Jinnah, My Hero 50 Years in TIME

TIME, December 23, 1996

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/html/pakistan/jinnah2.html



A TIGERISH MAN, ATOP A SECTARIAN TIGER

The chronicle of a leader and the passions he fanned into flames



By Carl Posey

Delhi in the spring heat of 1946 was not relaxed,`` TIME reported that April. ``It was taut with waiting, gravid with conflict and suspense. Two socialist lawyers and a former Baptist lay preacher from Britain had sat of 25 days in the southeast wing of the viceregal palace, preparing to liquidate the richest portion of empire that history had ever seen---to end the British Raj, the grand and guilty edifice built and maintained by William Hawkins and Robert Clive, Warren Hastings and the Marquess Wellesley, the brawling editor James Silk Buckingham and the canny merchant Lord Inchcape and by the great Viceroys, austere Curzon and gently Halifax. The Raj was finished.``

Finished, perhaps, but still difficult to put down. The Raj at the end was like one of the unexploded bombs still lettering postwar Europe, and it held the same promise: peaceful independence if you do it right, explosive civil war if you fail. ``The issue,`` said TIME, ``seemed to turn on one man---Mohammed Ali Jinnah.`` On Boris Chaliapin’s portrait cover, the metaphorical tingers of East and West Pakistan stalked the subcontinent.

TIME had watched Jinnah intermittently since 1930, first as an ardent articulator of Indian nationalism, then as a spark flashing perhaps too close to the subcontinent powder keg. ``Where the low, bare limestone ridges of Sukkur, Sind slope like unkempt stairs down to the banks of the Indus,`` TIME reported in December 1939, ``Indians who loudly object to fighting Germans in the name of Empire last week fought each other in the name of their various gods.`` Muslims had claimed a government building near the river as the site of an ancient mosque and ``threatened to hold it until nirvana-come. Whereupon Hindus swept the city, storming, looting, burning Moslem shops.`` It was a chilling preview of bloodbaths ahead.

``The leaders of the Moslems,`` TIME observed, ``usually thinks first about independence for Moslems and afterward about independence for Indians. His name is Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and he is probably the greatest single force for disunity in all disunited India.`` As TIME watched the inexorable progress of the cracks that would culminate in India’s partition, that view of Jinnah would be modulated, but it would not fundamentally change.

There was, in fact, a good deal to admire in Jinnah’s tough single-mindedness and the way he played his cards. Talking with TIME correspondent William Fisher in 1942, Jinnah said he would accept a national government that gave Muslims ``a fair break,`` but that he would stop cooperating if the British made peace with the Hindu-dominated Congress Party.

The April 1946 Jinnah cover story reported by Pacific bureau chief Robert Sherrod was more than TIME’s bittersweet obituary for the British Raj; it was one of the world’s first real close-ups of the man who would have Pakistan, in all his coldly tigerish colorations. Here was a charismatic leader who during Gandhi’s 1942 Quit India campaign had ``boasted that if his followers joined Gandhi’s pacifist program, the British would have 500 times more trouble ‘because we have 500 times more guts than the Hindus.’`` It was also a grim prophecy. ``The British Raj had given India a unified defense and a unified region of internal free trade,`` said TIME. ``Jinnah would destroy both ... Between mighty Russia to the north and the main body of India to the south, Pakistan would dangle like two withered arms.``

In August, Jinnah unleashed---perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not---an ugly sample of the horrors to come. Opposed to a British plan for Indian independence that did not also create Pakistan, he designated the 18th day of Ramadan as ``Direct Action Day.`` ``Though direct,`` TIME reported, ``the action was supposed to be peaceful. But before the disastrous day was over, blood soaked the melting asphalt of sweltering Calcutta’s streets.

``Rioting Moslems went after Hindus with guns, knives and clubs, looted shops, stoned newspaper offices, set fire to Calcutta’s British business district. Hindus retaliated by firing Moslem mosques and miles of Moslem slums ... By the 21 day of Ramadan, direct action had killed some 3,000 people and wounded thousands more.``

Interspersed with what TIME called ``musical chairs`` of negotiation, in which neither the Hindu side nor the Muslim side could be budged by British nudging, the killing went on and on. ``Perhaps, after all, there would be no independent India,`` TIME mused sadly in May 1947. ``Indeed, there might be no India.``

Pakistan was by then an idea nothing could contain. In August 1947 it became the world’s largest Muslim nation. The forces of hatred unleashed by Jinnah’s rhetoric, however, had acquired a life of their own. By late October 1947 the plague of enmity flared in Kashmir, where a Muslim majority lived under a Hindu maharaja who decided to throw in with India. ``In Moslem Karachi,`` TIME reported, ``Pakistan Governor General Mohammed Ali Jinnah raged at the news. He ordered Pakistan troops ... into Kashmir.`` But as the raiders pushed into the Vale, ``the blind butchery of neighbor by neighbor had reached Kashmir. Pakistan heard that 50,000 Moslems had been slaughtered by Hindus. British officials said that 100,000 fleeing refugees from Kashmir and nearby Jammu had crowded south into the still reeking Punjab.``

Jinnah, meanwhile, seemed to fade even as his discordant creation took form. ``Last week,`` TIME reported in early December 1947, ``after less than four months of independence, Pakistan was economic wreck, and serious social unrest was rising.`` The new country coul dnot afford to feed its millions of refugees; its checks bounced around the globe. As for the health of the seldom seen Jinnah, TIME added, ``The Pakistan Ministry indignantly said: ‘There is absolutely no truth in the rumors that Quaid-e-Azam [the Great Leader] is seriously ill.’``

In fact, as evidently only he was aware, Jinnah was dying.

``Out of the travail of 400 million in the Indian subcontinent,`` TIME wrote in September 1948, ``have come two symbols---a man of love and a man of hate. Last winter the man of nonviolence, Gandhi, died violently at the hands of an assassin. Last week, the man of hate, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, at 71, died a natural death in Karachi, capital of state he had founded.``

Enemies gave Jinnah his due, though. ``The Hindustani Times,`` TIME observed, ``devoted a page to an uncompromising attack on Jinnah’s motives and methods. However, it concluded: ‘A man of destiny, he was perhaps the greatest man of Islam since Mohammed.’`` But, TIME noted warily, his death ``raised the possibility that his political heirs might seek the final solution for insolvent, disorganized governments: war.`` Indeed, Jinnah’s chief legacy proved to be an eternity of discord

Jinnah, My Hero Jinnah: making of a myth

By Mubarak Ali

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had all the qualities and characteristics in his personality which go into the making of a myth. He was reticent, reserved, kept his personal matters secret, behaved coolly and proudly and was not warm towards anybody. Thus he created a halo of awe and fear around himself.

Sri Prakash, the first Indian High Commissioner to Karachi, in his book Pakistan: birth and early years gives an account of a reception which was given by the Governor-General of Pakistan, just after Independence to the diplomatic corps. It was also attended by the party leaders and bureaucrats. According to his version, Mr Jinnah was sitting at a distance alone on a sofa and called one by one those he wanted to talk to. He exchanged notes with each one of them just for five minutes. To the High Commissioner, he appeared a lonely man, averse to people. His serious and sombre expression made all those who interacted with him uneasy in his company.

This conveyed the impression that he was the final authority in every matter. The Muslim League and its leaders were merely rubber stamps. His image of being the sole spokesman of his party and people created a number of myths. For instance, the myth about his serious illness which is recounted by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in their book Freedom at midnight fascinates everybody and compels readers to take it seriously. The version of their story is:

``If Louis Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi had been aware in April 1947 of one extraordinary secret, the division threatening India might have been avoided. The secret was sealed onto the gray surface of a film, a film that could have upset the Indian political equation and would almost certainly have changed the course of Asian history. Yet, so precious was the secret that that film harboured that even the British CID, one of the most effective investigative agencies in the world, was ignorant of its existence.``

These were the X-rays of Jinnah diagnosed as a TB patient. The authors, after creating a suspense, further write that: ``The damage was so extensive that the man whose lungs were on the film had barely two or three years to live. Sealed in an unmarked envelope, those X-rays were locked in the office safe of Dr J.A.L. Patel, a Bombay physician.``

On the basis of the story, Jinnah emerged as the one on whom depended the whole movement of Pakistan. The story further becomes interesting when a Hindu doctor kept the secret at the cost of Indian unity. His professional integrity was more important than his political inclinations.

In 1997, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of India-Pakistan Independence, Patrick French published a book, Liberty or death. After his own investigation, French refutes the whole story narrated by Collins and Lapierre. According to him: ``The idea that Jinnah`s poor state of health was a closely guarded secret is absurd: it was referred to in the press at that time, and it is obvious from photographs taken in the mid-1940s that Jinnah was unwell.

Moreover, the reduction of the Muslim League`s wide popular backing to the whim of one man`s `rigid and inflexible` attitude is indicative of the way that Pakistan history has been traduced. A second problem with Collins and Lapierre`s story is that it is not correct. Jinnah did not go to Bombay in May or June 1946, since he was busy in negotiating with Cripps in Simla and New Delhi. Nor did he have a doctor by the name of J.A.L. Patel. Although it is possible that Jinnah had tuberculosis in 1946, there is no evidence among his archive papers to support the theory.``

However, Jinnah himself on many occasions expressed the view that he was the sole creator of Pakistan. In one of his famous quotes, he said that he and his typewriter made Pakistan. The statement disregarded the efforts of his colleagues and the other Muslim League leaders in the Pakistan movement. It also downgraded the people`s participation in the struggle for a separate homeland.

There is evidence that he did not think highly of the leaders of the Muslim League. He found them mediocre and not capable of leading the nation. Perhaps, that was the reason that Jinnah, knowing his fatal illness, accepted `the moth eaten and truncated Pakistan`. The later history of Pakistan vindicates Jinnah`s assessment of the Muslim League leaders who miserably failed to solve the problems of a nascent nation.

The failure of these leaders has boosted Jinnah`s image as a superman. He overshadowed everybody. The nation also paid respect to him by naming universities, colleges, airports, roads, hospitals, and institutions of different kinds after him with the result that a citizen of Pakistan feels his presence every where in the country, wherever he goes.

Moreover, his image as a ``Great Leader`` (the Quaid-i-Azam) is presented in the textbooks to mould the mind of the young generation encouraging them to follow in his footstep. Scholars are eulogizing different aspects of his life. A film is screened to counter the film Gandhi in which Attenborough distorts the image of Jinnah. These efforts have made Jinnah sacrosanct. Any criticism of him is regarded a treason. He has become a paragon of super human virtues, beyond all weaknesses normal in human being.

The reverence accorded to him is such that mere association with him catapults a person from a humble position to the rank of freedom fighter. People take pride in their claim to have shaken hands with him (though he avoided shaking hands with people), or having seen him, talked to him, or merely attended his public meeting. The rulers of Pakistan, realizing the impact of his association, create myths of their links with him. Z.A. Bhutto claimed that as a student he wrote a letter to the Quaid - it is not known whether he replied to that letter or not, Zia`s sycophant bureaucrats discovered a diary of Jinnah (that was the time when Hitler`s diaries were discovered and later on proved false) which disappeared along with him.

Nawaz Sharif, assuming to follow in his footsteps, called himself `Quaid-i-Sani` (the second leader). One such similar example is found in the history of France when Napoleon III made an attempt to revive the image of Napoleon I in order to legitimize his authority. Marx jokingly comments in The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte that ``Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.`` Nawaz Sharif`s self-given title proves it.

Jinnah has become such a symbol of wisdom in the Pakistani society that people visualize Pakistan with his reference. His vision, his agenda, his dream and his ideals, all remained unaccomplished because he died soon after Independence. It is commonly believed that had he lived some more years, the history of Pakistan would have been different. There are few nations which rely so heavily on one individual.

No doubt, Jinnah was a great leader of his people. He was a man of integrity and honesty, but to idealize him to such an extent as to preempt the emergence of another rank of leaders out of his shadow is strange. Every generation has its own dreams and vision which it wants to accomplish without interference. Not imitation but freedom is required to build a new world. Therefore, an attempt should not be made to repeat but to make new history. People should be liberated from the shadows and allowed to flourish in a free society. Great leaders should be respected but not worshipped.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books4.htm

December 25, 2001

Conversation with Mukul Kesavan Jinnah: making of a myth

By Mubarak Ali

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had all the qualities and characteristics in his personality which go into the making of a myth. He was reticent, reserved, kept his personal matters secret, behaved coolly and proudly and was not warm towards anybody. Thus he created a halo of awe and fear around himself.

Sri Prakash, the first Indian High Commissioner to Karachi, in his book Pakistan: birth and early years gives an account of a reception which was given by the Governor-General of Pakistan, just after Independence to the diplomatic corps. It was also attended by the party leaders and bureaucrats. According to his version, Mr Jinnah was sitting at a distance alone on a sofa and called one by one those he wanted to talk to. He exchanged notes with each one of them just for five minutes. To the High Commissioner, he appeared a lonely man, averse to people. His serious and sombre expression made all those who interacted with him uneasy in his company.

This conveyed the impression that he was the final authority in every matter. The Muslim League and its leaders were merely rubber stamps. His image of being the sole spokesman of his party and people created a number of myths. For instance, the myth about his serious illness which is recounted by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in their book Freedom at midnight fascinates everybody and compels readers to take it seriously. The version of their story is:

``If Louis Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi had been aware in April 1947 of one extraordinary secret, the division threatening India might have been avoided. The secret was sealed onto the gray surface of a film, a film that could have upset the Indian political equation and would almost certainly have changed the course of Asian history. Yet, so precious was the secret that that film harboured that even the British CID, one of the most effective investigative agencies in the world, was ignorant of its existence.``

These were the X-rays of Jinnah diagnosed as a TB patient. The authors, after creating a suspense, further write that: ``The damage was so extensive that the man whose lungs were on the film had barely two or three years to live. Sealed in an unmarked envelope, those X-rays were locked in the office safe of Dr J.A.L. Patel, a Bombay physician.``

On the basis of the story, Jinnah emerged as the one on whom depended the whole movement of Pakistan. The story further becomes interesting when a Hindu doctor kept the secret at the cost of Indian unity. His professional integrity was more important than his political inclinations.

In 1997, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of India-Pakistan Independence, Patrick French published a book, Liberty or death. After his own investigation, French refutes the whole story narrated by Collins and Lapierre. According to him: ``The idea that Jinnah`s poor state of health was a closely guarded secret is absurd: it was referred to in the press at that time, and it is obvious from photographs taken in the mid-1940s that Jinnah was unwell.

Moreover, the reduction of the Muslim League`s wide popular backing to the whim of one man`s `rigid and inflexible` attitude is indicative of the way that Pakistan history has been traduced. A second problem with Collins and Lapierre`s story is that it is not correct. Jinnah did not go to Bombay in May or June 1946, since he was busy in negotiating with Cripps in Simla and New Delhi. Nor did he have a doctor by the name of J.A.L. Patel. Although it is possible that Jinnah had tuberculosis in 1946, there is no evidence among his archive papers to support the theory.``

However, Jinnah himself on many occasions expressed the view that he was the sole creator of Pakistan. In one of his famous quotes, he said that he and his typewriter made Pakistan. The statement disregarded the efforts of his colleagues and the other Muslim League leaders in the Pakistan movement. It also downgraded the people`s participation in the struggle for a separate homeland.

There is evidence that he did not think highly of the leaders of the Muslim League. He found them mediocre and not capable of leading the nation. Perhaps, that was the reason that Jinnah, knowing his fatal illness, accepted `the moth eaten and truncated Pakistan`. The later history of Pakistan vindicates Jinnah`s assessment of the Muslim League leaders who miserably failed to solve the problems of a nascent nation.

The failure of these leaders has boosted Jinnah`s image as a superman. He overshadowed everybody. The nation also paid respect to him by naming universities, colleges, airports, roads, hospitals, and institutions of different kinds after him with the result that a citizen of Pakistan feels his presence every where in the country, wherever he goes.

Moreover, his image as a ``Great Leader`` (the Quaid-i-Azam) is presented in the textbooks to mould the mind of the young generation encouraging them to follow in his footstep. Scholars are eulogizing different aspects of his life. A film is screened to counter the film Gandhi in which Attenborough distorts the image of Jinnah. These efforts have made Jinnah sacrosanct. Any criticism of him is regarded a treason. He has become a paragon of super human virtues, beyond all weaknesses normal in human being.

The reverence accorded to him is such that mere association with him catapults a person from a humble position to the rank of freedom fighter. People take pride in their claim to have shaken hands with him (though he avoided shaking hands with people), or having seen him, talked to him, or merely attended his public meeting. The rulers of Pakistan, realizing the impact of his association, create myths of their links with him. Z.A. Bhutto claimed that as a student he wrote a letter to the Quaid - it is not known whether he replied to that letter or not, Zia`s sycophant bureaucrats discovered a diary of Jinnah (that was the time when Hitler`s diaries were discovered and later on proved false) which disappeared along with him.

Nawaz Sharif, assuming to follow in his footsteps, called himself `Quaid-i-Sani` (the second leader). One such similar example is found in the history of France when Napoleon III made an attempt to revive the image of Napoleon I in order to legitimize his authority. Marx jokingly comments in The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte that ``Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.`` Nawaz Sharif`s self-given title proves it.

Jinnah has become such a symbol of wisdom in the Pakistani society that people visualize Pakistan with his reference. His vision, his agenda, his dream and his ideals, all remained unaccomplished because he died soon after Independence. It is commonly believed that had he lived some more years, the history of Pakistan would have been different. There are few nations which rely so heavily on one individual.

No doubt, Jinnah was a great leader of his people. He was a man of integrity and honesty, but to idealize him to such an extent as to preempt the emergence of another rank of leaders out of his shadow is strange. Every generation has its own dreams and vision which it wants to accomplish without interference. Not imitation but freedom is required to build a new world. Therefore, an attempt should not be made to repeat but to make new history. People should be liberated from the shadows and allowed to flourish in a free society. Great leaders should be respected but not worshipped.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books4.htm

December 25, 2001

Women and Police TIME, December 23, 1996

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/html/pakistan/jinnah2.html



A TIGERISH MAN, ATOP A SECTARIAN TIGER

The chronicle of a leader and the passions he fanned into flames



By Carl Posey

Delhi in the spring heat of 1946 was not relaxed,`` TIME reported that April. ``It was taut with waiting, gravid with conflict and suspense. Two socialist lawyers and a former Baptist lay preacher from Britain had sat of 25 days in the southeast wing of the viceregal palace, preparing to liquidate the richest portion of empire that history had ever seen---to end the British Raj, the grand and guilty edifice built and maintained by William Hawkins and Robert Clive, Warren Hastings and the Marquess Wellesley, the brawling editor James Silk Buckingham and the canny merchant Lord Inchcape and by the great Viceroys, austere Curzon and gently Halifax. The Raj was finished.``

Finished, perhaps, but still difficult to put down. The Raj at the end was like one of the unexploded bombs still lettering postwar Europe, and it held the same promise: peaceful independence if you do it right, explosive civil war if you fail. ``The issue,`` said TIME, ``seemed to turn on one man---Mohammed Ali Jinnah.`` On Boris Chaliapin’s portrait cover, the metaphorical tingers of East and West Pakistan stalked the subcontinent.

TIME had watched Jinnah intermittently since 1930, first as an ardent articulator of Indian nationalism, then as a spark flashing perhaps too close to the subcontinent powder keg. ``Where the low, bare limestone ridges of Sukkur, Sind slope like unkempt stairs down to the banks of the Indus,`` TIME reported in December 1939, ``Indians who loudly object to fighting Germans in the name of Empire last week fought each other in the name of their various gods.`` Muslims had claimed a government building near the river as the site of an ancient mosque and ``threatened to hold it until nirvana-come. Whereupon Hindus swept the city, storming, looting, burning Moslem shops.`` It was a chilling preview of bloodbaths ahead.

``The leaders of the Moslems,`` TIME observed, ``usually thinks first about independence for Moslems and afterward about independence for Indians. His name is Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and he is probably the greatest single force for disunity in all disunited India.`` As TIME watched the inexorable progress of the cracks that would culminate in India’s partition, that view of Jinnah would be modulated, but it would not fundamentally change.

There was, in fact, a good deal to admire in Jinnah’s tough single-mindedness and the way he played his cards. Talking with TIME correspondent William Fisher in 1942, Jinnah said he would accept a national government that gave Muslims ``a fair break,`` but that he would stop cooperating if the British made peace with the Hindu-dominated Congress Party.

The April 1946 Jinnah cover story reported by Pacific bureau chief Robert Sherrod was more than TIME’s bittersweet obituary for the British Raj; it was one of the world’s first real close-ups of the man who would have Pakistan, in all his coldly tigerish colorations. Here was a charismatic leader who during Gandhi’s 1942 Quit India campaign had ``boasted that if his followers joined Gandhi’s pacifist program, the British would have 500 times more trouble ‘because we have 500 times more guts than the Hindus.’`` It was also a grim prophecy. ``The British Raj had given India a unified defense and a unified region of internal free trade,`` said TIME. ``Jinnah would destroy both ... Between mighty Russia to the north and the main body of India to the south, Pakistan would dangle like two withered arms.``

In August, Jinnah unleashed---perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not---an ugly sample of the horrors to come. Opposed to a British plan for Indian independence that did not also create Pakistan, he designated the 18th day of Ramadan as ``Direct Action Day.`` ``Though direct,`` TIME reported, ``the action was supposed to be peaceful. But before the disastrous day was over, blood soaked the melting asphalt of sweltering Calcutta’s streets.

``Rioting Moslems went after Hindus with guns, knives and clubs, looted shops, stoned newspaper offices, set fire to Calcutta’s British business district. Hindus retaliated by firing Moslem mosques and miles of Moslem slums ... By the 21 day of Ramadan, direct action had killed some 3,000 people and wounded thousands more.``

Interspersed with what TIME called ``musical chairs`` of negotiation, in which neither the Hindu side nor the Muslim side could be budged by British nudging, the killing went on and on. ``Perhaps, after all, there would be no independent India,`` TIME mused sadly in May 1947. ``Indeed, there might be no India.``

Pakistan was by then an idea nothing could contain. In August 1947 it became the world’s largest Muslim nation. The forces of hatred unleashed by Jinnah’s rhetoric, however, had acquired a life of their own. By late October 1947 the plague of enmity flared in Kashmir, where a Muslim majority lived under a Hindu maharaja who decided to throw in with India. ``In Moslem Karachi,`` TIME reported, ``Pakistan Governor General Mohammed Ali Jinnah raged at the news. He ordered Pakistan troops ... into Kashmir.`` But as the raiders pushed into the Vale, ``the blind butchery of neighbor by neighbor had reached Kashmir. Pakistan heard that 50,000 Moslems had been slaughtered by Hindus. British officials said that 100,000 fleeing refugees from Kashmir and nearby Jammu had crowded south into the still reeking Punjab.``

Jinnah, meanwhile, seemed to fade even as his discordant creation took form. ``Last week,`` TIME reported in early December 1947, ``after less than four months of independence, Pakistan was economic wreck, and serious social unrest was rising.`` The new country coul dnot afford to feed its millions of refugees; its checks bounced around the globe. As for the health of the seldom seen Jinnah, TIME added, ``The Pakistan Ministry indignantly said: ‘There is absolutely no truth in the rumors that Quaid-e-Azam [the Great Leader] is seriously ill.’``

In fact, as evidently only he was aware, Jinnah was dying.

``Out of the travail of 400 million in the Indian subcontinent,`` TIME wrote in September 1948, ``have come two symbols---a man of love and a man of hate. Last winter the man of nonviolence, Gandhi, died violently at the hands of an assassin. Last week, the man of hate, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, at 71, died a natural death in Karachi, capital of state he had founded.``

Enemies gave Jinnah his due, though. ``The Hindustani Times,`` TIME observed, ``devoted a page to an uncompromising attack on Jinnah’s motives and methods. However, it concluded: ‘A man of destiny, he was perhaps the greatest man of Islam since Mohammed.’`` But, TIME noted warily, his death ``raised the possibility that his political heirs might seek the final solution for insolvent, disorganized governments: war.`` Indeed, Jinnah’s chief legacy proved to be an eternity of discord

Tilak and Gokhale TIME, December 23, 1996

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/html/pakistan/jinnah2.html



A TIGERISH MAN, ATOP A SECTARIAN TIGER

The chronicle of a leader and the passions he fanned into flames



By Carl Posey

Delhi in the spring heat of 1946 was not relaxed,`` TIME reported that April. ``It was taut with waiting, gravid with conflict and suspense. Two socialist lawyers and a former Baptist lay preacher from Britain had sat of 25 days in the southeast wing of the viceregal palace, preparing to liquidate the richest portion of empire that history had ever seen---to end the British Raj, the grand and guilty edifice built and maintained by William Hawkins and Robert Clive, Warren Hastings and the Marquess Wellesley, the brawling editor James Silk Buckingham and the canny merchant Lord Inchcape and by the great Viceroys, austere Curzon and gently Halifax. The Raj was finished.``

Finished, perhaps, but still difficult to put down. The Raj at the end was like one of the unexploded bombs still lettering postwar Europe, and it held the same promise: peaceful independence if you do it right, explosive civil war if you fail. ``The issue,`` said TIME, ``seemed to turn on one man---Mohammed Ali Jinnah.`` On Boris Chaliapin’s portrait cover, the metaphorical tingers of East and West Pakistan stalked the subcontinent.

TIME had watched Jinnah intermittently since 1930, first as an ardent articulator of Indian nationalism, then as a spark flashing perhaps too close to the subcontinent powder keg. ``Where the low, bare limestone ridges of Sukkur, Sind slope like unkempt stairs down to the banks of the Indus,`` TIME reported in December 1939, ``Indians who loudly object to fighting Germans in the name of Empire last week fought each other in the name of their various gods.`` Muslims had claimed a government building near the river as the site of an ancient mosque and ``threatened to hold it until nirvana-come. Whereupon Hindus swept the city, storming, looting, burning Moslem shops.`` It was a chilling preview of bloodbaths ahead.

``The leaders of the Moslems,`` TIME observed, ``usually thinks first about independence for Moslems and afterward about independence for Indians. His name is Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and he is probably the greatest single force for disunity in all disunited India.`` As TIME watched the inexorable progress of the cracks that would culminate in India’s partition, that view of Jinnah would be modulated, but it would not fundamentally change.

There was, in fact, a good deal to admire in Jinnah’s tough single-mindedness and the way he played his cards. Talking with TIME correspondent William Fisher in 1942, Jinnah said he would accept a national government that gave Muslims ``a fair break,`` but that he would stop cooperating if the British made peace with the Hindu-dominated Congress Party.

The April 1946 Jinnah cover story reported by Pacific bureau chief Robert Sherrod was more than TIME’s bittersweet obituary for the British Raj; it was one of the world’s first real close-ups of the man who would have Pakistan, in all his coldly tigerish colorations. Here was a charismatic leader who during Gandhi’s 1942 Quit India campaign had ``boasted that if his followers joined Gandhi’s pacifist program, the British would have 500 times more trouble ‘because we have 500 times more guts than the Hindus.’`` It was also a grim prophecy. ``The British Raj had given India a unified defense and a unified region of internal free trade,`` said TIME. ``Jinnah would destroy both ... Between mighty Russia to the north and the main body of India to the south, Pakistan would dangle like two withered arms.``

In August, Jinnah unleashed---perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not---an ugly sample of the horrors to come. Opposed to a British plan for Indian independence that did not also create Pakistan, he designated the 18th day of Ramadan as ``Direct Action Day.`` ``Though direct,`` TIME reported, ``the action was supposed to be peaceful. But before the disastrous day was over, blood soaked the melting asphalt of sweltering Calcutta’s streets.

``Rioting Moslems went after Hindus with guns, knives and clubs, looted shops, stoned newspaper offices, set fire to Calcutta’s British business district. Hindus retaliated by firing Moslem mosques and miles of Moslem slums ... By the 21 day of Ramadan, direct action had killed some 3,000 people and wounded thousands more.``

Interspersed with what TIME called ``musical chairs`` of negotiation, in which neither the Hindu side nor the Muslim side could be budged by British nudging, the killing went on and on. ``Perhaps, after all, there would be no independent India,`` TIME mused sadly in May 1947. ``Indeed, there might be no India.``

Pakistan was by then an idea nothing could contain. In August 1947 it became the world’s largest Muslim nation. The forces of hatred unleashed by Jinnah’s rhetoric, however, had acquired a life of their own. By late October 1947 the plague of enmity flared in Kashmir, where a Muslim majority lived under a Hindu maharaja who decided to throw in with India. ``In Moslem Karachi,`` TIME reported, ``Pakistan Governor General Mohammed Ali Jinnah raged at the news. He ordered Pakistan troops ... into Kashmir.`` But as the raiders pushed into the Vale, ``the blind butchery of neighbor by neighbor had reached Kashmir. Pakistan heard that 50,000 Moslems had been slaughtered by Hindus. British officials said that 100,000 fleeing refugees from Kashmir and nearby Jammu had crowded south into the still reeking Punjab.``

Jinnah, meanwhile, seemed to fade even as his discordant creation took form. ``Last week,`` TIME reported in early December 1947, ``after less than four months of independence, Pakistan was economic wreck, and serious social unrest was rising.`` The new country coul dnot afford to feed its millions of refugees; its checks bounced around the globe. As for the health of the seldom seen Jinnah, TIME added, ``The Pakistan Ministry indignantly said: ‘There is absolutely no truth in the rumors that Quaid-e-Azam [the Great Leader] is seriously ill.’``

In fact, as evidently only he was aware, Jinnah was dying.

``Out of the travail of 400 million in the Indian subcontinent,`` TIME wrote in September 1948, ``have come two symbols---a man of love and a man of hate. Last winter the man of nonviolence, Gandhi, died violently at the hands of an assassin. Last week, the man of hate, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, at 71, died a natural death in Karachi, capital of state he had founded.``

Enemies gave Jinnah his due, though. ``The Hindustani Times,`` TIME observed, ``devoted a page to an uncompromising attack on Jinnah’s motives and methods. However, it concluded: ‘A man of destiny, he was perhaps the greatest man of Islam since Mohammed.’`` But, TIME noted warily, his death ``raised the possibility that his political heirs might seek the final solution for insolvent, disorganized governments: war.`` Indeed, Jinnah’s chief legacy proved to be an eternity of discord

Running Naked Pakistan, Jinnah said had been ``The biggest blunder of my life``

On 125th birth anniversary of Jinnah

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/union/paksa/www/html/pakistan/jinnah1.html

Pakistan : The biggest blunder of my life

Mohammad Ali Jinnah created Pakistan out of oratory and blood



By Carl Posey

When he stood up in court, slowly looking toward the judge, placing his monocle in his eye—with the sense of timing you would expect from an actor---he became omnipotent. Yes, that is the word---omnipotent.`` Thus an Indian barrister upon his remarkable and enigmatic subject, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Courtroom omnipotence may have brought the Bombay lawyer wealth and comfort, but Jinnah’s portal to immortality lay elsewhere. By sheer force of will, he sundered the grand ruby that had been British India and raised Pakistan from shards.

Nothing in Jinnah’s early history suggested that this tall, almost transparently thin man would be anything more, or less, than a distinguished barrister, what a contemporary called a great pleader. Jinnah spent most of his life stalking the courts an parliament of London and Bombay, almost a caricature of a Victorian attorney---1,9m tall, less than 54kg in weight, a monocle, fine clothing and, an extraordinary, very British voice, of such quality that he was once offered a spot with troupe of English actors.

A marvelous subject for Charles Dickens, perhaps, who might have observed that the heart was no fatter than the man, and that the man was incorruptible as a strip of desiccated hide. Jinnah was not particularly religious, at least not in the beginning. Yet he would finally be reviled by Hindus as the Muslim serpent in the garden of independence---and revered by Muslims as Quaid-e-Azam: Great Leader.

Among the many paradoxical myths still swirling around Jinnah was that he had been born a Hindu, on Christmas Day 1876, and later converted to Islam. In fact, he was the first of seven children of Jinnahbhai Poonja, an affluent merchant in Karachi; the son would later derive his surname from Jinnahbhai. After matriculating at the University of Bombay, 16-year-old Jinnah was married off to a young girl, then sailed alone to study for the bar at London’s Lincoln’s Inn. His bride would die before he returned.

This was the liberal, end-of-the-century Britain of William Gladstone, however, and Jinnah’s political glands began to stir. From the outset he was a frequent visitor to Parliament, and he worked hard for India pioneer nationalist Dadabhai Naoroji, who in 1892 became the first Indian seated in the House of Commons. Called to the English bar in 1895, Jinnah returned to Karachi. Appointed advocate of the Bombay High Court in 1906, he was, according to one account, ``the best showman of them all. Quick, exceeding clever, sarcastic, and colorful, his greatest delight was to confound the opposing lawyer by confidential asides and to outwit the presiding judge in repartee.``

Like the other lawyer-nationalists fencing with the British Raj, Jinnah believed fervently in an independent India; and like them, he say that independence was a secular mosaic in which a Hindu majority and Muslim minority---a huge one, to be sure---lived in amity and equity. Though not a man of the masses, he was elected in 1910 to India’s Imperial Legislative Council, where he began a long, distinguished tenure. He kept himself apart from the nascent All-India Muslim League until he was assured that Indian nationalism was its primary concern. Once in, he became what one colleague called the ``best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.`` At the historic Lucknow meeting of the Indian National Congress and Muslim League in 1916, his speeches for unity were so strong as later to be an embarrassment to the Muslim League.

Soon after Lucknow, the 39-year-old barrister met and fell hopelessly in love with Ruttie, the beautiful 16-year-old daughter of Parsi millionaire Sir Dinshaw Manockjee Petit. Two years later, deaf to her family’s objections, the pari eloped into a marriage that turned out to be as bad as it was brave. Ruttie would give him on daughter, Dina, but leave him in 1928, fleeing Paris. When he followed and learned she was deathly ill, he arranged her care. She recovered, but returned without him to Bombay, where she died the following year. He would be consoled then, and forever after, by his sister, Fatima.

Something curdled in Jinnah during those years. Gandhi’s policy of non-cooperation repelled him. Believing it would not advance independence, he left the Indian Congress. The man of the hour at Lucknow was becoming steadily less relevant. From the sidelines he watched Gandhi’s non-cooperation fail against a hard-willed British Raj, and the emergence of a militant Hinduism and ensuing riots between Hindus and Muslims---riots of a violence no one had foreseen. By 1932, Jinnah had abandoned India to its factions. He took up a quiet life in north London’s posh Hampstead district with daughter Dina and sister Fatima, and made another grand success in law.

His political life appeared to be over. Attempting to find a seat in the Commons, he found he was too much the toff for Labour, too dark for the Tories. At home the enfeebled Muslim League was splintering into factions. When Jinnah heard that students were pushing something called PAKISTAN---an acronym made of the initial letters of Punjab, Afghan province, Kashmir and Sind and tan from Baluchistan---he would not even see them

Yet when the Muslim League asked him to return and heal them, Jinnah moved his elegant practice and life-style back to Bombay and Delhi. By then he was quite a different man from the reasonable, unity-minded Jinnah of old. This Jinnah had discovered in the Congress Party’s dismissive treatment of the league the one thing worse than British rule: Hindu Raj. Islam, he began to caution his auditors, was in danger. Nehru would wipe away wealth with the ``red pen`` of his socialism. Islamic culture would be diluted to extinction in a Hindu sea.

Jinnah remained the Muslim who eschewed the Mosque, smoked and partook wine and spirits; who made no pilgrimages and endured no fasts. But the snob described by Nehru had vanished. He embraced the masses, though a trifle gingerly and without perceptible warmth, bringing them along with the sheer force of his oratorical technique. He breathed life back into the league---indeed, he had become the league. On Oct. 15, 1973, Jinnah signaled his real destination at a league convention in Lucknow. He had arrived there in the costume of the British barrister. But when he took the podium, it was in the Muslims’ long, black sherwani, and a black Persian lamb cap borrowed from a Muslim nabob. Then he told the assembly that they held a ``magic power`` with which they could spin a new and better future. ``It is by resisting, by overcoming, by facing these disadvantages, hardships and suffering, and maintaining your true convictions and loyalty, that a nation will emerge.``

His opportunity arrived in September 1939, when it became clear that Britain would be fighting for its life in Europe---and later for its Asian empire against the Japanese. The British Indian Army counted many Muslims among its members. As their political leader, Jinnah could bargain with their continued loyalty. The price: dismissal of the Congress Party ministers. ``Turn them out at once,`` on writer quotes Jinnah as saying. ``They will never stand by you.`` And he also hinted at a terrible choice: partition or civil war. In October, unable to get what they wanted from the British viceroy, Congress ministers began to resign. The unexpected result---to everyone but Jinnah---was to make the league a full member of all future negotiations, and to hand Jinnah a veto. Muslims, he told his 80 million, would celebrate the fall of the Congress government as ``a day of deliverance and thanksgiving`` on Dec. 22. India trembled with fear and loathing.

On March 23, 1940, a Muslim League conference in Lahore defined the ethnic fault lines of the subcontinent. ``The area in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute ‘Independent States’ in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.`` Away from the negotiating table, however, the mood had been less formal. ``The only course open to us all is to allow major nations to separate to their homelands, ``Jinnah told 100,000 followers gathered in the killing heat. A permanent Muslim minority in independent India, he added, ``must lead to civil war and the raising of private armies.`` The fuse laid that day would sputter for seven more years.

Another fuse sizzled within. Behind what he had for decades called just a smoker’s cough lived a fatal tuberculosis, which had long ago begun gnawing its way beyond his ruined lungs. It was a race. If his body ran anything less than a dead heat, he would die, and so would Pakistan. His new nation was just that fragile.

Jinnah lived long enough to see what he had created---a bath of blood between Hindus and Muslims. The Dominion of Pakistan was born on Aug. 15, 1947, and the Quaid-e-Azam became its first Governor General in the capital of Karachi. His new nation was huge, and hugely poor. He survived long enough to be aware, perhaps, that the separatist forces unleashed by partition had propelled Hindu assassins to Gandhi’s side that January. And then, on Sep. 11, 1948, just 13 months after independence, the tuberculosis fuse burned down to nothing. On his death bed, according to his doctor, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the wealthy lawyer of Bombay, rendered his final judgement on his signal achievement: Pakistan, he said, had been ``the biggest blunder of my life.``

Running Naked Connecting terrorism`s dots

Arnaud de Borchgrave

Dec. 27, 2001

Washington Times

In an attempt to avoid embarrassing Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, and to pre-empt any Indian campaign to extend the war against terrorism to cover terrorist training camps in Pakistan, the White House announced Dec. 20 it was blocking the assets of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) which it described as ``a Kashmiri terrorist organization that has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Kashmir since 1993.``

That was once over very lightly. If truth be known, the facts behind LET are identical to Osama bin Laden`s al Qaeda`s organization. The terrorists are interchangeable between both organizations. They were all trained in al Qaeda`s camps and some of bin Laden`s Afghan Arabs have already found refuge among LET`s ranks in Kashmir. The White House`s new formulation calls LET ``a stateless sponsor of terrorism.`` But LET is also Pakistan-based and Pakistan-sanctioned.

LET`s ranks consist of Pakistanis, Afghans, and Arabs led by Pakistani cadres. Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence agency oversees LET`s terrorist operations. Headquartered at Muridke outside Lahore, LET holds annual conclaves that are attended by serving and retired officers of ISI and the regular army, political leaders, and retired scientists of Pakistan`s nuclear establishment. LET`s terrorists are ``freedom fighters`` dedicated to ``the liberation of Indian-occupied Kashmir.`` Its political cover is called Marka-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), a fiercely anti-U.S. pseudo-religious, extremist organization.

LET`s last big meeting was held in Muridke April 13-15 and was attended by retired Gen. Hameed Gul, a former head of ISI and currently ``strategic adviser`` to Pakistan`s extremist religious parties; Retired Gen. Javed Nasir, another former ISI director general; Abdul Qadir Khan, the father of Pakistan`s nuclear bomb; Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, formerly with the Atomic Energy Commission and recently detained at the request of the U.S. for questioning about his meetings with Osama Bin Laden. The conference passed a resolution calling on its ``freedom fighters`` to capture Hindu temples, destroy the idols and hoist the flag of Islam on them.

ISI was tasked with ensuring that no journalists gained access to the meeting. But some did. The News reported on April 22 that LET ``operates six private military training camps in Pakistan and Kashmir where several thousand are given both military and religious education.`` The newspaper also reported that LET runs 2,200 recruiting offices across Pakistan and some two dozen ``launching camps along the Line of Control [LOC] in Kashmir,`` which makes it ``the biggest jihadi [holy warrior] network in Pakistan.``

No militant training center in Pakistan can operate without the consent of the army, now in power, and ISI, a state within a state whose chief reports only to Mr. Musharraf. Yet the government continues to be in a state of deep denial. Presidential spokesman Gen. Rashid Quereshi says, ``No group operating in Kashmir has any base in Pakistan.``

Mr. Musharraf is riding a terrorist tiger and is having trouble dismounting. Last May 18, Najam Sethi, the editor of ``Friday Times,`` an authoritative weekly journal, summed up the president`s dilemma: ``The Musharraf model seeks to covertly ally with the jihadi groups while overtly keeping the mainstream religious parties out of the power loop. This is to enhance and sustain its covert external agenda, while internally maintaining an overtly moderate anti-fundamentalist stance for the comfort of the international community whose economic support is critical to Pakistan`s financial viability.``

The terrorist attack against the Indian Parliament Dec. 13 was almost certainly the work of Jaish-e-Mohammed (Soldiers of the Prophet), another Pakistan-based terrorist organization. This writer found its slogans painted in towns and villages throughout the Pakistani tribal belt last week, to wit: ``Jaish-e-Mohammed and al Qaeda are Bubbling Blood Brothers`` and ``For Commando Training, Contact Jaish-e-Mohammed.`` The motive for the attack was most probably an attempt to disrupt the budding U.S.-Pakistani alliance and isolate Mr. Musharraf.

After ditching Taliban, it becomes increasingly harder for Mr. Musharraf to crack down on those who would Talibanize Pakistan. In fact, he released from detention the No. 1 religious extremist firebrand, Fazrul Rehman.

Mr. Musharraf is now caught between a rock and four hard places — Afghanistan where the anti-Pakistani, pro-Indian Northern Alliance holds the key government positions in the new coalition under Hamid Karzai; a hostile India on the edge of retaliatory action; a disloyal ISI; and a belligerent extremist clergy.

Despite the appointment of a Musharraf loyalist as the new head of ISI when U.S. bombing started last October, the powerful agency has not been responding to the president`s pro-American policies. One regional ISI general even went so far as to rattle tribal chiefs by telling them Pakistan would be next in America`s crosshairs after the defeat of Taliban. The secret organization continues to undermine him at every turn. The country`s principal political leaders are fearful of ISI. They draw the initials with their fingers in the air when the subject comes out lest they be heard by ubiquitous bugs. And they say nothing short of a top-to-bottom reform of ISI, followed by accountability to a yet-to-be-created national security council of civilian and military leaders, will bring the agency back to its proper place in the body politic.

The Taliban infrastructure in Pakistan emerged unscathed from Taliban`s defeat in Afghanistan. While ISI is officially cooperating with the U.S. in hunting down Taliban`s deposed leaders, senior Taliban officials are now resting comfortably in their second homes in Quetta and Peshawar, the two frontier towns where they had parked their families when the bombing started. One has even given an interview to a British newspaper. Another has given a ``religious lecture`` at the madrassa — the ``University for the Education of Truth`` — where he graduated in the town of Khattak. ISI is doubtless aware of these activities. But is Mr. Musharraf?

Belatedly, over the Christmas weekend, Mr. Musharraf decided to freeze the accounts of LET and Umma Tamee-e-Nau (UTN), the group the U.S. believes passed nuclear weapons data to Osama bin Laden. The LET chief then resigned. It is to be hoped that a thorough housecleaning of ISI is next on Mr. Musharraf`s must-do list as he returns from a weeklong state visit to China.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20011227-79790204.htm

A Letter Home Connecting terrorism`s dots

Arnaud de Borchgrave

Dec. 27, 2001

Washington Times

In an attempt to avoid embarrassing Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, and to pre-empt any Indian campaign to extend the war against terrorism to cover terrorist training camps in Pakistan, the White House announced Dec. 20 it was blocking the assets of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) which it described as ``a Kashmiri terrorist organization that has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Kashmir since 1993.``

That was once over very lightly. If truth be known, the facts behind LET are identical to Osama bin Laden`s al Qaeda`s organization. The terrorists are interchangeable between both organizations. They were all trained in al Qaeda`s camps and some of bin Laden`s Afghan Arabs have already found refuge among LET`s ranks in Kashmir. The White House`s new formulation calls LET ``a stateless sponsor of terrorism.`` But LET is also Pakistan-based and Pakistan-sanctioned.

LET`s ranks consist of Pakistanis, Afghans, and Arabs led by Pakistani cadres. Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence agency oversees LET`s terrorist operations. Headquartered at Muridke outside Lahore, LET holds annual conclaves that are attended by serving and retired officers of ISI and the regular army, political leaders, and retired scientists of Pakistan`s nuclear establishment. LET`s terrorists are ``freedom fighters`` dedicated to ``the liberation of Indian-occupied Kashmir.`` Its political cover is called Marka-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), a fiercely anti-U.S. pseudo-religious, extremist organization.

LET`s last big meeting was held in Muridke April 13-15 and was attended by retired Gen. Hameed Gul, a former head of ISI and currently ``strategic adviser`` to Pakistan`s extremist religious parties; Retired Gen. Javed Nasir, another former ISI director general; Abdul Qadir Khan, the father of Pakistan`s nuclear bomb; Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, formerly with the Atomic Energy Commission and recently detained at the request of the U.S. for questioning about his meetings with Osama Bin Laden. The conference passed a resolution calling on its ``freedom fighters`` to capture Hindu temples, destroy the idols and hoist the flag of Islam on them.

ISI was tasked with ensuring that no journalists gained access to the meeting. But some did. The News reported on April 22 that LET ``operates six private military training camps in Pakistan and Kashmir where several thousand are given both military and religious education.`` The newspaper also reported that LET runs 2,200 recruiting offices across Pakistan and some two dozen ``launching camps along the Line of Control [LOC] in Kashmir,`` which makes it ``the biggest jihadi [holy warrior] network in Pakistan.``

No militant training center in Pakistan can operate without the consent of the army, now in power, and ISI, a state within a state whose chief reports only to Mr. Musharraf. Yet the government continues to be in a state of deep denial. Presidential spokesman Gen. Rashid Quereshi says, ``No group operating in Kashmir has any base in Pakistan.``

Mr. Musharraf is riding a terrorist tiger and is having trouble dismounting. Last May 18, Najam Sethi, the editor of ``Friday Times,`` an authoritative weekly journal, summed up the president`s dilemma: ``The Musharraf model seeks to covertly ally with the jihadi groups while overtly keeping the mainstream religious parties out of the power loop. This is to enhance and sustain its covert external agenda, while internally maintaining an overtly moderate anti-fundamentalist stance for the comfort of the international community whose economic support is critical to Pakistan`s financial viability.``

The terrorist attack against the Indian Parliament Dec. 13 was almost certainly the work of Jaish-e-Mohammed (Soldiers of the Prophet), another Pakistan-based terrorist organization. This writer found its slogans painted in towns and villages throughout the Pakistani tribal belt last week, to wit: ``Jaish-e-Mohammed and al Qaeda are Bubbling Blood Brothers`` and ``For Commando Training, Contact Jaish-e-Mohammed.`` The motive for the attack was most probably an attempt to disrupt the budding U.S.-Pakistani alliance and isolate Mr. Musharraf.

After ditching Taliban, it becomes increasingly harder for Mr. Musharraf to crack down on those who would Talibanize Pakistan. In fact, he released from detention the No. 1 religious extremist firebrand, Fazrul Rehman.

Mr. Musharraf is now caught between a rock and four hard places — Afghanistan where the anti-Pakistani, pro-Indian Northern Alliance holds the key government positions in the new coalition under Hamid Karzai; a hostile India on the edge of retaliatory action; a disloyal ISI; and a belligerent extremist clergy.

Despite the appointment of a Musharraf loyalist as the new head of ISI when U.S. bombing started last October, the powerful agency has not been responding to the president`s pro-American policies. One regional ISI general even went so far as to rattle tribal chiefs by telling them Pakistan would be next in America`s crosshairs after the defeat of Taliban. The secret organization continues to undermine him at every turn. The country`s principal political leaders are fearful of ISI. They draw the initials with their fingers in the air when the subject comes out lest they be heard by ubiquitous bugs. And they say nothing short of a top-to-bottom reform of ISI, followed by accountability to a yet-to-be-created national security council of civilian and military leaders, will bring the agency back to its proper place in the body politic.

The Taliban infrastructure in Pakistan emerged unscathed from Taliban`s defeat in Afghanistan. While ISI is officially cooperating with the U.S. in hunting down Taliban`s deposed leaders, senior Taliban officials are now resting comfortably in their second homes in Quetta and Peshawar, the two frontier towns where they had parked their families when the bombing started. One has even given an interview to a British newspaper. Another has given a ``religious lecture`` at the madrassa — the ``University for the Education of Truth`` — where he graduated in the town of Khattak. ISI is doubtless aware of these activities. But is Mr. Musharraf?

Belatedly, over the Christmas weekend, Mr. Musharraf decided to freeze the accounts of LET and Umma Tamee-e-Nau (UTN), the group the U.S. believes passed nuclear weapons data to Osama bin Laden. The LET chief then resigned. It is to be hoped that a thorough housecleaning of ISI is next on Mr. Musharraf`s must-do list as he returns from a weeklong state visit to China.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20011227-79790204.htm

Jihad: Paradoxes and Defining Moments Connecting terrorism`s dots

Arnaud de Borchgrave

Dec. 27, 2001

Washington Times

In an attempt to avoid embarrassing Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, and to pre-empt any Indian campaign to extend the war against terrorism to cover terrorist training camps in Pakistan, the White House announced Dec. 20 it was blocking the assets of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) which it described as ``a Kashmiri terrorist organization that has conducted a number of operations against Indian troops and civilian targets in Kashmir since 1993.``

That was once over very lightly. If truth be known, the facts behind LET are identical to Osama bin Laden`s al Qaeda`s organization. The terrorists are interchangeable between both organizations. They were all trained in al Qaeda`s camps and some of bin Laden`s Afghan Arabs have already found refuge among LET`s ranks in Kashmir. The White House`s new formulation calls LET ``a stateless sponsor of terrorism.`` But LET is also Pakistan-based and Pakistan-sanctioned.

LET`s ranks consist of Pakistanis, Afghans, and Arabs led by Pakistani cadres. Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence agency oversees LET`s terrorist operations. Headquartered at Muridke outside Lahore, LET holds annual conclaves that are attended by serving and retired officers of ISI and the regular army, political leaders, and retired scientists of Pakistan`s nuclear establishment. LET`s terrorists are ``freedom fighters`` dedicated to ``the liberation of Indian-occupied Kashmir.`` Its political cover is called Marka-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), a fiercely anti-U.S. pseudo-religious, extremist organization.

LET`s last big meeting was held in Muridke April 13-15 and was attended by retired Gen. Hameed Gul, a former head of ISI and currently ``strategic adviser`` to Pakistan`s extremist religious parties; Retired Gen. Javed Nasir, another former ISI director general; Abdul Qadir Khan, the father of Pakistan`s nuclear bomb; Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, formerly with the Atomic Energy Commission and recently detained at the request of the U.S. for questioning about his meetings with Osama Bin Laden. The conference passed a resolution calling on its ``freedom fighters`` to capture Hindu temples, destroy the idols and hoist the flag of Islam on them.

ISI was tasked with ensuring that no journalists gained access to the meeting. But some did. The News reported on April 22 that LET ``operates six private military training camps in Pakistan and Kashmir where several thousand are given both military and religious education.`` The newspaper also reported that LET runs 2,200 recruiting offices across Pakistan and some two dozen ``launching camps along the Line of Control [LOC] in Kashmir,`` which makes it ``the biggest jihadi [holy warrior] network in Pakistan.``

No militant training center in Pakistan can operate without the consent of the army, now in power, and ISI, a state within a state whose chief reports only to Mr. Musharraf. Yet the government continues to be in a state of deep denial. Presidential spokesman Gen. Rashid Quereshi says, ``No group operating in Kashmir has any base in Pakistan.``

Mr. Musharraf is riding a terrorist tiger and is having trouble dismounting. Last May 18, Najam Sethi, the editor of ``Friday Times,`` an authoritative weekly journal, summed up the president`s dilemma: ``The Musharraf model seeks to covertly ally with the jihadi groups while overtly keeping the mainstream religious parties out of the power loop. This is to enhance and sustain its covert external agenda, while internally maintaining an overtly moderate anti-fundamentalist stance for the comfort of the international community whose economic support is critical to Pakistan`s financial viability.``

The terrorist attack against the Indian Parliament Dec. 13 was almost certainly the work of Jaish-e-Mohammed (Soldiers of the Prophet), another Pakistan-based terrorist organization. This writer found its slogans painted in towns and villages throughout the Pakistani tribal belt last week, to wit: ``Jaish-e-Mohammed and al Qaeda are Bubbling Blood Brothers`` and ``For Commando Training, Contact Jaish-e-Mohammed.`` The motive for the attack was most probably an attempt to disrupt the budding U.S.-Pakistani alliance and isolate Mr. Musharraf.

After ditching Taliban, it becomes increasingly harder for Mr. Musharraf to crack down on those who would Talibanize Pakistan. In fact, he released from detention the No. 1 religious extremist firebrand, Fazrul Rehman.

Mr. Musharraf is now caught between a rock and four hard places — Afghanistan where the anti-Pakistani, pro-Indian Northern Alliance holds the key government positions in the new coalition under Hamid Karzai; a hostile India on the edge of retaliatory action; a disloyal ISI; and a belligerent extremist clergy.

Despite the appointment of a Musharraf loyalist as the new head of ISI when U.S. bombing started last October, the powerful agency has not been responding to the president`s pro-American policies. One regional ISI general even went so far as to rattle tribal chiefs by telling them Pakistan would be next in America`s crosshairs after the defeat of Taliban. The secret organization continues to undermine him at every turn. The country`s principal political leaders are fearful of ISI. They draw the initials with their fingers in the air when the subject comes out lest they be heard by ubiquitous bugs. And they say nothing short of a top-to-bottom reform of ISI, followed by accountability to a yet-to-be-created national security council of civilian and military leaders, will bring the agency back to its proper place in the body politic.

The Taliban infrastructure in Pakistan emerged unscathed from Taliban`s defeat in Afghanistan. While ISI is officially cooperating with the U.S. in hunting down Taliban`s deposed leaders, senior Taliban officials are now resting comfortably in their second homes in Quetta and Peshawar, the two frontier towns where they had parked their families when the bombing started. One has even given an interview to a British newspaper. Another has given a ``religious lecture`` at the madrassa — the ``University for the Education of Truth`` — where he graduated in the town of Khattak. ISI is doubtless aware of these activities. But is Mr. Musharraf?

Belatedly, over the Christmas weekend, Mr. Musharraf decided to freeze the accounts of LET and Umma Tamee-e-Nau (UTN), the group the U.S. believes passed nuclear weapons data to Osama bin Laden. The LET chief then resigned. It is to be hoped that a thorough housecleaning of ISI is next on Mr. Musharraf`s must-do list as he returns from a weeklong state visit to China.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20011227-79790204.htm

Music? Music must have soul

By: Narendra Kusnur

December 24,2001

Vocalist Kishori Amonkar is impressed with the packaging of her latest album Sampradaya, specially the accompanying booklet. For her, it`s a very special album because it pays tribute to her mother and guru Mogubai Kurdikar, who passed away in February.

The album, recorded at a concert in London last year, has been released by Sony Nad Navras. It contains the morning raags Alhaiya Bilawal and Jeevanpuri, besides a 15-minute composition in Bhairavi.

The singer will be performing at Juhu`s Iskcon Auditorium tomorrow morning (25.12.2001). Three days before the concert, she talks about her music, her mother and her latest project. Excerpts:

In what specific areas did your mother affect your musical thought?

She taught me how to look at this art, and she told me I was not in the field of entertainment. Rather, she told me this is the art where one can find divinity. I look at this art as a path towards peace.

Though you use the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana as your base, what made you imbibe features of other schools?

I have only widened the premises of the Jaipur gharana. As I continued learning, I realised that this art is emotive. Each raag has a feeling, and I tried to bring this out. To bring more soul into my singing, I introduced new elements. Music has to have soul, because that is the real feeling. I also believe in the universality of music. That`s why I would think beyond one gharana. But my base remains the Jaipur gharana.

Your style is characterised by the use of various kinds of taans like bol-taans and akaar-taans. But what do you feel about the practise of singing sargams, which many other musicians follow?

Indian classical music is not a show of technique. It strictly deals with the world of notes. While singing, one should know what notes one is singing without naming them. Does that answer your question?

A lot of classical music has become gimmicky of late. What`s the reason for that?

Many musicians are thinking of technique more than purpose. And to show their technique, they resort to gimmicks. But a certain mood has to be conveyed in each raag, and by getting gimmicky, one can`t convey that mood.

What factors do you keep in mind while choosing a raag for a concert?

It usually takes me 15 or 20 days to get into focus before a concert. But I have to be in the correct frame of mind. The raag is chosen on the basis of the mood I want to portray, because it`s a challenge to express that mood.

At some concerts, you also render raags like Kukubh Bilawal, Hansakankani and Bhinna Shadja, which many contemporary singers don`t present...

They are known raags, and I don`t know why others aren`t singing them too often. I like them because they are very aesthetic.

Why have you been increasingly using a violin in your concerts?

The person who plays the violin (Milind Raikar) is learning from me and is well-versed with my style. Since he knows what I want, I am happy using it.

Finally, there`s been a lot of talk about how to promote classical music among the younger generation. What are your views on this subject?

I wonder why we have reached a stage where we should promote something beautiful, divine and which gives you peace.

Top Ten South Asian Pieces of Music Music must have soul :Kishori Amonkar

By: Narendra Kusnur

December 24,2001

Vocalist Kishori Amonkar is impressed with the packaging of her latest album Sampradaya, specially the accompanying booklet. For her, it`s a very special album because it pays tribute to her mother and guru Mogubai Kurdikar, who passed away in February.

The album, recorded at a concert in London last year, has been released by Sony Nad Navras. It contains the morning raags Alhaiya Bilawal and Jeevanpuri, besides a 15-minute composition in Bhairavi.

The singer will be performing at Juhu`s Iskcon Auditorium tomorrow morning (25.12.2001). Three days before the concert, she talks about her music, her mother and her latest project. Excerpts:

In what specific areas did your mother affect your musical thought?

She taught me how to look at this art, and she told me I was not in the field of entertainment. Rather, she told me this is the art where one can find divinity. I look at this art as a path towards peace.

Though you use the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana as your base, what made you imbibe features of other schools?

I have only widened the premises of the Jaipur gharana. As I continued learning, I realised that this art is emotive. Each raag has a feeling, and I tried to bring this out. To bring more soul into my singing, I introduced new elements. Music has to have soul, because that is the real feeling. I also believe in the universality of music. That`s why I would think beyond one gharana. But my base remains the Jaipur gharana.

Your style is characterised by the use of various kinds of taans like bol-taans and akaar-taans. But what do you feel about the practise of singing sargams, which many other musicians follow?

Indian classical music is not a show of technique. It strictly deals with the world of notes. While singing, one should know what notes one is singing without naming them. Does that answer your question?

A lot of classical music has become gimmicky of late. What`s the reason for that?

Many musicians are thinking of technique more than purpose. And to show their technique, they resort to gimmicks. But a certain mood has to be conveyed in each raag, and by getting gimmicky, one can`t convey that mood.

What factors do you keep in mind while choosing a raag for a concert?

It usually takes me 15 or 20 days to get into focus before a concert. But I have to be in the correct frame of mind. The raag is chosen on the basis of the mood I want to portray, because it`s a challenge to express that mood.

At some concerts, you also render raags like Kukubh Bilawal, Hansakankani and Bhinna Shadja, which many contemporary singers don`t present...

They are known raags, and I don`t know why others aren`t singing them too often. I like them because they are very aesthetic.

Why have you been increasingly using a violin in your concerts?

The person who plays the violin (Milind Raikar) is learning from me and is well-versed with my style. Since he knows what I want, I am happy using it.

Finally, there`s been a lot of talk about how to promote classical music among the younger generation. What are your views on this subject?

I wonder why we have reached a stage where we should promote something beautiful, divine and which gives you peace.

An International Failure In Kabul Indians get a bear hug

Agencies/Kabul

Kabul is one place today where an Indian visitor is glad to flaunt his nationality and Pakistanis would hate to be in.

Whether it is government offices or public places, Indians are greeted warmly, sometimes even with a bear hug, by smiling Afghans.

At the Foreign Ministry, the uniformed male receptionist wanted to see the equipment carried by a group of Indian journalists. ``Indians? Indians?`` he asked on being told of their identity. ``No Pakistanis, okay, please go,`` he said, directing the group to the Press office with a back slap and a smile.

``This is one place we are glad to be an Indian,`` commented a scribe. It is not journalists alone who are being greeted with such warmth.

A group of five doctors who have been here for the last three weeks as part of India`s relief effort and have been working at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health, set up with Indian aid in the late 1960s, said they had been overwhelmed by the goodwill and affection shown by parents of their patients.

``Many of them remembered names of Indian doctors who had worked at the hospital before and asked about their welfare,`` A R Basu, a surgeon, said.

The Indian doctors are held in such high regard that often parents come to them with prescriptions given by Afghan doctors. ``But because of professional ethics we try to avoid seeing them,`` said B C Nambiar, an anesthetist.

Hindi film music can be heard in street corners and in taxis, and the only two functioning cinema halls here are screening Bollywood movies. Pirated video cassettes of recent Bollywood releases like the Amitabh Bachchan starrer ``Mohabbatein,`` smuggled in through Pakistan, are available in the markets. If the Afghans are effusive towards Indians, their anger against Pakistanis too is vented loudly. They say the Taliban cadres were largely composed of Pakistanis.

``They raped our country. We hate them,`` said Sanjar, a second-year medical student. ``When they were fleeing after the American bombing started, I asked them why they came. They said they came for jehad since we were not firm in our Islamic belief. I told them to go on to do that in their own country.`` ``Why doesn`t India go to war with Pakistan?`` asked Zia, a taxi driver. ``We don`t want the Taliban to come back.``

Ahmed Wali Masood, Afghan ambassador to Britain and brother of the late Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masood, had this to say: ``We don`t want help from our neighbours like Pakistan. We have paid a heavy price for that. We want help from India, the US and Britain.``

The Price In Kabul Indians get a bear hug

Agencies/Kabul

Kabul is one place today where an Indian visitor is glad to flaunt his nationality and Pakistanis would hate to be in.

Whether it is government offices or public places, Indians are greeted warmly, sometimes even with a bear hug, by smiling Afghans.

At the Foreign Ministry, the uniformed male receptionist wanted to see the equipment carried by a group of Indian journalists. ``Indians? Indians?`` he asked on being told of their identity. ``No Pakistanis, okay, please go,`` he said, directing the group to the Press office with a back slap and a smile.

``This is one place we are glad to be an Indian,`` commented a scribe. It is not journalists alone who are being greeted with such warmth.

A group of five doctors who have been here for the last three weeks as part of India`s relief effort and have been working at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health, set up with Indian aid in the late 1960s, said they had been overwhelmed by the goodwill and affection shown by parents of their patients.

``Many of them remembered names of Indian doctors who had worked at the hospital before and asked about their welfare,`` A R Basu, a surgeon, said.

The Indian doctors are held in such high regard that often parents come to them with prescriptions given by Afghan doctors. ``But because of professional ethics we try to avoid seeing them,`` said B C Nambiar, an anesthetist.

Hindi film music can be heard in street corners and in taxis, and the only two functioning cinema halls here are screening Bollywood movies. Pirated video cassettes of recent Bollywood releases like the Amitabh Bachchan starrer ``Mohabbatein,`` smuggled in through Pakistan, are available in the markets. If the Afghans are effusive towards Indians, their anger against Pakistanis too is vented loudly. They say the Taliban cadres were largely composed of Pakistanis.

``They raped our country. We hate them,`` said Sanjar, a second-year medical student. ``When they were fleeing after the American bombing started, I asked them why they came. They said they came for jehad since we were not firm in our Islamic belief. I told them to go on to do that in their own country.`` ``Why doesn`t India go to war with Pakistan?`` asked Zia, a taxi driver. ``We don`t want the Taliban to come back.``

Ahmed Wali Masood, Afghan ambassador to Britain and brother of the late Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masood, had this to say: ``We don`t want help from our neighbours like Pakistan. We have paid a heavy price for that. We want help from India, the US and Britain.``

Muslims and The West After 11th September In Kabul Indians get a bear hug

Agencies/Kabul

Kabul is one place today where an Indian visitor is glad to flaunt his nationality and Pakistanis would hate to be in.

Whether it is government offices or public places, Indians are greeted warmly, sometimes even with a bear hug, by smiling Afghans.

At the Foreign Ministry, the uniformed male receptionist wanted to see the equipment carried by a group of Indian journalists. ``Indians? Indians?`` he asked on being told of their identity. ``No Pakistanis, okay, please go,`` he said, directing the group to the Press office with a back slap and a smile.

``This is one place we are glad to be an Indian,`` commented a scribe. It is not journalists alone who are being greeted with such warmth.

A group of five doctors who have been here for the last three weeks as part of India`s relief effort and have been working at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health, set up with Indian aid in the late 1960s, said they had been overwhelmed by the goodwill and affection shown by parents of their patients.

``Many of them remembered names of Indian doctors who had worked at the hospital before and asked about their welfare,`` A R Basu, a surgeon, said.

The Indian doctors are held in such high regard that often parents come to them with prescriptions given by Afghan doctors. ``But because of professional ethics we try to avoid seeing them,`` said B C Nambiar, an anesthetist.

Hindi film music can be heard in street corners and in taxis, and the only two functioning cinema halls here are screening Bollywood movies. Pirated video cassettes of recent Bollywood releases like the Amitabh Bachchan starrer ``Mohabbatein,`` smuggled in through Pakistan, are available in the markets. If the Afghans are effusive towards Indians, their anger against Pakistanis too is vented loudly. They say the Taliban cadres were largely composed of Pakistanis.

``They raped our country. We hate them,`` said Sanjar, a second-year medical student. ``When they were fleeing after the American bombing started, I asked them why they came. They said they came for jehad since we were not firm in our Islamic belief. I told them to go on to do that in their own country.`` ``Why doesn`t India go to war with Pakistan?`` asked Zia, a taxi driver. ``We don`t want the Taliban to come back.``

Ahmed Wali Masood, Afghan ambassador to Britain and brother of the late Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Masood, had this to say: ``We don`t want help from our neighbours like Pakistan. We have paid a heavy price for that. We want help from India, the US and Britain.``

Is Jehad Passe’? PAKISTAN`S CHOICE

New York Post; New York; Dec 20, 2001;

Words in Document: 285

Available Formats:

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Abstract:

Yes, Pakistan`s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had the good sense to withdraw his country`s support from the Taliban and al Qaeda once it was clear that America meant business in Afghanistan. But Pakistan still hosts, trains and arms terrorist groups like the ones believed to have carried out the attack in New Delhi.

Yes, the Pashtun tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghan border ...

Is Jehad Passe’? http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/21/opinion/21KRIS.html

Our Friends the Terrorists

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

E-Mail nicholas@nytimes.com

Just to puncture our hypocrisy for a moment: We`ve been battling terrorism by bolstering backers of terrorism in Pakistan.

Pakistan, our new ally in the war on terrorism, has a long history of supporting indiscriminate attacks in India and especially Kashmir. The latest, headline-grabbing attack was the assault on the Parliament building in New Delhi that now threatens war between two nuclear powers, but many thousands of civilians have been killed over the years by Pakistani-financed terrorist organizations.

All in all, Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, or I.S.I., is responsible for many more killings than Osama bin Laden.

But however hypocritical it may be to bolster one government that harbors terrorists while overthrowing another, there is no good alternative. The Bush administration is exactly right to be simultaneously supporting Gen. Pervez Musharraf and twisting his arm to fight terrorism, for he may be Pakistan`s last hope to rescue his country.

Pakistan today is not only a catastrophe for Pakistanis but a threat to the entire region. Its economy is quasi-feudal, some 55 percent of adults are illiterate and more than 10 percent of children die by the age of 5. Pakistan now has more drug addicts than college graduates.

In the last 20 years public schooling has been partly replaced by madrasas that preach extremism, the pursuit of nuclear weapons has isolated the government, and foolish policies have crippled the economy. The I.S.I.`s installation of the Taliban in Afghanistan has backfired, and now there is a risk of the ``Talibanization`` of Pakistan, as religious extremists return from their ``crusades`` in Afghanistan and Pashtuns perhaps revive their quest for an independent ``Pashtunistan.``

In Pakistan earlier this month, I flinched whenever I read the newspapers. Guerrillas in Kashmir were ``freedom-fighters`` if they lived, ``martyrs`` if they died. And on The Nation`s editorial page appeared this rant: ``The Christian world has not accepted us [Muslims] as human beings even. These nations are determined to exterminate the Muslims.``

General Musharraf is in charge of this morass, and — under strong pressure from President Bush, and less visible nudging from China — he has acted decisively to pull his country toward reality. He ousted the head of the I.S.I., permitted the entry of U.S. troops to oust the Taliban, and sent troops for the first time into tribal areas to capture Taliban escapees. He has moved to sideline the religious fanatics, close the extremist madrasas and deport foreign religious students. Next he must clamp down on the Kashmiri fighters.

Over the last two years General Musharraf has shown himself capable of brutally tough decisions, and there is some reason to think that he can regain control of the I.S.I. (which may have run the latest Indian attack as a rogue operation), cut off state support for Kashmiri terrorists, nurture a growing market economy — and prepare for democratic elections. The religious parties get less than 5 percent of the vote in Pakistan, and so democracy can delegitimize extremism as well.

When I first traveled around Pakistan as a student backpacker two decades ago, I sneaked into closed tribal areas and visited a village that was a center for heroin and gun-running. One gunsmith tried to sell me a pen that could not only write but also shoot a .22 bullet out the end. Not even a Palm Pilot can do that, and it was only $7! This incredibly nifty gadget enthralled me as a symbol of Pakistani ingenuity — and it`s also apt because Pakistan has squandered its considerable potential and excelled far more at things destructive than constructive.

Now Pakistan is at a moment of maximum danger, threatened by the instability caused by returning Taliban fighters on the west and by the risk of war with India on the east. Similarly, it was at a time when India was near economic collapse, in the summer of 1991, that New Delhi moved decisively toward a path of economic reform — and toward more sensible domestic and international policies across the board.

Pakistan, after so many wrong turns in its history, has tentatively taken a right one in the last few months. Now it must build on that by clamping down on its own terrorists. And, whatever the stench of blood in Islamabad, we Americans must hold our noses and do all we can to help General Musharraf hold his course.