All
the views that's fit to print
By M J
Akbar
Little
streaks of white jet-smoke in the sky
over Washington speak of the new security
mood in the United States. The Air Force
has intensified its vigil over skies that
once were immune from the problems that
beset ordinary mortals in the rest of the
world. But it would take more than one
Air Force, even America’s, to
provide any sense of aerial comfort to
New York, whose skies are a mass of red
commercial dots as craft of every kind
descends on the airports that thrive with
the world’s attention. This is the
city that the world visits every day and
every night.
September
11 is too traumatic to disappear from the
consciousness so quickly; maybe it never
will. But there is evidence that the
depression is lifting. The vigour is back
in the neon, and chatter is back on the
sudden intimacy-wavelength that connects
strangers on the streets..
Reminiscence
dominates the content of print media,
even as television descends to boredom
with its repetitive formula of green
squiggles purporting to be still life
from Afghanistan and analysis that now
shrieks in order to be heard above the
drone. Print has become once again the
most powerful means of communication,
employing as it does the brain above the
camera. Magazines like the venerable New
Yor-ker and the newborn Talk are
at their best. Talk is edited by
Tina Brown; Hillary Clinton helped make
the first issue about two years ago a
bestseller by discussing her
husband’s infidelities. The latest
issue has a piece by Chelsea Clinton,
who, like her father, is now studying, at
Oxford. She was in Manhatten on 11
September, staying with a friend.
She called her mother the moment the sky
exploded and the earth trembled. An
assistant to her mother picked up the
phone, and then the line went dead. Like
the rest of the world Chelsea was
hypnotised by the television screen. Then
she heard the deafening rumble of the
first tower and the only image she could
think of was Humpty Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty
sat on a wall.... Humpty Dumpty had a big
fall. She went out. People were flying
through the avenues like debris through a
storm, shouting "Fire!" and
"Bomb!" She writes.: "We
were all cying. We all thought we were
literally going to have fire rain down on
us... For a brief moment I truly thought
I was going to die. Once we stopped
running, I started praying. I prayed for
my country and my city..."
The
Clintons are tough. Bill Clinton has
chosen this week to remind America that
Americans too once used terror to serve
their interests. Against Red Indians, who
they wiped out; and against: the Blacks,
who they enslaved. The right wing is,
predictably outraged by Clinton’s
''insensitivity''. But Clinton has the
attention of an America in an
introspective mood. The search for
something, anything, even perhaps an
answer, is on and the bookshops are
flooded with Islam, Afghanistan and
conflict. For the conservatives so far,
war is the only response. The right wing
leadership, which is in charge, knows
that this is hopelessly inadequate but
will not admit it readily. It is in
disarray.
The news
from the White House, provided over lunch
by an old friend who has one car parked
inside, is that the vice president, Dick
Cheney, is, to use power parlance,
"dead meat". He made a fatal
mistake on 11 September. He used the
opportunity provided by a vacuum to usurp
the President’s power, albeit for
only a few hours, Dick Cheney probably
became a victim of his own reputation.
When he and George Bush were elected, he
was applauded as the heavyweight who
would provide the ballast for a
lightweight administration. The joke was
that George Bush was only a heartbeat
away from the presidency. After the
towers collapsed and the Pentagon fell,
George Bush disappeared from the radar
screen on the advice of his rattled
secret service (the CIA is paying a price
today for that rattle, incidentally).
Cheney sent out word that he was in
charge. He did an AI Haig. When Ronald
Reagan was shot in an attempted
assassination his secretary of state Haig
similarly ''took charge''. Haig was eased
out. Lese majeste can be fatal,
even in a democracy. Today, power in
Washington has four faces, in descending
order of importance. George Bush is of
course at the top, very much so. Donald
Rumsfeld,, defence secretary is second.
Then Colin Powell, newly assertive in a
job he was initially uncomfortable with.
And Condoleezza Rice whose personal
equation with the President continues to
thrive.
Perhaps
the finest magazine cover I have seen is
that of the New Yorker of 24
September. It is black, but not stark
black. Not until you stare at the black
does the silhouette of the twin towers
begin to emerge, black against black. It
is stark, simple, and has the beauty of a
definitive statement. Inside John Updike
is in fine fettle; his writing is
descriptive, his art devoid of the need
for artifice. "Suddenly summoned to
witness something great and horrendous,
we keep fighting not to reduce it to our
smallness. From the viewpoint of a tenth
floor apartment in Brooklyn Heights,
where I happened to be visiting some kin,
the destruction of the World Trade Center
twin towers had the false intimacy of
television, on a day of perfect
reception.'' For some reason I imagine
Updike hammering these words out on a
battered Olympia typewriter, perhaps
because I first read him in the late
Sixties. In 2001 he saw history outside
the duplicate image as well. ''And then,
within an hour, as my wife and I watched
from the Brooklyn building's roof, the
south tower dropped from the screen of
our viewing; it fell straight down like
an elevator, with a tinkling shiver and a
groan of concussion distinct across the
mile of air.''
Life is
obstinate.
''The next
morning, I went back to the open vantage
from which we had watched the tower so
dreadfully slip from sight. The fresh sun
shone on the eastward facades, a few
boats tentatively moved in the river, the
ruins were still sending out smoke, but
New York looked glorious.''
The most
revealing stories from Afghanistan are
those that describe the war for survival,
conducted each day by a hungry, condemned
people in a world where electricity is a
dream. The most evocative that I have
come across is the account of a French
reporter, Michel Peyrard, who works for
Paris Match. He slipped across the
Pakistan border and went to Jalalabad
wearing a tenttop, head-to-toe burqa as
disguise. The thought of hardboiled
journalists searching for stories in a
burqa is faintly ludicrous, but a
journalist is never too far away from the
thin line that divides his demands from
desperation.
The
Taliban in charge of the jail where
Peyrard was kept for 25 days was 24 years
old. Peyrad calls him a megalomaniac, but
all jailers are like that, aren't they?
You've seen the movies too, haven't you?
When one prisoner escaped, the jailer
picked up his three nephews, aged 10, 13
and 19. He tortured the eldest, including
with mock execution; a bullet went past
his head hitting the wall behind. Nothing
very new there. Peyrard's arrest was more
illuminating. He was paraded through the
marketplace as a spy. A few people threw
desultory stones at him, but most ignored
him. That begins to tell a tale.
Peyrard
made friends with his jailers, and they
once took him out for a spin through the
town on the excuse that he needed to go
to a hospital. In return he had offered
them lunch. More information here. The
relationship was relaxed. The jailers
were also hungry for a good meal. And
they had not stolen thier prisoner's
money, otherwise our journalist could not
have made the offer. This excursion came
to an abrupt end when they saw a group of
militants on the street. Rather than risk
being stopped and questioned they went
back to jail. The government therefore is
a mix of the ideologically committed and
the salaried. The most revealing quote
comes from one of the guards, who is
young and who is sick of the Taliban
regime. Why ? He wants to hear music, he
says. He has not heard music ever since
the Taliban have taken over. But when
Peyard shows him an American propaganda
leaflet dropped from safe skies (the
skies, as one sceptical journalist in
Washington said, have been saved from
mullahs on magic carpets) the young
Afghan explodes. What are the Americans
doing here ? he asks, What do they know
about our customs? B52s have this
terrible tendency of arousing
nationalism.
When
embassies negotiate interviews on behalf
of their Prime Ministers they should
probably haggle over display as well. The
Washington Post did interview Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, but the
interview was done by a reporter, Alan
Sipress, rather than the editor, as had
been promised. The interview appeared on
page 26. A story on the social impact of
the economic plunge in Argentina got
double column space on page one, but the
leader of the world's sixth nuclear power
was shoved off inside on a day that,
frankly, was not bursting with news.
Beside the Vajpayee interview, and given
more space than the interview itself, was
a story from the Post bureau in Delhi on
POTO, the prevention of terrorism
ordinance. I suppose they could have held
over the POTO story, but they had
probably declared 8 November India Day at
the Washington Post. Since there is so
much competition in these matters, the
Pakistanis have gone to the New York
Times.
The New
York Times published the interview with
President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday
morning, on page one.
The
American media is cool with all leaders,
including George Bush. The President of
the United States gave an address to the
nation on Thursday evening. NBC passed
the televised address to its news
subsidiaries, MSNBC and CNBC, CBS simply
passed up the honour, as did public
television. Fox wanted to put it on prime
time, using what it called Level 1
intervention to break into money-making
serials. But they saw an advance copy of
the text and decided that the President
wasn't making news. They junked the
story. ABC was the only channel that
carried the telecast, because it did not
have a moneyspinner slotted at that hour.
Story of
the month: The CIA wants to hire someone
who knows Arabic. And Pushtu. A bit late,
but nevertheless... On the other hand,
why don't they just subcontract spying on
the Arab and Asian world to the British?
They would do it better, and at discount
rates.
|
 |
20
years of ‘Tales of Travesty’
TALES OF TRAVESTY
By: Dr.
Jitendra Singh
Before
this column reappears once again on
Sunday next, "Tales of
Travesty" would have completed 20
years of its uninterrupted publication
week after week --- beginning way back in
the autumn of 1981 and still surviving,
albeit dangerously but not ingloriously,
even today after two decades.
Incidentally,
this coincides with over a quarter
century of regularly published writings
by this columnist/author ---- beginning
around the year 1975 with short stories
and later drifting by 1980 into the
realms of topical journalism. And yet,
let this be confessed at the very outset
that even after having authored more than
two thousand published articles and four
books, and having romped home a couple of
coveted awards, I still donot have the
cheek to call myself a writer. Least of
all can I claim to be a journalist in the
contemporary age when the training of
journalism is imparted through highly
specialised post graduate courses whereas
my formal education in English language
never proceeded beyond Class 12.
Be that as
it may, after a quarter century of column
writing, the question that one naturally
confronts is whether "Tales of
Travesty" has succeeded in serving
the purpose to which it was committed?
This is a question for others to answer.
Perhaps others of a later age will judge
these writings in much the same way as we
------ the scribes of this generation---
took the liberty of passing judgements on
the writings of our predecessors. The
pieces published under "Tales of
Travesty" over the last two decades
have covered a wide range of subjects
from politics, literature, women, cinema,
book reviews, the Kashmir issue and so
on. These pieces have also been
circulated under different headings and
different formats through various Feature
Agencies across the country and
translated for vernacular press in U.P.,
Kerala and North-East.
Very
often, readers have commended what they
describe as "versatility" of
subjects covered under the 'Tales of
Travesty?. Frankly, I make no such claim
because what was actually happening was
that I neither planned nor followed any
particular order in writing. If, for
example, today I wrote on
"Kashmir", tomorrow it was
"Quit India Movement"",
the next day it was Raj Kapoor or Marilyn
Monroe, then it was "Prominent
Citizens" or "Police Officers
with pot bellies" or "Doctors
in malpractice" and on certain days
from example if I went to bed writing a
late night obituary for Satyajit Ray, I
woke up next morning to write a review
for Janet Morgan's book describing Lady
Edwina Mountbatten's intimate private
relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru.
Interspersed between these writings were
my regular professional medical writings
and books relating to Diabetes. So, this
went on like a spontaneous process all
these years and I have been doing it
quite unconsciously as if guided by an
unseen divine Hand.
"Tales
of Travesty" has been described in
the press circles as satirical comment on
topical subjects. Perhaps rightly so.
But, I have the confidence to claim that
these pieces were never inspired by any
personal motive or interest. Because I
neither had the intention of making money
out of these writings nor did I ever seek
patronage from any influential high-ups.
On the contrary, at times "Tales of
Travesty" antagonised many a men who
mattered in polity and in society. In the
process, "Tales of Travesty"
was at times written at considerable
personal risk or loss. But, I have had no
regrets because I had the satisfaction of
having followed poet Ghalib's dictum "Likhte
Rahe Janoon Ki Hikaayaat Khoon-ch-Khoon,
Har Chand Hum Se Haath Hamaare Juda
Hue" (Tales of passion
dipped in blood, I never ceased to write
with Truth. Even though, in the process,
each time my hands were left wounded).
"Tales
of Travesty" has, from time to time,
brought offense to those worthies who
believe that they are the targets of
underlying satire. But, what these
socalled "prominent" citizens
forget is that they never figure as
heroes or heroines in "Tales of
Travesty." The only hero in
"Tales of Travesty" is
Umapathy, the common man who is an
average unknown Indian with his share of
misery and deprivation. Umapathy is
wronged, exploited and bullied but it is
he alone who sustains the finer traits of
this great civilization of India.
"Tales
of Travesty" may not qualify to be
hailed as a great work but it might serve
as a written record of varied random
impressions conjured up week after week
by a columnist who has been witness to
the last quarter of the 20th century and
the beginning of the 21st century.
|
|
Kashmir
imbroglio : A way out
By Dr K L Chowdhury
In order to
comprehend the true nature and dimensions of the
problems facing Jammu and Kashmir I feel it
necessary at the very outset to focus on the
semantics. No body can deny that it is terrorism
and not militancy that bedevils the State of
Jammu and Kashmir. In fact, it was terror that
the people of the State had to brave, as if a
price to pay for independence, when soon after
the partition of the sub continent Pakistan sent
her tribals, backed -by army regulars, to annex
Kashmir by force.The rampaging hordes looted,
arsoned, raped and killed. Forty years down, the
highly motivated youth of the valley who returned
from training camps in Pakistan, again backed by
mercenaries and intelligence agencies of that
country, are on a similar rampage that is going
on unabated for the last twelve years. It was
terror when people, on the basis of faith, were
picked up from their hamlets in Sangrampora
Wandhama and Chittisingpora and mercilessly done
to death. To call it militancy rather than
terrorism is an understatement, a denial of the
seriousness and urgency of the problem. Even
Pakistan was forced to condemn the suicide attack
on the State legislature in Srinagar last
September as a wanton act of terrorism.
Of course
terrorism did not start de novo. It has its
genesis in multiple factors that vitiated the
communal and political atmosphere in the valley
right from the nineteen thirties, not the least
of which is the ascendancy of Muslim majority
aspirations, translating themselves from the
Reading Room Party to the birth of Muslim
Conference, re-christened later as the National
Conference. Events followed in tandem from the
time of partition, to the annexation of nearly
half of J&K by Pakistan, to the granting of
special status to Indian part of Kashmir with a
separate constitution, to the Sheikh’s
grandiose vision of independent sheikdom which
helped plant doubts in the minds of Kashmiri
masses as to the finality of accession to India
and encouraged the spread of secessionist
organizations. The successive State governments
failed to halt the growth of these
Pakistan-inspired separatists in the valley. They
embarked on a crusade of religious indoctrination
through mushrooming madrasas and mosques that
became the, breeding grounds for Islamic
revivalism, giving birth, to a radical Islamic
culture in the valley. India, and everything that
represented her, was projected as the villain,
the usurper, the root of evil in Kashmir, at the
same time as she was opening her coffers to
Kashmiris for the development of the State and
showering largesse as food subsides, grants and
aids. The rulers of the state cried wolf and
raised the bogey of self-determination Azadi,
autonomy etc. from time to time to exact maximum
concessions and grants from the centre. A
parasitic culture thus came to supplement a
radical Islamic culture.
The rapacious
greed of the ruling elite grew as also their
unaccountability, rampant corruption, nepotism
and favoritism. They and their friends, relatives
and sycophants, amassed wealth leaving the large
sections of the people under privileged,
disgruntled and angry and therefore an easy prey
to the radical Islamists touting freedom,
economic prosperity and puritanical Islam. To
fill in the vacuum created by, and the
opportunity offered by, the misrule of successive
state governments, numerous religious and
political outfits spawned to fish in the troubled
waters, each stoking the fires of religions
extremism, vying with each other in espousing the
cause of Kashmiri Muslim identity, of self
determination, and of merger with Pakistan on the
basis of proximity and religious affinity to that
country.
The faulty
perceptions and policies of the Central Govt.
mixed with its vacillation, ambivalence and
waywardness, gave the impression that India
lacked the courage of conviction in holding on to
Kashmir, and thus encouraged and emboldened the
separatist elements and their mentors in
Pakistan. Not only did India fail to contain the
repercussions of unfettered communal propaganda
unleashed by these forces in the state,but it
also helped bestow a larger than life status to
bentom like the Hurriyat amalgam, a bunch of
rabble rousers who have succeeded in imposing a
Hartal culture in the valley.
To make confusion
worse confounded the ruling national conference,
avowedly a pro Indian nationalist party, jumped
in the secessionist fray last year by throwing
their autonomy hat in the ring. The autonomy
recommendations endorsed by 2/3rd majority of the
State legislature fall just short of Azadi!
No wonder the
average Kashmiri is confused and perplexed with
such a barrage of diverse political and religious
contentions impacting his psyche for the last
five decades. Add to it the brutalization of 12
years of terror and what you have is an
alienated, traumatized people, angry with their
past, confused about the present, fearful of the
future, Their psyche is drastically metamorphosed
resulting in loss of belief. They
don’t believe in India, which they hate, not
in Pakistan, which they fear, not in their
politicians, whom they mistrust. Therefore they
are busy fending for themselves, queuing for jobs
that the state govt. created during the last 6
years, annexing land left behind by the exiled
Pandits, encroaching on public property, taming
forest land for domestic use and busy raising
unauthorized constructions. A grab culture has
impaled itself on the other three cultures
mentioned above.Another major problem with Jammu
and Kashmir is that the problem itself is being
projected as one of the Kashmiri Muslims, by the
Muslims and for the Muslims. In real time this
appears to be so because the valley at present is
a de-facto Islamic enclave, what with the
cleansing of seven hundred thousand population of
the minority Kashmiri Pandits from their
ancestral habitation, who are represented now in
the valley by their deserted, desecrated,
defiled, dilapidated temples, by their burnt down
houses, by the ghost mohallas where their culture
once thrived. Now refugees in their own country
this 5000-year old ethno religious community
stands dismembered and disenfranchised, deprived
of their basic rights, living in exile in
sub-human conditions, suffering from numerous
physical and mental afflictions, dying
prematurely and unnaturally and threatened with
extinction. Then there is the issue of alienation
of Jammu and Ladakh regions, which have received
step motherly treatment from the rulers from the
valley during the last five decades and created
serious regional issues.
How do we go from
here? What prospects hold themselves for possible
solutions to these complex problems? But, before
we discuss that, I hope you will agree that India
can no longer afford to project itself as a soft
state if Kashmir has to be retrieved and retained
as an inseparable part of the nation. She has to
reorient her perceptions, rephrase her policies,
reinvent strategies and rediscover the will and
courage to survive as a nation. If Kashmir goes
it will be the beginning of the end for
India’s sovereignty and integrity.
In my opinion
three simultaneous streams of action need to be
initiated in our part of Kashmir. One, not merely
of rolling back but rooting out of terrorism.
Two, to embark on a reconstruction of the
J&K, a moral, spiritual and socio-economic
reconstruction of the State. And three, to
initiate a serious political process in the whole
J&K which may warrant some bold initiatives,
not the least of which is the reorganization of
the State.
Let us therefore
back to the three streams of action. To fight
terrorism I feel a new paradigm has to be
devised, something akin to a clinical situation
that a physician battling against cancer does.
For, I beleive terrorism is as lethal for the
society, for the body politic, for a nation as
cancer is for the patient. If we decide to fight
this cancer, as I hope we should, then it has to
be a total kill. The origin, the roots and the
sources of sustenance have to be destroyed. The
immediate extension and the distant spread have
also to be knocked out.
This scorched
earth policy has to be backed up by equally bold
and Herculean measures. The terrorist
organizations have to be identified, declared
unlawful, their funds frozen, their networks
broken. It took India more than twelve years to
do the other day what USA did within a month of
having been struck with terrorism that is to
promulgate the anti-terrorism ordinance. India
does not need to look to the West to do what has
to be done nor does she need to wait for the USA
to declare Pakistan a terrorist state. She has to
do it herself and fight her wars on her own while
at the same time join as a coalition partner in
the international efforts in fighting this evil.
Side by side with
this, the mores, sympathizers, and activists of
terrorist organizations in the bureaucracy, in
police and in administrative departments, have to
be identified and punitive action taken against
them. The intelligence network has to be beefed
up and a multi layered intelligence put in place.
In the reconstruction of the State of J&K the
battle against terrorism can not be won if we
don’t fight the ideology of terrorism and
the psychology that wins terrorism its adherents,
and advocates, and the incentives that swell its
ranks.
Of course there is
no short cut to good, effective, equitable and
responsive governance, which includes
developmental works and reconstruction of the
destroyed socio-economic fabric of the
state.Finally, the third stream of action is the
political process, which should start on full
throttle and involve the people of all regions,
and of all streams of thought and not be
dominated by valley-centric aspirations alone. We
have to acknowledge that Jammu and Kashmir
comprises three geographically, linguistically
and ethnically distinct regions which suffer from
imbalances, anomalies and discrepancies and is
therefore a fit case for reorganization so
that the hegemony of one region over the other,
and of one religious group over the rest is put
to end. Governance of smaller units becomes
easier and elimination of terrorism equally so.
Jammu and Ladakh are crying for their
identity.That would leave the valley of Kashmir.
As I said earlier, the politics there has been
dominated by the Sunni Muslims leaving a large
population of the Gujjars and Bakarwals, the
Shias, the Ahmedeys and the Sikhs in the
sidelines while the Kashmiri Pandits are totally
out of the reckoning. The ghost of autonomy has
to be exercised for it is against the interests
of the valley and not all of the people in the
valley demand it. Kashmiri Pandits have to be
resettled back in their homeland in the valley.
Of course, not under any outrageous plan for a
ghetto existence in makeshift colonies in
different locations as worked out by the
Government. That mill be like sending them from
the proverbial frying pan into fire.
They need to be
resettled in a compact, secured, homogenous
existence, in an area in the valley where the
Indian constitution has full flow, where the
values of freedom democracy, secularism and
religious tolerance are allowed to prosper and
thrive. For, if autonomy is an expression of the
Muslim sub- nationalism homeland is a soul cry of
the Kashmiri Pandit aborigines of the valley for
their roots. And while autonomy undermines
integration of the state with the rest of the
nation, homeland takes a step forward and opens
its doors for complete merger.
|
Of
evaluation and evaluators
Academic pulse
by prof. S.K. Bhalla
Let me not mince
words. This has happened in the past. This is
happening in the present. This shall happen in
the future with greater intensity. What ? The
allusion is to the callous evaluation of the
answer scripts of students both at the level of
University of Jammu and J&K Board of School
Education with due disregards to all ethics now
restricted only to books and lectures. The trauma
these present-day tormentors cause to the
gullible students and parents is too terrible to
be summed up in a few words. This week's write-up
has been occasioned by a letter to the editor of
this widely circulated esteemed daily on Nov. 1,
2001 published under the caption Check Papers
Carefully. It will be an exaggeration to malign
all the evaluators yet the ever increasing number
of revaluation cases year by year points to the
eroding credibility of checking the scripts and
turning a deaf ear to numerous complaints hitting
the headlines of local media without any
rebuttal.
The other day a
girl student of B.A Part First now studying at
Govt. College for Women, Gandhi Nagar Jammu
narrated her tale of woe. She had been declared
failed by University of Jammu in Annual 2001
result. She applied for revaluation of 4 papers
and consequently declared to have passed the
examination notching an increase of 27 marks. In
another case an upright lady teacher made a
startling disclosure about an unmarked answer in
Hindi paper she was sent for revaluation. It
appears that there is a vested interest in making
papers casually. More revaluation cases means
more money for the habitual evaluators in these
hard time when there is no one to accord condign
punishment at any level. Debarring an evaluator
for a session, year or two is all that is
uttermost you can expect. So why worry. Make hay
while the sun shines.
Not very lost ago
the revaluation result of 264 students of
BA/BSc/B.Com Part II Annual examination for the
year 1998 was got reviewed and the result of 264
students was amended and declared. "Even in
some cases there was an increase in the total
marks when the candidates had already qualified
the said examination and as a result the
percentage of total marks secured by the
candidates was changed". This case has been
mentioned not to malign anyone intentionally but
to stress in loud and clear terms the
authenticity of complaints strengthened by
another letter to Editor of Daily Excelsior which
appeared on Nov. 13, 2001 under the caption
slipshod marking.
The situation is
not very encouraging in J&K BOSE. I am told
by insiders that lakhs of rupees are collected
every year after the declaration of result of
different classes for rechecking/revaluation
exercise and one can witness students making a
beeline for Board's Office. The worst affected
are from far flung areas. This again is a
reflection of lack of faith in the evaluation
process being undertaken there in and the
consequent the last ditch effort of the
candidates to seek justice at the hands of
authorities who prefer to be tight-lipped on
issues of life and death.
It appears that it
is the insatiable lust for money by making more
number of scripts without an inbuilt system to
bring to book the indifferent lot a examiners
that is responsible for all this rot. Readers
should not be very much surprised to know that a
few years ago one composite paper in Gen. English
was introduced at the level of B.A/BSc/B.Com Part
I but now again it has been recommended that
instead of one paper let us have the old practice
of conducting two papers. The reasons cited for
reverting to the old practice apparently appears
to be academic to a layman but reading between
the lines would suggest to an intelligent persons
that the move is likely to generate more money
for greedy evaluators-a plea which nobody would
openly admit.
Once again it all
boils down to the lack of accountability,
transparency and unconcern in the education
sector. Apathy, groupism, shallow interests,
hollow aims, lobbying for material considerations
and pursuits are the catchwords today at the
level of schools, colleges, Universities, Boards
etc. etc.
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The
fell of Kabul will add to Musharraf's problems
By Samuel Baid
The capture of
Kabul by the Northern Alliance forces on Tuesday
will certainly make things more complicated for
Gen Pervez Musharraf than they have been since
his decision to support the United States-led
international coalition against Saudi terrorist
Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts in
Afghanistan. Worse, US President George Bush, who
told the Alliance not to enter Kabul, expressed
his happiness when the Alliance forces defied his
instructions and did exactly that Gen Musharraf
must have been badly confounded.
The day Taliban
were fleeing Kabul, Gen Musharraf was proudly
telling his country's newsmen in New York that
his talks with French, British and now US leaders
had been successful. He claimed he had convinced
them of the correctness of Pakistan's views on
Afghanistan and the causes of terrorism and his
country's economic requirements. He repeatedly
described his meetings with these leaders as
successful. At home the official media drummed up
these claims.
The gains of Gen
Musharraf's New York visit were: Mr Bush after a
gap of about one and a half decades once again
called Pakistan a strong ally. That gave Gen
Musharraf a strong feeling that his country's
isolation from the international community was
over. But more than that his hosts in Paris,
London and now in New York received him as the
President of Pakistan thus investing him with the
legitimacy due to an elected Head of State. In
other words, the process of transfiguration of
Gen Musharraf from a villain of October 12, 1999
to a hero, who was now supporting the US lead war
on terrorism, was complete. Also, now no Western
or American writers describe Pakistan as a failed
state it is now a front line State. The economic
gain of his meeting with Mr Bush was a pledge of
one billion dollar to Pakistan.
Perhaps Gen
Musharraf thought that Pakistan, under his
leadership, was playing a pivotal role in the US
Operations in Afghanistan and therefore Mr Bush
would be only too willing to give what he
demanded. But Mr Bush was not willing to oblige
him beyond the dollar one billion pledge.
Pakistanis had thought that the Bush
Administration would write off dollar three
billion debts and support their country's dollar
eight billion economic development programme in
the next three years. There was no promise to
increase imports from Pakistan. Gen Musharraf's
request for the release of F-16 jets was turned
down.
Whatever Gen
Musharraf may say about the success of his Afghan
policy, it does not serve the US - led
coalition's objectives in Afghanistan to work
within the parameters of this policy. Gen
Musharraf made it very clear on September 19 that
he had decided to support the coalition so that
the Northern Alliance did not take over power in
Kabul. But the fact is that the Northern Alliance
played a more important role for the coalition
than what Pakistan was willing to play. An
article in the News described Pakistan as
relatively a secondary player in the war against
terrorism. Pakistan allowed its airspace and some
airports to be used by the coalition but that was
not considered too big a help for the enraged
Americans, it said. That should explains why Mr
Bush welcomed the takeover of Kabul by the
Northern Alliance.
Still worse was
Gen Musharraf's failure to get American support
to Pakistan view on Kashmir and terrorism. Mr
Bush refused to condemn that Gen Musharraf called
State terrorism. On the contrary, he told a
Pakistani correspondent that his country
condemned the October 1 bombing of the State
Assembly building in Srinagar. Pakistan based
Jaish-e-Mohammad, which had close relations with
Taliban, had claimed responsibility for this.
Implicit in Mr Bush's condemnation of the October
incident was his condemnation of the transborder
terrorism in Kashmir which the General calls
freedom struggle.
Although Mr Bush
called Pakistan a strong ally and Gen Musharraf
hoped to establish a long -standing relationship
which should not end the moment Pakistan's
utility for the US was over, it is a fact that
both countries have strong reservations about
each other. The people of Pakistan have a long
list of grievances against the United States.
Among them is Washington traditional support to
military dictatorships in Pakistan at the cost of
democracy. Another one is that they are discarded
like a dirty shirt the moment the US finds no use
of them. Not only that, when Pakistan is not
being treated as a Frontline State, the American
Press starts a campaign of vilification against
their country.
Out the other
hand, Americans are very much aware of Pakistan's
contribution to global terrorism in the name of
Islam. Americans also know that while Gen
Musharraf supports the war against terrorism in
Afghanistan, a section of the ISI and nuclear
scientists are in league with Osama and Taliban.
Also, Pakistan is still committed to Taliban
although they, and Osama and his gang Al Qaeda
are the main targets of the US bombing. Pakistan
continues to have diplomatic relations with
Taliban.
It would appear
whenever the alternate Government is formed in
Afghanistan, the US dependence on Pakistan would
be drastically reduced.
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