The Price

Reply RSaxena # 431

``...athletics is most certainly not our forte...but then what is?...``

Idli, dosa, hot samosa...

Reply Neptune # 383

“btw... what are you doing in Chowk on a saturday?”

Neptune Dada, I have this addiction, see…

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re: semipreciousme

``...africans had the whole world beat, not just india...athletics is not our forte....now if they`d only allow cricket into the olympics...``

i meant amongst the group of countries least expected to win medals, even africa has outdone india..athletics is most certainly not our forte...but then what is?...in india, we have a few clever southies who have put india in the global software industry and have turned out some brilliant scientific achievements...but the rest of the country, including the north where i come from, is pretty damn useless...

and btw, be careful using ``our`` ... many of your countrymen get red with anger at being bucketed like that with indians... if i understand, you people eat very different food, look completely different, and speak a strange language called urdu jo hum indians ko bilkul nahi samajh aati :)

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SHAH

You write

``Dr Poonawalla ,is a mainland person .He has no stake in Kashmirs independence fight.He in fact would like to see Kashmir be part of India b/c then he can stay in Jammu when he is NOT a native of that land``

Remember, Mr Shah, that what makes human beings special is our ability to put ourselves in our neighbor` stead, seeing things from the other`s vantage point.

Firstly, what do you mean by saying I am NOT a native of that land? I was born, brought up and educated in Jammu and Kashmir. I speak both Dogri and Kashmiri fluently, in addition to Hindi and Urdu. I have studied the history of Kashmir deeply. I feel for this land. It is my home. Does this does not make me as much of a native of Kashmir as anyone else. As our American friends are known to say, lets set the record straight, I am a proud citizen of Jammu and Kashmir.

I have every stake in the world in seeing peace come to Kashmir, a land where I have been treating patients my entire professional career. This is my home. I am not a politican in Lahore, Delhi or Islamabad pontificating on the Valley.

I believe that Indian Kashmir is part of India and that Paksitani Kashmir is part of Pakistan. This is a fair, just and equitable soluction to the problem. It is non Kashmiris like you who keep feeding the problem. Let the LOC be declared a PERMANENT border so that, we, the residents of Jammu and Kashmir can get on with our lives and aspirations.

SHAMMI ji

Just one month ago, I treated an 18 year old Gujjar whose right leg was blown off by a mine as he illegally made the border crossing of the LOC. His life is destroyed. His family see him as a burden. And he is convinced that Afghani militants will finish him off as he spent time in an Indian Army hospital recuperating. Evidently, the Pakistanis had told him that he should commite suicide if he fell into the hands of the Indians. I am planning on publishing a series of aricles about the experiences of common Kashmiris. I shall let you know the details of this upcoming publication if you are so interested.

Dr Ali Akbar Poonawala

Dr Ali Akbar Poonawala

Sridhar

Thank you for your kind words welcoming me to Chowk. I am embarrassed by your characterization of me as ``enlightened`` and I am hardly that. I am merely a Doctor doing my duty and in my small way trying to catalog the suffering that I see in the hope that this may influence the Powers that Be to solve the Kashmir problem.

I am not a political man. I am a medic first and last. I am a loyal and proud citizen of India. I also believe in the rights of the Kashmiris. These rights will best be upheld if the Kashmiris are integrtaed into a secular and economically rising India.

Eventually a EC model would be ideal for the Indian Subcontinent.

I look forward to interacting with you Mr Sridhar.

Dr Poonawala.

Re: Shah #425

``...Accountability is just a smokescreen...``

Prove it.

``...Dont you think ONE discharge fromduty is a bit trivial of justice...``

I said that I am aware of atleast one -- there may be more that I do not know.

``...when over 100000 kashmiris have been killed unjustifiablty...``

How many of the above were killed at the hands of the militants? The last quoted figure from Pakistani sources was 70,000 (where did you get the 100K figure from?)

``...The militants also dont get vacation with pay...``

So, a lack of fringe benefits exempt one from being accountable or being brought to justice?

``...If they wanted to live under Indian govt ,then they could migrate to mainland India ,but then there would not be need for insurgency...``

Actually, you would be surprised -- there are more Kashmiris who have left the Valley for other parts of India to escape anarchy and militancy than have left for Pakistan. They could have also gone to Pakistan, but they did not.

``...Dr Poonawalla ,is a mainland person...``

From what I know, he is from J&K, works as a doctor and heals the limbless, wounded, & maimed without regard to whether they are militants or not.

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audio-video-radio # 420

Did that post have something to do with its number - Char sau bees?

re: rsridhar # 411

For Indians, Benazir presents half an enigma - half because it is possible to analyze her motivations, compulsions, and drives, even though, as always in life, different people will reach different conclusions.

It is certainly true that during her rule Benazir, in both word and deed, was more militantly ambitious than the Pakistani military junta itself. During her time, General Babar earned his reputation as the Butcher of Karachi for his mass arrests, torture, and killings of Mohajirs. It was during her time, and this was AFTER the Soviets had left Afghanistan, that the enrollemt of foreigners swelled in Pakistan`s Talibani Madrassas as Benazir`s government frenetically handed out visas to ``right`` kind of cooperative foreigners. It was her government and her agencies that pushed these Talibs into Afghanistan. And if I remember right, there have been claims in the western circles that Benazir had connections with Turabi of Sudan through General Beg (Baig?)and Hamid Gul - the two fine gentlemen she sent to the take part in a conference organized by the Messiah Turabi himself.

More importantly for Indians, Benazir was at the helms when Pakistan shifted some of its ``assets`` from Afganistan to Kashmir - leading to unprecedented rise in violence in Kashmir towards the end of 1980s. What is more, Benazir openly called the Kashmiri ``struggle`` an Islamic Jehad - a term Musharraf continues to use to this day.

Now, Benazir has repeatedly pleaded that she had taken this approach because she was under pressure from the military and the fundamentalists. That is a bit of a stretch given the zest with which she took up the sundry and ambitious ``moral and peaceful`` causes. On the other hand, I have seen some claims in Pakistani press that Benazir ``sacrificed`` the jehad in Indian Punjab by handing over some list of terrorists that ISI had maintained for its internal use.



In any case, what should Indian stance be toward Benazir? As I mentioned, in the past, Benazir has been as implacably anti-Indian as the Pakistani military. She has also been corrupt to the core, having along with her husband, looted the common man, woman, and child of Pakistan of humongous amount of money. Still, she is probably not any worse than any among Pakistan`s long and very illustrious list of generals. Corruption is a function of power, time, and opportunity. Those who believe that many-starred and smartly attired generals have been any less corrupt and made less money than the earthy politicians will also believe that the sun is a Pakistani satellite launched by the original genious of Dr. A. Q. Khan. For that matter, we ourselves have many a corrupt billionaires in India, and have our own satellites bringing us - the poor and unwashed of India - unlimited pride and joy.

May be Benazir is telling the truth. May be she has realized the errors of her past ways, as she claimed, for example, recently at Stanford. We in India should be supportive of her, but to believe that she has somehow turned into a dove and a devi would be the height of naivety.

The road to peace does not lie through naivety but through awareness of the past and steely determination to create a new, better common future.

re: bapu/12-head retard

``Like new breed of coolies for montonous job of programmers ,that like plantatuion work ,white man dont like to do.Code Coolies are indias important areas,just as Trinidad,S.Africa,West Indies,sugar cane plantation work was in early 1900!!!!!!``

...still far better than your breed of islamic terrorist exports whose jobs include flying planes into buildings and carrying out suicide bombings...

...and fret not about slavery, your ancestors were doing the same thing...

Fuzair #74: There have been Christians who have gone higher than Gp. Capt., since Cecil Chaudhry. But I cannot see any minority going higher than AVM. Although, that is a tough call. Since there are only 3-4% religious minorities in Pakistan (the percentage in the military is probably higher). So within this small number, there really haven`t been any minority candidates for the top positions. One PAF Chief was an Ahmedi. So I don`t know how far minorities would go in the PAF now, if there were a good minority Chief level candidate.

In the Air Force, unlike in the Army, it is really the Sqn. Cmdr. who has the important position. Air Force is the only branch, in which only officers fight, and that too a small percentage of the officers. Any officers above the rank of Sqn. Ldr. (except the odd few Wg. Cdrs. who are commanding a sqn.) don`t do much during a war. Most of their work is in peacetime.

So, from actual combat point of view, basically the PAF is nothing more than about 400 Lts., Capts., and Majors in their twenties and mid thirties, protecting all of Pakistan. Personally speaking, there salaries need to be raised ten fold, considering the responsibility these 400 or so people have.

And to the best of my knowledge, there is no discrimination against minorities for Sqn. Cdr. and combat positions. Infact Cecil Chaudhry had the most important post in the PAF (commanding the PAF equivalent of Top Gun) as his last assignment.

I would take all the explanations of the resignations and retirements of officers with a grain of salt. Everyone says they were retired for this reason or that. I could make some excuse also. Sometimes it is correct, but in many cases it is not correct. If Cecil Chaudhry had not gone beyone AVM, one could use religion as a reason. However, other colleagues of his who were Christian did go beyond Gp. Capt.

I don`t like Shamim, nor do I know why Cecil Chaudhry did not get promoted, but I have learnt that often the reason isn`t what it seems to be. Retiring an active fighter pilot because of his religion would greatly demoralize other minority fighter pilots. For example MM Alam was retired by Shamim, but mostly for the right reasons. Then again, it is quite possible that in case of Cecil, his religion may have had something to do with.

Your comments about the PAF in 71 are interesting. It is a fact that the Army fought poorly. But that is nothing new. I have seen the log books, flight plans, aircraft, talked to and worked with, on many occassions, the individuals who flew and maintanined the planes for the PAF in 71. They were basically the same 300 or so pilots flying the same planes (with the additions of Mirages and Chinese aircrafts) against the same enemy in 71 and in 65. I cannot imagine their performance detoriating in six years. Nothing in their log books, and flying skills, suggests that.

Unlike the Army, the Air Force of Pakistan (and India) are support groups. It is usually just two pilots fighting two pilots. There are not too many strategic decisions to be made. Everything is tactical. Infact, nearly the whole war, once it starts, at a tactical level is coordinated by the Sqn. Cmdrs, who were in their mid to early 30s in both 65 and 71. The Chief says go bomb Bombay. After that the 20 and 30 year olds have to figure out how to do it.

Infact, the PAF wasn`t even called into full combat in 71. Most of the pilots waited in West Pakistan, ready to fight, but the war ended in East Pakistan. And the few odd squadrons in East Pakistan, fought well briefly, and were then asked to evacuate.

Having seen the combat training standards of the PAF and those of the US, I have yet to see any Pakistani organization (and few international organizations, including those in Silicon Valley) that has a higher benchmark for passsing grades (academically and in flying) than the Air Force. It is much higher than that of the Pakistan Army or Navy or IT or medical colleges etc. in Pakistan. One can thank Asghar Khan for that. So many of my ex-colleagues are doing extremely well in Silicon Valley. Some of them actually flunked out of the various traning institutions.

But while Ops side of the PAF is excellent, however the management and administration side is quite inefficient and poor.

It is thus hard for me to imagine that the standards were really high in 65, and then dipped in 71 and then became high again after 71. That cannot happen if the same people were involved in all those phases.

PS. I do not agree with your evaluation that during Shamim`s time, the performance standards detoriated. A lot of things detoriated, but the performance standards may have actually increased. This is due to the induction of a lot of next generation equipment into the PAF, like F-16s, new missiles, new radars systems, new joint programs with China etc. All of this equipment led to newer state of the art tactics, like combat in vertical planes/cubes (only possible with aircraft like F-16 which have a higher than 1-1 T/W ratio), dissimilar combat training with aircraft which can fire head on missiles (like Sidewinder 9L, which was unavailable before, etc.), which were impossible in older missile systems. Kamra (I have worked there and I cannot imagine any engineering facility in Pakistan being better) started coming into its own, during those days. It now earns foreign exchange.

All of this probably would have happened regardless of who was the Chief, but the standards definitely did not go down. Just due to the equimpment alone, the PAF was introduced to and became efficient in a whole new set of combat parameters.

The standards are going down now. But that is due to the ridiculously low pay that is given to the military, in comparison to their civilian couterparts. This is more true for the PAF than Army and Navy, because generally those in the PAF would probably do much better than their civilian counterparts in private enterprise. The average F-16 fighter pilot, protecting the all of Lahore`s airspace by himself, risking his life on a daily basis (1/4th of my coursemates in flying died before the age of 30) on many occassions, completely responsible for a US 10-15 million aircraft, is paid the same salary that a secretary in Citibank`s Islamabad branch is paid. I now make more money than all my engineering coursemates combined in the PAF. Not because I am highly paid, but because they are ridiculously low paid.

Re: semipreciousme #406

True, but there is a difference. The militants are accountable to nobody but themselves. The security forces are -- first to the elected J&K state govt., and then to the Lok Sabha. I am aware of at least one case in which an army officer convicted of rape was dishonorably discharged from service, and rightfully so. I have yet to hear of a militant being extradited from Pakistan to India or tried there for any crime. Finally, when there are wide ranging atrocities of the type that you mention occurring regularly, there is usually mass migration (e.g. a few incidents in Bangladesh after the recent elections resulted in at least 2000 people migrating to India within a week; or 1 million+ Albanians fleeing Kosovo; 300,000 Afghans fleeing after American strikes, etc.). How many Kashmiris have fled Kashmir in the last decade? I would be surprised if the number even exceeded 5,000-10,000. Indeed, Dr. Ali Akbar Poonawalla`s post from Jammu indicates that the Gujjars (shepherds) he meets are coerced to become militants. That should tell you something.

shammi saab:

what i meant was that the nationalites of the handful found to have links to al-qaied haven`t been released...as for detaining them futhur on the pre-text of finding more evidence...well..its been 3 months already...