Altaf Hussain Visits India: His Keynote Speech

Oye Manto
you write ``Veeresh who is a member of chowk and who started off with a personal insult addressed to me``...
So what do you want buddy? Impersonal insults? or general insults... Define what kind of insults you are ok with...

`` sure can hit him where it hurts... ``
By the way, did you try hitting Veeresh below the belt.. Now I know why you are obsessed about his divorce.. He did something to you... hahaha

It is interesting to compare the attitudes of refugees and migrants and their children who crossed the border during the partition.

Those who went as refugees into India generally show a lot of nostalgia for the lost land. They lament the fact that they had to leave their homeland and blame not only Jinnah but Gandhi and Nehru also for their fate.

Those who went to Pakistan as refugees (mostly panjabis) also have bitter feelings about their suffering during the partition. But they dont seem to show any great nostalgia, no `hai saada amritsar` counterparts to `hai saada lahor` on the Indian side. They are generally happy and thank Jinnah for creating a country for them

Those who left India voluntarily -the so-called Mohajirs- show another typr of attitude. By 1991 they were beginning to show a similar `hamari dilli` type nostalgia and started wondering whether the creation of Pakistan was a wise move. But after the demolition of Babri Masjid, Bombay and Gujarat riots, they have become schizophrenic. When they hear of shia-sunni fights or negative remarks about muhajirs, they still wonder about the wisdom of TNT. But whenever there is a news of mistreatment of muslims in India, they think that the creation of Pakistan was justified. I dont think they ever bother to think whether babri-gujarat type of incidents would have been possible if Pakistan had not been created in the first place.

friend;
It would be different if Veeresh had responded to Manto in an abusive manner but I dont think that Manto had abused you.

Manto:
You are most effective when you stay away from personal insults. In any case, dont be too sure about veeresh`s `talaq`.

Yasser,
I don’t know what the fuss is about what Altaf said in India. One thing is clear that he is politically secure enough in Sindh to get away with what he said. I doubt that there is even a single Urdu Speaking anywhere in Pakistan who would like to move back to India. That would run entirely against their basic politics that still derives strength from religious minority status that they had in India. They have basically extended it to Pakistan under the guise of first being a Muhajir minority in Sindh, and now looking for sort of semi autonomous Karachi to become a majority somewhere.
Mohajir came to Pakistan really scared of Hindus from the undivided Indian provinces that they lived in. A good number of them (esp. underclass from Rajhistan and Bihar) moved to Pakistan when fear of communal riots gripped those provinces. It does not mean that they did not support Pakistan before the partition, they did; but they never really had any intention of moving to Pakistan. Unfortunately for them, they became an ethnic minority in Sindh and other provinces in Pakistan right after they landed in Pakistan. Basically, they extended their streak of being a minority from India to Pakistan. Altaf and his followers exploit that psychological gash.
Urdu Speakings in Pakistan have never supported a political party that derives support all over Pakistan. They abandoned Muslim League right after the partition. Jamat Islami was their political party of choice because its entire leadership consisted of Muhajirs. JI did pretend to be all over Pakistan but the reality is without support in Karachi that party would have died, politically, a long time ago. Later, they moved their support to Shah Ahmed Noorani, the exalted one from Meerut. In the 80s, MQM, a totally Karachi-Hyd base political party was their choice led by a man from Agra.
Can you make the connection- They supported Muslim league in India- a minority party, and now they support another minority party in Pakistan.
What Yassar needs to analyze is: while as a community they fully support Pakistan and to some extent the Pak Army, yet, they don’t trust a Pakistan based party to represent them in national politics.
Altaf’s base in Karachi or Hyderabad is not upper Middleclass or even middle- middle class Urdu speaking. His message is for the under class of Urdu speaking and they outnumber any other group in some cities in Sindh. This is a group that competes for small governments jobs with other ethnicities in Sindh. Upper Class Urdu speaking are actually happy with Musharaf, never had a whole lot of interest in government sector jobs. Before 1980s they did join civil service and the army in great numbers but that upper class has carved its economic interests outside of Pakistan or in private sector now and most of them don’t really care a whole lot about competing with other ethnicities in Pakistan.
Altaf’s main issue is: Karachi should be an autonomous area in Pakistan which would be entirely governed by Urdu speaking and preferably his party. This runs contrary to business interests in Punjab, Sindhi interests of losing biggest city in Sindh to an ethnic minority but the real factor is the Pakistan Army. Pak Army has enormous stake in Karachi. The very fact that it opposed a mohajir militant party-a community that has always supported the army in Pakistan- for so many years with all the might it could muster, shows that the army would not give up control over Karachi to any group that could possibly exercise autonomous control over Karachi.
The control over Karachi was the boon of contention between the army and the MQM.
Politics never remain static; there is some dynamism attached to it. The Army realized after a long confrontation that it has pretty much no choice but to work with MQM after political equation changed in Pakistan after 911. The army relied on the religious parties for support but with new confrontation with the religious right in Pakistan, the army needed new allies and MQM was a good option as Musharaf himself is Urdu speaking and had the ability to woo Altaf. The emergence of Gwader port also provided another option for the Army and businesses houses in Punjab to soften their stand against MQM.
It would be suicidal for Altaf to entirely trust the army given army’s background and the treacherous ways it runs politics in Pakistan; Altaf needs some international support if there is some confrontation with the army in the future. Atlaf will not get that support from the US or the EU or even from the Brits.
India is the option that he needs to cultivate and soften up for future support for his warriors and put pressure on Pakistan. He knows his support in Pakistan would not wither away by saying what he said in India but that would give the army a moment to pause in case some future conflicts between the army and MQM surface.
He has played first card when he tried to muster support from Sindh nationalists, he is working on Baluch Nationalists and now another card is the support from India.
Can you tell what is common between India and Sindhi/Baloch Nationalist?
They all oppose the Pakistan Army!

Give Altaf little credit and hope that there is no more confrontation in Karachi between the MQM and the Army.

PS. Pl. don’t respond to that crazed/lunatic woman. Her agenda is hate and you give her creditability.

friend #82

Yaar, just keep Manto`s wife and mother out of this, please? Take it as a personal request (many of us used to know his wife as a chowkie....even otherwise....if Manto is a latoon ka bhoot, given him, not his family, latoon. At least you don`t start. I don`t think Manto will.)

DM #65
``friend#39,40:
These are very disappointing posts. I had presumed that Indians show a greater degree of respect for women. You have proved me wrong! ``

DM, I am sorry to disappoint you.. But this manto is a ``latoon kaa bhoot``. He keeps insulting everyone.. And needs a good dose of his own medicine.

Let me write an actual incident.
In my college days, once in the play-ground, I jovially approached one of my ``jat`` friends and asked ``SriMaan ji, aaj kaal kahan tashreef laa-jaa rahe ho`` - tranlateed - ``Sir, where all have you been to these days``..
I never realised that that idiot of my acquintance was not used to this type of talk. He grabbed me by collar and started choking me. ``Saale, mazak udata hai`` - ``making fun of me``..
And when I shouted back ``Matherc?d, marega kya?`` - Mother Fu??er, you are killig me, he left me.. ``haan theek se baat kar, aise hi..`` - ``yes now you are talking properly``..


And I learnt that some people do not want to be treated with respect...

Manto #47
Wow !!!
``it was utterly indecent of you to bring my mother (and now a grandmother), who has been an exceptionally productive part of society as a doctor and a social worker (unlike you, a disgusting internet vulture, or Veeresh, a car mechanic wannabe) who has never interacted on this site with people like you into this... ``


Yaar Manto,
Kya Docotor logoon kaa divorce nahin hota? Aur kya woh propose nahin karte? Way you are obsessed with Veeresh`s divorce indicates something personal.. Agar ammi jaan kaa proposal nahin refuse hua tau kuch aur baat hogi... Did he refuse your proposal? Yaar, you write such spicy and sadak chaap stuff that I can bet, in Bihar they would have kept you as a ``launda``, you know- that boys they used to keep for dancing in marriages etc.. Some still exist..
If this is also not the case than do write us why you are so obsessed with Veeresh`s divorce? Aisa tau nahin ki Aiysha begum aap se talaq chahti hain?

Ballu Khan...

No disagreements with you on the `TNT` as being irrelevant to Pakistani Nationhood ... please revisit my post addressed to Sadna...

But ... Altaf Hussain is hardly the person who will create this realization...

Aamir Liaqat Hussain, a relation of Altaf, a federal minister and the most famous MQM figure in Pakistan right now, has the most reactionary show on tv about Islam every day on GEO... About a year ago... he brought a Pakistani Hindu on the show and outright insulted him... I wrote many letters bashing Aamir Liaqat Hussain that appeared in different newspapers... MQM is anti-rural Sindh (which is where Pakistani Hindus are concentrated) and pro-middle class Karachiite... that matrix in of itself makes for an anti-minority stance...

Altaf Hussain is an opportunist... he is just playing to his audience. Don`t be fooled... he does not represent anyone...

-YLH

Just looking at these interacts is giving me a headache!

Why are the Indians getting so deeply involved? These are sensitive issues. Let Pakistanis find their own solutions.

to retain purity of chowk as a cyberentity, chowk should ban people from acknowledging any real-life personality about themselves. i mean, i may really want to insult manto, but once i know that he is recently married and has an expectant wife who also contributes on chowk, its hard. so i may endup insulting his nationality, or worse, jinnah.

see what you make me do?

Harish Hyd...

I am afraid the only goof here is you.... who is going into the stats and maths of the Pakistan Vs. India farts... who asked you to compare Pakistan and India in the first place?
Is that your excuse ... ``we make up 34% of the world`s illiterate but arithematic wise we are better than Pakistan?`` All this with don`t gel with the great emerging super power and the greatest IT country in the world that everyone keeps saying India is.... should you really be comparing yourself with little ol` Pakistan in the first place?

Also... I am proud of what I said to Veeresh who is a member of chowk and who started off with a personal insult addressed to me... I am convinced of what I said... if Veeresh can launch personal attacks and personal insults in his posts ... I sure can hit him where it hurts... But my post was not derogatory towards his mother, or his wife or anyone in his family as such... if anything I have the greatest respect for his ex-wife who did the right thing.

Big difference...



Veeresh,

Divorced from reality? This from a person who tastes airline food for a living...

Great...

-YLH

PS:

Harish Hyd,

About the rest of your post... There are those who are indgenous and those who are immigrants in every country ... I personally don`t draw a distinction between them as far as their being Pakistani is concerned... The second part was a mere response to Alephnull... your knee jerk response was once again predictable.... i.e. ah but Pakistan does it too...

---

``Friend`` had earlier brought up ``Khan of Kalaat`` ... now here are some very interesting bits and pieces from Khan of Kalaat`s interview recently:


The tragedy was, he said, that policy-making in this country had always been in the hands of the migrants. The result was that ``the refugees are controlling your country, and the sons of soil are beggars``.

``The Baloch were more pro-federation than anyone else in the country. ``We created it (Pakistan) and we can damage it.`` If Kalat had not acceded to the federation and Pakistan had not come into being, he said, ``we would be the underdogs of the Hindus. The papers (of accession) are lying in the Mohatta Palace and you can see them``. ``

http://www.dawn.com/2004/11/08/top2.htm

-YLH

HP 68...

Brilliant once more :)

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Altaf Hussain`s outpourings does expose the uglier side of those nationalists who still (wrongly) think that TNT remains the most sacred philosophical foundation of the Pakistani nationhood !!
MQM may be running a collection system but can it compare to the biggest collection system that is run by the Pakistan`s Army at the gun point in the country???

Actually, Yasser, Harish_hyd has a point. You`ve been bringing up ``divorce`` without realising that in effect, you`re the one who is divorced from reality.

Anyways.

Now let us assume that as per your reasoning, only the good guys should speak to each other in India & Pakistan to solce all the problems.

But the other problem is that as per you a large number, say 96%, of Indians are not good guys. I mean, they are not bad guys, but they are not good enough for you.

SO now these not good guys who are not bad guys from India would not be very smart if they only spoke to the good guys in Pakistan, right?

But then Pakistan is also full of not good guys who are not bad guys either, accoring to you. Let us take 96% here too, since I love this number.

So now, do you want the representation of Indo-Pak talks to be only between the 4% or so good guys on each side?

As a matter of fact, I think that was what was wrong all these years. The good guys in India & Pakistan (especially the Hai Saada Lahore sort) were over the years and decades unable to change with the times and thus became the bad guys for the rest of the 96% on both sides.

So I do think the not good guys as long as they are the not bad guys but mostly they are not the good guys who went bad like cream gone sour should talk to each other.

In other words, we deal you Laloo Prasad Yadav, you deal us Altaf Hussain.

Next?

Sadna,

Personally I would substitute Indians like I K Gujral and our own Dost Mittar anytime for a person like Altaf Hussain.... Now I don`t want to get into the debate on what ``TNT`` means or doesn`t mean... but it was a theory which could only be relevant on an pre-partition all-India level and it certainly does not mean Hindus and Muslims can`t live side by side... I know you will now have a knee jerk response... to most people Pakistan= TNT though TNT is as old as the Aligarh educational Movement... a minor form of the TNT exists today in India, for better or for worse, in the form of constitutional safeguards and Muslim family laws... but you can`t force a significant genuine minority to give up its protection... you have to convince them of it. That was the point through out....

But ... this is a closed chapter... Altaf Hussain is trying to reopen an issue for his own international political capital... nothing more... he is a chameleon... from the one time self styled founder of Jinnahpur to an advocate of the right of return... one can never be sure what this guy wants....

-YLH