|
|
|
|
ACHA is an non-profit, non-political organization, which is dedicated to promote peace and harmony among South Asians regardless of where they live. Current Board Members are Pritam Rohila (President), Jagdish Grewal (Secretary), Dr. Abdul Qayum (Treasurer), Dr. Kanak R. Ravel, Gulzar Ahmed, Ishvar Patel and Susheela Hoefer. Dharam Yadav is the Honorary Financial Advisor. For more information about ACHA and comments about ACHA Bulletin, please contact us at by telephone at 503-362- 4635, or 503-658-4715, or by email at pritamr@open.org, or visit our Web Page at http://ecumene.org/ACHA/ACHA.htm . The Web Page is maintained by Dr. Ingrid H. Shafer in Ecumene.Org, an Internet Domain she has dedicated to interreligious dialogue and global peace.
This Bulletin is being relayed as a part of ACHA's South Asian community service program. Starting in April 1999, it will be sent out on the first Wednesday of each month. It is sent to about 400 individuals in Africa, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, U.K., and USA. Please let us know (pritamr@open.org), if you want to have your name removed from our email distribution list. Also, please let us know if someone should be added to the list. Comments, letters to editor, and short articles are also welcome and can be sent to the same address. ACHA BULLETIN 6/2/99 Focus on Pakistan (Next issue on 7/7/1999) CONTENTS
Greetings
Happy Fathers Day! * In all of my relationships, I promote peace and harmony, from Daily Word, 5/24/99 In a desire to contribute peace to my relationships,
I have learned that sometimes it is best to be silent and refrain from
saying anything in reaction to another person's harsh words. I am able
to respond in peaceful ways whenever I turn my attention away from the
situation and toward God.
From harmony-building acts like listening to others with compassion, the peace of God will take root and flourish. How fulfilling it is to promote peace and harmony in all of my relationships! *
Anti-people activities of Pakistan government
So far, the government of Pakistan has not been
successful in getting the country out of the impending financial disaster.
Corruption in government offices is unabated. Basic health and education
is not accessible to many. As pointed out in a two-part (2/15 & 16/99)
BBC program entitled "A Matter of Honor," crimes against women continue
to go unpunished. (For a copy of the transcript please contact <riffat@LOUISVILLE.EDU>
or us at <pritamr@open.org>). People are now wondering, if prime minister
Sharif is not seeking more and more power just for his own personal benefit.
Recent attacks on public interest organizations (PIOs) and non-government organizations (NGOs) and journalists in Pakistan have frightened a lot of people. PIOs and NGOs, over the years, have provided services important services to the poor and weaker sections of the society. Some of them have earned national and international recognition for their work. But, inside the country they are being attacked from many sides. Allegations are often made that these organizations spread un-Islamic values, promote a Western culture, work against the national interest, and defame Pakistan by misusing donor-provided resources and so on. In mid-1997, the land mafia attacked the NGO Shehri
in response to the organization's work against
Now the state has joined in the attacks. Punjab Minister for Social Welfare Pir Binyamin Rizvi has labeled PIO's as "immoral" and "anti-Islamic." Earlier this year, he initiated a campaign against the Institute for Women Studies. Recently Punjab government has stopped Human Rights Commission of Pakistan from publishing its quarterly newsletter. Minister Rizvi has said that action has been taken against more than a thousand NGOs was taken because they had been non-functional groups "existing only on paper." He said some 3,000 remaining NGOs had been "under scrutiny," adding the government had reports that some of them had engaged in anti-state activities as "agents of foreign countries." About 2500 NGOs have recently been dissolved by the governments of Punjab, NWFP, and Sindh without following legal procedures. Now attacks have started on the journalists who do not follow the government propaganda. They started with the Jang group earlier this year when Senator Saif-ur-Rehman, citing tax evasion charges, pressured them to tow the government line. When the group rebelled by taping and publishing the government's threats, the government started a series of harassment cases against the press, which quickly narrowed into the targeted persecution of individual editors and journalists. In the past few weeks, editors of leading journals have been abducted or arrested without warrants. Some have been physically assaulted and abused, and had their property destroyed. Others had the privacy of their homes invaded in the dead of the night. Some others have been subjected to defamation through government controlled media under a calculated campaign aimed at weakening the voices that raise important questions about the integrity of the present government. Recently in Karachi the Citizens Media Commission held an emergency meeting to condemn the arrest and harassment of senior journalists. The meeting chaired by Javed Jabbar and attended by leading Pakistani journalists including BBC correspondent Idrees Bakhtiar, former President APNS Sultan Ahmed, President KUJ Wirasat Hussnain, Defence columnist Retd. Brig A.R. Siddique, Editor-in-Chief Ibrat Kazi Asad Abid and Senior editor Newsline Zahid Hussain. Several representatives of various NGO's were
also present and everyone jointly condemned the atrocities being committed
against the press by the government. The meeting called for the immediate
release of Mr. Najam Sethi, Editor The Friday Times; Mr. Rehmat Shah Afridi,
Editor The Frontier Post; Mr. Hussain Haqqani, columnist, and for an immediate
end to the use of covert means and overt tactics to intimidate journalists.
Individuals and organizations around the world have condemned these acts
of intimidation by the government. On May 17, a group of respected Pakistanis
living in Canada, Sweden, U.K., and U.S.A., under the name of "Pakistanis
for Peace and Alternative Development" (PPAD) sent a petition to the prime
minister. (For a copy of the petition contact Ishtiaq Ahmed@statsvet.su.se>)
The IBA report recommended the following five measures: 1. "That the government should ensure, to the maximum possible, that ordinary laws and normal courts should be used to combat crime, including terrorism; 2. "That when the government takes special powers to combat crime, including terrorism, these should be accompanied by safeguards, for example, an independent investigative body made up so as to enjoy the confidence of government law-enforcers and the population, providing a means of redress when allegations are proven that law-enforcers have exceeded their power; such powers should be in accord with international norms; 3. " The government should review urgently the many reforms of the police recommended by internal and international reports, and expedite their implementation. In particular, specialist training is required for dealing with terrorist crimes, particularly in forensic evidence; 4. "Strict legal guidelines should be in place for obtaining and proving confessions in courts. In serious cases a confession should only be admissible if voluntarily made to a police officer of the rank of assistant superintendent or above; 5. Police and prison authorities must ensure that
provision is made for proper access to defense lawyers to see clients in
custody awaiting trial. Instructions must be able to be taken without harassment
or intimidation."
* March 26, Madhu, Sri Lanka: The Holy Rosary
Church here has offered SHELTER TO THOUSANDS OF TAMIL REFUGEES from the
15-year-old ethnic war, that has killed tens and thousands of people so
far. They survive on the meager rations supplied to them by the government
and non-government organizations.
* April 11, Islamabad, Pakistan: President Rafiq
Tarar announced setting up of an all-Sikh body to manage and control the
SIKH SHRINES in Pakistan.
* April 23, Yuba City, CA, USA: In memory of his
HINDU WIFE, Hardial Singh Hunji, a local Sikh peach grower, gifted a Shiva
Fountain to the Shri Narayan Hindu Temple. The fountain, inaugurated
the last weekend, was built a the cost of $50,000, just inside the gates
of the temple, which was built earlier by him on a 5-acre site at the cost
of $1.9 million.
* May 16, The Hague, Netherlands: Speaking to the delegates at an end-of the millennium PEACE CONFERENCE, U.N. Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said that the wars raging in Kosovo and Africa must not stop efforts to create peace in the 21st centuries. The conference also featured panel discussions on "Non-violent Approaches to Kashmir," and "Nuclear Disarmament in South Asia." A similar conference had been held here in 1899. * May 19, Ayodhya, U.P., India: A new beginning has been made to find a solution to the RAM JANMABHOOMI-BABRI MASJID DISPUTE through dialogue. This was announced jointly by the main plaintiff in the Babri Masjid case, Mohammad Hashim Ansari and Bajrang Dal founder Vinay Katiyar at a media conference at Ayodhya's Totarimath temple yesterday. Ansari and Katiyar said the two sides held a long talk on the issue yesterday and that they would soon decide dates for further meetings. The two leaders said the controversy should end in the interest of the country. Ansari said, ''Both Hindus and Muslims fought for the freedom of the country jointly. But, in the post-Independence era, successive governments have divided them sharply over the issue''. He admitted that some incidents had vitiated communal amity. ''Anyway a new beginning has now been made with the main parties to the dispute agreeing to find a solution through talks,'' he said. ''The genuine problems of the Muslims of Ayodhya would be solved on a priority basis,'' he added. * May 23, Chicago, IL, USA: Calling themselves, Interfaith Solidarity Against Hate Crimes, a group of 22 men and women Muslims, Jews, Sikhs and Christians - gathered together to clean up a mosque in Villa Park, Chicago., that had been vandalized May 15. A 60-pound chunk of concrete was hurled through its glass doors and several windows were broken too. Among the clean-up group was Howard Sulkin, chairman of the board of the Council for a Parliament for the World's Religion. He lamented the vandals had not only attacked freedom of religion, he said but also "the freedom to have peace and harmony in our lives." "Indifference and intolerance are fatal," warned another participant, Rabbi Ira Youdovin, a high ranking member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. "We came here today so that we may never be indifferent or intolerant again," he said. * May 31, Jerusalem: A group of Christian from the Western countries, bearing apologies printed in Arabic, Hebrew and English, participated in the RECONCILIATION MARCH to ask forgiveness from the Jews, Muslims and Eastern Christians living in the area, whose forefathers were killed in the Crusades, nine centuries earlier. *Pakistan on the eve of a new millennium a speech given on 4/30/1999, at India International Center, New Delhi, by Najam Sethi, Editor, The Friday Times, Pakistan Mr I K Gujral, Prof Satish Kumar, ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to be here among such a distinguished gathering of Indian policy makers, scholars, senior journalists, analysts and keen Pakistan watchers. I will keep my lecture short so that we can spend time on questions and answers and benefit from a n informal dialogue at the end of the lecture. I assume that most people here today are broadly familiar with political developments in Pakistan. At the start, I should like to inform you that the gist of this lecture has been made at various Pakistani forums already. Indeed, the part relating to Pakistan was published almost word for word in my newspaper as an editorial some months ago. S o it should not come as a surprise to my Pakistani compatriots here and at home. I do not practice double-standards, as will be evident in due course. I am deeply and passionately concerned about what is going on in my country and I am not afraid of speak ing the truth at any forum in my quest for posing the problem. Pakistan's socio-political environment is in the throes of a severe multi-dimensional crisis. I refer to six majorcrises which confront Pakistan on the eve of the new millennium:
1. The crisis of identity and ideology refers to the fact that after fifty years, Pakistanis are still unable to collectively agree upon who we are as a nation, where we belong, what we believe in and where we want to go. In terms of our identity and our demands, are we Pakistanis first and then Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch, Pathan or Mohajirs or vice versa? Do we belong - in the sense of our future bearings and anchors - do we belong to South Asia or do we belong to the Middle-East? In terms of ideology, are we Muslims in a moderate Muslim state or Muslims in an orthodox Islamic state? In other words, are we supposed to be like Saudi Arabia or Iran - which are orthodox Islamic states - or are we supposed to be like Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Algeria etc which are supposed to be liberal Muslim states? And if none of these fits the bill, what then? Whose version and vision of Islam do we follow? The Quran and Sunnah, say some people. Well, if the Quaid i Azam and Allama Iqbal both had their own interpretations of how the Quran and Sunnah were to be applied in the real life of a modern state like Pakistan, the problem has been compounded by the myriad interpretations of their interpretations of an Islamic state. And the problem doesn't end there. The Jamaat i Islami, the Sipah i Sahaba, the Jamiat i Ulema i Islam and countless other Islamic parties and Islamic sects all have their so-called exclusive Islamic axes to grind. So there is no agreement, no consensus on this issue. Indeed, there is so much tension, violence and confusion associated with this issue that it has begun to hurt Pakistan considerably. It has assumed the form of an identity and ideological crisis. 2. The crisis of law, constitution and political
system refers to the fact that
(b) The crisis is also reflected in the nature and extent to which the constitution has been mangled by democrats and dictators, lawyers and judges, all alike. The reference here is to several highly controversial constitutional amendments, past and pending; but it is also to highly contentious, even suspect, decisions by the courts acting as handmaidens to the executive; and to the motivations and actions of certain judges in pursuit of personal ambition, pecuniary gains or political advancement. Indeed, many lawmakers do not obey the law and some of our judges are perceived in contemptuous terms by the public. (c) The crisis is manifest, above all, in the rapid public disenchantment with the political system of so-called democracy. Democracy is supposed to be about the supremacy of the law and constitution, about the necessity of checks and balances between the different organs of the state, about the on-going accountability of public office holders, and so on. But it has degenerated into a system based exclusively on elections which return deaf and dumb public representatives to rubber stamp parliaments. So we have the form of democracy but not its essence or content. We have the rituals of democracy but not its soul. I don't know what this system is, but it is certainly not democracy. 3. The crisis of economy refers to the fact that (a) Pakistan is well and truly bankrupt - indeed if the international community had not bailed out Pakistan recently, the country would have succumbed to financial default. (b) Worse, we appear to have no means left by which to lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps without a massive convulsion in state and society. This is manifest in our total dependence on foreign assistance. Indeed, the crisis of economy is so severe that it has begun to impinge on our sovereignty as an independent state and is eroding our traditional construction of national security. The economic crisis is reflected in a crisis of growth, a crisis of distribution, a crisis of production and a crisis of finance. It is threatening massive and violent dislocations in state and society. 4. The crisis of foreign policy is now coming home to roost. We are not only friendless in the region in which we live, we are being blackballed and blackmailed by the international community to which we are indebted up to our ears. If foreign policy i s supposed to be rooted in and geared to domestic objectives and concerns, we have reversed the order of things. Our foreign policy seems to have a life of its own. It dictates our domestic policies rather than the other way round. This is why there is no long term consistency or strength in it. One day, we say that Kashmir is the "core issue without whose prior settlement none of the other contentious issues with India can be resolved". The next day, we say that progress on the other issues can be made without a settlement of the Kashmir issue. One day we say that Kashmir is a multilateral issue, the next day we emphasize the urgency of bilateral dialogue with India. One day, we are quick to recognize the Taliban government in Kabul and exhort the other nations of the world to follow suit; the next day we give our blessings to the idea of a broad-based, multi-ethnic, multi-religious "consensus" government in Kabul. One day Iran is our historic and strategic friend, the next day we stand accused by Iran o f unmentionable actions. One day, Central Asia is billed as the promised land. The next day, it is arrayed against us in hostile terms. One day, the United States is our Godfather. The next day it is the ugly American. The worst has now come to pass. For fifty years we worried about the threat on our eastern borders with India. Today we are anxious about our western front with Iran and Afghanistan. 5. The crisis of civil society is demonstrated in many ways. In increasingly low turnouts for elections. In continuing deterioration of law and order. In rising sectarianism, ethnicity and regionalism. In the breakdown of civil utilities and amenities. In the erosion of the administrative system. In violence and armed conflict. In mass criminalization and alienation of the people. In a rising graph of mental disorders, suicides, drug abuse, rape, kidnappings and outright terrorism. The rise of criminal and religious mafias, kabza groups, extra-judicial killings etc testify to the breakdown of social connections and civil compacts between the Pakistani state and the Pakistani people. 6. These crises have all culminated into a severe crisis of national security. Pakistan's political system, its political leadership, its structure of law and constitution, its administrative framework, its economic stagnation, its ideological hypocrisy and its friendless foreign policy are no longer tenable. They have all contributed to a comprehensive erosion of National Security. If the tide is not reversed quickly, it will engulf Pakistan in its wake. Indeed, the argument that Pakistan is a "failing state" made by some people is based on perceptions of this multi-dimensional crisis. 7. So, if Pakistanis know what the hell is going on, and if Pakistanis know where the hell they are going, the question remains: how the hell do Pakistanis get out of this hell? 8. This question has two parts. First, what sort of agendas are required to be implemented to get out of this hell? Second, who will implement such agendas? 9. The answer to the first question is simple enough. Or at least it is simple enough for me. I ask my fellow Pakistanis to look at each of the crises referred to above and then I demand that the factors which have led to the crisis should be swiftly addressed. Let us take each of the crises and remark on how to resolve the crisis. (a) Crisis of ideology: In my view, there is only one modern day ideology over whose application there can be no bitter or divisive controversy and which will be acceptable to all Pakistanis, irrespective of caste, creed, gender, region, ethnicity, sec t, etc. And that is the ideology of economic growth, the ideology of full employment, the ideology of distributive justice and social welfare. I say Pakistan should make this ideology the ideology of the state and thereby bury all false consciousness and false ideologies. (b) Crisis of Law, Constitution and Political System: I say Pakistan must revamp the political system and revise the Constitution so that the political system and the constitution are made to serve the people below instead of the corrupt elites above. (c) Crisis of Economy: I say that the Pakistani state should honor its international contracts; enforce its domestic loan repayments; tax the rich; dispossess the corrupt; live within its means; vitalize its human resources; export the value of its scientific talents; establish and enforce a genuine private-public partnership in which the private sector produces efficiently and the public sector regulates effectively. (d) Crisis of civil society: I say enforce the
rule of law; disarm society; disband militias; decentralize
(e) Crisis of Foreign Policy: I say make friends not masters or enemies; bury cold-war hatchets; renounce post-cold-war jihads; negotiate terms of trade not territorial ambitions; redefine strategic depth to mean emphasis on internal will rather than external space; (f) Crisis of National Security: I say redefine security to mean not only military defense but also economic vitality, social cohesion and international respect; and I say Pakistan should determine its minimal optimal defense deterrent but shun an arms race. 10. The answer to the second question - namely, who will pursue and implement this agenda - is difficult only for one reason: I cannot see even one leader or institution in Pakistan who or which personifies National Power and has the three virtues or elements which are required to get Pakistan out of this mess. These are: vision, courage and integrity. The vision to chart a particular course; the courage to implement it ruthlessly; and the integrity to ensure that it doesn't get derailed. My hope, of c ourse, is that someone or some institution will throw up such leadership in time to come. My fear is that if this doesn't happen soon enough, it may be too late later. I would now like to turn briefly to one factor that impinges greatly on Pakistan's past, present and future, one which should concern all of you who are assembled here today. That is Pakistan's relationship with India. In one crucial sense, India remains a determining factor vis a vis Pakistan. The Pakistani state has come to be fashioned largely in response to perceived and propagated, real and imagined threats to its national security from India. The mentality and outlook of the Pakistani state is th erefore that of a historically besieged state. That is why conceptions of national security, defined in conventional military terms, dominate the Pakistani state's thinking on many issues. Indeed, that is why state outlook dominates government policies. T hat is why Pakistan's foreign policy runs its domestic policy rather than the other way round. That is why Pakistan's economy is hostage to Pakistan's cold war conceptions of "national security" rather than being an integral part of it. That is why Pakistan is more a state-nation rather than a nation-state. This has had far-reaching implications for the lack of development of a sustainable and stable democratic political culture in Pakistan. Indeed, and more critically, it has directly spawned extra-state institutions espousing Islamic fundamentalism and jehad. And it is these forces which are undermining the compact between the state and people of Pakistan, thereby adversely impacting on political discourse in the country. Pakistan's obsession with India hurts Pakistan deeply. But the roots of this obsession cannot be shrugged away by India. Indeed, India may be said to be the root cause of Pakistan's insecurity. Apart from pre-partition history, there is the fact of a great injustice done to Pakistan by India over Kashmir and the dismemberment of Pakistan in which India played a critical and leading role. For precisely this reason, one of the fallouts of this obsession is the decade long low-intensity-conflict in Kashmir. Another is the tit-for-tat nuclear and missile tests by Pakistan and its refusal to sign a no-first-strike agreement with India which in turn means that Pakistan cannot get a no-war pact from India. In this way, if Pakistan's past is umbilically linked to that of India, its future cannot but be shaped by India's future, as well as have an impact on it. If the rise of fundamentalist Islam threatens Pakistan's body-politic, India cannot expect to escape its negative fallout. If a nuclear arsenal i s assembled in Pakistan, India's security cannot be vouchsafed by all the nuclear weapons at its disposal. If Pakistan fails as a nation-state and becomes a rogue regime marked by social anarchy and upheaval, India's army will not be able to contain its disruptive and destabilizing impact. If Pakistan is drawn into an arms race with India, the logic of the situation will fuel the sources of conflict between the two countries rather than provide security to either country. Of course, this doe s not mean that India should constantly look over its shoulder while seeking to determine its own national security policies. But it does mean that India cannot ever be a great power or great nation if its own backyard is seething with resentment and turmoil. Indeed, as long as India's quest for great powerdom is based on its strategy of military outreach, it is bound to be thwarted in its ambitions by tit-for-tat Pakistan. Therefore India will be recognized as a great power in the new millennium not on the basis of its numerical military superiority in the region but by the extent to which the countries of South Asia, including Pakistan, are economically inter-dependent on each other and take their lead independent of super powers. A pre-requisite for thi s is that India should make enduring peace with Pakistan on principled and honorable terms and resolve the Kashmir dispute, thereby helping the forces of civil society in Pakistan to fashion a new state which is subservient to the Pakistani nation instea d of the other way round. By way of concluding, I should just like to remind everyone one lesson of modern history: vibrant and stable democracies are less likely to go to war than authoritarian states which live and survive on the basis or threat of war. Thank you very much for your patience. I would be happy to take your questions now. Q: If Pakistan is in such a crisis, why should
the Kashmiris want to join it?
Q: Will Pakistan accept the LOC as an international
border?
Q: Is the Lahore Summit a historic event? NS: The Lahore Summit will only go down in history if it is an anti-history event, if it succeeds in burying the history of the last 50 years. But that is the great challenge. And this is not the first time that the ball is in India's court. In 198 9, both countries agreed in Islamabad to resolve the Siachin dispute. An agreement was drafted and settled. But then Rajiv Gandhi went back to India and resiled from it. Again, in 1997, Nawaz Sharif and I K Gujral were said to have made a "historic break- through." Eight working groups on eight outstanding disputes, including Kashmir, were supposed to be set up. But India resiled from setting up the Kashmir working group some months later. This time, Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee have agreed to the same agenda as in 1997. Will India start discussing Kashmir seriously with a view to finding a solution? On Pakistan's side, this is the best opportunity for progress because Nawaz Sharif has gone out of his way to start the dialogue by implicitly making two informal concessions: there is no mention of Kashmir as the "core" issue in the Lahore declaration and there is no reference to the UN resolutions. This means that Pakistan is prepared to start talking with India over all issues simultaneously, something it was not prepared to do for many years. So the ball is in India's court yet again. Unless India makes an enduring and honorable settlement with Pakistan over Kashmir, there will be no peace in the sub-continent. If this dialogue doesn't take off, a great opportunity will be lost. No PM other than Nawaz Sharif could have gone so far, so quickly, reaching out to India. Will India reciprocate? Q: Why doesn't Pakistan accept a no-first-strike
agreement with India?
Q: Is Nawaz Sharif trying to Islamize Pakistan
via the Shariah Bill?
(Note: Earlier this month, Najam Sethi, editor of the English-language, the Friday Times newspaper, was arrested at gunpoint from his home. It has since been revealed that he is being held by Pakistan's intelligence services. Officials say Mr Sethi is to be charged with anti-state activities for a speech he had made in India. They also accused him of having links with India's intelligence agency, Raw. Mr Sethi's supporters believe he was detained because of a recent series of articles - and a BBC interview he gave - exposing government corruption). *
Medievalisation on the Eve of 2000 AD
It is accepted on all hands that the Muslims of India lacked leadership at the beginning of the century. Pakistan, by accepting the axiom that had there been no Jinnah there would have been no Pakistan, has acknowledged this fact. In 1905, Aga Khan led a delegation to Simla to
ask the Viceroy to safeguard Indian Muslims' rights, but the Ismaili Imam
was not strictly an orthodox Muslim leader. After Gandhi upstaged him in
the Congress, Jinnah, an Ismaili-born lawyer, began the advocacy of Muslims'
rights under separate electorates.When he left Indian politics to settle
in England in 1931, the party representing the Muslims felt itself without
a leader.
In 1935, Liaquat Ali Khan had to go to London
to bring Jinnah back from exile to revive the Muslim League. Allama Iqbal
represented the Muslim League in Punjab but, like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan,
carried no political appeal because of his reformist Islamic views. The
Muslim League ditched him in 1937 when it was forced to enter into a political
pact with the Unionists.
The leaders you deserve The adage 'people get the leaders they deserve' actually points to the process of nation-building. After 1947, Pakistan began defining itself through a reinterpretation of history. In 1949, it took the identity of an Islamic republic. Its history books were written afresh to popularize a purely Muslim version of events. The Islamic commitment re-validated the anti-Muslim League elements in a grand effort at reconciliation. The concept of Shariat soon occupied center stage. An ideologically unformed Muslim League moved close to the religious leaders to pick up the theological baggage it had lacked under Jinnah. Enlightened leadership was provided by a military general, Ayub Khan, who had earlier been co-opted into the Constituent Assembly and made defense minister by the bureaucrat leaders of Pakistan. Sensing the surrender of the state to the clergy, he temporarily removed the word 'Islamic' from the title of the 'Republic'. His imposition of the Family Laws Ordinance in 1962 was his last act of rebellion against ideology. Under Bhutto, socialism had to be Islamic, but as his socialism failed, ideology as enunciated by the clergy was adopted by Bhutto to ensure against political defeat. The textbook in Pakistan anticipated an Islamic ruler. General Zia presented himself as this ruler in 1977 when he assumed power. All over the world ideology takes the state away from democracy towards fascism. It outlaws the expression of a variant point of view. Pakistan's ideology looked to the utopia of Shariat as interpreted by the clergy. Under Zia, Ansari Report concluded that opposition as an institution had no place in the Islamic state. To legitimize himself, the general medievalised the state through the Constitution and the textbooks. After Zia, the Muslim League emerged as a Shariat-oriented party which deliberately ignored the implication that Shariat could only be enforced by the clergy who alone could interpret the Quran. It was condemned to leading a 'suspended' state on the verge of becoming 'completely' ideological. In the 'completely' ideological USSR, the Communist Party ruled without an opposition; in Iran, the clergy rules the 'achieved' ideological state without an opposition. Leaders for the New Millennium If the New Millennium is seen as some kind of
obligation for Pakistan to produce leaders with modernist views, then Pakistan
is not ready for it. It was medievalised just before the end of the 20th
century in the decade of the 1980s. The state has indoctrinated the masses
in favor of a revival of the medieval state rather than a 'modern' state.
Because of democracy, individuals aspiring to leadership must put on the
Islamic war-paint. Leaders must give a ghusl to Data Darbar in Lahore and
pass under the bahishti gate of paradise in Pakpattan. Mian Nawaz Sharif
must bring in more Shariat, Ms Bhutto must carry the worry-beads, Imran
must be an Islamic messiah, and Farooq Leghari must attend the Tablighi
congregation.
Against the New Millennium The New Millennium is dominated by a post-Keyensian global philosophy which most of the third world dislikes. Even where national economies are run efficiently on the basis of the economic principles advocated by the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, there are frictions with the economically dominant West in the domain of human rights. Pakistan's Shariat-driven leader will not be able to enforce budgetary targets because of political and religious reasons but will pass off his opposition to the global forces as an act of solidarity with third world leaderships. As external bail-outs peter out, this outlook will take the state of Pakistan to crippling isolationism, followed by collapse. Pakistani leaders legitimize themselves on the basis of their allegiance to Islam (which invariably gets out of hand and becomes Shariat) and an anti-Indian world view. As time passes, this orientation will cut the ground from under their feet. The national economy will have to bear the burden of an expanding defense budget satisfying the needs of security against a conventionally predominant and nuclear India. The New Millennium promises to be an era of arms race between India and Pakistan - an arms race that India will dictate till Pakistan is no longer able to keep up with it. Leadership in Pakistan will always be supplied by Punjab because it controls two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly. Smaller provinces may produce intellectually superior leaders but they will not be able to assert themselves nationally. In Punjab, the concept of unity is based on assumptions that undercut provincial autonomy. After a point, assertion of autonomy by a province is seen by Punjabi leaders as a violation of ideology. Because of his custodianship of the ideology of Pakistan, the Punjabi leader has to embrace mediocrity to cleave to the image of popular leadership. It is impossible for him to conceive new ideas and exercise statesmanship to break the deadlocks blocking Pakistan's progress as a 21st century state. Democracy and leadership Leaders in Pakistan have lost the quality of leadership because of erosion of democratic institutions in the country. Democracy doesn't really require great leaders. The representative parameters are set in such a manner that anyone the people elect can function as tolerable government. But if these parameters are tampered by ideology and autocratic compulsions, the country sustains only the idea of 'power' without defending the 'rights' of the electorate. Pakistan's only chance of survival in the next millennium depends on the restoration of democratic institutions. Will the democratic institutions be revived in Pakistan? There is no possibility of that, given the presence of compulsions described above. The executive is less answerable than it was in the past; and the judiciary, after repeated political assaults on it, is less sure-footed than it was in the past. The promise of Shariat (either by the Muslim League or the clergy) bodes ill for the vestigial democratic values accepted as norm in the country. The global persuasion is against ideological stringency but Pakistan's internal compulsions propel it towards a divinely ordained messianism in the mold of Imam Khomeini. Pakistan is theologically ripe to become a theocracy on the eve of the New Millennium. Its leaders are enmeshed in its indoctrination. The 'new' leaders, at present being educated in schools and colleges, are more indoctrinated than the ones in currency in 1999. Given these circumstances, Pakistan is more ready to clash with the New Millennium than adapt to it. In an increasingly interconnected world, Pakistan's ideology is bound to act internally rather than act upon the world outside. What is conceived as a binding force is actually eating away at the fabric of the residual state. Ideology allows little freedom of interpretation and adjustment and tends to form individuals whose intellectual faculties are seriously curtailed. * The rot in Pakistan
"Development", wrote James Wolfensohn, the president
of the World Bank, earlier this year, "requires good governance, meaning
open, transparent, accountable public institutions." Over the past year
or two of economic turmoil in Asia-turmoil caused, in the view of many,
by a lack of governmental accountability-Mr Wolfensohn's prescription has
become a favorite theme in the corridors of the World Bank and the IMF.
So when a government sets about undermining the institutions designed to
hold it in check, it is time to start thinking about shutting off the flow
of money.
The judiciary at first tried to check Mr Sharif, but has given up. When the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Sajjad Ali Shah, took the president's side in an argument with the prime minister in 1997, a mob from Mr Sharif's party stormed the Supreme Court and Mr Sharif sacked Mr Shah. The courts have given Mr Sharif little trouble since. This year it is the turn of the press. A few months back, the Jang Group of newspapers had its bank accounts frozen and its newsprint confiscated. Now Najam Sethi, a newspaper publisher and editor (and a former correspondent of The Economist), is being held without charge, accused, by government press releases, of working for both the CIA and Indian intelligence. The government insists that his arrest has nothing to do with a campaign against the press-which makes it odd, then, that all copies of his paper, the Friday Times, were seized last week, and that its website has been jammed. All this is unfortunate for Pakistanis, of course, but should it really matter to those who hand out the money? Yes. Without an independent judiciary and a free press, there is little chance of the accountability and openness that Mr Wolfensohn regards as essential to development. Signs already abound that money which should have been spent on development is being wasted. A scheme to help poor Pakistanis become taxi-drivers has involved the distribution of concessional loans at politicians' discretion. Neither the grand Islamabad-Lahore highway nor the unnecessary new airport at Karachi is justified by economics. Mr Sharif's predecessor, Benazir Bhutto, has just been sentenced in absentia to five years in jail for corruption. Mr Shah, the sacked chief justice, had agreed to hear corruption charges against Mr Sharif, but was sacked shortly afterwards. Mr Sharif's family has been tainted by a High Court judgment in London against his father and two brothers in March, ordering them to repay $32.5 million in loans taken out from a Saudi finance house for a paper mill owned by the family. Mr Sethi had written a sharp editorial commenting on this judgment the week before he was arrested. Before the end of the month, the IMF's board is
due to consider releasing the next tranche of a $1.6 billion loan. It should
think long and hard about whether Mr Sharif's Pakistan is really likely
to use the money well. Of course, there are many badly governed countries
in the world, but some of them, often thanks to prodding from outside,
have been moving in the right direction. Pakistan under Mr Sharif is moving
in the wrong direction. It seems perverse to give it more cash to speed
it on its way.
Who's the bogeyman? This argument is favored by
many unattractive governments. It often works.
(Note: According to a May 25, 1999 BBC report from London, UK, the Pakistani authorities have seized 4,000 copies of the Economist magazine featuring this story criticizing the government). * Rooting for
the sub-continent
I have a major problem, one that is threatening to turn our otherwise quiet home in suburban Delhi into an ear-splitting war zone. On one side of the border that has sprung up this past fortnight is me, on the other is the most delightful woman in my life -- my teenaged daughter. I am rooting for India despite the disastrous performance of our home team in the first two matches they played in the World Cup series. My daughter is rooting for Pakistan. Each time an Indian wicket falls, she shrieks in glee. When a Pakistani is forced to retire from the field, I clap and dance. Initially, the result of this open hostility was a cold war: She looked through me and I looked through her. Then I went down with a stomach flu -- I have a strong suspicion that the virus did not land on my dinner plate accidentally. The cold war has since turned into a hot one and last night, when the Pakis made the Aussies eat humble pie, our home resembled Drass being shelled from the Pakistan side of the Line of Control. Her support for Pakistan, I had supposed, stemmed from a teenager's crush on Shoaib Akhtar. That only made it worse: Backing the Pakis is bad enough, I ranted at my wife (who, being a firm believer in a world without frontiers, has maintained remarkable calm), falling for one of them? That's unpardonable. Fearing that I would suffer a stroke, my daughter called a truce, sat me down and told me why she was rooting for Pakistan. I had obviously underestimated my daughter's -- and, I guess, her generation's -- intelligence. There's no way India can win the cup, she argued. So would you rather have somebody else walk off with it or see Pakistan, a sub-continental country, win it? I was stumped. Notwithstanding cynics and Cassandras who have refused to take note of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's bus ride to Lahore, the media hoopla over the event appears to have had a far-reaching impact. As we enter a new century and a new age, we have a new generation thinking in terms of sub-continental solidarity. If we have them here, I am sure you have them in Pakistan. It is a comforting thought that our children could yet grow up without the animus of these past 50 years and treat Partition and all that has followed as nothing more than mere footnotes of our sub-continental history. But that could well remain a dream: Politicians have an amazing ability to sour possibilities and wreck potentialities. The near-open war that is being waged by Pakistan along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir shows how determined is a section of the Pakistani establishment that the Lahore Declaration should be consigned to the dustbin rather than be made the charter of a lasting relationship. Mian Nawaz Sharif is busy fighting his own battles and cannot afford to come down on this section of the establishment, at least for the moment. And if he cannot assert himself fast, he may end up losing the initiative he had a couple of months ago. If that were to happen, we could well say goodbye to the spin-off from Vajpayee's bus yatra. But let us not digress from cricket. Sachin Tendulkar's brilliant batting was more than just cricket -- it was a lesson for those of us who put ourselves before the nation. Once again, cynics would say that his decision to return to the field rather than mourn the death of his father in Bombay was spurred by the realisation that it would do wonders for his image and PR. I think that is balderdash. There are moments in each one of our lives when we are faced with an opportunity to demonstrate our ability to rise above the ordinary and become a hero in the truest sense of the term. Sachin Tendulkar was faced with this opportunity and he seized it. He could have well stayed put in Bombay. Nobody would have grudged him his moment of private grief. But he rose above the ordinary and batted for India. His nation, he decided, came before his grief. Nothing could be bigger and more important than India. In my view, that decision, and not the fact that he scored a magnificent 140 runs, is what has made him a hero. At least for those of us who believe that family is secondary to country; that self comes after nation. Sachin's act is no less than the bravery of our soldiers fobbing off the intruders in Drass. I wonder if the parasites who are fattening themselves off a certain lady's proclivity for the melodramatic were watching the match yesterday. Most probably not, since they were busy pretending treacly concern over her security. It would be unfair to expect them to subscribe to the view that the nation can be above the personal; that India is more important than family. There I go again. I had promised myself not to write about politics and about the nautanki being staged on Akbar Road in Delhi. But it is a fatal attraction from which it is so difficult to steer clear... And the comparison cannot but come to mind each time I think of Sachin Tendulkar rising above the ordinary and emerging as a hero, not just a cricket hero. Happily, my daughter agrees with me on this point. * Unless you pray
Life without purpose is barren indeed,
If we send no ships out, no ships will
come in,
So whatever is wrong with your life today,
But pray for a purpose to make life worth
living,
Something like this (ACHA Bulletin 5/7/99 Hindu-Muslim Relationships in India) is needed and needed to be proclaimed as the only solution to mankind's woes. We are not alone in the strife brought about by ethnic/religious differences. Ireland. (former) Yugoslavia and shia and sunnis in Iraq are but a few examples. John Le Carre had an interesting thoughts in his book Russia House. An Englishman and a Russian are talking about the lies their own people tell to perpetuate the political detente. There is an interesting theme that evolves when they agree that none will be told by his government the crimes the government committed and it remained the duty of the individual to expose their own governments so the truth will come out. People will be less afraid of the 'enemy' who are themselves victims of propaganda. The moral is that each should betray his own government. I think it very well applies to religions too. We don't have to go beyond the bounds of one religion. The persecution of Bhangis in Kerala and Bihar and the atrocities committed even today without shame are classic cases yet to be resolved. But all the same, any step in the right direction is a positive step. Keep up the good work. Kishor * Government of Pakistan and the university's International and Area Studies program have established the Quaid-i-Azam chair of Pakistan Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. * Sikh studies chair has been established at the University of Michigan with a generous donation from Drs. Jaswinder Kaur and Amrik Singh Chattha of Weirton, WV. * Real ownership of Khinoor, the jewel in the British crown, may have been recently decided when a Swiss bank safe-deposit box of Ctaherine Duleep Singh was expected to be opened, according to a statement by the last recognized heir of the Maharaja, Beant Singh Sandhanwalia, now living in Amsterdam. The owner was the daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last ruler of Punjab before it was annexed to the British India in 1849. * Introduction of television, Internet, email, and for the poor low-cost housing and pension will mark the silver jubilee of the coronation of Bhutan's king Jigme Singye Wangchuk on June 2. * Former prime minister and former Nepali Congress president Krishna Prasad Bhattarai on 5/18 won his maiden parliamentary seat and his party surged ahead in the third general elections in the Hindu Himalayan kingdom in nine years, grabbing 30 of the 46 seats filled so far. NC also maintained leads in as many as 46 of the 99 constituencies counting-trends of which were available this evening. * On April 17, the world's oldest prime minister, Sri Lanka's Sirimavo Bandaranaike celebrated her 83rd birthday. * In 1998-99, India was the world's largest exporter of processed diamonds. Its market share of 50% was valued at over $5 billion. * Malayalam News, launched on April 16 in Dubai is the first full-fledged Malayalam daily, outside India. It aims to reach about 80,000 Malyalees living in Saudi Arabia. * A Millenium Eve celebration, World Bengali Conference (Biswa Banga Sammelan), in Calcutta from December 29, 1999 through January 9, 2000, is being sponsored by the Los Angeles based Research Engineers, Inc., to promote its e-commerce solutions. * As an alternative to the long-distance calls and emails Wockhardt Heart Hospital at Bangalore (Karnataka, India) has set up a Web site that includes patient information and video link so that relatives and friends could look it up directly, reducing the load on doctors and the general staff. * Allahabad (U.P., India) has become the first city in Uttar Pradesh to open an Internet-Public Call Office through which, on a small cash payment one could talk for a maximum duration of two hours at a time. During last two years, not only telecom services in Allahabad have been expanded multifold but have also been improved qualitatively by introducing reliable connecting media like radio and the optical fibre cable system. * H Sundaresan, chief general manager, Maharashtra Telecom Circle, Bombay, has announced that all districts in the state would be linked via Internet services by the end of this year. Cities like Aurangabad, Jalgaon, Kohlapur, Nagpur, Nashik, and Pune have already been connected via the Internet. * Kuwaiti and Saudi software developing companies have signed agreements with U.S. firms to launch the first extensive Arabic Internet search engine and to expand information technology news in the Middle East. The Internet as a subject will be incorporated into the curriculum of 47 schools in Kuwait at the beginning of the next academic year in September. * A project for putting a computer inside every Indian home in Singapore has collected far more donated PCs than it has takers for! ''It's easier to get the computers,'' said Patrick Daniel, editor of The Business Times, who heads the project's board of directors. ''It's more difficult to get the families,'' he lamented, in a bid to make Indian parents more aware of the need to be computer savvy in the city-state. HOLIDAYS: June
14 U.S. Flag Day, 16 Guru Arjan Dev's Martyrdom Day, 20 Father's Day, 27
Eild-ul-Milad, 28 Kabir Jayanti/VAt-Savitri
* June 6, Pasadena, CA, USA: THREE MASTERS concert, featuring Birju Maharaj and his Kathak Dance company, Amjad Ali Khan on sarod and Zakir Hussain on tabla, offered by the Music Circle 2-8:30 p.m., at Pasadena City College's Sexon Auditorium. Tickets at $70/$45/$20. More info from 805.581.9940, 626.405.9759. * June 6, Portland, OR, USA: FLUTE recital by Shashank, offered by Rasika, at First United Methodist Church, 1838 SW Jefferson. Tickets at $18, $13 & $10 from Fastixx outlets. More info from www.rasika.org. * June 10 - August 30, Los Angeles, CA, USA: KALIGHAT PAINTINGS FROM CALCUTTA: Images from a Changing World, at Los Ageles County Museum, 5905 Wilshire Bvd. More info from 213.857.6000. * June 11, Portland, OR, USA: FOLK DANCES OF RAJASTHAN & KATHAK by Portland area students of Prof. Santosh Vyas, 8-9 p.m., at Lewis & Clark College Evans Auditorium, 0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd. Tickets at $10 ($20 family). More info from 503.629.0277. * Through June 26, Portland, OR, USA: MINIATURES in classical Rajasthani style byAjay Garg, a deaf & dumb artist from India, at Augen Art Gallery, 817 SW 2nd Street. More info from gargvijay@yahoo.com * Through July 11, Palo Alto, CA, USA: THE NARRATIVE THREAD, an exhibition, sponsored by the Palo Alto Art Center, women's organization Maitri, and Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India, of the communally created quilts by women of the Bihar village Bhusura's Mahila Vikas Samyog Samiti in the 18th century art of sujuni kanthas, at Palo Alto Cultural Center, 1313 Newell Rd. Admission is free. More info from 650.329.2366. * Through July, New York, NY, USA: EAST IS EAST, a play starring Purva Bedi, Rahul Khanna, Ajay Mehta, Rishi Mehta, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Amir Sajad, portrays the experiences in the England of the 1970s of six siblings of a Pakistani father and his more liberal English wife, opened on may 25 the Manhattan Theater Club, 131 West 55th Street. The American edition is directed by Scott Elliott, the winner of Obies (given to off-Broadway work) for Curtains and Ecstasy. More info from 212.581.1212. * A two-day festival, Diasporadics, highlighting the arts and activism in South Asian communities in America is being organised from September 17 to 19, at the Brecht Forum, 122 W 27th Street, New York. It will focus on dance, theatre, visual arts, literature and music, and film and video work by South Asian progressive artistes. Diasporadics seeks to address the need for a community forum that uses the arts to support leftist causes and fight against social and economic exploitation. The festival is asking for submission by June 10 works/presentations "which embody the interconnection between arts and politics". For literary submissions, contact Natasha Singh, (201) 434-3743, Sunaina Maira, (212) 366-6341 (sunainam@aol.com), Maira, 24 Charles St, #12, New York, NY 10014; for video submissions, contact Shebana Coelho (212) 929-8747, shebana@aol.com; for dance and theater presentations, contact Sharmila Desai, (212) 760-5960, sanyuct@yahoo.com; for visual arts, contact Madhu Kaza, c/o Witness Tree, 532 La Guardia Place, #241, New York, NY 10012; for music submissions, contact Deepa Purohit at Witness Tree. * A new website (www.tda.gov)of the United States Trade and development Agency outlines public and private sector projects in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, and offers a new way for U.S.-based exporters to get involved major international infra-structure and industrial projects. * To mark the Tercentenary of Khalsa, the Sikh Foundation located at Palo Alto, CA, USA has started a program to publish art and literature for children and adults. A listing of their recent publications can be obtained from www.sikh-foundation.org. * Indian Airlines has introduced a direct flight to Kuala Lumpur from Bangalore. * The Meeru Island Resort in the Maldives offers its special package rates till October 31. The package includes return transfers by speed boat between Male airport and resort, meals and taxes. Other facilities at the resort include swimming pool, tennis court, gymnasium and indoor games. More info by phone from Travel Shop World Wide at 022-2693832. * The famous Nathula and Jelepla passes on the
Indo-Tibet border in eastern Sikkim will now be open to domestic tourists.
Once the Nathula was the gateway to the Indo-Tibet silk trade route
between Kalimpong and Lhasa, via the Jelepla pass, a few km east of Nathula.
The opening of the border posts for domestic tourists could be a precursor
to the state government's proposal of 'Namaste China visits' as part of
its Explore India Millennium Year. Tourists would need to secure special
permits to visit the two border posts, under the guidance of the Indian
army and local tour operators, recognized by the Sikkim government. More
info by phone from Sikkim Tourism, Chanakyapuri at 011-3014981
Home | Activities
- Current | Awards | Board
of Directors | Bulletin
| Chapters
|