At least four joint surveys, including satellite imagery, have been conducted to ascertain the position of the vacant land.
The surveys reveal a stretch of 12 acres which is almost vacant and available up to Badshahi Bridge near Dhobighat except for a few shops and houses. This land can be used to accommodate the squatters.
A big plot near old Sabzimandi on University Road where trucks used to unload cargo can accommodate the squatters from the area of Sindhi Hotel, Liaquatabad.
Officials say there is no dearth of vacant land to rehabilitate the squatters near their settlements. They say approximately 200 acres are also available near Gutter Baghicha.
The city Nazim has expressed a keen interest in the construction of the Lyari Expressway and has stated, in unequivocal terms, that the project will be implemented in the larger interest of the city.
Elected representatives are of the opinion that two different modes of transport — one for goods direct from the port and the other for commuters — will relieve the pressure from Karachi’s roads.
According to experts, the 17-kilometre-long surface road designed on both banks will go a long way towards bringing down the level of pollution.
A former director of the Project Company for Lyari Expressway, Mohammad Faiz Kidwai, says: “The city of Karachi is perhaps quite unfortunate not to have enjoyed a positive growth in terms of development because of its ‘technocrats and intellectuals’.”
He observes that “many of our professionals tend to intellectually exploit and delay the development project and very rarely contribute towards improvement of the city’s socio-economic and environmental fabric”.
He maintains that the design has been prepared in such a manner that it would provide entry to the traffic from Mauripur Road moving towards the Super Highway on the left side of the river.
Similarly the right bank would provide entry to trucks from the Super Highway moving towards Mauripur Road, he says adding that there exist a number of bridges linking the two sides of the city along the riverside and these bridges will be crossed either through an underpass (five locations) or an overpass (six locations), thus avoiding any cross intersection in the 17-kilometre-long strip.
This distance will be covered in 20 minutes instead of 24 hours which is an average travel time in the present situation for these trucks, he explains.
He is of the view that the proposed expressway would bring a great amount of relief to the whole city more significantly in terms of improving the road conditions, reducing traffic congestion and above all reducing the overall noise and air pollution.
He says the embankment on the sides of the road would also be designed in such a way to take care of the flow of river which could be channelized properly.
The other side of the road could be used for a wide green belt providing a barrier to air and noise pollution and there would be a 12-foot-high wall to provide security, thus protecting the inhabitants from traffic hazards of all types.
According to the design prepared by his company, sewage will be controlled through a planned connection at various intervals along with the main conduit. And the riverbed will be cleared out to provide various types of recreational activities and an ideal breathing space for the residents.
A visit to the project site by this reporter shows that currently the area is suffering from one of the worst types of environmental ravages. The river-bed has become a collection point for all types of unhygienic materials, such as sewage, garbage and industrial waste.
It is quite unfortunate that the administration has over the years allowed people to live in such unhygienic condition. Technocrats and intellectuals have often used such conditions for hypothetical support so as to leave the area in its present condition and have never tried to seriously advice the people to improve their living conditions.
Have mercy on these encroachments: KARACHI FILE
WHEN the cyclone sweeps, the earthquake shakes, the bushfire spreads, these calamities do not distinguish between a prayer hall and a bandit’s hideout. Everything is swept away, razed to the ground or burnt to ashes. In our city, encroachments have many kinds and are everywhere. When police stations are to be reckoned among encroachments, what would remain immune from trespass?
Most of these encroachments are unrelieved outrage and must be removed. Perhaps the most unforgivable are encroachments on amenity plots, buildings meant to be schools, dispensaries, or open spaces meant to be parks, and grounds for legitimate recreation.
How difficult it is to remove encroachments is evident from the veritable ‘Mahabharat’ the citizens had to wage for years to get the old Subzimandi shifted from land meant to be the city’s central park. When there is an issue between public interest and private profit, the government invariable chooses to play the helpless orphan.
Encroachments on sidewalks and roadside pavements are all over this gigantic city. Countless roads have disappeared into jungles of encroachments. If all of this is unendurable nuisance for the general public, not quite so for the minions of law and civic administrations. These encroachments are manifestly against the city laws. But they are there because somebody is making a pretty penny.
Can anyone dare to set up business on a public thoroughfare without paying for it to some big shots? And who those heavyweights are likely to be? Surely not the residents of outerspace. They have to be a power down here. They are exactly those who, if they acted to protect the law, the encroachments would not be there. You have your answer, haven’t you?
If the natural calamities cannot make value judgments, the children of Adam can — and ought to. Let us first ask why we have these atrocious eyesores in the first place? Why do they sprout again and again after being forcibly removed repeatedly? In some of these encroachments we have people working for a living. This way because the city does not care to provide an alternative.
It is the city’s duty to make due arrangements for legitimate activity. This city is not doing that because, for all a citizen can divine, there is money to be made from these encroachments. The beneficiaries are the city’s own men on the prowl. It would be a parody of law and justice if these stall holders on encroachments were eliminated without offering an option.
Please also note that there are encroachments and encroachments. Most of us would readily confess to a weakness for one particular kind of encroachment. This is where books are sold, in most cases, old books. Such bookstalls deserve to be seen as evidence of excellence in society, not an aberration to be erased.
This city cannot be accused of having too many bookshops, bookstalls, libraries. By and large, books remain priced beyond the pocket of the average book-reader. Many factors inhibit book production. At the moment, however, the focus is on roadside bookstalls, doomed to be swept away with a wide broom that would not distinguish between what be removed and what protected and preserved.
In every civilized city there are the weekend roadside bookstalls. These are absolutely fascinating places for anyone who would care for books, particularly for old books, and explore for them in places out of the beaten track, so to say. If one has time, no better way to while it away than at these unpretentious bookstalls.
This kind of book-buying is a veritable voyage of discovery, with all the alluring uncertainties and chances — of hitting a veritable gold mine! These wayside bookstalls are the most innocent and adorable kind of encroachments. For the cultured person these stalls are the most welcome weekly visitors. They deserve to be welcomed. Respected, preserved — not swept away.
Do many citizens know the truth about Karachi, the city that it once was, no longer is. At the time of independence, this city could boast 43 libraries. Then it was home to around 300,000 citizens. Today it has 13,500,000 people, that is, 450 citizens for every one in 1947.
In those days, Karachi offered one library to every 6,977 of its citizens. Today we have fewer than ten public libraries. Not all of them truly functional. Assuming that these ten so-called libraries are able to serve as libraries, let us see what is the ratio of library per citizen, or citizens per library. It works out to one library for 1,350,000! Not much here to celebrate.
What we need in this city is more bookstalls, not fewer. Never mind if some of them appear to be encroachments to some squint-eyed citry-minders. Our attitude to bookstalls should be viewed as unmitigated shame for those who proclaim to be the “people of the book”.
There was a time when Muslims wrote books, produced books, respected and revered books. They carried books and set up libraries for Europe via Cordoba, Spain.
How does Karachi of today compare with the Moorish capital Cordoba (711-1236), known to history as the ‘Athens of the West’?
Carjackings, with official connivance: DATELINE QUETTA
IN the past some parts of Balochistan had remained a haven for car thieves who would dump the hijacked vehicles there for their personal use or for sale. A number VIPs and leaders of public opinion of this province had received such vehicles in gift for protecting the carjackers.
When a deputy commissioner impounded all such cars as had no registration number-plate in Turbat, a relative of a former minister had protested claiming that he had bought the car for Rs35,000 and hence it was unfair on the part of the deputy commissioner to seize the vehicle. The car in question was a hijacked one whose normal market price then was over Rs400,000.
After the breakdown of the law and order situation in Karachi in mid-1980s, more and more vehicles were being stolen or hijacked for covert operations — for robbing banks, committing dacoities or kidnapping moneyed people for ransom cases. It is a fact of life that some of the gangs operating in Karachi enjoyed the official patronage and support. Carjackers were also active in other cities or towns.
The Afghan jihad had contributed much to promote crime in Karachi and other cities. It introduced the gun culture in society and the jihadi commanders provided a sanctuary to the criminals. Spin Boldak was the actual base where the kidnap victims would be kept right on the zero-mile of Pakistan-Afghan borders.
A random survey of vehicles plying in different parts of the province will show which of them were the stolen ones. One can hire costly or luxury vehicles as taxis in remote areas where roads do not exist. The second category is that of the hijacked vehicles which consume less fuel. The drivers do not spend much on the upkeep of such vehicles and ply these on kutcha roads and hilly regions where registration of vehicles are seldom checked. Rather there is no state machinery for checking the registration of vehicles, except for the occasional checkpoints set up by the police or the levies.
The real support to the carjackers would come from the officials of the provincial excise and taxation department who helped the criminals to sell these vehicles at throwaway prices. There would be no problem in selling those vehicles as there were huge showrooms in central Balochistan for making such deals. As the owners of such showrooms were important and powerful people, no one could touch them. The excise and taxation officials would register the vehicles by issuing duplicate or fake registration number-plates. Thus a large number of stolen vehicles would be regularized.
Most of such officials found themselves in a fix when the army took over and began streamlining the government working. At once thousands of files disappeared from government offices, and those who had bought the stolen vehicles were also in trouble. It was made compulsory to produce the vehicles for physical verification to confirm whether a vehicle was stolen or not. For genuine owners, it was not a problem but for the cheat it was tantamount to inviting trouble.
The excise department raised its revenue by regularizing the smuggled vehicles during the amnesty period granted by the Central Board of Revenue. The government of Pakistan had helped the Taliban regime (now ousted) to boost its revenue by selling the reconditioned cars and vehicles to the Pakistan market. The vehicles imported through the transit trade facility were resold to the Pakistan market, using the Chaman route. People holding very high positions in the central government, Punjab and Sindh were regarded as better buyers because they had the capacity to pay more than the local buyers.
A few days back, the excise and taxation department extended the last date for regularizing the registration number-plates by one month. It gives a chance to those who have failed to bring in their vehicles for physical examination.
The department itself is in a fix as most of the files are missing. The officials have issued duplicate registration number-plates and documents. If the government punishes the cheat by impounding their vehicles, then it should not spare its corrupt officials also.
For security reason, the registration of vehicles should be transparent. The owners should be known and identified so that their vehicles are not used by the subversive elements in targeted killing of individuals or in committing heinous crimes, including kidnapping for ransom, bank and other robberies and other offences against the state, society and the individual.
How to win enemies and lose friends!: VIEW FROM MARGALLA
NEW DELHI has at last succeeded in getting the world to treat as the ‘core’ issue what it calls the Pakistan sponsored cross-border terrorism. As a result the Kashmir problem has been automatically relegated to the second place. Of course, nobody disagrees with Pakistan on the importance of the Kashmir dispute, but very few believe that this 50 year old problem can be resolved immediately so as to pave the way for de-escalation of the tensions in the region before they reach a point of no return. The world seems convinced that the withdrawal of troops from the border would be possible only if Pakistan could convince India that it has effectively plugged the LoC against cross-border infiltration and hand over to New Delhi the 20 persons mentioned on its wanted list of terrorists given to Islamabad.
Pakistan has so far not accepted the Indian charge that Pakistan-based Jihadi outfits were responsible for terrorist attacks inside India, including the December 13 attack on its parliament. Musharraf has made it clear that Pakistan will not hand over its “criminals” to New Delhi unless it was provided proof of their involvement in terrorist attacks within India. Islamabad has tried to explain away its own redoubled offensive against the Jihadi groups inside the country as a campaign to bring under control domestic terrorism and sectarian violence and it has also taken pains to establish that this campaign was not in any way linked to the Indian demands which New Delhi has made in its first demarche to Islamabad while mounting the biggest ever military deployment in the last 30 years on its borders with Pakistan. But the world, led by the US, has punctured this explanation by asking India to cool off and give President General Pervez Musharraf enough time to complete his ‘good work’ against the Jihadis.
So, by implication Pakistan has accepted that the core problem, agitating the relations between the two countries today, was ‘cross-border terrorism’ and not Kashmir. It has also made offers of talks with India without insisting that these talks should focus only on what it has been calling since October 12, 1999 the ‘core’ Kashmir problem. However, India has refused to talk to Pakistan without Islamabad first fulfilling the condition of effectively stopping the so-called ‘cross-border terrorism.’ Even President Musharraf’s graceful gesture of walking up to Prime Minister Vajpayee’s seat to shake his hand after concluding his speech at the SAARC summit at Kathmando as the entire world looked on has not done much to break the Indian ice. Mr Vajpayee, speaking afterwards at the same forum, once again asked Mr Musharraf to follow up his shake-hand gesture with concrete actions.
Clearly Mr Vajpayee seems to be in no mood to let go the grip he had gotten on Pakistan. Perhaps Mr Vajpayee has not forgotten his experience of Musharraf in Agra. He had invited President Musharraf for summit talks after giving up his three preconditions: 1. No talks with a military government in Pakistan; 2. No talks unless held within the parameters of the Lahore peace process and; 3. No talks unless cross-border terrorism was stopped. While inviting Mr Musharraf to Agra Mr Vajpayee had also over-ruled the Indian hawks, who were humiliated by the Kargil episode and the Kandahar hijacking, had wanted war not peace with Pakistan. For three days Mr Vajpayee allowed Gen Musharraf and his delegation of about 40 every opportunity to explain to the people of India Pakistan’s Kashmir case. Clearly Vajpayee had wanted Musharraf to create a lobby within India for his Kashmir case using which he perhaps thought he could overcome his hawks and come to some kind of settlement with Pakistan over Kashmir outside the parameters of Indian constitution. In one of his published musings before the Agra summit he had even talked about stopping bloodshed in Kashmir even if it meant discussing ideas outside the constitution.
Pakistan had a small but vocal lobby in India all these years. And except the north and northwest, most other parts of India had harboured no visible animosity towards Pakistan until Kargil and Kandahar hijacking. So, both Mr Vajpayee and Mr Musharraf needed to revive this lobby to come to grips with the core issue without upsetting the Indian public which had been tutored all these 50 years that Kashmir was an integral part of India. Mr Vajpayee had accepted Kashmir as the core problem by implication. This was too obvious all through the three days of President Musharraf’s stay in India as during this period the Indian public listened to nothing other than Pakistan’s Kashmir case and no one from the top or middle level leadership in the Indian government or political hierarchy including the prime minister himself, his foreign minister or his interior minister were seen or heard refuting Pakistan’s Kashmir case. Ms Nasim Zehra, a freelance Pakistani journalist, who writes on strategic issues, was pitted against a BJP leader in a live debate on Kashmir by the Star TV and the viewers saw Ms Zehra winning the debate hands down. And in the din kicked up by so much noise on Kashmir, Mr Vajpayee created a new reality as well by allowing the Hurriyat leaders to meet the Pakistani President thus paving the way for future tripartite talks. In order to appease his hawks he created the impression that he had given in to an unreasonable demand of a foreign guest under protest. But then if he had not wanted this meeting to be held he could have easily shunted the Hurriyat leaders from New Delhi back to Srinagar before they could meet Gen Musharraf.
But for all his trouble what did Mr Musharraf give Mr Vajpayee in return? Well he lost even the one small but a very powerful Pakistani lobby that had survived in India even the ignominy of Kargil and Kandahar episode — the Indian newspaper editors. When newspaper editors of any country meet a visiting foreign head of government or state over meals, such meetings invariably turn into indepth discussions on various issues and in the exchange the two sides tend to use ideas and opinions which they would normally not like to express in public. And in deference to the foreign guests the editors normally do allow the former to score points and do not enter into acrimonious debates. And under an unwritten agreement after such meetings ideas and opinions expressed are not made public by either side but if the parties concerned liked any of these ideas they follow them up in their behind-the-scene dialogue with the government in question.
Pakistan broke these rules and made public the video that it had made of the breakfast meeting between President Musharraf and the Indian editors as soon as it was over. The Indian people saw their editors, who did not know that they were being videotaped, falling over each other in winning Musharraf’s goodwill and the president, who perhaps knew what was to follow, sounded very liberal and accommodating without appearing to be giving up his position on Kashmir. It was an exercise in low cunning on the part of Pakistan. This the Indian public did not like and the editors who were taken for the ride also did not like it. That is why none of these editors today sound in their writings and utterings as reconciliatory towards Pakistan as they used to be in the pre-Agra days. In Agra we played to win without giving a thought to what we were winning or losing. —Onlooker
The Begum Sahib of Bhopal and her Qiwam
INTIZAR Husain’s book, Mulaqaten includes 86 sketches of the writing men and women he has known in his time. He begins with Sufi Tabassum and ends with Dr Gopi Chand Narang. Published in 1982 — Mulaqaten will be twenty years old later this year — Intizar Sahib says that the book was born out of his profession which is journalism.
Intizar says that he had to do a column for the literary page of the daily Mashriq. But what to fill that column with? This was a vexing problem for him. Riaz Batalvi came up with a solution. Batalvi who himself had serialized interviews with political leaders, advised him to do likewise with men and women of letters. And that was that.
According to Sufi Tabassum, as quoted by Intizar Bhai (if I may say so), Amritsar was a wonderful city. On the one side, there were the carpet and shawl dealers while on the other were poets and writers and then there were the ulema. The merchants themselves were men of learning.
You just had to mention the name of Amritsar for the Sufi Sahib to begin recalling men and matters in that city. “My grandfather was a dervish,” the Sufi would recall, “He had only two plates in his home. One he would share with my grandmother while the other was meant for any guest who might call on him. A third plate was never seen in the house and grandfather could often ask himself, ‘Why should I collect pots and pans? And for whom should I keep the third plate?’”
Tabassum was brought up by his grandfather. His father was the ‘other type’. His grandfather left behind a library which was full of rare books. Most of them were gifted away. Only the diwans of some Persian poets were left. The Sufi Sahib read those diwans and began writing poetry in Persian himself.
Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, to give him his full name, received his early education in Amritsar and was for some time at the Khalsa College. In 1921, he came to Lahore and joined the FC College. From here on, the Sufi was to make Lahore his home. The city gave him friends like Dr Tasir, Bokhari, Taj and Salik. One day, Dr Tasir told him to get ready — he was bringing out a magazine. Shortly afterwards we had Nairang-i-Khayal which gave a new lease of life to the literary activities in the city. Intizar Husain ends his brief account with the following lines from Sufi Tabassum:
Deedar-i-bazm-i-yaar Tabassum kahan nasib
Abb reh gaya heh koocha-i-dildar dekhna.
This takes me back to my childhood or to the beginning of boyhood. Sufi Sahib used to visit our house quite often. I used to sleep in a well-protected cot. One evening in summer, the Sufi came calling. And he and my father began discussing poets and poetry. We used to live in Model Town then, as we still do.
Anyway, my father asked me to go fetch a block of ice from the B-Block market. The needful having been done, father then asked me to get an ice pick from the kitchen.
I was asked to wait upon the Sufi Sahib and to give him some ice from time to time. The father-Sufi meeting lasted the whole night and broke up only when the moazzin called the faithful to prayer. Sufi Sahib got up reluctantly to take leave when suddenly his eyes fell upon me.
In mock protest, he said to my father: “You are a cruel father. You mean this little boy has been up for me all night? Shame on you!”
So saying, he pelted me on the head and took out a tenner:
“This is for you, son. Never obey your father again.” He then mock-slapped papa, winked at him and left. As I recall the night now, I think there was no compassion in his heart for me nor any anger for my father. The Sufi just loved the cup that cheers. That and Persian poetry.
Then there was this cricket match at the Oval in the Government College. The faculty were playing the boys. The latter were batting and the Sufi was bowling. In the middle of an over, the Sufi saw a kite which had been ‘cut’ by a rival and it was coming down fast. Throwing the ball at the other end or towards mid-on, he ran helter skelter to where the kite was descending, picked up the bit of string which was still left with it and then, as joyous as a teenager, he put it up in the air again. The match was forgotten and the rival teams joined in the fun. I am told that the game was later resumed but only after the Sufi had had his fill of kite-flying.
Gradually, as I grew up, I began looking for a job until I got one with The Pakistan Times at Rattan Chand Road. The paper was part of a chain being brought out by the Progressive Papers Ltd, founded by Mian Iftikharuddin. Part of the chain was Lail-o-Nahar, an Urdu weekly magazine. Sufi Tabassum was appointed its editor and diffident as I was, I decided to call on him to pay my respects.
As I went to Sufi Tabassum’s office, he looked up at me from the editorial chair. He looked blankly at me, no recognition in his eyes. So I had to introduce myself all over again. The Sufi’s eyes lit up:
“So, you are the boy I met years ago at your father’s?” he asked.
I said I was and reminded him of the tenner he had given me. The Sufi remembered, relaxed and asked me to sit across the table from him.
Do you eat paans, as your father used to?” “Yes, Sir, I do whenever I can”
Thereupon the Sufi took out a little box and choosing carefully, gave me a paan. “Wait, don’t eat it yet. I’ll give a special qiwam which the Begum Sahib of Bhopal sent me the other day.”
I waited patiently. Slowly, the Sufi opened another box almost reverentially. Then, using a matchstick, he took out a bit of qiwam and put it on my paan. I put the thing in my mouth. No sooner had I done so than my heart began to sink and cold sweat broke out on my forehead. The Sufi who had himself taken the qiwam was none the worse for it. He was only flushing at the gills but otherwise he was quite happy and he wanted to talk to me about my father who had died a few years earlier.
But I was choked. So I mumbled an excuse, ran to the toilet, spat the poisonous stuff out into a sink, washed my face in midwinter and went back to my own room. Later when I had recovered, I cursed the Begum Sahib of Bhopal to perdition and promised myself never to call on the Sufi Sahib again. Once or twice he did invite me but I excused myself on one pretext or another until the Sufi’s affection for me died down and life returned to normal once again.
Now what is qiwam? It is a concentrate of the most potent tobacco in the world. It is perfumed to boot. Young people are advised to keep well away from it. Sufi Tabassum was a lovable man and Farida Khanum is a lovable lady. But of the Khanum some other time. Who can forget
Hooey hum se woh ham-kalam, Allah, Allah
Kahan mein kahan yeh maqam, Allah, Allah.
That was Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum all over. He was well into his seventies when he died but the young boy in him never gave up. They don’t come like him any more.