International Monetary Fund (IMF) __ Friend or Foe?

...Question...?

why is that ..all the developing nations who have followed the IMF`s prescriptions about their economies.....in a deeper mess then before...?

that is before following IMF`s prescribed policeis...Most of them were doing Ok..

Dear Zeemax:

I am glad to see your piece on IMF. Its obviously been here for some days and I`m a bit late in this discussion, so I shall only make a couple of off-the-main-subject observations.

First, if memory serves me, Mansur Al-Hallaj was stoned to death. Please be careful following in his footsteps as the tolerence levels have not improved by much. I don`t mind your `getting stoned`, but not with rocks.

Second, when did you start going to Raiwind`s gatherings? And are the young talib-i-ilms still being groped and molested by the mauzzins and the haafiz-shaib? Is this Raiwind-wards drift a change of heart from the days of old? Do I still get to meet your good friends, Mr Jack and Mr John, of the Danniels and Walker families, when I visit you next time?

Third, please email me as I have deleted (inadvertantly, of course) your address.

...SR

Dear Zeemax:

I am glad to see your piece on IMF. Its obviously been here for some days and I`m a bit late in this discussion, so I shall only make a couple of off-the-main-subject observations.

First, if memory serves me, Mansur Al-Hallaj was stoned to death. Please be careful following in his footsteps as the tolerence levels have not improved by much. I don`t mind your `getting stoned`, but not with rocks.

Second, when did you start going to Raiwind`s gatherings? And are the young talib-i-ilms still being groped and molested by the mauzzins and the haafiz-shaib? Is this Raiwind-wards drift a change of heart from the days of old? Do I still get to meet your good friends, Mr Jack and Mr John, of the Danniels and Walker families, when I visit you next time?

Third, please email me as I have deleted (inadvertantly, of course) your address.

...SR

To All Indian readers of CHOWK including RDesikan
Reply # 27, please read the following:

From The News International Thursday January 20, 2000

With enemies like us

By Lt Gen (retd) Asad Durrani

India and Pakistan must be each other`s best friends; except that they
do not know that.
Very often when in trouble, one has been bailed out by the other. Come
to think of it, but
for India`s founding fathers, there might not have been a Pakistan--if
the Congress had
accepted the Cabinet Plan for instance! The favour was returned in 1962.
The Chinese had
them in a bind, but we resisted the temptation. Without doing much harm
to their core
interests, we also helped them shake up a little in a war three years
later. The mutual rescue
has gone on for ever.

We had royally bungled it up in what is now Bangladesh. There may have
been other,
better, ways to get out of that mess. When we didn`t, the Indians jumped
into the foray. De
Gaulle had once said he loved Germany so much, that he was happy there
were two of
them. India`s affection for Pakistan is perhaps in the same vein. It
must be wondering now,
if creating another nemesis on its eastern front was that good an idea.
And just when we
were wondering how best to take care of the gross imbalance that ensued
the 1971 divide, a
Congress government paved for us the nuclear path. Anxious to be as good
neighbourly,
the BJP, at the first available opportunity, helped us to the prized
nuclear status.

In the early 1990s, as soon as it became the sole superpower, the US
went for us all guns
blazing. The charges ranged from drug peddling and nuclear deceit to
abetting terrorism
and promoting radical ideologies. If we recall, it was again the BJP
that provided some relief.
Its goons demolished the Babri Mosque and the world had to take notice
of some
non-Islamic fundamentalists as well. Within a day we paid back for the
goodwill. Task
forces led by ministers and chief ministers destroyed scores of temples;
and not only the
Hindu ones. The Saffron marched on.

Indeed the BJP can never blame us for ingratitude. For all the good that
it did to us at
Ayodhya and Pokhran, we helped its sagging fortunes by grossly
mismanaging Kargil.
True to the pattern, when we were all tangled up with Kargils and
military takeovers, the
good old neighbour made such a hash of the plane hijacking, that we were
about to start
looking good. (Our poorer cousin in the West actually did.) But of
course we could not let
our twin suffer alone. True to our genes, we went for an oral
counter-offensive that sank us
to the Zee level. While some of us must be happy that we responded to
the Indian spins
with our seams, the others should ponder over the wisdom of always
having to match the
big brother blow for blow.

Bailing out the other side, when it is in a spot, is indeed not what we
have in mind when we
undertake a venture. If anything, the guiding principle is: invoke the
Almighty`s wrath for
the archrival; hopefully, the self would get away with lesser penance.
Well, that is what the
enemies are there for. Too bad it backfires every now and then. But
then, so argues our
side, hanging tough is the only thing that works with India. Perhaps.
But shooting with the
mouth, or in one`s own foot, does not work with anyone. More
importantly, it merely serves
the Indian game plan.

Tension in the area may not be in India`s interest. But if it harms us
more, as our adversary
is convinced that it does, it would obviously forego a small gain for
our bigger loss. In fact,
if we know our neighbour well, to deny us even a minor relief it would
be willing to suffer
much more--on Siachen, for example. A very sensible formula to resolve
this dispute,
agreed upon in Islamabad in July 1989, was rejected a few hours later in
Delhi. ``Keep the
temperature high``, may well be the scarlet thread of India`s Pakistan
policy. In its execution,
we have been remarkably helpful.

Dialogue between countries like ours serves a number of ends. It helps
both sides to take a
good measure of each other. Given a chance, it might even resolve an odd
problem. Its main
benefit however, lies in the availability of a mechanism that can
prevent crises from
aggravation. The adversaries do not get friendlier just because they are
communicating, but
they do become less edgy. During the cold war, many such instruments,
some of them little
more than debating forums, served that purpose. Even the `hot` Vietnam
war had a
negotiating track running parallel to it. One may well argue that if
reducing tension was not
in line with the Indian aims, they would spurn all attempts to start the
process, and scuttle it
if it ever got under way. Yes, but by insisting that we must talk and
resolve Kashmir first,
we are making it too easy for them. Why not listen to BJP! Like always
it is so keen to help.

When Vajpayee says the time was not ripe to talk about Kashmir, he does
have a point.
Only when the Indians were convinced that their hold on the area was no
longer tenable,
would there be a chance for a negotiated settlement. For that the ground
has to become
more favourable. Those who repeat ad nauseam that there was no military
solution to such
problems, conveniently forget that ultimately all issues were resolved
`politically`. The
military, or the `militancy` in this case, just helps in creating the
right environment.
Vajpayee, of course, is not waiting for that time. He is merely
following the grand design: as
far as possible, avoid the dialogue. Once, when India might have been
willing, true to our
tradition, we let it off the hook.

If we ever have to talk seriously to each other, we have to resolve a
dilemma. India believes
it cannot be seen seriously talking about Kashmir. Pakistan, on the
other hand, could not
talk, without at least seen to be seriously discussing it. In August
1997, pushed by their
political leadership, the foreign secretaries of the two countries found
an ingenious
solution. It was called the `composite approach` to take care of all our
problems in a
package. It was in fact a `multi-track, multi-speed` recipe, aimed at
resolving the lesser
problems without the complexities of Kashmir coming in the way. We at
once went on the
roof top and claimed victory: the enemy had finally been trapped into
talking Kashmir
(though on a slower track). The Indians found a perfect excuse to
wriggle out of the
arrangement. That the issues, major or minor, remain unresolved, is not
the point; but that
we once again failed to measure up to a task, most certainly is.

There are, however, times when the Indians too could be genuinely
interested in finding a
negotiation track, even if they have to take a bus to get onto it.
Lahore was actually about
preventing unintended nuclear launches. In our zeal to turn it into a
``breakthrough``
(another victory!), we cluttered it up with all sorts of road blocks.
One did not need a Kargil
to stop the bus in its tracks; the first round on Kashmir would have
done so. Hopefully,
someone is creating a link, even a clandestine one, that will be
activated before some other
one reached for the red button, in panic! What else is there to talk
about?

For a dialogue, even a superficial one, we are dependent on the Indian
goodwill; but for so
much else we are not. It was difficult for us to explode a nuclear
device all on our own, and
therefore it was wise to link it with an Indian test. The decision to
sign or not to sign the
CTBT can be made all by ourselves. Making it contingent on the Indians
doing it before us,
restricts our freedom of manoeuvre, and grants New Delhi a handle on our
decision making.
Similarly, if the Indians desire--of keeping Kashmir cool but the rest
bit a little hot--did not
suit us, we do not have to, yet again, oblige. If we cannot benefit our
people through
mutual trade, we need not put them to a greater disadvantage by
exchanging tirade.

Zeemax:

That was very gracious of you. And a tad unnecesary. The brunt of what I wrote was not directed at you.

Confession: am such a stickler for details that I would not equate millenium with `sadi`. That is me---- if I find hazara or hazarveeN distasteful I`d perhaps consider changing millenium to century. Anyways, that is passe for now.

rgds

t

PPS:

Oh, forgot to add this commercial break to the last post.

My latest creative effort is posted on my page here, under ``FINAL``
http://www.chowk.com/people/Tools/cc_printhome.cgi?temporal

rgds

t

..................HAIN AUR BHI GHAM ZAMANAY MAIN ..........

This is becoming an annual tradition of sorts.

I can take this only so much and then I have to speak up and let the gentle folks known collectively as the Chowk Staff know that they have finally woken me up from my slumber. (E’gawd. do they try hard?)

Since this has therapeutic values for me as well, please bear with me. (Am tempted to send a copy of this to Aliya @ your shifa clinic as well.)

Beef: Seeing more than one contribution by the same author on page 1.

Solution: Avoid it. If certain situations demand it, yank the old piece out of page 1. Send it to the ChowkMorgue underneath page 1 where we can go anytime to offer ‘fatehas’ and lay wreaths!

Beef: Check the headings and teasers for faux pas on page 1 at the least. (Like the Amir Khusrau AUTOBIOGRAPHY or MILLENNIUM and SADI more recently).

Solution: Set up a commission by a person no less than a retired Supreme Court Justice, or under exceptional circumstances, a retired High Court Justice, to enquire into this and recommend some quick fixes. Perhaps, an Executive Senior Vice President for Page 1? In addition to ceremonial robes, she should have the password to enter the guarded premises and quickly changes the offending words.

Beef: Creative HaraKiri: CRICKET REPORTS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON SUICIDE RATE.

Solution: Have one Cricket header on Page 1, say WIAGARA CUP, DownUnder.
The by line or the ‘teaser’ should indicate the last match covered. Each subsequent match analysis should be ADDED to the same article.

Alternatively, if interest merits it, add Cricket Analysis under FEATURED writings or under FAVORITES or in the yellow bar (that says chowk@two) or in one of the four slots above it.

Driven by a creative death wish that is uncontrollable, AND in the interest of peace, prosperity and harmony in the world, particularly in Kashmir, in the madresas, between India and Pakistan, in our homes, particularly in the rooms use for horizontal recreation, in Checheniya and other trouble spots, where real men are fighting dumbos (thank you, Hoodbhoy) I will be posting this interact thrice. Beginning with the most current article on IMF by Zeemax and continuing with the next two articles.
So help me God. (This last bit was an appeal, not a cliche! A dear friend is planning her wedding fall of 2001. She has ordered my presence at the wedding. And since skeletons can come out of the closet but are not known to walk........)

regards

t

PS Mofeez you do not come through as shoot-the-messenger type. But just in case.....I’ll hedge the bets and tell you that occasionally I do enjoy your comments. (the emphasis is on the 12 letter word in the previous sentence.) But too much of everything is........

PPS Zeemax: same as above.

Re: Krashid #96

As usual, you`ve missed my point. My point was that contemporary Islam has retreated inwards and is now all about how to make oneself a better Muslim. The answer is always: by discarding everything that is not found in the Koran. If I remember correctly, this was Maulana Jamaludddin Afghani`s basic idea back in the 18th century(or was it early nineteenth?). The Ummah has had the living daylights kicked out of it by every Kaffir that came along because God is no longer favoring us. Why isn`t he? Because we are no longer good Muslims. How can we become good Muslims? By abandoning everything that is not found in the Koran and the Sharia.

This is basically what Indian Muslims did after the fall of the Moghul Empire. They retreated inwards like ostriches (not that ostriches actually stick their heads into the sand). If we pray hard enough, maybe God will send his angels down to smite the kaffirs.

So you see, Krashid, this is a very old character flaw in us. Some argue that Islam breeds apathy and ignorance. I didn`t used to think so but now I am not so sure. I think that the tragedy of Islam is that it has never had a successful reformation. I suggest you take a look at the discussion on the Legalizing Alcohol forum for some interesting reading.

Re: Gymnosophist #98

Thank you for the clarification/correction. I simply remembered the outcome: Muslim Family Law overrules civil law. I did not remember the exact details.

Regards.

Re: My last post.

The line should read: Neither is there any one on this FORUM who would NOT argue that Muslims in India--as a community--are definitely less progressive, less interested in education, and definitely less interested in being economically successful if it means discarding their worn-out old dogmas.

Instead of: Neither is there any one on this post who would argue that Muslims in India--as a community--are definitely less progressive, less interested in education, and definitely less interested in being economically successful if it means discarding their worn-out old dogmas.

I apoligize for the errors.

A very revealing piece in The News of Sunday re the Kashmir Resolution of the UN. I reproduce it here for reasons of accessibility even though it is more relevant to the Manifesto board :

[..This preamble leads me to infer that those who need to read and don`t are more than likely to have missed an interview of M Yusuf Buch printed in the magazine section of Jang on January 23. For those who may not know or may have forgotten, there is no greater authority on Kashmir than Buch who has been involved in it from the very start. Since 1953, barring the five years that he was in Pakistan as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto`s special assistant, he has been at the United Nations. Every major speech made on Kashmir from the `50s through the `70s has had an input by Buch, if not entirely his work. His knowledge of Kashmir at the United Nations is encyclopaedic and his insights original. It is, therefore, important to know what his thoughts on Kashmir today are. Buch is just 24 years older than the Kashmir dispute.

Asked where the Security Council resolutions, the bedrock of Pakistan`s case on Kashmir, stood today, he replied, ``The UN Security Council resolutions have no importance at all. To date, the council has accepted 1,100 resolutions, out of which only two are important, both passed under Chapter 7, while Kashmir and the rest of the 1,100 were passed under Chapter 6 which does not oblige the council to take action.`` When reminded that Pakistan`s entire stand consists of the Security Council resolutions being implemented, he answered, ``This demand is unsound. When we make this demand, we are told that the Security Council has passed 1,100 resolutions. What is so special about those involving Kashmir?``

He went on to explain, ``The real thing is not these resolutions but the international agreement which formed the basis of these resolutions. Not all Security Council resolutions were passed with the consent of the contending parties. The Security Council resolutions on Kashmir were passed with the consent of India and Pakistan and thus they are in the nature of an international agreement. Our stand should be that we already have an agreement on Kashmir and if India wants to modify its position, it should enter into negotiations with Pakistan, the other party. As for the resolutions, they are no more than non-binding recommendations.``

Asked if it was true, as commonly believed in Pakistan, that pre-1958 governments had devoted greater attention to Kashmir, he answered, ``This is absolutely correct. The fact is that the Kashmir question became dormant in 1952 when Dr Graham began to prepare for a plebiscite. Pakistan objected that while India would be allowed to station 20,000 troops in the state, Pakistan would only have 12,000. Graham`s reply was that this question could be taken up after all arrangements for a plebiscite were in place. Soon after, Pakistan joined US security pacts and India took the position that these alignments had changed the situation. Nehru found a lot of world support for this stand, in the same way as Nawaz Sharif found it for his agreement with Vajpayee. Pakistan`s Prime Minister Muhammad Ali Bogra called Nehru his elder brother and Nehru took advantage of this and Kashmir was consigned to the cold storage. In 1965, if we had taken advantage of the Chinese ultimatum and continued the war for some time, perhaps in six months a plebiscite in Kashmir could have taken place.``

Buch told the interviewer that though he was unwilling to divulge any details, some people were working for a solution of the dispute. He recalled that he had asked Ghulam Ishaq Khan when he was president that he should set up a Kashmir committee of the cabinet because unless the army and the politicians joined their heads together and found a way out, Kashmir would remain unresolved. Nothing happened. Ishaq wanted to set up a Kashmir cell which Buch opposed because he believed that what he had in mind could not be accomplished by bureaucrats.

He was looking for quantum breakthroughs not inch-by-inch progress where officials fights over the placing of a semi-colon for six weeks. Talking about the mistakes made over the years by Pakistan in Kashmir, he singled out the Tashkent Accord which he is convinced should not have been signed because while the 1965 war was in progress, France initiated a move in the Security Council that after cessation of hostilities, an effort should get underway to settle all disputes between India and Pakistan. Tashkent overtook that initiative which remained stillborn. He believes that Ayub Khan did not consider Kashmir crucial to Pakistan`s security. He blames Ziaul Haq for having placed the Jamaat-i-Islami at the head of the Kashmir resistance movement, whereas it was the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front which had really fought for freedom. The Jamaat liquidated leading JKLF figures, men who were legends in Kashmir.

As for Simla, Yusuf Buch believes that it was only Bhutto`s genius that kept the Kashmir issue alive despite the massive defeat suffered by Pakistan in 1971. Bhutto did not agree to a compromise on Kashmir which a lesser leader would have found difficult to avoid. What I found significant was that Buch remained silent about the future, nor did he say anything about Kargil. Maybe by what he left unsaid, he said a lot.

Re: Behram B. Atashband #91

I am not sure I entire follow your reply to Gymnosophist. I seem to have lost the point of your answer. I thought Gymnosophist laid out his argument quite succintly. If Muslims form 12.5% of the population of India but make up less than 12.5% of its elite (however measured), this is not prima facie evidence of institutionalized racism in India.

I think there is no one on this post who would say that Muslims in India are genetically inferior to Hindus. Neither is there any one on this post who would argue that Muslims in India--as a community--are definitely less progressive, less interested in education, and definitely less interested in being economically successful if it means discarding their worn-out old dogmas. I fear that you are particularly ill-informed about the level of obscurantism prevalent in Indian Muslim (North Indian at least) culture. I am sure that you will disagree with me, but I would like you to look up the distressing particulars of the Saira Bano case. I admit, I was disappointed in the Indian Supreme Court`s asinine decision.

Why are there so many Parsis in IITs and so on? Why are there so many Jews in every Ivy League school in the US? Are they smarter? Maybe but most likely not. I think they come from families that stress the importance of education as a means of getting ahead in life. Muslims in India--as a community--stress the importance of retreating in to their ghettos. Yes, Hindus may not like Muslims that much and, given half a chance, may discriminate against them but, given worse persecution, why did the Jews prosper in Europe and the US? And don`t trot out the Hitler Holocaust bit. Look in any European or US associaton of professional persons, see how many Jewish names there are?

I would refer you to Thomas Sowell`s excellent work on the relationship between cultural attributes and economic development/progress. Some cultures are indeed backwards. We South Asian Muslims are that culture. Some sub-groups of us, e.g., Ismailis or urban Muhajirs in Sind, are more progressive than others, e.g, Pathans, but on the whole we prefer to memorize the Koran to memorizing the periodic table.

There has been some excellent work done by Prof. Timur Kuran at USC on the connection between Islam and underdevelopment. Guess what? There is a direct correlation between being Muslim and being poor--oil excluded. As long as mullahs and jehadis run rampant, we will remain dirty, disease ridden and forever contemplating our navel.

Welcome back, Gymnosophist! Good to see (actually, read) you again.

I think it was Nehru who described himself as the last Englishman to rule India. Except for his clothes, he was English to the core. I decided, on the whole, that he was a great (or near great) man when I read that he used to write anonymous leaders in the Times of India criticizing Parliament for letting Nehru assume such sweeping powers, and calling on Parliament to assert itself more forcefully.

I believe for a while the intelligence people were after the editor of the Times to get him to reveal who was the man behind those scandalous articles.

While I agree with the general tone of your last post, I would differ slightly with some of your interpretations. Gandhi cerainly did offer to make Mr. Jinnah the PM of an undivided India (much to Nehru`s dismay) but I believe that Gandhi always adhered to the belief that Muslims were merely misguided Hindus and he believed that they would soon come back to the fold. It was in this context that he exhorted them to protect cows. I don`t think Gandhi was religiously bigoted as we would use the term today. However, he certainly did not accept Islam as a separate entity in the Indian context.

In any case, its certainly true that our Islam has many Hindu remnants contained in it. A Palestinian student of mine--a born-again Muslim--once commented that she was appalled at how strange some aspects of South Asian Islam were to her and that it was clear that South Asian Muslims confused ``folk Islam`` with the real thing.

I think I would also differ with you on your statement that the Muslims who stayed behind in India are better off than the Pakistanis. I believe that most economic indicators place Pakistan slightly ahead of India as a whole and, for India, Muslim economic indicators lag those of non-Muslims. I believe there is also considerable evidence of systematic discrimination against Muslims as a whole (perhaps that is explainable by Muslim`s lower educational attainment levels). Again, discrimination against Muslims in India is likely much less than discrimination against Christians in Pakistan (and certainly nothing like the discrimination against Hindus here).

I was wondering why you thought North India contines to be so resistant to education and progress?

Regards.

Again, I agree with you that our religious bigotry and intolerance is a given. However, this is indicative of a shared North Indian Hindu culture. Your so-called Cow Belt is remarkable, as you have pointed out, in its resistance to education and progress. They seem to revel in their filth and ignorance the same way that we seem to as well. There is a common theme of conservatism that runs the entire breadth of the Indian subcontinent and, irrespective of whether its Hindu or Muslim, it seems to reject modernity.

Perhaps India was luckier in that its raison d`etre was not that it was not Muslim. Thus it might have been spared its religious fundamentalists cloaking themselves with a spurious legitimacy. It continually amazes me that the Jamaat-I-Islami, the party that described Mr. Jinnah as the Kaffir-e-Azam, now can claim to be the true defender of Pakistan. Truly truth is stranger than fiction.

Reply #: 67 rajanjua

Yes Janjua Saheb, when did i argue ? Whatever you say is right. Shall we smoke the peace pipe ?

Reply #: 64 Behram B. Atashband

Dear Behram,

You are Parsi. Your grandparents were the elite of Karachi and created places like the Metropole Hotel, Beach Luxury, Avari etc. Created the entire shipping industry too. My great friend was Rustam Sanjana who emigrated to Canada. The Parsi colony is in ruins. Does anyone remember the Parsis of Karachi ? The whole race is close to extinction, the gentle and sophisticated Parsis of Karachi. I remember if someone wanted to buy a used car they would say ``I want a Parsi used car``, and any car maintained by a Parsi would go at a premium over the market rate.

I do not agree with you Behram that Indians do not like Pakistanis. What would you say about Jews ? Do the Jews hate Pakistanis ? My best friend in-fact is a Jew ! How can I explain that when Jews are supposed to be Muslim`s mortal enemies ?

I would say that on a person-to-person basis, we`re all great friends. Parsis, Hindus, Jews, Christians, whoever.

Reply #: 59 rajanjua

Jam Saheb had told me a lot of things. Bhutto`s murder was one of them. He had also told me Zia used to regularly visit India secretly.

He had told me Pinky`s psyche´ which SameerJB was curious about. Pinky by the way was a regular visitor to Jam Saheb`s home when both were in exile. Pinky`s sister Sanam and her ex-husband Nasir were regulars too.

What else would you like to know ? Would you like to know what Mumtaz Bhutto used to say? Or Altaf Hussain ?

Later ...