Deja Vu

ras:

bura tou na maanogay?

_________________________________________________

(To Amarjeet, Servjeet, Kino, Dost Mittar and Jaswinder’s Mom)


BAISAKHI 2002

Light has many colours
Red is only one of them
Panj Pyare’s red
Dripping from the Guru’s sword
Instilling courage, banishing inequalities
Making one out of many.

Kesh, Kangha, Kara, Kirpaan, Kachera
Mita gaya sub far’q zaat paat ka

Ik hee suff maiN khaRRay hogaye
Sub singh o kaur m’ray


Let’s relive and relearn lessons
In unity’s strength and pride
Is our salvation

Hum sub bhai bhai haiN
Hum sub bhai beh’n haiN

________________________________________________


(on March 30,1699 at Anandpur Sahib, Guru Gobind Rai’s sword glistened with the blood of five volunteers, to be known subsequently to the world as the Panj Pyare, he struck the first deliberate blow to the caste system, for the Panj Pyare belonged to Khatri, Jat, Chhimba, Ghumar and Nai castes.

“Where there are Panj Pyare, there am I
When the Five meet, they are the holiest of the holy.”

Like other faiths, today, we have lost sight of that vision. Instead of being insaans, we are divided by faith and caste yet again. Just check out the matrimonial ads in any desi newspaper.)

Ras:

Sub haraami hain! Politicians, like countries, have no permanent friends or enemies. They have only permanent interests. If scratching Musharraf`s back gets George Bush what he wants (war on terror), and if scratching Bush`s back gets Musharraf what he wants (`look the other way while I compete in a referendum with no competitors`), then guess -- there will be a lot of people scratching backs. And who cares what the poor guy in Dera Ismail Khan thinks about it? Sub haraami hain!

Dear Ras,

Why was the Zia term so bad?! Economically, Pakistan was doing very well in the 80s--thanks, in large part to the blank check the US had given Pakistan. Not to mention your generous benefactors, the Saudis.

Heck, I remember in the 80s, I used to see T-shirts with ``Made in Pakistan`` label in any American store, where common folk like me shop. Hey, you guys make cotton of pretty decent quality. I dont see much ``Made in Pakistan`` labels in common US stores anymore.

In the end, for the common man, in Pakistan, US, India or any part of the world ..Bill Clinton`s campaign motto holds true: ``its the economy, stupid!`` Improve our standard of living & we dont care what your ideology is or wether you have oral sex. ``Common folk`` think the same, anywhere in the world.

Pakistan`s golden economic periods were when you were cosy with America. It happened at Ayub`s time & it happened at Zia`s time. Your armed forces owe their ``success`` to the US arms, aircraft & training.

The only way Pakistan will come out of this bankrupt state is with US generosity. Thats why Mushy is a smart guy. Well, at least he`s not an idiot. (If Mushy had told anything other than ``unstinted support`` to GB after 9/11..he would have been an idiot). Now Mushy`s star is rising. Generals have a very healthy (perhaps too narcicisstic) amount of `` ego``& it SWELLS like a puri in a frying pan, when they are feted in the White House & make international headlines.

So, all in all, Pakistan was happiest when their economy was doing reasonably well. The 80`s (Zia`s Raj) was pretty good for Pakistan. Pakistan`s star was shining high & bright in the world. Pakistan was the frontline state for fighting godless communism & not on behalf of just Islam, but Christianity too!. And wonder of wonders, Zia had great relations with the godless Chinese!! Way to go..Mr Terry Thomas look-alike!Wah! Subhanallah!

It was great for your military too. Judging from how Chowk`s ex-military civilan Romair thinks, the mighty Pakistani armed forces SAVED Pakistan from an Indo-Soviet conspiracy! From a geostrategic standpoint, the main reason for the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was to reach Gwadar. If you dont believe him, ask his soulmate Eric Margolis:) So there is an evil Indian hand behind this whole Afghanistan mess. And Zia & his ``world famous`` military recognised it, bared its teeth & scared the banias & ruskies off.

(Romair, dont jump on me for misquoting you--thats the way you spin it!!:))

external dynamics govern many of Pakistan`s policies- that is a sign of weakness.

The Faujis are going to use this weakness for their self serving interests ONCE AGAIN. Like Zia had to divide PPP- the larges national party to attempt to do away with his fears, Musharaf too will fiddle and play and divide national parties (thus dividing the country) to attempt to do away with his fears. however, whereas external forces are working to further their interests, the Faujis by manipulating Pakistan`s weakness are ONCE AGAIN set to harm Pakistan`s progress on the democratic field.

No redemption?

By Ardeshir Cowasjee

In his book `Great Contemporaries` first published in 1937, Winston Spencer Churchill, statesman and master of English prose, devotes a chapter to the German Emperor William II, and at the outset asks his reader to ask himself, `What should I have done in his position?`, and then tells him why he poses such a question.

Because, day after day, year after year, it was dinned into the Kaiser by those around him that he was `the All-Highest, the Supreme War Lord,` who when the next war came would lead to battle all the tribes of his nation, and at the head of the strongest, finest army in the world would renew on a still greater scale the former martial triumphs of his country. It was for him to choose the chancellor and ministers of state; it was for him to choose the chiefs of the army and navy.

There was no office great or small throughout the empire from which he could not dismiss the occupant. Each word he uttered was received by all present with rapture, or at least respect. He had but to form a desire and it was granted. Hundreds of glittering uniforms filled his wardrobes. When he wearied of the grosser forms of flattery, far more subtle methods were applied.

Statesmen, generals, admirals, judges, divines, philosophers, scientists and financiers stood eagerly to impart their treasured knowledge and to receive with profound gratification any remark upon their various spheres which he may have made. Intimate friends were at hand to report day by day how deeply impressed this or that great expert was with the Kaiser`s marvelous grasp of his particular subject.

The general staff seemed awed by his comprehension of the higher strategy. Diplomats were wonderstruck by his manly candor or patient restraint, as the case may be. The artists gathered in dutiful admiration. Foreign nations vied with his own subjects in their welcomes. And thus it was, hour after hour, day after day.

WSC then asks his `gentle reader` whether in the Kaiser`s position he could have withstood the treatment, remained humble-minded and with no exaggerated idea of his own importance, with no undue reliance upon his own opinion, practiced the virtue of humility and striven always for peace. His answer : ``Had you done so, a discordant note would have mingled with the chants of praise......``.

And within twelve years of the outset of the Kaiser`s glory days, the man sat hunched in a railway carriage, hour after hour, at a Dutch frontier station awaiting permission to escape as a refugee from the execration of a people whose armies he had led through measureless sacrifices to measureless defeat, and whose conquests and treasures he had squandered. ``An awful fate ! Was it the wage of guilt or of incapacity? There is a point where incapacity and levity are so flagrant that they become tantamount to guilt.``

``The union of both the pomp and the power of state in a single office exposes a mortal to strains beyond the nature and to tasks above the strength even of the best and greatest men,`` wrote Churchill. However, ``Something may be said for dictatorships, in periods of change and storm; but in these cases the dictator rises in true relation to the whole moving throng of events. He rides the whirlwind because he is a part of it. He is the monstrous child of emergency. He may well possess the force and quality to dominate the minds of millions and to sway the course of history. He should pass with the crisis. To make a permanent system of dictatorship, hereditary or not, is to prepare a new cataclysm.``

No one could have put it better. Why cannot men and women learn from history?

Gross flatterers surround our President, General Pervez Musharraf. Subtle flattery is beyond them. A story is told of how once when our general coughed, a courtier leapt forward with a Vicks coughdrop in his hand, bent his knees, looked up pleadingly and said, `Jernail Sahib, Jernail Sahib, next time you feel like coughing, allow me to cough for you.`

Why is the general striving so hard to lose the advantage he has gained by the little good work he has been able to do with the support of the time-serving Americans, now totally in thrall to the ongoing terrorism in the Middle East, who have unequivocally stated that the referendum he insists on holding is an internal matter.

Our great friend of so many years standing, China, has stated the same. More than half the European Union have followed suit; the rest are unconcerned. The Indians, who do not want Musharraf around and would much prefer a wobblier individual, have given the referendum negative support.

If he must hold his referendum, what is the compulsion that makes him rely on our discredited, despised, third-rate politicians of the past? And why on earth did he allow a man of the calibre of Tariq Aziz to speak for him on his Lahore platform, a man who has changed his political allegiances umpteen times, a man who is renowned as a `goonda`, a man who was at the forefront of the Nawaz Sharif organized storming of the Supreme Court, and who glibly lies after having sworn upon his holy book to speak the truth?Who has advised him to rely on men like the Chaudhry of Gujrat and his clan in Punjab, and upon the notorious Sheikh clan in Sindh? He has rightly and correctly banned Nawaz and Benazir from a comeback (and we must hope he holds to his word on this); but what about all the others who should be banned, all those who bear collective guilt, who have sat in our assemblies since 1988 and have been dismissed four times, whose corruption has been confirmed more than once by the highest court of the land?

And, if he must have his referendum, can he not do so without inconveniencing the public in the cities and towns where he holds his organized public meetings? Much rancour has been aroused by the requisitioning of public transport for the administration and the army in order to do the necessary rounding-up. In Sindh, at least, this should not happen. We have here a court order banning the unlawful practice.

In 1993, at the time of the general elections organized to bring back BB, the administration of Karachi indulged in the wholesale requisitioning of public transport vehicles for the purposes of electioneering. The then joint chief of Karachi`s Citizen Police Liaison Committee, Nazim Haji, filed a petition in the Sindh High Court challenging the right of the provincial government to requisition private vehicles and the petition was heard by the then Chief Justice of Sindh, Nasir Aslam Zahid.

The petition was allowed (PLD 1993 Karachi 79) and Justice Zahid`s ruling was clear,. In terms of Article 24 of the Constitution it is ordained that no person can be deprived of his property other than in accordance with law. By requisitioning private vehicles the provincial government was depriving people of their property, albeit for a temporary period. No property can be compulsorily acquired or taken possession of other than for a public purpose and with the authority of law which provides for compensation.

He declared that the requisitioning of private vehicles by the Sindh government was wholly illegal and without lawful authority, and the administration was restrained from any future such requisitioning. He instructed that copies of the order were to be sent to the Sindh home secretary who was to issue necessary instructions to the concerned functionaries, including the Inspector General of Police, magistrates, superintendents of police and station house officers.

To prevent him from flouting any further laws, someone should tell the general that as far as his meeting in Karachi is concerned he should not even contemplate holding it at Mr Jinnah`s mazar. An act of parliament was passed in June 1976 entitled the `Quaid-i-Azam`s Mazar (Protection and Maintenance) (Amendment) Act` amending Ordinance XXVII of 1971.

According to Section 6 of the act and the Ordinance: ``Meetings etc. prohibited. No person shall organize, convene or take part in any meeting or demonstration or procession or engage in political activity of any kind within the Quaid-i-Azam`s Mazar or within a distance of ten feet from the outer boundary thereof.``

This law has been infringed upon by our politicians, of whom Musharraf is so disapproving. We hope that he and his military men will not ape them in at least this respect.

Fifteen days to go. Does the general remain sufficiently strong and nimble to be able to call off his programme, to stop wearing fancy, funny hats and clowning around the country? We thank him for having a free press.

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Ras saheb:

Very succint and timely piece.

For Mushrraf Saheb -- Faiz saheb had already penned the line:

`` meiN ne shaayed toojhe pehle bhi kaheen dekha hai``.

Temporal saheb -- ````Instead of being insaans, we are divided by faith and caste yet again.````

(Temporal)

Indeed -- we indeed take great culinary ``pride`` in our FAITHS -- that we can make flaming seekh kebaab of living people -- now a subcontinental speciality dish.

dair ko Hindu ki, Masjid ko MussalmaaN ki talaash/

kho gaiee iss khoj meiN insaaN ko inssaN ki talaash.

regards

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BAISAKHI-----April 13,1919

A celebration------A mourning-----A remembrance

NEVER SHALL WE FORGET,

OF WHATEVER CREED,OR COLOUR

WE`LL HOUND THEM TILL THEY`RE FOUND

AND BRING THEM GAGGED & BOUND

TO SHOW THEM ALL AROUND

WE`LL TEAR THEM TILL THEY FEAR US.

......................................................Their biggest colony is India, where they perpetrated savage, sadistic cruelties for years; in the Amritsar city of this country a group of SIKHS who had come together for a religious rite did not pay due respect to a British woman missionary. The missionary complained to the British General Dyer. Upon this the general ordered his soldiers to open fire on the people performing their rite. Seven hundred people were killed in ten minutes, and more than a thousand people were wounded. Unsatisfied with this, the general forced the people to walk on their hands and feet like animals for three days. A complaint was filed and reported to London, whereupon the government issued an order for an investigation.



When the inspector sent forth to India for the investigation asked the general for what reason he had ordered his soldiers to open fire on defenseless people, the general answered, ``I am the commander here. I make the decisions about the military executions here. I ordered so because I considered it right.`` When the inspector asked what was the reason for his ordering the people to crawl face downwards, the general answered, ``Some Indians crawl face downwards in front of their gods. I wanted them to know that a British woman is as sacred as a Hindu god, and, therefore, they have to crawl in front of her, too, let alone insulting her.`` And when the inspector reminded him that the people would have to go out for shopping and other things, the general`s answer was, ``If these people were human beings they would not crawl on their faces in the streets. They live in adjacent houses with flat roofs. They would walk on their roofs like human beings.`` These statements of the general`s were publicized by the British press and the general was declared a hero. [Dyer, Reginald Edward Harry was born in 1281 [A.D. 1864] and died in London in 1346 [A.D. 1927]. The world`s histories mention him as ``The famous British general who quelled the riots against the British oppression in Amritsar city by turning the city into a lake of blood on April 13, 1919.`` When large mass demonstrations against the British were staged all over India, he was discharged from office and retired. However, the British House of Lords decided that his deeds deserved laud and praise, and he must therefore be supported. This fact makes it quite clear how British lords and counts look on other peoples].

Fret not so much over Military Basic Democracy or DE Mockerecy of fanatic hindtuva majority of religous zealots .Both are departure from the theoretical Plutos REpublic

I was never really convinced by all this but in

1996, when A. B. Vajpayee ran a 13-day-

government, I was so impressed by his speech

during the confidence motion that I wrote a

column entitled ‘Prime Ministerial Material’

arguing that Vajpayee would stand head and

shoulders over anybody that the United Front would appoint instead (as they chose H. D. Deve Gowda, this turned out to be less difficult than anybody had suspected), and that, in no time at all, the BJP would take office at the Centre.

BJP: Falling Back on Hatred

Vir Sanghvi

-



Ten years ago, those of my friends who supported the BJP told me that I was a prisoner of decades of Congress-inspired propaganda. I had been brought up to believe, they said, that all RSS pracharaks had horns on their heads. I had been misled into regarding a genuine pride in Hindu identity as a nasty and discriminatory sort of communalism.

All this, my friends said, was wrong. The BJP was a party of national revival. It represented an alternative to lazy, corrupt Congress-style governance; to faction-ridden, intrigue-laden Third Front (Janata) style governance; and to a political ethos that had ignored the wishes and aspirations of a new breed of educated, middle class Indians who had tired of vote-bank politics.

I was never really convinced by all this but in 1996, when A. B. Vajpayee ran a 13-day-government, I was so impressed by his speech during the confidence motion that I wrote a column entitled ‘Prime Ministerial Material’ arguing that Vajpayee would stand head and shoulders over anybody that the United Front would appoint instead (as they chose H. D. Deve Gowda, this turned out to be less difficult than anybody had suspected), and that, in no time at all, the BJP would take office at the Centre.

When it did take office, I decided to suspend judgement for a while and to give those who said that the party had changed an opportunity to prove their case. After all, they claimed, this was an NDA government with a wholly secular agenda and would dispel all my fears about BJP-rule.

But it’s been five years now and I think we’ve given the BJP enough of a chance. We’ve tried to buy the line about an NDA agenda, we’ve heard them out when they’ve told us that this is no longer the party of the rath-yatra but is, instead, the moderate party that Vajpayee launched in Bombay in 1980. And I’ve even listened to all this nonsense about a Margaret Thatcher-style regeneration of India based on a grand Ram Temple. (After all, didn’t Margaret Thatcher say, when she took office, “We will build a new Britain, the centerpiece of which will be a great new Church of England cathedral which we will construct after tearing down some decrepit Roman Catholic Church”? Well actually, no, she didn’t.)

But the more we’ve waited, the clearer it has become that whatever changes we were asked to look at were no more than aberrations. The BJP of 2002 is really no different from the BJP of 1992.

Look at the evidence.

Hindutva: As Vajpayee himself pointed out at the release of K. R. Malkani’s book, we were told to expect the Hindutva of Swami Vivekananda, not the Hindutva of lumpen communalists. In 1992, skeptics saw the BJP as a party that talked of Vivekananda-style Hindutva but really believed in old-fashioned, sturdy, rabble-rousing communalism.

In 1992-3, those of us who were appalled by the BJP’s rise in influence feared that were it to come to power, its cadres would remain obsessed with a dispute over a medieval mosque rather than the problems of modern India. We feared that there would be a recurrence of the kind of riots we saw after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, that stability would seem more and more fragile.

We worried also about the fate of India’s Muslims. Many of the Sangh Parivar’s workers seemed to live in a world of their own where Hindus were constantly under threat and where Muslims had to be continually kept in check by having their aspirations denied and their masjid destroyed.

If the BJP came to power, we worried, Muslims would feel insecure; they would fear that the police would not protect them during communal riots, that the government would pander to the greater numbers (the majority community), that laws would be used selectively against them and that, in such matters as compensation, they would be treated less fairly than Hindus.

Ten years later, as the reports from Gujarat keep streaming in, can anybody really argue that our fears were groundless, that we were wrong to worry?

No Muslim in Gujarat has any faith in the State Government. Muslims all over India fear that POTA will be used selectively against them. We’ve already seen the first symptoms in Gujarat: all those arrested under POTA were Muslims. And as for fears of unfair treatment, you need look no further than Narendra Modi. Families of the victims of the Godhra massacre (all Hindus) were to get Rs 2 lakh compensation while those killed in the riots (mainly Muslims) were worth half that amount.

If you believe numerous eyewitness accounts, the largely Hindu police force sat back while Muslims were murdered. If you believe the National Human Rights Commission, conditions at relief camps, where Muslims were kept, are inhuman. It is significant that despite these conditions, Muslims are still too scared to return to their homes.

As for Ayodhya, a decade after the rath yatra, the issue continues to obsess the Sangh Parivar. When the NDA government seems unwilling to be as supportive as the BJP was in opposition, the kar sevaks direct the worst kind of abuse at Vajpayee and swear that they will not rest till a temple is built. And in an uncomfortable echo of the assault on journalists at Ayodhya in 1992, Narendra Modi’s policemen beat up journalists and photographers in Gujarat last week. A thug is a thug whether he is in saffron or in uniform.

Has anything really changed? Were we wrong to worry?

A Pluralistic India: Our other fear was that even if Muslims were not specifically targeted, the BJP would not allow a pluralistic India to survive. That fear also seems to have been borne out by events.

The assault on journalists in Ahmedabad occurred after another equally shocking event. A peace march at Gandhiji’s ashram was disrupted by slogan-shouting members of the BJP youth wing. They did not want peace; they objected to the presence of Medha Patkar because they did not agree with her stand on Narmada; and they would not allow any views other than their own to be expressed.

It is this kind of mentality that governs the rewriting of Indian history. Books by eminent and reputed historians are withdrawn from schools on the grounds that they ‘offend’ Hindus and new books are commissioned from Parivar-loyalists of questionable historical integrity. The defence: well, the Left did the same in Bengal. In other words: Stalinist totalitarianism is fine as long as it is the Sangh Parivar that does it.

In the process, the image of India as a secular, pluralistic society is being tarnished. We feared that the BJP would make it difficult for us to offer our secular nationhood as a justification for Kashmir. And that is exactly what has happened. Our foreign ministry does not know how to explain away what is happening in India and even Vajpayee asked in Ahmedabad, “What face can I now show to the world?”

As J. N. Dixit wrote in the HT last week, we have now zero global credibility.

Leadership: In 1992, we thought of Vajpayee as a nice fellow, as a leader of stature and as a man of vision. But we knew that he was out in the cold. L. K. Advani was the party’s rising star. All of the party’s younger leaders had gone over to his side and Vajpayee was isolated.

Ten years later, that remains as true. Vajpayee may well be a kind and avuncular figure but you can count the Vajpayee-loyalists in the party on the fingers of one hand. The younger generation knows that Advani is the future and it is to him that they owe loyalty.

For Vajpayee, the situation is truly bizarre. He is India’s most respected politician but inside his own party, he counts for less and less. He still copes as he did ten years ago, allowing silence to be interpreted as disapproval, trying hard to fit in (his shameful speech in Goa on Friday was one instance) and succeeding only in alienating his larger secular constituency while winning no friends in his own party.

And Finally... The more things change, the more they remain the same. We gave the BJP a chance. We let it tell us that it would focus on foreign policy, on rebuilding India’s strength in the region and on revitalising the economy.

All of that, it now seems, has come to nothing. The BJP is not the party of Swami Vivekananda’s Hindutva. It is the party of Narendra Modi’s Hindutva. It is a party that has had every chance and still failed; a party that stumbles because it cannot govern.

And when it cannot govern, it falls back on the values it enshrined ten years ago: the values of communalism.

That, perhaps, will be the BJP’s epitaph: We asked for governance; it gave us hatred instead.

Fret not so much over Military Basic Democracy or DE Mockerecy of fanatic hindtuva majority of religous zealots .Both are departure from the theoretical Plutos REpublic

I was never really convinced by all this but in

1996, when A. B. Vajpayee ran a 13-day-

government, I was so impressed by his speech

during the confidence motion that I wrote a

column entitled ‘Prime Ministerial Material’

arguing that Vajpayee would stand head and

shoulders over anybody that the United Front would appoint instead (as they chose H. D. Deve Gowda, this turned out to be less difficult than anybody had suspected), and that, in no time at all, the BJP would take office at the Centre.

BJP: Falling Back on Hatred

Vir Sanghvi

-



Ten years ago, those of my friends who supported the BJP told me that I was a prisoner of decades of Congress-inspired propaganda. I had been brought up to believe, they said, that all RSS pracharaks had horns on their heads. I had been misled into regarding a genuine pride in Hindu identity as a nasty and discriminatory sort of communalism.

All this, my friends said, was wrong. The BJP was a party of national revival. It represented an alternative to lazy, corrupt Congress-style governance; to faction-ridden, intrigue-laden Third Front (Janata) style governance; and to a political ethos that had ignored the wishes and aspirations of a new breed of educated, middle class Indians who had tired of vote-bank politics.

I was never really convinced by all this but in 1996, when A. B. Vajpayee ran a 13-day-government, I was so impressed by his speech during the confidence motion that I wrote a column entitled ‘Prime Ministerial Material’ arguing that Vajpayee would stand head and shoulders over anybody that the United Front would appoint instead (as they chose H. D. Deve Gowda, this turned out to be less difficult than anybody had suspected), and that, in no time at all, the BJP would take office at the Centre.

When it did take office, I decided to suspend judgement for a while and to give those who said that the party had changed an opportunity to prove their case. After all, they claimed, this was an NDA government with a wholly secular agenda and would dispel all my fears about BJP-rule.

But it’s been five years now and I think we’ve given the BJP enough of a chance. We’ve tried to buy the line about an NDA agenda, we’ve heard them out when they’ve told us that this is no longer the party of the rath-yatra but is, instead, the moderate party that Vajpayee launched in Bombay in 1980. And I’ve even listened to all this nonsense about a Margaret Thatcher-style regeneration of India based on a grand Ram Temple. (After all, didn’t Margaret Thatcher say, when she took office, “We will build a new Britain, the centerpiece of which will be a great new Church of England cathedral which we will construct after tearing down some decrepit Roman Catholic Church”? Well actually, no, she didn’t.)

But the more we’ve waited, the clearer it has become that whatever changes we were asked to look at were no more than aberrations. The BJP of 2002 is really no different from the BJP of 1992.

Look at the evidence.

Hindutva: As Vajpayee himself pointed out at the release of K. R. Malkani’s book, we were told to expect the Hindutva of Swami Vivekananda, not the Hindutva of lumpen communalists. In 1992, skeptics saw the BJP as a party that talked of Vivekananda-style Hindutva but really believed in old-fashioned, sturdy, rabble-rousing communalism.

In 1992-3, those of us who were appalled by the BJP’s rise in influence feared that were it to come to power, its cadres would remain obsessed with a dispute over a medieval mosque rather than the problems of modern India. We feared that there would be a recurrence of the kind of riots we saw after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, that stability would seem more and more fragile.

We worried also about the fate of India’s Muslims. Many of the Sangh Parivar’s workers seemed to live in a world of their own where Hindus were constantly under threat and where Muslims had to be continually kept in check by having their aspirations denied and their masjid destroyed.

If the BJP came to power, we worried, Muslims would feel insecure; they would fear that the police would not protect them during communal riots, that the government would pander to the greater numbers (the majority community), that laws would be used selectively against them and that, in such matters as compensation, they would be treated less fairly than Hindus.

Ten years later, as the reports from Gujarat keep streaming in, can anybody really argue that our fears were groundless, that we were wrong to worry?

No Muslim in Gujarat has any faith in the State Government. Muslims all over India fear that POTA will be used selectively against them. We’ve already seen the first symptoms in Gujarat: all those arrested under POTA were Muslims. And as for fears of unfair treatment, you need look no further than Narendra Modi. Families of the victims of the Godhra massacre (all Hindus) were to get Rs 2 lakh compensation while those killed in the riots (mainly Muslims) were worth half that amount.

If you believe numerous eyewitness accounts, the largely Hindu police force sat back while Muslims were murdered. If you believe the National Human Rights Commission, conditions at relief camps, where Muslims were kept, are inhuman. It is significant that despite these conditions, Muslims are still too scared to return to their homes.

As for Ayodhya, a decade after the rath yatra, the issue continues to obsess the Sangh Parivar. When the NDA government seems unwilling to be as supportive as the BJP was in opposition, the kar sevaks direct the worst kind of abuse at Vajpayee and swear that they will not rest till a temple is built. And in an uncomfortable echo of the assault on journalists at Ayodhya in 1992, Narendra Modi’s policemen beat up journalists and photographers in Gujarat last week. A thug is a thug whether he is in saffron or in uniform.

Has anything really changed? Were we wrong to worry?

A Pluralistic India: Our other fear was that even if Muslims were not specifically targeted, the BJP would not allow a pluralistic India to survive. That fear also seems to have been borne out by events.

The assault on journalists in Ahmedabad occurred after another equally shocking event. A peace march at Gandhiji’s ashram was disrupted by slogan-shouting members of the BJP youth wing. They did not want peace; they objected to the presence of Medha Patkar because they did not agree with her stand on Narmada; and they would not allow any views other than their own to be expressed.

It is this kind of mentality that governs the rewriting of Indian history. Books by eminent and reputed historians are withdrawn from schools on the grounds that they ‘offend’ Hindus and new books are commissioned from Parivar-loyalists of questionable historical integrity. The defence: well, the Left did the same in Bengal. In other words: Stalinist totalitarianism is fine as long as it is the Sangh Parivar that does it.

In the process, the image of India as a secular, pluralistic society is being tarnished. We feared that the BJP would make it difficult for us to offer our secular nationhood as a justification for Kashmir. And that is exactly what has happened. Our foreign ministry does not know how to explain away what is happening in India and even Vajpayee asked in Ahmedabad, “What face can I now show to the world?”

As J. N. Dixit wrote in the HT last week, we have now zero global credibility.

Leadership: In 1992, we thought of Vajpayee as a nice fellow, as a leader of stature and as a man of vision. But we knew that he was out in the cold. L. K. Advani was the party’s rising star. All of the party’s younger leaders had gone over to his side and Vajpayee was isolated.

Ten years later, that remains as true. Vajpayee may well be a kind and avuncular figure but you can count the Vajpayee-loyalists in the party on the fingers of one hand. The younger generation knows that Advani is the future and it is to him that they owe loyalty.

For Vajpayee, the situation is truly bizarre. He is India’s most respected politician but inside his own party, he counts for less and less. He still copes as he did ten years ago, allowing silence to be interpreted as disapproval, trying hard to fit in (his shameful speech in Goa on Friday was one instance) and succeeding only in alienating his larger secular constituency while winning no friends in his own party.

And Finally... The more things change, the more they remain the same. We gave the BJP a chance. We let it tell us that it would focus on foreign policy, on rebuilding India’s strength in the region and on revitalising the economy.

All of that, it now seems, has come to nothing. The BJP is not the party of Swami Vivekananda’s Hindutva. It is the party of Narendra Modi’s Hindutva. It is a party that has had every chance and still failed; a party that stumbles because it cannot govern.

And when it cannot govern, it falls back on the values it enshrined ten years ago: the values of communalism.

That, perhaps, will be the BJP’s epitaph: We asked for governance; it gave us hatred instead.

Ras

Let me complete the misraa for Faiz saheb`s bund about Musharraf MiaN:

meiN ne shayed toojhe pehle bhi kaheeN dekha hai

tujh ko pehney hooay Ayub o zia key kuprey

meiN ne shayed toojhe pehle bhi kaheeN dekha hai

Faiz saheb se bahut bahut maazrat ke saath.

Yasser,

Nice one mate. I`m genuinely well chuffed to hear that!!! Good luck with whatever is placed on your shoulders and best wishes.

UM

Mutt should learn some lesson from the Venezuela`s current experience. The elected President Hugo Chavez should be only removed by democratic means or a willing resignation on his part. Because of this sane understanding, he is back in the presidency even after removed forcefully from the office just two days ago. Well, in Pakistan, Mush and military establishment think themselves of having mandate from heavens to trample the constitution and derailing the democratic process. It is a shame even to call him General, CEO or President. He stands dismissed according to the perfectly legal notification of October 11, 1999 by then elected Prime Minister. It looked a stupid decision by then Prime Minister but now it is abundantly clear than he was absolutely right in sacking the General with political ambitions. The Prime Minister has the right to rectify his mistakes, in this case, of appointing Mush as COAS.

It is sahmeful and makes no sense to keep calling him General just because NS was corrupt and should have been rejected in the elections. Mush has benefited from his illegal action by extending his stay as COAS as well as two additional plots of residential land, not to speak of all the power he has accumulated in himself. It is the rule of PM - Plots Mafia or Pervez Musharraf - one and the same thing.

Deja Vu?


23 newsmen hurt in police baton charge: Boycott on governor`s remarks


By Our Staff Correspondent

FAISALABAD, April 14: About two dozen journalists sustained injuries on Sunday when police baton-charged them outside the Iqbal Stadium after they boycotted Pervez Musharraf`s meeting to protest Punjab Governor`s utterances against newsmen and the national press.

In his address ahead of the president`s speech, Governor Khalid Maqbool accused newsmen of misreporting and undermining the ``unprecedented`` response of the public towards Pervez Musharraf`s rallies.

``Newspapermen were committing contempt of the public by publishing fake reports on attendance. They were playing with the sentiments of the public and they should know that public could take revenge on them if they did not desist from wrong reporting,`` the governor charged.

Maqbool`s remarks followed an identical statement by President Musharraf when he, in his address to councilors at the circuit house in the morning, criticized an English daily`s editorial on his referendum campaign.

Maqbool did not stop here. He appealed to the audience to join him and raise slogans of `shame` `shame` to ``denounce misreporting and irresponsible attitude of the mediamen. If the newspaperwalas did not behave the pubic will take them to task,`` he said.

The remarks annoyed newsmen sitting in the press enclosure who retaliated by shouting `shame on the governor` and boycotted the meeting. When they came out of the Iqbal Stadium, a contingent of reserve police, without any provocation and warning, resorted to baton-charge. Over two dozen reporters and photographers of different newspapers were injured.

Those who sustained injuries include A.R. Shuja of Khabrain, Ibrahim Lucky Online Lahore, Mian Aslam of Business Report, Mehtabuddin Nishat of Daily Ghareeb (Faisalabad), Ch.Safraz Sahi of Insaaf, Tahir Rasheed and Tasneem of Khabrain (Faisalabad), Malik Naeem of daily Parwaz, Naseer Cheema of daily Current Report, Dr Hamid Raza of daily Juraat, Ramzan Nasir of daily Tehrik, Mayed Ali of The News, Roman Ihsan of Jang, Ziaullah, Nasir Butt and Khalid of daily Pakistan, Mian Saeef of daily Ausaf, Jawed Saddiqui of daily Musawat, Saeed Qadri of daily Din, Mian Rifaat Qadri of NNI, Jawed Malik of Soorat-i-Hal, Ashfaq Jahangir of daily Parwaz and Muhammad Bilal of daily Current Report.

The newsmen rushed to the Press Club and held a protest meeting which was addressed by Roman Ihsan, Mayed Ali, Jawed Siddiqui, Tahir Rasheed, Agha Arbab Khawar, Shamsul Islam Naz, Rifaat Qadri and Mehtabuddin Nisat.

The speakers condemned the Punjab Governor for using indecent remarks. They said that by threatening and brutally injuring the journalist community the true facade of the military government had been exposed and the people had come to know that they (the army) believed in brutality. They said the baton-charge was uncalled for and unwarranted.

Punjab Home Secretary Brig. Ijaz Shah rushed to the Press Club and condemned the incident on behalf of the Punjab government and termed it uncalled for. He admitted that there was no reason for police action. He clarified that the governor had not condemned the media men as a class.

He was just referring to the editorials of some newspapers which, according to him, had been ``willfully indulging in negative reporting of the public meetings of Pervez Musharraf.``