From Across The Border

Re AnNy # 65

``..thora ziada upsetting article you put up``

and that’s putting it mildly. Harsh Mander`s article is just the beginning of the horror stories that will emanate from Gujarat, the stench of which is going to engulf us for a long time to come. I have always believed in the secular ethos of my country and still do, but the brainwashing by the religious nuts worries me. The Sangh parivar is raising it armies of unemployed youths and feeding upon their sense of deprivation and misery with its self righteous ``Hindus are victims`` propaganda - ``repeat a lie a thousand times....``. They are slowly eroding the cultural diversity of my country, hacking away at the spirit of tolerance trying to arbitrarily force themselves as the custodians of our faith (Taliban anyone?). Frankly speaking the damage has been done - I don`t think Gujarat or India will ever be the same again. True the politicians are hoping that in 2 to 5 years time the public would have erased these incidents from their consciousness (as they do for every disaster), so we can all move on and pretend that something like this never happened.

Dear Sarwari,

thanks for putting up that piece..while it was hardly eleqouent (more crude and to the point) i related to it totally..especially this bit:

``...There is much that the murdering mobs in Gujarat have robbed from me. One of them is a song I often sang with pride and conviction. The words of the song are:

Sare jahan se achha Hindustan hamaraÂ… It is a song I will never be able to sing again...``

i was 12 or 13 i think when the whole babri masjid thing happened..it was a lot of excitement (tobah astaghfar) for us kids in the house..we were going to get to see our first ever war! after hearing about the other two like a billion times.. that never happened but a few days later on the way back from school i found an edition of the evenings star in my mums car..obsessed with the act of reading, i took it up with me..what wonderful reading it was..and photographs also man...in retaliation of what was happening in bombay etc, a huge big bunch of men and boys had gone visting to bhangi paara and a few other localities where hindus lived.(these are the dirt poor ones who clean the outer portion of the house and not the onesyou bump into at hi fi do`s).there while they didnt kill anyone, they did everything else thats been reported in the article you produced..they also broke into mandirs (and this hit especially hard since we had been to one very recently then to buy some rang for an upcoming wedding) and defecated on the statues and harassed and raped (by turn) the women DOING PUJA there...i have always been embarassingly patriotic and i cant begin to tell you how horrible and sick i felt at that point..that such a thing happened to people in few numbers in MY COUNTRY by my fellow country men and especially ppl who had no defence, was possibly the most sickening thing i had encountered in all my life then..i felt so ashamed its not even funny..and it happens everytime smthg to this effect happens...can u imagine doing something nasty like throw purposely on a house guests feet hot burning chai? minorties need to be treated extra nice since they will naturally feel insecure... but what is really funny is that even i find myself justifying things like this sometimes...so they harassed a few hindus at raam colony...big sh!t man..whatre they giving it two whole op-ed pages for!!?..theyre burning muslims all over bombay and the state is part to it there, what bloody difference does harassing a few hindus do? roast a few, hang a few, even cut into pieces a few..tit for tat theory is possibly the stupidest thing ever invented...i think it is this kind of mentality that makes the ppl in gujrat do what they did..we ALL need to be good to our minorities and condemn vehemently any injustices to them

sorry about incoherance sweetie.:).thora ziada upseting article you put up

CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

Reflections on the Gujarat massacre

By Harsh Mander

Numbed with disgust and horror, I return from Gujarat ten days after the terror and massacre that convulsed the state. My heart is sickened, my soul wearied, my shoulders aching with the burdens of guilt and shame. As you walk through the camps of riot survivors in Ahmedabad, in which an estimated 53,000 women, men, and children are huddled in 29 temporary settlements, displays of overt grief are unusual. People clutch small bundles of relief materials, all that they now own in the world, with dry and glassy eyes. Some talk in low voices, others busy themselves with the tasks of everyday living in these most basic of shelters, looking for food and milk for children, tending the wounds of the injured. But once you sit anywhere in these camps, people begin to speak and their words are like masses of pus released by slitting large festering wounds. The horrors that they speak of are so macabre, that my pen falters in the writing. The pitiless brutality against women and small children by organised bands of armed young men is more savage than anything witnessed in the riots that have shamed this nation from time to time during the past century. I force myself to write a small fraction of all that I heard and saw, because it is important that we all know. Or maybe also because I need to share my own burdens.

What can you say about a woman eight months pregnant who begged to be spared? Her assailants instead slit open her stomach, pulled out her foetus and slaughtered it before her eyes. What can you say about a family of nineteen being killed by flooding their house with water and then electrocuting them with high-tension electricity?

What can you say? A small boy of six in Juhapara camp described how his mother and six brothers and sisters were battered to death before his eyes. He survived only because he fell unconscious, and was taken for dead. A family escaping from Naroda-Patiya, one of the worst-hit settlements in Ahmedabad, spoke of losing a young woman and her three month old son, because a police constable directed her to `safety` and she found herself instead surrounded by a mob which doused her with kerosene and set her and her baby on fire. I have never known a riot which has used the sexual subjugation of women so widely as an instrument of violence in the recent mass barbarity in Gujarat. There are reports every where of gang-rape, of young girls and women, often in the presence of members of their families, followed by their murder by burning alive, or by bludgeoning with a hammer and in one case with a screw driver. Women in the Aman Chowk shelter told appalling stories about how armed men disrobed themselves in front of a group of terrified women to cower them down further. In Ahmedabad, most people I met - social workers, journalists, survivors - agree that what Gujarat witnessed was not a riot, but a terrorist attack followed by a systematic, planned massacre, a pogrom. Everyone spoke of the pillage and plunder, being organised like a military operation against an external armed enemy. An initial truck would arrive broadcasting inflammatory slogans, soon followed by more trucks which disgorged young men, mostly in khaki shorts and saffron sashes. They were armed with sophisticated explosive materials, country weapons, daggers and trishuls. They also carried water bottles, to sustain them in their exertions. The leaders were seen communicating on mobile telephones from the riot venues, receiving instructions from and reporting back to a co-ordinating centre. Some were seen with documents and computer sheets listing Muslim families and their properties. They had detailed precise knowledge about buildings and businesses held by members of the minority community, such as who were partners say in a restaurant business, or which Muslim homes had Hindu spouses who should be spared in the violence.

This was not a spontaneous upsurge of mass anger. It was a carefully planned pogrom.

The trucks carried quantities of gas cylinders. Rich Muslim homes and business establishments were first systematically looted, stripped down of all their valuables, then cooking gas was released from cylinders into the buildings for several minutes. A trained member of the group then lit the flame which efficiently engulfed the building. In some cases, acetylene gas which is used for welding steel, was employed to explode large concrete buildings. Mosques and dargahs were razed, and were replaced by statues of Hanuman and saffron flags. Some dargahs in Ahmedabad city crossings have overnight been demolished and their sites covered with road building material, and bulldozed so efficiently that these spots are indistinguishable from the rest of the road. Traffic now plies over these former dargahs, as though they never existed.

The unconscionable failures and active connivance of the state police and administrative machinery is also now widely acknowledged. The police is known to have misguided people straight into the hands of rioting mobs. They provided protective shields to crowds bent on pillage, arson, rape and murder, and were deaf to the pleas of the desperate Muslim victims, many of them women and children. There have been many reports of police firing directly mostly at the minority community, which was the target of most of the mob violence. The large majority of arrests are also from the same community which was the main victim of the pogrom.

As one who has served in the Indian Administrative Service for over two decades, I feel great shame at the abdication of duty of my peers in the civil and police administration. The law did not require any of them to await orders from their political supervisors before they organised the decisive use of force to prevent the brutal escalation of violence, and to protect vulnerable women and children from the organised, murderous mobs. The law instead required them to act independently, fearlessly, impartially, decisively, with courage and compassion. If even one official had so acted in Ahmedabad, she or he could have deployed the police forces and called in the army to halt the violence and protect the people in a matter of hours. No riot can continue beyond a few hours without the active connivance of the local police and magistracy. The blood of hundreds of innocents is on the hands of the police and civil authorities of Gujarat, and by sharing in a conspiracy of silence, on the entire higher bureaucracy of the country. I have heard senior officials blame also the communalism of the police constabulary for their connivance in the violence. This too is a thin and disgraceful alibi. The same forces have been known to act with impartiality and courage when led by officers of professionalism and integrity. The failure is clearly of the leadership of the police and civil services, not of the subordinate men and women in khaki who are trained to obey their orders.

Where also, amidst this savagery, injustice, and human suffering is the `civil society`, the Gandhians, the development workers, the NGOs, the fabled spontaneous Gujarathi philanthropy which was so much in evidence in the earthquake in Kutch and Ahmedabad? The newspapers reported that at the peak of the pogrom, the gates of Sabarmati Asram were closed to protect its properties, it should instead have been the city`s major sanctuary. Which Gandhian leaders, or NGO managers, staked their lives to halt the death-dealing throngs? It is one more shame that we as citizens of this country must carry on our already burdened backs, that the camps for the Muslim riot victims in Ahmedabad are being run almost exclusively by Muslim organisations. It is as though the monumental pain, loss, betrayal and injustice suffered by the Muslim people is the concern only of other Muslim people, and the rest of us have no share in the responsibility to assuage, to heal and rebuild. The state, which bears the primary responsibility to extend both protection and relief to its vulnerable citizens, was nowhere in evidence in any of the camps, to manage, organise the security, or even to provide the resources that are required to feed the tens of thousands of defenceless women, men and children huddled in these camps for safety.

The only passing moments of pride and hope that I experienced in Gujarat, were when I saw men like Mujid Ahmed and women like Roshan Bahen who served in these camps with tireless, dogged humanism amidst the ruins around them. In the Aman Chowk camp, women blessed the young band of volunteers who worked from four in the morning until after midnight to ensure that none of their children went without food or milk, or that their wounds remained untended. Their leader Mujid Ahmed is a graduate, his small chemical dyes factory has been burnt down, but he has had no time to worry about his own loss. Each day he has to find 1600 kilograms of foodgrain to feed some 5000 people who have taken shelter in the camp. The challenge is even greater for Roshan Bahen, almost 60, who wipes her eyes each time she hears the stories of horror by the residents in Juapara camp. But she too has no time for the luxuries of grief or anger. She barely sleeps, as her volunteers, mainly working class Muslim women and men from the humble tenements around the camp, provide temporary toilets, food and solace to the hundreds who have gathered in the grounds of a primary school to escape the ferocity of merciless mobs.

As I walked through the camps, I wondered what Gandhiji would have done in these dark hours. I recall the story of the Calcutta riots, when Gandhi was fasting for peace. A Hindu man came to him, to speak of his young boy who had been killed by Muslim mobs, and of the depth of his anger and longing for revenge. And Gandhi is said to have replied: If you really wish to overcome your pain, find a young boy, just as young as your son, a Muslim boy whose parents have been killed by Hindu mobs. Bring up that boy like you would your own son, but bring him up with the Muslim faith to which he was born. Only then will you find that you can heal your pain, your anger, and your longing for retribution.

There are no voices like Gandhi`s that we hear today. Only discourses on Newtonian physics, to justify vengeance on innocents. We need to find these voices within our own hearts, we need to believe enough in justice, love, tolerance. There is much that the murdering mobs in Gujarat have robbed from me. One of them is a song I often sang with pride and conviction. The words of the song are:

Sare jahan se achha Hindustan hamaraÂ… It is a song I will never be able to sing again.

(Harsh Mander, the writer, is a serving IAS Officer, who is working on deputation with a development organisation)

rsridhar
This confirms the Hindustan Times news item which some Pakistanis on chowk were disputing. And apparently the organisations NOT being allowed to canvass their ideas in public are the mainstream political parties. Amazing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8807-2002Mar23.html

Musharraf Vows to Step Up War on Terror
Release of Militants Brings Questions About Pakistani Leader`s Commitment

By Keith B. Richburg and Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 24, 2002; Page A18

KARACHI, Pakistan, March 23 -- With his country reeling from political violence and the U.S. Embassy evacuating all dependents and nonessential workers, Pakistan`s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, today promised an intensified crackdown to ``identify and eliminate those involved in terrorism.``

``We have to save Pakistan from terrorism and the menace of sectarianism, even if we have to pay a heavy price,`` Musharraf said in a nationally
televised address marking the country`s national day. Among other steps, he pledged to reform Pakistan`s intelligence agencies so they could prevent terrorist attacks rather than ``report them`` after they occur.

This was the second time this year that Musharraf has used a nationwide speech to promise an end to the political and sectarian violence that has rocked Pakistan since he signed onto the U.S.-led war on terrorism. On Jan. 12, Musharraf vowed to crack down on militant organizations and banned five radical Islamic groups. Following that pledge, Pakistan rounded up about 2,000 suspected militants.

But with the violence continuing almost daily -- including a grenade attack that killed two Americans and three others at a Protestant church in Islamabad last Sunday -- many analysts are asking whether the crackdown has been mostly talk.

For example, in recent days about 1,300 of the arrested militants have been released without being charged with any crime. The leader of one group,
Maulana Masood Azhar, was quietly allowed to go home Friday and is said to be under a form of house arrest -- despite the fact that his group,
Jaish-i-Muhammad, is on the State Department`s list of terrorist organizations and was banned by Musharraf in January.

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the leader of another banned group, Lashkar-i-Taiba, is still detained, but Pakistani sources said he was in a government
guesthouse, not a jail cell. Neither Masood Azhar nor Saeed has been charged with a crime.

Explaining the release of the 1,300 militants after their very public roundup, a senior Pakistani official said, ``We don`t want to give the impression that only religiously motivated people are liable for terrorist acts in Pakistan.``

The leaders of Pakistan`s two largest religious parties have also been quietly released from jail in recent weeks. They were arrested for leading
anti-government rallies in October protesting Musharraf`s decision to join the anti-terrorism coalition.

Analysts here said that while they believed Musharraf was serious about wanting to crack down on Islamic militancy and prevent further terrorist
attacks, he was also walking a fine line, trying not to offend powerful religious groups and even making conciliatory gestures toward them.

In a little-noticed move, the government recently ordered Pakistan Television not to promote ``Western culture`` in its programs. There have also been
new edicts regulating privately held parties.

Political analysts said the Pakistani leader particularly wants to avoid confrontations with religious groups as he seeks to extend his rule. Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has promised to hold parliamentary elections in October that he says will return Pakistan to democracy. He is also considering holding a referendum, possibly in May, to give himself a full five-year term.

``These are the most testing times for Musharraf,`` said a Pakistani journalist with contacts in the military. ``He doesn`t want a major group campaigning against him. He doesn`t want any enemies. . . . He wants to secure the traditional allies of the military, and the religious groups have always been their allies.``

Police in the eastern city of Lahore rounded up dozens of members of Pakistan`s main opposition party today to prevent them from holding a rally
demanding Musharraf`s ouster.

Sources said Musharraf also wants to avoid agitating the thousands of armed ``jihadis,`` or holy warriors, who fought alongside the Taliban in
Afghanistan or are doing battle in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where Pakistani-backed militants have staged a series of terrorist attacks.

None of the fighters has been prosecuted or even disarmed, the sources said.

``There may not be any other country in the world which has at least 10,000 nonmilitary personnel who were ready to give their lives,`` a top Pakistani
security official said.

Pakistan`s intelligence agencies have long had covert ties to militant and ``jihadi`` groups in Pakistan -- ties nurtured to help successive Pakistani governments support the now-defunct Taliban, as well as pressing Pakistan`s battle against Indian troops in Kashmir.

In the part of today`s speech directed at India, Musharraf again called Kashmir a ``core issue.`` He warned India that ``Pakistan has the full capacity to defend itself.`` The rival nuclear powers massed several hundred thousand troops on the border following a December attack on the Indian Parliament grounds, which India blamed on Pakistani-backed militants.

Meanwhile, U.S. Embassy dependents and nonessential staff were packing to leave Pakistan after the State Department ordered their departure
following an attack on a church near the embassy that killed an embassy employee, Barbara Green, and her 17-year-old daughter, Kristen Wormsley.
The State Department cited a continued threat to Americans in the first mandatory departure of embassy staff since the U.S.-led war in neighboring
Afghanistan heightened security risks.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Karakoram,

Let me say that I like the way you think on some of these issues. The bitter fact is that since their inception India and Pakistan lunged into totally unnecessary antagonisitic posturing born out of pride and distrust. Frankly, Jinnah and Nehru were not the demigods we make them out to be. Consequently, over time, both sides have built up a long list of the wrongs and slights perpetrated by the other side (mostly justified).

If we care for our futures, we very much need to move beyond our historical resentments. France and Germany could do so. We can too. This surely will never happen so long as Islamists and Pakistani warriors and Hindutva vadis and Indian warriors decide our national agendas, for their worldviews are dominated by notions of war, not peace. I would think we have had enough of war already.

Karakoram #59
We will just have to keep disagreeing on the East Pakistan situation.
Just a couple of things
Re East Pakistan:
http://www.dawn.com/2002/03/22/op.htm#2

People from J&K including Muslim Kashmiris have consistently participated in national government, even occupied the post of Home Minister of India.

In any case, as I said India will not trade jihadi violence for territory, the rights and wrongs of this violence as seen by Pakistanis are irrelevant to this equation.

``And the spooks and Pakistani generals actually think that they can control these guys to do `missions`... how stupid. Omar Sheikh has been openly threatening the ISI/govt. not to screw him over or he`ll start to talk. His mission (god knows what it is) is more important than Pakistan or Musharraf. Scary alright. If the Pakistani govt. continues to deal with these whackos, they`ll get what they deserve... as if they haven`t been burnt enough already. If the Pakistani govt. continues to deal with these whackos, they`ll get what they deserve... as if they haven`t been burnt enough already. ``

Well, I am sort of surprised that the Western media hasnot pointed out that those who actually held Pearl captive and later made the video tape and murdered him are still at large and Sheikh and his ISI colleagues know who exactly they are. The US has made Pearl equivalent to the bali ka bakra or collateral damage and the media is playing along. I will venture a guess that the US and its media will also not look very closely at how the elections are conducted.

The choice of between Pakistani national interest(as many may see free and fair elections left free of establishment interference with every result acceptable) on one hand and longevity of Musharraf in power is being made by the US too, then on what basis should Omar Sheikh be the only one among these to be considered mistaken in his choices?

Just wanted to point out just for general interest that there is a analogous(though not equivalent) situation wrt to Vajpayee, Advani , BJP and their association with VHP/Bajrang Dal etc. Members of Vajpayees party are debating whether to jettison the VHP connection altogether and some think that the basic goal of the Hindutva movement will be compromised if they do so. But this debate is happening in the public view, the common reference point of the Constitution can be raised by the general public, Hindutva cannot be touted unchallenged as the `national interest`, VHP is not an arm of the government, Vajpayee government will be made to pay by the public for whatever decision it takes, and the playing out of the issue is separate from the business of the state(though it affects it in some spheres notably law and order in Gujarat for example) .

I agree we should not be hostage to the past. And I donot think its reasonable to expect India to say OK keep sending arms and men into India as long as we are bigger than you and you feel insecure. This strategy didnot buy security for Pakistan`s interests even in Afghanistan even with Taliban in power. Long overdue for a long rethink!

Here is a new one: Pakistan going on and on about getting into Kashmir makes about as much sense as does Bell Labs/Intel/Oracle wanting to set up a unit in Raxaul/Birganj/Muzzafarpur.

Prem #56:

I agree. TFT`s Khalid Ahmed wrote about this problem of misinformation in this week`s issue. I also agree that the situation is not going to change overnight... we have to invest in re-educating as truthfully as possible, by emphasizing that the past is the past, stressing a positive outlook to ensure that future generations are not held hostage to the past.

Sadna #55 & #59:

I`ve read that NYT`s article. It also ties into the misinformation/brainwashing points raised by Prem. Pretty scary stuff, huh ? Well if a guy hears every day that Muslims are being killed around the world, Muslim women are being dishonered, told to imagine their mother`s and sisters being victims (to build up the anger/frustration, remember Urstruly`s riling posts from days gone by), fight Jihad to regain past glory and save the Muslims, die during Jihad and you will get unlimited free sex with many lovely ladies in heaven (big motivation for horny men, who otherwise are tasked with protecting women`s honour- I won`t even try to explain this one ), its really not that hard to believe these guys are signing up for the job. In their minds some of them actually believe they are doing a noble task. They become highly motivated and dangerous individuals who take orders from mad mullahs and devious spooks who think they can control them.

The mad mullahs` believe they are god`s gift to muslims and that they of all people posses answers to problems faced by the world today. How egotistical can they get ? And the spooks and Pakistani generals actually think that they can control these guys to do `missions`... how stupid. Omar Sheikh has been openly threatening the ISI/govt. not to screw him over or he`ll start to talk. His mission (god knows what it is) is more important than Pakistan or Musharraf. Scary alright. If the Pakistani govt. continues to deal with these whackos, they`ll get what they deserve... as if they haven`t been burnt enough already.

I disagree with you on the East Pakistan and Kashmir comparison. Its the same thing. East Pakistanis got screwed over in an election... they had the right to protest, to take a case to the supreme court, or do whatever else within the system. Some elements that were extremist/violent made the call to arms against the government for not giving the people what was rightfully theirs. India steps in supports those groups and makes the situation more violent than it would have been i.e. an all-out war. There was no reason for India to get involved- at that level and to send in its military. If the size`s and military strenghts of India and Pakistan were reversed, Pakistan could have done the same in Kashmir. There`s enough separatist activity, all Pakistan would have to do is support them and overwhelm the Indians on the basis of numbers and military prowess. The same exact situation in my mind.

You say:``Should India sit idly by suffering more attacks waiting for the day that Pakistanis finally realise they will benefit more from peace and rein in the ISI and terrorists themselves? ``

India is not guaranteeing peace to Pakistan. The way Pakistanis see history (in some cases rightly so), whenever India has had a chance to screw Pakistan, it has. East Pakistan, Siachen, water sharing issues, Kashmir, initial funds due to Pakistan during partition etc. What is to guarantee that India won`t do something else in the future and get away with it (Nukes maybe?)

Anyway, as I mentioned above we should not be held hostage to our past. But to have a better future we have to improve our present... and that can only come about by dialogue and building trust in each other. Otherwise we will just create more past to hate each other for.

My post #55
`` ..the recent series of articles in the NYT about the Al Qaeda training manuals left behind in Kabul, by Harkat-ul-Mujahiddeen and the Uzbeks among others)..``

A few of those articles :

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/international/asia/17DOCU.html
``An estimated 20,000 recruits passed through roughly a dozen training camps since 1996, when Mr. bin Laden established his base of operations in Afghanistan, American officials say. ..``

``..The list gave this information about a man with the code name Sultan Sajid: ``Son of Mr. Muhammad Anwar, owner of sweet store. Age: 18 years. Status: Unmarried. Education: Matriculate and learned Koran by translation. Knows how to make sweets, and can hunt birds and fish. Five brothers and four sisters. Address: Kamoke District Gujranwala, at Saboki dandian. Got permission from home happily.``

Of a man code-named Hafiz Abu Muhammad, the document says: ``Education: Matriculate, memorized Koran. Knows how to embroider. Served in military for three and a half years. He is fond of jihad; that is why he came to us.``

Sixteen-year-old Hafiz Muhammad Arif was the son of a customs officer and had five brothers and four sisters, one in medical school. ``No permission from home,`` the list says. ``His [family] wanted to send him to America. Impressed by the speech of Mr. Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman Khalil,`` Harkat`s leader...``


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/18/international/18NOTE.html
A Dutiful Recruit`s Notebook: Lesson by Lesson Toward Jihad

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/18/international/asia/18DOCU.html

(4 pages)

``.. Implicit in the split levels of training was the Islamic groups` understanding of the need for different sets of skills to fight on several, simultaneous fronts: along trench lines against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan; against armor or helicopter assaults from conventional foes in Chechnya; as bands of foot-mobile insurgents in Kashmir, Central Asia or the Philippines; and as classic terrorists quietly embedded in cities in the Middle East, Africa, the former Soviet Union and the West...``

I see jay has so many fans from the evil side of the border (see anNy and semipreciousme`s delight at seeing uncle jay back, even if only for a cameo appearance, and of their concern for his health)...c`mon jay, post a few good ones about how Pakistan is going to the dogs...tell us how us two-bit converts used to be your granddaddy`s serfs...remind us of the latest criminal activity in Pakistan as posted in Dawn newspapers...tell us about this wonderful thing called democracy that we dictatored people can only imagine...I realize you are making room for the younger generation to continue your important duties on chowk, but let`s have one more round for old times sake...

PS I hope you have been in good health incidentally. What would we do without you to remind us daily about how hopeless things are for pakis.

re: Karakoram # 54

You make a very interesting point about people`s ``ignorance.`` But the problem is far more insidious and deeper than that of widespread ignornace or absence of information. The most destructive aspects of the problem arise from deliberate and outright misinformation that governments and a nation`s ``journalists`` inflict upon their own people. This misinformation, no matter how bizarre, is readily absorbed by even the most brilliant and sincere people because it fits in perfectly with their natural and quite admirable sense of patriotism. When that happens, even people (specially young people) of enormous promise and humanity can develop world-views, perspectives, and deeply, genuinely felt emotions that have almost nothing to do with reality.

As an Indian I can offer you specific examples in the case of Pakistan, particularly in relation to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight, lethal attack on Kashmir Assembly, and the assault on the Indian parliament building, as Khaled Ahmed in the current TFT suggests yet again. As a Pakistani, you, I am sure, can offer similar examples in the case of India.

Either way, it is a most tragic outcome at the societal level - governments and ``journalists`` deliberately and systematically distorting and destroying the thought processes of their own people. Misinformed, even the best and the gentlest of persons become pathologically resentful against sundry ``enemy forces`` on the outside. From within that resentment are born horrendous crimes. (even the shameful recent occurrings in Gujarat are a variation on this same phenomenon. Their minds filled with deliberately spread misinformation, people set out to murder one another without mercy. These murderers operate on the same principle, and exemplify the same cause and effect relationship as various Jihadis and their supporters, and people who believe that Indians hijacked and took their own plane to Kabul and attacked their own Parliament building, etc.)

The question is: Is any of this going to stop anytime soon? I am not so sure.

Karakoram #54
``So whatever you`re blaming Pakistan for you guys did it first and better.``

If you don`t see any difference between the events of `70-`71 and Pakistan`s Afghanistan-combined-with-Kashmir jihad policy it has been pursuing for the ast 10 years then there may be no point in discussing further..

(btw you might find interesting the recent series of articles in the NYT about the Al Qaeda training manuals left behind in Kabul, by Harkat-ul-Mujahiddeen and the Uzbeks among others).

Anyway, if Omar Shiekh`s statement about collaborating with members of ISI for the attack in Oct on the J&K Assembly and in Dec on the Indian Parliament is correct, then it means some people in the ISI drawing government salary know Omar Shiekhs jihadi associates by names and faces. Given that the ISI is also said by Americans to be involves in the IA hijacking, this inference seems to be a certainty.

Even if Musharraf and the ISI chief had no direct hand in the attacks or the hijacking, they are sure to know which ISI personnel these were. Yet, even after the Pearl kidnapping and murder, none of these known names and faces in Omar Shiekh`s group have been apprehended, even to redeem Pakistan`s image.

These associates of Omar have even seen Musharraf`s government go to the extent of lying to the US about Omar`s week-long sojourn with the ISI before he was `formally` arrested.

I believe the reason for all this is that Musharraf needs to keep the ISI happy. He feels less compelled to punish Daniel Pearl`s murderers and more compelled to have the ISI`s help to tackle his opponents in political parties and media so that he can keep them out of power, retain his own hold over the coming elections and the next government. Sound familiar?

The implication for India is that these associates of Omar and their fellow-conspirators in the ISI are walking around free. Its highly unlikely that these folks have suffered a change of heart about terrorist attacks in India. They know if Musharraf hasn`t reined them in for a US citizen`s murder, he will not rein them in for carrying out attacks in India. So its quite inevitable that they will plan more attacks in India.

Things got a lot worse in Indo-Pak relations after Musharraf came to power. He thought it best to make Pakistan`s India policy hostage to his view of the Kashmir issue(unfinished business of Partition and UN resolutions) and he made this policy hostage to the violence which jihadis could commit in India. Groups like LeT and JeM public canvassing of jihad and open threats against India and carrying out attacks under cover of Paki nukes were allowed/encouraged as part of Musharraf`s policy of violence to soften India`s stance.

If my above surmise about Omar Shiekh`s associates being known, yet free because of Musharraf`s obligations to the ISI is true, then it means there has been no essential change in Pakistan`s jihad policy even after the Jan 12 speech.

Is India willing to trade territory for jihadi violence? No. Can India change the jihadi policy by talking peace, quoting poetry and citing historical linkages, offering economic ties? No.

Should India sit idly by suffering more attacks waiting for the day that Pakistanis finally realise they will benefit more from peace and rein in the ISI and terrorists themselves? No. So India should drastically change the Pakistani calculation of cost-benefit of jihadi attacks by sending a message with its own targetted attacks on important figures in the Pakistani government just like the Indian Parliament one.(I`m not saying they should necessarily succeed of course).

Sadna:``I donot support targetting of innocents, there is no benefit to India from internal turmoil in Pakistan. ``

I disagree. If more and more Pakistanis believe that the militants that their government supports to fight in Kashmir, are responsible for local acts of violence against Pakistanis (or international acts of violence, minus India) they will increasingly demand that this support stops and the militanst are arrested (as is happening now).

Ignorance is bliss, for some. Pakistanis for the longest time thought that all the militants were doing was fighting for the rights of Kashmiris and that any innocents killed in the process were collateral damage and accidental. However collateral damage is only acceptable when its on the other side. So it is entirely logical to expect that India will retaliate by creating a similar situation in Pakistan. You are however right in that once a cycle of violence is started, local players begin to participate, needing only nudges from the outside once in a while.

India did this and worse in East Pakistan. Hobbyty posted a link to a defence journal article somewhere on this site, which described the motivations and the methods used by the Pakistani intelligence (it was an anti ISI article). The ISI unsuccessfully tried to copy India`s actions in East Pakistan for Kashmir and Siachen for Kargil. So whatever you`re blaming Pakistan for you guys did it first and better. As Romair said elsewhere India is better than Pakistan in all aspects :)

We have to learn to deal with each other on the up and up even if that means discussing Kashmir or anything else. Otherwise the games are still going to go on- from both sides.

I for one want the games to stop, even if its only Pakistan that stops the games. The militants truly have caused a security problem in Pakistan and they are currently a bigger threat in my mind.

As for Shaheen Sehbai, I believe him except that he does not implicate Musharraf or the Pakistani government in the attack, he only implicates them in the cover-up to the links to ISI. Hear me out now...

Its entirely logical to believe that rogue elements of the ISI in conjunction with militants engineered the parliament attack to screw up Musharraf`s declared support for the US and crackdown on local extremist groups. If the parliament attack was successful, India would have attacked Pakistan, and I think nearly did. That is not what Musharraf or Pakistan wants, as one can see from the constant calls for dialogue and calls for the removal of Indian army from the borders. Its also in Pakistan`s interest to deal with these rogue elements on its own due to the following reasons: bad publicity (it can get worse),security leaks (the people getting caught may spill the beans on state secrets and other covert ops that are state sanctioned), and most importantly the Pakistani govt. does not really know who`s good and who`s bad in ISI with the new rules and is learning the hard way. There are many other logical reasons I can think of, one of them which I don`t agree with i.e. catching the militants who conduct unauthorized ops on a case by case basis, but keeping their fellow militants in place for future Kashmir (other) authorized ops.

But I do not believe that Musharraf or the Pakistani govt. sanctioned the parliament attack.

Just an opinion.....

Karakoram

I donot support targetting of innocents, there is no benefit to India from internal turmoil in Pakistan. The sooner the Pakistani public starts benefitting from peace and good governance, the stronger will be their urge for peace with India.

And I think Pakistanis do enough targetting of innocents of their own for RAW to go on long vacation. Blaming India for Pakistan`s own sectarian troubles is an old game. India was blamed even for the killings of Christians in Bahawalpur and recent shooting of Shias in a mosque. No police officer was suspended then, nor anyone arrested that I heard of, though there seem to be enough local Pakistani groups with arms and motivation to do this. And I donot see FBI camped out in N. Delhi to get to the perpetuators of the last attack.

You sidestepped my point that no Pakistani poster who expressed outrage earlier will acknowledge Shaheen Sehbai`s statement on ISI involvement in the Indian Parliament attack. Shaheen Sehbai is not a member of the Indian government for you to (apparently) refer to his statement as Indian government propagnda.

The only way to get ISI to stop targetting Indian leaders as happened in the case of the Indian Parliament is for India to target Pakistani leaders in turn. I doubt quoting poetry and lighting candles will do it.

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Sadna:``I think that in return for the Parliament attack, India should target Musharraf personally. We can discuss this issue after that happens. ``

Take a number and get in line... there are many terrorists (RAW employed and otherwise) waiting to take out Musharraf.

This is the first time I saw you sidestep/avoid a question. Its ok, I realize it is a tough one.... considering that the answer is probably `YES`.

Take it easy..