Open Letter To Dina Wadia

Romair at # 81:

``P.S. Kindly do answer the question`` Why is that every non-Hindu province in India has attempted separation, even at the cost of a lot of lives? All of them, could not have been motivated by Jinnah.``

You will never get this answer from anyone. All those who did not belong to the Hindu faith who started in favour of unity finally got disenchanted.

I encourage all Chowkies to read this link:

Clich here to read an excellent article by CNN.

``In 1906, Jinnah joined the All India Congress. In 1913, while still serving in the Congress, he joined the Muslim League, prompting a leading Congress spokesman of the day to call him the ``ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.`` With time, that would change. ``

Quaid-e-Azam and Iqbal both started pro-Hindu-Muslim unity.

One thing I think no one talked about is the `Greywolf` part. This one is going to bite the air marshall really bad.

In 1932, in Hampstead during a stroll, Jinnah picked up H C Armstrong`s work `Greywolf`, on the life of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Turkey. He identified so intensely with the life of Ataturk that it was all he talked about for a few days, so much so that the 13 year old Dina Jinnah started calling him `Greywolf`. On one occasion Jinnah remarked to Fatima that if he had as much power as Ataturk, he would modernize India`s muslims the same way. Later on under Jinnah`s leadership, one annual day was set aside to the memory of the great Turk ... called `Kemal Day`. Throughout the Pakistan Movement, Ataturk and Turkey were presented as the ideal leadership for muslims, just as Iqbal had done so earlier. Ofcourse in my opinion, Jinnah`s vision of Pakistan was that it would be more democratic than the Turkish variety, as Jinnah was not a military leader like Ataturk, but civilian and lawyer trained in the British tradition ....



-YLH

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Fauji-loving Romair:

As I`ve said, it was Qaid-e-Azam`s mistake to not put together an institutionalized form of governance after independence. You are trying to use the last year of his life as a means of showing that `good` constitutional dictators are `o.k`. Read Urstruly`s post 63 that dismiss your contention that Qaid-e-Azam was a dictator.

Anyway, our concern is for today. Musharaf is the only dictator. NS and BB were elected. They have populist appeal and given a chance, lets not hold our breath wondering whether they will blow out Musharaf`s pipsqueak supporters like you by the millions. And that makes all the difference! You conveniently forget not to give a damn about this point.


Cheers!

Nakhok #75: The Urdu/Bengali part is correct. The rest is all Indian propoganda. Much like the propoganda that convinced Indians that they would be met with knife carrying assassins if they ever visited Pakistan. Hence, their being, ``overwhelmed`` at finding Pakistanis to be normal human beings, during this cricket series......

I will not argue with you, on subjective topics, because nothing I will say will convince you, since you are making a subjective comment. If you think Jinnah was worse than Mossulini, by all means, continue thinking that. In fact, why not raise it to Hitler? Or to Modi?

As I stated earlier, the leadership of Jinnah is to be judged by Pakistanis (both East and West Pakistanis). Not by Indians. Just like the leadership of Dravid is to judged by Indian players, not by Pakistani players. If he gets his way and wins, perhaps the Pakistani players will not like his leadership. But that is immaterial.

``Hats off to the East Pakistanis who had the sagacity to see thru Jinnah`s duplicity.``

You may be surprised to find that Jinnah is still quite popular with many Bangladeshis. More popular than Nehru and Gandhi. Infact the center of the whole separation from India and creation of Pakistan was centered and initiated in East Pakistan (and in UP). The areas of West Pakistan were brought in, after the fact. Bengalis wanted to separate from India, more than any group of Muslims in India. Why do you thinnk that was?

Interestingly, in every cricket match I see, between India and Pakistan, the Bangladeshi crowd is overwhelmingly on Pakistan`s side. I have always wondered why. Even Ravi Shastri commented on this, once. So, perhaps you are trying to be holier than the pope.

``Nehru and Gandhi had both tried their best to stop communal riots.``

Gandhi tried his best. As did Jinnah. Nehru did not. Had Nehru agreed to the Cabinet Mission for federated united India, a lot of violence would have been avoided. Surely, you agree with that. Nehru wanted it all his way. Everyone was on the same page, except him. So Pakistanis separated. They weren`t fools hoodwinked by Jinnah. They sincerely did not feel secure with India. Specifically the ones in UP, who would have been a minority amongst Hindus.

I would encourage you to read Wolpert`s book on Nehru. Gandhi himself was fed-up with Nehru, towards partition time. Here are some excerpts:

```Though he never sought conventional power or any job in India`s` government, Gandhi had waited within earshot of Nehru and Patel, hoping that they might invite him to replace Lord Mountbatten. It seemed gallingly inappropriate to Gandhi for this British royal naval person to remain the ceremonial head of independent India....Were Gandhi India`s governor-general now, he could easily have launched another summit with his old friend Jinnah. Together they might have been able to agree on a formula to stop the slaughter - Gandhi`s most passionate aspiration.....Mountbatten was quite ready to let the old man....take over as India`s governor-general.....But Nehru...rejected the idea of having Gandhi as his governor-general even more vehemently than he`s vetoed Gandhi`s Jinnah `scheme` a year earlier.` ``

```Despite the ever-growing gulf that divided their ideologies, Gandhi and Jinnah deeply respected each other`s virtues and remarkable strengths.```

````I have described Jawaharlal as the uncrowned king,` Gandhi told his prayer meeting on June 3...`One who lives in a palace cannot rule the Government.` He said it directly to Nehru as well, every time they met...But none of Delhi`s rulers listened any longer to the, `ravings` of an old `fool,` though not so long before most of them had considered a, `saint.`...Some old friends, seeing how disgusted and distressed Gandhi was, urged him to launch Satyagraha against Nehru`s Raj, but he refused...`I would not carry out any agitation against that Institution.`”

```about Pakistan`s share of British imperial sterling assets.” “Since mid-August, Nehru and Patel had continued to resist releasing Pakistan`s 550 million rupees owed from partitioned British imperial balances. These were to have been released by India three months earlier but remained locked inside New Delhi`s treasury vault.”

P.S. Kindly do answer the question`` Why is that every non-Hindu province in India has attempted separation, even at the cost of a lot of lives? All of them, could not have been motivated by Jinnah.

# 74 by Romair

+++++
Jinnah actually offered and agreed to a federal solution of a united India. Gandhi agreed. British agreed. But Nehru disagreed.
+++++

Romair is probably referring to the myth that abounds in Pakistan
about the Cabinet Mission Plan.

Contrary to that myth, it was Jinnah that rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan, not Nehru.

Shahid Javed Burki (a Pakistani official who had worked at the World Bank) has written very explicitly about it. He has pointed out in his book, ``Pakistan, a Nation in the making``, that it was Jinnah`s refusal to rule out Pakistan even as he accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan that was at the root of the problem. The status was to be reviewed in 15 (or is it 10) years. Jinnah refused to give an undertaking that he wouldn`t revive the demands of Pakistan at that time.

The popularly elected governments of Assam & NWFP were alarmed at the thought that Jinnah was not accepting the Plan in good faith, that it was merely his stepping stone to
Pakistan. The popularly elected ministries in Assam and NWFP were naturally aghast and refused to be compulsorily grouped with the Muslim League provinces. Nehru merely
pointed out that paragraph 15 of the plan allowed the provinces to refuse to join the groupings. And it allowed the Constituent Assembly to ratify the wish of Assam and NWFP. And, once Jinnah realized that the wording of the Cabinet Mission Plan supported Nehru`s interpretation, it was he who formally rejected the plan.

Jinnah didn`t want any Muslim League ministry in a grouping where Congress ministries were in the majority. Thus, no province with a Muslim League ministry was in the A grouping. But Jinnah was aghast at the though that the Congress ministries in Assam and NWFP would have the power to walk out of groupings B and C in which Muslim League ministries were in the majority.

In oher words, in Jinnah`s view there were two types of decentralization in the Cabinet Mission Plan:
(1) The good decentralization that gave groups B and C the autonomy to act without the concurrence of group A.
(2) The bad decentralization that gave Congress ministries in Assam and NWFP to act without the concurrence of the Muslim League ministries in Groups B and C.

Jinnah precipitated the issue by refusing to give an undertaking that he won`t ask for Pakistan when the Plan came up for review in 15 years. And then he opted out of the Cabinet Mission Plan because he wasn`t willing to allow Assam and NWFP the type of autonomy that he wanted for Groups B and C.

# 74 by Romair

+++++
Every single province in India with a non-Hindu majority has separated, or has tried to separate. even at the cost of great loss of life. Why is that? Could it be that too many majority Hindu Indians have been brainwashed into beleiving that everyone else is wrong and they are right?
+++++

Every single province Pakistan, even when it had a population that is nearly 100% Muslim, has separated, or has tried to separate. even at the cost of great loss of life. Why is that? Could it be that too many soldiers from the recruitment areas in Pakistan have been brainwashed into believing that everyone else is wrong and they are right?

And when I speak of ``great loss of life``, I mean it.

How many thousands, nay, millions of Muslims have been killed in Pakistan since 1947? In Karachi, the Shias don`t seem to have even a prayer, especially if the are doctors! They get mowed down even as they pray in their own mosques.

And in 1971 alone, Pakistan`s ruling elite was guilty of murdering over three million compatriots - that`s more than the 1971 Muslim population of the entire Kashmir Valley! It was guilty of crimes that led at least twelve million to flee across the border to seek
refuge in India - that`s more the 1971 population of the entire erstwhile kingdom of Jammu & Kashmir.

And General Tikka Khan went on to earn the sobriquet, ``Butcher of Balochistan`` long after he had had earned infamy in 1971 as the ``Butcher of Bengal``.

I agree so far the article analyses the forces arraigned in Pakistan today. The writer however omitted to mention the greatest loss, in my view, we have suffered since the death of the Quaide Azam. The gretest asset which the Quaide Azam had bestowed on Indian Muslims was their identity as Muslim. The muslims of Pakistan have been robed of this identity by the dark and sinister forces of theocracy in league with the oppotunistic political forces of Pakistan. Today you cannot be treated as a muslim unless you submit a `Halafnama` about your faith whenever you are obliged to have a dealing with any state institution. The last of the series is the `Halafnama` prescribed by the Election Commission of Pakistan.

# 74 by Romair

+++++
Pakistanis have prospered well beyond Indian Muslims. And keeping in mind, where they started from, proportionately speaking, well beyond India also. And they are far more secure, economically, politically, socially etc. today, in any kind of system, than they would have been in India, under the BJP (or perhaps even Congress).
+++++

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_2-11-2003_pg3_3

Daily Times, Pakistan
Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Pakistan and South Asian Muslims
By Ishtiaq Ahmed
Associate professor of Political Science at Stockholm University. i Ishtiaq.Ahmed@statsvet.su.se


..... Apart from East Punjab where ethnic cleansing was almost complete, several of the staunchest protagonists of the Pakistan demand, among them Raja Sahib Mahmudabad, Hasrat Mohani, Begum Aizaz Rasul, Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan, Raja of Pirpur (author of the Pirpur Report of 1937) and Mohammad Asadullah of Assam, chose to stay in India. Some left for Pakistan later but others who had gone to Pakistan returned to India. Why? I don`t know, but it is something on which more research needs to be done.

On the whole it was primarily the upper middle-class and the salariat that immigrated to Pakistan.

Pakistan came into being in those areas where Muslims were in a majority. Such areas did not need as much protection from Hindu Raj as those in which Muslims were in a minority. Most of them were converts from Dalit and other depressed sections of society. They needed more help than anyone else in coming to Pakistan, but they were advised to become good and loyal Indians. I am sure the Biharis stranded in Bangladesh also come from the poorest sections of society and therefore they too have no takers in Pakistan.

#74 by Romair

+++++
I am certainly glad the guy led the creation of Pakistan.
+++++

I have no problem with that. By 1946, nothing short of partition would have worked.

By 1946, the situation had degenerated to the point where it was impossible to lay the foundations of a working democracy in a united India. Surgery was the only way out.

Muslim League wasn`t willing to submit to the ``tyranny of the majority``. If the subcontinent had remained united, the Muslim League would have battled Congress into an an impasse over forming a federal government in Delhi, thereby paving the way for an army takeover in Delhi (a la post-1947 Pakistan) and worse.

Such an army takeover would have been even actually far worse than what we have seen in independent Pakistan - the British had made sure of that:

In pursuit of their ``divide et imperia`` games, the British had imposed a delicate religious balance among Indian recruits to the Imperial Army. Thus even an army takeover might not have been enough to impose stability on a united subcontinent which might have quickly fragmented into a dozen pieces in the wake of an armed conflict between soldiers of different religious faiths - each in pursuit of the call for ``direct action`` by vicious political leaders.

Nehru`s vision of a socialist India was in direct conflict with the Muslim League establishment of feudal aristocrats of United Provinces and the mercantile class of the Bombay Presidency (Liaqat and Jinnah). This schism would have been farther exacerbated with directives for ``Direct Action`` and worse in an attempt to play the religion card to the hilt.

In fact, different social conditions made it impossible for even the post-1947 pre-1971 united Pakistan to lay the foundations of a working democracy:

---

www.jang.com.pk/thenews

The News, Karachi, Pakistan
Wednesday December 11, 2002-- Shawwal 06, 1423 A.H.

Why Jinnah`s Pakistan ended
by M B Naqvi
mbnaqvi@cyber.net.pk

..... One emphasises a narrower reason for the earliest power struggle between the Punjab and Bengal Groups in the first Constituent Assembly in 1948-49. East Bengalis had opened their account with the expropriation of all intermediary landed interests between the state and the cultivator. This without compensation reform frightened the social elites in West Pakistan, almost all of whom landlords. Bengalis acquiring the central power seemed to them like encouraging the new Bolsheviks to repeat that enormity here also. So they were determined to deny the Bengalis their due share of power and entered into an open conspiracy: they sought help from the bureaucracy and got it. With West Pakistan`s landowning MPs help, they cornered all power.....

---

# 74 by Romair

+++++
The picture of the communal riots you describe is also one-sided Indian propoganda speaking.
+++++

No, it is not. I am talking about Jinnah`s attempt to replicate the religious cleansing of West Pakistan in East Pakistan as well. And he cannot feign ignorance of what could have happened because of his demagoguery. This was a good 7 months after the religious cleansing in West Pakistan. It was a premeditated crime.

It was demagoguery at its worst to denounce the demand for Bengali as a national language as a Hindu demand and as the demand of the enemy of Pakistan. He was attempting to kill two stones with one stone. Suppress a legitimate demand (Bengali was the language of the majority of Pakistanis) but more importantly, demonize the Hindus in an insidious attempt to chip away at East Pakistan`s majority.

And remember, Nehru and Gandhi had both tried their best to stop communal riots. In fact, Gandhi gave his life for it. Jinnah diidn`t. On the contrary, even in March of 1948 he was trying to chip away at East Pakistan`s majority by demonizing the Hindus even as he was trying to deny Bengali its due.

In fact, I was being generous when I said that had he lived, history would regard him no better than Mussolini. Jinnah would have been regarded worse. Hats off to the East Pakistanis who had the sagacity to see thru Jinnah`s duplicity. They stuck to their demands and refused to victimize the Hindus at the behest of their Qaid-e-Azam.

nakhok #72: ``I am not so sure. It is extremely doubtful that, had he lived, he would have gone down in history as any better than Mussolini.

Jinnah was certainly not above pandering to religious hatred to achieve his political objective. And he did that even after he had seen what happened not just in the wake of his call for ``Direct Action`` but even after he had witnessed the massive ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of the partition. And in doing so he proved that he was anything but a benevolent dictator``

This part is false. It is ludicrous to compare Jinnah with Mussolini (even more ludicrous that saying he had a good relationship with his daughter). This is more the Indian brainwashing speaking than anything else. On objective issues, like him being a Constiutional dictator, I agree. On subjective isuses, I disagree. Since you are making comparisons, without any fact.

Jinnah was a benevolent leader, because nearly everyone in Pakistan agrees he was. That is all the justification that is required. Justifiaction from India is not required. A leadership of a person is decided by the people he leads, not by those who oppose everything he stands for. Even Bangladeshis (many of them) still like him.

Jinnah was a visionary, if you ask me. He sensed the rise of the BJP, decades before it arrived. Regardless of military rule, civilian rule or any other kind of rule, Pakistanis have prospered well beyond Indian Muslims. And keeping in mind, where they started from, proportionately speaking, well beyond India also. And they are far more secure, economically, politically, socially etc. today, in any kind of system, than they would have been in India, under the BJP (or perhaps even Congress).

I am certainly glad the guy led the creation of Pakistan. As are 99% of Pakistanis. If not 100%. That makes him a great leader.

The picture of the communal riots you describe is also one-sided Indian propoganda speaking. There were killings on both sides - Pakistan and India. Hindus/Sikhs were as brutal as anyone in killing Muslims. I know far too many Pakistanis who lost relatives in the migration to not know this to be true.

Jinnah actually offered and agreed to a federal solution of a united India. Gandhi agreed. British agreed. But Nehru disagreed. It was the job of the majority to make the minority feel secure. That is how it is in all countries. The majority did not fulfill its responsibility. So the minority separated. I have thus, never understood the Indian argument of always blaming the minority. Even now, the VHP (parent of BJP) keeps saying that Hindus are being exploited by Indian Muslims. Kind of strange. Much like the argument you presented.

You need to think about something. Every single province in India with a non-Hindu majority has separated, or has tried to separate. even at the cost of great loss of life. Why is that? Could it be that too many majority Hindu Indians have been brainwashed into beleiving that everyone else is wrong and they are right?

rozaiba #57: The second disagreement you had with me was when I highlighted that Jinnah was a Constitutional dictator. You had initially vehemently disagreed, with the following statements:

``HER FATHER`S ONLY PRINCIPAL IN LIFE WAS TO STAND IN FACE OF ANY UNCONSITUTIONAL MEANS OF ACHIEVING GOALS NO MATTER WHAT THE SITUATION, WHAT THE CIRUCMSTANCES.``

``Anyway, he spent his whole life abiding by the law - his livelihood was the law and it makes no sense to suggest he could be considered a `dictator`.``

Then when some facts were provided to you, you went off into your usual tangent, about Musharraf and Army and bedlinens. Even though I had mentioned none of these. And you ended up with your normal line that you seem to cling to when you have no argument, i.e. I love faujiz.

Mantolives seems to have a habit of fabricating lies about people who disagree with him. And you have an even stranger habit of associating people who disagree with you, into unknown love-affairs. Lahore seems to have really changed, since I left.....I am not quite sure what my pointing out Jinnah`s actions has to do with any love or hatred for faujiz. Rest assured I love no one other than my own family (and even some of them keep complaining that I don`t call them enough). I just try to make arguments, as I see them.

Anyways, back to the topic. Nakhok pointed out the following about Jinnah. I was aware of some of these points, and unaware of others.

``1. When the time came, Jinnah opted to become the Governor General of Pakistan instead of Prime Minister because, under the Constitution, Governor General could give instructions to the Prime Minister.

2. Jinnah, after becoming Governor General, not only appointed the Prime Minister but himself chose and appointed all the members of the Cabinet.

3. He was the President of Muslim League, and did not relinquish party presidentship even after becoming the Governor General

4. Jinnah accumulated all power in him as the leader of the party, head of the administration and the State, a virtual dictator.

5. He even assumed authority to take care of the government`s Kashmir and Frontier Departments.

6. As a Governor General, he caused Legislative Assembly to endorse these additional powers.

7. He even presided over Cabinet meetings, unprecedented in parliamentary democracy.

8. He often, without the knowledge of the Prime Minister, instructed the Provincial Governors, Ministers and Departmental Secretaries. Parliamentary norms were not applicable to Jinnah.``

Now all of the above would support my point that he was a Constituional dictator, i.e. someone who centralizes all power in his own hands, albeit in a Constitutional manner; much like what Nawaz Sharif, and Z. Bhutto tried to do (the only difference being that they were bad ones, and he was a good one). Could you kindly provide some counter-arguments to the above, if you disagree with them (or accept them as facts if you cannot provide counter-arguments).

P.S. Could I also please request you to not assoicate me into any love-affairs, if you disagree with me. Just to set the record straight: Nakhok and I did date. It was good while it lasted, but it did not blossom into anything. We liked different things. He liked long walks on the beach, while I enjoyed drives under the moonlight......So my using his reply, has nothing to do with my being in love with him.....

# 69 by Romair

+++++
Jinnah was indeed a Constitutional dictator. Albeit a good one. And perhaps one that was needed at the time. It is quite possible, he would have eased off, as Pakistan stabilized furthur. Even if he hadn`t, he would have been an excellent leader.
+++++

I am not so sure. It is extremely doubtful that, had he lived, he would have gone down in history as any better than Mussolini.

Jinnah was certainly not above pandering to religious hatred to achieve his political objective. And he did that even after he had seen what happened not just in the wake of his call for ``Direct Action`` but even after he had witnessed the massive ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of the partition. And in doing so he proved that he was anything but a benevolent dictator

West Pakistan had been cleansed of Sikhs and Hindus within months, nay weeks, of partition. An overwhelming majority of the country`s Hindus were in East Pakistan. The rulers from West Pakistan soon realized that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by demonizing the Hindus left in Pakistan. If nothing else, it was the means to
disenfranchise a significant section in East Pakistan and turn East Pakistanis into a minority. It was this evil urge to contain the perceived threat, from Pakistan`s majority wing in any democratic setup, that led rulers in West Pakistan to talk of ``parity`` and of ``separate electorates.``

On March 21, 1948, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and its first Governor-General, while on his first and only visit to East Bengal, declared in Dhaka University convocation that while the language of the province can be Bengali, the ``State language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Any one who tries to mislead you is really an enemy of Pakistan.``

The use of the phrase ``enemy of Pakistan`` was deliberate. It was a loaded phrase, particularly mischievous in view of the massive ethnic cleansing in West Pakistan in the last seven months.

Jinnah`s demagoguery was deplorable but not surprising. He was merely repeating what Liaqat Ali Khan and his cohorts had been saying in the Constituent Assembly for the last one month. On February 23, 1948, Dhirendra Nath Datta, a Bengali opposition member, had moved a resolution in the first session of Pakistan`s Constituent Assembly for recognizing Bengali as a state language along with Urdu and English. Non-Bengali Assembly members, led by Liaqat Ali Khan, had immediately pounded on Mr. Datta`s religion to denounce the claim of Bengali as nothing but a Hindu conspiracy. Many a snide remark was made on the ``Hindu`` character of the language that was the mother tongue of the majority of Pakistanis.

But, fortunately, most East Pakistanis were not fooled. They realized that these non-Bengali members had deliberately chosen to forget that a language may have grammar but it has no religion. Any competent language is capable of expressing a gamut of religious beliefs. It is as easy to translate the Geeta into Arabic as it is to translate the Koran into Sanskrit. There was absolutely no basis for denouncing Bengali as a Hindu language. If anything, it was a Muslim language because a majority of the Bengalis were indeed Muslims.

But the ruling class in West Pakistan had its own agenda. And it certainly did fit that agenda to denounce Bengali as a Hindu language and to look down on East Pakistan`s majority as less than ``good Muslims.``

It is not surprising that, during the genocide in 1971, the Shaheed Minar was one of the first targets of Yahya Khan`s barbaric army. Nor was it surprising what they did to Dhirendra N. Datta. He was an octogenarian by that time. The barbaric soldiers chose to drag this old man out of his house in Comilla and to summarily execute him in front of his neighbors and family. It was, thus, that West Pakistan`s ruling elite punished Mr. Datta for having proposed Bengali as a national language of Pakistan some 23 years ago.

Jinnah had inveighed against the ``tyranny of the majority`` to advance the goals of the Muslim League establishment. It was ironic and apt that Jinnah`s Pakistan has had to remain wary of the ``majority`` even after it came into being. First, it was the Hindu-tainted majority in East Pakistan that was the enemy. But even after the 1971 partition of Pakistan, the country remains under the ``tyranny of the minority`` to keep the majority at bay.

Pakistan`s military and the ISI were never representative of the hopes and aspirations of ordinary Pakistanis. It is highly educative to keep in mind the geographical concentration of military personnel - eighty percent of officers, rank and file, come from only five districts: Attock, Rawalpindi, Chakwal, Jhelum and Gujrat in Punjab; and three districts of NWFP: Mardan, Peshawar and Kohat - ill-gotten wealth of the military funnels prosperity to a very narrow segment in the country (professionally & geographically).

It is this mal-distribution of the military (kept alive artificially by the British propounded ``martial races theory``) that has made it easier for the military`s top brass to manipulate the lower ranking soldiers into upholding the corporate interests of Pakistan`s military.

But the upshot is that Pakistan remains under the ``tyranny of the minority``, an apt outcome of the Pakistan Movement that had been fueled by the fear of the majority.

When Pakistan`s military swears by:

(1) the ``martial race theory``
(2) asserts that one Pakistani soldier can take care of ten ``Hindu`` soldiers or,
(3) promises compatriots that they will unfurl Pakistan`s flag at the Red Fort,

it does so, not because it believes in the bluster, but because that makes it easier for the military to usurp a disproportionate share of the country`s wealth for the Kakul kleptocrats.

In real life, Pakistan`s military has always been far tougher on its own citizens, most of them unarmed, than on armed soldiers of ``enemy`` countries. Thus, General Tikka Khan is far better known to the world as the Butcher of Bengal and as the Butcher of Balochistan than as the Knight in shining armor who will ride his big white horse to the Red Fort to unfurl Pakistan`s flag.

When Pakistan`s military breathes fire, it is to ``prove`` to Pakistani citizens that the military is indispensable to the nation`s welfare. But this is nothing but a fraud because the primary aim is to make sure that Pakistan`s army can continue steal a disproportinate share of the country`s wealth for itself.

rozaiba #57: You are still out on a tangent, though you seemed to have closed it a bit. I will reply in two replies......

1. The whole discussion started from your objection to my saying that Dina Wadia should not have been given state guest status. You have now watered down your objection and have stated:

``As for Dina Wadia, I have to tell you again that it`s all based on emotions and nothing more. There is no rationale to it. So really your rationale though apt, fails to convince. ``

This seems like you agree with me. And then say it fails to convince. Why does it fail to convince, if it is apt? Probably because you don`t want to be convinced. Not much one can do about a person, who accepts an argument, cannot offer a counter-argument, but says I will not be convinced.

Romair:

Ref. Your posts to gujjobania and rsridhar.

1. I had locked horns with gujjobania once on economic indicators. I too gave him lots of UNDP`s definition before replying to him. However, I found out very soon that he does not know anything about how to infer results from data.

2. That the economic gap between China and India is actually increasing is totally lost on Indians like gujjo, rsridhar, arjun, etc. You will hear Indians frequently claiming that it is not Pakistan that India is competing with, it is China, although their preoccupation with Pakistan belies their claims.

I am convinced, and so are many people in the industry, that if the present stability of Pakistan and continuation of economic policies continue, then we are set for achieving a very high growth rate in the years to come (this year it may be 6%), something that we lost in the 90s.

I appreciate your replying to gujjobania on my behalf.