Hands Across The Border

Naqshbandi:

I`m just curious to find out what your take is on the recent hanging of Haq Nawaz for the murder of the Iranian diplomat. do you think it was justified ? If yes, would your answer be any different if Haq Nawaz had killed a Qadiani ?

Please note that this is regardless of what the Iranian diplomat or the fictitous Qadiani may have said or done or what beliefs they profess (blasphemy included). I`m trying to understand if you believe that common citizens can murder people if they feel that is what their belief instructs them to do.

Thanks, it will help me understand your opinions which most of the times I find non-tolerant, and prejudiced.

To Pakistan:

You, the collective You, are close to 100% responsible for creating the Taliban and therefore at least 49% responsible for the destruction of Buddhas statues by the Taliban today. One of these in Bamiyan is 180 feet high, 2000 years old, built into a cliff.

Please dont ever repeat your self-serving fraudelent irrelevant crap about how religious parties never won an election in Pakistan when Pakistan can recognize a barbarian regime in your neighbourhood. There is no way I can begin to express my contempt for the Taliban and the support they have received from Pakistan over the last decade.

Kabuliwallah:#267

There is no such thing as Fundamentalist,liberal,secular etc etc(add your favourite).These are labels given to people in the charade called Democracy......a system supposedly designed to obtain the best possible sample(representative),like in science,but has ended up as end itself to segregate people by their various facets.

A human is indivisible.He/she is many things rolled into one.Parent,Investor,employee,religious etc etc AND none as the situation demands.The effort by the party system to delineate humans into finely defined categories so that those chosen are either for this ar against that.

Just try to find equivalents of the above terms in your mother tongues.Difficult,isn`t it?

We say a person is good or bad because of his deeds & not because of these appendages to his name---like a brand name.

Who has nurtured this diabolical thought that what these thugs call Fundamentalist cannot be a caring sharing humanbeing within & without his community.Since when are two mutually exclusive?

What these thugs call liberal does not automatically make the person a decent/pious human either---as is evidenced everyday by those who go out of their way to claim their unprudishness to look/sound acceptable as progress/modern oriented.

Watching porno is an indication of one`s horniness or obsession to it.It does not mean that the person is advancing the cause of humanity by an iota.Ditto for fashion shows & other such vulgarity.

One MUST be judgemental.That is the only feature which defines the person.

Intelligence & physical labour is required to perservere & progress.Those looking forward to bare their assets & expose their baser instinct always have a better chance to gratification.

It is not easy to counter such scum by any religion-----but that precisely is the reason for religions to exist.

__________________________________________________

``Chalti chukee daikh kurr,diyaa Kabeera rO

Inn dO patan key beech sey,gayaa naa sabat kO.``

hint:The two grind-stones are the Earth & Sky,and humans,grain-like,get crushed without discrimination.

__________________________________________________

wassalaam

Kabuli #267
The ICH on MG Road is still around, I hope? Definately Indian coffee, and with those windows, the scenery wouldnot be too bad either, I am thinking :). Or try MTR, if you can get in, that is..
Now if you complain these places have not been `branded` attractively enough to capture the hip market of youngsters, well, remember, doing so is essentially an undesi phenomenon too :).

Sadhana

tahmed 259

Your description, `peceful and prosperous`, istead of my word, moderate is significant and there in lies the fundamental dispute with the indian view.

You should not forget that the 98% percent moderate people of pakistan, belonging to the PML and PPP parties representing the `democratic` forces refused to condemn the honour killing. You should not forget that when a young women was shot dead in the office of Asma Jahangir, a resolution condemning the honour killing in pak parlement was summarily defeated. It was not a legislation to alter the laws, it was just to show the displeasure of the legislators, and low and behold, they were not disp[leased.

May be the term moderate means something very different for the pakistanis. It could mean some one who supports honour killing, likes the blasphemy laws, and funds the jihad, but may not be actually implicated yet in any of the crime that ensue from it.

The pakistan of 1947 has marched along a path, a path of intolerance, the completely responsibility of which has been left at the feet of one Zia. May be the pakistanis have to reflect on the parliment voting on honour killing to find the inner impairments due to a schooling system, that can be summed up as k for kafir.

regards

jay

To anyone who knows: I have heard from a brother that pervez musharraf is a Qadiani. Is this true?

(I sincerely pray it is not)

re: FARANGI_KUSH # 154

We are on the same wavelength when you say that people should take care of their immediate concerns first...people who make long speeches about humanity and the common bond between them and then later go and spend Rs. 350 to buy a ticket at a discotheque without doing much to put their views on humanity in action piss me off and disgust me...but I`m afraid that is all that I am in agreement with you...I don`t know what you mean by fundamentalist...I`ll try to give my explanation...take sardars for example...any Keshdhari Sikh who attends Gurudwara regularly can be interpreted as a fundoo...but my religion says that I keep hair, remember God, do seva etc...no ifs and buts...so I keep hair and try to accomplish what my Guru ordered me to do...now some Chandigarh choot might take that to mean that I`m fundoo...that according to me is not being fundoo...now suppose a Keshdhari Sikh is willing to kill people who don`t take langar on the floor but on a chair, now that is being fundoo...I don`t know which fundoo you are referring to...I also don`t have anything against NGOs as such...some NGOs I don`t like very much, like communalism combat, for example...it should be called Hindu communalism combat...they dont` talk much against Islamic communalism...but then again, India is a fu_ked up country vis-a-vis secularism

However, inspite of all that, I do agree with you about Indians trying to ape their ex-masters in general...the slavishness has not been washed away yet...cucumber sandwiches, strawberries and cream, eating pizza with a fork and knife, eating rice with a spoon while eating roti with a hand, attributing qualities to places, things etc because we have been taught to do so in the books written by Western `classic` authors etc are symptoms of the malaise

However, I`m not against taking a bite out of Western culture...I would like a balance between the West and Indian culture...recently I was at this hip place in Bangalore called Brigade road...I really like coffee at this place called Coffee Day...though it is the same stuff that I can get at any roadside coffeewallah, it has nice atmosphere for youngsters and so I`m a regular patron...there was this group of chicks hanging around...I enjoyed what they were willing to show me and was having a good time in general...all of a sudden it hit me that there wasn`t an iota of what you could call Indian in that place...the chairs were Deli style...music Western...coffee of course with Italian names imported from abroad, while not more than 100 kms away, some of the best coffee grows...some of the girls had permed hair, some highlights (sp?)...and at that moment, I missed saris very much...I felt just a little sad

Another example, why do Indians keep playing a game which they obviously su_k at? why not try to excel at polo, kabaddi, or any of the various `Indian` games and try to popularize them? Today the Indian cricket team earned another feather in its cap...it lost to Australia within three days

regards

Kabuli

Video interview (2 parts) with Lashkar-e-Toyba chief Sayeed at:

http://images.thenewspapertoday.com/video/lash1.ram and

http://images.thenewspapertoday.com/video/lash2.ram

Yasin Malik interview at http://news.india-today.com/ntoday/video/multi-media/yasinrm.ram

Interviews of Liaqat Ali & Usman Majid at http://images.thenewstoday.com/video/liaqat.ram

Re: Shankar #215, ROmair #207

The above recent posts have forced me to pour my thoughts on the issue of General Musharraf.

This guy can not be trusted. Period.

The last person who trusted him is now in exile in Saudi Arabia!

The only reason the general looks ``moderate`` is because he can not afford to NOT look moderate. The country depends heavily on IMF. If he behaves like Saddam, you can guess where it lands him. Moreover, this is not the same world as a decade or two ago. Dictators are now frowned upon and severly isolated by the international community.

His views on press freedom are known to every one.During last UN session in New york, you could see his true fangs. His affiliation with religious right has also been exposed time to time. You could see many people in Pakistan press wondering if he can guard or act against Talebanization of Pakistan.

These days he is trying to pit Vajpayee against the so called ``hawks`` around him. When Vajpayee was in Lahore, the general refused to greet him. And, now he is asking Vajpayee to come again to Pakistan or let him come to India. So what was wrong with Vajpayee`s earlier visit?

The very fact that he is trying to tinker with the constitution to introduce a permanent role of army and the very fact that his NAB has not taken single action against any army or judiciary person, clearly point that he is not above board and has a hidden agenda.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/feb/28pak.htm
India should concede more territory: Pakistan

G Chandrasekhar in Washington

Pakistan is of the view that a solution to the Kashmir issue lay in India ``conceding`` more territory beyond the the Line of Control and not by converting the LoC into an international border.

This was conveyed by the ruling establishment in Pakistan to a US Congressional delegation which visited that country recently.

We have to tell the people that there has been some gain after a 50 year struggle,`` said Pakistan`s Interior Minister Gen Moinuddin Haider, justifying his country`s stand, Congressional sources told UNI Wednesday.

Congressmen David Bonior, Jim Mcdermott and Joseph Pitts called on Pakistan`s Chief Executive General Musharraf last week. Their meeting lasted for more than an hour.

Gen Musharraf told the visitors his country, a long-time ally of the United States, felt betrayed because of the Pressler Amendment banning arms sale to Islamabad during the 1990s and also because of the visit of President Bill Clinton to the subcontinent when he spent five days in India but only a few hours in Pakistan.

Gen Musharraf also told the delegation that Pakistan did not give training to militants nor did it have a hand in cross-border terrorism in the Kashmir valley, the sources said.

He also said it was difficult to enforce immigration controls on the Pakistan-Afghan border where tribal people with similarities live on both sides of the border.

Asked by McDermott to explain what caused the Kargil conflict, Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar told the delegation at their 20-minute meeting that the intrusion was his country`s retaliation to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee`s ``anti-Pakistan`` rhetoric after his Lahore visit.

Sattar also expressed concern over the delay in the issuance of passports to Hurriyat leaders by India.

The delegation also visited refugee camps at Peshwar and Muzzafarabad. UNI

Humsab #255

No sir!

I have no plan to ask you.

Mein Insanoon Mein Rahta Hoon.

jang.com.pk, Feb 28 2000

Religious groups can also be friends of peace
Mansoor Ijaz

When we launched our effort 18 months ago to construct a framework for peace negotiations that would finally and fairly settle the Kashmir issue, the Vajpayee government`s resolve and sincerity were without doubt in my mind. Achieving certain milestones, like the Hizbul Mujahideen-backed ceasefire in July 2000 and then the Indian government`s Ramazan ceasefire last November, were at the time laudable goals because they were designed to stop the bloodshed.

But Mr Vajpayee`s latest ceasefire extension leaves me with deep concerns about whether an overarching strategy is still in play, or whether we are at the point of reducing the peace initiative to a mere propaganda ploy. The 90-day extension can only have meaning if it is followed with a rapid series of concrete steps to widen the net of participants on both sides of the LoC.

This means bringing Hizb and other important religious groups like Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan`s most organised politico-religious organisation, into the peace equation. It also means insuring whatever political unity that exists in the Valley now is not destroyed by hardliners in New Delhi who may be queuing up in the ``I told you it couldn`t work`` if the Hurriyat Conference or other political groups break up in the coming weeks.

Formulas for moving forward have been constructed and, largely, agreed upon. But dangerous signs have appeared in the latest extension move which could reduce a well-intentioned peace effort to rubble because of unnecessary obfuscation in New Delhi.

During my January visit to Islamabad, I concentrated my efforts on finding an acceptable transition for religious groups, like Jamaat, from being harsh opponents of the reconciliation process to ``trust-but-verify`` partners for peace. The rationale was obvious. These groups exert heavy influence on the activities of Kashmiri militant operations; they can rouse General Musharraf with street rallies at any moment; the larger ones, like Jamaat, are least controllable by the ISI and, in Jamaat`s case, it has a man in Srinagar eschewing the virtues of anti-secularism at every opportunity.

Unlocking its door and getting its hardliners to the peace table, surmised, might be better than getting Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf in the same room together. So I went into the offices of the very men whose most fanatic Islamist colleagues wanted me dead for my role in the peace effort and met with the key Jamaat leader responsible for Kashmir policy for over two hours.

After explaining the extent of goodwill Mr Vajpayee`s doves were prepared to show and gaining an appreciation of his political and religious sensitivities, I spoke with a senior Indian government official over my speaker-capable cell phone in the Jamaat leader`s presence to work out an acceptable formula for incorporating the concerns of Pakistan`s religious groups in the peace equation. While the details of that formula are not appropriate for disclosure here, a formula was on the way to being worked out.

It would address the issue of how to characterise the `dispute` in Kashmir. It would address the triangulation problem. And it would require as a down payment only that Mr Vajpayee give all five Hurriyat leaders their passports for what would essentially be a marketing trip to Pakistan. Perhaps every detail wasn`t in place, but we made a good start. New Delhi failed to respond to the crack in the door Jamaat opened that day.

If Mr Vajpayee was willing to take his own opposition into confidence last week prior to extending a ceasefire during which the `kill rate` in the Valley had not appreciably changed, why could he not allow Pakistani religious groups the needed face-saving mechanism, a visit by Kashmiri leaders, including Jamaat proponent Mr Syed Ali Shah Jeelani, would have afforded them? What could Mr Jeelani say on Pakistani soil against the Centre that he had not already said? After all, Jamaat, Hizb and others have as much need for creating proper consensus within their constituencies as Mr Vajpayee does.

It may not be too late to implement the formula now. It could prevent important structural failures from developing. There are strong indications that Jamaat could use the ceasefire`s various complications to simply strengthen its grip on power in the Valley and set up the conditions for much more entrenched resistance this summer. If the APHC splits, as seems increasingly likely, the divestiture of power could allow Mr Jeelani to be installed as the leader of Hizbul Mujahideen`s Valley operations, supplanting the more malleable Majid Dar. Mr Syed Salahuddin, sympathetic to Jamaat, would not lose much sleep over making the change.

Militant operations next summer would now have a unified political and military commander under the remote-controlled guidance of Qazi Hussain Ahmed. Mr Jeelani`s aging moral rectitude would enable the militancy to reground itself indigenously in the very homes of those sympathetic to his crusade, but militancy orders would come from Lahore, Islamabad and who knows where else.

And all this because the Centre could not muster the foresight to let an aging but respected Islamist have a passport to go visit his brothers-in-kind. Essentially, the Kashmir conflict would be reduced to Pakistan`s religious groups vs the Centre. In that equation, the Centre loses not only the peace initiative but Mr Vajpayee forces General Musharraf to adopt a publicly harder line inside Pakistan to stave off an Islamist challenge at home just when his budgets are coming up for review and the Supreme Court is breathing down his neck for an election timetable. Can war be far behind?

Mr Vajpayee has 90 days to find a way to engage Pakistan`s Islamist movements for a lasting peace. A just reconciliation is one which identifies, incorporates and then iterates the political, military and `in this case` emotional positions of all parties to the conflict. It is clear that the governments of India and Pakistan, and the Kashmiri people have vested self-interests in Kashmir. It should now be clear that Islamists do as well. Without giving them a seat at the table, there simply cannot be peace.

The author is a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of Crescent Investment Management in New York and has been acting as a private mediator on Kashmir issue

Re: shammi #258

Stop boring Zahra biwi khan. Her purpose in posting that was something else...not to start an analysis of the causes.

More on AIDS in India for those who are interested:
http://www.youandaids.org/index.asp
http://www.naco.nic.in/

Some months ago actress Susan Sarandon, maybe UN special emissary? went to India and berated the `offical refusal to recognize the scale of the epidemic`.

Jay #254 ``In conclusion, I do hope that you are correct in your assessment of pakistan, but I can assure you that at the collective level you are running out of any evidence to support an evolution of moderate pakistan.``

So we agree on this then: we both hope for the evolution of a moderate (as you call it, peaceful and prosperous, as I would call it) Pakistan (and I would add, a peaceful and prosperous India as well). You think the mullahs will take over Pakistan (and the mullahs would undoubtedly wet their pants with joy at this thought). Given their lack of popularity in Pakistan (as evidenced in previous elections), and given the wonderful example of a theocratic rule in neighboring Afghanistan (where millions of Afghans have voted with their feet and left the country, and where there is no end to fighting for power going on), I disagree with you.

In any case, my point is this: since a peaceful and prosperous Pakistan is in everybody`s interest (including India and even including the mullah himself and the mullah`s children), just as a peaceful and prosperous India is in everybody`s interest (including Pakistan), shouldnt we as average Pakistanis and Indians be working towards that end together? There may not be much we can do on chowk, but we can at least we can refrain from spoiling the atmosphere and allowing a few nut cases (and there will always be nut cases on the internet) to set an agenda of insults and name-calling and put-downs. We can still agree to disagree on future outcomes (which only God really knows anyway), but at least we can do what little we can for the outcome we all would like to see: a peaceful and prosperous sub-continent. And here Indians and Pakistanis can join hands in a truly noble struggle against our real enemies - poverty and illiteracy and injustice and insecurity. As I mentioned in a previous post, God will then help us too.

Re: Zahra #248

You raise a very valid point -- the low socio-economic status of women in South Asia. Study after study has shown that education of women is the best remedy for elevating their status, yet rural education remains a distant priority for our leaders. If you take the example of the Indian state of Kerala where nearly 100% literacy was achieved decades ago, the population growth rate is the lowest in India (close to zero?). No family planning programme has been as successful as spreading literacy.

Rural illiteracy is a modern curse, and at least in the case of India, I fault the people and the government. The people because they have not demanded it of their leaders in elections, and the government for ignoring the problem for so long (after all the politicians and the bureaucrats send their kids to private schools, they do not stand to gain by opening primary schools in rural India).

Two developments, however, hold the promise of fixing this -- the requirement that half the elected positions in village councils (panchayats) be set aside for women; and transfer of primary education funds from distant state capitals to the districts and villages. Unless this evil is corrected, India cannot progress.