The Killing Fields of Karachi

re 110 truth:

maybe u r right of what u say. but by saying that zafar doesn`t speak up his mind or that i think that indian muslims have negative feelings about india are two wrong statements that u r making on me.

i donot believe any of those statements. but to be very truthful to u, i know many people not only muslims, but hindus sikhs christians who critise india severely privately but donot do it in public due to fear of inviting public anger.

i feel every citizen of india has every right to critize the country. after all u only critize something or someone who is very dear to u. just as an example...why do u think a mother will only scold or sometimes even slap her own child. thats because she loves her child dearly and wants the child to be the best.

zafar:

thanks for the answer mate. i think u got the question just right and i got the answer. as far as shiv sena, bajrang dal, vhp, rss and all those other idiots are concerned, u are very right that it doesn`t reflect what india as a whole thinks.

nasah: re 118

thanks for the appreciation. i have never considered india to be perfect and i have critisised india whenever i have found it lacking (though a lot of pakistanis in chowk may think otherwise. but i really don`t care what they think!!!)

as far as i am concerned, i`m trying to do my bit to make this world a better place to live in. hope everyone else can contribute!!!

devkant.

In Mumbai, the `chain of command and accountability` goes appproximately like this I am guessing:

Local neighbourhood police personnel--- citywide police commissioner--- citywide bureacratic head--- Home Minister of Maharashtra--- Chief Minister of Maharashtra with dotted lines to local representatives like municipal corporators and state legislators
(and surely a number of informal crisscrossing hidden lines to the underworld).

What is the formal/informal `chain of command and accountability` in cities like Karachi?

Sadhana

Zafar:

Not close minded boss. Just wondering. More a rhetorical question. Also I have no clue what AAmir said. I think he actually thought I was asking the question from a philosphical point of view

See, as I once told Farzana, I consider myself to be an ``equal opprtunity offender``...and I find that with that attitude, humor and irony abound. I`m glad/ dissapinted no one got insulted however. Looks like the VHP really doesn`t have a presence on Chowk ;), whatever HobbyTy may say. Just kidding, HobbyTy, my man, nothing personal

TAhmed: Introducing the latest rap star from Chowkistan, My very own Homie from the Hood: LL Cool Khan / Tahmed (Sorry abt changing your name, but LL Cool Amed just didn`t gel)

U right abt Jay. Don`t forget Bapu either. I think that they are both extremely well suited to become head clerks in their respective countries` Ministry of Propaganda. On second thought, and cross my heart, I am not being partial to Jay here, but I notice that Jay writes his own stuff whereas Bapu cuts and Pastes.

Therefore:

Jay: Head Clerk/Copy Writer: Ministry of Anti Pakistan Propaganda, New Delhi. India

Bapu: Chief Archivist: Ministry of Anti Indian Affairs, Islamabad. Pakistan

Re: tahmed, #158

You could be very funny at times!

But Jay, in trying to tell us what is wrong with Pakistan, goes through every single page of Dawn, and checks out every single article, every single letter, every single day. He must love Pakistan, because if that`s not love, I don`t know what is!

Zafar,

I find it in bad taste that someone would ask you such a question. Devkant perhaps was only rightly curious.

Have you and other Indians checked out the latest Outlook issue? It has interesting bits about being Indian. I liked the guy who said his being Indian is his Indian passport and not being able to get a visa :-)

P.S.: Hope Hobbyty doesnt read that Outlook thing. He will cut and paste that here to show how Hindutva is driving all Indians away.

Re: Jay, #120

``...a little worse than calling a bangali a bangladeshi, same as calling a keralite a tamilian.``

You are the most subtle inter-actor at Chowk. And I don`t hate people, only their ignorance and stupidity. You don`t qualify.

Two side-by-side headlines in India Today caught my attention:

``Musharraf grants `sweeping` powers to police on I-Day eve`` (http://www.thenewspapertoday.com/world/inside.phtml?NEWS_ID=24124)

``Centre to give security forces in Kashmir more teeth `` (http://www.thenewspapertoday.com/india/inside.phtml?NEWS_ID=24097)

I think that the irony should not escape any one of us on Chowk, that on the eve of what should be our day of celebration of freedom, our civil societies are becoming less free. I am reminded of the inscription on the gates of New Delhi`s South Block, ``Freedom will not descend upon a people, people will have to rise to it``

Apologies for the digression folks.

Here is a slightly old but appropriate article on India, given that Independence Day is approaching.

India`s Odd, Enduring Patchwork

By SHASHI THAROOR

August 8, 1997: New York Times:

A year ago, when India celebrated the 49th anniversary of its independence from British rule, H.D. Deve Gowda, then the Prime Minister, stood at the ramparts of New Delhi`s 16th-century Red Fort and delivered the traditional Independence Day address to the nation in Hindi, India`s ``national language.``

Eight other prime ministers had done exactly the same thing 48 times before, but what was unusual this time was that Mr. Gowda, a southerner from the state of Karnataka, spoke to the country in a language of which he scarcely knew a word. Tradition and politics required a speech in Hindi, so he gave one -- the words having been written out for him in his native Kannada script, in which they, of course, made no sense.

Such an episode is almost inconceivable elsewhere, but it represents the best of the oddities that help make India India. Only in India could a country be ruled by a man who does not understand its ``national language.`` Only in India, for that matter, is there a ``national language`` half the population does not understand. And only in India could this particular solution be found to enable the Prime Minister to address his people.

One of Indian cinema`s finest singers, K.J. Yesudas, sang his way to the top of the Hindi music charts with lyrics in that language written in the Malayalam script for him, but to see the same practice elevated to the prime ministerial address on Independence Day was a startling affirmation of Indian pluralism.

We are all minorities in India. A typical Indian stepping off a train, a Hindi-speaking Hindu man from the Gangetic plain state of Uttar Pradesh, might cherish the illusion that he represents the ``majority community,`` to use an expression much favored by the less industrious of our journalists. But he does not. As a Hindu he belongs to the faith adhered to by some 82 percent of the population, but a majority of the country does not speak Hindi, a majority does not hail from Uttar Pradesh, and if he were visiting, say, the state of Kerala, he would discover that a majority there is not even male.

Worse, this archetypal Hindu has only to mingle with the polyglot, polychrome crowds thronging any of India`s main railway stations to realize how much of a minority he really is. Even his Hinduism is no guarantee of majorityhood, because his caste automatically places him in a minority as well. If he is a Brahmin, 90 percent of his fellow Indians are not; if he is a Yadav (one of the intermediate castes), 85 percent of Indians are not, and so on.

Or take language. The Constitution of India recognizes 17 languages today, but in fact there are 35 Indian languages, each spoken by more than a million people -- and these are languages with their own scripts, grammatical structures and cultural assumptions, not just dialects (and if we`re to count dialects, there are more than 22,000). No language enjoys majority status in India. Thanks in part to the popularity of Bombay`s cinema, Hindi is understood, if not always well spoken, by nearly half the population of India, but it is in no sense the language of the majority. Indeed, its locutions, gender rules and script are unfamiliar to most Indians in the south or northeast.

Ethnicity further complicates the matter. Most of the time, an Indian`s name immediately reveals where he is from and what his mother tongue is. When we introduce ourselves we are advertising our origins. Despite some intermarriage among the elites in the cities, Indians still largely remain endogamous, and a Bengali is easily distinguished from a Punjabi.

Such differences among Indians often are stronger than what they may have in common. A Brahmin from Karnataka shares his Hindu faith with a Kurmi from Bihar, but the two diverge completely when it comes to physical appearance, dress, social customs, food, language and political objectives.

At the same time, a Tamil Hindu would feel that he has far more in common with a Tamil Christian or Muslim than with, say, a Jat from Haryana with whom he formally shares the Hindu religion.

So pluralism emerges from the very nature of the country; it is a choice made inevitable by India`s geography, reaffirmed by its history and reflected in its ethnography. Indian nationalism is a rare animal indeed. It is not based on language (since we have at least 17 or 35, depending on whether you follow the Constitution or the ethnolinguists).

It is not based on geography. (The ``natural`` frontiers of India have been hacked by the partition of 1947.) It is not based on ethnicity. (Indian Bengalis and Punjabis, for instance, have more in common with Bangladeshis and Pakistanis than with other Indians.) And it is not based on religion. (We are home to almost every faith known to mankind, and Hinduism -- a religion without a national organization, established church or ecclesiastical hierarchy -- exemplifies our diversity more than our common cultural heritage.) Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land that is greater than the sum of its contradictions.

This land imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens; you can be many things and one thing. You can be a good Muslim, a good Keralite and a good Indian all at once. So the idea of India is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may accommodate differences of caste, creed, color, culture, cuisine, costume and custom, and still be a nation -- so long as democracy insures that none of these differences are decisive in determining an Indian`s opportunities.

Our founding fathers wrote a constitution that gave passports to their ideals, but violent secessionism has plagued several border states, as some minority groups, like Assam and Punjab, have sought to subtract themselves from the Indian ideal on religious, regional or ethnic grounds.

Some of these troubles continue, but in a land of minorities, no struggle affects all Indians. The power of electoral numbers has been able to lessen caste discrimination. Indeed, last month, for the first time, an ``untouchable`` was elected as President of India.

For the rest of the world, wary of the endless multiplication of sovereignties, hesitant before the clamor for self-determination echoing in a hundred different dialects, anxious about murderous new fundamentalisms and unconvinced that every sub-nationality is worthy of support, there may be something to be said for the Indian idea.

If the overwhelming majority of a people share the political will for unity, if they wear the dust of a shared history on their foreheads and the mud of an uncertain future on their feet, and if they realize they are better off living in Kozhikode or Kanpur dreaming the same dreams as those in Kohlapur or Kohima, a nation exists, celebrating diversity and freedom. That is the India that has emerged in the last 50 years, and it is well worth celebrating.

tahmed 158.

The two articles about the killing fields and the one about leaving pakistan are the final proof that pakistanis have at last started listening to the tune , seeing the light. There was a time it was only hoodhboy who said something about pakistan, and the likes of YLH declared him a ``patriot`` despite his out burst. The articles were about an indian girl being `married to ` a dog, that too by some `featured`` established pakistani writer, the about sher sha suris tomb in india.

The posts were more like yours , like the hodood ordinance is an indian propoganda. Listen to my tune more, may be even you will see the perverted nature of hudood.

regards and best wishes

jay

Sherdil 154,

MODES OF CORRUPTION

There seem to be a preoccupation among the educated pakistanis about corruption, and what they mean by this is amassing wealth, collecting bribes. To me and to any one who cares about the economy knows that the above type of corruption is a basic market force under times of scarcity. There is no harm in thsi type except for the loss of revenue for the govermnet.

The military, as they are busy firing blanks, or byonetting some straw man in sikh uniform, or moving tanks and machinery to fight indian chemeras, do not have any opportunity to collect bribes. Military men involved in procurement, in dealings with money have been corrupt. It will be a logical absurdity to believe that the only corrupt pak naval guy in pakistan WAS THE EX CHIEF and has been deported from the US. The military people who interact with the what you allege to be corrupt commoners, will also become corrupt.

What is of immense consequence is the corruption of a different order by the military men. What will you call the legacy of the great military man, Zia, the hodood, blasphemy laws, the attack on ahmedias. This is the highest form of corruption, where he has set asunder all of the traditions of the military, to set the fellow pakistanis against one another. If the military were not `carrupt, how did this disgrace to any military rise to the top. What is corrupt in the pak military is the very essence of the role of a military, to protect from foreign invasion. The take overs are more of an attempt to share the loot.

Sherdil, what is needed is a more complex world view, society is not as simple as the miltary want you to believe. The corrupttion as you understand to day is the brain washing by the military. They are against bribe, because most cannot get it.

regards and best wishes

jay.

Tahmed #158

Hey! That`s a swell one... I can just feel the rap beat. Yeah Yeah (Wooga Wooga)

:-)

sherdil #154 ``Perhaps your next post may have more constructive observations - I am open to it.`` If you had been on chowk long enough as I have, you would have said this to Jay only humorously. This man has been on chowk for longer than me, and I have been here over an year, and he seems to have a single tune which goes something like this:

Things are bad in Pakistan,

So ver-r-r-r-y bad, oh man!

Look, here is what

Your own papers got

to say

About things in Pakistan

``Decoits rob house...

Woman kills mouse...

Jehadis surround...

Mullahs abound...``

Need I go on...

Things are ver-r-r-r-y bad my man

In Pakistan.

Ahem!! This is the tune to which Jay has been dancing around on chowk for so many months I bet he talks in his sleeps about ``Jehadis``, waking up the long suffering wife who has begun to suspect this man is having some kind of an affair with a woman named Jehadan Bibi or something.

Sorry to ramble on. You are a good man, but just thought I would forewarn you of expecting a constructive discussion of mature adults with folks like Jay. There are plenty of good folks on chowk though, so dont let me scare you away. And maybe one day Jay too will one day become a constructive man...but I would not wait for that day.

Reply Stuka #84

It might be True Love. Why are you so close minded, hmmm?

Zafar

Reply Devkant #90

Devkant, I love India. Some Indians can often make me angry or ashamed. (Many Indians make me proud and pleased, too). So perhaps not so different from any other Indian? And let me say, I cannot even IMAGINE not being Indian (albeit an expat....)

I`m not absolutely sure about why you ask, but going from your posts I am sure that your intention was more to see how Shiv Sena idiocy affects Indian Muslim thinking rather than anything else. It makes me angry (and ashamed that it happens in the country) but I do not for one minute think that the Shiv Sena and its ilk speak for India.

Zafar

Zahra Khanoom, tahmad321, jay

It looks like President Musharraf has already been moving to attack the problem we have been discussing - that of the police: see today`s Dawn at http://www.dawn.com/2001/08/12/top2.htm

Re:Reply #: 153

Gowardhan,

Clearly, Pakistan is on the wrong path. Violence and hatred cannot do any society any good. Pray, let someone on the chowk educate me, why are Shias and Sunnis killing each other in Karachi? What is the genesis of this violence? To me, it appears to be the wrong ideology as the cause of violence. Pakistani rulers have carefully nurtured jehad against Indian forces in Kashmir. When you give free run to violent elements in a society, who justify violence because it is islamic, what is to prevent the same elements from justifying some other kind of violence against some other sect or region. Pakistani rulers must realize that jehad has no boundaries, and is self-destructive. Now, let me see some Pakistanis in chowk raise voice againt Jehad.

Sridhar