Pakistan: Media Under Siege Re elections
Don't boycott the elections, is my advice to Pakistanis in Pakistan as an Injun. Musharrafs may come and Musharrafs may go but elections last for 5 years and must be fought giving no walk over to anyone. If the next govt doesn't have the legitimacy of a well fought election(rigged or not) then there will be nothing which US or Saudis or Martians will be able to do to help such a govt keep the peace.

Pervez Musharraf Declares Emergency in Pakistan The thing to see is if elections are held on schedule. I think this Martial Law is being used to deal with all those who don't agree with Musharraf and not affecting those who do(agree with Musharraf). Its like chowk staff and chowk guidelines :).

Translation: Two Poems of Mirabai V nice, thanks.

Voice from Waziristan One honest man is worth a million ideologues. Pakistani media and its opinionmakers however free and independent cannot see beyond their ideological mindsets and hence no such narrative will appear there. It is refreshing to read such simple descriptions of ground reality, unconstrained by any need to uphold pre-determined conclusions.

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup PS: kaalchakra, there were indeed many Muslims standing against the British+ Jinnah tide and Jinnah called them traitors. The natural human tendency is to cross over to the side which is perceived to be winning. My impression is that many Muslims did not actually cross over until Pakistan began to seem inevitable about an year and a half before independence.

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup dost-mittar#196
Yes, I personally found it better to read and understand for myself than to blame a couple of people for everything under the sun :).

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup kaalchakra
Sorry in advance for the length. I intended to keep this short but didn't succeed.

I agree with most of what you say. It was an Islam in danger argument alright but there was a Muslim sovereignty argument embedded in there too.

Many big shots of the Muslim majority provinces Punjab and Bengal did not like the idea of surrendering their prerogative to a center, especially a Hindu majority one.

The big shots of the Muslim minority provinces were told that in a government formed by a legislative majority aka the majority Hindus, they would be permanently barred from power - look what Congress did in U.P etc.

These arguments were actually as difficult to counter as the Islam in danger one.

Take what happened in U.P. Congresss' talks with Muslim League over coalition government failed because their mutual conditions couldn't be met by each other. The Congress govt had won a majority by itself mainly(say historians) on a tenantry reform platform.

Must a party which is already in majority, and which will be taking responsibility towards voters for running the govt and implementing its election platform, necessarily include another party which had no such platform and refuses to agree to vote with Congress on the floor of the house?

Next the sole right to appoint Muslims. Congress would lose the right to appoint Muslims and betray its own longstanding Muslim members.

Then the issue of communal veto. Say you have 10 Ministers total in Cabinet. By population, (14%), there would be two Muslims in the Cabinet of 10. By legislative representation(30%), say all Muslims were with Muslim League(they weren't) there would be 3 Muslims in a Cabinet of 10. Say Congress had agreed to 2 Muslim League ministers. And now if these Muslim League ministers held a communal veto as Muslim League insisted, one Muslim could nullify the decisions of the total 10 ministers, and consequently nullify the decisions of the entire Congress majority in legislature.

In such a situation, what happens to the prerogative of the legislative majority? What happens to Congress's election promises which formed the basis of its majority ? What happens to the safety of the minorities after a period of their exercising a series of contentious vetos over the majority? What happens to govt being responsible to elected legislature?

What do you lose by having such a system where executive is decided by religious quotas, paralyzed by religious groups' vetoes, and is not held accountable by nor is it empowered by elected legislature? In other words, it isn't democracy any more.

On top of that after winning in 7-8 provinces out of 11, to declare yourself a Hindu party and ditch all your Muslim members and allies, because Jinnah demands it? Give up your nationalist creed and self-rule creed both, after winning in 7-8 provinces out of 11 after propagating that very same creed?

Due to all these issues, the Congress did not agree to Jinnah's conditions for coalition.

In the event, Congress Muslims sat in the U.P Ministry and Muslim League sitting in opposition did oppose the tenantry reforms and said Islam was in danger because the Muslims landlords the repositories of Muslim culture were being undermined by legislation.

Another thing was that Congress since the 1920s wanted 'joint electorates' under which Hindus would not constitute a permanent majority nor would Muslims be a permanent minority as was the case in separate electorates. But Muslim groups had consistently resisted agreeing to joint electorates whatever the blandishments offered in return like reserved constituencies.

So the 'Muslims will always be out of power and under Hindu Congress raj' argument of Jinnah's was not correct that way too.

How do you explain all these issues to the general public? The nationalist Muslims did of course try. The person who should have understood was Jinnah, but he regarded the legislatures and state power as exclusive turf to be protected and expanded on behalf of his religious community. He cast all these issues as a question of protecting Muslim sovereignty from the Hindus and it struck a chord among Muslims.

Well good, so now the legislatures and state power in Pakistan is 100% with the Muslims and completely sovereign. Still they whine about Hindus and Islam in danger. Go figure.

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup dost-mittar
In the period 1919-1938/9

1. Myriad and multiple organisations, representing Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Scheduled Caste interests did indeed sit down and try to work the communal problem, multiple times holding multiple all-parties conferences and other conferences. The Muslim League even split into two the mid 1920s into a Punjab faction and another faction.

2. Hindus and Sikhs did indeed have organisations representing themselves only in this period. At the 1930? First Round Table Conference in London, for example, the Congress was absent but the Hindu Mahasabha was present.

I look forward to your seeking out and finding out what precisely happened during all those discussions and conferences in that period and why a communal solution could not be found.

After 1938-39, the British supported Jinnah as the sole spokesman of the Muslims and ignored all other Muslim parties and All-Party Muslim conferences dissenting with him(except the Unionists whom the British needed to run their Army recruitments for WW II).

Durga Das writes in 'India from Curzon to Nehru and After', "The India Office and the Viceroy were now agreed on building up Jinnah as their Crescent Card to neutralise the Congress challenge. This was manifest from Sikander Hayat Khan's disclosure to me that the Viceroy, on instructions from the Secretary of State, had enjoined upon him and Fazlul Haque[of Bengal] not to undermine Jinnah's position as "leader of the Muslim community.". This happened towards the end of 1939, when Jinnah had taken up an uncompromising attitude and the Muslim Premiers of Punjab and Bengal were under pressure from some of their followers "to disown Jinnah or cut him down to size.""

I also look foward to your reading about what were Jinnah's demands on the Congress and British in this period.

My only request to you is please don't go by Wolpert's approach of looking at Jinnah's purported emotions as the sole measure of the opposite parties's positions.

India's constitution was not going to be written for the sole purpose of pleasing or placating one man Jinnah as has been the underlying premise of Wolpert and other Britishers. United India's constitution was to be about how different Indians would share power long after the nationalist leaders were dead, so please actually look at what were actually the various negotiation positions of various parties on their own merits and not on whether Jinnah agreed with those positions or not.

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup kaalchakra
The way I see it is that given a political tussle over the future constitution of India and Hindu-Muslim relations, there is a big difference between the different views.

1. dost-mittar blames Nehru-Gandhi for not capitulating to Jinnah and many Muslims' vision of the Muslim minority holding a veto over the majority in other words, Congress becoming a Hindu organization whose legislative majority would submit to Muslims veto. This surrender he thinks was necessary political reality.

2. You fault Nehru-Gandhi for not having an aggressive combative stance and language against Muslims and a more aggressive identification with the Hindus. This aggresiveness you think is a necessary political reality.

3. Others including myself who think Nehru did the right thing to remain positive and constructive in all situations, ie, neither to surrender to a Muslim veto nor aggressively opposed to Muslims and thereby more aggressively identify himself with interests of the Hindu community.

This positive but constructive approach as distinctive from capitulation or identification with only one community's interests which is often mistaken as passiveness (by Hindus) and sneakiness(by Muslims) is I personally think a necessary political reality.

Gandhi was in the category 3 but was invariably mistaken as espousing 1 or 2. Where Muslims took him as espousing 1 while accusing him of espousing 2 is where the damage occured. The same thing happened to Nehru after independence.

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup http://www.staff.brad.ac.uk/akundu/books/book1.htm
Reviews of book 'Militarism in India:The Army and Civil Society in Consensus'

Apurba Kundu


"Lieut. General 10 reports that on more than one occasion [during Indira Gandhi's period of Emergency rule] he had to repulse Congress officials seeking military support and/or materials for party functions. Lieut. General 56 adds that 'attempts were made to involve my command in politics (quite subtly); these attempts were repulsed by me (not so subtly)'…The widespread belief that a conversation occurred between (COAS) T.N. Raina and Gandhi before the imposition of Emergency can now be confirmed by (then) Adjutant-General Lieut. General 17 who reveals that although the PM 'called him in just before declaring Emergency to put him in the picture, Raina took no steps to warn anybody. I think he had just a damn good night's sleep.' Vice-Admiral 2 goes further when recalling how Raina told Gandhi 'very bluntly ' that the army would not be used to 'further her ends' but obey only those orders of a 'legally construed government.' This was the most crucial factor in keeping the military out of politics during his time. The (just) technical legality of the imposition of Emergency and subsequent actions taken in its name gave Gandhi's 1975-77 regime a legitimacy which allowed the military leadership to continue their apolitical tradition."
A.G. Noornai in Frontline, 7 January 2000

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup Admittedly, Roedad Khan is among the least credible pro-democracy voices, but here I am only quoting him on Morarji Desai:

http://www.dawn.com/2002/06/03/op.htm#5

"A year later, I was relocated and posted to Peshawar where I met Morarji Desai, finance minister of India. He was visiting Pakistan as a guest of the government. On arrival in Peshawar, Morarji expressed a desire to pay a courtesy call on Abdul Ghaffar Khan. I was asked to make necessary arrangements and escort him to Utmanzai.

On the way to Utmanzai, Morarji asked me how the freedom-loving Pukhtuns had reacted to the imposition of Martial Law. This triggered a lively discussion. “Was it for this”, Morarji asked, “that your people fought so tenaciously? You thought you had found freedom on August 14, 1947. But hasn’t it turned out to be another kind of slavery? Were all Mr. Jinnah’s brave words and deeds to end in this? Don’t you feel cheated and betrayed? I feel sorry for you. Your future looks very grim to me”.

“Until recently, we were all Indians”, I replied. “We are as good and as bad as Indians are. We all share the same weaknesses. You are not much better than us. We have martial law today. You will have it tomorrow”?

Morarji reacted sharply: “No general dare impose martial law in India”, he retorted. “And if he does, Morarji will be the first to face the Indian bullet”. On this grim note, the conversation ended. We had reached Utmanzai.
"

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup dost-mittar #164
It might make your Pakistani friends feel better but it does Pakistanis in general no favors to compare apples and oranges and pronounce them equal.

While Ayub Khan reduced all provinces in the West to a single province to enforce parity with the East(giving rising to regional separatist movements), India was meanwhile linguistically re-organising its states. Not only that it was by and large allowing these states to elect their own governments, not all of which were Congress governments.

The Nehru report had said in the 1920s:
"The Motilal Nehru Committee noted that everyone knew that the distribution of provinces in India had no rational basis. Raising the question, what principles should govern the redistribution of provinces, it suggested the following factors:

Partly geographical and partly economic and financial, but the main considerations must necessarily be the wishes of the people and the linguistic unity of the area concerned. It is well recognized that rapid progress in education as well as in general culture and in most departments of life depends on language. If a foreign language is the medium of instruction, business and affairs and the life of the country must necessarily be stunted. No democracy can exist where a foreign language is used for these purposes. A democracy must be well informed and must be able to understand and follow public affairs in order to take an effective part in them. It is inconceivable that a democracy can do this if a foreign language is largely used. It becomes essential therefore to conduct the business and politics of a country in a language, which is understood by the masses. So far as the provinces are concerned, this must be the provincial language. We are certainly not against the use of English. [Note the difference in approach to English between Gandhi and Motilal Nehru Committee - Thirumalai.] Indeed from the necessities of the situation we feel that English must, as at present, continue for some time to come to be the most convenient medium for debate in the central legislature. We also believe that a foreign language, and this is likely to be English, is essential for us to develop contacts with the thought and science and life of other countries. We are, however, strongly of the opinion that every effort should be made to make Hindustani the common language of the whole of India, as it is today of half of it. But, granting all this, provincial languages will have to be encouraged and, if we wish the province to make rapid progress, we shall have to get it to do its work in its own language.

If a province has to educate itself and do its daily work through the medium of its own language, it must necessarily be a linguistic area. If it happens to be a polyglot area difficulties will continually arise and the media of instruction and work will be two or even more languages. Hence, it becomes most desirable for provinces to be regrouped on a linguistic basis. Language, as a rule corresponds with a variety of culture, of traditions, and literature. In a linguistic area all these factors will help in the general progress of the province.

The National Congress recognized this linguistic principle 8 years ago and since then, so far as the Congress machinery is concerned, India has been divided into linguistic provinces.

Another principle, which must govern a redistribution of provinces, is the wishes of the people concerned. We, who talk of self-determination on a larger scale cannot, in reason, deny it to a smaller area, provided of course this does not conflict with any other important principle or vital question. The mere fact that the people living in a particular area feel that they are a unit and desire to develop their culture is an important consideration even though there may be no sufficient or cultural justification for their demand. Sentiment in such matters is often more important than fact.

Thus, we see that the two most important considerations in re-arranging provinces are the linguistic principle and the wishes of the majority of the people. A third consideration, though not of the same importance, is administrative convenience, which would include the geographical position, the economic resources and the financial stability of the area concerned. But administrative convenience is often a matter of arrangement and must as a rule bow to the wishes of the people."


Inspite of Article 356 and highly centralized decisionmaking, India did much better for regional aspirations and regional self-administration in the same period that you are saying Hindu generals were too cowardly to take over. You have a false definition of courage - it takes more courage to keep faith and build up such a system than to grab all power by force and deny any to regional aspirations.

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup kaalchakra #161
I agree with anil too.

"But that view exists. It distorts people's appreciation of what India has to offer. Instead, it promotes a smug, irrational, and outdated sense of entitlement, natural and enternal victimhood, and keeps its victims from gracefully participating in national life as cooperative citizens."

Well said, you put it much better than I ever could. And precisely. The above is exactly why it is so important to examine and verify for ourselves every bit of 'received wisdom' concocted and propagated about our pre-independence history.

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup kaalchakra
The India you take for granted today didnot exist in 1947, it was yet to be constructed part by part. Previous to 1947, the Pakistan movement had for 7 years (and Muslim League for at least 10 years and other Muslims for even longer)propagated the notion that Muslims would not be allowed to be practising Muslims by majority Hindus and that in refusing to surrender the Hindu majority to the Muslim minority, the Congress actually intended to wipe out Islam from India.

By denying the then current personal law to Muslims(the 1937 Sharia law), was Nehru supposed to hand over an inflammable political issue and eternal propaganda tool to Pakistan to continue to interfere in India's affairs(already beset by the pernicious two nation theory of remote control of one state's citizens by a neighbouring state)?

And no Indian berating Nehru will tell you this but denial of Sharia is considered one of the bases for jihad. The Indian state was not in a position to fight a jihad against its Muslims in its early days.

Please back off, Benazir! Nawaz Sharif needs to upgrade his security.

Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup bjkumar
And unless one examines what was it precisely that Nehru did not concede to Jinnah(for which Nehru is being blamed), how can one decide whether Nehru and Congress hastened partition or postponed it?