March 23, 2007
Pakistan Day
On the 23rd of March, from Wikipedia:
The Lahore Resolution, commonly known as the Pakistan Resolution, was the National documentation and a formal political statement adopted by the All India Muslim League at the occasion of its three-day general session on 22-24 March 1940 that called for greater Muslim autonomy in British India. This has been largely interpreted as a demand for a separate Muslim state, Pakistan. The resolution was presented by A. K. Fazlul Huq.
Although the idea of founding the state was introduced by Allama Iqbal in 1930 and the name Pakistan had been proposed by Choudhary Rahmat Ali in 1934, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and other leaders had kept firm belief in Hindu-Muslim unity. However, the volatile political climate and religious hostilities gave the idea stronger backing.
More here. Adil Najam has a nice post at All Things Pakistan:
To me, the 23rd of March is a day to reflect on the message of Mohammad Iqbal, just like the 14th of August is to ponder on the legacy of Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
We, as Pakistanis, have not really been kind to the legacy of either man. We turned both into idols. And once we convinced ourselves that these were ’supermen’ we conveniently absolved ourselves of the responsibility to learn from - let alone emulate - either. We are fond of celebrating but incapable of incorporating either the actions of Mr. Jinnah or the thoughts of Mohammad Iqbal.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 12:00 AM | Permalink
Comments
We emulate Jinnah (but don't have half his style.)
23rd March Mubarak.
Posted by: HMN | Mar 23, 2007 5:44:13 AM
Any commemoration of the founding of Pakistan should also take into account the repercussions. The millions of dead and refugees from Partition, the many dead from the war in Bangladesh, and the slow, steady bleed from Kashmir, Sindh, and now Baluchistan.
To me, the idea of Pakistan looks a little tarnished right now.
I'm also surprised in the Pakistan coverage on this blog. There is a full-fledged legal rebellion against Musharraf, the Pakistani cricket team was ejected by the _Irish_, and someone strangled the Pakistani coach to death in his hotel room. It's a little weird that there isn't very much on this in this blog.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 23, 2007 9:42:47 AM
Hector, should celebrations of July 4th be accompanied by laments about the many killed in the revolutionary war, the civil war, and every other war, (not to mention the millions killed by America elsewhere, like Vietnam, for example), and with second guessing about whether the "idea" of America was worth these lives? That question doesn't even make sense, as we have no idea what would have happened if America hadn't come into being. It would hardly be sensible to question the idea of German statehood solely because 6 million jews would eventually die because of it. Sure every nation has high and low points. Thankfully no low in Pakistan's history compares with the brutality and sheer destruction wreaked by western countries on each other and the rest of the world.
Sure there is a long-running debate about whether the formation of Pakistan achieved better status for the Muslims of the subcontinent (even those in India) or not, and there are fierce arguments about this, but this doesn't mean that 150 million people can't be happy about their country or proud of it. Despite the fact that Pakistan is unfairly potrayed in the West as a lawless hell (a lawlessness created largely by American anti-Soviet policies in the 80s, but that is a long story), most people (like much of my family) manage to have decent and productive lives there. Read some of Husain's pieces, or Asad's to get more of a feel for the place.
Allow us a single post as perhaps a bit of sentimentality, will you? (I thought it might be a good way for some people to learn about how and why a country which is America's frontline ally in the war on terror came into being, too.)
As for the non-coverage at 3QD of the riots over the dismissal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, and the possible murder of Bob Woolmer: we generally don't report the news on 3QD (and I must shamefully admit that I don't follow cricket at all). These are things you would have seen on CNN, the BBC, etc., or on your own preferred daily newscast. If and when I see deeper, more informed analysis of these events in the less breathless journals, I will post them.
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Mar 23, 2007 4:19:37 PM
Abbas,
The difference is that the deaths and homelessness of Partition occurred after the declaration of independence. Most of the time, countries fight a war to become independent, and after they get independence, the fighting stops and people stop dying. Pakistan/India's independence is unusual in that the states were created and acknowledged and then 1 million people died and 15 million people became homeless. There is nothing comparable in history in the same time period in terms of "brutality and sheer destruction" that I know of. The only comparable modern case I can think of is Israel/Palestine, which also involved mass killing and ethnic cleansing.
Partition was a direct consequence of the creation of Pakistan. It didn't happen 80 years later like the American civil war, or 70 years later, like in the case of Germany. It was a direct and forseeable consequence, and the people you lionize on Pakistan day did a lot to foster the divisions that led to Partition. Why are you lionizing people whose works were drenched in blood from their inception? Why lionize people who make a fetish of purity and separation from their neighbors (even putting it in the name), which rather predictably led to a violent separation?
I'm sorry you feel put-upon by the portrayal of Pakistan in the West, but it isn't made up out of whole cloth. Pakistan is a poor, unstable country, held together by the military, with a penchant for aggressive actions against its neighbors and its own people. It's great that some rich Karachis have a good life there (and I mean that sincerely), but I somehow doubt that the families of the people described here are anything like the median Pakistani family.
I'd rather you just portray Pakistan as it is, instead of working so hard to counter what you view as a "biased" portrayal that you are unable to post anything bad at all about Pakistan.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 23, 2007 5:00:46 PM
By the way, I _do_ think that celebration of July 4th in the United States should be accompanied by thoughts of those killed in the Revolutionary War, and in many cases I think it is.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 23, 2007 5:05:23 PM
Hektor,I share your views. If there had to be a posting for Pakistan Day on this blog--and it had to be one of pride--then why not one that is current--that show cases the demonstrations and protests across the country by the lawyers community who are trying to uphold the constitution and safeguard institutions against the dictats of the Military Dictator? Why the usual lofty photographs of dead poets? Thanks.
Posted by: maniza | Mar 23, 2007 5:39:41 PM
Hector,
I don't have anything negative to say about Pakistan? How about the following, written in a fit of depression at the violence in Karachi a couple of years ago:
Karachi is a more and more culturally arid place, starved for entertainment, increasingly religious, intolerant, lawless, and intellectually bankrupt. There is a small self-congratulatory elite which prides itself on its worldly sophistication at cocktail parties where smuggled Scotch greases the endless mutual admiration of the rich, and there is ecstasy and cocaine available for the raves that the children of this elite throw behind heavily guarded walls (something declaimed with great pride to me several times as proof of Karachi's modernity and refinement), but there is little sustained intellectual activity of any sort, nor a single institution of higher learning of a quality which could anchor such activity. On a given day, it is highly unlikely that there is live music to be heard anywhere, or a poetry reading, or a theater performance, or anything else for that matter (in a city of over 14 million souls!). Once in a while these things do happen, but rarely enough that the only entertainment available most of the time is dining out, or watching the proliferating channels on cable TV (the local ones being dominated by third rate sitcoms or religious programs and other unadulterated junk).
For the first time, I had the depressing feeling that I no longer belong in Karachi. It used to be my home, but we have gone separate ways. Until a few years ago, I still entertained the dream of returning to live there for a while, but unless I grow a beard and undergo a conversion to being a mullah, that is now no longer possible for me. Of all the places I have ever been in my life, the one I would least like to live in is Saudi Arabia, a place characterized entirely by violent repression of almost every playful human instinct, and by shocking hypocrisy, and Pakistan is becoming more and more like that than the culturally diverse, tolerant, and progressive society of my youth.
Negative enough for you? Hector, I get it from both sides: from Pakistani friends for complaining about the bad things, and from you for not complaining enough. As it is, my Pakistan Day post was hardly an example of chest-beating patriotism. One link explained what the Lahore Resolution was and the other criticized Pakistanis for not living up to the dreams of its founders, or even trying to understand them. Is that so bad? Was it simply the acknowledgment of Pakistan Day that irked you?
Yes, some things have gone from bad to worse in Pakistan, but there have also been hopeful signs and things worth celebrating (the economy is much better these days; there is unprecedented press freedom and a proliferation of independent media, including TV, radio, and press; etc.). First of all, I didn't see a celebratory holiday as the appropriate time to recall all the bad things. Is it wrong for me to acknowledge Pakistan Day? A day which celebrates the country which provided a lovely nurturing environment during my childhood and provided me with a solid early education that allowed me to do well in America later?
You certainly didn't restrict yourself to mentioning the lives lost during partition in your initial comment, as you do in your second one, because you realize that as I point out in my first comment, if the War of 1971, the trouble in Balochistan, etc. are reasons to question the legitimacy of Pakistan as a state, this opens the door to ridiculous questions about practically every country.
Secondly, you claim that the bloodshed at partition was a forseeable event. What is the evidence for this? In fact, neither the British, nor any of the Hindu or Muslim leaders were prepared for what happened. Maybe it should have been foreseen, but it wasn't.
India's record with respect to how it treats its religious minorities (not to mention lower-caste hindus) has been a little less than stellar since partition, and it is certainly not hard for me to imagine, as it seems for you, that Muslim leaders were sincere in their thinking that the best way to protect the interests of Muslims in India was to have an autonomous state in the Muslim majority areas of the country. They were not the bloodthirsty jihadists you seem to imagine them to be, but secular Muslims who were convinced that Muslims would become a downtrodden second-class minority in an India dominated by Hindus, and this is not unthinkable prima facie.
Third, while you are right that my family's income is higher than the median in Pakistan, this doesn't mean that I am blind to what goes on around me. You say that "Pakistan is a poor, unstable country, held together by the military, with a penchant for aggressive actions against its neighbors and its own people." Is poverty a crime? India is just as poor as Pakistan, should we question its legitimacy too? Saudi Arabia is rich. Does that mean it is beyond criticism? What work is the word "poor" doing in your sentence, besides making fun of a whole people's misfortune? As for being held together by the military, again, no more than other countries in the region. How many seperatist movements has the Indian army quelled? How many troops are deployed by India to forcibly keep the part of Kashmir that it occupies under its sovereinty? Why doesn't India hold the plebicite in Kashmir that it agreed to and that is called for by a UN security council resolution? Which country is "kept together" by an army? I don't know, but you seem pretty sure.
Instability and a rocky transition to democracy have been characteristic of many, even most, post-colonial countries. This is the legacy of the destruction of stable traditional methods of governance in colonial societies and the imposition of democracy without the necessary prerequisites for it (such as a free press, independent judiciary, etc.). Even India has had "emergency rule" in the 70s under Indira Gandhi.
Pakistani society has been torn apart by effects of the cold war (4 million refugees and millions of guns entered the country thanks to being the CIA's ally in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, not to mention the heroin trade and all the crime that came with it), and the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran that takes place on Pakistani soil. The mujahideen that fought the Soviets in Afghanistan were trained in the madrassas that were established with CIA approval and Saudi money. Yes, we are a poor and weak country, and we have been almost destroyed by events and powers having nothing to do with us. Perhaps you think we would have been better off with something like the American-sponsored stability of Iran under the Shah?
Hector, this is a whole nation with a complicated history. It should hardly be dismissed with casual statements like yours above.
And last, if it is all-important that the bloodshed at partition took place after the fact, not in a war of independence, how about the reign of terror in France after the revolution? Should the French cancel plans to celebrate Bastille Day?
I will keep your advice to portray Pakistan as it is in mind.
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Mar 23, 2007 6:11:52 PM
Abbas,
I am no apologist for the militarized Pakistani state. I have a humble personal blog that makes my views amply clear on that subject. However, I would sincerely like to thank you for your detailed reponse to Hektor. Pakistan, for all its many faults, is a deeply miunderstood nation and it is grating when gratuitous attacks on its creation come from ignorant viewpoints. As you say there is an intelligent case to be made that partition of India in 1947 didn't succeed in its objectives and that the costs were too high but Hektor seems not to know the most basic facts to make that argument in any intelligent manner.
However, I do have to say that I was hoping for some coverage of the CJP's ouster on 3QD but I also understand that there haven't been many thoughtful pieces done yet. Perhaps you could have considered Asma Jahangir's op-ed piece in the Daily Times a couple of days ago.
Posted by: Fawad | Mar 24, 2007 4:01:23 AM
Can you imagine if someone were to claim that it is wrong for the US to celebrate July 4th because Latrell Sprewell strangled PJ Carlesimo and because of the tens of thousands of civilian casualties of the Iraq War? And these are trivial in comparison to the genocide of the Native Americans, slavery, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , the carpet bombing of Laos and Cambodia. Of course only members of Al-Qaeda would claim that there is nothing more to the US than the production of violence.
The logic of one Hector Bim smacks of this kind of lunacy. As one commentator on this blog may have put it, Bim is a hater. That’s just what Bim does. (You can check other comments posted by him through a quick search of his peculiar name). It’s pointless trying to engage with these characters.
Like any country in the world Pakistan has problems but today it is be nice to celebrate Pakistan.
Dear Bim, do note that you can also hate us every year on August 14th (Independence Day), September 1st (Defense Day), and December 25th (Jinnah’s birthday). More dates can be furnished on request. You could conceivably hate us year round.
But there are the other things you could do with your time, like feed halva puri to the woman you love while listening to Mehdi Hassan as the big red sun rises over old Lahore. I’ll tell you something, Bim: life rarely gets better than that. And you only do this in Pakistan.
Posted by: Ghalib | Mar 24, 2007 4:29:16 AM
Abbas,
I'm sorry you don't feel at home in Karachi any more. I hadn't seen that posting of yours, only the ridiculously more upbeat one also posted on this site. So I will withdraw the complaint in your case.
What irked me was lionizing the Lahore Declaration and the "idea of Pakistan". Every nation has its share of ugliness and destruction, barbarity and killing. But the idea of Pakistan was a negative idea, a bad idea. It is the idea that the most important thing about a person in British India was whether they were Muslim or not. It's the idea that the Punjabi farmer had much more in common with a Bengali Muslim intellectual in Dhaka than he did with his Sikh neighbor, who spoke his language, greeted him every day in the market, and whose kids played with his kids. It appealed to fear above everything else, fear that one's neighbors would inevitably come to kill, so one had to make sure that one was strong enough to kill them instead. It is that one's neighbors and friends are impure. What does one do with impurity, with a cancer? Is it any surprise that this lead to Partition? I don't mean here to exculpate Hindu extremists. They were and are wrong for exactly the same reasons. The idea of Pakistan was and is actively harmful and has led directly to much suffering. The idea of Pakistan was wrong, it was rooted in negative emotions and appealed to the baser nature of humanity.
It was and remains fundamentalist thinking. If Muslims are safe and everyone else if a danger, then one has to make sure someone is a Muslim. So Ahmadis, you are out. Shias, you are suspect. Sufis, you are dangerously non-Muslim. The road is clear and one has to step off that path. That's why the Muslim religious authorities were against partition, because they understood the effect it would have. Don't give me this naive view that Partition was a great surprise. I realize that many of the leaders of Pakistan were secularists - they still thought in terms of religious essentialism.
I was surprised to see an ostensibly left-leaning blog celebrating the idea that for the Muslims of India "Our religion, culture, history, tradition, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are basically and fundamentally different from those of the people living in the rest of India." (Now or Never) That there is an unbridgeable gulf between people who live and work together, who play together in fields and speak the same language.
Now you might say, ok, but you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. But that would presuppose that Pakistan was successful at safeguarding and uplifting its people.
That is why I mentioned the poverty. The leaders of Pakistan broke apart India, caused enormous death and destruction, and for what? Are the people of Pakistan prosperous? No, the government ignores the plight of the people and spends a huge amount of money on weapons to fight India. Are the people of Pakistan well-educated? Are the schools bright and clean and well-run? Well, at least Pakistan maintained a viable democracy? Of course, it has not, suffering a succession of military coups, followed by corrupt, feudal leaders elected to rake in money from the public purse. Is the state of Pakistan at peace with its neighbors and trading vigorously with its cousins in India? No, there are frequent wars between them, the last a ridiculous, unprovoked attack (when both countries had nuclear weapons) in 1999. Are the constituent peoples of Pakistan secure in the country? No, the Baluchi are in rebellion, the Sindhis have a vibrant nationalist movement, with some leaders threatening to join _India_, the Kashmiris would vote for independence from both India and Paksitan if they could, and the Pashtuns have more allegiance to their Afghani brothers than they do to Pakistan. All while the central government shoves Urdu down their throats and responds with arms. Did Pakistan protect their Muslim citizens? No, they slaughtered them without mercy in West Pakistan. And they are killing them now in Baluchistan. And, no, you can't blame this all on the CIA and the war in Afghanistan.
This is all despite the basic democratic and humanistic impulses of the citizens of Pakistan. The poverty, lawlessness, and ethnic and religious strife in Pakistan are an indictment of the government and elite of Pakistan. They have failed the country and continue to do so.
Now, all of this is irrespective of India. But let's talk about the "idea of India". A secular democratic state of all of its citizens, where the essential diversity of the population is embraced, with many national languages. India was also wounded by Partition and contains its own fundamentalists, and, as you say, the implementation has been somewhat lacking. But the idea is still the right one.
Pakistan is a reality, and we can't go back. But we can throw away the idea of separation and purity and support a democratic, secular country of all its citizens.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 24, 2007 10:22:18 AM
Correction: "No, they slaughtered them without mercy in West Pakistan.", should of course be "East Pakistan", that is, Bangladesh.
Ghalib, there was nothing to stop people doing that in pre-partition India or in a Panjab republic or unified India. Mehdi Hassan, in particular, might have been spared significant hardship if Partition was avoided.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 24, 2007 1:28:09 PM
I have to say that I am quite amused and bemused by some of the comments to this post.
Just like a lot of countries, Pakistan too has murky (and deadly, as reflected in the number killed) origins (Israel and modern USA being too obvious origins). But that is not to deny its legitimacy to exist as a sovereign state in the present. I think most people, even in 'enemy' India would recognise and accept this fact.
Pakistan's statehood today is threatened not so much by its historical past as it is by its turbulent present, a present which is in turmoil partly due to external forces( the role of the CIA and the US in the 1980s is obvious), but partly also because of internal forces: be it long periods of military rule or indeed incompetent and corrupt 'democratic' rule. The failure of the state and institutions of state is what is worrying for Pakistan. It does seem strange when Pakistan demands self-rule for Kashmiri's in India but denies the same to its own people (When are you handing over power to the 'elected' ,Mr. Musharraf?)
India has its many problems but, institutionally, is much stronger than Pakistan. For one, democracy has been consolidated (religious minorities and lower castes have surprisngly more political influence and representation in parliament than some think, and this has been growing over the last 15 years). And second, the armed forces have stayed away from the business of government. And third, the media is truly free, unlike in Pakistan when they are ocassionally pounced upon by agents of the state just like GEO TV was a week ago.
I don't think one can damn a nation and its people for their history, their poverty or their religion. But a nation would surely damn itself if all its institutions (especially of the state) are in a state of paralysis or hijack by vested interests (military, religious, ethnic or otherwise). That I think is what Pakistan must look to correct for a better future.
Perhaps it would help if the nation and its leaders thought about these issues on their National Day. There would be more to celebrate if change happened for the better, and soon.
Posted by: Dhiraj | Mar 24, 2007 2:26:24 PM
Here is the OPED by Asma Jahangir:
COMMENT: The common enemy —Asma Jahangir
The lawyers' movement has acquired a broader agenda, addressing the survival of civil institutions under the weight of militarisation
At every judicial crisis, the legal fraternity finds itself in a snare. It has little choice but to protest attempts to undermine the judiciary by the executive. At the same time the actions of the lawyers have often made unworthy heroes of victimised judges. The present crisis is no exception. Lawyers continue to complain that judges balk at them when on the bench but bank on them when on the mat. Yet the bar has no option but to protect the feeble autonomy of a crumbling institution even if its champions are created undeservedly.
Lawyers crave a system where they receive a fair hearing and an assured delivery of justice. They have consistently urged the judiciary to stand its ground, but found few instances to rejoice. The immobilised chief justice of Pakistan was no role model for the bar, but his act of defiance in refusing to resign in the face of executive oppression has made him an instant hero.
The contents of the reference filed by the president are now irrelevant. The central issue is the process adopted by the government in making the chief justice 'non-functional' and the subsequent violent attacks on the media and lawyers. The lawyers' movement has acquired a broader agenda, addressing the survival of civil institutions under the weight of militarisation. Their support has widened, not out of love for the judiciary, but because of the shared abhorrence of military rule.
Pakistanis have matured. They can clearly see through hypocrisy. Ironically, the very authorities that made a mockery of the Constitution are now taking refuge behind it. After having strangulated the spirit of the Constitution the military government expects the lawyers to follow the letter of a mutilated document and abandon all protest as long as the matter of the chief justice remains sub judice The president and his ministers insist that the reference against the chief justice (non-functional) is a purely legal matter, that his detention and manhandling was merely a 'tactical' error and therefore the matter should not be politicised. But a planned removal of the chief justice and his subsequent humiliation is neither a mere legal issue nor can it be explained away as a blunder. Over the years the Musharraf government has become increasingly unaccountable and deceitful.
The military action in Balochistan was twisted as a bid by the government to restore its writ. The cold-blooded murder of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was painted as an accident and the state's refusal to hand over his body to the bereaved family was glossed over. All 'disappeared' persons are being portrayed as 'jihadis' and suicide bombers who have supposedly left their families voluntarily. But according to the information collected by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a majority of those reported to have been abducted by government agents have no connection with 'jihadi' groups. Almost sixty percent are Baloch and Sindhi nationalists. There is overwhelming evidence that security and intelligence agencies have violated human rights.
In the past those who wished to defend the president believed that he was misguided. Others took a less generous view and blamed him of living in self-denial. However, Musharraf's interview with Geo TV (on Monday, March 19, 2007) gives the impression that the president has lost his touch in being able to deceive skillfully.
According to him, the filing of the reference was a matter of "routine" and there was no intrigue or pre-planning. Yet all members of the Supreme Judicial Council miraculously arrived in Islamabad in a synchronised and timely manner. Fortunately, the media brought the reality to life. It was an eye-opener for all Pakistanis — a rude shock and a chilling realisation that no one was safe from the excesses of the rulers.
The fate of the government is at stake. It may survive or perish, but fundamental lessons must be learnt by the bar and bench. Judges must learn to distance themselves from the executive and the bar should remain united in promoting the independence of the judiciary without demonising or lauding individual judges. The process of selection and accountability of judges to the superior courts must be transparent. Judges should not take over as acting governors or seek office after retirement. Similarly, serving judges must not be appointed as election commissioners and they should stay away from being members of law commissions. More importantly, we have to realise that once the military takes over, all civilian institutions must resist in order to survive with dignity.
Asma Jilani Jahangir is a Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist
Posted by: maniza | Mar 25, 2007 7:38:02 PM
From the DAWN Newspaper March 26th:
1,000 arrests fail to halt Pakistan protests ISLAMABAD, March 26 (AFP) Thousands of opposition supporters Monday held fresh countrywide protests against President Pervez Musharraf's suspension of Pakistan's top judge Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, despite the arrest of about 1,000 people in a police crackdown. Monday's protests were the first to be organised by an alliance of the Pakistan People's Party of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League party of Nawaz Sharif, another former premier, besides the other opposition parties. About 5,000 protesters chanting anti-Musharraf slogans gathered amid tight security near the high court building in Lahore, witnesses said. Some burned an effigy of the president. Another 4,000 demonstrators rallied in Karachi, while 3,000 protesters in Quetta called on Musharraf to step down and allow the formation of an interim government and free polls. In the northwestern city of Peshawar the leader of Pakistan's powerful coalition of Islamic parties (Muttahida Majlis e Amal), Qazi Hussain Ahmed, told about 1,000 supporters that Musharraf had violated the constitution. “The only way out for him is to step down,” he said. A separate public meeting held by secular parties in Peshawar spearheaded by Awami National Party, attracted around 6,000 flag-waving people, witnesses said. Lawyers also observed a protest strike in the central city of Multan and boycotted courts. Police made dozens of raids on opposition supporters in central Punjab province at the weekend and overnight to keep the protests from getting too large. “We have arrested around 1,000 overnight and at the weekend. Around 200-plus were detained in Lahore with the rest in Faisalabad, Multan and other towns in Punjab,” a senior police official said on condition of anonymity. Most were from the parties of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is due to appear before a panel of top judges on April 3 on misconduct charges including that he unfairly gained promotions for his son. (First Posted @ 14:20 PST Updated @ 18:46 PST)
Posted by: maniza | Mar 26, 2007 1:08:11 PM
maniza,
thanks for posting these articles. I didn't realize the arrests were that extensive.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 26, 2007 1:27:51 PM
Indeed. And these protests are led by lawyers who are trying to safeguard and uphold the constitution. This is really something for Pakistanis to finally be proud of. Perhaps the lawyers community in the US can learn a lesson or two? Are US lawyers protesting in the streets against the unconstitutional and poltical dismissal of 8 US attorneys?
Posted by: maniza | Mar 26, 2007 2:11:17 PM
I for one, as an Indian, am not surprised at Abbas' rebuttal to Hektor.
It is tiringly in the same vein as the most chauvinistic interpretation of the 2 countries. All the nore surprising that it comes on a generally readbale left leaning blog.
So India has issues with sepratist movements, with minorities and oh..how can we forget Kashmir. I am surprised Godhra and Gujrat did not figure in the list.
Really - scratch a Pakistani - even the liberal ones and out steps a scowling Islamist.
For someone making a case for looking at Pakland in a more sympathetic and rounded light...these very same assertions seem to desert Mr Abbas when looking in the mirror to India. Bravo. Probably a potent reason why Pakistan will remain where it is or worse...slide into oblivion.
While Hektor was at it...he forgot this century's greatest contribution to the world ...Terrorism from Pakistan.
One thing they can lay claim to unreservedly.
Posted by: Anil | Mar 29, 2007 6:03:16 AM
The caliber of discussion on this post is really astonishing. It seems the only way Indians can feel good about themselves and their country is by trashing their neighbors. If this is the tone of this discussion I cannot help but adhere to the established protocol.
Ostensibly India is the largest democracy in the world. It also the only country in the world that features a caste system, a system that damns not only the minorities but Hindus themselves. Technically, all minorities are untouchables. Christians, Muslims and Sikhs are untouchable. Not even Nazi Germany relegated Jews to untouchability.
How does untouchability play out on a day to day basis? A Hindu cannot even eat a meal cooked by a Christian, a Muslim or a Sikh. The Indian state will systematically punish you if you’re not born into the right varna or caste. At the UN Conference Against Racism in South Africa in 2001, the caste system was condemned as discrimination, stating "that caste as a basis for the segregation and oppression of peoples in terms of their descent and occupation is a form of apartheid." Robin Vargese of 3Quarks posted the Sachar Report, a survey of Muslims in India, which states that Muslims are politically and economically worse off than the untouchables. A majority of Muslims escaped Hindustan in 1947. Good for them. Because things aren’t getting any better in India. There are riots going on these days about letting untouchables into universities.
The real anxiety behind the vitriol generated by this post is another open secret. It is something smaller and closer to home: Indians have small penises. The BBC reported this anomaly a few months ago. A “two-year study was carried out by the Indian Council of Medical Research” found that “more than half of the men measured had penises that were shorter than international standards for condoms.”
What the bigots on this post have not said is that Pakistan is a Nehruvian conspiracy to expel the wheat from the chaff. Then Nehru felt good about himself.
Posted by: JSB | Apr 3, 2007 3:24:34 PM
More on Sachar report:
India awakens to its other pariahs: Muslims
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
DELHI AND HYDERABAD, INDIA
By almost any measure, Salam Mohsin has set himself up well to succeed in India. He has completed his primary education, he speaks a little English, and he is now attending business college. Yet every time he has looked to a future beyond the rickshaws and repair shops of Hyderabad's Old City, he has seen only closed doors.
When Mr. Mohsin applied for his retired father's old government job, not only was he rejected, but his father's pension was cut. Banks have repeatedly denied him loans for his plan to buy and reopen a derelict factory.
This, he says, is the life of a Muslim in India, And perhaps for the first time, this Hindu nation is beginning to believe him. For the past 60 years, Indian Muslims have more often been the subjects of blame - for terrorism and the 1947 partition with Pakistan - than sympathy.
Yet in November, a government-appointed panel suggested that ignorance and prejudice have now made Muslims an underclass on par with the lowest Hindu castes. Now, politicians who have long avoided the subject are openly talking of helping Muslims - potentially even setting aside quotas for Muslim admission into schools and political institutions.
It is an important moment. After two decades of increasing communal tension here, there is a growing acknowledgment that India can no longer afford to make Muslims feel like strangers in their own country.
"Now that things are calming down, people are beginning to see things as they are, rather than through prejudiced eyes," says Rajeev Bhargava, a political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
The concern, he says, is "that if we don't do something, they'll be drawn to militancy."
Though some Indian Muslims have taken part in domestic terrorism, they have so far shown little inclination to the sort of global jihad that is more common among Pakistanis and Middle Easterners. A senior government minister said last week that there still is no Al Qaeda in India, despite the fact that its 150 million Muslims make India the world's third most populous Muslim nation.
What November's Sachar Committee report showed, though, is that Indian Muslims face thesame forces of poverty and disenfranchisement that some say feed terrorism elsewhere. On some levels, this is surprising. After all, the country's president is Muslim, as is its richest person, software magnate Azim Premji. Muslims are also well represented in India's two most cherished institutions: Bollywood and the national cricket team.
Yet the Sachar report found that Muslims are disproportionately more likely to be illiterate, to live in areas without schools or medical care, and - at least in urban areas - to be in poverty.
For example, in no state does the percentage of Muslims in government jobs - coveted for their stable pay and long-term pensions - match the percentage of Muslims in the population. Likewise with the armed forces, which controversially refused to cooperate with the committee. However, various estimates have suggested that Muslims make up only about 2 percent of India's armed forces, compared with 13 percent of its national population.
In the world of banking, too, Muslims get less money in loans. The report found that Muslims hold 29 percent of all bank accounts in India, yet have only 9.2 percent of the loan money.
In part, these trends stand to logic. Muslim ghettos tend to be in the worst - and therefore worst-served - areas. Banks lend less money to Muslims, because they are seen as credit risks. "In these [Muslim] areas, credit companies and banks did provide loans, but because of the large number of defaults, they blacklisted the entire neighborhood," says Mohammed Yousuf, a businessman in Delhi.
Moreover, the status of Muslims has fallen so sharply that few meet the high standards of the Army anymore. "Muslims aren't even average anymore," says Army Maj. S. Quadri (ret.), who now runs a counseling service in Hyderabad. "So either the Army has to lower its standards, or it has to go about doing something proactive."
Not just helping Hindus
It's the lack of proactive public assistance that is keeping Muslims behind, Major Quadri and others say. While the government has helped Dalits (also known as untouchables) and other Hindu minorities, it has done little, if anything, to help Muslims. Now, there are hints that this attitude is changing.
Last week, the prime minister mentioned the findings of the Sachar report in a speech and said the government had to "address such imbalances." A day later, the minority affairs minister said all the recommendations of the report would be implemented next year.
Since the committee made only general recommendations, the substance of his statement is unclear. Moreover, both comments were made in the friendly confines of a conference for Dalits and other minorities.
But even a year ago, says political scientist Mr. Bhargava, "this was unthinkable."
Indeed, Muslims have long been largely absent from India's political discourse. After Muslim Pakistan split from India in 1947, "within the Muslim community there was a sense of guilt, and this sense of guilt prevented them from standing up and taking their part in democracy," says Mazher Hussain of the Confederation of Volunteer Associations in Hyderabad, which works to promote inter-community dialogue.
Compounded over the years, the result has been a government in which virtually no one is looking out for the interests of Muslims. And in a country where so much of politics is patronage, this means Muslims have largely been left out, either actively or unintentionally.
"Over time, Muslims have withdrawn," says Abusaleh Shariff, secretary of the Sachar Committee. "They don't apply because their life experiences are negative."
Self-made Muslims
The Sachar report notes that disproportionate numbers of Muslims have responded by going into business for themselves. Mohammad Anees is one of them, and he has done well. He and his brothers run two restaurants in the serpentine alleyways of Old Delhi, where buildings rise in canyon walls of cracking plaster and power lines spread overhead like sinuous spiders.
Mr. Anees's cramped second-floor office bears the trappings of some success: fresh paint, a computer, a flat-screen monitor, and a broadband modem. But he worries about Muslims merely going it alone.
After partition, Muslims won the right to devise their own educational system. But that system is now failing, Anees says, and with few government schools in Muslim-dominated areas to fall back on, Muslims are failing with it.
The primary school at the local mosque has declined notably, he says. Twenty years ago, it was his school, and Anees's conversation is evidence of the high quality of his education. He speaks English effortlessly, weaving snatches of history and current events into any topic.
Yet today, he will not send his children there. "Every year, the results are going down," he says, peering through his rectangular glasses with a scholarly air.
So he pays 900 rupees per child a month - 30 times what the mosque school costs - to send his two elementary-age children to a school on the opposite side of town.
Many families within the walled Old City, which is heavily Muslim, don't have that kind of money. Other children are rejected, as the demand for places in Indian schools vastly exceeds supply.
In some respects, there are signs of progress. Community leaders say the sense of guilt associated with partition has passed. "During the past 10 years, there has been a big change," says Sayyed Khadir, a Muslim activist in Hyderabad. The young generation "is in the competition" for jobs, he says.
The young generation itself offers another observation. "We do not think, 'He is a Muslim, he is a Sikh,' " says Habeeb al-Aidroos, one of the seven friends and cousins who has come along with Mohsin for the interview in a Hyderabad hotel. "We think that we are together."
At times, that can be difficult. As the only one of the eight men who shows his faith in his appearance, with a long beard and skull cap, Mr. Aidroos speaks of prejudice most strongly. "They think that Muslims are terrorists," he says.
To some degree, this has been the perception since partition, when Indian Muslims were cast as traitors and Pakistani sympathizers. Terrorist campaigns to free India's Muslim-majority Kashmir only increased tensions. Yet it has been recent developments - the rise of a more aggressive Hindu nationalism and the war on terror - that weigh most on Muslims.
Standing along a residential side street in Hyderabad, dressed in the skull cap and knee-length white shirt typical of many devout Indian Muslims, Zubair says people sometimes call him "Osama bin Laden." It's a joke, says Zubair, who runs a taxi service and uses only one name, but it is an unwelcome one.
"If you go on branding [Muslims], they will one day become what they are branded to be," he says, calmly but with evident concern.
The strength of Indian Muslims in resisting the call of global terrorism is their Indian character, he and others say. Indian Muslims have marinated in the country's multicultural masala for centuries and have become part of the recipe, adapting its tongues, traditions - and tolerance. And though Muslims and Hindus have long rioted, murdered, and waged war against each other, they remain - at their core - indelibly bound by a love of their home.
"We are Muslims, but we are Indian Muslims," says Zubair. "Even though I have lost most of my stake, I still feel that my future lies in India."
Posted by: JSB | Apr 3, 2007 3:33:52 PM
More on the Indian small penis:
Condoms 'too big' for Indian men
By Damian Grammaticus
BBC News, Delhi
A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men.
The study found that more than half of the men measured had penises that were shorter than international standards for condoms.
It has led to a call for condoms of mixed sizes to be made more widely available in India.
The two-year study was carried out by the Indian Council of Medical Research.
Over 1,200 volunteers from the length and breadth of the country had their penises measured precisely, down to the last millimetre.
The scientists even checked their sample was representative of India as a whole in terms of class, religion and urban and rural dwellers.
The conclusion of all this scientific endeavour is that about 60% of Indian men have penises which are between three and five centimetres shorter than international standards used in condom manufacture.
Doctor Chander Puri, a specialist in reproductive health at the Indian Council of Medical Research, told the BBC there was an obvious need in India for custom-made condoms, as most of those currently on sale are too large.
The issue is serious because about one in every five times a condom is used in India it either falls off or tears, an extremely high failure rate.
And the country already has the highest number of HIV infections of any nation.
'Not a problem'
Mr Puri said that since Indians would be embarrassed about going to a chemist to ask for smaller condoms there should be vending machines dispensing different sizes all around the country.
"Smaller condoms are on sale in India. But there is a lack of awareness that different sizes are available. There is anxiety talking about the issue. And normally one feels shy to go to a chemist's shop and ask for a smaller size condom."
But Indian men need not be concerned about measuring up internationally according to Sunil Mehra, the former editor of the Indian version of the men's magazine Maxim.
"It's not size, it's what you do with it that matters," he said.
"From our population, the evidence is Indians are doing pretty well.
"With apologies to the poet Alexander Pope, you could say, for inches and centimetres, let fools contend."
Posted by: JSB | Apr 3, 2007 3:52:20 PM
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