Freedom fears
Sir,
Do Imran Khan, Tahirul Qadri and their advisors or allies think there is room for any more civil disobedience? Their defiance is already hurting the national economy and the social fabric. Life in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and the rest of the country, has come to a standstill. Schools were reopened after the summer vacation on August 18 but closed again. There is shortage of everything in the twin cities. Hotels, restaurants, shops, pharmacies and petrol pumps are short of supplies. This has affected almost everything. Patients are not being looked after. Doctors are not available due to uncertainty. Public transport is not available and people are avoiding personal vehicles due to the fear of damage and traffic jams.
Marches, sit-ins, protest demonstrations and political gatherings are meant for politicians to interact with the masses, reach out to the people, and seek their help towards change while keeping within the bounds of law or constitution. Instigating public to raid and raze, fight and kill is no service to the cause, to the nation as well as the state. There is always a limit, an out of bound area, and a no-go either in kind of respect or as a norm.
The leaders, not only the administration, must be watchful for people’s safety and security, their basic human rights and their right to express their opinion under the law. It is my humble request to fiery politicians to understand the gravity of the situation. Otherwise it would be tantamount to joining hands with the Taliban and other terrorists against whom the government and the military are fighting a decisive battle.
Alya Alvi,
Rawalpindi
A threat looms
Sir,
Nobody is paying heed to an imminent threat looming large on our eastern borders. I am talking about the danger Mr Modi of India is going to pose to the state of Pakistan, the government here and the armed forces of this country. In the very serious latest development, India has called off the foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan scheduled to be held in Islamabad from August 25. The reason is that Pakistan’s envoy in New Delhi penciled in his meetings with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders from Kashmir. India’s external affairs ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit had been told that the move to meet the Kashmiri leaders would not be looked at kindly by India. The statement alleged that such a move showed Pakistan’s ‘negative’ approaches and attempts to interfere in India’s ‘internal affairs’ continued unabated. “Therefore, under the present circumstances, it is felt that no useful purpose will be served by the Indian foreign secretary going to Islamabad next week.”
Since he took over the reins of power in New Delhi after May 2014 elections more than 70 unprovoked violations have been made by the Indian side on the Line of Control, as well as the Working Boundary especially along the Sialkot border; the statements of Mr Modi, their new army chief, and their foreign minister are adding fuel to the fire. Modi’s newly appointed Chief of Army Staff Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag is said to be Mr Modi’s hostile choice against Pakistan.
The Pakistani government, engaged in handling Imran Khan and Dr Tahirul Qadri’s long marches, has expressed concern over the unprovoked shelling and lodged a strong protest, but such objections equally raised by Islamabad have not helped so far. Dr Maleeha Lodhi rightly observes that tensions on the LoC last year halted any progress in liberalizing trade between the neighbours. But the elephant in the room in the talks ahead is Afghanistan, an issue on which the two countries have never held formal discussions. Yet this is the issue that can cause turbulence in Pakistan-India relations and even upend them in the near term.
Pakistan and its leaders, busy fighting each other, must realize the situation and take measures to diplomatically launch counter moves in order to defuse the border situation and resume the dialogue process.
FZ Khan,
Islamabad.
Rights and wrongs
Sir,
In all likelihood, the Azadi March will fail to dislodge the elected government, unless the ‘third force’ is behind it. Pakistan can only survive as a democratic welfare state envisioned by Jinnah, in line with his declared directive for religious tolerance and to curb the cancer of bribery and corruption with an iron hand. Imran Khan has a right to protest or criticize governments for their failures, but he does not have the right to create anarchy and call for unconstitutional intervention. Nobody in this country, including the government, can deny the people of Pakistan their right to celebrate their Independence Day displaying national flags in a peaceful way, especially at a time when this country is fighting a war against terrorism and scores of our sons are dying every day in this battle for survival.
The prime minister must realize the dissatisfaction amongst those who voted for him hoping that he would deliver good governance and ensure justice for all. He promised to form an independent committee tasked to appoint heads of state owned enterprises and regulatory bodies on merit, which unfortunately his government did not do. Instead we see cronies at the helm, or the same people who drove these corporations to liquidity and insolvency through blatant corruption.
In wake of Argentina’s recent default, what Pakistan needs more than floating of bonds at attractive rates of interest, far more than being offered by any bank in West, is to have a government willing to uphold their constitutional oath and collect taxes from everybody, enforce rule of law, not of men, be they in power or holding any public office. The state must cut back on non-development expenditure and rescind its policy of welfare for elite members of paid and elected public office holders through allotments of plots and giving jobs, while highly qualified youth are unemployed. It is time to focus on the development of human resources through subsidizing education, health, provision of clean drinking water and security of life to people, more than building motorways and underpasses, because nations like Japan and Germany, with their focus on developing human resources, have a higher GDP than countries with abundance of oil and diamond reserves.
Tariq Ali,
Lahore.
About turn
Sir,
On May 10, 1857 the British Armed Forces stationed at Meerut Cantonment (now in India) revolted against British Raj. The revolt gradually spread all over the country and is now known as War of Independence. There was a rumor all over the country on the eve of its first centenary that a significant change was going to take place in the sub-continent on this date.
Allama Inyatullah Khan Mashriqi, a wrangler in mathematics from Cambridge University UK, a religious scholar and the leader of Khaksar Party announced that if 100,000 people gather in Iqbal Park, Lahore (then Manto Park) on May 10 with a spade, 57 quarters (pao) of flour and 57 fifty-paisa coins (athaniyan), he would lead a march towards Delhi.
To promote this march, large posters bearing the words “Delhi ki taraf pehla qadam” (the first step towards Delhi) were put up all over Lahore. He warned however that if even the crowd was one person short of 100,000, the march would be called off.
Needless to say, 100,000 people did not gather that day, and the march was called off.
Anwar Khalil Sheikh,
Islamabad.
Face facts
Sir,
Every day we see politicians being accused of chicanery, and rightly so. This duplicity on the part of politicians has become much more prominent due to electronic and social media. They seem to have a face for every political occasion. There is a pre-election face and post-election face; a treachery-bench face and opposition-bench face; a public face and a private face, and so on.
Is this mendacity present only in our political creed? Have not every aspect of our lives submerged in hypocrisy? Are not we as a society, a society of many faces? It is not my purpose to give any kind of justification for the behavior of politicians. But it is really surprising to see the shock and detestation of a society – whose every act of the day to day dealing is deluged in mendacity and pretense – over the duplicity of politicians. Surely every one of us has a long list with him, of people who use a different face on every different occasion. So, if we ‘the denizens of the land of the pure’ have no higher ideals or uncompromising principles, and if our every act is driven by exigencies; why such tantrum on the duplicity of politicians? What else should we expect from the political creed that has emerged from ‘a society of many faces’ if not deceit and duplicity? These words are by no means an apology for politicians, but are an effort to induce self reflection. We ought to stop the people exhibiting hypocritical behavior around us – people we know, people we care about. After all, charity begins at home.
Syed Usman Shah,
Lahore.
Full circle
Sir,
A friend forwarded to me a short video compilation of rare coloured footage of events from the turbulent last months of 1947. Watching that Aazadi trek and seeing our own chequered history unravelling before our eyes I could not get over an eerie feeling of déjà vu. Four adages come to mind that aptly fit our situation.
The first: To learn who rules over you, find out whom you can’t criticize (Voltaire). The Jang/Geo group has learnt this the hard way. It would seem that our PM thrust into greatness for the third time is slow in the uptake of reality. Whether or not he is capable of adapting or surviving is moot. Our rulers and their rulers beyond them, care little for the long term human and national consequences of their pre-ordained events. At the end of the day the crippling socio-economic repercussions will be borne by the cannon fodder that will be trampled further into the dust. Perhaps the aspirants to the throne are yet too busy relishing the amazing greatness they have been thrust into to yet appreciate this reality. Or else, they are secure in the knowledge that they can retreat to distant climes from where fax will rule!
The second, the Peter Principle: Everybody rises to his level of incompetence. This is a simple management philosophy. History is replete with the debris of good persons whose over-inflated egos made them believe that their achievements in the one field made them competent to tackle others for which they really had neither competence nor skills. Ayub Khan gave us the first Inqilab; ZAB ensured the second Aazadi for the greater half of the country. We may be into the third. Everybody has a Plan A. How to make it workable or to have a fallback Plan B is irrelevant in the rhetoric of the hour. Pakistan remains a perfect (un)working example of that.
The third: Every country has the government it deserves and in a democracy people get the leaders they deserve (Joseph de Maistre). Whether Mr Jinnah was right in accepting a truncated country and whether he previously was aware of the epic human and infrastructure costs of Partition is a subject of history. The video reminds us of some of the last turbulent moments of the Raj. One thing is for certain. From then onwards Pakistan has had the utter misfortune only to have as its leaders mis-adventurers and those with a lust for power, glory or pelf. Or all four! In utter disregard for Mr Jinnah’s founding call of, “You are free…,” the deliberate and organized misuse of religion for the above, from ZAB onwards, ensures infinite perpetuation. Our Generals, Judges, all these leaders, their appendages and their Gullu Butts come from the people. These are the same stock: like us millions who sit quiet as thousands are extorted from, dispossessed and murdered. Like the 40 odd who charged like lemmings and died, fully clothed, into a dangerous monsoon sea. Like the thousands who throng all rallies, as now, cheering, singing and dancing in the idiotic hope that a miracle will fall from the heavens and give them instant ‘roti, kapra and makan,’ and, pani and bijli. And Adl and Insaf. And Ameen! The amassed Swiss wealth will charge back to melt all our problems and we will have instant democracy that 67 years later will take us to yet another Aazadi! And Palestine and Kashmir will be free! Do we not deserve our leaders?
The fourth: Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad (Attributed to both Seneca and HW Longfellow). Anybody with half a brain can appreciate this does not need elaboration.
Cassius’ famous Shakespearean lines in Julius Caesar ring true. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Which essentially takes us back a full circle to my first adage.”
Dr Mervyn Hosein,
Karachi.