Pakistan Bleeds!

Latest in Peshawar: 106 People, mostly women and childern are the victims. Inna Lillah.
It was a car bomb blast.

Don’t have the courage and strength to comment on this.

Anchor-istan: A Vision of a Pure Government

After watching Pakistani media’s talk shows, the assertions made by learned anchor persons of these talk shows and reading the Urdu columnist I have visualized a future scenario of good governance for Pakistan. Under the recommendations of the media persons of our country and right wing parties, I have come to the conclusion that we should make a government just as they recommend and infer every day in their allotted air time. My understanding is that after we have this government inplace all of our problems would be resolved for ever. We’ll no longer be accepting US dictations nor we would be needing their arms. India would flee from Kashmir. Another popular hate-subject Israel would be annihilated. The Western civilization would cease to exist and US and European will get back to stone age. All the corrupt elements from the Pakistani society would chastise theirself and anyone who obtained expensive plots from government would return it in the greater interest of the general public. Also anybody who got anything except salary would return it.

No let us see how this government of ‘angels’ would look like. Nobody can doubt that best person for Pakistan’s presidentship is General (rtd) Hamid Gul. Syed Munawar Hassan is the best candidate for the Prime Minister of Pakistan. None other than Imran Khan suits the best for ministry of religious affairs. He is so good at collecting donations that he would run his ministry purely on donations and nothing would be taken from national exchequer. Shireen Mazari can be appointed ambassador to US. Qazi Hussain Ahmed would become Pakistani High Commissioner to India because by doing so one day he would fulfil his life long wish of heralding Pakistani flag on Delhi’s Red Fort. He can do this secretly on any weekend. Rest of the portfolios of economy, defence, foreign affairs, strategic affairs, science and literature and many other section can be filled by the appointments of very talented and expert on every subject media anchor-persons. These people are so capable that every ministry would run in an exemplary fashion.

There would be a National Consultation Council whose members would be from the board of the directors of “Ideology of Pakistan Limited”. General Mirza Aslam Beg can be appointed as governor of Baluchistan and because of terrain of his province he would be more effectively keep an eye on the ’strategic depth’ and US activities in Afghanistan. MQM suits best for the governorship of Sindh because though they are kind of misfit for this set up but the problem is that if we appoint anybody else the governor, MQM would not let him enter the governor house.

I believe if this government comes into being all of our assets including Talibans and nuclear weapons would get safe for ever. We will defeat NATO and allied forces in Afghanistan and later on will continue our march towards Central Asian states until we get our strategic goals and during this course our strategic depth would expand as far as North Pole. This government will neither take any foreign aid nor will return anybody’s loan. In order to appease Taliban this government will shut down all the girls colleges and schools. Maulan Abdul Aziz ( Lal Masjid fame ) will be appointed Pakistan’s permanent representative in United Nations where he will brief the rest of the world about Pakistan power and importance. He will construct a mosque in the UN building whose students would march in the streets of New York and anybody ( any women ) not following the proper dress code will be kidnapped and brought to UN Mosque where she would be tortured to get the dose of spirituality. If the US, because they are host of UN office, do something derogatory or put any restrictions on our envoy’s actvities , our government will transfer the head quarters of UN to Waziristan. Osama bin Laden will be our Ambassador at large where he will work on the puritinization of the infidels and if some infidel not followed his line, he would be slaughtered.

Our new government will keep friendly relationship with China only one condition, if all Chinese men stop shaving their faces and their women put on modest dress. If China not followed these condition then we would teach a lesson to china by sending our Mujahideen in Sinkiang province. This government would definitely fulfil the longing for waging a war against US and in that war our government would destroy US.

The only problem that is left to be tackled as what will happen to the current lot of Politicians. So our pious government would arrange their punishments from the federal Shariah Court. And their worst punishments would be to appoint them on higher posts but stop them from taking bribe and perks.

So what do you think?

( Original Idea taken from Nazir Naji’s Article published in Daily Jang October 23rd, 2009 )

Kerry-Lugar Bill: Myths and Facts

Myth: The $7.5 billion authorised by the bill comes with strings attached for the people of Pakistan.
Fact: There are no conditions on Pakistan attached to these funds. There are, however, strict measures of financial accountability on these funds that Congress is imposing on the US executive branch — not the Pakistani government, to make sure the money is being spent properly and for the purposes intended.
Such accountability measures have been welcomed by Pakistani commentators to ensure that funds meant for schools, roads and clinics actually reach the Pakistani people and are not wasted.

Myth: The bill impinges on Pakistan’s sovereigntyFact: Nothing in the bill threatens Pakistani sovereignty.

Myth:. The bill places onerous conditions on US military aid to Pakistan that interfere in Pakistan’s internal affairs and imply that Pakistan supports terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
Fact: The conditions on military aid reinforce the stated policy of the government of Pakistan, major Pakistani opposition parties, and the Pakistani military and are the basis of bilateral cooperation between the United States and Pakistan.

Myth:. The bill requires US oversight on promotions and other internal operations of the Pakistani military.
Fact: There is absolutely no such requirement or desire.

Myth: The bill expands the Predator programme of drone attacks on targets within Pakistan.

Fact: There is absolutely nothing in the bill related to drones.

Myth: The bill funds activities within Pakistan by private US security firms, such as Dyncorp and Blackwater/Xe.
Fact: The bill does not include any language on private US security firms. The issue of how private security firms operate in Pakistan has nothing to do with this bill. The laws governing such firms —which are employed by many US embassies and consulates throughout the world — are not affected by this bill in any way.

Myth: The bill aims for an expanded US military footprint in Pakistan.
Fact: The bill does not provide a single dollar for US military operations. All of the money authorised in this bill is for non-military, civilian purposes.

Myth: The United States is expanding its physical footprint in Pakistan, using the bill as a justification for why the US Embassy in Islamabad needs more space and security.
Fact: As the US Embassy in Islamabad works diligently over the next five years to properly distribute the $7.5 billion to the people of Pakistan, it will need to take into account its own personnel and security needs to make sure it has the right staff with the right expertise on hand. This is common sense.

Author: Senator John Kerry. Thanks to Dawn Group of Newspapers

Kerry-Lugar Bill: Is it really toxic or ….

There is an unprecedented clamour over the passage of Kerry-Lugar aid bill to Pakistan. .Want to know why? First time in the history of Pakistan US aid was being handed over to a democratic government and its sole purpose was to be spent over the poor public, for their schools, health and job creation.

-How dare! public cannot be empowered and will not be empowered , all the money must be channelized through the khaki hands otherwise “my way or highway…”.

A Step in the Right Direction

Government of Pakistan has decided to allocate 7 percent of GDP for the education sector. This is a giant leap in the history of educational spending in Pakistan whereby this crucial investment into the nation building could never exceeded 2 percent. Another step to be reckoned is the merger of FA/FSc into high school. Very correct decision. Because of the college lines drawn after grade 10 would discourage most of the students specially in the rural areas to proceed with next level of highr education. Now at least every student would be studying 12 grades because post matriculation every year spent in the education brings big change in the development of intellect and knowledge of the students. If these steps would have been taken earlier I can certainly say that our society wouldn’t have been that soft and susceptible to the extremism and radicalization. I am not sure what other major steps government is about to take but certainly I would favour maximum facilities should be provided to the knowledge seekers.

The curriculum also needs some fine tuning and specially the subject of Pakistan studies should be expunged of rhetoric and slogan based knowledge about Pakistan. This is where most of the hard core extremist elements drive their inspiration from and false notions of aggrandizement and invincibility of Pakistan provides fodder for getting into unrealism and ends up in spawning utopian dreams. What we need is that every student should be trained to become a practical person who must have the perception and understanding of the world around us, its realities, demands and challenges of the time. The tunnelistic vision of the policy makers in the past has spouted a bread of graduates who even wouldn’t be able to tell the names of few countries in the Far East. These graduates though literate from the standards of literacy benchmarks but may not be aware of even Pakistani history except their mastery on the subject of ‘Ideology of Pakistan’ and September War of 1965. Even the mention of East Pakistan is treated in such a way that they can hardly tell whether that geography was ever a part of Pakistan! The intellectual dishonesties and political malignment touched to the levels that the students couldn’t tell whether there was ever anybody who might have done some good after creation of Pakistan except Quaid-e-Azam and Iqbal. It was because of the reasons that every new park, building or any new public construction would only get names like Jinnah Hall, Allama Iqbal Road, Jinnah Avenue and so on. It happened because the correct history was never imparted to the students and nobody would question whether there was anybody after Quaid-e-Azam who ran Pakistan, good or bad that is another question but straight facts must be presented. With unbiased knowledge we shouldn’t think that something will happen to the integrity of Pakistan rather truth and knowledge based on plain facts is the most realistic way to build a more confident nation.

Brig (R) Imtiaz..Ilmon buss kareen O yaar

Folks, Please watch this special interview of Brig(r) Imtiaz by a very talented journalist Saleem Safi. Saleem is the same person who exposed another character of Pakistani ‘Islamic’ history named Ala Hazrat Maulana Sufi Muhammad (muda zilla ul aali) Swati and showed how later was full of complete darkness and void of any wordly and religous knowledge for that matter. These days Brig. Imtiaz is very popular in Pakistan (again, previously he was notorious) and every day trying to bring knowledge based truth and nothing but only truth. Saleem Safi tries to extract some more truth from him but this time about Brigadiar Sahib himself. Interesting to watch. Here you go…

The Hindu ( September 13, 1948 )

In the light of controversy generated by Jaswant Singh’s Book, this editorial of THE HINDU newspaper published on September 13, 1948, two days after the death of MA Jinnah, tells a whole tale. I can clearly see the hatred’s institution building had not started in sub-continent by that time. The polite language, the lucid and honest tribute to one of the great leaders of undivided India is something of a surprise to an average Pakistani and Indian mind.

Please read it for yourself and decide.

Editorial Starts Here:

The news of the sudden death of Mr. Jinnah will be received with widespread regret in this country. Till barely a twelvemonth ago he was, next to Gandhiji, the most powerful leader in undivided India. And not only among his fellow-Muslims but among members of all communities there was great admiration for his sterling personal qualities even while the goal which he pursued with increasing fanaticism was deplored. For more than half the period of nearly forty years in which he was a towering figure in our public life he identified himself so completely with the struggle that the Indian National Congress carried on for freedom that he came to be as nearly a popular idol as it was possible for a man so aristocratic and aloof by temperament to be. During the last years of his life, as the architect of Pakistan, he achieved a unique authority in his own community by virtue of the blind allegiance which the mass, dazzled by his political triumphs, gave him though the sane and sober elements of the community became more and more doubtful of the wisdom of his policies. In an age which saw centuries-old empires crumble this Bombay lawyer began late in life to dream of founding a new Empire; in an era of rampant secularism this Muslim, who had never been known to be very austere in his religion, began to dally with the notion that that Empire should be an Islamic State. And the dream became a reality overnight, and perhaps no man was more surprised at his success than Mr. Jinnah himself.

Mr. Jinnah was an astute lawyer. And his success was largely due to the fact that he was quick to seize the tactical implications of any development. His strength lay not in any firm body of general principle, any deeply cogitated philosophy of life, but in throwing all his tremendous powers of tenacity, strategy and dialectical skill into a cause which had been nursed by others and shaped in many of its most important phases by external factors. In this he offers a marked contrast to the Mahatma with whom rested the initiative during the thirty years he dominated Indian political life and who, however much he might adapt himself to the thrusts of circumstance, was able to maintain on a long range a remarkable consistency. Pakistan began with Iqbal as a poetic fancy. Rahmat Ali and his English allies at Cambridge provided it with ideology and dogma. Britain’s Divide and Rule diplomacy over a period of half a century was driving blindly towards this goal. What Mr. Jinnah did was to build up a political organisation, out of the moribund Muslim League, which gave coherence to the inchoate longings of the mass by yoking it to the realisation of the doctrinaires’ dream. Two world wars within a generation, bringing in their train a vast proliferation of nation-States as well as the decay of established Imperialisms and the rise of the Totalitarian Idea, were as much responsible for the emergence of Pakistan as the aggressive communalism to which Mr. Jinnah gave point and direction.

We must not forget that Mr. Jinnah began his political life as a child of the Enlightenment the seeds of which were planted in India by the statesmen of Victorian England. He stood for parliamentary democracy after the British pattern and with a conscientious care practised the art of debate in which he attained a formidable proficiency. At the time of the Minto-Morley Reforms, he set his face sternly against the British attempts to entice the Muslims away from their allegiance to the Congress. For long he kept aloof from the Muslim League. And when at last he joined it his aim was to utilise it for promoting amity between the two communities and not for widening the gulf. But Mr. Jinnah was a man of ambition. He had a very high opinion of his own abilities and the success, professional and political, that had come to him early in life, seemed fully to justify it. It irked him to play second fiddle. The Congress in those early days was dominated by mighty personalities, Dadabhai Nowroji, Mehta and Gokhale, not to mention leaders of the Left like Tilak. That no doubt accounts for the fact that Mr. Jinnah gradually withdrew from the Congress organisation and cast about for materials wherewith to build a separate platform for himself. At this time the first World War broke out and the idea of self-determination was in the air. It was not a mere accident that Mr. Jinnah came to formulate the safeguards which he deemed necessary for the Muslim minority in his famous Fourteen Points so reminiscent of the Wilsonian formula.

But in those days he would have pooh-poohed the idea of the Muslim community cutting itself off from the rest of India. He was so little in sympathy with the Ali Brothers’ Khilafat campaign because it seemed to him to play with fire. He was deeply suspicious of the unrestrained passions of the mob and he was too good a student of history not to realise that once the dormant fires of fanaticism were stoked there was no knowing where it might end. He kept aloof from the Congress at the same time. Satyagraha with its jail-going and other hardships could not appeal to a hedonist like him; but the main reason for his avoiding the Gandhian Congress was the same nervousness about the consequences of rousing mass enthusiasm. The result was that he went into political hibernation for some years. But he remained keenly observant; and the dynamic energy generated by a successful policy of mass contact deeply impressed him. He came to see that a backward community like the Muslims could be roused to action only by an appeal, simplified almost to the point of crudeness, to what touched it most deeply, its religious faith. And a close study of the arts by which the European dictators, Mussolini, Hitler and a host of lesser men rose to power led him to perfect a technique of propaganda and mass instigation to which ‘atrocity’-mongering was central. But Mr. Jinnah could not have been entirely happy over the Frankenstein monster that he had invoked, especially when the stark horrors of the Punjab issued with all the inevitability of Attic tragedy from the contention and strife that he had sown. He was a prudent man to whom by nature and training anarchy was repellant. At the first Round Table Conference he took a lone stand in favour of a unitary Government for India because he felt that Federation in a country made up of such diverse elements would strengthen fissiparous tendencies. It was an irony that such a man should have become the instrument of a policy which, by imposing an unnatural division on a country meant by Nature to be one, has started a fatal course the end of which no man may foresee. Mr. Jinnah was too weak to withstand the momentum of the forces that he had helped to unleash. And the megalomania which unfortunately he came to develop would hardly allow him to admit that he was wrong.

Mr. Jinnah has passed away at the peak of his earthly career. He is sure of his place in history. But during the last months of his life he must have been visited by anxious thoughts about the future of the State which he had carved. Pakistan has many able men who may be expected to devote themselves with wholehearted zeal to its service according to their lights. And India will wish them well in a task of extraordinary difficulty. But it is no easy thing to don the mantle of the Quaid-i-Azam. No other Pakistani has anything like the international stature that Mr. Jinnah had achieved; and assuredly none else has that unquestioned authority with the masses. The freedom that Pakistan has won, largely as the result of a century of unremitting effort by India’s noblest sons, is yet to be consolidated. It is a task that calls for the highest qualities of statesmanship. Many are the teething troubles of the infant State. Apart from the refugee problem, which is Britain’s parting gift to both parts of distracted India, the Pakistan Government has by its handling of the Kashmir question and its unfortunate attitude towards the Indian Union’s difficulties with Hyderabad, raised in an acute form the future of the relations between Pakistan and India. Mr. Jinnah at his bitterest never forgot that firm friendship between the two States was not only feasible but indispensable if freedom was to be no Dead-Sea apple. It is earnestly to be hoped that the leaders of Pakistan will strive to be true to that ideal.

–Editorial Finishes

Hiroshima and Gojra

Jumat Islami plans to bring out a protest rally against the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima back in 1945. Fair enough, that was the single most ruthless incident of the mass murder of human beings in the modern history. However, I am also looking forward to the day when Munawar Hassan will stage a rally against the aggression unleashed in Gojra where seven innocent Christians were torched to death and 30 other got fatal burns. If Jumat has such a good memory to remember something that happened 60 years ago, they should be able to recall what took place just 6 days ago. Let us wait and see.

The Desecration of Quran and Mob Justice

They love Quran but don’t follow its teachings. Mob burnt alive seven people of the minority Christians for latter’s alleged desecration of the Holy Quran in Gojra, Punjab. I don’t know the details as how the desecration was carried out. But certainly can tell that actual desecration of Quran is done when its teachings are violated!

The book of God, the Quran, emphasises chiefly on two things, among others. One is the justice and second is your attitude towards your society and fellow human beings. By burning alive seven people, was the justice served? Were all of those torched to death were responsible for the desecration of the Quran, if it happened in the first place? Even if all of them were responsible, did they get a chance to prove their innocence? Who issued the verdict? Which court or jirga was conducted before dispensing this kind of justice? No nothing was done of that sort. It was a mob justice. A mob of majority crushing the already poverty-stciken minority. A clear injustice.

Now the second teaching: The Quran stresses a good and orderly behavior to your fellow human beings especially to the minority classes. Does this is the kind of treatment Islam recommends to the minorities? No, certainly not. They are the responsibility of the majority to protect them. And this is how they are protected.

Essentially on both counts the Muslim mob, infact itself has desecrated the Quran by not followings its teachings.

Let me tell you more of it as how Quran is desecrated. When a publishing company of Quran ( Taj Company ) defrauded its investors, they actually desecrated the Quran. On daily basis in our courts and countless other places Quran is desecrated when people take its oath and then offer a false witness. I can write countless examples of this nature but the point I want to establish is that on everyday basis Quran is desecrated when its teachings are refuted in practice. How about this ? Now who is going to dispense justice against the mob who practically desecrated the Quran through their clear violations of the Quarnic injunctions? Nobody. and this theme will continue for ever proving as how we have morphed into an illogical, stone-hearted, ruthless and a cruel society. God help us.

Also published in THE NEWS Aug. 04, 2009

Punjab: Bullets in Bansri (Part 2)

In 1992, for the first time Hindu families of the Ratuwaal were made to realize that their village where they lived for centuries, is no longer a safe place for them. This happened on Feb 5th, 1992 when Kashmir-Solidarity-Day was observed. Almost 200 people under the lead of a local Jumat Islami leader from neighboring Sialkot, invaded the village and demanded that Hindus don’t belong here and they should leave for India. The local Muslim population of the village didn’t like the demands of hooligans and defended their non-Muslim village mates. A fight ensued and outsiders were made to run. They were told that Hindus are as much dwellers of that village as any Muslim does. But this event left a deep scar on the secular face of Ratuwaal history. Please also allow me to interpret the word ’secular’ As in Pakistan a vast majority considers it equivalent to ‘Atheism’. Infact the secular attitudes are the true teachings of Islam whereby you allow every individual of the society to spend his/her life according to the belief he/she is imparted with. At the same time in a Muslim society it is the responsibility of the society to defend and protect the non-Muslim minority population and their places of worship. But for the sake of record, Ratuwaal didn’t have any Hindu temples or Christian churches.

As the story goes, by the end of 1992, the Hindu population of the village got scared because after the first attempt to eliminate them there were couple of more events of the same nature happened. But after the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhia by hooligans accross the border, the Hindu men who would go to Sialkot for the employment quit their jobs as they were afraid that someday they will be killed by somebody there. As of now only Five Hindu families are left in that village and that too because of their financial situation didn’t permit them to migrate to India while 18 other families quietly moved across the border and currently living in Jalindhar. There are so many emotional tales that emerged from the migrated families and how they missed their native land but I want to remain confined to post-migration chain of events

Also important to note is that Hindus that moved to India might not have done so had the threat remained external however their prime concern was the local Jihadis who after getting trained from Afghanistan and Kashmiri training camps were on the mission to eliminate Hindus from their own village and neighboring villages of Harpal, Anola, Cylum, Beni Sulehrian, Jodhay Wali, Krishna Vali, Bajira Garhi, Mendowaal, Ramo Chak, Akhnore, Bhalore and Chobara. Their message was simple either convert to Islam or move to India.

Because of relatively thicker Hindu population Ratuwaal was the prime focus of the Jihadis. One night three Hindu girls of this village, Kamlesh Vanti, Lajwanti and Ganga were abducted. The local police station failed to register a case against perceived kidnappers. Three days later the news was broken that abducted girls have converted to Islam. On this occasion one of the Jihadi group distributed sweets in the village and aerial shots were fired. But this was not true. The unfortunate reality of this episode, almost two weeks later ended with a sorry ending. Two of the abductees committed suicide and one of them fled to Peshawar with her husband.

Now something about the the only Ahmedi family of Ratuwaal which faced a different fate. The head of that family was a school teacher and a widely respected person of the village. The day he died one of the Jihadi outfit, obtained fatwa and distributed the literature in the village that an Ahmedi cannot be buried in a graveyard for Muslims. In favour of this another Jihadi group staged an armed protest and declared that if the deceased was buried in the local grave yard, he will be exhumed (out of the grave) and his body would be set on fire. Seeing this his grieving family quietly took his body and moved to Rabwa where he was buried and the family got a house on rent and opted to settle there.

After seeing this, the most poverty sticken Christian families had other reasons to worry about. Especially they were scared because of the events of Gujranwala and Sumandri where some Christians were murdered by the crowd because allegedly they committed blasphemy. Also they had seen the fate of Hindu and Ahmedi families of their village already. Hence, majority of them, who could afford, moved to urban centers like Lahore and Fasialabad.

Currently there are three mosques and one Imam Bargah in Ratuwaal and the young khateeb of main mosque gladly tells everybody that, Alhamdolillah, Ratuwaal is now almost a complete Muslim village and most of the minorities have left the village while remaining will follow the course.

( Continued ….)