1971 in 2000
Salman Akhtar August 20, 2000
#130 Posted by krashid on August 26, 2000 1:21:08 am
Faridinkum #94
As far as voicing of opposite response to establishment in 1971.
I think apart from Bhutto, representing mainly Punjab (his hold on Sind was much less at that time) and Jamat-e-Islami representing mainly Mohajirs of West Pakistan and East Pakistan Biharis, other forces were vocally opponent to establishment line. NAP of Wali Khan a formidable force and eminent leader at that time was very vocal. I cannot recall, clearly but leadership of Baluchistan and G.M Syed from Sind must have taken sides with Bengal against establishment.
As far as voicing of opposite response to establishment in 1971.
I think apart from Bhutto, representing mainly Punjab (his hold on Sind was much less at that time) and Jamat-e-Islami representing mainly Mohajirs of West Pakistan and East Pakistan Biharis, other forces were vocally opponent to establishment line. NAP of Wali Khan a formidable force and eminent leader at that time was very vocal. I cannot recall, clearly but leadership of Baluchistan and G.M Syed from Sind must have taken sides with Bengal against establishment.
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#131 Posted by krashid on August 26, 2000 1:21:08 am
Nameless #95
After all these articles do I have something interesting to say?
Interesting thing to say is that they are coming from Pakistanis.
After all these articles do I have something interesting to say?
Interesting thing to say is that they are coming from Pakistanis.
#132 Posted by krashid on August 26, 2000 1:21:08 am
Pankaj #89
Macgupta was telling us to do a little mathematics.
I think it is calculus, which I don`t know.
Macgupta was telling us to do a little mathematics.
I think it is calculus, which I don`t know.
#133 Posted by ferozk on August 26, 2000 2:32:16 am
Re: Narain # 116
Good point! There is a slight difference between CCCP`s collapse and Pakistan. CCCP had a well established command and control authority over its nuclear weapons. Pakistan is still articulating its C&C doctrine.
The Red Army despite its political raison d etre was apolitical in the sense that it was created by Leo Trotsky to defend communism and that was its primary aim; safe guard the status quo and was not like the Pakistan army, which actively encourages inteventionist scenrios. When the CCCP broke apart, the Red Army was able to retain its control over the deployment of its nuclear weapons. Can the Pakistan Army promise the same fail-safe conditions? What has the Pakistan Army done, by actions and not words, to reinforce this impression! Remember my caveat about perceptions in IR!
As to your other question, yes; there would seem to a difference of affinity between the people of the Indus and the people of NWFP and Baluchistan!
Hope this helps!
bahmad # 113
As to which policies I was refering to, let me answer that by quoting Gen. J. Karamat: ``insecurity driven policies``.
Who is to blame for all of this, the well to do edicated classes of Pakistan, because the people of Pakistan have been lied to for the last 53 years and thus, to an extent can be excused from this mea culpa!
What myopic policies? All policies that were changed by the whim of a person who happened to be the ruler, not a leader, because it was made by someone else! All policies made in self interest and not in the long term interests of the country! Pakistan has been blessed with leaders who have been led and by captains who were not couregous!
Pakistani politics are motivated by intolerance and sustained by betrayals and this will not change unless we, the people of Pakistan, admit to our own sins in bringing Pakistan to the sorry state it today finds itself!
Ciao!
Good point! There is a slight difference between CCCP`s collapse and Pakistan. CCCP had a well established command and control authority over its nuclear weapons. Pakistan is still articulating its C&C doctrine.
The Red Army despite its political raison d etre was apolitical in the sense that it was created by Leo Trotsky to defend communism and that was its primary aim; safe guard the status quo and was not like the Pakistan army, which actively encourages inteventionist scenrios. When the CCCP broke apart, the Red Army was able to retain its control over the deployment of its nuclear weapons. Can the Pakistan Army promise the same fail-safe conditions? What has the Pakistan Army done, by actions and not words, to reinforce this impression! Remember my caveat about perceptions in IR!
As to your other question, yes; there would seem to a difference of affinity between the people of the Indus and the people of NWFP and Baluchistan!
Hope this helps!
bahmad # 113
As to which policies I was refering to, let me answer that by quoting Gen. J. Karamat: ``insecurity driven policies``.
Who is to blame for all of this, the well to do edicated classes of Pakistan, because the people of Pakistan have been lied to for the last 53 years and thus, to an extent can be excused from this mea culpa!
What myopic policies? All policies that were changed by the whim of a person who happened to be the ruler, not a leader, because it was made by someone else! All policies made in self interest and not in the long term interests of the country! Pakistan has been blessed with leaders who have been led and by captains who were not couregous!
Pakistani politics are motivated by intolerance and sustained by betrayals and this will not change unless we, the people of Pakistan, admit to our own sins in bringing Pakistan to the sorry state it today finds itself!
Ciao!
#134 Posted by Asim on August 26, 2000 9:19:20 am
Krashid,
I am in complete agreement with yourself regarding your post #128, where you take great pains to educate some of the indians onboard regarding the difference between secularism and fascism, and how its the majority which votes for a particular government, which is primarily responsible for what transpires post-election. Indeed too was elected!
The following article describes in some excruciating detail the origins and rise of BJP, in a supposedly secular India...
If your indian friends are getting on your case about how India is above religion, and how in the next century they are going to leave religion behind(as some of mine were often hint at), this is information which clearly contradicts their claims.
Not that i am saying Pakistan is absolved of all wrongdoing, in the same areas of human rights, womens rights, ethnic hatred, and abuse. Despite Urstruly`s very relevant quotations from the international and indian media of circa 1971, the fact still is that it was our politicians /military cohorts who could not bear the sight of short, dark skinned, rice eating Benaglis as our rulers. That our prejudices do run skin deep about;that we still try to relate to arabs more so than the indians; the same arabs who make us feel so diminutive abd pedestrian at airports in the middle east by lumping us like cattle under the broad heading,..``Indian/Pakistani``,..while the other counters blatantly declare,..``All other nationalities``. What is our identity. Muslims is not important enough to the Arabs, obviosuly, but i digress.
Regards
Asim
The Hindutva laboratary
(By Akshaya Mukul)
The dividing line between old and new in Ahmedabad is the decrepit wall erected in the 15th century by its founder Sultan Ahmed Shah.
Today, it’s called the ‘Berlin Wall’ because it has become, over the last decade, both a physical and an emotional-psychological barrier, separating Hindu settlements in spanking new areas from Muslim clusters in the walled city. Those who, consciously or otherwise, choose to defy this segregation do so at their peril. Senior journalist Ashraf Sayeed learnt this the hard way. Some years ago, when Ahmedabad was in the grip of continual communal violence, his Hindu friends advised him to shift from Patrakar Colony to a “safer area” as they feared they would not be able to protect him for long. But when Sayeed tried to purchase a house in posh Gandhinagar, his prospective neighbours forced the Hindu property owner to rescind the deal. Today, he lives in a house bought from a Muslim; predictably, it’s in a Muslim neighbourhood.
Similarly, Hanif Lakdawala and his Christian wife Sheeba George, could not rent space for their Institute for Initiatives in Education. Ultimately, a Brahmin friend helped them. The obverse is equally true: Hindus in Muslim areas face a backlash.
Indeed, the state which produced the apostle of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, is a simmering cauldron of hatred. The few who care are mocked at. Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh utilises the Bharatiya Janata Party’s being in government to relentlessly push its divisive agenda.
The public has been so co-opted that the state government’s recent decision to lift the ban on its officials joining the RSS was met with indifference. Similar was the response when banners declaring, “Vishwa Hindu Parishad welcomes you to Hindu Rashtra’s village” mushroomed in several villages following the anti-Christian incidents in Dangs in 1998.
“Only a few decisions are taken publicly,” says former chief minister Shankarsinh Vaghela, once a leading light of the RSS in Gujarat. “The rest is a covert RSS operation, deftly planned and executed. In doing this, the RSS can go to any extent, even kill.”
But killing is usually unnecessary. Threats and intimidation are enough to hasten ghettoisation. When this fails, minorities, especially those in petty business, are boycotted. This is precisely how Muslim autorickshaw drivers were driven out of Bardoli last year.
State home minister Haren Pandya protests that “a communal hue should not be imparted to local issues.” He euphorically cites statistics to show that the number of people killed in communal riots has dipped during the BJP’s five-year tenure.
A senior bureaucrat counters: “The idea is to exert constant pressure on the minorities, and make them realise that the terms of their existence will be set by the majority. Since the government is a party to this, you don’t have to achieve this through riots and killings.”
Adds Lakdawala, “Even the recent Christian bashing was well-planned. You could read slogans like pehle kasai, baad mein isai — first butchers (Muslims), then Christians — on public walls in interior Gujarat way back in the Eighties.”
Why is the RSS using Gujarat as a laboratory for its Hindutva project? And when did this process begin? Replies Achyut Yagnik, coordinator of the Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, “It began with the 1969 riots in which nearly 2,000 people were killed. The involvement of the RSS, Hindu Dharma Raksha Samiti and Jan Sangh was brought out by the P Jagmohan Reddy inquiry commission.”
Gujarat politics underwent a change in the Seventies. The hegemony of the powerful Patidar (Patel) community, exercised through the Congress, was being increasingly challenged. Following the famous Navnirman movement against Congress chief minister Chimanbhai Patel, the party realised that, post-Emergency, it needed a new social alliance to stay in power.
Consequently, it forged the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) coalition and stormed to power. When Madhavsinh Solanki formed his Cabinet, Patidars found themselves out of favour. Says Yagnik, “For the first time, there was a divorce between political and economic power. It was an impossible situation.”
Looking for new patrons, Patidars found their opportunity in the anti-reservation struggle that began a year later. The BJP, whose earlier incarnate, Jan Sangh, had built a strong upper caste base through the RSS, grabbed the leadership of the movement.
The picture was now clear: upper castes were drifting towards the BJP; OBCs, Dalits and Muslims towards the Congress. (Dalit-Muslim unity was easily forged because the strong influence of vegetarianism in the state forced them to live in the same neighbourhoods.)
In 1985, Solanki increased OBC reservations from 10 to 28 per cent, incurred the wrath of anti-reservationists — and bagged 84 per cent of the seats in the election that year. The Sangh, now fearing that its patronage of the anti-reservation stir would alienate it from lower castes, gave a communal twist to the movement. A series of riots inexplicably broke out in the walled city.
The focus shifted. A section of OBCs were wooed and coopted into the Sangh’s upper caste alliance. Simultaneously, Solanki could not uplift the marginalised sections among the KHAM alliance — and disenchantment set in.
Thus, in the late Eighties, the BJP began invoking religious symbols to cash in on the dissatisfaction. Since tribals (7 per cent) and Dalits (15 per cent) constituted a substantial vote bank, the Sangh’s myriad outfits like the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram started working among tribals, providing relief and indoctrinating them.
The attempt to break tribal-Dalit-Muslim unity succeeded in 1987 when, during a riot in Virpur on the Kheda-Panchmahal district border, tribals attacked Muslims for the first time. KHAM had given way to the politics of religion.
This mobilisation was complete when LK Advani’s infamous Rath Yatra was flagged off on September 25, 1990 from the Somnath temple, its place in Hindu-Muslim communal history acting as the catalyst.
In 1990, the BJP’s alliance with VP Singh’s Janata Dal helped it increase its seats and enter the coalition government. And in 1995, the BJP was in power on its own. Gujarat was thus a successful test case for the BJP, proving the virtues of wooing the middleclasses and gobbling allies.
But why is the average Hindu Gujarati inclined towards extreme and divisive politics? Yagnik traces this to the rapid urbanisation of Gujarat: “This led the middleclass to see itself as a block. It realised that the Hindu identity could counter KHAM.”
Similarly, at the block and village level, the capitalist growth of agriculture and the White Revolution enhanced the prosperity of the farming community, which now wanted to express itself politically. Upwardly mobile farmers were attracted to the VHP and Bajrang Dal because they provided an alternative to subaltern politics. This has resulted in the BJP controlling the state’s powerful and rich cooperatives.
Even tribal and Dalit government officials (Gujarat Dalits have the highest literacy rate among their brethren — 61 per cent) find the Hindutva ideology resolves their identity crisis in cities, where the upper-caste dominated middleclasses scoff at lower-caste identification. Obviously, it also helps to get co-opted.
“Hindutva rhetoric wasn’t just meant for coming to power,” Vaghela points out. “The idea is to perpetuate it for eternity.” For this, the RSS needs yes-men in the BJP and government. This was the reason, claims Vaghela, he was sidelined despite building the party in the state. “I could have posed difficulties for their fascist mechanism of zero-debate,” he says.
Vaghela says even Prime Minister Vajpayee has experienced the RSS’ intolerance for debate. In 1980, he wrote an article, “Whither RSS?”, in a national daily. “So furious was the Sangh leadership that it decided to defeat Vajpayee in the 1984 election — and it did. Vajpayee seriously contemplated leaving the RSS, and even wrote a poem, Jayen to jayen kahan. (Where should I go?) But he missed the bus,” says Vaghela.
But RSS propagandist Mukund Deobhankar says the state is not being saffronised — because it was always saffron. “It’s only more visible now,” he claims, arguing that a Hindu state has its advantages: “If we grow, the minorities will be safe. For, the followers of other religions will have to share our vision of India and its culture. Then, we won’t mind accommodating two more gods (Allah and Christ) along with our 33 crore gods and goddesses.”
Deobhankar justifies the government’s decision to lift the ban on police officers and government employees joining the RSS. Agrees home minister Pandya, “When the chief minister and I are from the RSS, how does it matter if an employee goes to the shakha?”
But a senior bureaucrat in his ministry warns, “Those Hindu employees who don’t join the RSS will be isolated. And your RSS link will become a deciding factor in promotion. I am dead set against the move.”
Economist Meghnad Desai wrote about Gujarat in 1998, “Gods are worshipped in large social gatherings in much the same way as the British go to soccer games on Saturdays as a consumption display event.” When a government relentlessly pushes a communal agenda in a state such as this, the seeds of hatred are easily sowed.
Gujarat is clearly a laboratory where the RSS is conducting its communal experiments. Gujarat today, India tomorrow
I am in complete agreement with yourself regarding your post #128, where you take great pains to educate some of the indians onboard regarding the difference between secularism and fascism, and how its the majority which votes for a particular government, which is primarily responsible for what transpires post-election. Indeed too was elected!
The following article describes in some excruciating detail the origins and rise of BJP, in a supposedly secular India...
If your indian friends are getting on your case about how India is above religion, and how in the next century they are going to leave religion behind(as some of mine were often hint at), this is information which clearly contradicts their claims.
Not that i am saying Pakistan is absolved of all wrongdoing, in the same areas of human rights, womens rights, ethnic hatred, and abuse. Despite Urstruly`s very relevant quotations from the international and indian media of circa 1971, the fact still is that it was our politicians /military cohorts who could not bear the sight of short, dark skinned, rice eating Benaglis as our rulers. That our prejudices do run skin deep about;that we still try to relate to arabs more so than the indians; the same arabs who make us feel so diminutive abd pedestrian at airports in the middle east by lumping us like cattle under the broad heading,..``Indian/Pakistani``,..while the other counters blatantly declare,..``All other nationalities``. What is our identity. Muslims is not important enough to the Arabs, obviosuly, but i digress.
Regards
Asim
The Hindutva laboratary
(By Akshaya Mukul)
The dividing line between old and new in Ahmedabad is the decrepit wall erected in the 15th century by its founder Sultan Ahmed Shah.
Today, it’s called the ‘Berlin Wall’ because it has become, over the last decade, both a physical and an emotional-psychological barrier, separating Hindu settlements in spanking new areas from Muslim clusters in the walled city. Those who, consciously or otherwise, choose to defy this segregation do so at their peril. Senior journalist Ashraf Sayeed learnt this the hard way. Some years ago, when Ahmedabad was in the grip of continual communal violence, his Hindu friends advised him to shift from Patrakar Colony to a “safer area” as they feared they would not be able to protect him for long. But when Sayeed tried to purchase a house in posh Gandhinagar, his prospective neighbours forced the Hindu property owner to rescind the deal. Today, he lives in a house bought from a Muslim; predictably, it’s in a Muslim neighbourhood.
Similarly, Hanif Lakdawala and his Christian wife Sheeba George, could not rent space for their Institute for Initiatives in Education. Ultimately, a Brahmin friend helped them. The obverse is equally true: Hindus in Muslim areas face a backlash.
Indeed, the state which produced the apostle of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, is a simmering cauldron of hatred. The few who care are mocked at. Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh utilises the Bharatiya Janata Party’s being in government to relentlessly push its divisive agenda.
The public has been so co-opted that the state government’s recent decision to lift the ban on its officials joining the RSS was met with indifference. Similar was the response when banners declaring, “Vishwa Hindu Parishad welcomes you to Hindu Rashtra’s village” mushroomed in several villages following the anti-Christian incidents in Dangs in 1998.
“Only a few decisions are taken publicly,” says former chief minister Shankarsinh Vaghela, once a leading light of the RSS in Gujarat. “The rest is a covert RSS operation, deftly planned and executed. In doing this, the RSS can go to any extent, even kill.”
But killing is usually unnecessary. Threats and intimidation are enough to hasten ghettoisation. When this fails, minorities, especially those in petty business, are boycotted. This is precisely how Muslim autorickshaw drivers were driven out of Bardoli last year.
State home minister Haren Pandya protests that “a communal hue should not be imparted to local issues.” He euphorically cites statistics to show that the number of people killed in communal riots has dipped during the BJP’s five-year tenure.
A senior bureaucrat counters: “The idea is to exert constant pressure on the minorities, and make them realise that the terms of their existence will be set by the majority. Since the government is a party to this, you don’t have to achieve this through riots and killings.”
Adds Lakdawala, “Even the recent Christian bashing was well-planned. You could read slogans like pehle kasai, baad mein isai — first butchers (Muslims), then Christians — on public walls in interior Gujarat way back in the Eighties.”
Why is the RSS using Gujarat as a laboratory for its Hindutva project? And when did this process begin? Replies Achyut Yagnik, coordinator of the Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, “It began with the 1969 riots in which nearly 2,000 people were killed. The involvement of the RSS, Hindu Dharma Raksha Samiti and Jan Sangh was brought out by the P Jagmohan Reddy inquiry commission.”
Gujarat politics underwent a change in the Seventies. The hegemony of the powerful Patidar (Patel) community, exercised through the Congress, was being increasingly challenged. Following the famous Navnirman movement against Congress chief minister Chimanbhai Patel, the party realised that, post-Emergency, it needed a new social alliance to stay in power.
Consequently, it forged the KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) coalition and stormed to power. When Madhavsinh Solanki formed his Cabinet, Patidars found themselves out of favour. Says Yagnik, “For the first time, there was a divorce between political and economic power. It was an impossible situation.”
Looking for new patrons, Patidars found their opportunity in the anti-reservation struggle that began a year later. The BJP, whose earlier incarnate, Jan Sangh, had built a strong upper caste base through the RSS, grabbed the leadership of the movement.
The picture was now clear: upper castes were drifting towards the BJP; OBCs, Dalits and Muslims towards the Congress. (Dalit-Muslim unity was easily forged because the strong influence of vegetarianism in the state forced them to live in the same neighbourhoods.)
In 1985, Solanki increased OBC reservations from 10 to 28 per cent, incurred the wrath of anti-reservationists — and bagged 84 per cent of the seats in the election that year. The Sangh, now fearing that its patronage of the anti-reservation stir would alienate it from lower castes, gave a communal twist to the movement. A series of riots inexplicably broke out in the walled city.
The focus shifted. A section of OBCs were wooed and coopted into the Sangh’s upper caste alliance. Simultaneously, Solanki could not uplift the marginalised sections among the KHAM alliance — and disenchantment set in.
Thus, in the late Eighties, the BJP began invoking religious symbols to cash in on the dissatisfaction. Since tribals (7 per cent) and Dalits (15 per cent) constituted a substantial vote bank, the Sangh’s myriad outfits like the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram started working among tribals, providing relief and indoctrinating them.
The attempt to break tribal-Dalit-Muslim unity succeeded in 1987 when, during a riot in Virpur on the Kheda-Panchmahal district border, tribals attacked Muslims for the first time. KHAM had given way to the politics of religion.
This mobilisation was complete when LK Advani’s infamous Rath Yatra was flagged off on September 25, 1990 from the Somnath temple, its place in Hindu-Muslim communal history acting as the catalyst.
In 1990, the BJP’s alliance with VP Singh’s Janata Dal helped it increase its seats and enter the coalition government. And in 1995, the BJP was in power on its own. Gujarat was thus a successful test case for the BJP, proving the virtues of wooing the middleclasses and gobbling allies.
But why is the average Hindu Gujarati inclined towards extreme and divisive politics? Yagnik traces this to the rapid urbanisation of Gujarat: “This led the middleclass to see itself as a block. It realised that the Hindu identity could counter KHAM.”
Similarly, at the block and village level, the capitalist growth of agriculture and the White Revolution enhanced the prosperity of the farming community, which now wanted to express itself politically. Upwardly mobile farmers were attracted to the VHP and Bajrang Dal because they provided an alternative to subaltern politics. This has resulted in the BJP controlling the state’s powerful and rich cooperatives.
Even tribal and Dalit government officials (Gujarat Dalits have the highest literacy rate among their brethren — 61 per cent) find the Hindutva ideology resolves their identity crisis in cities, where the upper-caste dominated middleclasses scoff at lower-caste identification. Obviously, it also helps to get co-opted.
“Hindutva rhetoric wasn’t just meant for coming to power,” Vaghela points out. “The idea is to perpetuate it for eternity.” For this, the RSS needs yes-men in the BJP and government. This was the reason, claims Vaghela, he was sidelined despite building the party in the state. “I could have posed difficulties for their fascist mechanism of zero-debate,” he says.
Vaghela says even Prime Minister Vajpayee has experienced the RSS’ intolerance for debate. In 1980, he wrote an article, “Whither RSS?”, in a national daily. “So furious was the Sangh leadership that it decided to defeat Vajpayee in the 1984 election — and it did. Vajpayee seriously contemplated leaving the RSS, and even wrote a poem, Jayen to jayen kahan. (Where should I go?) But he missed the bus,” says Vaghela.
But RSS propagandist Mukund Deobhankar says the state is not being saffronised — because it was always saffron. “It’s only more visible now,” he claims, arguing that a Hindu state has its advantages: “If we grow, the minorities will be safe. For, the followers of other religions will have to share our vision of India and its culture. Then, we won’t mind accommodating two more gods (Allah and Christ) along with our 33 crore gods and goddesses.”
Deobhankar justifies the government’s decision to lift the ban on police officers and government employees joining the RSS. Agrees home minister Pandya, “When the chief minister and I are from the RSS, how does it matter if an employee goes to the shakha?”
But a senior bureaucrat in his ministry warns, “Those Hindu employees who don’t join the RSS will be isolated. And your RSS link will become a deciding factor in promotion. I am dead set against the move.”
Economist Meghnad Desai wrote about Gujarat in 1998, “Gods are worshipped in large social gatherings in much the same way as the British go to soccer games on Saturdays as a consumption display event.” When a government relentlessly pushes a communal agenda in a state such as this, the seeds of hatred are easily sowed.
Gujarat is clearly a laboratory where the RSS is conducting its communal experiments. Gujarat today, India tomorrow
#135 Posted by veeresh on August 26, 2000 9:19:20 am
I think the most important thing to emerge out of this article by Salman Akhtar and the HR report before that at India Today is that the interNet is causing all of us to look inwards more than outwards. Maybe we shud try to concentrate more on that aspect?
As for the Pakistan-Banglade4sh and india question, I do not think that any of us is doing particularly well, regardless of how many pieces we chop each other or our countries into.
The truth is, sadly, that we, all of us, never really became free. Maybe we still need a revolution, a bloody one. Not just firing line over the InterNet. Maybe that is the true role for chowk, a million guns bloom here?
#136 Posted by jay on August 26, 2000 9:19:20 am
CONTOURS OF A PEACE AGREEMENT
Due to the honest work of chowkwallas like bd, zeemax, iahmed and the dishonest utterences of you know who, at last there is indo-pak peace, signed after a brief meeting between CE and Vajpaye at the heights of Kargil. As part of the agreement (1) The pak.org version of history will be changed to reflect the hammodr rehman report and recognise the timeless history of the land that now constitute pakistan (2) 200,000 madrassas in pakistan producing the Jihadic Killers will be transformed Java Koders with the help of our own Wipro headed by a muslim (3) All of the surviving jihadist as of today will be given an option to go to heaven on their own or take a harder route as deciples of Mother Teresa (4) All of the children of TNT brought up on a diet of hatred will be tdentified through an IQ test and lobotomised (5) IMF and WB will create a special fund to sustain the corrupt of pakistan (6) A UN resolution will declare that all that happened to pakistan so far and into the future is not due to pakistanis, it is due to others.
Due to the honest work of chowkwallas like bd, zeemax, iahmed and the dishonest utterences of you know who, at last there is indo-pak peace, signed after a brief meeting between CE and Vajpaye at the heights of Kargil. As part of the agreement (1) The pak.org version of history will be changed to reflect the hammodr rehman report and recognise the timeless history of the land that now constitute pakistan (2) 200,000 madrassas in pakistan producing the Jihadic Killers will be transformed Java Koders with the help of our own Wipro headed by a muslim (3) All of the surviving jihadist as of today will be given an option to go to heaven on their own or take a harder route as deciples of Mother Teresa (4) All of the children of TNT brought up on a diet of hatred will be tdentified through an IQ test and lobotomised (5) IMF and WB will create a special fund to sustain the corrupt of pakistan (6) A UN resolution will declare that all that happened to pakistan so far and into the future is not due to pakistanis, it is due to others.
#137 Posted by nameless on August 26, 2000 9:19:20 am
It is great that every one is discussing the Hamdoor Report. However a few question remain unanswered.
(a) Who leaked the report?
(b) why was it leaked?
and third question of why was it releases just before independence day - is moot -since once it is leaked to a publication it is up to them to use it when they think it is right.
The answers to questions (a) and (b) could be related to the CIVIL SERVICE/Political reforms of Mushy Baby announced just before the leak. Think about it - any answers suggestions indicators pointers to the truth - Bilal Ahmad how about you - you seem to have a finger on the pulse.....
(a) Who leaked the report?
(b) why was it leaked?
and third question of why was it releases just before independence day - is moot -since once it is leaked to a publication it is up to them to use it when they think it is right.
The answers to questions (a) and (b) could be related to the CIVIL SERVICE/Political reforms of Mushy Baby announced just before the leak. Think about it - any answers suggestions indicators pointers to the truth - Bilal Ahmad how about you - you seem to have a finger on the pulse.....
#138 Posted by jay on August 26, 2000 9:19:20 am
LEST WE FORGET
NEW DELHI, AUG 25: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will be setting a record of sorts when he steps out of the country on September five on his official visit to the US.
He will be the first PM since Independence to be away from the country for full 15 days. Earlier, he was to return to the Capital on September 18. The rescheduled programme, which was finalised yesterday, indicates that he will now return to the Capital on September 19 night.
Vajpayee will now take off from Washington on the morning of September 18 after one-to-one meeting with President Bill Clinton in his Oval Office and banquet on September 17 evening - and halt at Amsterdam.
The Dutch Queen will host a dinner for the visiting Indian
/////////////////
There was a time when the nuclear power pakistans prime minister visited US he was not allowed into the white house. There was no food and he had to get it from the nearest KFC. Bomb has enhanced the prestige of pakistan, who said it, ferozk, krashid or ylh, may be at the KFC drive through counter.
NEW DELHI, AUG 25: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will be setting a record of sorts when he steps out of the country on September five on his official visit to the US.
He will be the first PM since Independence to be away from the country for full 15 days. Earlier, he was to return to the Capital on September 18. The rescheduled programme, which was finalised yesterday, indicates that he will now return to the Capital on September 19 night.
Vajpayee will now take off from Washington on the morning of September 18 after one-to-one meeting with President Bill Clinton in his Oval Office and banquet on September 17 evening - and halt at Amsterdam.
The Dutch Queen will host a dinner for the visiting Indian
/////////////////
There was a time when the nuclear power pakistans prime minister visited US he was not allowed into the white house. There was no food and he had to get it from the nearest KFC. Bomb has enhanced the prestige of pakistan, who said it, ferozk, krashid or ylh, may be at the KFC drive through counter.
#139 Posted by shankar on August 26, 2000 9:19:20 am
KRashid,
{{My family, the whole clan is doing much much better then my clan left in India in OPTIMISM):}}
That is the same, tired argument that muslims who have migrated to Pakistan say over & over again. I`m happy for you that the Pakistani side of the clan is doing so much better.
I`m just curious why Indian muslims are not migrating in waves to Pakistan? After all, the land of the pure is paradise for muslims, is`nt it?! Are the fascist hindus holding them in chains to be oppressed in India? I wonder why their perception of reality is so much different than yours?
{{My family, the whole clan is doing much much better then my clan left in India in OPTIMISM):}}
That is the same, tired argument that muslims who have migrated to Pakistan say over & over again. I`m happy for you that the Pakistani side of the clan is doing so much better.
I`m just curious why Indian muslims are not migrating in waves to Pakistan? After all, the land of the pure is paradise for muslims, is`nt it?! Are the fascist hindus holding them in chains to be oppressed in India? I wonder why their perception of reality is so much different than yours?
#140 Posted by shankar on August 26, 2000 9:19:20 am
KRashid,
A bully is a person who will pick on a weaker person without provaction.
A weaker nation like Pakistan constantly provokes India. It was Pakistan who provoked India in 65 with Operation Gibraltor. It was Pakistan who provoked India in 71 by sending millions of refugees into India. It is still provoking India in Kashmir.
Pakistan is like an irritating mosquito that constantly buzzes in India`s ear. When Indian patience runs out, she swats Pakistan. Then Pakistan runs to the rest of the world, shouting ``bully,bully``.
You dont have sugar daddy America to protect you this time.Free lunch is over.
A bully is a person who will pick on a weaker person without provaction.
A weaker nation like Pakistan constantly provokes India. It was Pakistan who provoked India in 65 with Operation Gibraltor. It was Pakistan who provoked India in 71 by sending millions of refugees into India. It is still provoking India in Kashmir.
Pakistan is like an irritating mosquito that constantly buzzes in India`s ear. When Indian patience runs out, she swats Pakistan. Then Pakistan runs to the rest of the world, shouting ``bully,bully``.
You dont have sugar daddy America to protect you this time.Free lunch is over.
#141 Posted by ferozk on August 26, 2000 11:50:19 am
Re: Jay # 138
Nice try, Jay! :)
KFC not withstanding, my arguments about Pakistan`s N-weapons was not about garnering accolades from world leaders! The last thing our leaders need is a dinner from the Dutch queen! It is the height of personal indifference to have a dinner with a queen while your population is starving!
If the Dutch want to dine the Indian prime minister, it is their choice and we, as Pakistanis, should get out of this game of comparing everything with what India does! Now on the other hand, if you feel that your national honor is satisfied with baiting Pakistan and gloating on your success against its failures, you are more than welcome to the sentiment. While you are enjoying yourself, please do take a minute to realize that it is this sort of mind-set which is flaming the fires of hate between our two nations!
Personally, I do not have the time to participate in an orgy of mutual hate mongering with you nor do I have the time to hate India just to please you! :) I would like to second this opinion by saying that I think it is a folly and a waste of money that our two nations can create weapons of mass destructions, but they cannot create the means to offer clean safe drinking water to our people! You are free to disagree with me on this!
Let us find things which we have in common instead of finding things which keep us apart! Life is too short to be wasted in hating each other!
Ciao!
Nice try, Jay! :)
KFC not withstanding, my arguments about Pakistan`s N-weapons was not about garnering accolades from world leaders! The last thing our leaders need is a dinner from the Dutch queen! It is the height of personal indifference to have a dinner with a queen while your population is starving!
If the Dutch want to dine the Indian prime minister, it is their choice and we, as Pakistanis, should get out of this game of comparing everything with what India does! Now on the other hand, if you feel that your national honor is satisfied with baiting Pakistan and gloating on your success against its failures, you are more than welcome to the sentiment. While you are enjoying yourself, please do take a minute to realize that it is this sort of mind-set which is flaming the fires of hate between our two nations!
Personally, I do not have the time to participate in an orgy of mutual hate mongering with you nor do I have the time to hate India just to please you! :) I would like to second this opinion by saying that I think it is a folly and a waste of money that our two nations can create weapons of mass destructions, but they cannot create the means to offer clean safe drinking water to our people! You are free to disagree with me on this!
Let us find things which we have in common instead of finding things which keep us apart! Life is too short to be wasted in hating each other!
Ciao!
#142 Posted by bahmad on August 26, 2000 12:47:31 pm
In response to Ferozk (Reply # 141)
Dear Feroz:
Your statement: ``. . . I think it is a folly and a waste of money that our two nations can create weapons of mass destructions, but they cannot create the means to offer clean safe drinking water to our people!``
Comment: I agree! In addition to a waste of money, it is waste of human talent as well as humanity.
Sincerely, Bilal
Dear Feroz:
Your statement: ``. . . I think it is a folly and a waste of money that our two nations can create weapons of mass destructions, but they cannot create the means to offer clean safe drinking water to our people!``
Comment: I agree! In addition to a waste of money, it is waste of human talent as well as humanity.
Sincerely, Bilal
#143 Posted by mohajir on August 26, 2000 8:45:33 pm
East Pakistan debacle: another view
DAWN - By Sher Khan
SOME parts of the long suppressed Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report (HRCR) delving into the causes of the military debacle leading to the surrender of Pakistani forces in the erstwhile East Pakistan have finally seen the light of day. They were published, by design rather than coincidence, by an Indian periodical, India Today, to coincide with the 53rd independence day, so as to cause maximum embarrassment, it would seem, to Pakistan and discomfiture to the military establishment now in control.
One motivation might have been some of the very unpalatable remarks the report contains about the senior military personnel who ruled the country in the beginning of the seventies, and were in charge of East Pakistan`s affairs at that critical juncture. Timing is of the essence in anything that anyone or any entity does. To that extent, the publication of the supplementary report was perfectly timed by India Today, and perhaps those who gave the periodical a copy, for maximum effect. Dawn reproduced the report on August 14, and needless to say, it was read avidly by those who take an interest in Pakistan`s past, present and future.
Speculation is rife as to how India Today came to lay its hands on the supplementary report, and whether in due course it will publish the full report, too, if it has access to it. What happened to the copies of the HRCR after it was submitted to the Z.A. Bhutto government remains a matter of immense conjecture: were all the copies handed over, or were some copies held back? Then, when they were reportedly destroyed, were all the copies actually destroyed, or were some original copies or photocopies were secretly put away for possible future use?
There has been a clamour from various circles over the years, and renewed now, for the publication of the full HRCR, but no government has ever admitted to the existence of any copies in its possession, let alone publishing it for public knowledge because of its ``sensitive`` nature. The Pakistan governments in the past have not been the only ones to have suppressed the inquiry report of a debacle; the Indian government too has not yet published the report of the inquiry commission constituted after the drubbing of the Indian army at the hands of the Chinese in 1962.
As was to be expected, some well-placed persons who played key roles in the events leading up to the surrender on December 16, 1971, have not come out smelling of roses. Some have tried to defend their roles and their reputations via the print media, while others, mainly politicians, have come to the fore to defend the role of their patron ``saint`` who is generally held to be responsible in large measure for creating a situation whereby the Bengali leadership was forced virtually to unilaterally declare independence.
Since the publication of the supplementary report, a storm of sorts has been raised. Like all storms, this too shall blow over, and in no time it will be business as usual. Hopefully, some of the reasons that reportedly led to the deterioration in the calibre of highly reputed armed forces, as alluded to in the report, will be thoroughly examined at the appropriate level, and if there is any substance in such assessments or allegations, remarks, measures will be instituted to ensure that such weaknesses do not recur in the present structure of the military establishment.
Some of those who played a role in the events that led up to the debacle, or were witness from close quarters to such events have written a number of books. The objectivity of such narratives can at best be taken with a pinch of salt, for obvious reasons. Although some of them might make interesting reading for students of history, in most instances such books would appear to be attempts by their authors to plead their innocence. It would be unique if any one were to plead mea culpa.
A truly objective and detached view of such traumatic events can be taken only by informed and knowledgeable people who were not directly or indirectly involved in the events as they unfolded, and do not have an axe to grind or any skeletons to hide.
One such book is written by Lt. Gen. (retd) Kamal Matinuddin, under the title ``Tragedy of Errors (East Pakistan Crisis 1968-1971)``, published in 1993. The book is a painstaking and in-depth wok of research by a renowned military scholar, which took him to India and Bangladesh where he interviewed key players in the crisis, besides getting the viewpoints of numerous key personalities now residing in Pakistan.
His candid, incisive and forthright narrative traces the origin of the perceived or real discrimination against the East Pakistanis from the day the country came into existence, and their subsequent disenchantment and total alienation, eventually aided and abetted by India, particularly by the seventies. It dwells at length at how the Awami League was virtually robbed of the opportunity to form the government at the centre after its electoral victory in the first, and perhaps the last, free elections ever held in Pakistan.
The book describes the military operations in 1971 in vivid detail, and highlights the effects of the flawed thinking and lack of strategic vision that possessed those at the helm. It lays bare the unsustainability of the concept of defence of East Pakistan lying in West Pakistan, and how West Pakistan looked on helplessly as East Pakistan was invaded and then cut away from Pakistan by the Indian army. The utter futility of the thinly stretched out forces, heavily outnumbered, trying to fight off numerically superior forces in a hostile environment, without communications or logistics support or even heavy weapons comes out clearly.
Gen. Niazi`s big blunder of leaving the Dacca Bowl denuded of frontline troops so as to defend the fortresses along the international border comes out in vivid detail. When the Indian forces started to bypass the fortresses, and the end seemed near for the defenders, there was the futile effort to pull back into the Dacca Bowl, by which time it was too late because the 26,000 or so rear echelon troops were in no position to withstand the impending Indian onslaught.
To avert heavy civilian and military casualties, and with no relief in sight either through the UN, the US Seventh Fleet, or the Chinese from the north, the book brings out how the centre, and GHQ for that matter, left it to the theatre commander to decide whether to fight on to the bitterest end or surrender.
It narrates how those in West Pakistan were duped all along till the very end about the `resounding successes` of our forces in the field, while the theatre commander and his staff were fed lies about relief being around the corner, and urging them to hold out. The end, when it came, was swift - and ignominious for a fine and proud fighting force, not wanting in valour and courage in the rank and file.
If one can recall correctly, it was Capt. B.H. Liddle-Hart who once said, ``Battles are won and lost in the minds of the generals, not in the bodies of their men.`` In 1971, it seems that the Indian generals and politicians alike applied their minds better than did their Pakistani counterparts. However, let it not be forgotten that militarily, East Pakistan, a thousand air miles away from the west wing as the crow flies, and three times farther via Sri Lanka, with the Indian navy dominating the seas and the Indian air force having mastery of the skies, was indefensible except for a short period in which our leadership in Islamabad/Rawalpindi, and our ``friends`` could have negotiated a cease-fire to enable a political settlement to be worked out.
The opportunity was lost, or perhaps even subverted by those who stood to gain the most by the dismemberment of Pakistan. In the event, 93,000 servicemen from West Pakistan laid down their arms and were taken prisoner, and Bangladesh came into being.
DAWN - By Sher Khan
SOME parts of the long suppressed Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report (HRCR) delving into the causes of the military debacle leading to the surrender of Pakistani forces in the erstwhile East Pakistan have finally seen the light of day. They were published, by design rather than coincidence, by an Indian periodical, India Today, to coincide with the 53rd independence day, so as to cause maximum embarrassment, it would seem, to Pakistan and discomfiture to the military establishment now in control.
One motivation might have been some of the very unpalatable remarks the report contains about the senior military personnel who ruled the country in the beginning of the seventies, and were in charge of East Pakistan`s affairs at that critical juncture. Timing is of the essence in anything that anyone or any entity does. To that extent, the publication of the supplementary report was perfectly timed by India Today, and perhaps those who gave the periodical a copy, for maximum effect. Dawn reproduced the report on August 14, and needless to say, it was read avidly by those who take an interest in Pakistan`s past, present and future.
Speculation is rife as to how India Today came to lay its hands on the supplementary report, and whether in due course it will publish the full report, too, if it has access to it. What happened to the copies of the HRCR after it was submitted to the Z.A. Bhutto government remains a matter of immense conjecture: were all the copies handed over, or were some copies held back? Then, when they were reportedly destroyed, were all the copies actually destroyed, or were some original copies or photocopies were secretly put away for possible future use?
There has been a clamour from various circles over the years, and renewed now, for the publication of the full HRCR, but no government has ever admitted to the existence of any copies in its possession, let alone publishing it for public knowledge because of its ``sensitive`` nature. The Pakistan governments in the past have not been the only ones to have suppressed the inquiry report of a debacle; the Indian government too has not yet published the report of the inquiry commission constituted after the drubbing of the Indian army at the hands of the Chinese in 1962.
As was to be expected, some well-placed persons who played key roles in the events leading up to the surrender on December 16, 1971, have not come out smelling of roses. Some have tried to defend their roles and their reputations via the print media, while others, mainly politicians, have come to the fore to defend the role of their patron ``saint`` who is generally held to be responsible in large measure for creating a situation whereby the Bengali leadership was forced virtually to unilaterally declare independence.
Since the publication of the supplementary report, a storm of sorts has been raised. Like all storms, this too shall blow over, and in no time it will be business as usual. Hopefully, some of the reasons that reportedly led to the deterioration in the calibre of highly reputed armed forces, as alluded to in the report, will be thoroughly examined at the appropriate level, and if there is any substance in such assessments or allegations, remarks, measures will be instituted to ensure that such weaknesses do not recur in the present structure of the military establishment.
Some of those who played a role in the events that led up to the debacle, or were witness from close quarters to such events have written a number of books. The objectivity of such narratives can at best be taken with a pinch of salt, for obvious reasons. Although some of them might make interesting reading for students of history, in most instances such books would appear to be attempts by their authors to plead their innocence. It would be unique if any one were to plead mea culpa.
A truly objective and detached view of such traumatic events can be taken only by informed and knowledgeable people who were not directly or indirectly involved in the events as they unfolded, and do not have an axe to grind or any skeletons to hide.
One such book is written by Lt. Gen. (retd) Kamal Matinuddin, under the title ``Tragedy of Errors (East Pakistan Crisis 1968-1971)``, published in 1993. The book is a painstaking and in-depth wok of research by a renowned military scholar, which took him to India and Bangladesh where he interviewed key players in the crisis, besides getting the viewpoints of numerous key personalities now residing in Pakistan.
His candid, incisive and forthright narrative traces the origin of the perceived or real discrimination against the East Pakistanis from the day the country came into existence, and their subsequent disenchantment and total alienation, eventually aided and abetted by India, particularly by the seventies. It dwells at length at how the Awami League was virtually robbed of the opportunity to form the government at the centre after its electoral victory in the first, and perhaps the last, free elections ever held in Pakistan.
The book describes the military operations in 1971 in vivid detail, and highlights the effects of the flawed thinking and lack of strategic vision that possessed those at the helm. It lays bare the unsustainability of the concept of defence of East Pakistan lying in West Pakistan, and how West Pakistan looked on helplessly as East Pakistan was invaded and then cut away from Pakistan by the Indian army. The utter futility of the thinly stretched out forces, heavily outnumbered, trying to fight off numerically superior forces in a hostile environment, without communications or logistics support or even heavy weapons comes out clearly.
Gen. Niazi`s big blunder of leaving the Dacca Bowl denuded of frontline troops so as to defend the fortresses along the international border comes out in vivid detail. When the Indian forces started to bypass the fortresses, and the end seemed near for the defenders, there was the futile effort to pull back into the Dacca Bowl, by which time it was too late because the 26,000 or so rear echelon troops were in no position to withstand the impending Indian onslaught.
To avert heavy civilian and military casualties, and with no relief in sight either through the UN, the US Seventh Fleet, or the Chinese from the north, the book brings out how the centre, and GHQ for that matter, left it to the theatre commander to decide whether to fight on to the bitterest end or surrender.
It narrates how those in West Pakistan were duped all along till the very end about the `resounding successes` of our forces in the field, while the theatre commander and his staff were fed lies about relief being around the corner, and urging them to hold out. The end, when it came, was swift - and ignominious for a fine and proud fighting force, not wanting in valour and courage in the rank and file.
If one can recall correctly, it was Capt. B.H. Liddle-Hart who once said, ``Battles are won and lost in the minds of the generals, not in the bodies of their men.`` In 1971, it seems that the Indian generals and politicians alike applied their minds better than did their Pakistani counterparts. However, let it not be forgotten that militarily, East Pakistan, a thousand air miles away from the west wing as the crow flies, and three times farther via Sri Lanka, with the Indian navy dominating the seas and the Indian air force having mastery of the skies, was indefensible except for a short period in which our leadership in Islamabad/Rawalpindi, and our ``friends`` could have negotiated a cease-fire to enable a political settlement to be worked out.
The opportunity was lost, or perhaps even subverted by those who stood to gain the most by the dismemberment of Pakistan. In the event, 93,000 servicemen from West Pakistan laid down their arms and were taken prisoner, and Bangladesh came into being.
#144 Posted by mohajir on August 26, 2000 8:45:33 pm
Reliving the 1971 Debacle
By M.H. Askari
Pakistan Link
The publication of a part of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report in INDIA TODAY, finalized in 1974, has brought the crisis of 1971 in the then East Pakistan into focus. Why Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, while appointing the commission, confined its mandate only to the military side of the happenings leading up to the armed forces` surrender on December 16, 1971, is not easy to understand.
This is perhaps explained by the fact that Bhutto himself had contributed a great deal to the events which ultimately led to the break-up of the country. A number of well researched accounts of the crisis, including those written by Pakistani and foreign authors of impeccable integrity, strongly suggest that the surrender should not be seen in isolation from the political happenings that provided the ground for the military crackdown.
Hasan Zaheer, a senior civil servant who had served in the former East Pakistan and was there at the time of the surrender (and was taken prisoner by the Indians) published his own account after years of research. He began with the statement that the emergence of Bangladesh was ``the culmination of the struggle of Bengali nationalism.`` This is all to do with political and economic issues and the broader question of democratic rights.
It is well known that not long after Pakistan gained its independence, serious differences arose between the two wings. These were initially triggered by the question whether Bangla by virtue of being the language of the majority had the right to be the state language, or at any rate, along with Urdu, one of the two state languages of Pakistan. This position was ultimately accepted but only after serious misgivings had been created between the people and the leaderships of the two wings.
Bhutto is widely perceived as having precipitated the crisis in the former East Pakistan in 1970-71 by refusing to accept the right of the Awami League of East Pakistan to be in power at the centre. That party had secured the majority of the seats in the National Assembly in the elections held by Gen Yahya Khan`s government in 1970.
Not surprisingly, many of the persons directly or indirectly implicated in the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report regard its published portion as ``doctored`` or ``partial.``
Maj-Gen (now retired) Rahim Khan who is one of the 11 officers recommended by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission for trial by court martial on the charge of his having deserted his command at the last minute, has also demanded his trial by a court martial or ``any other tribunal.``
Gen Rahim`s claim of having ``thwarted`` Bhutto`s attempt to use the army against the non-Sindhi population of Karachi and some other towns of Sindh following the language riots of 1972 is difficult to accept at its face value. The fact is that after the trauma of December 1971, the armed forces were demoralized and acted submissively at Bhutto`s bidding. Bhutto`s decisions were accepted without demur by all ranks of the armed forces. It is therefore inconceivable that in the circumstances. Gen Rahim, serving as a principal staff officer in GHQ, could have resisted his command.
It would be simplistic to blame any one person or factor for having brought on the 1971 crisis.
The subsequent debate whether Lt-Gen A.A.K. Niazi and his senior staff alone should be held responsible for the surrender has been largely academic.
Reports claiming to be based on the Hamoodur Rahman Commission findings have been surfacing from time to time especially in the foreign press. From what has been published recently it transpires that the commission held Gen Niazi and several other officers guilty of some of the most serious crimes, including atrocities committed on civilians, cold-blooded murders and loot and plunder. For the sake of the army`s honour, Bhutto should have conducted a proper inquiry into them. For some inexplicable reasons he decided not to do so.
By M.H. Askari
Pakistan Link
The publication of a part of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report in INDIA TODAY, finalized in 1974, has brought the crisis of 1971 in the then East Pakistan into focus. Why Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, while appointing the commission, confined its mandate only to the military side of the happenings leading up to the armed forces` surrender on December 16, 1971, is not easy to understand.
This is perhaps explained by the fact that Bhutto himself had contributed a great deal to the events which ultimately led to the break-up of the country. A number of well researched accounts of the crisis, including those written by Pakistani and foreign authors of impeccable integrity, strongly suggest that the surrender should not be seen in isolation from the political happenings that provided the ground for the military crackdown.
Hasan Zaheer, a senior civil servant who had served in the former East Pakistan and was there at the time of the surrender (and was taken prisoner by the Indians) published his own account after years of research. He began with the statement that the emergence of Bangladesh was ``the culmination of the struggle of Bengali nationalism.`` This is all to do with political and economic issues and the broader question of democratic rights.
It is well known that not long after Pakistan gained its independence, serious differences arose between the two wings. These were initially triggered by the question whether Bangla by virtue of being the language of the majority had the right to be the state language, or at any rate, along with Urdu, one of the two state languages of Pakistan. This position was ultimately accepted but only after serious misgivings had been created between the people and the leaderships of the two wings.
Bhutto is widely perceived as having precipitated the crisis in the former East Pakistan in 1970-71 by refusing to accept the right of the Awami League of East Pakistan to be in power at the centre. That party had secured the majority of the seats in the National Assembly in the elections held by Gen Yahya Khan`s government in 1970.
Not surprisingly, many of the persons directly or indirectly implicated in the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report regard its published portion as ``doctored`` or ``partial.``
Maj-Gen (now retired) Rahim Khan who is one of the 11 officers recommended by the Hamoodur Rahman Commission for trial by court martial on the charge of his having deserted his command at the last minute, has also demanded his trial by a court martial or ``any other tribunal.``
Gen Rahim`s claim of having ``thwarted`` Bhutto`s attempt to use the army against the non-Sindhi population of Karachi and some other towns of Sindh following the language riots of 1972 is difficult to accept at its face value. The fact is that after the trauma of December 1971, the armed forces were demoralized and acted submissively at Bhutto`s bidding. Bhutto`s decisions were accepted without demur by all ranks of the armed forces. It is therefore inconceivable that in the circumstances. Gen Rahim, serving as a principal staff officer in GHQ, could have resisted his command.
It would be simplistic to blame any one person or factor for having brought on the 1971 crisis.
The subsequent debate whether Lt-Gen A.A.K. Niazi and his senior staff alone should be held responsible for the surrender has been largely academic.
Reports claiming to be based on the Hamoodur Rahman Commission findings have been surfacing from time to time especially in the foreign press. From what has been published recently it transpires that the commission held Gen Niazi and several other officers guilty of some of the most serious crimes, including atrocities committed on civilians, cold-blooded murders and loot and plunder. For the sake of the army`s honour, Bhutto should have conducted a proper inquiry into them. For some inexplicable reasons he decided not to do so.
#145 Posted by krashid on August 26, 2000 8:45:33 pm
Shankar #139
Although it irritates you a lot, but it is true.
If the Indian Muslims decide to migrate to Pakistan, they have to start from zero. As my father started when he was not even matriculate and had a box of cloth only and his courage with him.
Although it irritates you a lot, but it is true.
If the Indian Muslims decide to migrate to Pakistan, they have to start from zero. As my father started when he was not even matriculate and had a box of cloth only and his courage with him.
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