Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

By Pushp Saraf

By Harjeet Singh

The excited chatter in any women’s get-together in Malerkotla nowadays is about who is coming from Pakistan and who is going. The resumption of the Delhi-Lahore bus service has raised the .....more

PoK terrorists perturbed over bad publicity

By P N Khera

According to information available militant groups operating in PoK are perturbed over the bad publicity received ....more

EDITORIAL

Caring for consumers

One should feel satisfied that the State has a well-organised dispensation that watches the genuine interests of the consumers. On the top, there exists a full-fledged body, known as the State Consumer Commission. There are, in addition, forums at the divisional level. They get their powers from the J&K Consumer Act of 1987. According to an informed analysis in this newspaper, even though the State Commission moves with the annual darbar, one of its members stays back in Srinagar during winter and in Jammu during summer. This should be reassuring for the common man that he has a redressal facility available next door should he have a just grievance. Evidently, the members of these organisations are doing a good job, if one goes by their disposal rate. For example, of the total 4,468 cases received by the Commission since its inception in December 1989, as many as 3,967 have been settled till the close of 2003. Their speed should be regarded as an achievement considering that they have to follow a judicial process that tends to take a long and tortuous course. Having said that, one can’t help but put emphasis on the necessity of spreading greater awareness about their activities. They are the watchdogs. In the existing dispensation in the country, they act as deterrents against brusque persons and institutions that exhibit little regard for the concerns of ordinary citizens. In the increasingly tough family, social and economic milieu, the common man faces numerous problems in his everyday life. Most of his time is spent in earning enough to meet his own and his close relatives’ financial needs. He is always on his toes. As he doesn’t have the time and resources for outdoor activity or enjoyment, he can ill afford healthy diversions. It has been noted by quite a few exhaustive studies that his dreary routine is one of the major factors of stresses and strains in the modern life. One can imagine that he has to virtually go through the hell if unsympathetic and unscrupulous government authorities as well as private institutions either create problems for him or fiddle with his health. Inefficiency of these agencies can only add to his woes.

One does not have to go far to see the serious complications, which can be created by the delay in receiving a postal article. A family has to undergo enormous difficulties in terms of its very survival in case the insurance claim of its head, following his death, is withheld for a wrong reason. Blood pressure of anybody will just shoot on seeing an inflated water or electricity bill without having got the requisite services. Non-functioning of telephones for days together without any relief in its rental and other charges leads only to a serious headache. There always remains a threat of spurious drugs or even ordinary-looking packaged water bottles playing havoc with the health of the citizens. A train not following its schedule or a flight not keeping its time can cost one a fortune. The entry of private players almost into every field has further widened the consumer market. It should be known that all of them are answerable to the people at large. In all difficult situations, only the wearer knows whether the shoe pinches. If he does not get justice from the concerned men and machinery, he has the option to approach the legally-empowered consumer forums. He must exercise it without any fear. If he goes by the functioning of the consumer courts in the country as a whole and the State, in particular, he will be reassured that he has taken the correct decision.

Let people decide

A Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice V.N. Khare, has given the ordinary citizens a plenty of food for thought. It has been a matter of serious concern that the precious time of Parliament and State legislatures is often wasted because of absenteeism and interruptions. Crores of rupees of public exchequer go down the drain as a result. If the question-hour is not held, for instance, one can imagine the loss in terms of time and money that is spent in finalising a reply. If the Opposition disrupts the question period, it is a bigger loser for, it misses an opportunity to closely probe the functioning of ministries and government departments. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would, as the Leader of the Opposition in the past, ensure that there was least disturbance during this crucial hour. In fact, he along with former Lok Sabha Speaker Shivraj Patil had largely succeeded in regulating the question-hour. It was as a result of their combined efforts that there was a sort of consensus in the House to let the question-hour be free from disruptions. All the members would resist the temptation of raising controversial matters till zero hour. Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat has, of late, in his capacity as the chairperson of the Rajya Sabha enforced discipline in the House during the question-hour. Such well-intentioned moves can yield positive results only if the members were willing to cooperate. If they work in accordance with the accepted Parliamentary behaviour, there is absolutely no problem at all in the conduct of the listed business. Quite contrary to it, if they indulge in physical fights and rowdyism, as has been witnessed in certain state legislatures, they not only attract a bad name but also take a heavy toll of the country’s meagre financial resources.

Raising the question of wastage of public funds by lawmakers in Parliament and assemblies, a petition before the apex court had sought its intervention to check this tendency. It stated that while there were rules and regulations to check misuse of freedom of speech and expression by anyone, ‘but no rules are framed, perhaps deliberately, by the legislature’ for the lawmakers. It was pleaded that during the Vajpayee Government’s two terms in power, 25.33 hours of the Parliamentary proceedings were lost on Gujarat Government’s move to allow its employees to participate in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activities. The other such instances cited in the petition included: Ayodhya case (costing 78.07 hours of the two Houses of Parliament), the Women’s Reservation Bill (11.47 hours), Tehelka case (over 128 hours) and the petrol pump scandal (over 67 hours). The petition alleged that, in all, the Lok Sabha had wasted 204.10 hours and the Rajya Sabha 150 hours between 1987 and 1997. Between 1998 and 2002, this wastage had increased to 233.08 hours (Lok Sabha) and 176.03 hours (Rajya Sabha). It was said that ‘both the ruling party and the opposition are equally responsible for such a colossal waste of the most precious time of Parliament’ and crores of rupees being frittered away. It demanded that the lawmakers should be made to lose their salaries for the period the proceedings were disrupted. Evidently because the conduct of its members remains in the exclusive domain of Parliament, the country’s highest court has expressed its inability to pass any order on this petition. Yet, it has observed enough, which should compel the ordinary citizens to think. The bench, headed by the Chief Justice, has observed that the issue could only be settled by ‘the people’s court’. It has told the petitioners: ‘As elections are round the corner, you move the people’s court for redressal’. One sincerely hopes that the electorates do remember the import of the message when they exercise their franchise. They must vote for the men who would add properly utilise the Parliamentary forum to add distinction to it.

The line that can’t divide hope

By Pushp Saraf

If Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s bold and innovative peace initiative has generated hope in any region of the subcontinent, it is the undivided Jammu and Kashmir as it had existed in 1947. His meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad on January 6 has cemented the way for the resumption of ties between people on either side of the Line of Control.

This line, which was drawn by the terror, blood and religious extremism, is most likely to be overwhelmed by high expectations that have sky-rocketed on its both sides. It is generally believed that soon the old road link between Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, and Muzaffarabad, the capital of the occupied territory, would be restored. This might lead to the subsequent reopening of another forgotten route between Jammu in India and Sialkot in Pakistan. This had also been closed in 1947.

Having shared a common destiny for over a century under the Dogra regime, the people in Jammu and Kashmir were divided by a cruel turn in the history in 1947. In the present feel-good environment, it would serve no purpose to go into the past as that might unnecessarily act as a spoiler. Instead, one ought to feel encouraged by the prevailing circumstances that give enough reasons to look ahead.

During a visit to Mirpur and Muzaffarabad, which are two important towns of the State in the occupation of Pakistan, one may be moved by the nostalgia of the past that still survives. If one is from any part of the undivided State, regardless of where he is staying at present, he would get a warm reception. In the winter of 2000 when this scribe had visited the two towns, he was just carried away by the affection of the people. The son of the late Raja Mohammad Akbar Khan, a nationalist journalist of top integrity of pre-1947 Jammu and Kashmir, remarked that he just could not believe his eyes that a family friend from the other part of the State was standing next to him in Mirpur. The Rawalpindi-based son of the late Allah Rakha Sagar, another journalist from the undivided State, had tears in his eyes when this scribe conveyed to him condolences on behalf of his family on the death of his father.

Apart from a shared past, there are many similarities between the two parts of the State. If Mirpur reflects the prosperity generated by its people, who have virtually made London their second home, so do all major towns of Jammu and Kashmir. A difference that one can’t overlook is that much of the prosperity on this side is the result of enterprise on the home turf. This is self-explanatory in terms of the progress the two separated regions of the State have made since 1947.

Muzaffarabad, on the other hand, is flooded with consumer goods. One could notice that the arrival of the militants of all hues - it has been the base camp of all insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir - has caused a little turmoil in the social life of this capital of the occupied territory. Quite a few marriages between the Kashmiri militants and the local inhabitants have not been successful. As a consequence, the former were no more getting the same sort of warm hugs that they had received on their arrival early in the 1990s. Human behaviour - good or base - remains the same everywhere.

What is most impressive is that if the local people know that one is from, say, Srinagar or even Jammu, they would confide in one everything as if they were talking to a long-lost friend or brother. That is why many believe that if the present mood in the subcontinent continues, it would open certain hitherto unexplored avenues of peace. This is best summed up by a group of about 100 young persons in Akhnoor, on our side of the State.

They have set afloat toy boats decked with balloons to Pakistan and the part of the State under its occupation through the mighty Chinab. Each toy boat is filled with sweets and placards reading: ‘Peace. We want to be friends’. Clearly, it is more than a symbolic gesture.

Presently, one can afford to think big. There can hardly be any doubt that if the ties between the people on either side of the LoC are fully restored, they would yield beneficial results for the subcontinent as a whole. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf have given the people a chance to think big. Why should not one, therefore, revel in the luxury of having grand visions about the immediate future?

It is to be recalled that in between three wars in the subcontinent, there have been a number of less publicised efforts to retain trust between the people of the pre-1947 Jammu and Kashmir. Sardar Abdul Qayum Khan, although a top pro-Pakistan leader in his younger days, had extended help to the fleeing Hindus in relief camps in the occupied territory. This is borne by the Mirpuri literature being brought out by the members of the community now. At the same time, Mr Kidar Nath Sahani, presently Governor of Goa, had made heroic efforts to provide succour to the ravaged population of Mirpur.

A historic development in 1964 was the late Sheikh Abdullah’s goodwill visit to Pakistan.

Unfortunately, it had to be cut short because of Jawaharlal Nehru’s death in New Delhi. It was during the same mission that the late Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas, the topmost leader of the PoK, had made a frank admission to veteran journalist-publicman Om Prakash Saraf that he had to leave his hometown Jammu because there were ‘not a few more persons like you’. In 1979, the late Lala Mulk Raj Saraf, the father of journalism in Jammu and Kashmir who had started the State’s first newspaper, Ranbir in 1924, had undertaken a one-man mission to Pakistan. It had created such a wide impact that the top commentator of that era, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, was moved to say that Lalaji’s visit had generated tremendous goodwill that even crores of rupees could not buy.

The Prime Minister has, indeed, moved many hearts across this subcontinent by going down the memory lane during his Islamabad visit.

He has recalled that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were one nation when they had fought the first war of Independence against the British Empire in 1857. He has called upon the two neighbours to join India in celebrating the 150th year of that great historic moment together Who can deny that the countries in the subcontinent have shared a common past, heritage and struggle?

It is, therefore, reasonable to presume that even if Mr Vajpayee’s idea does not, become a reality immediately, it would survive for a long time to come. For, it represents the eternal truth that if the people are bound by a common legacy, they can’t be divided for good.

Looked in that context also, one can say with confidence that the hope that is currently sweeping all parts of the pre-1947 Jammu and Kashmir may be the harbinger of peace in the subcontinent. In turn, it may lead to a perfect climax to Mr Vajpayee’s ‘handshake’ for peace he had extended at a public meeting in Srinagar on April 18, 2003.

(PIB Features)

United in marriage

By Harjeet Singh

The excited chatter in any women’s get-together in Malerkotla nowadays is about who is coming from Pakistan and who is going. The resumption of the Delhi-Lahore bus service has raised the hopes of many people in this lower middle-class locality, 220 km from the Wagah border, about visiting their relatives on the other side of the fence.

Shahjehan Khan Sherwani’s teenage daughter, Shakila, is seeking a visa to go to Pakistan in search of her father’s relatives. Shahjehan was barely 14 when she married Mohammad Ahmad Khan of Lalamoosa near Rawalpindi. The marriage had been fixed in 1981 when Khan’s maternal uncle visited his relatives in Malerkotla, a Muslim-dominated town in Sangrur district of Indian Punjab. But the rukhsati – the ceremony of bringing the bride home – took place three years later when she went to Pakistan on a three-month visa. Unable to extend her stay there, a pregnant Shahjehan returned to Malerkotla.

She tried to go again after Shakila’s birth, but Indo-Pak relations had soured as Punjab was in turmoil, in the wake of Operation Blue Star. When Shakila was 18 months old, Shahjehan got a message that Khan was dead. "I could not be by his deathbed. I could not go to see his body," said Shahjehan, who has since been with her parents.

Almost every Muslim family in Malerkotla has relatives in Pakistan’s Punjab: relatives who opted to migrate during Partition and people who became relatives by nikah. Punjabi Muslims avoid bringing home a bride from anywhere else in India. "People here don’t think politically or nationally, they think and act culturally," said Mufti Fuzail-Ur-Rahman Hilal Usmani of the Darus Salam Islamic Centre. "Till 1971, nikah between Muslims of the two Punjabs was very common." Though the number dwindled, till about 15 years ago, many girls from Malerkotla went to make their homes in Pakistan and many from Lahore came here.

Tasleem, a final-year graduate student of Government College, Malerkotla, has her entire maternal and a good part of her paternal family in Pakistan. "My mother, Akhtari, and father, Mohammad Anwar, are cousins. Ammi came here after her nikah," said Tasleem, who has visited her relatives in Pakistan a couple of times, the last when she was in the eighth standard. Akhtari made three trips thereafter, mostly to attend weddings. "When her sister died, she did not get a visa to go. I saw her cry that day," said the teenager. Anwar, who makes plastic components for refrigerators, avoids the hassles of the trip across, preferring to let Akhtari go.

Most of the 50 teenagers attending an art workshop at Malerkotla said they had gone to Pakistan when they were under 12. "My father’s parents are here, but their brothers and sisters are all there," said Shabnam.

The great divide in their lives has made most people now rethink about trans-border nikahs. Rafia, who has just finished her matric, said that her parents thought of finding a match from Pakistan for her. She is ready to marry whoever her parents want her to. "Two of my mother’s sisters are married in Pakistan. They are happy, so I don’t see any problems," she said. But her grandmother Jafri is averse to any such idea. "I don’t want to add to my sorrow," she said. "When I married my two daughters to their cousins in Pakistan, I didn’t imagine that it would be so difficult to walk that one little step into Pakistan."

Ulfat, with eyes weary of waiting, is eager to make that small, yet difficult step. "Are they issuing visas easily? I heard they are," said the 65-year-old. "The day the medication for this cataract operation is over, I will run to Pakistan." Ulfat was born in Patiala; she migrated to Sargoda in Pakistan as a little girl in 1947. Seven years later, she married Abdul Rahman of Malerkotla. Though she missed her brothers in Pakistan, she found solace in the presence of her sister Umri, who was also married in Malerkotla. Many times she wanted to go, but it was difficult to get a visa. When she could not go for a brother’s funeral a few years ago, she cried unabashedly in front of her grandchildren.

Many more are just waiting for a chance to cross the border to see their relatives. Mohammad Idris, 28, and some of his friends have left for Delhi to apply for visas. His wife, who holds a Pakistani passport, went a few days earlier.

None of Malerkotla’s Muslims had received relatives from across the border till July 15, but many were sure they would come soon. Sajida has two sisters-in-law in Pakistan. "They used to come every year till three years ago. Then there was not even a phone call," she said. "Last week one of them called to say they plan to come soon."

"If there is a permanent opening of the borders, all our problems will be solved," said Mohammad Rafi, a profewssor at Government College. According to him, that will, however, not make educated young Muslims like him go for alliances across the border. "Pakistan is another country, just like the US or the UK," he said, adding that people had reconciled to the idea of marrying from Saharanpur or Muzaffarnagar.

Rafi’s mother had gone to Pakistan in 1984 and she died there. "I have seen her suffer and would not like the younger generation to suffer that way," he said. His father, Mohammad Shafi, 92, is believed to be the oldest man now in Malerkotla. In 1947, Shafi’s in-law has been inviting him till a few years ago to come over. "Now there is no communication between him and me," he said. "There is pain, but no sorrow." INAV

PoK terrorists perturbed over bad publicity

By P N Khera

According to information available militant groups operating in PoK are perturbed over the bad publicity received by them after the failure of assassination attempt on the Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistani official sources have implicated militant groups like Hizbul-Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba for the attack on Gen Pervez Musharraf on Dec 14 and 25.

These militant groups are specially worried over the adverse publicity by the International news agencies like BBC, CNN etc operating from Jammu & Kashmir and PoK.

Experts on terror groups in PoK fear a strike against foreign scribes, as in the past also there militant groups had targeted Wall Streat journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi due to adverse publicity?

What needs to be taken with a pinch of salt is the assertion by officials in Islamabad that the terrorist groups Hizbul Mujabideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba "are groups operating in PoK" because it seems to be making out that the modules operating in PoK are separate and distinct from mother organistions functioning from the Pakistani heartland.

It is only for tactical reasons that the men who made the suicide attack on President-General Pervez Musharraf were selected by the mother organization operating from places like Muridke, Karachi and Peshawar to carry out the attack. The intention clearly was to make it appear that persons disgruntled with Musharraf’s recent ceasefire along the Line of Control were venting their opposition.

The truth is that an organization more centrally located within the Islamabad-Rawalpindi twin-city megapolis planned and executed both attacks that occurred within the prescints of the Rawalpindi Army Corps inspite of the much-publicised bans and restrictions announced by the Musharraf regime against terrorist organizations operating in Pakistan.

It is this blatant farce that foreign journalists and stringers working for foreign newspapers have been highlighting in their reports. For instance Syed Saleem Shahzad in a report in the South Asia Tribune had said: "First-hand observations by this correspondent in Azad Kashmir camps confirm that the jihadi outfits are in fact paramilitary troops. Each unit has a commander who reports to an army officer.

Each jihadi commander is given funds and the brief to devise a strategy for his unit's combat operations. The commanders have lap top computers in which they store their data, from which they generate summaries of their operations for their military officers. The summaries include targets, operations and results. The jihadi commanders and army field officers always coordinate their efforts.

Pro-jihadi clerics, like Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, are used to deliver sermons, and they are not allowed to utter a single word more than the topic on which they have been told to speak.

Shahzad concludes: "For Pakistan then, the ISI, the jihadis and the army are in one mind…."

It is the fear of more of this kind of reportage among the powers that be in Pakistan controlling terrorism globally that caused the murder of Wall Street Journal staffer Daniel Pearl. He was reported to have been ferreting information of networking and money laundering methods of international terrorists operating out of Pakistan when he was lured to the den and murdered in true jehadi fashion after a long incarceration – his throat was slit.

The attempt to delink and distance the terrorists operating out of PoK and those with headquarters and logistics arrangements inside Pakistan itself is therefore part of a larger cover-up.

If the attempt on the life of the Chief Executive Officer of Pakistan is attributed to elements operating out of a peripheral outpost then it indicates that someone or some group within the Pakistan Army itself would want to point the finger away from the core group.

So far as newspaper coverage of developments in Pakistan are concerned there have been over the years many instances of harassment of journalists by jehadi groups the most blatant being the attack on the JANG office some time ago.

It is through international reportage that the accent has focused on direct Pakistani involvement in the training and infiltration of terrorist across the Line of Control into Jammu and Kashmir and the camouflage has been lifted from Pakistan’s attempts to portray the terrorists as Kashmiris fighting a war of liberation and that what is happening in the Valley and elsewhere in India is part of a campaign of "self-determination for the people of Kashmir".

Those who link Pakistan’s decision to order a unilateral ceasefire along the Line of Control and the Actual Ground Position Line in the Siahen Glacier to pressure from Washington are likely to become targets of the jehadis for exposing the hollowness of their proclaimed mission.Most western journalists tend to draw the conclusion in their reports that Pakistan has acted in Jammu and Kashmir under pressure from the US and most of the exposes of the interlinkages between the Pakistan-based terrorists and those operating as far away as the Philippines and Chechnya have come from western journalists. (ADNI)