Search for Identity -1, Saeed Anjum’s Short Stories

My post #17
Oops! Very sorry for the typos.

Re Akbar Bugti, IMO this TFT writeup got it right:

http://www.despardes.com/Opinion/062802-akber-bugti.html

Romair #16
``Similarly, with the Indian request, assuming that Pakistan actually has the people on the list (nearly all of them are Indian Sikhs and Indian Muslims), the Indian govt. should present proof.``

``India has so far presented no proof. This includes proof on the list members actually being in Pakistan to begin with.``

You are mistakn that India has not present proof. There are Interpol red corner notices for 15 of the 20 and Pakistan cannot ignore Interpol red corner notices of Interpol under international agreements. Secondly many of the people sought, even addresses in Pakistan were provided.

http://www.meadev.nic.in/govt/parl-qa/rajyasabha/mar7-02-115.htm

Answer in the Rajya Sabha from concerned minister[March 2002]:

``.. Government have indicated to Pakistan that of the 20 fugitives from law that figure on the list handed over to Pakistan on 31st December 2001, 15 individuals have Interpol Red Corner notices issued against them. This provides sufficient basis for Pakistan to take action. It is well known that according to Interpol norms, resolutions, decisions and procedures red notices are documents intended for both the police and the judicial authorities and can be considered valid requests for provisional arrest, because they are only issued on the basis of valid national arrest warrants. Pakistan can also take action under a bilateral cooperative arrangement, which had been arrived at in 1989 by the irector-CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) in India and Pakistan`s Director General-FIA (Federal Investigation Agency). Under this arrangement both agencies act as nodal agencies in their respective countries, to locate and trace out fugitives from law, and to arrange handing over of such wanted and absconding criminals to their respective counterpart without going through cumbersome and time-consuming procedures...``

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0102/191.html


``The CBI is pressing Interpol to persuade Pakistan to hand over 32 terrorists and criminals wanted in India for serious crimes, CBI Director P C Sharma said here on Sunday..`` [Jan 2002]


India has been handing Pakistan names, evidence and Interpol notices for almost 10 years.

http://www.indianembassy.org/policy/Terrorism/2002/pak_terror_evidence.htm

Sadna #15: Akbar Bugti is another in the long list of tribal politicians, living off the labor of their poor peasant constituents.

If there is no proof against the men, then Akbar Bugti should protect them. If there is proof against them, then it should be presented and they should be produced in a court of law.

Similarly, with the Indian request, assuming that Pakistan actually has the people on the list (nearly all of them are Indian Sikhs and Indian Muslims), the Indian govt. should present proof. The Indian citizens should be returned to an Indian court, and the Pakistani ones should be sent to the International Court of Justice, since Pakistan and India have no extradition treaty.

India has so far presented no proof. This includes proof on the list members actually being in Pakistan to begin with. And after the Naval aircraft shooting case, India has informed the ICJ that India does not recognize its right to give judgments on Indo-Pak cases.

I remembered reading this remark a while ago:

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jul2002-daily/06-07-2002/oped/o1.htm

``...Asked about the government demand to hand over suspects accused of attacking gas installations, Akbar Bugti remarked that he came up with the same answer that the Pakistan government gave to India when the latter demanded that it deliver the 20 suspected terrorists hiding in Pakistan. In his typically blunt and uncompromising style, Akbar Bugti was telling the government that he would never hand over his men and would rather continue to protect them...``

re: urstruly & 12-head

{Naipaul comes as a writer whose works results in genocides like in Gujrat and Kashmir etc. But what can you do; anti-Islam bigotry is a new fad these days.}

...yup, the hindu-jewish lobby bribed the nobel committee...it was so obvious that even fcukin jackasses like you two figured it out...

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Discrimination and neglect based on ethnicity is a reality in Pakistan.

Matter of shame

It is a shame that the Government of Pakistan has failed to implement the verdict Supreme Court of May 28, 1999, calling for according all the fundamental and legal rights to the people of Northern Areas, as guaranteed to the other citizens of the country under the 1973 Constitution.

Whereas President Musharraf is bringing in all kinds of constitutional reforms in supreme national interest and to perpetuate the rule of establishment, it is ironic that the Government of Pakistan has failed to take immediate steps in addressing the constitutional and political problems of the people of Northern Areas of Pakistan. The failure of Pakistan Government to implement the Supreme Court ruling and hence maintaining the status quo would only result in strengthening of the nationalists movement and that is least desired given our present entanglement in other problems.

I hope we act in accordance with the wishes of the people of Northern Areas by addressing their constitutional and political plights before its too late. I also request to the Pakistani media and press to put their voice behind the demands of the people of Northern Areas so that the people of Northern Areas know that the whole of Pakistan is with them in their legitimate demands.

Aasif Inam

Islamabad



Preferential treatment

Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) had advertised posts for Trainee Engineers for different disciplines in January 2002, through daily Dawn. We Petroleum graduates of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro applied and were short listed for the written test held on May 22, 2002.

It is extremely amazing for us to know that all candidates from Mehran University have been disqualified. It seems we have been victimized by the administration of PPL. Perhaps the national petroleum company has negative image for Mehran University as its graduates have always been neglected. While on the other hand multinational petroleum companies are welcoming graduates from the same university.

It is unprecedented track record of Pakistan Petroleum Limited Company that it has never employed a single engineer from Mehran University on merit basis. This reflects unimaginable treatment, nepotism, and favoritism. It shows that authority of the national company does not treat equally to candidates belong to different communities irrespective their provinces.

Such type of their erratic behavior can possibly give birth to resentment among the young graduates from Sindh. If we all are Pakistani then why are we behaved by such way?

We request that copies of the test should be reopened and to be rechecked impartially so that deserving candidates may get their rights.

We appeal to the President of Pakistan, Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources and Governor of Sindh to institute an inquiry into this matter forthwith.

Waheed Ali Kalhoro and Others

Kamber, Sindh

Urstruly #7

``And it is not because Muslims were not clear about the vision of Pakistan (before partition) but because there was not enough time between 23 March 1940 and 14 August 1947 to discuss and debate to envision the future political structure of Pakistan.``

How many years does it take to figure whether the Lahore resolution called for one or two states and if only one then how long does it take to figure you are going to have a Bengali Muslim majority?

By curious coincidence, I just finished reading a book too, Emma Duncan `Breaking the Curfew, A Political Journey through Pakistan` written in 1988-1989 which talks a bit about the Baluchis. Be patient if the following doesnot have your answers.

`...In 1846, all Bugtis were deemed to be outlaws and a reward of ten rupees was offered for the capture of one. Twenty years later, Sandeman achieved a sort of peace through his policy of boosting the authority of sardars and making deals with them..`` ``..By 1876 the British had a treaty with the Khan of Kalat and the sardars, which enabled them to station troops in Baluchistan for defence against Afghanistan, in return for money and promises of non-interference.

The British were keen that the Baluch should join Pakistan; but the day after partition in 1947, the Khan of Kalat declared his state independent. Many sardars supported him, including Ghaus Bux Bizenjo, now at seventy the grand old man of Baluch politics, who made a speech at the age of twenty-nine which caused many opponents since to accuse him of treason. `We have a distinct culture like Afghanistan and Iran`, he said, `and if the mere fact that we are Muslims requires us to amalgamate with Pakistan, then Afghanistan and Iran should also be amalgamated with Pakistan`. In 1948, the Army walked in and the Khan acceeded to Pakistan.

Baluchistan brought Pakistan gas, coal and trouble. It provides eighty percent of the country`s gas, which in 1980 saved $275 million worth of fuel imports, and most of its coal. The siphoning off of the province`s riches is one of the Baluch nationalists` main complaints. They get a mere 12.5% of the well-head price(set by the government, at a rate the Baluch maintain is one of the lowest in the world)in gas royalities: the Canadian oil-producing provinces get forty-five percent. The coal mines are almost all owned and operated by non-Baluch.

The Baluch had more immediate grievances in 1958, when Ayub Khan amalgamated West Pakistan into one province, thereby denying their prized national identity. He threatened their traditional lifestyle by issuing orders for the surrender of unlicensed firearms, and the Baluch, led by the ninety-year-old Nauroz Khan, revolted. Nauroz Khan died in jail, and the Bugti`s sardar, Akbar and the Mengal`s sardar, Ataullah, were also imprisoned.

The extent to which the Baluch struggle was about maintaining the power of the sardars, as well about national pride and independence, came out in a set of demands Khair Bux Marri, the Marri`s sardar, put to the government in 1967. He was a Marxist, the furthest left of the Baluch leaders, yet he required the government to recognise that all minerals belonged to the sardar and the elders of that area, that the sardar and not the government should recruit the tribal levies(local militia) and members of jirga(tribal councils), that the police and revenue staff should be withdrawn, and no roads should be built. (sadna: yes no roads)

In the 1970 election when Bhutto swept Sind and Punjab, Baluchistan voted in a National Awami Party government, headed by Attaullah Mengal, with Ghaus Bux Bizenjo as governor and Khair Bux Marri as inspirational firebrand. Akbar Bugti was put out: he had supported, though he didnot belong to, the Awami Party, and, it seems, expected a job. His brother compounded the insult by joining the Party and getting a ministerial post.

Bhutto`s unwillingness to allow anybody but himself to wield power led him to sack the provincial government in 1973. A cache of arms discovered in the Iraqi embassy provided the pretext: the National Awami Party, he said, was conspiring to start an insurgency against the government. The truth is still obscure. Selig Harrison, the American academic, suggest that while the more moderate nationalists, like Bizenjo, probably knew nothing about the guns, the extremists, like Sher Mohammed Marri, did; and that Akbar Bugti, who found out, passed the word on to Bhutto. If so, Bugti got his reward, he was made governor.

Whether or not an insurgency was planned, the government`s sacking was the cue for one to start. Guerrillas of the Baluch People`s Liberation Front started to ambush Army convoys, and soldiers attacked villages. The fighting went on from 1973-7. At the peak, 80,000 soldiers were in action.

The war confused nationalist and left-wing motives. The real ideologues fighting the war were a handful of young men and women, many of them Punjabis, who, while studying at Cambridge, had imbibed a dose of Marxism. They were interested in the grievances of the proletariat, not the Baluch, but decided that Baluchistan would be the springboard for an armed insurgency against the state which would eventually spread across the country.

The Baluch `left-wingers` like Khair Bux Marri, Ataullah Mengal and Ghaus Bux Bizenjo, were not noticeably socialist in their views. Their pro-Soviet ideology, it seems, sprang more from the need for Soviet support when Iran and, to some extent America, were supporting the central government. It seems likely that the average Baluch - literacy rate in the province is six percent - is moved less by socialist theory than appeals to his Baluchness and to his loyalty to his sardar. The nationalist element in the insurgency, thus, was central; the left-wing part tactical.

Zia, who certainly supported Bhutto`s tough line on Baluchistan, was conciliatory when he took over. Baluchistan was a useful smear on Bhutto. He released the National Awami Party leaders who Bhutto had jailed. They were winded by the war, and silenced by marital law. Bizenjo stayed home and started another political party; Marri left for Afghanistan with about 2000 guerrillas; Mengal lives in the London suburb of Ealing.

The invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led people who had never heard of Baluchistan to study the problem. Its heightened strategic importance, and the continual fear of a Russian push, supported by angry tribesmen, down toward the Gulf, focused foreign attention on the province. Zia`s martial law governor, General Rahimuddin, decided to cash in. He suggest a special development programme for the area, financed by the foreigners. So the provincial government put together a lot of programmes in a hurry and took them to the foreigners, who came for official visits and signed cheques for more dollars than the Baluchistan government could manage.

According to the chief secretary of Baluchistan, Mr Poonegar, $5 billion worth of aid, - $1000 each for everybody living in Baluchistan - had been committed by the foreigners by the end of 1987. The rush was so great that the World Bank committed $ 40 million to one project without knowing the details. The money could be used as soon as they liked; the trouble was, Mr Poonegar said, they could not absorb it. They didn`t want to employ engineers and teachers from other provinces, and they just didn`t have enough trained Baluch to design the canals or run the schools.

The tribes were making trouble, too. The Marris wouldnot accept development programmes, because Khair Bux Marri told them not to. `We had a beautiful scheme there`, he said sadly, `A Kuwait Fund irrigation scheme. We`ve done the study, everything was ready, then our man went to the Marri area, and they told him they`d kill him unless he left`. And the Bugtis? Interesting question, he said. Akbar Bugti did nothing to prevent development; but he had a suspicion that this was less a result of indifference than of a realistic understanding of the limitations of his power. Gas extraction, he said, had made a big difference to the area. Bugtis clamoured for jobs in the gasworks: as they made money and learnt to read and write, they were less bound to their old allegiances.

After his rivals left, Akbar Bugti took up the nationalist flag. His area is particularly sensitive since includes the Sui gas field that supplied forty-three percent of Pakistan`s energy production: the tribesmen working there have taken to striking..``

etc (she goes on to interview Akbar Bugti himself and other Baluchis)

Ashok

I agree. I am actually really disappointed by Naipaul. At literary level he is anything but a wordsmith. I think our temporal writes way better than him-judging by Naipauls two books that I have read (Among the Believers and Beyond Belief). Especially the chapter on Baluchistan insurgency is written extremely poorly. As far as the authenticity of the content is concerned I can`t say anything for sure. You might be correct. Naipaul is actually like me or Jay who chose only to see what we want to see. Naipaul only perpetuates the negative stereotypes and anti-Muslim bigotry, which Hindu establishment disseminates among its own people against Muslims, Pakistanis, and Islam. In the literary circles around the globe, Naipaul`s nomination, for Nobel was received with disappointment. Historically, Nobel for literature is given to authors who work for greater peace and harmony among the mankind or they elaborate on Jewish sufferings in Europe in general and holocaust in particular; just like Oscar nominations where the movie has to have a latent, potent or conspicuous message about holocaust and Zionism, otherwise its not an Oscar material; whereas Naipaul comes as a writer whose works results in genocides like in Gujrat and Kashmir etc. But what can you do; anti-Islam bigotry is a new fad these days.

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I have been reading V.S. Naipaul lately. In his book Beyond Belief he has dedicated a chapter on the Communist/Marxist “uprising” in Baluchistan in late ‘60s and throughout ‘70s. I would really like to know who is this person whom he refers to as Shahbaz; who was that Bengali looking Karachiite who was thrown out of the helicopter by Pakistan Army; I also want to know who was that South African; and who was that Baluchi Chieftain whom Shahbaz admired-was that the older Mizari or one of the Bugttis. I want answers.

It is clear from Naipaul’s work that above mentioned Marxists/Communists were working in the pretext of the rights of the Baluchi nomads. One thing is not clear why those rights had to be won by the separation of a “homeland” for those nomads. From 70-77 the political arena was open (according to third world standards) then why separatism? Although, Naipaul neither hints nor elaborates but it is my opinion that the Marxist uprising in Baluchistan failed because the Marxists miscalculated the Nomadic society. In my opinion, a Nomad, shepherd society/tribe is a perfect example of a communist society, at least as perfect as it could get; all the resources are shared, pastures are shared, and live-stock is shared. Then why the hell would they (nomads) need communism is beyond me. The local (nomad) leadership might have an attraction in the “cause” because funds were flowing in from India, USSR, Iraq and some other Baa’th ruled regimes. But the so called “uprising” as a matter of fact died within first year-not because Pak Army was heavy handed but because local Baluchi nomads saw no future in it and no reason to die for. I am also of the opinion that communist ideology can only make sense and appeal to an Industrial society or if it is an agrarian society, where there are establishment, community, and resources are fixed. But the nomads have neither. They are free souls who just follow water and green pasture. Their interests do lie with the land but not quite. The commies miscalculated this psyche of the nomads. Therefore, the “uprising” for “self-determination” failed; because how much more self-determination can one have than a nomad.

The above commentary is based on the contentions that Naipaul put forth. But in my opinion the matter was not that simple; Commies were not that stupid. They knew exactly what they were doing. It can be explained as follows:

Whether we like it or not Pakistan came into being on the premise that it would be a homeland for the Muslims. The issue that whether those Muslims use this piece of land to act on the political and Economics principles of Islam or not, came in after Pakistan already became a reality. And it is not because Muslims were not clear about the vision of Pakistan (before partition) but because there was not enough time between 23 March 1940 and 14 August 1947 to discuss and debate to envision the future political structure of Pakistan. However, the notion that Muslims separated their homeland from Hindus only to practice what they could have practiced along with Hindus under a constitutional parity (in united India) defies all common sense and logic. It negates the purpose of partition and raison de’etre of Pakistan. So at least at philosophical level, Pakistan was a country based on religious ideology.

That was unacceptable to Marxists/Communists. So for them it was absolutely necessary to discredit that religious based ideology. So they waged a war on two fronts:

(i) at philosophical level – where the religious ideology must be discredited at all costs. For that the Marxists/Communists must work with any political entity/polity that is against Pakistan e.g. India, USSR etc. The defenses of Pakistan thus must be weak and vulnerable so that it must become a satellite of these countries. That is the reason they are against our nuclear prowess. And that is the reason they are against Kashmir cause, because Kashmir proves the case for religion-based ideology.
(ii) at geographical level – the geographical construct of Pakistan must be dismantled; because as long as the word Pakistan exists and there is a geographical construct based on the principles and ideology of religion there is a possibility that it might become what it was intended to be.

For these two reasons, the communists/Marxists tried to weaken the structure of Pakistan from the day one. They started from the extremities- East Pakistan was first (that says Naipaul). They fueled the fires of hatred and separatism in the indigenous population and partly because of shortsightedness of Pakistani establishment and partly because of naked aggression of India they succeeded. Paradoxically, however, for Americans a separated East Pakistan was the best guarantee to curb the Communism, which was getting out of control. So Commies did all the groundwork but Americans were the one who won the prize. The “uprising” in Baluchistan was started by Commies under the same paradigm. Pakistan has a culture of labeling political opponents as ‘anti-Pakistan” but it does not mean that anti-Pakistan elements do not exist. This calls for an objective case by case analysis; doesn’t it.

Politics make strange bedfellows. History has offered a great opportunity to those ex-Commies who changed their religion after the collapse of Russian Empire, in the shape of Musharaf. This time they have an insider who can do their work for them. And this individual has not only brought the country on the verge of a civil war, but his political vision will ultimately result in the dismantling of the geographical construct called “Pakistan”. The country is held hostage by the very entity who is supposed to protect it but also with the help of these people who threaten Pakistanis that if they do not go along with their agenda they will be permanently labeled with lack of modernity and they point to the aalmi jootay baazi that Pakistan is now subjected to despite being the “key ally in the war against whatever”. If rubber stamp assemblies acting as the cover for their fascist masters is democracy then Stalin must be a prophet of god and Lenin must be an apostle of Allah.

I want some answers and I want them now.

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Let me try that again....

Saadat Saeed, welcome to CHOWK!

Saeed Anjum may be gone but we will still await his vision in “Sab Acha Ho Gaa”.

Marxism may be down and out these days but its
well-wishers in Pakistan were a breed apart.

Some of them probably had more character and love for their land and people then many of today`s
fundos.

Some of them were amongst the nicest and most talented people to originate from that society.


Ras

Saadat Saeed, welcome to CHOWK!

Saeed Anjum may be gone but we will await his vision in “Sab Acha Ho Gaa”.

Marxism may be down and out these days but its
well-wishers in Pakistan were a breed apart.

Some of them probably had more character and the love of their land and people the many of today`s
Some of them were amongst the nicest and most talented people to originate from that society.

Ras

There is so little that I know about Urdu Adab (literature) that I appreciate reading about books like this. Now if I could only fly to Urdu Bazaar on a magic carpet.....

?