Three states of matter and a matter of faith

IS it function of a secular state to organise religious pilgrimages for its citizens? One of the largest hoardings on the approach to Delhi’s international airport announces a special “Haj Terminal” built; for some strange reason; for Muslim pilgrims who travel to Saudi Arabia each year. Many of these pilgrims partake of other privileges accorded by the state including a token financial subsidy. It is another matter that most of these facilities are not given by even Islamic states to their citizens.

Compared to the effort put in by the secular Indian state to virtually run pilgrimages for its Hindu worshippers, often with military precision, every other religious subsidy pales into insignificance. The Amarnath Yatra that leads to a cave shrine near Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir is virtually managed entirely by the army and constitutes a high security drill on war footing each summer for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who throng there. Similarly, the foreign ministry runs a major pilgrimage to Lake Mansarovar and Mount Kailash across the border in China.

The Amarnath cave shrine is opened to visitors every summer between June and August. An ice stalagmite usually forms there in the preceding winter months and worshippers regard it as a symbol of Lord Shiva. This year, either because of a shorter winter or perhaps due to higher ambient temperatures it seems the shivling did not form. Instead many visitors were quoted as expressing disappointment because the sanctum sanctorum was a wet patch with melted ice.

A majority of Hindus have a soft corner for the pre-Mughal sufi poet Kabir, who said: “Kaankar puje hari mile to main poojon pahaar; Wa se to chaaki bhali pees khaaye sansar”. (If we can reach God by worshipping stones than I should want to worship an entire mountain. And yet a mere millstone is by far the superior stone, which serves to feed the world as it grinds the flour from corn.) In an era of quick gratification such a worldview is difficult to appreciate.

So where does that leave the secular Indian state? According to news reports the government-backed Amarnath trust erected an artificial shivling this year, as the natural one hadn’t formed till late May. The natural icicle took its known shape and size only after fresh snowfall in late May this year.

Now, with Times of India reporting that the trust had planned to — and perhaps actually did — place dry ice inside the cave to bring down its temperature, the affair has taken a curious turn. The state’s governor Lt. Gen (retired) S. K. Sinha has instituted an inquiry into the “artificial” shivling scandal. The Times says it has obtained strong evidence to suggest that the governor’s office itself played a role in manufacturing a shivling that has outraged devotees.

On May 20, a senior aide of the governor had shot off letters to dry ice manufacturers in Delhi seeking to “urgently” procure tonnes of ice and deliver it in heat-proof packaging at Baltal, near Sonamarg, just 13 km from the Amarnath shrine.

Only four days earlier, on May 16, Sinha — who is the ex-officio chairman of Shri Amarnath Ji Shrine Board — had personally gone to the cave to oversee preparations for the yatra. Did he discover that the natural shivling had not formed this year; and then decide to make an artificial shivling instead? The question was raised by the Times.

That was enough provocation it seems for some zealots led by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) to swing into action. What appeared to be a mild looking scandal was swiftly blamed on Kashmir’s “jehadi politics”.

“In the mayhem, an unproven rumour has become the season’s biggest scoop with the typically anti-Hindu segments in the media,” proclaimed the RSS in its party mouthpiece. “Reports from Kashmir are often tempered by the proclivities of fundamentalist Islamic negationism. Unfortunately, through the orchestrated frenzy on an allegedly fake Shivlingam, the authenticity of the shrine and the pilgrimage is being sought to be questioned.” Nothing of the sort was of course happening.

But the RSS saw a huge conspiracy taking shape. “There are demands for the resignation of the governor, judicial probe and investigation by geological experts. That the faith of the Hindus and the yatra have survived since the dawn of history and that there has been no impact of the latest controversy on the ever-increasing number of devotees have not chastened the scoop scavengers, is disconcerting and dangerous.”

A climatic anomaly probably rooted in the heating up of the earth’s atmosphere struck a sermon for an explanation. “We are living in a milieu of systematic onslaught on everything Hindu, every symbol that binds this nation as one. Two years ago on the Deepawali day we witnessed the arrest and humiliation of His Holiness the Shankaracharya of Kanchi and the attempted desecration of the Holy Mutt built and consecrated by Adi Shankara. Few weeks ago, we witnessed the fall of the world’s only Hindu state, victim to the vicious machinations of the godless Maoists, Indian Left and a violent movement for democracy. Hinduism is under siege from all quarters. Not only the jehadis who abet it. The central government itself is formed on the only plank of anti-Hindutva, and so they perform: encouraging proselytisation, introducing legislations, setting up commissions and committees only to undermine the Hinduness of this great nation. They dangle reservation and special benefits only to divide the society.”

In a rational world there are three states of matter. We had so far heard of the solid and the liquid states in the form of the Amarnath shivling affair. The RSS has added a third dimension: a lot of hot air. And the RSS considers itself to be the fountainhead of Indian nationalism, the conscience-keeper of the secular Indian state.

It’s monsoon time when Mumbai experiences its periodic flooding caused by rain havoc. Little has changed in 50 years it seems. On July 1, 1956, The Hindu carried a report headlined “Downpour in Bombay”. It went thus: Bombay city and suburbs, for the second day in succession, had a heavy downpour on June 30. Whipped by strong winds, the rain flooded the roads bringing vehicular traffic to a standstill. At some places water was knee-deep and cars were stranded at a number of places in the traffic islands. Both buses and trams plodded on water-logged roads.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

To praise or not to praise KESC

To say a favourable word about the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation these days may land one in trouble. The KESC has really made life in this city of teeming millions miserable. During the last few days the weather has been oppressively hot. And the frequent and prolonged power breakdowns have, in collusion with the elements, turned the entire city into something like a closed centrally air-conditioned room with AC system off for 24 hours. The condition of large families living in small apartments is like that of people put in an oven.

The KESC’s performance is sliding with every passing day. People suffer power outages for many hours at a stretch. Desperate, they take to the streets, pelt properties and vehicles with rocks and whatever they can lay their hands on and even burn them down. What may be called power riots are intensifying across the city.

Newspapers report daily accounts of people’s suffering, with parents of infants, the elderly and the sick describing their ordeal. Students appearing in class IX and XII examinations are suffering enormously. So are football enthusiasts, who do not want to miss a match or part of it while the World Cup is in its crucial stages.

People making complaints to newspaper offices vent their frustration in the hope that the KESC may improve its performance. Although the president and the prime minister have also intervened and pleadged to provide some respite to the Karachiites, there is widspread scepticism about any improvement in KESC performance.

A colleague said the other day he could not come to office because there was no electricity in his apartment. “My infant baby was crying incessantly and I could not leave him to my wife alone.”

Nobody can defend the KESC in the face of its appalling performance. But, believe me, its workers, a vast majority of them, are working day and night to attend to consumers’ problems. The have first-hand knowledge of people’s agony. Their attitude, therefore, is quite sympathetic. But they have their limitations. They can work efficiently only if they have the required material.

Last Tuesday I observed what may be called a genuine team effor in my locality. The overhead cable emitted sparks around dusk and snapped. Within half an hour a KESC team was there to repair the cable. When they finished their patchwork job and switched on the supply, the cable ‘buzuzzzzzzed’ and came down crashing. The workers started the process all over again. It was not an easy task to climb the ladder, locate the affected cable and mend it in the light of a torch held by another man. They did it for a second time and the cable snapped again. Not discouraged, they undertook the job all over again.

The people who had gathered there were losing their patience and started passing remarks against the men diligently doing their work. Somebody even suggested that their van be set on fire. But good sense prevailed and people did not resort to the extreme step.

When asked why did not they string a full length piece to replace the cable that had patches on every sixth inch of it, the workers pointed to the empty truck to show that they hardly had a small piece. They said their requests for a longer piece of cable were turned down, and suggested that a group of residents should go to the official concerned and press him for issuing the needed cable.

When the KESC spokesman explains that a certain prolonged breakdown was caused by a fault and no load-shedding was carried out, it shows where the ‘fault’ lies.

Indian movies

After running in a Lahore cinema for more than three months, the Indian epic Mughal-i-Azam was launched in Karachi on Friday. Whereas a similar but new film, Taj Mahal, recently received a lukewarm response in the city, this classic featuring Prithvi Raaj, Dilip Kumar and Madhubala has received an encouraging reception.

It is not that the film is not available on pirated VCDs in the market. Some people have seen it more than once. But, as they say, seeing a film on the big screen is quite a different experience. Mughal-i-Azam is running ‘house full’. After a long time, women are seen queueing up for tickets in a cinema.

“Bakhuda, hum mohabbat kay dushman naheen hain. Hum apnay usoolon kay ghulam hain,” Prithvi Raaj, playing the Akbar, thunders in one of his powerful dialogues, jointly written by three luminaries, including Kamal Amrohvi. Naushad’s music has also contributed immensely to enduring success of the film. ‘Pyar kia tau darna kiah....’

Sheikh Mukhtar’s Noorjehan in 1981 generated a lot of interest in local film viewers. On its opening day, it pulled in huge crowds so much so that Abdullah Haroon Road was blocked by people queueing up to buy tickets. Shaikh Mukhtar who had migrated to Pakistan along with the film died of heart attack a few days before the film’s screening. The film, however, was released on schedule and it did a roaring business in Pakistan for several months.

Kashish was also screened here in the early ’80s. It featured Farooque Shaikh, in the role of a taxi driver. Probably it was made in a country other than India and, therefore, it did not hit the headlines in Pakistani newspapers. Despite Farooque’s powerful acting, few people remember it.

‘Bride and Prejudice’ was recently shown at a local cinema. Aishwaria Roy played the leading lady in the movie. It had several other Indian actors in it. But since it was produced in Hollywood, nobody objected to its screening here.

The ban on Indian movies has been of little benefit to the local film industry. Now when a couple of Indian movies are being shown in local cinemas, all hell has not broken loose. Local films are running alongside the Indian ones. The fear that Indian films would deal the final blow to the already moribund local film industry has proved to be ill-founded. The local producers should accept the challenge and respond to it in an effective manner. Despite lacking in facilities, we do have talent that can make up for the deficiency.

Mangoes

In this season of fruits, the market is flooded with a vide variety of fruits, possibly the best-produced in this part of the world — apricots, plums, peaches, melons and chikoos.

All these fruits are succulent and refreshing but these are usually ignored by people because of the overwhelming presence of ‘the king of fruits and fruit of kings’, mangoes. And the varieties that are on offer — Sindhri, Chaunsa, Saroli, Tota Pari, Langra, Dasahri and Anwar Ratol — is sometimes puzzling even for the most discerning mango-lover.

And people enjoy it also in other forms — juice, ice-cream, sweet dish.

— Karachian

email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com

Let’s play policy policy

LAST week, it was education. This week it remains education. Last Monday, we began with the first education conference in the country in November 1947, and dealt with some of its observations and recommendations. In 1951, another conference was held to examine the issue. It discussed the following matters:

One of the first pre-requisites of a national system of education is that it should be unified and its various stages inter related

Education being an agency or instrument of society, its organisation and content should reflect the decisive changes in the society it is designed to serve. Otherwise, the curricula would become static, inert and unresponsive to social needs and conditions, and the educational system would suffer from a “social lag”.

Ways and means of incorporating the principles of Islamic ideology in the educational system of the country.

Ways and means of facilitating the adoption of Urdu as the national and official language of Pakistan

Evolution of intelligence and personality tests, pedagogical techniques and provision of vocational guidance in accordance with local environment

These are the structural and curricular reorganisation of education, the integrations of technical and commercial education with the system of general education and the Six-Year National Plan of Educational Development

The duration of the pre-primary stage secondary stage 8 years

This conference recommends that the primary course of education should be a self-contained course of 5 years duration

This conference appreciates that three is general agreement that the present Intermediate course should form part of the secondary course

It was made clear that when it would be adapted for use in other provinces, such as East Bengal or Sindh, the medium of instruction would be Bengali or Sindhi as the case might be

Variation from one province to another in a matter of such importance as the duration of secondary education impairs the unity and the effectiveness of the structure of any national system of education; and there should be no place for it in a plan of educational re-organisation for Pakistan

There are 88,697 teachers in primary schools of which 43,4371 are untrained. In secondary schools out of total of 43,823 teachers, 24,076 are untrained

The total number of existing training institutions for primary school teachers is 125 with an enrolment of 6,145

Out of these 16 institutions are for women with an enrolment of 676

The total number of training institutions for secondary schools teachers is 11 with an enrolment of 276

This conference further recommends that at the University stage the duration of the undergraduate (Hons). Course should be three years. The question of converting two-year under-graduate course (Pass) to three years should be referred to the Inter-University Board.”

At the university stage we have an intermediate course of two years and a degree course of two years in some cases while in with engineering colleges where the duration of the course varies from province to province

The standard of work in the universities of the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent has been a subject of frequent and severe criticism. The Calcutta University Commission over three decades ago had commented upon it in very unfavourable terms and had sought to raise the university standards by recommending the extension of the degree course to three years

Student in England has 13 years schooling before he qualifies for entrance to the university and then takes a minimum of three years to receive his bachelors degree in arts or science; and the same period of sixteen years is taken for the BA, or BSc degree in the USA. It is not surprising therefore that the British and American universities do not recognise the degree of Pakistani or Indian universities as equivalent to their own degrees, but take it as only complying with their university entrance requirements. This is a position that calls for serious consideration and early remedy while the mother tongue has been made the medium of instruction in all primary schools, Urdu remains the medium of instruction in secondary schools in Punjab, Balochistan, the NWFP and Bahawalpur. In the case of Sindh and East Bengal, while the regional language constitutes the medium of instruction, Urdu has been made a compulsory subject

The board also opined that “with the adoption of mother-tongue as the medium of instruction it would be possible to so raise the standard in the schools as to make the application of this principle of feasible”. They wished, however, that the matter be referred to the Advisory Board of Education for Pakistan for its consideration.

To facilitate the adoption of Urdu as a national and official language, it is necessary that there should be a body of experts

This is chiefly because we are the products of a system of education which is based on purely western values and has ignored our religion and culture. Consequently our knowledge of Islam, its history, its culture and the role it has played in the advancement of mankind is either superficial or inadequate and we feel difficult when it comes to giving a practical shape to the policy of the Government whereby the entire educational system is to be reorganised and based on Islamic ideology. In the minds of most of us religion is equated with the spirit of reaction, obscurantism and intolerance. This is the tragic-harm which our present our present system of education has done to us. If we are to survive and fulfill our destiny as true Muslims, we must not allow this harm to extend to our younger generation and the generation to come. I am; nevertheless, glad to notice a perceptible change in the outlook of our educationists.

We have often proclaimed that the goal of Pakistan is Islamic socialism.

The essence of Islamic socialism is that it not only guarantees political democracy but also social and economic democracy

The British during their rule in India adopted a policy of strict religious neutrality. This policy with its emphasis on a purely secular education is understandable and can be justified on grounds of expediency

Prior to the Objectives Resolution, however, is the resolution of the Pakistan Educational Conference recommending the adoption of Islamic ideology as the basis of education? Implicit in this resolution is recognition that education cannot exist in a vacuum and that it must be an instrument of the kind of ideological transformation which Pakistan stands for.

It is proposed to establish a Central Institute of Islamic Research which, besides conducting research, will be responsible for suggesting concrete educational projects on the basis of Islamic ideology and for undertaking the publication of standard literature on Islamiyat.