The Place of Debate

Reply Afqqui # 3

[Never let this nefarious propaganda affect you.India is the biggest slum in the world & no talk of ``progress`` is going to change that.I mean,people who try to revere & promote an ET look-alike just cannot be thinking right.The spidery-sparrow with his non-violence mantra was ok with the WW2 backdrop & europe in terror.The socialist,communist,and anti-class,liberal groups were using every straw to break free from the strangle-hold of British Class system(worse than brahminism--even today)]

But article is NOT aboutHindia. It is about Paksitan. Whyyou think Paksitanis should not discus? HaiN? Wherey our head isat? Why youshould decide what Paksitani think about?

Fist convert all UK then cometalk.

[When was the last time CHOWK STAFF printed something from the truly learned?--hint:they are not secularists or kanjars.]

Chowkstaff, why you do not give Afqqi Saab a chance to write aticle on chowk? Then allside of question will be present, andit will be fair. I think this is what he want when he write this.

Please give hi m;chance. He did not mean whenh e was rudeto you. Afqqi you;sh ould apolgise, and thenth ey may pubish your article. Say you did not mean they were kanjar.

[He said prolonged ignorance and failure of the Muslim societies to seek knowledge, to reason, investigate and explore, which had been their hallmark, was responsible for such a misplaced perception. ]

Excuse me, but when did Muslim societies as a whole seeked knowledge, investigate and explore? It was the hallmark of a few - better call them non-conformists. It looked good because rest of the world was even worse in the areas of seeking knowledge, reason, investigating and exploring. By the way, how many inventions useful currently have been credited to Muslim societies compared to Chinese inventions. Muslim societies were never a match to Greek thought, Egyptian organization, classification and management skills and Chinese innovations.

We need to stop this past perfection obsession and delusion of grandeur.

Biggest Muslim success was the success of Arabic language and, of course, military successes.

The purpose of Pakistan Ideology and creation was to create a nation of Muslim majority - period!

Prafull Goradia



This individual is intahai bawakouf!!! Cut and paste you need to get a life!

Aisha

An appeal to the rank & file of Pakistani people . . . responses can be sent to pow@hindustantimes.com also . . .

```` On January 26, Hindustan Times launched a six-week-long people`s campaign to lobby for the release of the 1971 Indian Prisoners of War in Pakistan.

During a meeting at our Delhi office recently, we had the opportunity to talk to the relatives of the missing soldiers. After hearing them, we could only wonder at the insensitivity of successive governments in deserting these soldiers, and leaving their dependents to continue the fight to free their kin from the enemy!

Mr BS Suri talked of his father RS Suri`s struggle to find his missing son: ``For 30 years my father climbed the steps of the Defence Ministry and the MEA to meet and press officials to take up his son Major AK Suri`s case. Many times he knocked on the doors of political leaders. He even made countless trips to the Indo-Pak border to meet the soldiers serving there... No avail. Last year, he died at the age of 85...hoping to the last for his son`s freedom.``

Mrs Damayanti Tambay - She had been married just over a year when her husband Flt Lt Vijay Vasant Tambay went to war. He never returned. Later, she read in a Pakistani newspaper that the enemy had taken him prisoner. Since then it has been an unrelenting fight to find and free her husband. She told one of our scribes: ``Tees saal se bas intezaar ki ladai lad rahin hun...! Kuch aasan nahi tha. Bhook mitane ke liye kaam bhi karna tha; swabhiman aur izzat se rehna tha...Sarkar ex-gratia dekar case band karana chahti thi...Mein nahin mani.`` (I have waited for 30 years! It`s not been easy... The government wanted to give an ex-gratia and close the case... I refused to give in.)

When we heard of her we realized what it is to be an Indian woman. Had it been any country other than India, a woman in a similar situation would have waited a year, found herself another man and set up a home with him. But there is Damayanti Tambay...a brave wife of an Indian soldier. (Indeed, when she came for the meeting, we had the honour of introducing her as an Indian woman.)

These and other such stories of fortitude fly in the face of a nation whose governments let down its soldiers. Indeed, these are the stories that give us reasons to be optimistic for this country, whose proud citizens we all are...

Dear surfer, as we set out on this campaign, we hope and trust that among the hundreds of hands that will join with us, and the thousands of voices that will speak with us, a strong hand and a firm voice will be your own. ````

Editor (News)

HindustanTimes.com

``What is loosely called the Muslim world has given its inhabitants ample experience of oppression; of constant surveillance by the secret police and their informers; of kail and torture, summary executions performed as fete champetre in the market square. In 1978, I saw-or, rather, heard-two men shot like this in front of a large and eager crowd in Sanaa, Yemen; Polaroid pictures of their exploding heads were hawked minutes later as valuable souvenirs.) Many of the key texts of Islamic revolution were written in exile, in hiding, or in a prison cell. A consciousness is forced in conditions of tyranny is likely to find tyranny wherever in the world it settles-in Haldon St., London, Lakemba or in Gloucester Road. Islamicism-which by no means signifies Islam at large-needs oppression. A powerful sense of kufr helps the believer tp live in Western exile in the neccessary state of chronic persecution, from which his theology was born, and which its survival depends....``

-Jonathan Raban

The Roots of Jihad

Re: Romair

``...It is quite clear, he (Jinnah) was speaking impromptu and unable to give a logical decision about these issues; at least in this speech...``

And that is the tragedy of the Subcontinent. Due to a lack of any civil institutions (much less in `47), there was an enormous dependence on personalities (not just Jinnah alone, but also Nehru, Gandhi, Patel etc). No individual can be a substitute for a well-run institution -- and that is why the fate of millions in the subcontinent has come to be decided by the whims of a few.

I would like to ask the advocates of secularism two questions.

1. Is secularism the only way different religions can live in peace and equality?

2. If religion is to be removed from the affairs of state, what principles will be used instead?

Wouldn`t these principles be a de-facto religion?

http://atimes.com/ind-pak/DB06Df01.html

Pakistan shifts proxy war to India`s east

By Sultan Shahin

Map

NEW DELHI - The Indian government is gradually coming round to the view that the attack on policemen guarding the American Center in Kolkata on January 22 marks the shifting of the theater of Pakistan`s proxy war.

Though official spokespeople continue to claim that militant infiltration in Kashmir is continuing on the previous scale, a feeling is growing that the focus of Pakistan-sponsored terrorist activities is now moving to India`s east and northeast, as Pakistan may not be able to defy strong international pressure to close shop in Kashmir.

A realization is gradually dawning upon India`s security officials that Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been preparing for such an eventuality for a long time. As well-informed analyst Hiranmay Karlekar writes in his column in the Pioneer newspaper (January 25): ``The ISI, in collaboration with sections of Bangladesh`s intelligence outfits and fundamentalist Islamic organizations, has been training and supporting northeast Indian insurgent outfits like the United Liberation Front of Asom [Assam] (ULFA), both Khaplang and the Isaac Swu-Thuingaleng Muivah groups of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), Bodo rebels in Assam and tribal insurgents in Tripura for years.

``Its plans include the separation of the whole of northeastern India from the rest of the country and the creation of an autonomous Islamic state in the northeast comprising parts of Assam, Nagaland and Myanmar. Should it ever come close to success in implementing its plans, trouble in the Siliguri-Islampur corridor, hampering movement of troops and supplies to the northeastern states, would be of critical advantage to it.``

According to Indian government sources, the basic objective of the ISI in Bangladesh is intelligence encirclement of India. It uses the strategy of supporting and fomenting insurgency in India`s northeast and encouraging militants of various shades in different parts of India. It makes direct use of Bangladesh territory to infiltrate its agents and saboteurs across the border.

Of particular advantage to the ISI is the long and porous India-Bangladesh border which makes crossings either way easy, particularly when there are elements all along it to facilitate the process. According to reports in the Pakistani media, India has recently moved more forces to the India-Bangladesh border. This may be part of an effort to stop or at least reduce infiltration of militants from this border.

The recent incident in Kolkata is not the first of its kind in West Bengal. On December 22, 1994, two boys in Domkal in West Bengal`s Murshidabad district discovered several bombs very near a temporary dais from which Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, now chief minister of West Bengal and then an important minister, was to address a public meeting on December 24 along with other functionaries of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M).

This may explain why Bhattacharjee has gone out of his way in condemning and acting against the latest terrorist outrage, though his colleagues in the party were not inclined initially to implicate Pakistan or the ISI. CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury had indeed accused Home Minister Lal Krishan Advani as having ``jumped the gun`` in pointing fingers at the ISI without adequate information.

Having investigated the Domkal incident, reports Karlekar, India`s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) concluded that an organization called Ahl-e-Hadith (AeH) was involved. The same organization, it further believed, was behind five explosions that occurred on trains in different parts of India on December 6, 1993, the first anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Mosque, and 42 others - not including the serial bomb blasts in Bombay on March 12, 1993 - in various parts of the country from 1988 to 1993.

One reason for this conclusion was that the explosives used in the Domkal bombs were the same as in the five train and 42 other blasts. The Domkal bombs also had the same kind of timers the five railway bombs had. Besides, the other 42 blasts had occurred in areas marked by acute communal tension where they could have triggered riots. Murshidabad district had been such an area for quite some time then. The CBI also believed that three of the five people sought for questioning in connection with the blasts were hiding in West Bengal.

The CBI was convinced that the ISI was behind the bombs. The conculsion is corroborated by Yossef Bodansky in his book Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America. ``The ISI actively assists bin Laden in the establishment of an Islamic infrastructure in India ... The primary venues for the distribution of Islamic literature and incitement material are the institutions run by the Ahl-i-Hadith religious charity which is associated with Lashkar-i-Toiba, an Islamist Kashmiri organization.`` Under the command of Abdul Karim Tunda, the Lashkar-i-Toiba is already responsible ``for several bomb explosions``.

Thus by the end of 1994, according to Karlekar`s information, the ISI, which had started operating with the utmost freedom in Bangladesh after Begum Khaleda Zia became prime minister in 1991, had already established a significant presence in West Bengal and was even in a position to shelter wanted persons from other parts of India in the state. Using Bangladesh as its springboard and aided by West Bengal state government`s complacency, it extended its network far and wide in the state in the next few years, using it as a staging area for its agents entering from Bangladesh to carry out terrorist acts in other parts of India and for sending people from different parts of India to Bangladesh for onward journey to Pakistan and Afghanistan for training as agents. It established ``safe houses``, planted ``sleepers`` - agents who merged with the local people and remained dormant for long periods before acting - and centers for recruiting agents.

The ISI built up a substantial presence in several areas of Kolkata and almost all districts of the state bordering Bangladesh - with the Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district in the north receiving particular attention. All this was dramatically brought to light in January 1999, when Delhi police arrested Syed Abu Nasir, a Bangladeshi who had crossed over from Bangladesh to bomb the US Embassy in Delhi and the US Consulate General in Chennai. He reportedly revealed during interrogation that he and his team of nine had gathered in Kolkata in December 1998. From there, the three Indian members had been sent to Siliguri to establish a support base in collaboration with ISI agents stationed there, while the six ``Afghans`` - a generic term used to signify Afghans as well as various Arab and other terrorists trained in Afghanistan by al-Qaeda - went to Chennai. The three Indians who went to Siliguri were subsequently arrested while the six ``Afghans`` managed to disappear.

The ISI`s activities in the area attracted further attention during the Kargil war when a blast in a train in North Jalpaiguri station on June 24, 1999, directed at a group of soldiers traveling to Kashmir, killed two of them and injured 16. There were several other attempts to sabotage the movement of troops and equipment from northeastern to northwestern India. These incidents clearly underlined the reason for the ISI`s activities in Siliguri. Northeastern India`s sole direct land link with the rest of the country passes through the subdivision, particularly the narrow Siliguri-Islampur corridor.

Indeed, according to Indian intelligence sources, the ISI has long been providing assistance to insurgents in the northeast in a variety of ways, including helping them run their training camps in Bangladesh. After the installation of the Awami League government in Bangladesh in 1996, the Indian insurgent groups were asked to leave Bangladeshi soil. But dominant groups such as the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isaac Swu/Muivah (NSCN-I/M), ULFA, All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) continued to function in that country in a more covert manner by forging local-level links with Bangladeshi security forces.

Initially, in March/April 1997, Indian intelligence sources perceived some decline in insurgent activities and the militants, mainly belonging to ULFA and NSCN-I/M, had started winding up their overt activities and shifting their camps temporarily to Myanmar. But through support from such parties as the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) and Freedom Party (FP), the militants started reorganizing themselves and re-established their camps in Bangladesh.

The ISI has managed to establish a rather intricate network in Bangladesh, thanks to the presence of the residue of pro-Pakistan sympathizers after 1971 and the influence it wielded between 1975 and 1996 when the Awami League was out of power. The period from 1991 to 1996, when Khaleda Zia was prime minister of the BNP government, proved particularly fruitful. During this period the ISI was not only able to subvert various local agencies, including the army, but also ran training camps for northeast Indian insurgents with the consent of the government.

After the Awami League government took power in June 1996, there was a review of government policy and official patronage of such anti-India activities was withdrawn. However, on account of loyalties built up over the years, and religious indoctrination and rampant corruption in the ranks of both Indian and Bangladeshi security forces, networks continued to facilitate movement of Indian insurgent leaders and also supply these groups with arms.

The ISI obviously realizes the importance of mobilizing anti-India and pro-Pakistan political elements in Bangladesh and bringing them to power with a view to securing state patronage. It has therefore nurtured the BNP while in and out of power, shoring it up up politically and financially. It has done the same with various rightist parties such as the FP and JEI. More recently the ISI has been playing a leading role in patching together an alliance between these rightist parties and assisting them in devising and launching a strategy to dislodge the Awami League from power.

After June 1996, on account of an unfriendly party being in power in Bagladesh, the ISI has had to give up its earlier brazenness and work covertly through various channels. While some operations are still controlled from the local Pakistani mission - where the ISI unit was said to be headed by A H Qureshi, a minister-rank official - a larger part of anti-Indian activities are conducted through various mosques, madrasas (seminaries) and attached training camps across the country, and through Pakistani agents and facilitators placed in various private organizations and political parties. There has also been liberal use of the country`s press for anti-India propaganda with communal overtones. The aim is to keep anti-India feelings high so that no government is ever in a position to accede to Indian requests for information about northeastern militants, and to stalemate Indian influence in Bangladesh.

The ISI makes use of prominent Bangladeshi names and institutions for its purposes. Indian officials cite the example of the Beximco Group - which employs about 600 Pakistanis and whose owners, Sohel and Solman Rahman, are alleged to have pro-Pakistan sympathies. Beximco Group has been allegedly used as conduit for funds to the BNP. Prominent local politicians Salauddin Qader Chowdhury, Syed Iskander (brother of Khaleda Zia) and Anwar Zahed, who are ensconced in the BNP, are alleged to have a well-documented history of indulging in arms trafficking into India`s northeast.

A number of other commercial establishments, namely Ibnesina, Islami Bank, Habib Bank, Pak Land and Lever Brothers, with known Pakistani links, and front organizations of fundamentalist parties like the JEI, Tablighi Jamaat, Jamaat-e-Tulaba and Jamaat-ul-Mudarreseen, allegedly serve the interests of the ISI. Moreover, Pakistan sympathizers within the army, various intelligence agencies and the bureaucracy continue to aid the ISI.

Indian officials allege that apart from intelligence operations conducted by Pakistan`s mission in Dhaka, agents are being sent directly from Pakistan for specific tasks such as training, briefing, supervising, providing funds, and meeting with militants. Some people collaborate with the ISI for political and religious reasons. Salahuddin Qader Choudhary and his brother Giasuddin Choudhary - both BNP leaders and alleged arms smugglers - are actively involved in abetting fundamentalists, militant groups such as Harkat-ul-Jihad, and rightist political parties such as JEI and IOJ. Notorious terrorist Abdul Karim Tunda from Chittagong, and Pakistan-trained alleged terrorist Asif Khan, who visited India to foment trouble during the last general elections, fall into this category.

The ISI is also said to have connections with non-governmental organizations such as Islamic Relief Organization and Junudul Muqawat Al Islamiya, as well as with madrasas such as Rabeta in Ramu, Cox`s Bazaar. The latter is a nerve center of all ISI operations in Greater Chittagong. Pakistani agents regularly visit and hold meetings there with Indian outfits like ULFA, NSCN-I/M, NLFT, and All Tripura Tiger Force.

The ISI`s intelligence operations include provision of funds to political parties - Gholam Azam of JEI and Salahuddin Qader Choudhary of BNP are allegedly to have received huge amounts for fomenting agitations - and militant outfits on Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. It also organizes recruitment and dispatch of potential mujahideen from madrasas and the youth wings of JEI, Shibir, IOJ etc, for induction into Indian territory to create disturbances.

If Indian apprehensions are correct, the east and northeast may present even greater challenges for Indian security agencies than does insurgency in Kashmir. If reports of India having increased its strength along the border with Bangladesh are correct, it may mean that India is already conscious of the dangers represented by ISI networks and its ambitions in the area. Since Pakistan does not have a border with India in the east, India may not even be able to denounce this in the familiar terminology of cross-border terrorism.

A reminder to those who suggest that religion and especially Islam can have no concord with objective secularism:

I offer you examples hwere it was not political power of religion or Islam in particular - but the moral power of religion, it moral authority in culture and conscience that inhibited, even brought down totalitarianism:

1. Poland - the role of the Church in the effort to free Poland from Communists.

2. Iran - The Iranian revolution was brought about only because of the moral authority of Ulema of Qom and karbala - No Mulla held political office, infact did not need political office to challenge the ``King of kings``.

Urstruly is, in my opinion, absolutely correct when he says political economies disintegrate internally over discerning right and wrong. The moral authority of religion should reside in the most powerful position possibile, in culture and in conscience - however; the danger that religion will be separated from culture and conscience is clear and present, witness the ravages of Communism. An ``ought`` can never be derived from an ``is`` - and therefore it is essential for us to discern that which is eternal and that which is subject to change. Have we not the work the of Mohammed Iqbal lahori to guide our thinking in this matter: ``...Islam demands loyalty to God, not to thrones...The Ultimate spiritual basis of all life, as concieved by Islam is eternal an reveals itself in variety and change. A society based on such a conception of Reality must reconcile, in it`s life, the categories of permanence and change.``

All this is foolishness, Pakistan is the way it is because God wills so.

`Tis not I, but President and CEO Musharraf who says so. He occupies a high position because God wills it so, and any one who disagrees, is contradicting God.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/020205/64/1fn8z.html

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, who has vowed to turn Pakistan into a moderate Islamic state, invoked a verse from the Koran on Tuesday to claim divine authority for his rule.

His remarks appeared aimed at countering criticism of a crackdown on radical Islamic groups launched last month.

``I tell these people, who have become the custodians of Islam or who think that they understand Islam better, that it is Almighty God who gives honour or authority to anybody,`` Musharraf said in an address to the state parliament of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

``This is our faith that God almighty gives honour to whoever He wants and snatches honour from whoever He wants. If this is our faith then God Almighty has brought me to this position.``

The president, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, appealed to the Pakistani people to have trust in him and his government and vowed not to let them down.

``This position, this authority has been bestowed by God and as long as I hold this authority, and whatever work I am doing with full responsibility, all Pakistanis should have confidence in that because this is our faith,`` Musharraf said.

-Arun Gupta

In Pakistan, it is and always will be Jinnah versus Allah and we all know who will win when it is couched in those terms. No matter how many times you guys dredge up Jinnah`s speech of Aug 14, 1947, there will be mullahs quoting from an earlier speech by Allah as transcribed by Prophet Muhammad dating to the 7th century. How long do you think that ``You are free to go to your trmples, to your mosques`` will stand up against ``Kill the kaffirs``?

#26

Saxena, careful what you say man, he may be the ``Mahdi``

Hey mac gupta #26:

Fate is what Mushrraf is talking about. When he talks to the fundos in Pakistan he has to talk their langauage just like Vajpayee does when he talks to his RSS and VHP colleagues.

You see in Islam there is a belief that everything is pre-ordained by God. (The western concept is fate, a concept stemming from Christianity and Judaism. What many people (fundos) forget in Islam is that while everything is pre-ordained by God - God also allows and expects mankind to make his own destiny and choose his or her`s own life. Hell or heaven.

So in a way Musharraf is trying to create his own destiny for the people of Pakistan. He (like the speaker in this article and as do most chowkwallas) believe that Islam is not contrary to secularism but supports it.

Unfortunately like Judaism and Christianity - Islam has not gone through a reformation or a revision. A lot of our laws are based on Islamic interpretations made by Islamic jurists hundreds of years ago.

It is not that Islam should be changed - but it should re-interpreted. However that is easier said than done as the fundo right will always go nuts with their strict ``our way or the jihad way`` interpretation.

Harimau,

``In Pakistan, it is and always will be Jinnah versus Allah and we all know who will win when it is couched in those terms. No matter how many times you guys dredge up Jinnah`s speech of Aug 14, 1947, there will be mullahs quoting from an earlier speech by Allah as transcribed by Prophet Muhammad dating to the 7th century. How long do you think that ``You are free to go to your trmples, to your mosques`` will stand up against ``Kill the kaffirs``?``

Uh...but thats what you want don`t you. And we are going to prove you wrong.



Is `secularism` ie separation of church and state acceptable in Islam? I think the Turkish experiment makes it quite apparent that it is.

For those who have carefuly analyzed `Mesaq-e-Medina` have to conclude that equal rights for everyone is an acceptable principle of Islam...

For example:

F.E.PETERS suggests in his book `Muhammad and the Origins of Islam` in the chapter `Medina Agreement`:

It seems that Muhammad`s initial concept of Ummah was a secular one with jews and muslims living in one state.

Now frankly I am not that great of a scholar of Islamic History to commen on this one way or the other, but the document `Mesaq e Medina` seems to suggest that F E Peters is correct in his estimate.

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By the way, Harimau, the famous speech `You are free` was 11th August, though the 14th August speech also mentions a lot on the same lines.



From Dawn this week

Back to Jinnah

By Ardeshir Cowasjee

When, on that rare occasion, we have heading this country a liberal man who preaches tolerance and who tells us that Pakistan was envisioned by its founder as a modern, free-thinking, liberal, secular state, in jump the mulla-maulvi faction, the obscurantists, the thesis writers, the great thinkers, some of whom were not even a gleam in their mother`s eye when Jinnah was around, who flail their arms and shriek `treason` at the word secular, and who with their narrow-minded thinking, intolerance and bigotry claim falsely that they are `Islamic`.

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Musharraf spelt out his vision of what Pakistan`s founder had in mind for his country, a vision he intended to bring to material form. Naturally, editorials were written expressing horror, protests poured in from all sides, and then entered his obsequious spokespeople with the inevitable `clarification`. And so it will continue, for much time to come, for as long as this nation is kept illiterate and uneducated and unable to reason, think, look around at the world it inhabits, and comprehend what it must do to fit into it. But we must never give up; we must continue to press home the points pressed by the man who gave this nation a homeland.

Three months before the partition of the subcontinent, in an interview with Doon Campbell of Reuters, Jinnah firmly stated: ``The new state will be a modern democratic state with sovereignty resting in the people and the members of the new nation having equal rights of citizenship regardless of religion, caste or creed.`` He repeated this on August 11, 1947, whilst addressing the members of his Constituent Assembly, making it doubly clear to them that religion is not the business of the state. He told them: ``You are free, free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State.`` He could not have been more explicit.

Our learned men have it that the first steps taken in the Republic of Pakistan towards the framing of a constitution was the moving of the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly on March 7, 1949, by the prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan. The view is that this Resolution was intended to be a mish-mash of the general principles of an `Islamic` state and the accepted concepts of a modern `democratic` state. What the mish-mash has resulted in is a variety of conflicting interpretations, the orthodox and the obscurantists claiming that the Islamic tenets dominate and the more progressive, forward-looking plumbing for the democratic parliamentary way of governance.

When it was moved, the non-Muslim members of the Assembly expressed their fears that were the Resolution to be passed maulanas would gain the upper hand, and some questioned the phrase stipulating that the ``state will exercise authority within the limits provided by Him.`` What are the limits proscribed by God, they asked, and who will define those limits? Will it be the mullas or the gentlemen of a more liberal bent of mind? Could a non-Muslim become the head of state, for example? Liaquat Ali Khan`s response was rather ambivalent--in an Islamic state, he said, it would be ``absolutely wrong to say that a non-Muslim cannot be the head of administration under a constitutional government.`` Maulanas held differently and firmly : ``The Islamic state means a state which is run on the exalted and excellent principles of Islam [and it] can be run only by those who believe in those principles....``.

Dispute and divergence of view, disagreement and differences from day one. Yet, the honourable gentlemen of the Assembly, most of whom must have been present on August 11, 1947, when Mohammad Ali Jinnah laid down for them the principles which he wished to be embodied in the constitution of his country, took it upon themselves that day to repudiate the man responsible for putting them where they were.

Hasan Zaheer, of the erstwhile all-powerful CSP, in his book `The Separation of East Pakistan`, writing on constitution making, has this to say on the contentious Resolution: ``Liaquat Ali Khan, while moving the Objectives Resolution, claimed that since it provided for the exercise of power and authority of the state `through the chosen representatives of the people`, the Resolution naturally eliminates any danger of the establishment of a theocracy.

Little did he realize the opening that the Resolution was giving to the obscurantists and what the Munir Report called `political brigands and adventurers, even nonentities` to exploit the name of Islam in mundane political affairs and jolt the foundations of the state from time to time. None of the three covenants of the Muslims of the subcontinent, which spelled out the unanimous demand for a separate Muslim homeland, or homelands--the Lahore Resolution of 1940, the Madras Resolution of 1941, and the Pakistan Resolution of the Legislators` Convention of 1946--or the debates leading to these resolutions had mentioned anything about an Islamic state. Over the years, the Resolution proved a perennially divisive point of reference in the polity of Pakistan.``

It is this Resolution which forms the preamble to the Constitution of 1973, and it is this Resolution which, as Article 2A, is a substantive part of the Constitution, and which has more than proven that it is indeed not only highly divisive but also destructive. And, to boot, our great makers, breakers and amenders cannot even get it right. In the preamble, in one sentence, the original resolution has been adhered to: ``Wherein adequate provision shall be made for the minorities freely to profess and practise their religions and develop their cultures;`` whereas in Article 2A which forms the Annex to the Constitution in the very same sentence the word ``freely`` has been omitted. Whether this was done wittingly or unwittingly is not known, but the question is that after the passage of 16 years since 2A was inserted by PO No.14 of 1985 why has it not been corrected? Is there a motive behind the omission of the highly pertinent and important word? Were our amenders plain sloppy, or were they wicked?

Musharraf rode in on horseback, and now is riding high. So far he is on the right track. His reflexes are sound. He has not yet heard messages from on high. But he does need to shun the oleaginous perennial sycophants who equate being with him as being in the presence of greatness, or who praise him fulsomely for his penetrating mind, his iron resolve, his calm demeanour. He does not need to be glorified or exalted. He needs to be supported.