198 Indian Fishermen return home to India in the dark
Beyond Closing of International gates via Wagah Attari JCP
Rashmi Talwar
WAGAH- ATTARI BORDER (AMRITSAR) 12 May 2023—
As Pakistan battled with political and social turmoil in their streets, Indian fishermen imprisoned in Pakistan finally reached Lahore station from Karachi much beyond the assigned time at 7 pm today. A senior official told the writer that several unscheduled stops were made due to the ongoing upheaval in Pakistan, following the sudden arrest-and-release of its former PM Imran Khan which led to public tempers spilling onto the streets.
However, despite the uncontrollable situation in the neighboring country, 198 Indian fishermen were brought amidst tight security, to Lahore via Allama Iqbal Express train from Karachi by the Edhi Foundation. Reportedly of the 200 to be repatriated to India two had died. Their bodies may cross over tomorrow.
The Indian fishermen were incarcerated in Karachi’s infamous Malir Jail for years. The journey from Karachi takes nearly 23 hours on normal days. The prisoners were expected to reach by 2 Pm and at the most their repartition to India would have been possible before both the countries ritualistic ‘Beating Retreat ceremony’ with the lowering of the respective country flags and closing of the international gateways.
But was delayed due to abnormal conditions prevailing. Pakistan’s Edhi Foundation Information Bureau Lahore, informed that many of these fishermen had completed their jail sentences years ago. The fishermen were arrested for crossing the invisible Maritime borders of the Indian Ocean.
More fishermen thus imprisoned in Pakistan would be released next month, stated the charitable foundation’s press release. it was seen that the Indian prisoners were being handed over remuneration money for work done in prison over the years, at Lahore station.
Being all smiles anticipating their return to their motherland, one Bhasker had anointed his forehead with three strokes of saffron lines and a single white vertical line cutting through them like a ‘Trishul’, adorned by many Hindu castes in South India.
The prisoners were taken in a fleet of tempo traveler mini buses to Wagah from Lahore station along with the fleet of security vehicles. Volunteers of the Edhi Foundation in red Edhi T-shirts could be seen assisting in the formal clearance of the prisoners before being seated for the onward journey to Wagah.
Till the filing of this report at 9.30 pm, the formalities of immigration for repatriated Indian prisoners from Pakistan on the Indian side were ongoing.
Drama diplomacy between India and Pakistan / Publishedin 2014
Rashmi Talwar
Digging deep into the India-Pakistan psyche, I have suddenly arrived at a serious conclusion that aside of Punjabis signature bonhomie of Paapis – Jhaapis and the Buraaahs…on either sides of the border, the only thing that may still stall the nasty smoking guns of two nations is to straddle the ‘saas bahu’ serials from India to Pakistan and let the ‘Zindagi’ channel bring in the Gulzar (flower) syndrome to India.
Leave aside the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) that have done nothing between India-Pak relations. And never mind poverty and proxy warts that cut into the resources of our impoverished countries, if our defense arsenals can remain flushed surely e-to-e (entertainment to entertainment ) exchange would be a cakewalk.
This time the big nuclear Goliaths could fight on mm screens big or small with very little loss of life.
Surely ‘Tulsi’ India’s honorable HR minister -Samriti Irani must not underestimate her personal impact and those of her generation of TV actresses, on the audience west of Radcliff line. If wedding culture be the competition category, then India has aplenty. From sagai, joota-chupai to vidai. Damsels in Kanjivaram sarees, sindoors, bindiyas, bichhuas and cuddly relationship with their age-defying mom-in-laws, sounds interesting material for export.
Pakistani TV serial for instance – ‘Zindagi Gulzar hai’ may belt out soft background scores in keeping with the storyline but it has to match Indian serials technology with the actor’s entry welcomed with reactions enhanced by three-dimensional pointed echo or triple-zoom close-ups matching with three thumps, as if it was a Martian that entered the Indian home space clutter. Technically you can’t ever get this effect, without rolling eyes, a raised eyebrow, closely locked dentures, and a count of three.
Still ‘Zindagi Gulzar’s university life or Pak girls in discotheques on the other side of the border with a free mix of sexes could be virtually eye-popper for Indians especially those who noticed separate enclosures for men and women at the Indo-Pak Wagah Attari border.
Much like Tulsi’s ‘Kyuki saas be kabhi bahu thi’, serials like Parvati’s ‘Ghar Ghar ki Kahani’ could add a few footnotes to the relationship remix. These ‘Made in India’ caricatures could use bold tag lines ‘serials double-up as free lessons for growing daughters!’ After all, these serials have an applauding distinction of catching the highest number of female eyeballs in their 500-plus episodic roller coaster rides. The 500-Club has –Kyunki.., Ghar ghar.., Balika Vadhu, Uttraan, and many Dharmic and historical serials even as India yawns!
In the make-up segment, the non-make-up Pak beauties of the serial ‘Kash mein Teri beti na hoti’ merely look the part but our Indian heavy eye-shadowed, artificial-lash fluttering ‘poor’ Indian girl emerges a looker. Even ‘Kashaf’ as the heroine of the Pak serial ‘Zindagi Gulzar hai.’ should have had a good feather haircut instead of the simple plaid.
The heroine in polka-dotted pajamas from Pak play ‘Aunn Zara’ may have tough competition with Indian child brides like ‘Anandi’ in Balika Vadhu who sleeps in all rustling silk sarees, matching jewelry along with special non-bleeding night make-up complete with gloss, to emerge as goddesses at the strike of dawn. Beating Anandi are many, many more Indian actresses in stunning bedroom looks.
Only ‘Saman’ of Pak serial ‘Maat’ can give competition to our serial heroines. ‘Saman oozes oomph even in salwar suits’. Shhh … this may be ISI plant or Pak propaganda!
India’s Amna Sharief as Kashish in ‘Kahin toh hoga’ with her designer suits surely will be a rocker.
Remember the competition in these visual channels should be based entirely on the classic formula of ‘Dirty picture’ actress Vidya Balan dialogues–Entertainment! Entertainment! Entertainment! If Pak can use their two or four marriages syndrome as in ‘Kash mein teri beti na hoti’ and many daily series of ‘Kitne Girhain baki hain’ India can plug in old serials like ‘saans’ with Neena Gupta and Kawaljit of an adult affair or child-adult serial ‘Barey ache lagte hain’ and if that doesn’t suffice the Indian caste based serials of ‘Kyasth’ ki larki’ aur ‘Brahmin’ ka larka in ‘Ye pyar na hoga kaam’ could somewhat participate.
This time Pak is not resorting to its old tricks of fake currency, arms, cocaine packages, and suicide bombers and ready to heap a proxy war on India. They are taking the celluloid screens, those (All) watching ‘Zindagi’ channel in India know that Pak has come armed with its most potent missile of a bouquet of Pakistani dramas and Telefilms. Attacking and some ready to attack are Dil-e-Muzter, Silvatein, Shehr E Zaat, Dastan on Indo-Pak partition, Behadd-Telefilm, Durr-e-Shehwar, Humsafar, Adhoori Aurat, Virassat, Tanhai, Bulbulay, Bilqees Kaur, Perchaiyan, Rehaai and hundreds of other ..Huff…Huff…I am out of breath now.
From women’s empowerment, and gender ties to social trends, Pak arsenal has a range. While India’s classics like Tareek Mehta ka Ulta Chashma, Office office, Balika Vadhu, Na Ana iss des laado, Aik boond Ishq is merely like air rifle shots before the staccato fire. There was a time India made –‘Tamas’.
India! India! Wake- up! Let us throw the challenge of ‘Sach ka samna’ with the host extracting hidden tales of a person labeled the ‘bakra’. Pak could well enjoy and even float a tolly version of the show, of course, Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘Kon Banega Crorepati’ with its dharmic sawals could be a mismatch in the theological state.
Even India’s youngistan fare like ‘Splitvilla’, ‘Roadies’ stunt manias ‘Khatro ke Khiladi could turn lucky but the song and dance reality shows will score tops, don’t you see Indian songs playing in Pak serials.
Well, ‘Comedy with Kapil’ could give some guffawick competition to Pak’s political and social satire sitcom ‘Hasb-be-haal’
However, all is not over for India. Other than cricketer turned politician Imran Khan and a Canada-based Pak cleric Mohammed Qadri historic democracy march, it is the Indian Actor Salman Khan’s ‘Kick’ that is kicking up a duststorm in Pakistan with a collection of 57.8 million in three days. Buzz says it garnered a whopping Rs 65,700,000 on this Eid in both Lahore and Karachi, even as Pak’s drama brigade flashily entered Indian homes riding on ‘Zindagi’ channel just before Eid on July 23rd.
The Salman starer released on Eid became the highest holiday grosser in Pakistan with an estimated business of Rs 20.8 million Pak rupees daily and as many as 58 screenings in Karachi alone. “Other than Paf Cinema all other cinema halls in Lahore are running ‘Kick’ to full houses including Prime cinema, Tamaseel cinema, Cine gold, Capital cinema, Prince cinema, Gulistan cinema, Rex and one in the Fortress stadium called Sozo world.
Pak’s only claim to film fame in India has been -‘Khuda Ke liye’, ‘Bol’, and a cross breed ‘Tere Bin Laden’ a made-in-India set in Karachi film with Pak actor Ali Zafar in the lead.
Instead of India- Pak’s efforts on ‘Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) turn it around to (CFP)-
‘Pakistan: The sick man of South Asia’: Dr Ishrat Husain
Indo-Pak
‘Pakistan –The sick man of South Asia’: Dr. Ishrat Husain, Top Economist, Pakistan
Rashmi Talwar
In an unfiltered conversation at a webinar organized by Amritsar-based ‘Majha House’, eminent Pakistani banker, and economist, Dr. Ishrat Husain, talked candidly about his book ‘Governing the Ungovernable’, Institutional Reforms for Democratic Governance’- tracing Pakistan’s dismal economic condition. The ex-Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan; Dean and Director, IBA, Karachi was in conversation with Aaditya Dar, an Economics Lecturer, University of Maryland, USA. Preeti Gill, Director, ‘Majha House’ – a cultural-literary hub, opened the session with – “Governing the Ungovernable,” –is an intriguing title taking a ‘comprehensive look’ at flaws that led to institutional decay in Pakistan, weaving Pakistan’s political, social, and economic history, for its rise and falls.
Excerpts
Q. What led you to write this book?
Ans: As a civil servant, later a public policy fellow at Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington USA, I researched -“Why Pakistan from such a sterling position of 40 years of an upcoming economy became a ‘Legard’ in South Asia?”
And I found all ‘conventional factors’ such as- Lesser foreign assistance flows; Garrison state syndrome; love of the US for Pak Dictators; Global economic conditions being adverse, and lastly if Religious extremism and terrorists destabilized the country; explaining the Pak economic downfall were nullified. Instead, I found the decay of Pak institutions! My idea as to -“Why the military became so powerful in Pakistan? – was, because the army as an institution strengthened itself- they took mediocre into the armed forces, and after 10 years transformed them into a first-rate human resource while civil services took the best and brightest and after 10 years transformed them into “cynics” and “no-doers”.
It was a startling revelation, how a stronger institution i.e. Army, occupied the vacant institutional civilian space. Also, how the state of various institutions, led to the downfall of the Pak economy, motivated me to write this book.
Q. What do you mean by- ‘Love of US for the Dictators’, How true is it?
Ans: “Love of the US for the military Dictators” is a popular belief that whenever military dictators ruled, Pakistan received foreign funding, which is untrue, as a factor, for the economic graph of Pakistan.
Pakistan was in military alliances with the USA, right in the beginning.
In the 1965 Indo-Pak war, the US took away all the spare parts of military equipment, supplied by American vendors to Pakistan. Then, in the 1971 Indo-Pak war despite the tilt of US President Richard Nixon and his assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger, Pakistan benefitted nothing from the US.
Both were periods of military dictators Gen Mohammed Ayub Khan, and Gen Agha Muhammed Yahya Khan, in 1971. Thirdly, under martial ruler Gen Zia-Ul- Haq, Pakistan’s aid was cut-off from the US. The US only resumed support, despite sanctions against nuclear bomb testing by Pakistan, when it needed Pakistan for intervention in Afghanistan against the Soviets. In 2001 – during military dictator Gen Parvez Musharraf, more US sanctions were imposed because of the military coup.
I, therefore, drew the conclusion that the ‘US’s Love for the Dictators’ was not true! After 9/11, in 2001, despite military sanctions, the US came with big help to Pakistan. And when Musharraf quit in 2008, the US sanctioned $2.5 billion dollars yearly to civilian ruler Asif Zardari under the Laugar Bill. Even during the civilian rule of ZA Bhutto- who was anti-US, Pak got huge aid from very rich OPEC countries. It’s the US’ own interests that reign Supreme! And whenever there is a convergence of interest between the US Administration and Pakistan – whether it is democracy or dictatorship, the US comes!
Q. –‘Did religious extremism and Terrorism affect the economy of Pakistan ?-Can you talk about the ‘religious edifice’ idea in the book and how it is intertwined with Pakistan’s development journey?
Ans: The extremism and religious terrorism in Pakistan took shape after 2001 when Pakistan joined the US against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s, TTP Tehreek-e- Taliban (Pakistan), believed we were in the wrong faith-wise, and they inflicted acts of terrorism in Pakistan.
But from 1990 to 2001, the economic growth rate had already come down from 6 ½ % to 4 % during this period, the economy slowed down when no terrorism and religious extremism was in Pakistan. And from 2014 when extremism was absolutely eliminated from Pakistan, the growth rate stumbled again. So, there is no correlation between the intensity of terrorist activity within the country and the GDP growth rate.
Secondly, Religious leaders in Pakistan have a lot of influence. A newly founded Tehreek-e-Labak, Pakistan could bring crowds on streets and completely impede the movement of goods and services on roads and highways. But in elections, the religious parties bagged not even 10 to 12 seats in assembly or national assemblies. Religious parties divide us into Shias, Sunnis, Barelvis, Deobandis, into Ahl-i-Hadith.
Therefore they don’t attract that kind of support or if they did they can change the entire ‘edifice of our constitution’ as also law-making. They have street power with support from ‘Madrassas’ and kids enrolled there.
Q. What about restructuring key institutions, like banking?
Ans: I took over as Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (equal RBI Governor). Interest rates then were almost 20% to 21%.
How can you do business in such an environment where the borrowing cost and the cost of capital are so exorbitant? We undertook reforms of strengthening the Central Bank as a regulator. Today, instead of having to bear the losses and subsidize that from the exchequer, these banks are contributing billions of rupees, as their corporate taxes. But unfortunately, since 2010 access to the sectors like agriculture, and low-cost housing, SMEs, has declined. It is because of ‘obstructing’ the credit by a very dominant player, which is,- the government of Pakistan.
Q. Like India’s Agriculture is central to the economy of Pakistan, what’s the role of irrigation authorities, in the context of climatic havoc like floods in Pakistan?
Ans: Indus Basin Delta which irrigates 78% of our land is inefficiently used. There’s an inequitable distribution of water. The influential tamper with water courses, even at minor canals, and divert waters to the extent of water-logging their own fields, while tail-end users are denied water for even a decent yield per acre. We used to recover 100% of the operation and maintenance cost from farmers, today only 10% are collected from farmers, as all big landlords are members of state or provincial assemblies, and don’t allow any reform in this sector.
Presently, devastating floods (Sep-Oct 2022) in Pakistan created havoc. Experts say (flooding) recharges some groundwater, so the repletion rate could be stopped, but see, at what cost! Groundwater is only used by tube-well owners, who are very influential politicians.
Q What are the current bottlenecks in the administration of justice in Pakistan?
Ans: The rule of law is the most critical ingredient for democratic governance. And that’s why I say- we are “ungovernable”. An ordinary citizen of Pakistan does not have access to the entire chain of justice.
How can a poor person afford the high costs of legal processes given the corruption scenario in Pakistan? Land title disputes occupy 80% of the court management registers, with tampering of records, and disputes go on and on.
How can you have collateral where the land title is in dispute and it is under litigation? My proposal was to formulate- an ‘alternate dispute resolution mechanism’ and computerize and digitize our land records. Otherwise, it is the law of the jungle whosoever is influential, and powerful will do according to their own discretion and resolution.
Q What’s the ‘Garrison State Hypothesis’ (GSH) and alleged funding of militancy in Indian Punjab & Kashmir, and how did these factor in the downfall of the economy of Pakistan?
Ans: This idea that all the money is sucked away by the defense as in the GSH is flawed. Actually, all the money is being sucked away by debt servicing.
The defense took $7.5 Billion, last year. Debt-servicing is going to take away $20 Billion, And that is the Federal government’s net revenues! Our debt ratio today is close to 100% of GDP, creating a fiscal imbalance.
Q: Biodiversity is equivalent to equilibrium in the order of the world’s social and cultural diversity. Lack of social diversity, is it leading to problems in the economic Ecosystem in Pakistan?
Ans:- There is a fragmentation in society based on ethnic, linguistic, and regional grounds. It is basically the “elite capture” that is most dominant in Pakistan. Yes, the poor, rural, the backward have occupied high positions in decision-making, but their behaviour is the same as that of other ‘elites’.
It’s not whether it’s a woman, or Christian, or a rural migrant; when they reach a certain level; there is an identity of interest with the elite class. The disparity where they all started disappears as they start behaving like the elite class.
Q. Your talk so far shows there is not much disappointment, then why do you call your country ‘ungovernable’?
Ans– I am disappointed that a fast-moving country that was among the top 10 developing countries, has now become the “Sick man of South Asia” despite all we have done to make Pakistan a great Nation. That is because our Institutions of governance have completely failed us.
Q. Will the division of West Punjab solve the water-sharing issues or worsen them?
Ans: Well I think Indus Basin works, but for the future, water management is entering a completely new phase with the melting of glaciers.
In Gilgit Baltistan (Pakistan) recently I saw first-hand how much the glaciers were melting. India, Pakistan has a responsibility to draw a new water contract to sustain the livelihood of both Nations, where the Treaty needs to be revisited, in light of the climate change challenges.
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The author can be reached at rashmitalwarno1@gmail.com.
Few are aware that the holy city of Amritsar is “world famous” for the annual “Langoorwala Mela” at the Hindu shrine Durgiana Temple, architecturally built as the replica of the revered Sikh shrine – the Golden Temple, in Amritsar. Durgiana Temple with a similar, gold-covered dome, the circumambulation around the temple and causeway path to the sanctum sanctorum of the main shrine, sitting in a similar pool of Nectar is exactly like the Sikh Golden Temple and a mere few kilometers apart, located in the ancient walled city of Amritsar.
What Eid is to Kashmir, “Durga Puja” to West Bengal and “Dandiya celebrations” to Gujarat, the langoor-wala Mela or fair is to the Holy City of Amritsar. Every year on the occasion of the onset of winter- on the ‘Navratras’- (9-Holy Days), thousands from across the country and abroad arrive at the ancient “Bara Hanuman Prachin (ancient temple) Mandir” on the premises of Durgiana Temple here, to participate in the internationally famous Mela to make a wish for a child or for thanksgiving.
The unique mela is a rare feast for the eyes, in the Holy city that sees children dressed as ‘Langoors’ – a species of monkeys, dancing to the tune of drums in a procession passing through different parts of the city. This time over 5,000 ‘Langoor’s’ symbolizing the army of Lord Hanuman – the Monkey Lord, are participating as a thanksgiving to Lord.
Lakshmi Kanta Chawla, president Durgiana TempleCommittee, said over 200 volunteers will undertake the management of the mela.
More than 3000 ‘Langoor’ costumes are sold annually while many languor outfits are given for rent. Childless couples, irrespective of ‘religion’ or caste, seek blessings of Lord Hanuman( from epic Ramayan ) for the birth of a child and on wish fulfillment dress their child as ‘Langoor’, in gratitude to the Almighty.
In bright red silver-striped outfits, with silver and golden trimmings, conical-shaped caps, faces, arms, smeared with fuller’s earth, and make-up like ‘‘Langoor’s’ complete with long tails and silver-colored staffs in hand, children dance to drum beats for all nine days. lately, monkey masks too, have also become popular.
Bimal Arora, finance secretary Durgiana Temple committee informs –“The temple boasts of a “rare” idol of Lord Hanuman in sitting position which is only found in two other temples in the world, at Prayagraj and Hanuman Garhi”.
Legend has it that the twin sons of Lord Rama – Luv and Kush of epic Ramayan who were born close to Amritsar in a mud hut of Rishi Valmiki the author of the Ramayan, called the “Ram Tirath” lived in exile with their mother, Sita Mata till their youth. The twins captured the ‘Ashwamedha horse’- or the horse of victory, let loose after “Ashwamedha Yajna” performed by Lord Rama (the twins’ father and King of Ayodhaya) to stake his claim over all land territories where the Royal horse set afoot. —Lord Hanuman, who unknowingly came to defend the captured horse from the two young sons of Lord Ram, was taken prisoner by the twins and tied to a Banyan tree which is believed to be the offshoot of the same tree located on the Temple premises eons past. Later the truth about the children’s parentage was revealed here.s As a ritual, childless couples believing auspicious spirits lovingly tie a red sacred thread or ‘Mauli’ around the majestic bark of this ancient banyan tree seeking a boon of a child.
Interestingly the city of Lahore and Kasur in Pakistan are named after Luv and Kush respectively, and the fact is even mentioned in the official records of Pakistan.
Remarkably, the pledge to make a ‘Langoor’ can carry on for life, and an eighty-year-old ‘Langoor’ and a few months old baby could be dressed as ’Langoors’ to fulfill the vows of parents or grandparents. A strict regime of custom is followed by parents or a guardian of ‘Langoor’ – to sleep on the floor, observe fast, shun footwear, eat vegetarian food uncut with a knife, and recite verses from Ramayana during the entire 9-day period. The ‘Langoors’ on their part remain barefoot all 9-days and sleep on the floor. The mela concludes on Dussehra festival when ‘Langoor’s’ finally take off their ‘Langoor’ outfits near the banyan tree. Childless mothers gifted with a child, untie the thread on the ancient tree on the fulfillment of their wish.
In popular belief, the unique festival has been celebrated for centuries.
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BAJRANGI BAHIJAAN DRESSED LANGOORS AND BLACK FACED LANGOORS
Don’t trigger a war : Voices from India and Pakistan
Villagers asked to evacuate are enraged at the media hype; their homes are almost empty and crop is being wasted
Rashmi Talwar
“Hun jang na lava deo!” (Now, don’t trigger a war!) – shouts an enraged villager, Kulwant Singh, at us. He is the caretaker of the local gurdwara of village Daoke on the India-Pakistan border.
We smile awkwardly; the villagers are visibly angry, especially the elderly. “Media nu TRP di payi rendi hai, aasan da koi nai sochda,” (media is concerned about TRPs, nobody thinks of us border villagers!) they say.
Some join the chorus as they see our cameras and notebooks. Villagers are keenly watching the high decibel rhetoric belted out by TV channels, where 80 per cent of news is on the India-Pakistan trajectory, in the heightened tension of the last two weeks.
Villagers in the border belt with Pakistan were ordered to evacuate after Indian armed forces carried out “surgical strikes” on September 29, in retaliation for the September 18 attack in Uri, Jammu & Kashmir, attributed to Pakistan’s terrorist network.
Daoke is situated bang on the border where the international boundary’s barbed wire fence is a mere crow’s flight away. So close to the border that one milkman Bitu’s mobile number shows the country code of +92 (Pakistan).
Even as hectic activity was noticed, as ripe paddy crop is being harvested speedily in villages, due to panic, their anger is not amiss.
Many villagers owning fields beyond the barbed wire fencing on the Indian side of the border are barred from tending to their fields by the Border Security Force. They rue the accrued losses and moan that their loans will remain unpaid, as no one can tend to their standing, ripened crops.
With many of the village’s women and children having left for safer places, much of the responsibility and burden of household chores, livestock and fields has fallen upon the frail shoulders of the elderly, while fields within the barbed area with newly ripened paddy are being managed by sons whose wives and children are staying with relatives in the cities.
Daoke’s Satwant Kaur cries: “In this old age, when I needed rest and comfort, I have been pushed to tend to cooking, cleaning and all house chores alone, as both my daughter-in-laws and their children were sent to their maternal homes. An old woman is expected to deal with everything!”
The reluctance of the villagers to evacuate has reasons. Whenever tensions build up between India and Pakistan, they fall in the first line of evacuation. At places, a mere road separates the defence drain and the fields of villages.
“Besides the cumbersome drill of packing and transporting belongings and requesting city counterparts to help, crops too suffer,” says one Gurmeet. The biggest reason, however, as Gurmeet puts it: “This time it is unlike earlier evacuations, which were serious. This one is merely precautionary and anticipatory.”
They are also loath to evacuate because they know they will get the whiff of any serious preparations for an attack through tip-offs from across the border, where they have contacts.
The contacts are through the ignominious drug trade. Villages Hawellian, Narli, Bharopal and Daoke are well known for their drug links. Incidentally, the controversial film Udta Punjab on the drug menace in Punjab, is peppered with mentions of these villages in conversations.
After evacuation orders by local deputy commissioners (DC), the villagers of Bharopal, similarly poised on the India-Pakistan border, are also restless. Many villagers owning fields beyond the barbed wire fencing on the Indian side of the border are barred from tending to their fields by the Border Security Force. They rue the accrued losses and moan that their loans will remain unpaid, as no one can tend to their standing, ripened crops. The
situation is alike in Kakkar, Rajatal, Neshta, Pandhori, Manj, Kawe, Bachiwind, and Ranian along the border, where very few have left homes.
Punjab’s chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had deputed DCs to supervise evacuation, on the possibility of retaliation by Pakistan, and declared: “These are precautionary steps to prevent civilian loss in case of any misadventure from across the border.”
Badal claimed to have released Rs 1 crore for each border district. When asked about the compensation, the villagers of Bharopal exclaimed: “Not a drop of compensation arrived on our doorstep!”
Amritsar’s DC said 15 camps and a score of buses were spared to ferry people. The villagers of Daoke are ignorant of any such travel arrangements.
Following recent incidents, 11 government school buildings were notified for residents of the border belt. Arrangement at Khasa school for about 500 people has no takers. In Chhabal village of Tarn Taran, about 30 rooms are in readiness to accommodate 250 people. Very few have arrived in relief camps falling in the adjoining district of Tarn Taran along the border.
They preferred to take refuge in gurdwaras nearby where food is assured via langars. All private and government educational institutions within 10km radius of the international border remain shut. Those living near the border have been asked to switch off lights at night.
Many of the villagers have witnessed three wars, including 1965, 1971, Kargil in 1999 and the army stand-off in the aftermath of the Parliament attack in 2001-02.
Jasbir Singh (82), a village elder of Bharopal, had even witnessed the Partition of 1947. Village Neshtha’s Balwant Singh articulates: “We will not move out till the time shots are fired, the artillery is moved in and the defence canal is filled with water. How much baggage can we take? Our livestock, grain and household items were looted when we left the last time following the Parliament attack.”
This journalist saw patrolling by horse-mounted Army personnel, besides police and armoured vehicles of the BSF in border villages. In the stand-off in 2001-02, when villages were evacuated, India and Pakistan’s soldiers stood eye-to-eye.
Fields along the barbed wire fencing and beyond were heavily mined and many casualties of defence personnel and villagers were reported due to accidents during movement of artillery, besides incidents of fire in mined fields.
BSF deputy commandant HS Sidhu confirms: “The evacuation exercise is a precautionary measure. BSF has enhanced vigil and augmented forces along the India-Pakistan border. Media hype and the acrimony between the two nations cannot be ignored.”
Other precautionary measures include sounding hospitals and keeping medicine supply in readiness. Unconfirmed reports are also trickling in of fortifying of ICP (integrated checkpost, Attari-Wagah) and cleaning of bunkers on the border.
Even as anxiety prevails in villages, India-Pakistan trade seemed untouched by any tension. Balwinder Singh, in-charge of the port at Attari-Wagah, revealed that as many as 190 trucks carrying cement, gypsum, rock salt, dry fruit and dry dates arrived from Pakistan and 55 trucks with tomatoes from Maharashtra, cotton and buffalo meat drove to Pakistan.
Passenger count on the international route seemed affected. Four times-weekly Punj-Aab Express, the Amritsar-Lahore bus, didn’t ply as no passenger was booked on it. Passenger flow via the bi-weekly Samjhauta Express train between the two countries remained at about 150 persons on both sides on Thursday. Besides this, only five passengers each crossed from either side via Sada-E-Sarhad Delhi-Lahore bus on Saturday.
Sartaj Aziz, shouldn’t you have brought PoK representatives?
Rashmi Talwar
While the factories of terror thrive, India and Pakistan are too terrified to talk. The talk tables between the two nations have tumbled, rounded, squared, turned or reversed but no edges have been found. How long will the K-issue be dragged, and peace remain, its captive?
When it suits Pakistan, the core is relegated to the back burner, as during the International Conference of SAFMA in early 2013, held in Lahore, when Nawaz Sharif was a PM-in-waiting. Neither the public nor even the media in Pakistan came in support of the ‘core’ issue of Kashmir in presence of the media representatives from eight countries.
At SAFMA, Nawaz was a mute spectator as speaker after speaker from Pakistan decried the standstill situation between India and Pakistan being hemmed by the issue of Kashmir. They spoke on moving forward on other agreeable issues while keeping Kashmir on the sidelines. A Kashmiri in the delegation even asked the establishment – “one lakh Kashmiris killed and now Kashmir becomes a non-issue?”- He was told dismissively-“Talks can’t become hostage to Kashmir. There is no question of transfer of territory”.
One senior Pakistani television journalist even bluntly told the Kashmiri media at SAFMA– “If my child is crying in Baluchistan, should I run after a Kashmiri child or look after my own?” And continued in the same tone – “Kashmir doesn’t sell in Pakistan anymore! If I announce a TV discussion based on Kashmir in the promos, the Channel’s TRP falls drastically”.
Najam Sethi a prominent Pakistani journalist had noted “People in Pakistan want to carry on with their lives. Only the political compulsion makes Kashmir an issue.” People in Pakistan had seen the gameplay of country’s politicians calling wolf on Kashmir every time internal problems arose, as diversionary tactics.
As soon as Nawaz Sharif became Prime Minister of Pakistan; Hamid Gul- former ISI’s chief (who passed away recently) – decried the new PM’s friendly overtures to India – “What dosti, dosti (friendship, friendship) is Nawaz talking about? He (Nawaz) is denigrating the Quaid-e-Azam’s two nation formula.” Hamid went on to denigrate almost every ruler of prominence in Pakistan, including Gen. Pervez Musharaff, a former army chief, besides Bhutto and his family.
This brings us to the point – How many peace-opposing powerful personalities like Gul would be in the theological state of Pakistan, to pull the strings of Nawaz, anytime he makes a peace overture to India, like attending the swearing in ceremony of Indian PM Narendra Modi? Are the army generals in Pakistan willing to let peace prevail, which in turn will reduce their position of prominence in their country?
How many of those may reside on the Indian side too to hamper any progress on Indo-Pak talks? Apart from that, there would be nations with a vested interest or agenda, to continue the spell of hostility and violence between the warring neighbors. Their interest could range from arms, ammunition supply to matters of faith, power, fear etc.
It has been a tradition that Pakistan has been holding conferences with Kashmiri leaders of Hurriyat in the past. However with the changed government in India, the new incumbency appears to be in no mood to toe the line and continue to allow the practice.
Several vital questions have arisen on the current scenario on various social networking sites. A high level Indian diplomat of Kashmiri origin, wishing to remain anonymous asked – “What is the Pakistani take on Kashmir- does it want Kashmir to accede to Pakistan in toto? Is Pakistan for independence of Kashmir, as demanded by Kashmiris? In that case, independence to Kashmir means Pakistan may have to concede the territory held by it with all stakes withdrawn from it, even the Kashmir territories ceded to China. Is Pakistan willing to do that?”
Moderate elements on both sides feel, “The issue of Kashmir should be solved bilaterally as per the Simla Agreement. Even Washington and London have categorically announced – ‘Both India and Pakistan must resolve their issues bilaterally, including Kashmir,’ ruling out any scope for third party mediation.
A cartoonist in Pakistan asks –“Is Kashmir, more important than pressing domestic issues while insurgency is going on its backyard? Will Kashmir solve that for Pakistan?”
On another tangent –“Is Jammu & Kashmir, as a whole, willing to attach itself with Pakistan and willing to be ruled by it?”
If Kashmir is an issue, then shouldn’t a delegation of leaders of Pakistan occupied Kashmir have ideally accompanied the National Security Advisor of Pakistan Sartaj Aziz for NSA talks? How is it that Aziz wants to talk Kashmir and only one side of Kashmir is invited for the talks? Has Sartaj Aziz allowed PoK to talk to India about its future? If the delegation of PoK comprises of its elected members, would it not be appropriate to include the elected representatives from the Indian side too, i.e. the elected Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his colleagues in the cabinet, to join the discussion
A 3-point agenda was set up by India and Pakistan in Ufa, Russia as told to the media during a press conference by Pak NSA Sartaj Aziz soon after cancellation of NSA talks, as follows:
• Call for all discussion on issues related to terrorism
• Call for reviewing progress on actual decisions made in Ufa, i.e. prompt release of fishermen, discussions for better arrangements for religious tourism and activation of mechanism for restoring peace across the LoC and the working boundary.
• Intended to explore all ‘outstanding issues’.
In the above agenda there is no mention of any issue specifically- no Kashmir, no Siachin, and no Sir Creek. However, these were mere discussions and Kashmir could be brought into the discussion without needling India with an invite to Hurriyat Conference- a non-representative body, with no representative from either Jammu or the Ladakh regions.
Despite these hiccups, the horizon throws no alternative to talks. “We cannot perpetually remain in the past” like Pakistani TV anchor for popular programme ‘Jirga’, Saleem Safi described former ISI chief Hamid Gul’s obsession.
Dossiers on Intelligence activities pertaining to RAW (India) and alternatively to ISI (Pakistan), need to see the light of wisdom, irrespective of political incumbents. This is vital to formulate a roadmap to revive the stalled peace process and retain the flavor of the nascent goodwill generated by Nawaz Sharif’s visit to India.
Sharp rhetoric, to arouse jingoistic euphoria by both, has only served to blunt and weaken pro-peace lobbies in both countries. A result oriented engagement between the two countries is the key challenge for both Islamabad and Delhi, and let the gesture of peace not be labeled as a weakness but as strength of character and statesmanship.
India got a little corner in Islamic Heart to make a Hindu Temple
Rashmi Talwar
Politics is chess. When direct approach fails, the rival can be checkmated by opening another front. Perhaps this is the stratagem used by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi against a belligerent Pakistan, a neighbor who continues to violate ceasefire, needles India on Kashmir, ignites anti nation sentiments, blueprints terrorist strikes in India, and is perpetually in denial mode of any wrongdoing.
By attaining the ‘natural strategic partnership’ with United Arab Emirates and adding counter terrorism as core area of security cooperation, the Indian PM has drafted a new chapter with the gulf country located in a critical region. No wonder the Indian PM laid out his priorities promptly when approached with a prospect of a gulf visit. He became the first Prime Minister to visit UAE in 34 years.
It was an opportune moment. The focus of discussion and political endorsement against terrorism are breakthroughs for Delhi, given Pakistan’s proximity with the Arab nation. The gulf nation always had strained relations with India, owing to its closeness with Pakistan – a country on the same religious tangent. This, despite the large human resource pool of 2.5 million Indians contributing to UAE’s success story and workforce of 7 million, as also commerce ties, geographical proximity, mutual interdependence in trade and travel and endless other common factors. So much so that today, India has already become UAE’s second largest trading partner while UAE is India’s third largest.
By resolving to combat terrorism and broad-basing terrorism’s causes and nurseries, India is hoping UAE has successfully rethought its traditional support to India’s neighbor and would engage a balanced approach towards disputes between India and Pakistan. Apart from this, the talks took in a strong stand against the broad spectrum of sub-continental and Middle East terrorism.
Earlier, UAE’s disinclination towards India’s difficulties in dealing with cross-border terrorism had put their relationship in cold storage. However, the shared bonds in matters of faith with Pakistan, surprisingly, didn’t prove to be any hurdle for forging Delhi’s engagement with UAE leaders. Rather, Pakistan believes, the Indian PM has stepped into the recent breach in relationships between Pakistan and UAE on the former’s refusal to actively join the Yemen war against the Houthi fighters.
Za’abeel Palace, Dubai remained seriously engaged with Delhi before the two Nations arrived at a joint statement denouncing terrorism and a closer cooperation by the Arab nation to deal with it.
Outstanding concerns that had hardly been discussed before were thrashed including issues of disassembling criminal and terrorist networks from money laundering, disallowing religious hues to percolate disputes in the political spectrum, besides bringing perpetrators of vicious terrorism to book.
It is an open secret that Pakistan has been erring on all above factors. These issues found acceptability and entered into an agreement flashed in the joint statement between Emirates and India.
Pakistan is seen to be guilty on many counts including free run to accused of violent terrorist acts in India such as Hafiz Sayeed, ZR Lakhvi; giving jihadi color to disputes between India and Pakistan, especially in Jammu & Kashmir as also money laundering alliances with terrorist groups of ‘Bhai’ culture of Dawood Ibrahim.
Pakistan had enjoyed fraternal relations with UAE, founded on shared religion, traditions, deep-rooted cultural affinities, geographic proximity and economic interests. UAE is a major economic donor to Pakistan and main supporter of Pakistan’s position on Jammu & Kashmir and Afghanistan.
Today, UAE and other Arab nations have woken up to dangers of supporting terrorist networks of Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Islamic or non-Islamic nations. Its fear about being targeted owing to its prosperity or something as absurd as boredom or over excited extremists on a whim to destroy appears real.
India has grabbed the opportune moment to checkmate Pakistan, closing in a deal with rival’s ally and attempt to rid its stratosphere of violent tribulations. The two nations rejected extremism and any link between religion and terrorism. They condemned efforts, including by states, to use religion to justify, support and sponsor terrorism against other countries or inciting hatred besides perpetrating and justifying terrorism.
The agreement incorporates cooperation in counter terrorism operations, intelligence sharing as well as control, regulate and share information on flow of funds that could have a bearing on activities of radicalization including on cyber-sphere. To strengthen cooperation in law enforcement, anti-money laundering, drug trafficking, other trans-national crimes, extradition arrangements, as well as police training.
The hand of support from UAE clearly means the threat perception in the Gulf countries is in the line of fire. India not only got a hand of cooperation for an arch rival’s friend but also a little corner in the Islamic heart to make a Hindu Temple.
However all this may turn out to be hogwash, given the fact that Pakistan continues to be bellicose over any efforts at dialogue. It tacitly impinges on the dialogue route with an invite to Hurriyat leaders, days ahead of National Security Advisors-NSA talks in Delhi on August 23 between Sartaj Aziz of Pakistan and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval.
It is exactly, the same month a year back, when chances of Foreign Secretary level talks were frittered away due to the same gameplay. The invite to Syed Ali Shah Geelani for talks is scheduled for the same day as the NSA meeting. Other separatist leaders Yasin Mallik, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq too have invites but for reception of Aziz. Sources say they feel slighted by Pakistan with the kind of prominence Geelani is commanding.
With recent brazen attacks in Gurdaspur and Udhampur simmering in India, and diplomatic engagements between the two being hampered, hurdles have arisen between India and Pakistan with near negligible breakthroughs in the near future.
This cold war reflects badly on publics of both countries who are cheery on people to people relationships, but are stalled to meet due to diplomatic and political stand offs. Such stinging calisthenics seem to be puppetry exercises, slowly drawing out the Queens on both sides of the chessboard. It remains to be seen who can ultimately save its King.
Rashmi Talwar is an Award winning writer, and can be reached at rashmitalwarno1@gmail.com
May 19th saw two Indian journalists working in Pakistan cross over to their home country from Pakistan. Snehesh Alex Philips of Press Trust of India came through Wagah-Attari Indo- Pak Joint Check Post land route in Amritsar, and Meena Menon from ‘The Hindu’ via Karachi to Mumbai flight. The two, Snehesh and Meena are completely baffled by their unceremonious and sudden ouster from Pakistan, refusing extension of visa, barely nine months after their tenure in Islamabad, Pakistan.
The move to oust Indians by Pak’s foreign office despite Islamabad government’s perceived desire for healthier relations with India is indeed ironic. Infact, newly re-elected Pak PM Nawaz Sharief’s friendly overtures towards India, especially the desire to re-build relations came soon after Sharief’s utterance in Muzaffrabad (Pak Occupied Kashmir) calling ‘Kashmir a flashpoint that could trigger a 4th war between the two nuclear powers at anytime, on Dec 3rd last year’ that peeved India and had to be glossed over. Mending fences after the loud rhetoric, Nawaz tried to smoothen frayed nerves in India. However his desires on cordial relations seem to have ‘irked’ the ‘establishment’ aka ‘Military /Security’, says Mehmal Sarfraz, Deputy Secretary General of the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA).
Hence merely days after the ouster of two journalists, the Pak PM is again at pains to push the perceived enmity under the carpet, by being the first to congratulate and extend an invitation to the Indian PM designate Narinder Modi after the stupendous win of Bharatiya Janta Party headed by Modi.
Pak ‘establishments’ have always played spoilsports whenever popular home governments have shown a leaning towards bettering Indo-Pak ties. Hence, the assassination attempt of Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir, who was badly injured on April 19th this year in an armed attack, near Karachi airport, was hardly surprising. ISI agency was fuming about Mir’s coverage of the issue of Baluchistan and his criticism of the spy agency. Hamid was termed a pro-India agent in Pakistan by many, as Baluchistan is an issue that India takes up in retort to Pakistan. The subsequent move by Pak Defense Ministry’s cancellation of the broadcasting license of three – Geo News, Geo Entertainment and Geo Tez TV out of five TV channels owned and operated by Geo/Jang group, through ‘Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority’ (PEMRA), have clearly spelled out the persons behind the murderous attack.
While Indian Journalist Snehesh Alex Philips snapped “Its a million dollar question!” when I asked him ‘why’ he was shown the door by Pakistan, along with Meena, the answer, it seems is not so mysterious. SAFMA Gen Sect Mehmal adds – “This happened last year too with Rezaul and Anita Joshua. The ‘establishment’ wants to throw around its weight by not letting Nawaz’s government to get its own way vis-à-vis peace with India. The timing seems too suspicious, when India is looking forward to NDA led by BJP- seen as a Hindu nationalist party.”
Pakistan’s army chief Gen Raheel Sharif’s terming Kashmir as the “jugular vein” of Pakistan, on May 1st at GHQ Rawalpindi, also comes in the same sequence, as peace with India is seen as a weakening of the military establishment in Pakistan. Interestingly, Gen Sharief is mentored by ex- Pak President Parvez Musharaff –the architect of Kargil war when Nawaz was the PM of Pakistan. While two statements regarding Kashmir have been made by Pakistan consecutively, to rabble rouse Kashmiris in India, it had little effect in Jammu & Kashmir where most separatists sloganeer for ‘Independence’ rather than melting in Pakistan.
India has termed the ouster of two journalists as a retrograde step. Snehesh Philip’s father, AJ Philips- a noted columnist and senior Journalist-writer stated that the signs were obvious when his son’s wife was not given a visa after she visited India in January this year. Although there is a written agreement between Pakistan-India governments for a reciprocal arrangement allowing two correspondents from each country to be stationed in the other’s capital, the timing of the ouster is being speculated viz-a-viz a new government under Narinder Modi. Modi’s potential foreign policy has caused both anxiety and hope among regional observers. Many fear he might react badly to any incident of terrorism within India, routinely blamed on Pakistan, or a flare-up over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Like it or not, if Sharif is to deliver on his promises and ensure Pakistan’s progress, he will have to deal with NDA (National Democratic Alliance (NDA). By the journalists’ ouster, Pakistan’s ‘establishments’ have provided more fodder to anti-Pak rhetoric by the newly formed BJP-led Indian government which would further demoralize the elected government of Sharief.
Murtaza Solangi, a former head of state-run Radio Pakistan, pitches that he fears the decision to oust Indian journalists was a sign that the country’s powerful military establishment was reasserting over key areas of foreign policy, in particular the relationship with India. “It seems like foreign policy and national security is going out of the domain of Mr Sharif,” he said. In other words – “The government has been told ‘these things are not your job’.” A case in point is about another journalist. Despite repeated public promises by PM Sharief to look into the case of Declan Walsh, a New York Times journalist, expelled shortly before Sharif’s election, the Pak PM has not been able to arrange his return.
Hence it seems that power may actually be slipping out from the hands of Sharief and it was up to Pak PM to handle this mess or fall into ignominy, with fears of another bloodless military coup hanging over his head, yet again.
BOX Indian journalists complained of heavy surveillance and being confined to Islamabad
Tweets —– Achutha Menon: Good beginning, Mr Sheriff, with BP Govt.! Snehesh Alex Philip: Had a lovely run since August in this case, not even a year ;). Came with an open mind without bias. Snehesh Alex Philip: I take back home some great moments besides a bit of disappointment. Glad that I saw different sides of Pak and not the usual. A.J. Philip (Philip’s father): Snehesh says the Pakistanis feared his Facebook-addict father’s posts led to his “expulsion”. I wish it was not a humorous comment and, for once, he was serious! Snehesh Alex Philip: It is a joke I cracked with my dad.
Snehesh had retweeted some posts lauding Modi’s victory as anticipated by exit polls. Meena Menon had retweeted: PM’s special envoy stirs hornet’s nest with Kashmir remarks days before Manmohan Singh demits office Meena had even kept her tweet name @mee’namo’
The author can be mailed at rashmitalwarno1@gmail.com FIRST PUBLISHED IN RISING KASHMIR ON MAY 24, 2014
URL: http://www.risingkashmir.com/indo-pak-relations/
Ahmed Javed Hassan owner Servis shoes in his Palatial home in Lahore, Pakistan
Gun & Warlords, Biggest worry of Pakistan: Ch Ahmed Javed Hassan
Army in Pakistan may have fewer weapons than civilians
RASHMI TALWAR
If any footsteps tiptoed in Pakistan with fancy footwear it was either from Bata or Pakistan’s foremost Servis shoes. While many became paupers due to Indo-Pak partition, Servis Industries never gave up and entered the newly born Pakistan’s market with its brand of shoes that competed with the only other brand existing at the time.
Today into big time, the scion of the Servis Industries has held high the flag of his company. Chaudhary Ahmed Javed Hassan owner of ‘Servis Shoes’ is a popular figure across both partitioned borders of India and Pakistan. His Dahlia flower saplings come in hundreds from India during the planting season, people bring him Amritsaris fish, ladoos and mathees from India and as a grand patriarch, he distributes the goodies among all his friends and relatives. As he talked about their multi-billion dollar company that still rules the local and international markets, he also revealed to RASHMI TALWAR in his palatial home in Lahore, Pakistan, how unlicensed guns were the biggest trauma and challenge of Pakistan.
Q: What is the success story of Servis Industries more popularly known as Service Shoes now?
Ans: The story of ‘Servis’ began with three freshers from college, who set up the Servis Industries before partition in 1941 in Lahore. They were Ch Nazar Muhammad, Chaudhary Muhammad Hussain (my father) – both from Gujarat and Chaudhary Muhammad Saeed from Gujranwala. They flourished and their products of handbags and sports goods became popular all over India.
Then partition happened and only Bata was there in the shoe industry when we entered. Initially we started with military boots for the army as well as canvas beddings and hold-alls in 1948-49, soon after partition. Then came daily shoes and later fancy shoes. The material for footwear was imported from Europe and it used to be very costly. I joined the family business in 1966 by which time Servis shoes had arrived and established.
Q: How do you describe your company’s presence in terms of global status?
Ans: From a single retail footwear outlet, our brand has more than 400 stores in Pakistan. More than 2000 dealer-base, and a growing international footprint in Europe, Middle East, and many other regions of the world. Today, the the company produces world-class shoes, tyres, tubes, and rubber in its units in Gujarat and Muridke. Servis is an exporter of footwear has also developed brand partnerships with international brands like Hush Puppies, Nike, Urban Sole, Pierre Cardin. Our proudest moment was that Servis won FPCCI Trophy for six times for ‘Best Export Performance’.
Q: Your Lahore factory faced closure in Pakistan under President Zia-ul-Haq’s martial law?
Ans: We took on governments during all martial law regimes in Pakistan. We did not abide by any instructions that went contrary to law. One particular incident is when we preferred to close our Lahore unit instead of bowing down to pressure.
This was during the reign of Lt Gen Ghulam Jilani Khan who was then the 14th governor of Punjab province during the military rule of President Gen Zia-ul- Haq, when we defied and eventually declared a shut down of our unit.
Gilani started issuing us instructions about whom to employ and whom to dismiss. When Gilani ordered us to take back 15 employees out of the 200 we had dismissed. We told him we shall re-employ 185 back but would not take back the select 15 he had specified. Eventually we sold off the Lahore unit after the closure and set up at Muridke.
Q: How do you describe the period from Gen Ayub Khan to Bhutto’s times?
Ans: Gen Ayub was the military dictator from 1958 until he was forced to resign in 1969. During Gen Ayub’s times, earlier, things were cheap and rather peaceful.
Post the 1965 war and during 1966, street protests started due to general scarcity following the war. Instead of appeasing the public by some benevolent means, Gen Ayub started making petty money and became unpopular. I too became a student leader then and led a street demonstration in Gujarat.
Then came Yahya Khan in 1969, Yahya dissolved the Ayub government and declared martial law for the second time in Pakistan’s history. Eventhough in 1970 he held the first free elections, that saw Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s political party Awami League party in East Pakistan win the majority but Yahya was pressured by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose party had won in West Pakistan but had less votes. Under this pressure, Yahya decided to delay handing over the reins of power to Mujib. Thus, civil unrest erupted all over East Pakistan, Yahya tried to smother the rebellion and also fell into disgrace over the defeat in 1971 war against India and Bhutto came to power and formed the government with his Pakistan’s People’s Party and placed Yahya under house arrest. This is of course history. but on the economic front Bhutto nationalized industries such as Ghee manufacturing, foundaries, banks; healthcare, educational and therefore new entrepreneurs were discouraged to set in new industry or other service facilities. Hence unemployment rose sharply. Bhutto’s aura fell and he was dethroned by Zia-ul –Haq in a bloodless coup by alleging rigging in elections that Bhutto won. Since it was the case of ‘my (Zia’s) neck or his (Bhutto’s) neck’. Zia got Bhutto executed.
Q: Did any emotional wave of sympathy come after Bhutto was hanged?
Ans: Not much because then as Bhutto had become unpopular and Zia ruled with an iron hand. Later Benazir unleashed the emotional quotient by reminding people of the Bhutto legacy of sacrifices. Later she too was assassinated and that catapulted her husband Asif Ali Zardari to power, as the world knows.
Q: How did you manage during Zia-ul-Haq’s regime? Ans: Zia was no maulvi. He was a liar and never stood by his words. It was the worst period for Pakistan. He exploited religious sentiments to fight the war against Russian occupation of Afghanistan for America. He created the Punjabi Taliban, exploited youth and made them fanatics by saying ‘Jihad karo, Jannat mein Hurrein hongi tumhare liye’ (Fight the Jihad and you will be treated to beautiful women in the Heavenly Paradise). He deliberately created illiteracy to exploit youth. America used him and then lumped him off in an air crash along with one of their own Ambassadors.
During Zia’s reign came the ‘weaponry’. As America provided arms and ammunition to Pakistan to fight the Russians, the guns found their way into homes of warlords and private armies came into power especially in the rural belts. Every house had guns including automatic or semiautomatic. Obviously these guns went into wrong hands. Even though government can try but these guns will never be surrendered now or ever. They are used freely and the assailants dare and slip away. If police or security comes after them, they give them back in a formidable fight.
Even in villages they have Uzis’, Kalashnikovs, AK series, anti-tank guns and shoulder missiles and launchers. Fighters from Chechnya also joined in the fight. That time ISI too got a free hand. It was not reporting to anyone and was getting back channel support from America.
Zia always had double standards. Today Pakistan faces the biggest challenge of domestic arms and ammunition. In Pakistan, cities have smaller sophisticated weapons and crime is abundant. The availability of arms is not an issue. They are easily available to whosoever has the price to pay for them. The general feeling is if one doesn’t keep arms and ammunition one becomes vulnerable to those who do. This is the vicious circle that Pakistan faces and no solution can be found to it. The arms are hidden, whenever government announces civilians to surrender weapons. These very guns from America were diverted to fight in Kashmir. Interestingly army in Pakistan may have fewer weapons and civilians may have more.
Q: Do you also keep guns? (I ask sheepishly) Ans: I do not wish to comment on that.
I have read multiple view points emerging about the recent Kashmiris cheering Pakistan episode. Of special mention is the article ‘Of Sedition and Cricket’ by Shujaat Bukhari. It is well written and the writer has brought all aspects of the mindset of Kashmiri youth. However, it fails to make inroads into the mind of other Indians and the reason for discriminatory behavior towards the youth of the valley per se.
My personal view is the government has been unnecessarily harsh on Kashmiri students, with 67 of them booked under seditious charges, who also faced suspension by a Meerut University.
It is hard to dig deep into the heart of any Kashmiri by others in India every time he or they commit a faux pas. Dictionary defines a faux pas as a socially awkward or tactless act, especially one that violates accepted social norms, standard customs, or the rules of etiquette. “People only see the overt face value!” is what the world says. They have little time to spare to dig into your psyche, your history and your compulsions to understand and condone the acts.
Say for example – If, I was to shout at my wife in front of train passengers. Everyone will hold the view that ‘I am a bad tempered man’. They will not dive for reasons why I displayed such behavior publicly no matter how right I may be and how wrong my wife may have been.
Coming back to sports – can an American cheer for a Russian team in a match between the two countries? I don’t think even multicultural Americans, who hold civil liberties and freedom close to their heart and call themselves a civilized nation, can digest that in their country in an open platform against their rivals. It is difficult to explain to the rest of India why Kashmiri students cheer for Pakistan against India. When I queried about this cheering, a Kashmiri youth once told me ‘It is tradition in Kashmir to cheer for Pakistan.’
‘Aap nahi samjhoge’ (you’ll not understand). I asked him an explanation, he had none.
Another significant point, Shujaat’s article raises, and this may find resonance in Kashmir too; he writes, “One interesting thing has come up after the Meerut incident. Some of the students who are studying there have gone under Prime Minister’s Scholarship Scheme, which means that their study is fully funded. But even that has not helped them change their ideology.”
To this, I respectfully ask, “Why do the students accept the largesse if they detest the benefactor of these benevolent schemes. Do they have it in them to reject such schemes or not to apply for them?”
This pattern, reminds me of a recent case of Rachel Canning, an 18-year-old from New Jersey, who sued her parents. The parents said that their daughter Rachel voluntarily left their home after refusing to abide by the house rules. Rachel’s dad Sean told New York’s CBS 2-. “There’s minor chores. There’s curfews. When I say curfew, it’s usually after 11 o’clock at night. She does not want to abide by these rules or pitch in for house chores” In the lawsuit, Rachel asked a court to have her parents pay the outstanding dues for school; pay her future living and transportation expenses, her legal bills etc.
The judge shot down her plea and stated “Do we want to establish a precedent where parents are living in constant fear of establishing basic rules of the house?” Judge Bogaard said in the hearing. “If they set a rule a child doesn’t like, the child can move out, move in with another family, seek child support, cars, cell phone, and a few hundred grand to go to college? Are we going to open the gates for 12-year-olds to sue for an X-box? For 13-year-olds, to sue for an i-Phone?”
In other words, Rachel wanted all rights without any duties or responsibility. In the current scenario, do we as self-respecting individuals need to introspect that duties, responsibilities and rights go hand in hand.
It is my opinion that not only in India but in any country it would be a digression to see any local or others cheering for an arch rival against the home country. And here in India, cheering a country with a long history of enmity and hatred in a public place is hardly becoming.
People visiting Kashmir from other states can be taken aback when they see Kashmiris cheering for Pakistan in Kashmir during sports matches, but if Kashmiris were to repeat this sentiment elsewhere in the country in public, it could hardly be expected to find favours.
Not just India, but in any other developed countries too it would be hard for the local populace to tolerate even a tourist cheering for his own country team in their country or worse if a tourist cheered an enemy country against a home country team in public. One has seen many fights erupting in sports stadiums world over even though groups are cheering their own home teams.
Somewhere cheering for Pakistan is the result of a deep rooted mindset, in Kashmir valley. Even a small scuffle or heated word by security forces or police may raise hackles in Kashmir. The fact that the security forces have been harsh in public dealing in Kashmir cannot be denied. Hence, a mere security check is looked down upon as an affront, with little understanding that it may not be construed as humiliation but as a preventive measure for public safety. And, it is not as if the minor episode is confined to the particular point, the opportunity of weaving stories around it and making it into a full fledged magazine article is never lost. Many conflict zones exhibit this trend.
I have seen this pattern in Pakistan too. There too a minor episode is blown up with a disturbing and bechara aspect thrown in to create an emotive issue.
In the current scenario much of Pakistan’s public, especially, its dominant Punjab is strongly in favor of solving their home problems and moving forward on other issues with India without the Kashmir issue being a of core value. Time and again few Pak politicians raise the Kashmir issue for effect. Even Nawaz Sharif, the current Prime Minister of Pakistan, did it sometime back but it caused more of a flutter in India than in Pakistan, a media person from across the border confided laughingly.
Noted columnist and Editor-in-Chief of ‘The Friday Times’- Najam Sethi, who became a caretaker Chief Minister of Pakistani Punjab during general elections, bluntly states in television interviews that Kashmir has ceased to be a core issue for Pakistan.
Nusrat Javed, a famous Pakistani journalist and anchor for Aaj TV says Kashmir issue is no more an emotive issue that cuts any ice with the Television channel audience and carries very little interest amongst the Pakistani public. The Pak public today is more concerned and perturbed over their own grave problems of daily bombings and killings besides dealing with the Taliban on its western border and frontier provinces with Afghanistan.
Hereby self-respect has become the moot question for Kashmir. There is a country that hardly lays any store about past intimacy and here is one who cheers, holds and harps on about a romance refusing to believe it is lost.
Keen to harvest the huge expanse of benefits of friendship, the glow of peace candles from Attari- Wagha border in Amritsar-Lahore have carried their radiance to another international venue, this time to be lit on the Rajasthan –Sindh border.The flickers of these innocent candles of peace are ready to touch Pakistan’s Khokhrapar and India’s Munabao rail linked borders in Sindh and Rajasthan respectively for joint celebrations this time, on the midnight of Independence Day between both countries. These little glow lamps are expected to be harbingers of peace and would also beckon the establishment of trade, travel, people to people exchange besides other favorable ties between the two countries after decades.
Preparations are afoot and people from both sides have realized that the route to prosperity is through the path of peace and friendship. The dry or fresh dates from either side have to go through long circuitous routes of Attari and Wagha border in divided Punjabs and perish on the way. Why can’t ‘our’ borders be opened for direct trade or for travel they call out.
Opportunities in this sector also lie in security infrastructure to the proposed pipeline installations through neighboring countries. The proposal and agreements for a joint celebration have emerged from various quarters of People’s SAARC Regional Secretariats. Netra Prasad Timsina, Coordinator, People’s SAARC Regional Secretariat, Kathmandu is keenly promoting and broadcasting the proposal that would in some ways affect the programmes and agendas of People’s SAARC, from becoming less Indo Pak centric, given the resolving of some outstanding issues. The joint Celebration between India Pakistan is expected to usher in bonhomie and would be a step forward to tone down hostilities and pave the way for new engagements.
India Pakistan issues dominate all SAARC conferences and meetings and thus efforts to solve the affront between the two would ease the way for more meaningful and targeted approach towards other countries that make up the SAARC region and having their own pressing matters to solve. Most of these matters get dissolved in the din created by matters relating to India and Pakistan. Various organizations from both India and Pakistan are interacting on this new initiative which would also involve cultural programmes from the dusk of Independence Day of Pakistan on Aug 14th to culminate on the dawn of Independence of India on Aug 15th.
Beena Sarwar a writer and journalist told Rising Kashmir that in her talk with Rana Hameer Singh, head of the Hindu Sodha Thakur Rajput clan in Pakistanhe had commented We in Pakistanwere stuck and unable to move forward. My country had taken the position that Kashmirhad to come first and that no dialogue was possible until that issue was resolved. Then the idea of people to people contacts initially came from the Indian side. Besides better sense has prevailed wherein outstanding issues have not been enslaved to emerge only on the condition of resolving a single issue, which has seen no breakthrough for the past many decades . Rana lives in Umerkot, former capital of Sindh also the birthplace of Mughal Emperor Akbar.
Shaque Soomro of the Pakistan Institute of Labor Education and Research (Piler) contends, the initiative was aimed at encouraging people on both sides of the international border to help reduce tensions between the two nuclear rivals. Members of civil society in Rajasthan and their counterparts in Sindh would be fulfilling all the formalities of this initiative for peace and friendship.
It is Interesting to note that information technology played a major role in bringing rival states closer to each other and turning them into friends. This view was endorsed by many on either sides of this stringent borderline of Rajasthan and Sindh.
Indo Pak partition had torn apart many families on both sides, who have little chance of meeting again as tourist visas are non existent between the two countries. People have close relatives on either sides and are keen to strengthen these bonds. Opening of trade and travel in this sector would be a historical step towards bringing both major countries to make meaningful strides forward.
People’s SAARC Secretariat India’s Rakhi Sehgal expressed the view that serious efforts for peace overtures were missing since the rail link was made operational in February 2006, between Khokhrapar and Munabao after more than three decades. The rail link was snapped following the 1965 Indo Pak war.
Is it possible that one day these little glow lamps of peace may reach the Aman Setu or the ‘peace bridge’ between both sides of Kashmir?
(Right) Awais Sheikh Sarabjit’s Lawyer releasing book- ‘Sarabjit Singh- A case of mistaken Identity
Sarabjit’s lawyer -Awais Sheikh, in dock !
Letter to caretaker Punjab CM for security to Pak lawyer
By Rashmi Talwar
AMRITSAR May 3, 2013——————
Awais Sheikh, the Pakistani counsel for deceased Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Pak jail, is a scared man. Although having a slight physical stature, he has guts of steel and has never felt frightened while supporting Sarabjit’s case. He took over as lawyer of Sarabjit after 26/11 Mumbai attacks from Mr Rana another counsel of the Indian prisoner, during the time when hatred between the two countries was at its peak and the Pak SC had announced an ex-parte decision due to the absence of Sarabjit’s counsel in court.
Even when Awais was thrown out of his rented place by his landlord, labeled an Indian agent and during the time when protests were held against him outside Lahore Press on the announcement that Sarabjit was to be released but was retracted within six hours and another prisoner Surjeet singh was released in his place; Awais did not cow down and never backtracked, he held on to his courage. He came to India more than 25 times without fear of persecution from intelligence agencies of Pakistan.
In a letter today to the caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab- Najam Sethi (in view of forthcoming elections in Pakistan) the Human Rights Watch has written that Awais was subjected to an attempt at kidnapping at Wagah border besides receiving threatening letters and phone calls from organizations that claim to have strong links with Taliban. They have urged the government to provide him clandestine (invisible) security so that he does not become a visible target of those who want to eliminate him.
Awais has addressed umpteenth press conferences since 2008, in both India and Pakistan, even garnering support of celebrities to urge both countries to repatriate their prisoners after their prison terms were over and has mounted an attack on both countries for their callousness, time and again especially in the case of Sarabjit.
But after Sarabjit’s death in Lahore, it was the first time that fear was in Awais’s voice. After the attack on Sarabjit he said, he was fearful that he too may be eliminated. He related to me over phone from Lahore – “I came to see off Dalbir Kaur and Sarabjit’s family at Wagha Indo Pak border after they met Sarabjit in hospital, and this time the intelligence sleuths laid a trap me, of which I was pre-warned, so I managed to sneak out in a private vehicle.” And further, expressed his fear that after Sarabjit’s slaughter –“This time, they will come after me and kill me too!”
Awais has written a book titled “Sarabjit Singh- A case of mistaken identity” published by Indian Publishers Rajkamal Prakashan, that was released in Delhi and Amritsar in January 2013. The book has complete details on Sarabjit’s case as well as many other prisoners in jails of India and Pakistan belonging to either country.
Besides this he has copies of documentations to prove Sarabjit’s real name was Sarabjit and not ‘Manjit Singh’ as filed in the FIR. He had earlier penned another book –Samjohta express”- The train between India and Pakistan. Awais was last here in India, to release the book on Sarabjit Singh, in Delhi and Amritsar in January 2013.
Justice Markandey Katju Chairman of the Press Council of India, former Supreme court Judge and chairman of the ‘Free Sarabjit Committee had commented on the book –“The prosecution evidence in the case of Sarabjit Singh is very weak . His name was not even in the First Information Report”.
The winner of USA’s ‘Global Media Award for Excellence’ Zubeida Mustafa had stated on the book –“Sarabjit has not received a fair trial. That is the irony. The quirks of international relations and a flawed legal system have combined to determine the unhappy fate of this man.”
Sarabjit autopsy shows clear motive of murder: Doctors
By Rashmi Talwar
AMRITSAR May 3, 2013———— “Sarabjit was attacked by multiple people, with the clear motive of murder” commented Dr Gurmanjit Rai, HoD Department of Forensic Medicine, Government Civil Hospital, Patti District and heading the five member team to conduct post-mortem, formed on the
instructions of the Punjab government.He commented during a press conference here today, after the team conducted the second post mortem, on Sarabjit Singh- the Indian prisoner attacked in a Lahore jail, who succumbed to his grievous injuries yesterday.
“There were six to seven injuries on Sarabjit’s head caused by heavy blunt objects, hit multiple times by more than one person in multiple attacks and it is being presumed by whatever viscera we could collect that the cause of death could be due to head injury. “Yes the object of attack could be bricks!” the doctor admitted.
“The injuries are 6-7 days old and the time of death 00.45 am May 2, 2013 is correct, but the one-page Death certificate sent by the Jinnah Hospital’s medical board in Lahore, Pakistan is quiet insufficient.” And added, “Sarabjit was a healthy, tall person and it was not possible that the attacker could have been only one!”
Answering a query Dr Rai explained that in medical lingo, the organs of the deceased Sarabjit were considered ‘not present’ and were wrongly mentioned as ‘missing’. “We have found clear cut incisions and roots of the organs of the heart, the stomach, gall bladder and both
kidneys.” This is a routine exercise in the first post mortem, that organs from the body are removed for forensic and other examinations. Since the heart and other organs cannot be cut in parts the whole has to be sent for examinations, he explained.
The post mortem in India was done on other organs -spleen, brain, lungs and overall body. There is also suspicion that severe head injury may have been the cause of death and not a cardio pulmonary
arrest as mentioned in the death certificate, the doctor stated.
Other than the brutal head injury causing skull fractures Sarabjit’s body bore wounds of fractured ribs including ribs number 3,4,5 with fractures in three on the left side and two on the right side, while the central bone to which the ribs are attached was also found fractured, as also the ‘mandible’ or the jaw bone.
There were dark bruises on the back of his shoulders, lips, left ear and left side of the head. Some stitched wounds were also found. In answer to whether the treatment to the deceased was proper the doctor said -“We are awaiting treatment records and want to see what medicines and other treatment was imparted to him”.
India would await the report from Jinnah Hospital Lahore, Pakistan to conclusively arrive at the final answers for Sarabjit’s custodial killing. The reports of the second post mortem would be sent to the Ministry of External Affairs(MEA).
AMRITSAR, May 3, 2013 ———-
When Dr Mohammad Khalil Chishty, was discussed at the lunch meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari during the latter’s one-day India visit to pay obeisance at Ajmer Sharief , in early April on a Sunday, a wheelchair bound Prof Chishty’s case was not only expedited but was also released, soon after.
Zardari had urged the Indian PM to follow up the case of Dr Chishty, an 80-year-old Pakistani virologist, accused in a brawl that killed one person while Dr Chishty was on a visit to meet his ailing mother in India. The doctor had pleaded innocence. Chishty was booked in 1991, almost the same time as India’s Sarabjit in Lahore, Pakistan.
Chishty’s trial took 18 years. In year 2010, he was awarded life-imprisonment for murder. An appeal in the High Court was rejected, while he did get bail, his passport was impounded and he was forced to stay in Ajmer for nearly two decades, the 80-year-old Pakistani scientist was allowed to return to Karachi by the Supreme Court of India in May last year after a more than 20-year-long legal battle. For many years Dr Chishty lived alone in his ancestral home near Ajmer in Hatundi growing frail and suffering heart attacks and finally had to be put on a wheelchair. When Chishty was to be released, Hope elevated about Sarabjit’s release in exchange, on the forthcoming Diwali that year.
“But our PM did not do anything to affect that exchange and gave Pakistan its Chishty without any returns or even assurances of release of Sarabjit” cried Dalbir Kaur, sister of Sarabjit who had fought for years to secure her brother’s release from Pak prison and who succumbed to the murderous attack in Pak Jail.
“All hopes were dashed when Chishty’s wheelchair strolled down the Radcliff line separating the two neighbours, to his home country, Pakistan, without any one bringing back Sarabjit” and added –“ The entire Bhikhiwind village was euphoric and hopeful that an exchange would take place . But nothing happened! While Zardari managed to bring back his Pakistani citizen to his country our PM’s voice was too weak to be given any weightage by a minion country like Pakistan.”
Hafiz roams free on Twitter
Spews venom against USA, India
Hafiz roams free on Twitter, Spews venom against USA, India
..By Rashmi Talwar
Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, the 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind, sharing dias with JKLF chief Yasin Malik recently in Pakistan has landed the latter to face some hard questions from the Indian authorities in India, including his passport being confiscated, clamped and stalled for renewal. The term for clamp down on Yasin’s foreign visits may be in place for nearly a year or two according to highly placed Defence ministry sources. Sharing the dais with Yasin on the cause of Afzal Guru’s hanging -(a convict in the Indian Parliament attack-) this, for Hafiz, is not the only passtime that he undertakes these days.
The notorious terror mastermind, remains a free man with a security cover and all his fundamental rights intact despite huge terror related evidence against him. So free, in fact that he has jumped on the ‘Twitter’ band-wagon to sprinkle his poisonous views liberally.For many Kashmiris, Yasin may have looked scowling, maybe even unwilling, to sit beside Hafiz during his protest in Pakistan as seen in the pictures but he would have to explain long and hard about his alleged association with the terror mastermind, who is not only a key figure of the Mumbai attacks but also believed to be strongly linked with the terrorist organization LeT -Lashkar-e-Toiba under the garb of JuD – Jama’t ud Da’wah.
Hafiz is a free man in Pakistan. And why wouldn’t he be, he has been let off for by the apex court of Pakistan citing lack of sufficient evidence about his role in Mumbai attacks. To placate its own publics, Pakistan has thus emboldened an international criminal to freely roam the country, address public rallies as also turned a blind eye, as Hafiz chides, scoffs and heaps anti-US propaganda openly on the super power and Pakistan’s biggest benefactor and ally of many years.
Just so, Pakistan apparently postures to strive for good relations with India, while it gives a free rein to Hafiz, whose conviction may not only restore much of the trust deficit between the two countries, but help to gloss over many past wrongs committed by the errant neighbour. Few know this that Hafiz’s bunch of wiz-kids operates his account on social networking site ‘Twitter ‘on his behalf. This account was started in early November, last year.
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Mushaal Hussein Mullik, a Pakistani national and wife of Yasin Mullik, had recently posted many pictures of Yasin and Hafiz together during the Guru’s hanging protest in Pakistan, on her Facebook wall, which has been deleted a few days back. With a tense atmosphere prevailing in Kashmir post Guru’s hanging, the JKLF which had started the armed revolt in 1989 in Kashmir a few years after Maqbool Butt’s hanging may again get a shot in the arm with Afzal’s hanging wherein Yasin may appear like a hero, if not tackled sensibly on his return to India.
Experts from India and Pakistan both feel that there is little possibility of any armed revolt this time around with Pakistan having forsaken the Kashmir issue, but who is to stop the readily available stones and the stone-pelters to flare up Kashmir once again and push into the darkness for decades ahead.
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Interestingly, to the US’s announcement of a 10 million dollar bounty on Hafiz for his alleged role in 26/11, the terror mastermind retorted that he was living his life in the open and America could contact him whenever they want, as they know where he was and was ready to face any American court to answer charges. “I am not hiding in a cave!”. He tweeted through JuD – “I have written to the UNSC (United States Security Council) saying that these allegations have been charged against me. I am ready to answer any questions”
Surprisingly, on November 3, last the terror mastermind condemned Mumbai attack in a post –“26/11, I condemn this attack and innocent lives that have been lost. No matter which country they are from”.
While India keeps hammering Pakistan about his arrest and trial, given India’s bundles of dossiers pointing a direct finger at Hafiz, he freely flies on cyber space although his Facebook link has been blocked or deleted recently.
Did we hear Union Communication Minister Kapil Sibal once say something in early December last year about filtering internet content on social networking sites? I wonder if Sibal ever thought beyond the morphed pictures of the PM-Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. He probably conjured ‘objectionable religious content’ for an added effect to escape allegations of being a watchman for the Congress high command. Has he ever raised the issue of ban on cyber activities of terrorist organizations and their members inimical to India, that vociferously?
Hafiz’s twitter account started in November, 2012 last year. It has in a matter of about 5 months, collected 5,342 followers with nearly 500 new followers in just a few days when he posted his first tweets. This means an addition of nearly 50 to 60 followers every day, given the fact that few ‘tweeties’ are aware about his presence on twitter, the compounding effect of having a monumental following would be far greater. Many of them who follow his account are from the media though, following on just a curiosity wave cannot be ruled out.
Hafiz is following only 30 persons out of which one is popular journalist Hamid Mir, Syed Talat Hussain Senior Anchor at Express News affiliated with Sach TV, Former Pakistan Ambassador to the US 2008-2011- Hussain Haqqani’s verified account, Kamran Khan –group director of Geo News, Shehbaz Sharif Chief Minister, Punjab, Pakistan, Declan Walsh of the New York Times Pakistan Bureau Chief. Murtaza Solangi journalist heading Radio Pakistan, Ijaz Ul Haq- a Pakistani Politician and son of Former President of Pakistan General Zia Ul Haq. While among his followers are not many prominent persons.On his wall are also posted pictures of him and Yasin Mallik that caused a stir in India.
Hafiz’s s organization Jama’t ud Da’wah claims to be a Islamic Dawah and a philanthropic organization and claims –“Hafiz ‘Sahab’s account is managed by his media team and RT’s are not endorsements”.
In one of his posts Hafiz Saeed retweeted a October 30 post of JuD offering aid to Hurricane Sandy affected Americans. His organization JuD offered to send volunteers, medicine and food to those on the East Coast who were struggling to cope in the aftermath of the storm. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad turned down the offer and officially stated: “We respect the Islamic tradition of help to the needy but we can’t take Hafiz Saeed’s offer seriously.” Hafiz on his twitter had posted –“If US allows, JuD will send its doctors, relief and rescue experts, food and medicine on humanitarian grounds. We have differences with US Gov policies, but the American people are only human; we are all human. It’s not their fault”.
A twitteratti viewed this as a blatant taunt to the superpower on whose crumbs Pakistan has been existing and HuD -not even a pin-prick of the US might, notwithstanding its banned organization status.
Just days after offering help to Sandy victims in US, the terror ideologue posted- “The American New World Order will come to an end by the will of ALLAH. This is what they fear, hence their last ditch efforts to save it. On one hand we have the New World Order and on the other we have the Muhammadi World Order – In reality, the war is between these two. It is our responsibility to make sure that the Muslim world stands up properly End differences between each other”
Just 10 days later, he reiterated his venom against India- “India and Israel have hatched conspiracies to spread violence in Pakistan on the basis of religious beliefs”. Regarding the silence of UN following attacks on Palestine he predicts in a post –“Sacrifices by Muslims will result in America’s collapse. America is trying to save itself from being divided into smaller parts, but by the will of ALLAH (SWT) this will not happen. America & its allied forces are now trying to divide Muslims after facing tremendous defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan.” “Hostile Jews, Crusaders and Hindus are trying to divide Muslims and succeed in retaining their capitalist system. They believe that this is the same thing that caused Muslim’s defeat previously, and today, the same thing can weaken the Muslims.”
On December 12, the terror outfit chief had increased his rhetoric against India and also underscored the connivance of Pakistan government in making Kashmir a non issue –“India wants to drive the issues of Kashmir, Samjhota (blast in the train between India- Pakistan) Siachen (Glacier) to oblivion with complete support of our (Pak) government. ”People of Pakistan will never accept these conspiracies tantamount of treachery against our Muslim brothers in Kashmir”.
“Unity is needed to defend Pakistan. India is not a friend, it is worst enemy. We can never allow Kashmir on the back burner and bring trade ahead endorsing a ‘No’ to the MFN status to India. We want to tell India, if few people consider you friend in the (Pak) Govt – whole Pakistan knows you are an enemy. Mr.Rehman Malik if you have presented proofs of Indian involvement in Baluchistan then why MFN??”
Significantly, on December 18, 2012, Hafiz was at Wagah Indo Pak Border just days before beheading of India soldier in Jammu sector that caused a major standoff between the two countries. He had then posted “Pray to ALLAH to accept the hard work of everyone here at Wagah.” On Hafiz’s account are other posts of – “The Era of Freedom has begun, US is returning – India should learn lesson; will not be able to sustain Kashmir.” Sometimes the tone of his posts is self contradictory sample this- “Kashmir does not mean hatred against Indian people – It’s meant to expose the atrocities and violations by Govt. Of India”
In his posts Hafiz writes “We believe Indian govt to be contributing in US regional game. They want to make Kashmir a lost cause, which is not possible at all.” Perhaps, this may have pushed Hafiz to sit with Yasin Mallik who held a protest in Pakistan over the hanging of Afzal Guru.
Interestingly in one post it is written “We serve and respect humanity, we took pride in being able to serve Hindu community at many occasions during natural calamities faced.” And in another –“No Hindu, No Christian should feel threatened in Pakistan. We should enlighten them with message of Islam through character and service.”
Indian Minister for Home Sushil Kumar Shinde seems to be on a hot and cold platter with Hafiz. When Shinde spoke about presence of Hafiz on LOC before the beheading of the Indian soldier, Hafiz wrote on Jan 10- “HuD strongly rejected Shinde’s allegations as spineless and fact less of Hafiz’s involvement in LOC raid” – The very next day a number of posts were shot by Hafiz’s account – “I will accept every Indian allegation if they prove my alleged visit at the LoC”. And more “It is nothing but blatant lies. India is trying to shift focus from its internal problems of Rape, Communal Riots and exploiting the sentiments against Pakistan.” At the time in India, the ‘Damini rape case’ had gathered steam.
Taking the Pak Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani line for a UN probe into the soldier beheading case, Hafiz literally roared on Twitter to call for a UN probe on the LOC violations as also injustice, rapes, mass-graves and abductions in ‘Occupied Kashmir’ – he went on so far to post –“Shinde has blatantly lied against me, if unable to prove evidence then world has the right to question their (India’s) propaganda & lies on 26\11”. His Jan 20, post reads –“Pakistan should raise this (Shinde’s confession of BJP and RSS Terrorist Camps) in UNSC and OIC”.
Hafiz’s war rhetoric with India has also emerged giving a warped view of the situation. On Feb 17 a post stated –“Pakistan will soon become the center of trade of whole world; US, India never want this to happen. Their wishes will turn into dust. India is planning a war on Pakistan in 2013-2014; Make no mistake – India wants to fight for its survival and disintegration due to Kashmir. These are not the days of 1971 – India knows this very well. They are in a rush to engage and intimidate Pakistan, fearing backlash from Afghanistan.”
Simultaneously, Mushaal Hussein Mullik, a Pakistani national and wife of Yasin Mullik, had recently posted many pictures of Yasin and Hafiz together during the Guru’s hanging protest in Pakistan, on her Facebook wall, which has been deleted a few days back. With a tense atmosphere prevailing in Kashmir post Guru’s hanging, the JKLF which had started the armed revolt in 1989 in Kashmir a few years after Maqbool Butt’s hanging may again get a shot in the arm with Afzal’s hanging wherein Yasin may appear like a hero, if not tackled sensibly on his return to India.
Experts from India and Pakistan both feel that there is little possibility of any armed revolt this time around with Pakistan having forsaken the Kashmir issue, but who is to stop the readily available stones and the stone-pelters to flare up Kashmir once again and push into the darkness for decades ahead.
Has Pakistan ditched the Kashmiris? ..
..By Rashmi Talwar / http://www.sify.com
At the 8th Regional Conference of SAFMA (South Asian Free Media Association) held at Lahore, comprising media persons from eight South Asian SAARC countries, Kashmir issue appeared to have dimmed and become almost a non-issue.
SAFMA-2013 held its concluding session at Lahore, following its inaugural session in Amritsar wherein India’s external affairs minister Salman Khurshid floated the idea of ‘breakfast in one country, lunch in another and dinner in yet another’ pushing forward for peace between the two neighbours.
However, in one of the most important panel discussions on the theme of ‘South Asian vision for an Economic Union’ in the presence of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, noted columnist and Editor-in-Chief of The Friday Times Najam Sethi,, Nusrat Javed, a famous Pakistani journalist and anchor for Aaj TV, besides Dr Ijaz Nabi Country Director, International Growth Centre, Pakistan, Kashmir issue took a back seat. It seemed that Kashmir was being clearly ditched by Pakistan!
For Kashmiris from India it came as big jolt to hear a Pak speaker say -“The totality of Indo-Pak relations cannot be linked to the single issue of Kashmir.” And further, to make their positions clearer, the speaker said–“We would like to see the welfare of Kashmiris by way of engaging in more trade between both Kashmirs, easing of visas for travel to each other’s places. However, at present, Pakistan has more pressing issues i.e. Indo-Pak trade, water and power generation, which we are greatly hopeful that peace between India and Pakistan is bound to bring in.” And all this time, Nawaz Sharif remained mum, clearly endorsing what was being said-and-missed, about Kashmir.
How would Kashmiris, who suffered for more than two decades aided by Pakistan to revolt against India, feel about this, I wondered. All this time, I had met many Indian Kashmiris, who came to Amritsar and looked longingly at Lahore, from the Indian side of the Attari-Wagha Indo-Pak border, during the beating retreat ceremony. Some, who sat glum during the retreat ceremony came close to grieving over being separated from Pakistan, lamenting that Kashmir on the Indian side, should have been a part of Pakistan.
One, who I met in Amritsar a few years ago, called the border an ‘unnatural divide’ and scoffed disgustedly –“if it were possible, India would station an army man in each Kashmiri kitchen”.
Numberless gullible Kashmiris, who ran the marathon to training camps across the border, were promised a glorious goal of Independence. They returned to fight, flush with money, arms and above all dreams of ‘holy war’ that would ensure a royal place in heavenly paradise for them in case they were ‘martyred’.
Many felt it was easy money and brain washed others to run their outfits in Kashmir with support from across the border. The more vitriolic ones became apples of the eyes of their masters as they fitted in their sinister plans.
There were others who fiercely wrote in newspapers about the atrocities on Kashmiris by security forces while ignoring or soft pedalling the atrocities by the militants. There were those who, while conversing with their counterparts in rest of the country, referred to anything Indian as ‘yours’ and anything Kashmiri as ‘ours’ .
All this while, they were filled with feeling of abhorrence for their present state. The army’s strong arm tactics aggravated the situation. Daily dirges and insults at the hands of the security forces had left them cold and concerned over their future and those of their children. Kashmiris found themselves on a cliff-hanger not knowing whether the militant or the army bullet would kill them.
When the initial itch over being freedom fighters faded and turned sore, the fallout of their actions spilled over. For some hardliners, a bleak future awaited so they tried to continue in their chosen destructive path, sure that their end would come painfully from either of the sides i.e. militants or army. It was a proverbial choice ‘from the frying pan into the fire’.
Others on the sidelines gave only lip service to their bravado and went on with their lives, availing all Indian government sponsored benefits and schemes while leaving them to struggle. Still, they hung on to their ally –Pakistan. Drawing strength and succor from the fact that Pakistan was still their well wisher.
Countless K-agendas raised at International forums by Pakistan had little impact although it endeared Pakistan to Kashmiris. However, Pakistan’s recent position on Kashmiris was shared with Rising Kashmir by a senior Pak bureaucrat who said – ‘Kashmiris had played a double game with them’.
He contended that while Pakistani side had lost more lives than Kashmiris, even as they had pumped in money, men and material as also feted and felicitated them, Kashmiris in turn joined the election process held by India, elected their leaders and lifted them on their shoulders. They availed all Indian government and army schemes.
‘They told us they are unable to offer Namaz in Indian side of Kashmir, but we have seen them freely doing so. They tell us their women are not safe, but their women are freely moving about, getting educated and showing no traces of fear’.
The Kargil misadventure in 1999, after nearly 10-years of turmoil in Kashmir, seemed like a shot in the arm for militants in Kashmir, who saw Pakistan as the saviour. Of course, the battle-end saw Pakistan faced with rebuke and reprimand, as also a royal ignore and the ultimate shaming by US – its funding ally that ultimately punctured its stature in global eyes. Alternately, under the leadership and statesmanship of Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Kargil won India kudos for its restraint in the face of a sly enemy.
Pakistan used Kashmir to save the multitude of high profile chairs, raising the bogey of Kashmir, every time a crisis on home ground erupted. Kashmir served as a diversionary tactics, to gloss over faults of omission and neglect in Pakistan.
US too saw it being used by Pakistan who was trying to fulfil its Kashmir agenda on the pretext of Afghanistan’s occupation by USSR. Therefore, in time, USA too pulled itself out of the mire of Pak mechanizations, cut down its funding and ditched Pakistan partially as the Frankenstein monster of terrorism that it had created sought to feed onto its creator –Pakistan.
Having lost its financial conduit and faced with rebellion and insurgency in its troubled corners, as well as from insurgents it had created, Pakistan today is left with a choice to either save its own or that of Kashmir.
Perturbed over this stand of Pakistan to shelve the Kashmir issue, Shujaat Bukhari Editor-in-Chief of English daily, ‘Rising Kashmir’ raised a query to Pakistan panel and especially to Nawaz Sharif –as one of Kashmiri origin, asking – “If Kashmir issue was to be sidelined thus, why were 23-years and lakhs of lives lost for this cause?” To which he got a reply that welfare of Kashmiris could be in softening of the LoC (line of control) and “not in transfer of territory”.
The sidelining of Kashmir was complete when even in his personal address Nawaz Sharif gave a miss to the Kashmir issue and stated “If voted to power as next President of Pakistan I would bring the same relationship of bonhomie between India and Pakistan as I and PM Vajpayee had brought in February of 1999 by starting the Sada-e-Sarhad, Indo –Pak bus service.”
The present scenario in Kashmir is that Kashmiri households that drilled anti- India venom are left with an educated new generation, many of whom have flown the nest, to seek wider horizons to further their aspirations of a good life, while those who remain are left alone to tend to their festering wounds. Those who supported them from the neighbouring country have now their own hands-full, fighting internal battles, dousing the monster of terrorism that they had created.
Nusrat Javed, the panelist when questioned on the sidelines of SAFMA to clarify the Pakistani stand on Kashmir, counter questioned –“I have a child in Baluchistan crying in pain, should I tend to ‘my’ child or a Kashmiri child?” As a host for a popular programme ‘Bolta Pakistan’ of Aaj TV, Nusrat said people in Pakistanis are least interested in Kashmir issue and his programme’s TRPs drop every time a topic related to Kashmir issue is aired.
It is a fact that Kashmir is fast losing out in terms of media interest in India too. Many foreign media organizations have bid goodbye to Kashmir- a hotbed of news, for past two decades. Reuters, BBC radio and TV, German owned Deutsche Welle , AFP have wound up from Kashmir. Others like The New York Times, Al Jazeera, Time, and Guardian are granting fewer slots to news from Kashmir. It has therefore come as no surprise that Pakistan media too turned its face away to news emerging from Kashmir, which is being relegated to inner obscure corners of leading newspapers.
Mehmal Sarfarz a senior member of SAFMA said in clear terms that ‘Pakistan had decided to drop the issue of Kashmir long ago. If in 60 years, four wars could not solve it, what is the point in pursuing a lame dream, is what Pakistan has slowly realized. With internal problems becoming hard to handle who has the time or the money to fund Kashmir or Kashmiris?’
However there was one such who had the guts to say –“Only those who have been failures or those who set up shops on the ‘tears’ of Kashmir or accrued advantage from the Indo-Pak standoff on Kashmir are banking on continued enmity between both countries. The army in Pakistan is the major beneficiary of Indo-Pak rivalry, he said, because it is only because of the enmity between the two countries that it can retain its hold on the politics and administration of the country. The terrorist outfits in Pakistan are the other beneficiaries who would lose their raison d’etre in case both countries come closer to each other. “They are the ones desperate to sabotage the peace process and stoke the fires of hostility”, he said.
I know Indo-Pak peace would soon be a reality. This statement is not merely a conjecture or hope or guess but based on study of wider spectrum of world affairs, in which US seeks to strengthen and embolden the south Asian region against the growing power of China. China, which is fast emerging, as a bigger threat to US any other country in the world.
The border clash, inhuman torture and beheading of an Indian army jawan and retaliatory killing of Pakistan army man, has come as the most recent example of covert mechanizations. The killing of Kashmiri sarpanches, including shooting a lady sarpanch, are such incidents, which may slow down the peace process, but will not be able to derail it. FIRST PUBLISHED IN ‘RISING KASHMIR’ ON JANUARY 15, 2013 http://www.risingkashmir.in/news/kashmir-issue-relegated-to-the-back-burner-40044.aspx
At the 8th Regional Conference of SAFMA (South Asian Free Media Association) held at Lahore, comprising media persons from eight South Asian SAARC countries, Kashmir issue appeared to have dimmed and become almost a non-issue.
SAFMA-2013 held its concluding session at Lahore, following its inaugural session in Amritsar wherein India’s external affairs minister Salman Khurshid floated the idea of ‘breakfast in one country, lunch in another and dinner in yet another’ pushing forward for peace between the two neighbours.
However, in one of the most important panel discussions on the theme of ‘South Asian vision for an Economic Union’ in the presence of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, noted columnist and Editor-in-Chief of The Friday Times Najam Sethi,, Nusrat Javed, a famous Pakistani journalist and anchor for Aaj TV, besides Dr Ijaz Nabi Country Director, International Growth Centre, Pakistan, Kashmir issue took a back seat. It seemed that Kashmir was being clearly ditched by Pakistan!
For Kashmiris from India it came as big jolt to hear a Pak speaker say -“The totality of Indo-Pak relations cannot be linked to the single issue of Kashmir.” And further, to make their positions clearer, the speaker said–“We would like to see the welfare of Kashmiris by way of engaging in more trade between both Kashmirs, easing of visas for travel to each other’s places. However, at present, Pakistan has more pressing issues i.e. Indo-Pak trade, water and power generation, which we are greatly hopeful that peace between India and Pakistan is bound to bring in.” And all this time, Nawaz Sharif remained mum, clearly endorsing what was being said-and-missed, about Kashmir.
How would Kashmiris, who suffered for more than two decades aided by Pakistan to revolt against India, feel about this, I wondered. All this time, I had met many Indian Kashmiris, who came to Amritsar and looked longingly at Lahore, from the Indian side of the Attari-Wagha Indo-Pak border, during the beating retreat ceremony. Some, who sat glum during the retreat ceremony came close to grieving over being separated from Pakistan, lamenting that Kashmir on the Indian side, should have been a part of Pakistan.
One, who I met in Amritsar a few years ago, called the border an ‘unnatural divide’ and scoffed disgustedly –“if it were possible, India would station an army man in each Kashmiri kitchen”.
Numberless gullible Kashmiris, who ran the marathon to training camps across the border, were promised a glorious goal of Independence. They returned to fight, flush with money, arms and above all dreams of ‘holy war’ that would ensure a royal place in heavenly paradise for them in case they were ‘martyred’.
Many felt it was easy money and brain washed others to run their outfits in Kashmir with support from across the border. The more vitriolic ones became apples of the eyes of their masters as they fitted in their sinister plans.
There were others who fiercely wrote in newspapers about the atrocities on Kashmiris by security forces while ignoring or soft pedalling the atrocities by the militants. There were those who, while conversing with their counterparts in rest of the country, referred to anything Indian as ‘yours’ and anything Kashmiri as ‘ours’ .
All this while, they were filled with feeling of abhorrence for their present state. The army’s strong arm tactics aggravated the situation. Daily dirges and insults at the hands of the security forces had left them cold and concerned over their future and those of their children. Kashmiris found themselves on a cliff-hanger not knowing whether the militant or the army bullet would kill them.
When the initial itch over being freedom fighters faded and turned sore, the fallout of their actions spilled over. For some hardliners, a bleak future awaited so they tried to continue in their chosen destructive path, sure that their end would come painfully from either of the sides i.e. militants or army. It was a proverbial choice ‘from the frying pan into the fire’.
Others on the sidelines gave only lip service to their bravado and went on with their lives, availing all Indian government sponsored benefits and schemes while leaving them to struggle. Still, they hung on to their ally –Pakistan. Drawing strength and succor from the fact that Pakistan was still their well wisher.
Countless K-agendas raised at International forums by Pakistan had little impact although it endeared Pakistan to Kashmiris. However, Pakistan’s recent position on Kashmiris was shared with Rising Kashmir by a senior Pak bureaucrat who said – ‘Kashmiris had played a double game with them’.
He contended that while Pakistani side had lost more lives than Kashmiris, even as they had pumped in money, men and material as also feted and felicitated them, Kashmiris in turn joined the election process held by India, elected their leaders and lifted them on their shoulders. They availed all Indian government and army schemes.
‘They told us they are unable to offer Namaz in Indian side of Kashmir, but we have seen them freely doing so. They tell us their women are not safe, but their women are freely moving about, getting educated and showing no traces of fear’.
The Kargil misadventure in 1999, after nearly 10-years of turmoil in Kashmir, seemed like a shot in the arm for militants in Kashmir, who saw Pakistan as the saviour. Of course, the battle-end saw Pakistan faced with rebuke and reprimand, as also a royal ignore and the ultimate shaming by US – its funding ally that ultimately punctured its stature in global eyes. Alternately, under the leadership and statesmanship of Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Kargil won India kudos for its restraint in the face of a sly enemy.
Pakistan used Kashmir to save the multitude of high profile chairs, raising the bogey of Kashmir, every time a crisis on home ground erupted. Kashmir served as a diversionary tactics, to gloss over faults of omission and neglect in Pakistan.
US too saw it being used by Pakistan who was trying to fulfil its Kashmir agenda on the pretext of Afghanistan’s occupation by USSR. Therefore, in time, USA too pulled itself out of the mire of Pak mechanizations, cut down its funding and ditched Pakistan partially as the Frankenstein monster of terrorism that it had created sought to feed onto its creator –Pakistan.
Having lost its financial conduit and faced with rebellion and insurgency in its troubled corners, as well as from insurgents it had created, Pakistan today is left with a choice to either save its own or that of Kashmir.
Perturbed over this stand of Pakistan to shelve the Kashmir issue, Shujaat Bukhari Editor-in-Chief of English daily, ‘Rising Kashmir’ raised a query to Pakistan panel and especially to Nawaz Sharif –as one of Kashmiri origin, asking – “If Kashmir issue was to be sidelined thus, why were 23-years and lakhs of lives lost for this cause?” To which he got a reply that welfare of Kashmiris could be in softening of the LoC (line of control) and “not in transfer of territory”.
The sidelining of Kashmir was complete when even in his personal address Nawaz Sharif gave a miss to the Kashmir issue and stated “If voted to power as next President of Pakistan I would bring the same relationship of bonhomie between India and Pakistan as I and PM Vajpayee had brought in February of 1999 by starting the Sada-e-Sarhad, Indo –Pak bus service.”
The present scenario in Kashmir is that Kashmiri households that drilled anti- India venom are left with an educated new generation, many of whom have flown the nest, to seek wider horizons to further their aspirations of a good life, while those who remain are left alone to tend to their festering wounds. Those who supported them from the neighbouring country have now their own hands-full, fighting internal battles, dousing the monster of terrorism that they had created.
Nusrat Javed, the panelist when questioned on the sidelines of SAFMA to clarify the Pakistani stand on Kashmir, counter questioned –“I have a child in Baluchistan crying in pain, should I tend to ‘my’ child or a Kashmiri child?” As a host for a popular programme ‘Bolta Pakistan’ of Aaj TV, Nusrat said people in Pakistanis are least interested in Kashmir issue and his programme’s TRPs drop every time a topic related to Kashmir issue is aired.
It is a fact that Kashmir is fast losing out in terms of media interest in India too. Many foreign media organizations have bid goodbye to Kashmir- a hotbed of news, for past two decades. Reuters, BBC radio and TV, German owned Deutsche Welle , AFP have wound up from Kashmir. Others like The New York Times, Al Jazeera, Time, and Guardian are granting fewer slots to news from Kashmir. It has therefore come as no surprise that Pakistan media too turned its face away to news emerging from Kashmir, which is being relegated to inner obscure corners of leading newspapers.
Mehmal Sarfarz a senior member of SAFMA said in clear terms that ‘Pakistan had decided to drop the issue of Kashmir long ago. If in 60 years, four wars could not solve it, what is the point in pursuing a lame dream, is what Pakistan has slowly realized. With internal problems becoming hard to handle who has the time or the money to fund Kashmir or Kashmiris?’
However there was one such who had the guts to say –“Only those who have been failures or those who set up shops on the ‘tears’ of Kashmir or accrued advantage from the Indo-Pak standoff on Kashmir are banking on continued enmity between both countries. The army in Pakistan is the major beneficiary of Indo-Pak rivalry, he said, because it is only because of the enmity between the two countries that it can retain its hold on the politics and administration of the country. The terrorist outfits in Pakistan are the other beneficiaries who would lose their raison d’etre in case both countries come closer to each other. “They are the ones desperate to sabotage the peace process and stoke the fires of hostility”, he said.
I know Indo-Pak peace would soon be a reality. This statement is not merely a conjecture or hope or guess but based on study of wider spectrum of world affairs, in which US seeks to strengthen and embolden the south Asian region against the growing power of China. China, which is fast emerging, as a bigger threat to US any other country in the world.
The border clash, inhuman torture and beheading of an Indian army jawan and retaliatory killing of Pakistan army man, has come as the most recent example of covert mechanizations. The killing of Kashmiri sarpanches, including shooting a lady sarpanch, are such incidents, which may slow down the peace process, but will not be able to derail it. FIRST PUBLISHED IN ‘RISING KASHMIR’ ON JANUARY 15, 2013 http://www.risingkashmir.in/news/kashmir-issue-relegated-to-the-back-burner-40044.aspx
ON November 28, Shravan Kumar Varma breathed his last in Amritsar. His passing away at the age of 85 has suddenly brought to the mind that Amritsar can no more boast of having nurtured Urdu short story writers. During the early 1930s, Saadat Hasan Manto made his mark in Urdu fiction with his debut short story, ‘Tamasha’, that centred around a victim of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. On the footsteps of Manto, some writers contributed fictional works and poetic creations to Urdu literature in the decades to come.
It so happened that in the mid-1940s, some students wedded to Urdu literature got admission in Hindu College, Amritsar. Shravan Kumar Varma was among those. His first Urdu short story titled ‘Pardesi’ was published in the college magazine, ‘Shivala’. Incidentally, I was the student editor of the Urdu section of that magazine. Both of us, along with some other like-minded lovers of Urdu, such as Mohinder Bawa, Inder Kumar Sagar, Gopal Krishan and K.K. Razdan, were under the influence of Prof M.M. Mathur, who had also taught Urdu and Persian to Saadat Hasan Manto years ago.
In the days to come most of us left Amritsar, in search of new pastures, but Varma stuck to his guns. He settled permanently in Amritsar as a lawyer. During the course of six decades, he published some collections of short stories and a few novels. He was popular in the entire subcontinent, as his fiction had attracted readers both in India and Pakistan. Some of his works had been translated into Hindi and Punjabi, besides English. One of his short stories found place in ‘Select Urdu Best Stories’, published by Penguin.
He had been bestowed with the Shiromani Urdu Sahitkar Puraskar in 1993 by the Languages Department, Punjab. Thereafter some other awards sponsored by the literary organisations and Urdu academies followed, but he remained unmindful of all these honours. He was fully absorbed in creative literature, even while neglecting the duties of his profession. He was well versed in Urdu and Hindi, but he had a special niche in his heart for Punjabi. He had been the President of the Sahit Vichar Kendra for many years. Some of his Punjabi short stories were published in Punjabi monthly ‘Lau’ and Punjabi quarterly ‘Akhkhar’, brought out from Amritsar. The Editor, Parminderjit, a Punjabi poet in his own right, was instrumental in getting his Urdu short stories rendered into Punjabi.
Unluckily he remained confined to his bed for a long time due to one ailment or the other. He was hard up in those days but he considered it below his dignity to approach the authorities concerned for financial help. Still there is a feeling of grudge in the litterateurs that the Languages Department, Punjab did not come to his help suo moto while his plight had been mentioned in newspaper columns many times.
Some time ago I visited him at his place and found him, in the words of T.S. Eliot, ‘like a patient etherised upon a table’. Earlier I had found him composing short stories and poems while lying in his bed. He had in himself a reservoir of patience and confidence, full to the brim. Even now when the last Urdu story-teller in Amritsar has bidden us goodbye, something can be done to make life easy for his wife and two daughters. Unluckily, his young son had died a year ago, leaving the ailing father in dismay. He stifled his cry in the throat, and that prompted his death.
In 70s, Amritsar’s Khanna families named their sons Rajesh, after Superstar!
By Rashmi Talwar
The lowered goggles, the twinkling ‘come-hither’ eyes, nod of the head and girls swooned!
This was the charisma of Rajesh Khanna- the first superstar born to India.
After Rajesh’s sad demise from a mysterious ailment, for many teenagers then of 1970’s in Amritsar –the Hathi Mere Saathi – star’s stardom is remembered longingly, especially amongst his female fans.
His lip sync in songs was so perfect , it raised the equation of the singer –Kishore Kumar with the actor.
The languid –‘Pushpa, I hate tears !’ drove girls teary eyed. Many slept with pictures of the Rajesh Khanna under their pillow, spoke to him, offered sweets on his birthday, to his pictures! Many were known to have written letters in blood. His co-star of many films Sharmila Tagore Pataudi –his –‘Sapno ki Rani–, had aptly contended that she was wonder-struck by ‘Kaka’s’ hysterical fan following .
Rajesh Khanna
But the 69-year old star born on December 29, 1942 never came back to Amritsar, his birthplace in ‘Gali Tiwariaan’ after his stardom. On his death though, in the narrow Gali, gloom has set in amongst the actor’s die-hard fans, relatives and friends who mourned the death of India’s first superstar, that took romance to new heights.
“Who would have thought that this pimply –faced boy would one day rule the hearts of women for more than a decade.” recalls Faquir Chand his childhood friend in the gathering outside his ancestral house.
Jatin Khanna , as he was named in childhood was lovingly called ‘kaka’ as were most boys in those days in Amritsari mohallas. Rajesh’s father a railway contractor in Lahore, moved to Amritsar after partition. Rajesh was adopted by Nand Lal Khanna his father Chunni Lal Khanna’s brother . Later shifting to Bombay wherein before entering the glittering glare of tinsel town, he was renamed Rajesh Khanna.
So popular and endearing was he to Amritsaris during his stardom, that many boys in the Khanna families of Amritsar were named Rajesh after him. I remember one such Rajesh Khanna, who was nicknamed ‘Babu Moshia’ the name Rajesh Khanna used for Amitabh in film “Anand” – the dialogue “Babu Moshia, zindagi aur maut upar wale ke haath hai… hum sab toh rang manch ke katputhliyaan hain jinki dor upar wale ki ungli pe bandhi hain kab kaun kaisa uthega yeh koi nahin bataa sakta hain !!” Well, true turned out this dialogue for Rajesh and true is it for all. .
“It is a sad moment. even though he did not come back to this area after becoming superstar but still he took the name of the family to dizzying heights’’, says Duni Chand Khanna, cousin of the actor. “The family had migrated from Lahore and after a brief stay in Amritsar left for Bombay. “Rajesh Khanna, regularly visited here to spend vacations as a child. He even came when he was going to college in Mumbai. But after becoming a superstar in films, he never came back.” Duni added
However, pride can be painful for dear ones at times. When Rajesh’s name cropped up for Amritsar’s MP elections , Rajesh refused- he probably felt that he had snapped his connect with the city of his birthplace.
Other events in his life like his sudden marriage to a 16 year old Dimple Kapadia less than half his age and ditching long standing girl friend Anju Mahendru did not deter his fan following that mounted more due to the fairy-tale Mills and Boons type of romance.
Now much-married to Reliance scion Anil Ambani , Tina Munim another actress and that phase of ‘toothbrush’ sharing with Rajesh, made headlines. Politics however was never his cup of coffee. Many including his most noted co-star Sharmila Tagore says ‘Kaka’s brush with politics could be much avoided, though he won against fellow actor Shatrugan Sinha in delhi’ .
.
The ancestral house of the superstar jointly held by three brothers including Rajesh’s father , his foster father and uncle besides another uncle Munni Lal Khanna was donated to a Shiva temple and serves as an attached property of the temple .
Faqir his friend recalls about Rajesh’s vacation visits to the mohalla . “In the Mohalla too , Rajesh as -Bumbai ka Babu- , as he was called could get away with anything owing to his innocent smile.
Between the years 1969 and 1972 almost everything he touched turned to gold — 15 consecutive hits of various degrees. No wonder producers chanted: ‘Upar aaka, neeche Kaka !’(God above and Kaka, Khanna’s pet name, on earth below). Unable to find a phrase that captured the phenomenon, the hypnotic and the media industry finally coined a new term: the Superstar for Rajesh Khanna. He was not without flaws but in the backdrop of a train journey, a number revisits my mind for this trend blazer– ‘Zindagi ke safar se Juzaar jatey hain jo Maqaam …woh fir nahi atey …” of film Aap ki Kasam .. ‘Umar bhar unka pukarey koi naam, ..woh fir nahi atey ….”
BOX Item — Kuch toh log kahenge…. Pak town claims ‘Superstar’ as its own ?
A sleepy township of Burewala in Faisalabad, Pakistan claims that Rajesh Khanna was born here in 1942 and the gathering there is planning a remembrance session in memory of the departed Indian superstar.
Old-timers of Burewala say the Indian actor was not only born there but also stayed until he was 5 years old in a double storey house that is still intact and probably built around 1934-35 . They claim that the actor studied in MC Model High School. Some claim that records in school mentions admission of one Jatin Khanna (a name that was later changed to Rajesh when he joined Bollywood) to substantiate their claim.
They also claim that Khanna’s father was not only one of the founder members of this school but also remained its headmaster for many years till the Indo pak Partition after which the Khanna family left for Amritsar.
The house attributed as birthplace of Rajesh Khanna is said to be located on Multan Road and according to some , has ‘Jatin Bhawan’ engraved in Hindi on its elevation besides lines from the “Gayatri mantra”, to which the new owner has made no changes .
The claim by the township could be true, as Rajesh is said to be born before partition in year 1942 and their family was living on the Pakistani side. Only family members of superstar Rajesh Khanna can put the controversy to rest.
Hit Songs :
1. Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai – (Kati Patang)
2. Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana – (Andaz)
3. Kahi Door Jab Dil Dhal Jaaye – (Anand)
4. Mere Sapno Ki Rani – (Aradhana)
5. Kuch Toh Log Kahenge – (Amar Prem)
6. O Mere Dil Ke Chain – (Mere Jeevan Saathi)
7. Kora Kagaz – (Aradhana) [1969]
8. Jai Jai Shiv Shankar – (Aap Ki Kasam)
9. Maine Tere Liye Hi Saat Rang Ke – (Anand)
10. Yeh Kya Hua – (Amar Prem)
11. Roop Tera Mastana – (Aradhana)
12. Hume Aur Jeene Ki Chahat Na Hoti – Agar Tum Na Hote
13. Chingari Koi Bhadke – (Amar Prem)
14. Yeh Shaam Mastani – (Kati Patang)
15. Pyar Deewana Hota Hai – (Kati Patang)
Rashmi Talwar Saanjh-Togetherness 
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