There seems to be a serious dearth of imagination while searching for solutions on Balochistan

As Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy recently wrote, “Men like Rohrabacher are no friends of the Baloch. But what can stop their meddling? The answer can only come once we dump the myth of Pakistan being one nation, one people”. The continuous undermining of Pakistan’s pluralism, citizenship rights and quest for self-rule has led to a situation where Pakistani flag is not welcome in many parts of its largest and most neglected province.

This is not the first time that the country has faced a dire situation. In 1971, we were faced with a similar dilemma and the civil-military elites of West Pakistan bungled. Their mishandling was exacerbated by an external intervention and for years we have been fed with stories of how all was hunky dory in the more populous wing of Pakistan until the evil ‘Hindu’ India destroyed the ‘Muslim’ Pakistan.

It takes a questionable resolution tabled in the US Congress by Dana Rohrabacher, an extremist republican with a dubious past, to alarm the mainstream Pakistani politicians and media about the plight of Baloch people. Yet again, a “conspiracy” to disintegrate the land of the pure has been reiterated. The good part is that Balochistan issue — something that the media was afraid to talk about — has become a subject of prime-time, and sometimes ill-informed, discussions on national television.

We cannot absolve ourselves of the decades-long discrimination that the province and its people have faced due to a variety of reasons. Whether it is the misuse of its natural resources such as natural gas, gold, etc, or its leverage in the federal power structure, the scorecard is pretty grim. In real terms, the issue of provincial autonomy has only been resolved recently via the 2010 eighteenth amendment. But even that seems to fit the clichéd description of being “too little and too late” given how the Baloch nationalists view it. (more…)

An interview of – Ali Dayan Hasan (Director, Human Rights Watch) taken by me, published in TFT December 30 – January 05, 2012 – Vol. XXIII, No. 46
Q. HRW has consistently commented on civil-military relations in Pakistan. Why is this aspect of Pakistan’s politics so important for human rights?
Since 2008, Pakistan has made yet another attempt at a transition from direct military rule to rights-respecting constitutional governance. But history teaches us that this moment is as fleeting as it is special. It would be naïve to assume that the 2008 general election has transformed power relations in the country. Pakistan remains a praetorian state structured and geared to service, above all, the needs of a military that remains every bit as convinced as ever that Pakistan’s national interest is synonymous with its institutional priorities and the preservation of its position as the final arbiter of political power and patronage. Indeed, Pakistan’s foreign and national security policies are primarily controlled by the military. In the absence of civilian oversight, and given the military’s history, greater abuses will ensue unless Pakistan’s elected institutions assert themselves.
Q. What are the worrying flashpoints in HRW’s view?
It is hardly a secret that the government and the military are engaged in both a legal and political confrontation over the so-called “Memogate” affair. HRW finds it reassuring that both the Supreme Court Chief Justice and Army chief General Kiyani have ruled out military intervention. Indeed all arms of the state must act within the constitutionally determined ambit and in aid of legitimate civilian rule. In this context, justice must both be done and be seen to be done. Pakistan desperately needs a full democratic cycle and a peaceful transfer of power from one civilian administration to another. Should this process be derailed, the constitutional safeguards and legal rights protections created since 2008 may suffer irreparable damage. (more…)

Fearless and a formidable fighter, Asma Jahangir personifies the struggles Pakistanis have initiated against shameful cultural practices, discriminatory legislation and executive excess. A frail woman has kept the torch of public liberties, freedom and democracy alive for decades. Born on January 27, 1952, in Karachi, Asma Jahangir during the last forty years has become a champion of women, child and minority rights and in many ways the conscience of Pakistan.

A leading Pakistani lawyer and an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Jahangir is most renowned for her role as a human rights activist, a role which has made her confront military dictatorships of General Zia-ul-Haq and General Pervez Musharraf and the civilian autocrats. In 1972, Asma Jahangir was only 18 when she filed her first petition to have her father — who had been arrested for denouncing the genocide in Bangladesh — released from prison. In a landmark judgment ten years later, she won the case. In fact, the earliest and perhaps the only judgment against a military coup is now attributed to her name. Her resistance to army’s role in politics (more…)

From an interview that I conducted:

There is, of course, a nationalist discourse, as shrill as it is bogus, centered on US-bashing and lionizing dubious characters such as Afia Siddiqui. The US and Pakistani role in the strange tale of Ms. Siddiqui is murky but she herself has suspiciously failed to provide a credible account and evidently her family’s narrative is full of untruths. Siddiqui’s media deification is mind-boggling in the face of a country-wide security and human rights crisis.

The media needs to shed its ambiguity about the Taliban and other Al-Qaeda proxies and to acknowledge that they represent a real threat to the basic rights of citizens and to the state itself. It needs to engage in an honest debate on the necessity to combat and overcome these actors in a rights-respecting manner. This requires holding both the Taliban and the army accountable for their abuses which stand verified and documented. Sadly, this is not happening.

Read the full interview here or in this week’s The Friday Times

My op-ed published in Express-Tribune today

The federal government had warned the provincial authorities of the impending attacks. The usual slovenliness and chaotic governance of the Pakistani variety treated it as just another communiqué. The police arrived late; and terrorists had implemented the plans rather adroitly making a mockery of Pakistan across the globe. Imagine a terrorist was nabbed through civic action, not the torture-friendly police. And guess where an injured miscreant was taken? No surprises here. A brutal murderer backed by large terror networks was admitted to Lahore’s busy public hospital where security was minimal given the level of threat. (more…)

Once again the terrorists have hit Lahore. But this time they have chosen the favourite target of the fundamentalists – the Ahmedis who were declared as non-Muslims in 1974. Two places of worship have been attacked and innocent people have died. This is unacceptable and outrageous. It means that the state policy of exclusion has finally turned the country into a nightmare – a polity where freedom to worship, profess religious orientation and expression is not only curtailed by simply denied.

The resolve of the Government and the Army must be now strengthened after these tragedies. We condemn the state excesses and also the this heinous act of terrorism.

It is almost surreal to see what is happening in Lahore – there is no law and order, no law enforcement worth its name and hapless citizens witnessing the crumbling of a society. It is time to wake up – complacency will not do.

We have to fight terror and the enemy within and not blame the external forces time and again.

As I write these lines, I am petrified as a very dear friend’s father is trapped in the Model Town mosque. may God protect him.

My piece which was published by The News, Pakistan under a different title

If the parliament and judiciary want to continue exercising their newfound powers, they have no option but to act strictly within the framework of the Pakistani Constitution

Pakistan is a surreal country. Only here we have long, protracted struggles for democracy and only here we are almost always ready to scuttle democracy. Perhaps Iskander Mirza was not all too wrong while making the assessment that democracy does not suit the genius of our people. An added qualification is that it does not suit the genius of the elites, in particular the unelected institutions of the state.

There is now a clear and present danger that the judicial review of the 18th Amendment will lead to a potential clash of the key organs of the state: the legislature and the judiciary. Pundits have also predicted that if such a situation arises, then a logjam will benefit the third force — Pakistan’s well organized formal institution, which is readily available to undertake crisis management. Perhaps such fears are slightly exaggerated and misplaced. But the reality is that Pakistani history teaches us some interesting though unsavoury lessons.

Curse of history

The Constitution of 1956 was drafted, almost after a decade of the new country’s formation, as the elites were not interested in changing the colonial structure of the state and its institutions. After much negotiation and a bit of arm-twisting, parity between (more…)

 Raza Rumi laments the tragedies of our times, and says that the state cannot be absolved of its responsibility to protect citizens against terrorism   (The Friday Times)

Lahore has finally been encircled by the layers and tremors of violence. If the events of March 2009 were not enough, there is now a concerted effort to create panic in the city. In the past few weeks, girls’ schools have been threatened that they would face the music for educating girls and promoting co-education. How can children and their middle-class urban parents survive these gruelling times? (pic left:Pir Baba’s shrine is now closed to visitors )

(more…)

by Raza Rumi

Little did we know that the imminence of war between India and Pakistan would once again become a possibility, howsoever faint or misguided? The ruling political junta in India is talking war following the media frenzy over Mumbai carnage. Once again it is time to be ‘tough’ with Pakistan. This is a surprise given that the interlude of peace under General Musharraf and all the offers of conflict resolution were either stalled by the red-tapism of Indian bureaucracy or a victim of political inaction. At home, we have the air-force planes hovering the wintry skies of Lahore causing consternation not only to the peaceniks, shrinking each day, but to the overwhelming majority of the common citizens. After all what have they got to do with the power game in Islamabad and Delhi, the media hysteria or even the terror cartels?

True that circumstantial evidence points to the fact that the metaphor of our times, Ajmal Kasai socially upgraded as the Urduised Kasab, is linked to the little Faridkot in the Pakistani Punjab. However, much of the international community has reminded India that there is little or no evidence of any direct involvement of the Pakistani state let alone its fragile civilian government. Yet, the rhetoric of unilateral strikes by the Indian foreign minister and now the venerable Sonia Gandhi is having the right effect here. Of war mongering, preparedness assessments and the much trumpeted security strategy through the nuclear option. (more…)

I took this photo at a Bihari camp in Dhaka. Thousands of ‘Pakistanis’ are stranded in Bangaldesh since 1971 and both the states refuse to acknowlegde their existence. Hence, a few generations have been born in the refugee ghettos who live in sub-human conditions.

I was extremely happy to read this report in the NEWS today that is a little ray of hope:

BD court gives stranded Pakistanis citizenship right

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s High Court ruled on Sunday that some 200,000 Urdu-speaking refugees have the right to be Bangladeshi citizens, a lawyer and a news report said.

Rafiqul Islam Mian, the counsel of a group of refugees, said the court made it clear that they also have the right to cast their votes in upcoming polls, expected to be held in December. “The refugees who were minors in 1971 or born after the independence of Bangladesh are citizens of Bangladesh,” the court said in its ruling. (more…)

David Walsh writes at WSWS

On April 20, the New York Times published a lengthy article by investigative reporter David Barstow detailing the US Defense Department’s extensive and ongoing program of manipulating news coverage of the Iraq war. The article provides a glimpse into the intimate connections between the government, military and mass media and the means by which they have attempted to package and sell a neo-colonial war to the US population.

Barstow writes that the record indicates a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated. Essentially, the US mass media has allowed itself to become little more than a propaganda instrument of American militarism.

According to the April 20 piece, more than 75 retired officers have been coached by government and military officials to spin the news about Iraq or simply lieon countless network and cable channel news programs and talk shows over the course of the past five years or more. Fox News has led the way in presenting these individuals to the public, but NBC, CNN, CBS and ABC have followed suit. (more…)

A Poem by K.G. Sankarapillai

Dear Che

Dear Che,
you came to our university campus
in mid sixties
with a comrade and a modernist friend
with visuals of jungles past and present
with a vision of a new battle for justice.

Like a fresh wind of October
you joined us
moved us
renewed us
and smoothened our entry into history
with love, dreams and plans.

You told us about the sleeping rebel powers
of mountains and forests of the new minds;
quite often you talked of the day when
the Andes would become
the Sierra Maestra of America.

Our modernist friend said:
you are the red star over the world
tarnished by America;
you are the future of the world
crippled by America;
you are the Jesus of the modern age
crucified by America.

Although you remained evergreen in us
showed us the exit to the oceans
from the lyrical ponds of our
post Independent Indian youth;
the exit to the storm from the water lily breeze
of our weeping romantic poems;
dear doctor, you redefined us
living with us
living for us
living in us
passing the confidence of torrents into our deserts
weaving sunlit paths into our prodigal nights.

You brought world into our words
and future into our past.
You opened blast-furnaces for our ore. (more…)

Globally, the Tibet issue has been blown beyond belief by the media. I am compelled to ask that over one million civilians are dead in Iraq for no reason – no weapons of mass destruction and no chemical weapon stockpiles have been discovered – there is a stench of corpses and ashes everywhere. A civilisation has been destroyed, ruined. Has anyone inquired about this barbaric conduct of the so-called “civilised” West?

Has anyone questioned why all laws, rights, Geneva conventions are being violated at the Guantanamo Bay; and why there is a genocide of sorts underway in Afghanistan. (more…)

The India International Centre, where Hussain’s ‘Mughal India’ painting series are on dispaly, suspended the exhibition for Saturday after it received the threats from Bajrang Dal, sources said.

The IIC had received the Bajran Dal threat which said it has to face serious consequences if the capital’s high-profile cultural organisation continued to exhibit the works of the controversial artist, they said.

More here

This is a poignant song by Cass Dillon and Billy Joel – sometimes such glimmers of hope make one happy in a dark world.