Happy 56th Anniversary, Pakistan and India

Keeping in this spirit my letter in response to the brilliant article by Kuldip Nayar was published in this morning`s Dawn:

Mountbatten`s role

http://www.dawn.com/2002/08/13/letted.htm#2

Kuldip Nayar`s article `The trial of Mountbatten` (Aug 10) was very informative. Indeed Mountbatten`s blunders were responsible for the horrible communal violence that bloodied the creation of Pakistan. Is it any wonder that Mountbatten spared no effort to blame Mohammed Ali Jinnah`s insistence on Pakistan for the holocaust?

Earl Mountbatten was an unbalanced personality, immensely over-confident of his own ability and utterly dismissive of higher intellect.

As Collins and Lapierre mention in their book `Freedom at Midnight`, Mountbatten`s decision to choose Aug 15, 1947 for the transfer of powers was impulsive, a rash decision made in haste to impress the press reporters.

His unwillingness to crackdown on the perpetrators of violence is yet unexplained, however. After South Asia, the world got yet another taste of Mountbatten`s incompetence in Northern Ireland.

While his crimes against humanity in Pakistan and India went unpunished (in fact he was awarded the governor-generalship of independent India), the Irish were not as forgiving.

It is said that Kuldip Nayar, no doubt very young then, asked Jinnah at a tea party in Lahore whether Pakistan would support India in case of an invasion from the west (the Middle East etc)? Mr Jinnah replied something to the effect that blood is thicker than religious and cultural bonds and that Pakistan would side with India.

He had no doubt envisaged a cordial relationship between Pakistan and India. Sadly Mountbatten`s machinations left no room for such a relationship to develop. Since then, more has passed under (and over) the bridge than simply water.

YASSER LATIF HAMDANI

Lahore

The Right To Bigotry Ana,

Alright... point taken. I misunderstood your statement...

Harimau,

Why such latent hatred for A-roy?

She is a brilliant intellectual and is not necessarily pro-Pakistan or pro-China as you might make her out to be.

Dear sweet Rsaxena,

Whatever statements I allegedly made, or you think I made, or you claim I made don`t hold a candle to this following one:

`Pakistan is geographically too thin a country to have daylight savings time`

Any bets for what saxena is going to mention next?

Happy Independence day(s) in advance to all Chowkies.

Love

YLH

The Right To Bigotry PS to Ana,

``I know, Cowasjee never fails to remind us of what Jinnah said, but how many of us are really listening--those words are dead to them.``

You are listening aren`t you? and I am? and many more... believe me the 80s are being slowly buried.. and our cherished words are coming alive once again... it has taken very long .. but it is happening.



-YLH

India’s Potential Lose-Lose-Lose Scenario ATTENTION... ATTENTION!!!!

ANNOUNCEMENT:

The Brilliant Arundhati Roy is on the Pakistan Tour this independence Day...

On August 14th She is speaking in Islamabad.

On August 15th She is speaking in Lahore.

On August 16th She is speaking in Karachi (I think)...

Please contact the following emails for details and invitations:

aroy_lhr@dailytimes.com.pk

aroy_isb@dailytimes.com.pk

aroy_khi@dailytimes.com.pk

I will be attending the one in Lahore.

Sincerely

YLH

The Right To Bigotry ANNOUNCEMENT...

Arundhati Roy is on her Pakistan Tour this independence day...

She speaks

@ Islamabad on 14th August

@ Lahore on 15th August

@ Karachi on 16th August

The topic is : Freedom and Peace

arranged by Najam Sethi`s team.

I have already written the email addresses on Umair Raja Board where you can get your invitations and details of these events...

-YLH

PS I will write a comprehensive account of her lecture at Lahore...

The Right To Bigotry ana,

``kya rhetoric jhara hai tum ne.yes, Musharraf must definitely take a firmer stand on the increasing violence against women and minorities.``

Sorry to see that you are so cynical, but I don`t blame you. I have a very vivid self interest when I say what I say and what seems to you to be simply rhetoric... My self interest is to see my country succeed, and in order to do so, the minorities of Pakistan have to succeed... Pakistani christians have played a great role in fields of education, health, armed forces, and more recently sports.. they are the best Pakistanis there are and their success is Pakistan`s success... Whenever Pakistanis like those nurses die, a part of me dies. And if you think this rhetoric, its your fault.

Please take it out of your head that I would say anything to please you. What happened that day and before that, and what happened to Ayub Masih, and that Bishop who committed suicide, and that young boy who was sentenced to death for blasphemy... are of great concern to me. You wrote about Jinnah`s 11th August speech `Those words are as dead now as he is.` Well that is precisely the reason why people like Ardeshir Cowasjee keep reminding the nation of those historic words (and they were not the only words by the way)... I will repeat those words, and many will join in, until the entire Pakistani society becomes a vehicle of change...



As Does COWASJEE... So DO I...

``No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you. We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of their houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable conditions in which our women have to live. You should take your women along with you as comrades in every sphere of life.`` (1944)

``The new state would be a modern democratic state with sovereignty resting in the people and the members of the new nation having equal rights of citizenship regardless of their religion, caste or creed.``(May 1947)

``Minorities DO NOT cease to be citizens. Minorities living in Pakistan or Hindustan do not cease to be citizens of their respective states by virtue of their belonging to particular faith, religion or race. I have repeatedly made it clear, especially in my opening speech to the constituent Assembley, that the minorities in Pakistan would be treated as our citizens and will enjoy all the rights as any other community. Pakistan SHALL pursue this policy and do all it can to create a sense of security and confidence in the Non-Muslim minorities of Pakistan. We do not prescribe any school boy tests for their loyalty. We shall not say to any Hindu citizen of Pakistan `if there was war would you shoot a Hindu?``` (October 1947)





``You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.`` (August 1947)

This is the pledge WE made to History. It is time we lived upto our word.

The Right To Bigotry Ladies and gentlemen

``re: ylh

...bleat, bleat, bleat, o great descendent of the prophet.....``

There you have it. Those who bet on Rsaxena`s mention of the Prophet won hands down. I am surprised at the sheer monotony of these petty insults ... no creativity.

-YLH

The Right To Bigotry Ladies and gentlemen,

Please don’t mind the petty insults and abuse hurled at me by Saxena. He can’t help himself. He suffers from a strange ailment which makes him think that he is the God’s gift to mankind, which makes him act this way. Other than allegedly making a ‘Bakra’ and ‘bleating’ the hell out of me, he has never contributed anything positive to this website. He declares: ‘I am on chowk for fun’. I wonder what kind of a life-less loser would go to a serious issue-oriented website like Chowk for kicks? It is in my faith to show compassion to the pathetic and the underprivileged suffering from severe psychological problems. Therefore I urge others to do the same.

A concerned well wisher of Rsaxena,

YLH

The Right To Bigotry

PS: Saxena have you forgotten to count as well? tsk tsk that syndrome is getting really worse now...

Please seek some psychiatric help...

The Right To Bigotry Ana,

Everytime these bast@rds kill a Pakistani especially from the minorities, I feel like going and breaking a Mullah`s head. To think that we are killing our Pakistani brethren for the sake of those uncouth bearded fools from Afghanistan?

It is time Musharraf acted like a dictator, that he is, and came down hard on the mullahs and the fanatics who are the greatest enemies of Pakistan, a thousand times greater an enemy than India can ever be.

There is no point in returning to democracy without cleaning up Pakistan... It is time for all of us to unite against the menace of the mullahs...

-YLH

The Right To Bigotry APPEAL to jay

Learn how to spell for God`s sake... Please?

Thankyou

YLH

The Right To Bigotry Dear sirs (harimau, shankar, rsaxena)

How are you?

I most regretfuly must inform you (rsaxena) and your wellwishers that you suffer from the Saddam Hussain syndrome brought about most definitely by that iodine deficiency I talk about... (which is probably also the reason that now you are denying your claim that DST depends on Time Zones and Pakistan and your tendency towards irrelevancy such bringing gandhi jinnah etc). You know just because Saddam Hussain claims he defeated the US in the Gulf war (analogous to India`s claims in `65), and will defeat the US again .. doesn`t mean that it really happened.

As regards your insults, no doubt your best friends here will appreciate that I have brought you to your barbaric worst so much so that you are shouting insults like a crazed maniac. To borrow the phrase from your distinguished compatriot ... you sir are `compulsively abusive`...

Personally I love dogs (I have four of them mashallah) so I don`t have any problem associating with them. So don`t waste your precious typewriting on calling me a dog.. How about thinking up a creative insult for a change...

Faithfuly yours

Yasser

The Right To Bigotry

``...saying you didn`t get played doesn`t mean you didn`t...``

Dear Saxena ji maharaj,

I am not saying you didn`t play me, or that you aren`t the greatest of all players... I just wanted to know what in #79 particularly did you think you played? Was it that I avoided the Gandhi debate... cuz I am sorry, I thought had if I did indulge in it I would have played into your hands...

I am just trying to learn from the best... won`t you help me out ?

faithfuly yours

YLH

The Right To Bigotry

``...saying you didn`t get played doesn`t mean you didn`t...``

Dear Saxena ji maharaj,

I am not saying you didn`t play me, or that you aren`t the greatest of all players... I just wanted to know what in #79 particularly did you think you played? Was it that I avoided the Gandhi debate... cuz I am sorry, I thought if I did indulge in it I would have played into your hands... clearly I was wrong..

I am just trying to learn from the best... won`t you help me out ?

faithfuly yours

YLH

The Right To Bigotry Dear fawad

``yasser and sax

newsflash:jinnah gandhi and einstein are dead i mean does it matter?``

Precisely my point and that is exactly what I said in #79... whatever interest I have in them is purely academic... but Saxena insists on bringing up these things when he is getting his behind whacked... You see he claimed `Pakistan is geographically too thin a country to have DST` (as if England was the fattest country in the world) declaring shamelessly that DST `depended on Latitudes`.

Then to hide his embarrassment he tried to start all this nonsense but as you can read from #79 I refused to be goaded into a Gandhi-Jinnah debate. After all his pathetic little efforts wasted, mr.Saxena turned around to claim that he had `played` me (maybe this word means something else in `Indian`) but he refused to elaborate exactly how... in came shankar with his insults and then saxena with more of his own insults and then harimau joined the lot, in typical Indian fashion. If this is the measure of their pathetic internet victories and their gratification at making imaginary bakras in their mind, I fear that even if one responds to an Indian, he/she is a bakra.

Actually I have narrowed this down to a science... What will Saxena bring up next? Rutgers perhaps?? or the Prophet?? Odds of Saxena bringing up Rutgers and the Ivy League 3 to 1, Prophet`s descendants? 5 to 1, the job that my father offered ? 5 to 1, Pakistan`s three military defeats? 4 to 1... Jinnah`s horrible exclusivist politics? 4 to 1... Gandhi`s comparison with a porsche 911? 2 to 1 ..

Odds of Rsaxena explaining why and how Pakistan is geographically too thin a country to have Daylight Savings time?? 1 in a billion.

Note: All odds based on careful calculation of probability, through an examination of Mr.Saxena last five posts.

Any bets?

-YLH

Common Things

Through the looking glass

It was not a routine undertaking, to say the least. Why it should have been so complicated was not a matter of practicalities but of illusions insinuated and fostered in the minds of the credulous - why should it be such an obstacle to study in this particular country rather than any other comparably distant and underdeveloped? To the people in control, and to those who place their confidence in them, the answer was obvious - Pakistan is an extremely dangerous place, seething with bearded sadistic maniacs whose motivating principle is to kill and mutilate Westerners, especially Americans.

Even before September 11 anybody in the US who had any idea of where or what Pakistan was, would tell you it was a dangerous place. If it was ever mentioned in the newspaper or on the evening news it was because of something frightful associated with it. The very mention of something so foreign to their experience as a military government fills the heart of the typical American with righteous indignation.

Apart from that, Pakistan would occasionally be mentioned in connection with someone involved in a terrorist event. Persons in respectable positions would either look away and adopt a polite neutrality, or occasionally rant that they`re fanatics who would cut my head off. When there was no news that was fit to print, there might be a photograph of a traditional terrorist, with full details of his travels and affiliations so everyone could be informed about the places that such dangerous characters frequent. I knew enough to know better than to believe such myths, but it still only obscured more profoundly what lay on the other side.

I came to Pakistan for the first time with all my paperwork in order but no idea of where to go or how to look after myself once I got here. I trusted in fate and fate rose to the occasion. There was a friendly passenger on the flight, who had helped me find my way at the airport. When the plane touched down he suggested that I come to his family and have some tea and then we would try to find the hotel whose name I had been given but none of the flight crew had ever heard of. Many of you will know how this part of the story turned out. Once at the friendly stranger`s house I never saw that, or any other hotel, and was allowed to leave only for extraordinary sightseeing expeditions and once or twice to straighten out the red tape of traveling. I was instructed in the complexities of cricket, received some truly excellent coaching in essential Urdu, was escorted to the major sights, made acquainted with the work of some of the best classical singers, fed extraordinary food, and generally pampered in the extreme.

The next morning brought my first experience with one of the timeless components of life in Pakistan and was to be repeated every morning afterwards. I had heard the azaan once before, in a crowded commercial area in a lower income section of Philadelphia; waking up for the first time in Pakistan, in the home of my new friends, the sound of the azaan synchronized history and memory, eternity and the moment. I had come during the month of the Haj. It seemed an auspicious coincidence, that this should be the time that I was coming to Pakistan. As my stay progressed, the immediacy here, of what had been for me, up until then, the legend of Abraham, was to impress me more and more and culminated in the observance of Eid al Azha. Gradually, putting together one incident after another, I came to understand that the people I was among really were experiencing the practice of the religion of Abraham.

Since my work was to be done in Lahore, the time came too quickly when I had to leave my hosts in Islamabad. I was brought to the station, my ticket bought and reservation arranged, and I was seated in a compartment with three delightful ladies, one of whom had studied English in school years ago before she was married and was able to help the others ask me about why I had come, whether I was married, whether I was Muslim, how many children I had and what were they doing, and in so many ways fussed about me and showed their concern for me, while the magical beauty of the Punjab rushed by, ancient in itself but for me for the first time (and still) absolutely spellbinding.

The plain dotted with trees, the villages` backsides, facing the train tracks and the clusters of animals and their keepers, and especially the little white, green domed structures, all seemed like some primordial principle come to life. Since then the experience has been the same. Ladies and men both can be counted on to be kind and concerned about everyone in their immediate vicinity. Within a few days of my arrival, before even setting foot in Lahore, I had come to the conclusion that, quite the opposite of the den of assassins that it had been made out to be, Pakistan is probably the safest place I`ve ever been. Wherever I went and even still wherever I go, if ever I`m stuck I have only to look to my right or my left and whoever is standing by immediately comes to my rescue.

The elderly lady seated opposite me on the train had a problem that I was soon to see was a sorrow common to many women of Pakistan. Pakistan being a developing nation, its women shoulder a tremendous burden in the sufferings which are ubiquitous here but seem almost incomprehensible to women who have lived all their lives in the West. The tears slowly rolled down her cheeks as she told me she too had a son, that he had been her greatest joy, that he was a good son and very successful. He had gone to America years ago and she had not seen him since; he telephones sometimes and she can`t even talk to her grandchildren because they don`t speak Urdu at all, only English. This was to be only the first of many such stories.

By far the most reliable mode of transportation turned out to be the wagon system. In defiance of appearances, if one can find out the name of the wagon stop or a major landmark one is sure to be delivered to one`s destination safe and sound. The conductors became my collective guardians, taking me in, figuring out where I was going (searching out someone who could speak English when necessary) making space for me in the van, and often escorting me to a connecting van and explaining my case in full detail to its conductor, thus assuring my safe arrival. They are a class of people to be noted for their patience, (agility) and concern.

In the course of my explorations I realized that gorgeous jewels of culture were kept hidden behind the face of dun-colored walls that the city presents. I had read about how the architecture of the Muslim community of South Asia was a manifestation of the social organization, but it took some time to feel its significance, traveling the dusty streets and experiencing the transition on entering a home, or even an office. I was guided through history at Punjab University`s historic Old Campus and introduced to scholars whose intellectual spirit is among the brightest in the world.

My stay, however, was not without its distresses. One day I found myself wandering in the hot sun, beside the canal bank. I had missed the little dirt road that I should have turned on and now I had gone several miles in the wrong direction. I turned back and found my way to the main road. By this time I was feeling the effects of the sun and the long walk. I tried going in the opposite direction, which brought me to the gate of one of the religious school complexes that were so notorious in the U.S. for their hatred of all things American. I stopped and wondered, it seemed remarkably peaceful and orderly inside, and there were a few people, maybe one of them could tell me how to reach the address I was looking for. I ventured in. Within minutes I found myself in a comfortable sitting room facing an offering of tea and delicacies. I enjoyed a delightful time with the lady of the house, the wife of a teacher at the madrassah and was invited to her daughter`s wedding. The Begum inquired about universities in the U.S. where her brother might pursue his interest in English and when I felt up to it her brother personally escorted me to the obscure office I had been searching for.

When I returned home after this first exploratory venture I carried with me the sense that Pakistan is a land balanced somewhere between creation and eternity, and first and foremost a land where everyone is concerned for the well-being of those around them, whether family, friend, or stranger, whether Muslim or not, whether Pakistani or guest.

After my return I remembered Pakistan above all else as a land of safety. Certainly violence takes place here, is there a place on earth where it does not? But the well-being of their neighbor, and the maintenance of a viable tranquility, are foremost in everyone`s thought. As I crossed back to the other side, at the gate at Logan airport, I was pulled out of the line of arrivals from London and taken aside and questioned: what had been my business in Pakistan, and what had happened to me there, had I been threatened or terrorized? I replied that I been studying the local language and I had been treated very well. How could my interrogator reconcile this with what she knew? I clearly had little interest in anything other than my studies and my tape recordings, and getting home to my family. ``They must have been trying to protect you,`` she told me. Her words were true in a sense that she herself could not understand.