The need for De-Bhuttofication of the Pakistan People's Party

#156 Harimau

[It is FAR FAR worse when your choice is between an Italian maid, Lalloo Prasad Yadav and Jyothi Basu. ]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news sir, but neither Karunanidhi nor Jayalalitha have made it to the Zee-TV 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa: Challenge 2007'! In fact, only one of the individuals you named did!

From an Economist book review (May 2007) of Benazir’s autobiography:

…Benazir Bhutto, however, twice prime minister of Pakistan, and now in exile, is a formidable politician. She seems determined to give the general a run for his money. Indeed, perhaps it was his book, to which she refers in her own, that prompted her to update and relaunch her own autobiography, first published in 1988. Less a considered reflection on a life half-lived, it is the manifesto of an inchoate political campaign.

This is, after all, a crunch year in Pakistani politics, with General Musharraf manoeuvring to stay in power, and in uniform, despite the constitutional obstacles and the promises to stand down he has made. Recalling Benigno Aquino (an opponent of the Philippine dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, who was shot dead on his return to Manila in 1983) she concludes her book with a promise to go home: “I take the risk for all the children of Pakistan.”

As with General Musharraf's, the most interesting parts of her book are a few juicy and unprovable revelations—in her case about the general himself. The man now making peace with India, she reports, came to her when she was prime minister in 1996 and offered to invade the Indian-administered part of disputed Kashmir.

Coming up to date, she argues that General Musharraf is a fraud. Though he presents himself to the West as Pakistan's main bulwark against Islamist extremism, “his regime cohabits with extremists” guilty of terrorist atrocities across the globe. She also points out that General Musharraf's reluctance to deal with democratic parties, notably her own Pakistan People's Party, has helped create the political space in which extremism flourishes. Yet Pakistani politics are rife with rumours of an imminent deal between Miss Bhutto and General Musharraf, allowing her return. Perhaps a rapprochement will be marked by a public burning of their autobiographies, both of which drip with their mutual antipathy.

Literature would be less of a loser in such a bonfire than political analysis. But Miss Bhutto could not hope to write as bad a book as General Musharraf's: her story is too remarkable and too moving. She was born into one of the country's wealthiest dynasties and educated at Harvard and Oxford. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a deposed prime minister, was executed. Her two brothers were killed. She, her mother and her husband have all spent time in jail. The first words of the new edition—“I didn't choose this life; it chose me”—are almost true. She became the leader of a Muslim country and “the only head of government in recorded history to actually give birth while in office”.

It is hard not to admire her for the hardship and loss she has endured, and the determination she shows to carry on the fight. But it is hard to like her refusal to admit any serious misjudgment. Undemocratic transfers of power are deplorable; but the incompetence and corruption of her regimes contributed to their own downfall, a sad truth she ignores. Perhaps it is too much for a reader to expect candour from a politician in what is, like General Musharraf's, a political work-in-progress. Or maybe it is too much for a politician to expect us to read it.

Manto 159,

Here are a few more indo pak muslim comparisons

No indian muslim is in guantanamo bay where, the most concentrated pak location after karachi.

No indian muslim has come back with ball and chanin in aircraft from the US, while most pakistanis, possibly some on chowk have come like that.

No indian muslim has bombed london bus while many pakis have done that.

No foreigners have come to indian muslim madrassas to learn bomb making while most foreign visitors to pak madrassas are for that.

Thanks mano for post 159.

This confirms what I understood about pakistanis, they can be schooled, by they never get educated. The schooling give them the pretences of education, but never learning the basic foundations of science because of what they have learned in mothers lap.

A scientific comparison of the state of muslims in India would ahev been comparing the indian muslims in USA to indian hindus. But you have used the majority, exclusive religion of pakistan, islam and compared it with the minority religion of india, to draw your conclusion.

If you had compared the status of hindus in pakistan to the status of muslims in india that would have had some basis.

The more tragic fact is that all the other paki interactors also think that your comparison is valid, as reflected in the absence of a rediculing comments about you.

Thanks manto for substantiating my view.

Bhutto is the need of the hour.

Pka troops have surrendered to the tribals, signing ceremony is over, the new niazi of teh west will be welcomed home by the pak troops.

What is needed now is a declaration of 1000 year war with the tribals, that is what teh father bhutto did after he got teh troops back.

Benzir, where are you, your father land needs a repeat of what your father did.

Actually even though the High Priest of the dead Church of MAJ is declaring victory based on the "authority" of HP, look at him jump up and down, not a single one of my many points has been refuted thus far, in fact HP agrees in his post with most of what I wrote. There is one point of disagreement. He writes

"However, the point that we make is that instead of 150 mil, 450 mil would have been suffering in united India. the rivalry between the two communities was not solely the demand of Pakistan. It existed before the demand and the demand was the result of that rivalry."

Yes that was the main propaganda point of MAJ, the fact is fragmenting Muslim political power had a catastrophic effect on the Indian Muslim, the carnage that resulted as a direct consequence of the division, hiterto not seen in the united India, proves that that rivalry and its reaction got a major boost by the division event. Therefore it is impossible to ignore that event and then do a comparison between the Pakistani Muslim (who are suffering a great deal as all social indicators show, in literacy, health and life expectancy, infant mortality etc almost at par with the general Indian population), and the Indian Muslim that got converted to a 5th column minority thanks to the shenanigans of the MAJ. That the MAJ was popular I do not contest but popular he was due to invoking the external enemy (the same argument that you are using), religious exclusion and division- and he used these in a most hypocritical way. I am not interested in the person of ZAB. What I am interested in is he changed the discourse of the common folk from paternalistic, theological concerns to economic concerns- and you do not dispute this- that was by itself a revolutionary move, for which he has my respect. MAJ on the other hand caused a major catastrophie for the Muslims of India, not only did his excuse (which you reproduce and apparently accept)not materialize- anyone who says that the Pakistani Muslims are doing well is out of his or her mind- it helped the feudals and the colonials as is revealed very clearly by the history of this country up until ZAB and then from Zia onwards. Now, I am sure the Sunni of Iraq will make a similar argument about not being able to prosper under a Shia dominated Iraq, so then let us divide it up as the US wants, and so would the Kurds, where would you stop and how would the minority Shia in a Sunni region fare after such division- such divisions only help the colonials, we should stay clear of them. Hatred of one group by the other is only fueled by such divisions and helps no one....

By the way, long live the HP, masadi, ahmadmadani friendship for social justice...

One more question, why are these third rate "my dad can beat up your dad" type of articles by Manto, who has as his foremost concern worship of a dead, ugly man published so readily on Chowk while my articles dealing with contemporary society and its many problems are censored? Please explain. Is it because this High Priest of the dead Church of MAJ is on some dictatorial board of editors of this site, being given protection, even though he ran off like the Mullah Omar, his ideas and religion of MAJ defeated and debased?

Dear Jayp,

The problem with you is that you are incapable of being honest. The comparison I drew is at the insistence of Indians here.

But lets compare.... Pakistanis and Indians... pure and simple ... Let us use York University Canada as a run of the mill example because York publishes its international student statistics...

Pakistani students
Undergraduate 488
Graduate 32

Indian students
Undergrad Students 662
Grad Students 102

Now keep in mind that the population disparity is 1 to 9.
The York situation is reflected more or less in most schools around the US.

Either way you guys suck.

Masadi sahib,

(the dead Church of MAJ )

There is of course this little matter of 97% approval rating in Pakistan and 46% in hostile India to be considered b4 pronouncing "Dead" verdict on MAJ (pbuh).

(even though he ran off like the Mullah Omar)

That's news to me. YLH is very much around.

(anyone who says that the Pakistani Muslims are doing well is out of his or her mind- )

Not only Pak Muslims but also B'deshis and Indians doing badly in varying degrees. But MAJ has little to do with it, it is mainly because of the faulty policies that the likes of the Nehru-Gandhis in India and the Bhoot in Pakistan pursued and that you seem to freak out on.

Regards

Regards

Lol Majumdar... have you seen Holy Grail in Monty Python? Masadi is very much the black knight from Monty Python.

[King Arthur music]
[music stops]
BLACK KNIGHT:
Aaaagh!
[King Arthur music]
[music stops]
BLACK KNIGHT:
Aaagh!
GREEN KNIGHT:
Ooh!
[King Arthur music]
[music stops]
[stab]
BLACK KNIGHT:
Aagh!
GREEN KNIGHT:
Oh!
[King Arthur music]
Ooh! Uuh.
[music stops]
BLACK KNIGHT:
Aaaagh!
[clang]
BLACK KNIGHT and GREEN KNIGHT:
Agh!, oh!, etc.
GREEN KNIGHT:
Aaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaah!
[woosh]
[BLACK KNIGHT kills GREEN KNIGHT]
[thud]
[scrape]
BLACK KNIGHT:
Umm!
[clop clop clop]
ARTHUR:
You fight with the strength of many men, Sir Knight.
[pause]
I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
[pause]
I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to join me in my court at Camelot.
[pause]
You have proved yourself worthy. Will you join me?
[pause]
You make me sad. So be it. Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT:
None shall pass.
ARTHUR:
What?
BLACK KNIGHT:
None shall pass.
ARTHUR:
I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must cross this bridge.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Then you shall die.
ARTHUR:
I command you, as King of the Britons, to stand aside!
BLACK KNIGHT:
I move for no man.
ARTHUR:
So be it!
ARTHUR and BLACK KNIGHT:
Aaah!, hiyaah!, etc.
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's left arm off]

ARTHUR:
Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
BLACK KNIGHT:
'Tis but a scratch.
ARTHUR:
A scratch? Your arm's off!
BLACK KNIGHT:
No, it isn't.
ARTHUR:
Well, what's that, then?
BLACK KNIGHT:
I've had worse.
ARTHUR:
You liar!
BLACK KNIGHT:
Come on, you pansy!
[clang]
Huyah!
[clang]
Hiyaah!
[clang]
Aaaaaaaah!
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right arm off]

ARTHUR:
Victory is mine!
[kneeling]
We thank Thee Lord, that in Thy mer--
BLACK KNIGHT:
Hah!
[kick]
Come on, then.
ARTHUR:
What?
BLACK KNIGHT:
Have at you!
[kick]
ARTHUR:
Eh. You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Oh, had enough, eh?
ARTHUR:
Look, you stupid bastard. You've got no arms left.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Yes, I have.
ARTHUR:
Look!
BLACK KNIGHT:
Just a flesh wound.
[kick]
ARTHUR:
Look, stop that.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Chicken!
[kick]
Chickennn!
ARTHUR:
Look, I'll have your leg.
[kick]
Right!
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's right leg off]

BLACK KNIGHT:
Right. I'll do you for that!
ARTHUR:
You'll what?
BLACK KNIGHT:
Come here!
ARTHUR:
What are you going to do, bleed on me?
BLACK KNIGHT:
I'm invincible!
ARTHUR:
You're a looney.
BLACK KNIGHT:
The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you! Come on, then.
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's last leg off]

BLACK KNIGHT:
Oh? All right, we'll call it a draw.
ARTHUR:
Come, Patsy.
BLACK KNIGHT:
Oh. Oh, I see. Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!

i think one needs to separate development into two parts, vis-a-vis partition and muslims:

1. the development of the geographic areas of what, today, constitutes pakistan, and the population of these areas - be they muslims or hindus etc.

2. the development of the muslims across india, as a whole

1. ....there is no doubt, at least in my mind, that the geographic areas that currently constitue west pakistan (sind, nwfp, punjab, baluchistan and kashmir) would have been significantly under-developed had partition not occured.....as mentioned earlier, it would not have made economic sense for a united india to invest in these areas; muslim or non-muslim.....

.....there would have been no islamabad, a tiny karachi, a tiny faisalabad, no plans for tarbela, mangla, bhasha and kalabagh dams.....no long list of universities and medical colleges.....little infrastructure of roads, hospitals, etc......one only needs to look at india under the british, circa 47 to see what would have happened........the british only used these areas as military outposts and cantonments, and recruitment.........other than lahore, there wasn't much.....some agriculture in punjab, not withstanding...

......in addition, the educated manpower of this area - muslim or otherwise, would have been sucked into the established or upcoming cosmopolitan urban centres of a united india - bombay, delhi, calcutta, bangalore etc......computer scients would have migrated from karachi and lahore to bangalore, rather than setting up something local.......

hardly any of the indian participants on chowk would have moved to cities in geographical pakistan, however quite a few of the pakistani chowk interactors (myself included) would be in the more cosmpolitan cities of present-day india......

2. now, did the muslims, as a whole, across south asia benefit from partition.......that is a different debate........i think one can say with certainity that the muslims in india did not benefit.......what about muslims in pakistan.....and muslims of bangladesh.....

so, there are two givens in my analysis:.......geographical area of pakistan benefited from partition, indian muslims lost out due to partition.......pakistani/bangladeshi muslims and muslims as a whole?.....as well as hindus/sikhs and indians as a whole (which is another debate).....

Romair,

It is difficult to paint What If scenarios but possibly what wud have happened is somewhere in between what Ranjit bhai said (something like all regions being almost equally developed) and what u and Manto have argued that the region wud have remained the boondocks of United India.

Electoral politics wud have secured development projects for NW India as it has done for other underdeveloped parts of resdiual India. Tarbela and other irrigation would have most likely happened given their strong economic rationale anyway.

In some ways though partition served the Paki Muslims well. They were lucky that they had to put up with socialism for only about 5-6 years when Da Bhoot was ruling them, while Indians had to put up with socialism for almost 40 years. Islaam may have hazar faults but one good thing is that it gives commie b******s and their stinking ideology the royal boot.

Regards

Masadi writes:

"while my articles dealing with contemporary society and its many problems are censored? Please explain."

It is quite elementary my dear Watson. You still have not reached the intellectual calibre to warrant an article on Chowk FP. But I encourage you to keep reading more so that you broaden your horizons.

Cheers!

#174
Rozaiba, please be fair. Mian Masadi is a (multiple times) published author on these chowk pages and should be accorded the same dignified treatment that the likes of the Mantolives take for granted.

#173 Majumdar
Zoom dada, tumi ekta kaaz koro, become roommates with Parthab!

The following is from BB’s biography on the internet. Anybody who has actually been imprisoned for her political views has sacrificed more than the MAJ ever did!

Benazir Bhutto

Political activist with the PPP, 1977-84; repeatedly imprisoned and kept under house arrest by the Pakistani government; political exile in London, England, 1984-86; returned to Pakistan in April, 1986; Pakistan co-chair, beginning in 1986; After elections held November 1988, invited to form the government, became Prime Minister in 1988 but her government was illegally dismissed in August 1990. She again came to power after her Party won a majority in elections held in October 1993. Her government was once again dismissed illegally in November 1996. Since then PPP under her leadership has been subjected to political persecution first by Nawaz's regime and then by Musharraf regime. The leadership faced all the difficulties with courage and has remained united under her leadership despite coercion and intimidation. The PPP could win the next elections under the leadership of Ms Benazir Bhutto.