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The New Education Policy -Two Suggestions
M. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 23, 2003 08:29 am
The poisoning of young minds in PakistanM. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Education in Pakistan, Part I
M. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 23, 2003 08:29 am
The poisoning of young minds in PakistanM. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Educational Apartheid
M. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 23, 2003 08:29 am
The poisoning of young minds in PakistanM. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Build Bridges, Not Bombs
M. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 23, 2003 08:29 am
The poisoning of young minds in PakistanM. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Engineering One’s Passion into Profession
M. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 23, 2003 08:29 am
The poisoning of young minds in PakistanM. V. KAMATH
http://www.samachar.com/features/210803-features.html
Is Pakistan, as some believe “inching towards normalisation” of relations with India? General Pervez Musharraf apart, are the people of Pakistan tiring of the drumbeats of hatred constantly being drummed into their ears? Most of July our newspapers were full of stories of how a Pakistan couple, Tayyeba and Nadeem Sajjad brought their little daughter Noor Fatima to Bangalore to be successfully operated upon for a major heart defect and how grateful they were for the hospitality and love showered ion them by countless Indians, strangers all.
About that time there were greatly hyped reports of the nine-day visit to India of Maulana Fazal-ur Rahman, leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, of his ardent desire for peace and of his being cordially received by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, no less, for talks extending to an hour. Then a nonofficial delegation led by Pakistan-friendly journalist Nayar which had visited Pakistan also on a one-day safari had returned wide-eyed, Nayar claiming that he and colleagues had been swept off their feet “by love and affection showered up on us at Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi”.
Nayar told the media that he had received a message from a commentator which said: “You have achieved the impossible. Of all the people, Liaquat Baloch of the Jammat-e-Islam is ecstatic on the private channels of Pakistan about the reception they hosted”. A Member of Nayar’s delegation, Shahid Siddiqui, M.P. had been similarly quoted as saying that he was surprised to notice the change in public mood against jehad and the craving of the Pakistani people for friendship and good relations with India. Now a 31-member Indian delegation is on a visit to Pakistan and no doubt will return just as ecstatically as the earlier delegation making one wonder whether, indeed, Pakistan is inching towards normalisation of ties with India. According to an Agence France Presse report from Islamabad sixteen Pakistani MPs will celebrate the back-to back Independence Days of India and Pakistan on August 14 and 15 in the western Indian city of Amritsar which is hardly 30 kms from Lahore.
Are we seeing the heavens falling? Meanwhile there is the story of Munir, the 13-year old Pakistan boy who unknowingly strayed into Indian police only to be ordered to be released from jail and returned to his home by Prime Minister Vajpayee. It is said that the lad was loaded with gifts before being put on the Delhi- Lahore bus.
If this is how the people of India and Pakistan react to each other, what has the Pakistani military got to say? Is it at all going to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists to kill and maim innocent Kashmiris? When will it call a halt to its strident anti-India, anti- Hindu propaganda? That propaganda has been pushed to its limits in school textbooks since the days of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This has now been revealed in a well-documented study conducted by the I s l a m a b a d - b a s e d Sustained Development Policy Institute of Pakistani textbooks in Social Studies, English, Urdu and Civics from Class I to Class XII.
The findings of the study conducted by two scholars, A. N. Nayyar and Ahmed Salim can only be described as damning. Apparently, till Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power, Pakistani textbooks were balanced and fair in writing about India but with the military take-over of power under General Zia things were to change totally.
According to the report of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute “for over two decades, the curricula and the officially mandated textbooks have contained material that is directly contrary to the goals and values of a progressive, moderate and democratic Pakistan”. Says the report: “History is narrated with distortions and omissions. The causes, effects and responsibility for key events are presented so as to leave a false understanding of our national experience. A large part of the history of this region is also simply omitted, making it difficult to properly interpret events.
Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of three compulsory subjects: Viz.
that Pakistan is for Muslims alone
that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all the students, whatever their faith, including a compulsory reading of the Quran
that ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate be created against Hindus and India.
And students are to be urged to take the path of Jehad and Shahadat.
Were the report not the work of an Islamanbad based Institute and written by Muslims themselves, one would ignore it. But it is impossible to ignore this report: it is so authentic. In Pakistan, one has to be a Muslim to be a Pakistani; only Muslims can be true Pakistani citizens. At every stage text books revert to Islam. Lessons have high Islamic content. Class I textbooks have four out of 25 lessons on Islam. Class II textbooks have 22 out of 44 lessons on Islam and so on to Class XII textbooks which have ten out of 68 lessons on Islam.
One does not know how many of the students in each school and in each class are non-Muslims but they are all forcibly taught Islamic religious studies. There is no escape. Jinnah never spoke of the “Ideology” of Pakistan. The authors of this report specifically state that “for fifteen years after the establishment of Pakistan, the Ideology of Pakistan was not known to anybody until, in 1962, a solitary member of the Jamaat-I-Islami used the words for the first time”. But in most textbooks, Jinnah has been turned into a pious Muslim, which he most certainly never was. His famous speech on 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly in which he laid down the outlines of a democratic and secular Pakistan in which the state has no concern with the religion of its citizens and all, irrespective of their faith, are fully equal, finds no mention in any text book.
On the contrary the Hindu becomes an object of derision. Sample quotes from textbook for Class IV:
Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam.
The religion of the Hindus did not teach them good things. Hindus do not respect women.
Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter a temple at a time.
The people of the sub-continent used to live in dark and small houses before the arrival of Muslims. The places of worship were built in a way that light and air could not find a way into them.
The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.
A statement made in a textbook for Class VI says: “The Hindus wished to ruin Muslim civilisation and culture by destroying Urdu”. A book authored by Rabbani and Sayyid entitled An Introduction to Pakistan Studies says: “The Hindus always desired to crush the Muslims as a nation. Several attempts were made by the Hindus to erase the Muslim culture and civilization.” According to the authors of this monumental report, “the Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan amounts to creating an environment for non-Muslims in which (1) they become second class citizens with lesser rights and privileges (2) their patriotism becomes suspect and (3) their contribution to the society is ignored”. Ergo, state the authors, “the result is that they (non-Muslims) can easily cease to have any stake in the society”.
So obsessed are those who write the textbooks about what they consider is the Ideology of Pakistan that specific rules are laid down on the subject. Thus:
The Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and be never subjected to Ideology of Pakistan be presented as an accepted reality and should never be made controversial and debatable.
Textbooks on social studies are devoted to the denigration of Hindus, as greedy, opportunistic and intolerant. The Report quotes the following lines called from various text books:
Hindus thought there was no country other than India.
Hindus who have always been opportunistic, cooperated with the English.
Most of Hindu leaders of the Congress were not prepared to tolerate the presence of the Muslims in the sub-continent.
Hindus very cunningly succeeded in making the British believe that the Muslims were solely responsible for the 1857 rebellion.
Comments the Report: “Young and impressionable minds are impregnated with seeds of hatred to serve self-styled ideological strait-jacket... The borrowing from Hindu culture is either ignored or condemned. The Pakistan movement is portrayed mostly in terms of the perfidy of the Hindus and the British... India is portrayed as the enemy, which is waiting to dismember Pakistan... Pakistan is shown to have won the 1965 war. Jinnah and Iqbal are presented as orthodox Muslims and any aspect of their thoughts and behaviour which does not conform to this image is suppressed...”
Is it any wonder, then, that Pakistan has been, and remains the land of the Taliban? What can one possibly say when a textbook avers that “Pakistan came to be established for the first time when the Arabs under Mohammad bin Qasim occupied Sind and Multan’’ and that ``during the 16th century Hindustan disappeared and was completely absorbed in Pakistan”? What kind of “friend” can we ever hope to find in our next-door neighbour?
Bollywood: The Show Must Grow On
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 22, 2003 08:01 pm
Few other classic films Do Bigha Zameen, Do Aankhen Barah Haat, Mera Naam Joker, Garam Hawa, Bazaar, Sparsh, Katha, Anand, Satyakam, Pakeeza, Nikaah, Sholay, Umbartha (Subah),
Bollywood: The Show Must Grow On
It`s from the same folks who made ``American Desi``. Another crossover flick. It`s about an Indian immigrant who has overstayed his visa in USA.
http://www.greencardfever.com/listings.html
Green Card Fever
Cast: Purva Bedi, Deep Katdare, Vikram Dasu, Robert Lin, Subash
Producer: Vijay Vaidyanathan
Director: Bala Rajasekharuni
Banner: Net Effect Media
Music: Pete Sears
The lead cast of American Desi returns with yet another crossover flick written and directed by debutante director Bala Rajakharuni. The writer-director earned his Master’s degree in Direction from the reputed University from Wisconsin-Madison not only this he has worked a great deal in television, films and theatre. Green card fever is his first endeavor in film writing and direction. Music is by Pete Sears the one who was associated with bands like ‘Jefferson Starship’ and ‘hot Tuna’. Along with the American desi lead Deep Katdare and Purva Bedi the film introduces Vikram Dasu. The film is an account of an immigrant Indian moving heaven and hell to get the green card.
With dreams in eyes and some money in his pocket Murali Ravillapind (Vikram Dasu) packs his luggage and arrives in America. Once there he tries to realize his dreams. Days pass into months and his visa expires and comes the time to go back empty handed or to stay behind as an ‘illegal immigrant’. He learns the tact of getting Green card is by suing his lawyer Omjeet (Deep Katdare). Meanwhile he also falls in love with a beautiful Indian girl Bharati (Purva Bedi). He also keeps up the good act with his family in India by convincing his parents that he is living a fun-filled life in the States.Very soon he finds himself surrounded by strange people who try to exploit him. Muralli’s dreams of legalizing his stay in America seem like a distant dream now. Caught between the woman he loves and people with ulterior self-motives Murali learns about his own principals and beliefs.
Green card fever gives a complete new insight to the plight of legal and illegal immigrants in America. The movie has all romance, comedy and drama. And if the raving reviews in Hollywood are anything to go by this one is absolutely a Bollywood fare.
Catch the fever as the movie releases today
Preview by Sanjay Shah
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 22, 2003 12:58 pm
http://www.indiafm.com/greencardfever/It`s from the same folks who made ``American Desi``. Another crossover flick. It`s about an Indian immigrant who has overstayed his visa in USA.
http://www.greencardfever.com/listings.html
Green Card Fever
Cast: Purva Bedi, Deep Katdare, Vikram Dasu, Robert Lin, Subash
Producer: Vijay Vaidyanathan
Director: Bala Rajasekharuni
Banner: Net Effect Media
Music: Pete Sears
The lead cast of American Desi returns with yet another crossover flick written and directed by debutante director Bala Rajakharuni. The writer-director earned his Master’s degree in Direction from the reputed University from Wisconsin-Madison not only this he has worked a great deal in television, films and theatre. Green card fever is his first endeavor in film writing and direction. Music is by Pete Sears the one who was associated with bands like ‘Jefferson Starship’ and ‘hot Tuna’. Along with the American desi lead Deep Katdare and Purva Bedi the film introduces Vikram Dasu. The film is an account of an immigrant Indian moving heaven and hell to get the green card.
With dreams in eyes and some money in his pocket Murali Ravillapind (Vikram Dasu) packs his luggage and arrives in America. Once there he tries to realize his dreams. Days pass into months and his visa expires and comes the time to go back empty handed or to stay behind as an ‘illegal immigrant’. He learns the tact of getting Green card is by suing his lawyer Omjeet (Deep Katdare). Meanwhile he also falls in love with a beautiful Indian girl Bharati (Purva Bedi). He also keeps up the good act with his family in India by convincing his parents that he is living a fun-filled life in the States.Very soon he finds himself surrounded by strange people who try to exploit him. Muralli’s dreams of legalizing his stay in America seem like a distant dream now. Caught between the woman he loves and people with ulterior self-motives Murali learns about his own principals and beliefs.
Green card fever gives a complete new insight to the plight of legal and illegal immigrants in America. The movie has all romance, comedy and drama. And if the raving reviews in Hollywood are anything to go by this one is absolutely a Bollywood fare.
Catch the fever as the movie releases today
Preview by Sanjay Shah
The Evolution of Urdu Literature in the 20th Century
Hindi belt must learn to give up linguistic chauvinism
By M V Kamath
We might fret and fume at what the British had done for India and we might quote everyone from Dadabhai Naoroji to Jawaharlal Nehru to show how what they did to impoverish our country, but for one thing we might as well be grateful to our erstwhile rulers: they taught us English and probably that has done more to unify the country than many are willing to admit, let alone admire. At this point in time more Indians speak English than the citizens of the British Isles.
Article 345 of our Constitution says that ``until the Legislature of the state otherwise provides by law, the English language shall continue to be used for those official purposes within the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of this Constitution``. And Article 348 says that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and in every High Court the authoritative tests shall be in the English language. Hindi, of course, is India`s official language.
Article 351 says that it shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India. What steps the Union has taken in this regard is a matter of opinions, but probably Bollywood has done more to spread Hindi or, perhaps, Hindustani throughout the country than any government agency. Which is just as well.
There is no question but that Hindi is a beautiful language, but then so are Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam among the so-called `Dravidian` languages and Marathi, Gujarati or Bengali among the so-called ``Atyan`` languages derived largely from Sanskrit. Large numbers of South Indians those especially living the down side of the Vindhya Mountains are conversant with Hindi, in part because the language is taught in many schools but in part also because South Indians want to be part of the larger Indian economy and realise only too well that without an adequate knowledge of Hindi they cannot make it elsewhere in India.
It is not patriotism alone that makes them learn Hindi; it is sound economic sense. But the reverse is just not true. Hardly any North Indian bothers to learn any of the South Indian languages. Hardly any school makes the study of a South Indian language compulsory. Patriotism, it would seem, is a one-way street. Heads I win, tails you lose. This is not only not fair, but it is unjust.
The South Indian, if only as a matter of survival, will learn Hindi, but the Hindi belt does not in any way feel obligated to learn a South Indian language any of the five. It was at one time presumed that students will be taught three languages: One`s mother-tongue, English and Hindi and it was presumed that where one`s mother tongue was Hindi, the student would be taught one of the Dravidian languages. This has never happened.
The third language taught has invariably been Sanskrit. Insistence on learning Hindi has led to disturbances in past years especially in Tamil Nadu. That has been taken as an `imposition` which has been silently endured.
But isn`t it time for the northern states to change their approach to the study of languages? They have five languages to choose from and it will be a unique contribution to the genuine enhancement of integration if the millions of school children doing their high school graduation in North India are familiarised with a South Indian language. And may it be remembered that South Indian states are rapidly making their mark in the field of industrialisation and technology.
It is not Allahabad or Lucknow or for that matter even Kolkata that is making ways in Information Technology. The two cities that are increasingly getting into the news are Bangalore and Hyderabad. Andhra Pradesh`s Chandrababu Naidu says: ``if I get re-elected, I will turn my state into another Singapore`` and for all one knows, he will do so and what is more, he`ll beat Singapore, considering that there is more technical talent available in Andhra Pradesh than in little Singapore. Singapore`s prosperity has its limits because of its size. For Andhra Pradesh as for Karnataka it is the sky that is the limit. And the more firms in the United States, Britain and elsewhere decide to outsource their accounting and allied work, the more Bangalore will burst in prosperity, leaving the citizens of the Hindi belt to bite their nails. This is not to say that north Indian citizens will not catch up.
Intelligence is not the monopoly of South Indians but the fact is that they have made a good start and are at an advantage. The Hindi belt is still wallowing in casteism and has such mindless leaders as Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mayavati. What kind of progress can we expect under the leadership of such casteist nonentities? They are a standing menace to the future of the country. National unity comes through frequent inter-mixing of people, differing to language, ethnicity and religion. Today practically the only thing that binds India is Hinduism. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari there is not one who does not know Siva, Vishnu and Brahma, Laxmi or Saraswati, Hanuman or Ganesh. But that is not enough. There is need for linguistic assimilation.
An average Maharashtrian with a high school leaving certificate would know Marathi, some English and surely some Hindi. In many ways Andhra Pradesh has been lucky. During the reign of the Nizams, study of Urdu had been compulsory in schools with the result that most educated Andhra-ites of an earlier generation were familiar with English, Telugu and Urdu. A typical example is P. V. Narasimha Rao who is credited with being a multi-linguist. But can one name one North Indian leader familiar with a South Indian language?
The first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was blissfully ignorant of a South Indian language. And not one of India`s north Indian Prime Ministers had a better record. Neither Indira Gandhi nor Rajiv Gandhi, neither Lal Bahadur Shastri nor I. K. Gujaral, neither Chandrashekhar nor Charan Singh knew a word of any South Indian language. What does that convey? Atal Behari Vajpayee is a great orator in Hindi; he is a poet, besides. But if only he could speak a smattering of Tamil or Telugu, Malayalam or Kannada, how much would that not be appreciated? Poor Deve Gowda didn`t know a word of Hindi but at least he had the good sense to say that he was going to learn Hindi and before long would dare to address an audience assembly at the Red Fort in Hindi. He may not have got the opportunity, but there is a different story. But one frequently hears the question being asked in the Hindi belt: how many languages can a child possibly learn? Truth to say a child can learn many languages.
A Dutch student will get to learn not only his own language but German, French and English as well. There are people in the Kanara district of Karnataka who speak Konkani, Tulu, Kannada and English with equal felicity. There are students in cosmopolitan Mumbai who can speak Malayalam (or Tamil or Kannada) at home but outside their homes speak just as fluently in Marathi, Hindi and English. What is needed is the will. In the Hindi belt that will is totally lacking. In part, one suspects, the season why is that the Hindiwallah seldom seeks a job outside his territory. Therefore he sees no need to learn a south Indian language. He is culturally isolated. It is easier to find a Tamilian or a Kannadiga in Varanasi or Patna than a Bihari or an Uttar Pradeshi in Mysore or Tinnevelli. The South Indian is enterprising, generally speaking. The Hindiwallah is more often not. And there`s the rub.
There are of course, always exceptions to the rule. Marwadis, for instance, are to be seen practically anywhere in the country where business opportunities present themselves for exploitation. There are large and influential numbers of them in Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai or Bangalore and they quickly make themselves at home wherever they settle down. But, as has been said, one swallow does not make the summer. And, at any rate, it does not question the importance of an insistence of teaching a south Indian language at the high school level in north Indian schools.
Gandhi was frequently aware of the need to know more than just Hindi. At least he is known to have taken the trouble to learn the Tamil and Kannada scripts and sign his name in them. India is multi-lingual and it is humanly impossible for Indians to speak in more than two or three languages though some one like George Fernandes or P. V. Narasimha Rao are exceptions. George, for instance can speak in Konkani, Kannada, Tulu, Hindi, Marathi and English and possibly in Tamil and Gujarati as well.
It is important to know Hindi. That is readily conceded, just as it is even more important to know English which is rapidly becoming an international language and the language of commerce. If so much work is being outsourced to India by American firms, it is because Indians know English and are better placed, for instance, than the Chinese or the Japanese. Indians, it may even be said, have a natural talent to learn languages. And the more India`s literati are literate in interregional languages the greater the prospects of national integration.
South India is making giant strides. As a matter of fact in many ways it outperforms the so-called South East Asian tigers and can take on any country. Somewhere down the line the Hindi belt must learn to give up its linguistic chauvinism, for its own good as for the good of the entire country.
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 22, 2003 09:14 am
http://www.samachar.com/features/140803-features.htmlHindi belt must learn to give up linguistic chauvinism
By M V Kamath
We might fret and fume at what the British had done for India and we might quote everyone from Dadabhai Naoroji to Jawaharlal Nehru to show how what they did to impoverish our country, but for one thing we might as well be grateful to our erstwhile rulers: they taught us English and probably that has done more to unify the country than many are willing to admit, let alone admire. At this point in time more Indians speak English than the citizens of the British Isles.
Article 345 of our Constitution says that ``until the Legislature of the state otherwise provides by law, the English language shall continue to be used for those official purposes within the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of this Constitution``. And Article 348 says that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and in every High Court the authoritative tests shall be in the English language. Hindi, of course, is India`s official language.
Article 351 says that it shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India. What steps the Union has taken in this regard is a matter of opinions, but probably Bollywood has done more to spread Hindi or, perhaps, Hindustani throughout the country than any government agency. Which is just as well.
There is no question but that Hindi is a beautiful language, but then so are Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam among the so-called `Dravidian` languages and Marathi, Gujarati or Bengali among the so-called ``Atyan`` languages derived largely from Sanskrit. Large numbers of South Indians those especially living the down side of the Vindhya Mountains are conversant with Hindi, in part because the language is taught in many schools but in part also because South Indians want to be part of the larger Indian economy and realise only too well that without an adequate knowledge of Hindi they cannot make it elsewhere in India.
It is not patriotism alone that makes them learn Hindi; it is sound economic sense. But the reverse is just not true. Hardly any North Indian bothers to learn any of the South Indian languages. Hardly any school makes the study of a South Indian language compulsory. Patriotism, it would seem, is a one-way street. Heads I win, tails you lose. This is not only not fair, but it is unjust.
The South Indian, if only as a matter of survival, will learn Hindi, but the Hindi belt does not in any way feel obligated to learn a South Indian language any of the five. It was at one time presumed that students will be taught three languages: One`s mother-tongue, English and Hindi and it was presumed that where one`s mother tongue was Hindi, the student would be taught one of the Dravidian languages. This has never happened.
The third language taught has invariably been Sanskrit. Insistence on learning Hindi has led to disturbances in past years especially in Tamil Nadu. That has been taken as an `imposition` which has been silently endured.
But isn`t it time for the northern states to change their approach to the study of languages? They have five languages to choose from and it will be a unique contribution to the genuine enhancement of integration if the millions of school children doing their high school graduation in North India are familiarised with a South Indian language. And may it be remembered that South Indian states are rapidly making their mark in the field of industrialisation and technology.
It is not Allahabad or Lucknow or for that matter even Kolkata that is making ways in Information Technology. The two cities that are increasingly getting into the news are Bangalore and Hyderabad. Andhra Pradesh`s Chandrababu Naidu says: ``if I get re-elected, I will turn my state into another Singapore`` and for all one knows, he will do so and what is more, he`ll beat Singapore, considering that there is more technical talent available in Andhra Pradesh than in little Singapore. Singapore`s prosperity has its limits because of its size. For Andhra Pradesh as for Karnataka it is the sky that is the limit. And the more firms in the United States, Britain and elsewhere decide to outsource their accounting and allied work, the more Bangalore will burst in prosperity, leaving the citizens of the Hindi belt to bite their nails. This is not to say that north Indian citizens will not catch up.
Intelligence is not the monopoly of South Indians but the fact is that they have made a good start and are at an advantage. The Hindi belt is still wallowing in casteism and has such mindless leaders as Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mayavati. What kind of progress can we expect under the leadership of such casteist nonentities? They are a standing menace to the future of the country. National unity comes through frequent inter-mixing of people, differing to language, ethnicity and religion. Today practically the only thing that binds India is Hinduism. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari there is not one who does not know Siva, Vishnu and Brahma, Laxmi or Saraswati, Hanuman or Ganesh. But that is not enough. There is need for linguistic assimilation.
An average Maharashtrian with a high school leaving certificate would know Marathi, some English and surely some Hindi. In many ways Andhra Pradesh has been lucky. During the reign of the Nizams, study of Urdu had been compulsory in schools with the result that most educated Andhra-ites of an earlier generation were familiar with English, Telugu and Urdu. A typical example is P. V. Narasimha Rao who is credited with being a multi-linguist. But can one name one North Indian leader familiar with a South Indian language?
The first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was blissfully ignorant of a South Indian language. And not one of India`s north Indian Prime Ministers had a better record. Neither Indira Gandhi nor Rajiv Gandhi, neither Lal Bahadur Shastri nor I. K. Gujaral, neither Chandrashekhar nor Charan Singh knew a word of any South Indian language. What does that convey? Atal Behari Vajpayee is a great orator in Hindi; he is a poet, besides. But if only he could speak a smattering of Tamil or Telugu, Malayalam or Kannada, how much would that not be appreciated? Poor Deve Gowda didn`t know a word of Hindi but at least he had the good sense to say that he was going to learn Hindi and before long would dare to address an audience assembly at the Red Fort in Hindi. He may not have got the opportunity, but there is a different story. But one frequently hears the question being asked in the Hindi belt: how many languages can a child possibly learn? Truth to say a child can learn many languages.
A Dutch student will get to learn not only his own language but German, French and English as well. There are people in the Kanara district of Karnataka who speak Konkani, Tulu, Kannada and English with equal felicity. There are students in cosmopolitan Mumbai who can speak Malayalam (or Tamil or Kannada) at home but outside their homes speak just as fluently in Marathi, Hindi and English. What is needed is the will. In the Hindi belt that will is totally lacking. In part, one suspects, the season why is that the Hindiwallah seldom seeks a job outside his territory. Therefore he sees no need to learn a south Indian language. He is culturally isolated. It is easier to find a Tamilian or a Kannadiga in Varanasi or Patna than a Bihari or an Uttar Pradeshi in Mysore or Tinnevelli. The South Indian is enterprising, generally speaking. The Hindiwallah is more often not. And there`s the rub.
There are of course, always exceptions to the rule. Marwadis, for instance, are to be seen practically anywhere in the country where business opportunities present themselves for exploitation. There are large and influential numbers of them in Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai or Bangalore and they quickly make themselves at home wherever they settle down. But, as has been said, one swallow does not make the summer. And, at any rate, it does not question the importance of an insistence of teaching a south Indian language at the high school level in north Indian schools.
Gandhi was frequently aware of the need to know more than just Hindi. At least he is known to have taken the trouble to learn the Tamil and Kannada scripts and sign his name in them. India is multi-lingual and it is humanly impossible for Indians to speak in more than two or three languages though some one like George Fernandes or P. V. Narasimha Rao are exceptions. George, for instance can speak in Konkani, Kannada, Tulu, Hindi, Marathi and English and possibly in Tamil and Gujarati as well.
It is important to know Hindi. That is readily conceded, just as it is even more important to know English which is rapidly becoming an international language and the language of commerce. If so much work is being outsourced to India by American firms, it is because Indians know English and are better placed, for instance, than the Chinese or the Japanese. Indians, it may even be said, have a natural talent to learn languages. And the more India`s literati are literate in interregional languages the greater the prospects of national integration.
South India is making giant strides. As a matter of fact in many ways it outperforms the so-called South East Asian tigers and can take on any country. Somewhere down the line the Hindi belt must learn to give up its linguistic chauvinism, for its own good as for the good of the entire country.
Bollywood: The Show Must Grow On
India-Pakistan Play Unites Grandmothers, Nations
1 hour, 8 minutes ago Add Arts/Stage - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Sunil Kataria
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A Pakistani theater group has brought together two grand old dames of South Asian theater in a moving play -- ``A Granny for all Seasons`` -- about their divided lives for over four decades in India and Pakistan.
In a sign of recent improving relations on the subcontinent, Ajoka, a Pakistani troupe working for social change, traveled on the regular ``friendship bus`` linking the nuclear rivals to put on two shows in New Delhi this week. First staged in 1993, the play, ``Aik Thee Nani,`` centers on the lives of two sisters who play themselves on stage, ninety-two-year-old Indian actress Zohra Segal (Bend it like Beckham) and her sister, Uzra Butt, 86, who migrated to Pakistan in 1960.
Director Madeeha Gauhar said the real life story tells the trauma of families divided by artificial boundaries and also tackles the politically sensitive issue of Pakistanis being forced to shed their cultural and historic links with India.
``A deliberate effort was being made to distance ourselves from our common culture and heritage,`` Gauhar told Reuters.
The drama revolves around a ``nani`` (maternal grandmother) and a ``dadi`` (paternal grandmother) living very different lives.
Life changes when the elder Zohra visits Uzra and brings the winds of change into her conservative Pakistani home.
She becomes the champion of their grand-daughter, a girl who wants to be an actress but is afraid to say so in conservative Pakistan where acceptance of women performers is difficult.
The sisters created a sensation in British India for becoming actresses and dancers in the late 1930s when they worked with legendary theater and film personality Prithviraj Kapoor (news), patriarch of Bollywood`s Kapoor movie dynasty.
While Zohra became India`s theater and cinema favorite grandmother, Uzra migrated to Pakistan in 1960, leaving behind a successful theater career, and settled into domestic life.
Because of the strained relations between India and Pakistan since their bloody partition by the British in 1947, they were separated for several decades.
Uzra was overwhelmed at sharing the stage with her sister in the country of her birth for the first time in several years.
``It`s a very emotional journey. I was born here, I studied in Delhi -- I am as much an Indian as Pakistani,`` she said.
Zohra said politicians must take their cue from the public.
``We must accept Pakistan as good friends. We must become good neighbors,`` she said.
Gauhar was encouraged by the Indian public`s response.
``I think the people are enjoying themselves and understanding the humor of the play and also the ironies in it,`` she said.
Besides the sisters, the play also features their grand-niece, Samiya Mumtaz, who lives in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, and their Delhi-based niece, Salima Raza.
Sitting in the front row Thursday, Indian foreign minister Yashwant Sinha said the play was a step in the right direction.
``We will further intensify and further deepen the people-to-people contact,`` he said.
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 22, 2003 09:14 am
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030822/stage_nm/entertainment_india_theatre_dc_1India-Pakistan Play Unites Grandmothers, Nations
1 hour, 8 minutes ago Add Arts/Stage - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Sunil Kataria
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A Pakistani theater group has brought together two grand old dames of South Asian theater in a moving play -- ``A Granny for all Seasons`` -- about their divided lives for over four decades in India and Pakistan.
In a sign of recent improving relations on the subcontinent, Ajoka, a Pakistani troupe working for social change, traveled on the regular ``friendship bus`` linking the nuclear rivals to put on two shows in New Delhi this week. First staged in 1993, the play, ``Aik Thee Nani,`` centers on the lives of two sisters who play themselves on stage, ninety-two-year-old Indian actress Zohra Segal (Bend it like Beckham) and her sister, Uzra Butt, 86, who migrated to Pakistan in 1960.
Director Madeeha Gauhar said the real life story tells the trauma of families divided by artificial boundaries and also tackles the politically sensitive issue of Pakistanis being forced to shed their cultural and historic links with India.
``A deliberate effort was being made to distance ourselves from our common culture and heritage,`` Gauhar told Reuters.
The drama revolves around a ``nani`` (maternal grandmother) and a ``dadi`` (paternal grandmother) living very different lives.
Life changes when the elder Zohra visits Uzra and brings the winds of change into her conservative Pakistani home.
She becomes the champion of their grand-daughter, a girl who wants to be an actress but is afraid to say so in conservative Pakistan where acceptance of women performers is difficult.
The sisters created a sensation in British India for becoming actresses and dancers in the late 1930s when they worked with legendary theater and film personality Prithviraj Kapoor (news), patriarch of Bollywood`s Kapoor movie dynasty.
While Zohra became India`s theater and cinema favorite grandmother, Uzra migrated to Pakistan in 1960, leaving behind a successful theater career, and settled into domestic life.
Because of the strained relations between India and Pakistan since their bloody partition by the British in 1947, they were separated for several decades.
Uzra was overwhelmed at sharing the stage with her sister in the country of her birth for the first time in several years.
``It`s a very emotional journey. I was born here, I studied in Delhi -- I am as much an Indian as Pakistani,`` she said.
Zohra said politicians must take their cue from the public.
``We must accept Pakistan as good friends. We must become good neighbors,`` she said.
Gauhar was encouraged by the Indian public`s response.
``I think the people are enjoying themselves and understanding the humor of the play and also the ironies in it,`` she said.
Besides the sisters, the play also features their grand-niece, Samiya Mumtaz, who lives in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, and their Delhi-based niece, Salima Raza.
Sitting in the front row Thursday, Indian foreign minister Yashwant Sinha said the play was a step in the right direction.
``We will further intensify and further deepen the people-to-people contact,`` he said.
Bollywood: The Show Must Grow On
--
Neighbouring phobia
By Amar Jalil
The blindfolded wizards within the government have off and on clamped ban on Indian TV channels.
(Strained neighbours do not sleep peacefully - a sufi saying).
More than 40 years ago, the wizards within the then Government of Pakistan clamped a complete ban on the exhibition of Indian films in Pakistan. The wizards did not foresee the devastating effect the politically motivated act would have on Pakistan.
Their modus operandi was that the Pakistan film industry required to be protected from competition for development. Has the Pakistan film industry developed during the last 40 years? What kind of stuff our film industry has dished out to the entertainment-starved people of Pakistan in the name of movies?
It is not within the purview of this essay to discuss the chemistry of Indian phobia among certain political and nonpolitical lobbies in Pakistan. We will not discuss whether the aversion and dislike for India is genuine. Or is it fabricated, made up, or propagated for some other motives? Someday, we would thoroughly examine the politics of India phobia and Pakistan phobia, that have ruined the faith of four generations in peace, harmony and everlasting friendship between the two next-door countries. No one can nurture healthy children on hate-syndrome.
Of various elements that interact in a society for social, cultural, economic and political development, two most-important elements are the masses and the politicians. Incidentally, the masses in multitude in both the countries constitute the lowest strata, and the politicians constitute the upper-most strata of the society in India and Pakistan. There can`t be anything common between the `haves` and the `have-nots`. The exploited and the exploiters do not dine from the same dish. As an identical phenomenon in the two estranged neighbouring countries, the poor keep on becoming poorer, and the rich keep on becoming richer.
There is nothing uncommon between the deprived masses in the two countries except that the Indian masses are politically responsive and mature, whereas four martial laws have plunged the Pakistani masses into abysmal disillusion. They do not react to any kind of political change in Pakistan. They are least bothered who rules them, and why! Pushed deep into poverty, they strive from dawn to dusk in search of food and shelter. On the political scenario in the two countries, efficiency and competence constitute glaring difference between Indian and Pakistani politicians. As compared to Indian politicians, filthy rich Pakistani politicians, baring a few, are proven incompetent and nincompoops. Thus, Pakistan has endured four martial laws in five decades.
When the wizards within the Government of Pakistan banned showing of Indian movies in Pakistan in 1962, there were about 2,000 cinema houses operative in the country. In Karachi alone, 80 cinema houses ran three shows daily, and four shows on Sundays and holidays. In Saddar, we had a number of high-class cinema houses, namely Palace, Rex, Rio, Mayfair, Capital and Paradise. Such cinema houses entertained Karachiites with excellent English films such as Viva Zapata, Ben-Hur, Samson and Delilah, One-Eyed Jacks, Lawrence of Arabia, Night of the Generals, Bridge on the River Kwai and One Flew Over the Cuckoo`s Nest.
The cinema houses are not merely auditoriums for showing films. A cinema house provides employment to a large number of persons. They include the machine operators, gatekeepers, ticket vendors, a team of managers, sweepers, painters, telephone operators, clerks, office assistants, accountants and chaiwala boys. The cinema houses in 1962 were the source of bread and butter for thousands of families all over the country.
A cinema house is like a shop. To remain functional it constantly requires merchandise. Movies are merchandise for cinema houses. The wizards did not take into account the number of films produced annually by our film industry. In 1962, perhaps 20 (maybe less) films were made in a year in Pakistan. How could you have kept operative 2,000 cinema houses in the country with the 20 films produced annually by our film industry? The ban on Indian films in Pakistan triggered the total collapse of booming cinema business in the country.
In no time, cinema-culture withered from Pakistan. The cinema houses gradually closed down. Thousands of employees in the cinema business were rendered jobless. Their families plunged into poverty. The wizards did not feel pushed. They kept justifying banning of Indian movies in Pakistan. When questioned by the press, they conveniently silenced the fault-finders with an obsolete cliche, ``Old order changes, giving place to new.`` Thereby, they meant that television had replaced films in the country. It was a totally absurd and ridiculous explanation. Far more films are being produced in the world now than were produced before the advent of television. The well-planned television systems in India have not put a slightest dent in the Indian film industry. On the contrary, television systems in India thrive on the 1,200 films produced annually by the Indian film industry.
The blindfolded wizards within the Government of Pakistan now in power have off and on clamped ban on Indian TV channels, specially when serious efforts are made to bring India and Pakistan closer to each other in a fold of friendship. What are they aiming at? Are they contemplating on showing us cheap, vulgar and obscene alien channels stuffed with nudity, sex and violence? You can`t falsify history. Aren`t Pakistan and India culturally more close to each other than any other country? Why do the wizards compel Pakistani families to watch the culturally diverse Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and American channels?
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag7.htm
--
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusInt...57.asp?reg=ASIA
Pakistan TV operators vow boycott over India ban
By Amir Zia
KARACHI, Aug. 22 — India and Pakistan may disagree on many things, but their people both seem to agree on one -- wanting to watch Indian television programmes.
Banned from broadcasting hugely popular Indian channels, Pakistani cable television operators said on Friday they would stop transmitting local channels in a bid to get the government to change its decision.
``Ninety-five percent of Pakistanis want to see Indian programmes,`` said Ahsan Ali, general secretary of the Cable Operators` Association of Pakistan. ``The government should respect the public opinion.``
The association represents more than 900 operators, and is locked in a bitter row with the government, which wants to promote local channels by keeping out Indian channels that have eaten into the revenues of state-run Pakistan Television.
``We will boycott Pakistani channels as well as foreign news channels, including BBC and CNN, from Sunday for a week to protest the ban,`` Ali told Reuters. ``In the second phase, we plan to completely shutter our service.``
Pakistan`s entertainment industry is much smaller than that of its giant neighbour and is subject to strict censorship rules dictated by religious conservatism.
Cable operators want the government to drop its protectionist ways and spur local channels to provide better material instead.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since partition and independence from Britain in 1947, but many Pakistanis are avid fans of Indian movies and entertainment programmes.
Pakistan banned Indian channels in March 2002 during a bitter military standoff with its neighbour following an attack on the parliament in New Delhi by suspected Islamic militants.
Cable operators toed the government line then.
``We cooperated with the government last year because of the military build-up,`` said one operator, Khalid Arian. ``We resumed Indian programmes after a thaw in relations.``
But on August 4, the government decided to re-enforce the ban strictly.
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority appealed to cable operators to end the boycott, but they stuck to their position, saying revenues had dropped sharply after the ban as subscribers did not want to pay for other channels.
--
Why ban entertainment?
The Indian channels have been banned once again. I think the ban is unjust in the present circumstances. The channels like Star Plus, Sony and Zee TV telecast only entertaining programmes. Thousands of people want to see them.
It is said that Pakistani ads are being presented on these channels while the PTV and other local channels are being deprived of them. If this is true, then such restrictions would not be beneficial in the long run. The permanent solution to this issue is that the PTV and other local channels should raise their standard and present more interesting and entertaining programmes so that the people should prefer to see them.
It was the PTV that had a glorious past and reputation for its quality productions, particularly with reference to its plays. Its entertainment programmes had a unique position in the viewers` eyes all over the world, specially in India. The PTV can get back its lost position once again through quality productions.
Because of the ban on Indian channels, the cable operators are forced to present English channels which are making great contribution in spreading nudity and obscenity. Nobody is paying any attention to it.
At this stage when the new ties of friendship are being strengthened and delegations of the two countries are visiting each other, it is not the appropriate time to ban these channels.
I appeal to the authorities concerned to lift the ban imposed on the entertainment channels like Star Plus, Sony and Zee TV.
FAHIM SYED
Via email
(2)
This is in response to the letter by Dr Hamida Khuhro (Aug 7). I must say she is totally right.
The Pakistan government and the media talk about a cultural war which is to be fought against India. What is this war in which you remove the opponents? Also, in the present situation of cordiality, it is not wise to ban the Indian channels. The Indian channels are much cleaner than the English ones.
I would also request the people to stop hating Pakistani channels. Let me tell you that they are a lot more entertaining than any English or Indian channel.
ZUBAIR KHAWAR
Lahore
http://www.dawn.com/2003/08/12/letted.htm#2
--
`End ban on Indian channels`
By Our Staff Reporter
LAHORE, Aug 10: The Cable Operators` Association has criticized the government`s decision to continue the ban on Indian channels. Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, association president Jabbar A Khan questioned the logic behind the ban in view of the changing regional scenario.
The ban was imposed when forces from both sides took to the border in Dec 2001. The cable operators readily accepted the ban on patriotic grounds, and absorbed the financial loss it entailed. But now the situation has improved, Mr Khan observed. Both the countries are looking for ways to increase cooperation.
The bus-link has already been established, and the revival of rail and air links is also on the cards. High-profile visits from both sides have helped reduce tension while a joint film venture has also been announced. Besides, Mr Khan observed, there was no ban on dishes and video-centres that were selling Indian movies in every nook and corner of the country.
In these circumstances, it was illogical on the part of government to insist on the ban on Indian channels, he said. It could still, perhaps, defend the ban on news and propaganda channels but not on entertainment. All the cable operators want right now is the permission to air Star Plus and two movies a day. How would it affect the perceptions of Pakistanis about themselves, he asked.
There is no ban on any Pakistani channel in India and the Indian state minister has recently confirmed this in the parliament. Later, speaking on the condition of anonymity, another leader of the cable operators claimed that some owners of local channels wanted the ban on Indian channels to continue for commercial reasons.
http://www.dawn.com/2003/08/11/nat26.htm
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 22, 2003 09:14 am
It`s high time Pakistan lifts its ban on Indian channels and Bollywood films. Pakistanis should be able to watch Indian channels and Bollywood films . I see many articles in DAWN who want to lift a ban on Indian channels.--
Neighbouring phobia
By Amar Jalil
The blindfolded wizards within the government have off and on clamped ban on Indian TV channels.
(Strained neighbours do not sleep peacefully - a sufi saying).
More than 40 years ago, the wizards within the then Government of Pakistan clamped a complete ban on the exhibition of Indian films in Pakistan. The wizards did not foresee the devastating effect the politically motivated act would have on Pakistan.
Their modus operandi was that the Pakistan film industry required to be protected from competition for development. Has the Pakistan film industry developed during the last 40 years? What kind of stuff our film industry has dished out to the entertainment-starved people of Pakistan in the name of movies?
It is not within the purview of this essay to discuss the chemistry of Indian phobia among certain political and nonpolitical lobbies in Pakistan. We will not discuss whether the aversion and dislike for India is genuine. Or is it fabricated, made up, or propagated for some other motives? Someday, we would thoroughly examine the politics of India phobia and Pakistan phobia, that have ruined the faith of four generations in peace, harmony and everlasting friendship between the two next-door countries. No one can nurture healthy children on hate-syndrome.
Of various elements that interact in a society for social, cultural, economic and political development, two most-important elements are the masses and the politicians. Incidentally, the masses in multitude in both the countries constitute the lowest strata, and the politicians constitute the upper-most strata of the society in India and Pakistan. There can`t be anything common between the `haves` and the `have-nots`. The exploited and the exploiters do not dine from the same dish. As an identical phenomenon in the two estranged neighbouring countries, the poor keep on becoming poorer, and the rich keep on becoming richer.
There is nothing uncommon between the deprived masses in the two countries except that the Indian masses are politically responsive and mature, whereas four martial laws have plunged the Pakistani masses into abysmal disillusion. They do not react to any kind of political change in Pakistan. They are least bothered who rules them, and why! Pushed deep into poverty, they strive from dawn to dusk in search of food and shelter. On the political scenario in the two countries, efficiency and competence constitute glaring difference between Indian and Pakistani politicians. As compared to Indian politicians, filthy rich Pakistani politicians, baring a few, are proven incompetent and nincompoops. Thus, Pakistan has endured four martial laws in five decades.
When the wizards within the Government of Pakistan banned showing of Indian movies in Pakistan in 1962, there were about 2,000 cinema houses operative in the country. In Karachi alone, 80 cinema houses ran three shows daily, and four shows on Sundays and holidays. In Saddar, we had a number of high-class cinema houses, namely Palace, Rex, Rio, Mayfair, Capital and Paradise. Such cinema houses entertained Karachiites with excellent English films such as Viva Zapata, Ben-Hur, Samson and Delilah, One-Eyed Jacks, Lawrence of Arabia, Night of the Generals, Bridge on the River Kwai and One Flew Over the Cuckoo`s Nest.
The cinema houses are not merely auditoriums for showing films. A cinema house provides employment to a large number of persons. They include the machine operators, gatekeepers, ticket vendors, a team of managers, sweepers, painters, telephone operators, clerks, office assistants, accountants and chaiwala boys. The cinema houses in 1962 were the source of bread and butter for thousands of families all over the country.
A cinema house is like a shop. To remain functional it constantly requires merchandise. Movies are merchandise for cinema houses. The wizards did not take into account the number of films produced annually by our film industry. In 1962, perhaps 20 (maybe less) films were made in a year in Pakistan. How could you have kept operative 2,000 cinema houses in the country with the 20 films produced annually by our film industry? The ban on Indian films in Pakistan triggered the total collapse of booming cinema business in the country.
In no time, cinema-culture withered from Pakistan. The cinema houses gradually closed down. Thousands of employees in the cinema business were rendered jobless. Their families plunged into poverty. The wizards did not feel pushed. They kept justifying banning of Indian movies in Pakistan. When questioned by the press, they conveniently silenced the fault-finders with an obsolete cliche, ``Old order changes, giving place to new.`` Thereby, they meant that television had replaced films in the country. It was a totally absurd and ridiculous explanation. Far more films are being produced in the world now than were produced before the advent of television. The well-planned television systems in India have not put a slightest dent in the Indian film industry. On the contrary, television systems in India thrive on the 1,200 films produced annually by the Indian film industry.
The blindfolded wizards within the Government of Pakistan now in power have off and on clamped ban on Indian TV channels, specially when serious efforts are made to bring India and Pakistan closer to each other in a fold of friendship. What are they aiming at? Are they contemplating on showing us cheap, vulgar and obscene alien channels stuffed with nudity, sex and violence? You can`t falsify history. Aren`t Pakistan and India culturally more close to each other than any other country? Why do the wizards compel Pakistani families to watch the culturally diverse Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and American channels?
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag7.htm
--
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusInt...57.asp?reg=ASIA
Pakistan TV operators vow boycott over India ban
By Amir Zia
KARACHI, Aug. 22 — India and Pakistan may disagree on many things, but their people both seem to agree on one -- wanting to watch Indian television programmes.
Banned from broadcasting hugely popular Indian channels, Pakistani cable television operators said on Friday they would stop transmitting local channels in a bid to get the government to change its decision.
``Ninety-five percent of Pakistanis want to see Indian programmes,`` said Ahsan Ali, general secretary of the Cable Operators` Association of Pakistan. ``The government should respect the public opinion.``
The association represents more than 900 operators, and is locked in a bitter row with the government, which wants to promote local channels by keeping out Indian channels that have eaten into the revenues of state-run Pakistan Television.
``We will boycott Pakistani channels as well as foreign news channels, including BBC and CNN, from Sunday for a week to protest the ban,`` Ali told Reuters. ``In the second phase, we plan to completely shutter our service.``
Pakistan`s entertainment industry is much smaller than that of its giant neighbour and is subject to strict censorship rules dictated by religious conservatism.
Cable operators want the government to drop its protectionist ways and spur local channels to provide better material instead.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since partition and independence from Britain in 1947, but many Pakistanis are avid fans of Indian movies and entertainment programmes.
Pakistan banned Indian channels in March 2002 during a bitter military standoff with its neighbour following an attack on the parliament in New Delhi by suspected Islamic militants.
Cable operators toed the government line then.
``We cooperated with the government last year because of the military build-up,`` said one operator, Khalid Arian. ``We resumed Indian programmes after a thaw in relations.``
But on August 4, the government decided to re-enforce the ban strictly.
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority appealed to cable operators to end the boycott, but they stuck to their position, saying revenues had dropped sharply after the ban as subscribers did not want to pay for other channels.
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Why ban entertainment?
The Indian channels have been banned once again. I think the ban is unjust in the present circumstances. The channels like Star Plus, Sony and Zee TV telecast only entertaining programmes. Thousands of people want to see them.
It is said that Pakistani ads are being presented on these channels while the PTV and other local channels are being deprived of them. If this is true, then such restrictions would not be beneficial in the long run. The permanent solution to this issue is that the PTV and other local channels should raise their standard and present more interesting and entertaining programmes so that the people should prefer to see them.
It was the PTV that had a glorious past and reputation for its quality productions, particularly with reference to its plays. Its entertainment programmes had a unique position in the viewers` eyes all over the world, specially in India. The PTV can get back its lost position once again through quality productions.
Because of the ban on Indian channels, the cable operators are forced to present English channels which are making great contribution in spreading nudity and obscenity. Nobody is paying any attention to it.
At this stage when the new ties of friendship are being strengthened and delegations of the two countries are visiting each other, it is not the appropriate time to ban these channels.
I appeal to the authorities concerned to lift the ban imposed on the entertainment channels like Star Plus, Sony and Zee TV.
FAHIM SYED
Via email
(2)
This is in response to the letter by Dr Hamida Khuhro (Aug 7). I must say she is totally right.
The Pakistan government and the media talk about a cultural war which is to be fought against India. What is this war in which you remove the opponents? Also, in the present situation of cordiality, it is not wise to ban the Indian channels. The Indian channels are much cleaner than the English ones.
I would also request the people to stop hating Pakistani channels. Let me tell you that they are a lot more entertaining than any English or Indian channel.
ZUBAIR KHAWAR
Lahore
http://www.dawn.com/2003/08/12/letted.htm#2
--
`End ban on Indian channels`
By Our Staff Reporter
LAHORE, Aug 10: The Cable Operators` Association has criticized the government`s decision to continue the ban on Indian channels. Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, association president Jabbar A Khan questioned the logic behind the ban in view of the changing regional scenario.
The ban was imposed when forces from both sides took to the border in Dec 2001. The cable operators readily accepted the ban on patriotic grounds, and absorbed the financial loss it entailed. But now the situation has improved, Mr Khan observed. Both the countries are looking for ways to increase cooperation.
The bus-link has already been established, and the revival of rail and air links is also on the cards. High-profile visits from both sides have helped reduce tension while a joint film venture has also been announced. Besides, Mr Khan observed, there was no ban on dishes and video-centres that were selling Indian movies in every nook and corner of the country.
In these circumstances, it was illogical on the part of government to insist on the ban on Indian channels, he said. It could still, perhaps, defend the ban on news and propaganda channels but not on entertainment. All the cable operators want right now is the permission to air Star Plus and two movies a day. How would it affect the perceptions of Pakistanis about themselves, he asked.
There is no ban on any Pakistani channel in India and the Indian state minister has recently confirmed this in the parliament. Later, speaking on the condition of anonymity, another leader of the cable operators claimed that some owners of local channels wanted the ban on Indian channels to continue for commercial reasons.
http://www.dawn.com/2003/08/11/nat26.htm
Bollywood: The Show Must Grow On
Bollywood FAQs
Richard Corliss is back, with questions about his favorite new national cinema. You provide the answers
Wednesday, Jul. 30, 2003
Where have I been all these weeks? Forty days ago, in my last column, I self-diagnosed my Bollywood fever — the addiction for Indian popular cinema that smote me a year ago — and promised another column or two in succeeding weeks. Then, like a levitating snake at the climax of a fakir`s performance, I disappeared. My army of constant readers e-mailed me to ask whether my next Bollywood column had been lost in cyberspace. Both of you deserve an explanation.
To quell the rumors... Perhaps I was fully occupied with my day job: writing for TIME not-com. (I did have a few assignments for the magazine, but I try not to let ephemera get in the way of my vocation.) Perhaps the fever had again abated, and my Hindiscretion cooled to Hindifference? (Not a chance.) Perhaps I had developed Indian reservations. (No way, and enough with the egregious puns.) Perhaps I thought there was nothing more to say on the subject. (Au contraire: too much.) Perhaps I went on holiday. (Yes, and I try not to let my vacation get in the way of my vocation, either. I took tapes of a dozen Indian films with me, and pored over Bollywood history books in the Massachusetts and upstate New York sun. On the way, I made a convert. I played the CD of A R Rahman`s West End show ``Bombay Dreams`` for my brother-in-law, George Horn, who was so beguiled by the music that he played it even while I wasn`t with him. At the end of our trek, I gave him my spare copy of the CD.)
Cramming for a nostalgia column: the idea is preposterous. The memories are supposed to well up and spill through my typing fingers. But sometimes what`s an old feeling for others — in the case of Bollywood, a billion others — is new, and news, to me. I can think of three such cinematic revelations in the past 15 years: when the TNT channel, and later TCM, opened the vaults of those sassy antiques, the Warner Bros. films of the early 30s; when I went kung-flooey for Hong Kong movies; and now, with the masala movies of Bombay and sometimes Madras. You see the connections. All three cinemas are marked by vigor, visual ingenuity, signposts to a land so remote and exotic it is measured in decades, or ten time zones. These are territories I can explore for years, yet not exhaust their riches.
As for Indian pop cinema, I`ve stepped inside and, like Alice, am falling into a weird, magical world. Ask me today to name ten great international filmmakers, and the list would have to include Guru Dutt — the supersensitive actor-producer-director whose ``Pyaasa`` (``The Thirsty One,`` 1957) and ``Kaagaz Ke Phool`` (Paper Flowers,`` 1959) are rhapsodic expressions of a poet`s dreamy isolation. Ask what`s the best film I`ve seen this summer, and I might reply ``Awaara`` (1951), Raj Kapoor`s volcanic parable of righteous paternal mistrust, with one of the all-time sadistic-sexiest beach scenes and a dream sequence that starts in delirium and revs up to delicious. Ask what actress has my heart at the moment, and I`d confess, without guilt or irony, Waheeda Rehman, the whore-muse in ``Pyaasa`` and Dev Anand`s radiant, misunderstood companion in ``C.I.D.`` (1956) and ``Guide`` (1965).
I traveled the length of Indian cinema — from the 1935 ``Devdas`` to the latest films — though not the breadth; there`s still so much to discover. So where have I been? I`ve gone Bollywood. And I haven`t come back. This is a message from deep inside the fever.
This time, let`s address ten Bollywood FAQs. Frequently Asked by me, that is. I don`t know the answers to all these questions. Some Hindi-film adepts, including author-screenwriter Suketu Mehta and Internet Movie Database staffer Michel Hafner have offered help. I`d also like to hear from readers. At the end I`ll give you some lists to be explored in the next column (soon). You`re the experts.
1. I love Bollywood movies, but why are they sooooooooooooo looooong?
I fell into this Bollywood trap, you may recall, when I lightly mocked the Oscar-nominated Indian film ``Lagaan`` as a four-hour film about cricket. That Aamir Khan blockbuster is longer than most Indian movies, but not much longer. Pictures starring top-guy Shahrukh Khan, supersmashes like ``Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham`` and ``Mohabbatein,`` typically have a running time (or lightly sauntering time) of three to 3-1/2 hours. In the 50s — to me, India`s Golden Age — the big movies ran between 135 and 180 mins., an hour longer than most American films of that day. And the hits just keep gettin` longer. Are Indians length freaks?
The way I heard it, Indian dramas have always been lengthy. Even a Western version of an Indian myth, Peter Brook`s ``The Mahabaratha,`` ran eight hours on stage and nearly 5-1/2 hours when filmed. When Indians go out for an evening`s entertainment, by Vishnu, they want an evening`s entertainment — in scope as well as in length. They want the full, three-generation saga, the life story, with full-throttle melodrama and comic relief, with fights and beautiful sets and aching, soulful stares. And of course with songs.
2. Why don`t the characters kiss on the mouth?
OK, sometimes they do. In the 1933 ``Karma,`` Devika Rani and Himansu Rai shared a long full-mouth kiss, with the woman on top. But these are rare exceptions. The typical Bollywood sex or love scene has, for 70 years, been nothing but a lip-tease: either an urgent hug that one might give Mom or a series of prissy kisses on the face, strategically missing the lips — to quote the title of the latest Mani Rathnam film, ``A Peck on the Cheek.`` (In Rathnam`s 1995 ``Bombay,`` Hindi hero Arvind Swamy tells his Muslim beloved Manisha Koirala, ``The quicker we marry, the sooner I kiss you.``)
The ever-helpful bollywhat.com website, which has the answers to many other Indi-movie FAQs, offers this reason for osculatory obfuscation: ``Ideas of morality differ widely from group to group. Why include a kiss when you can easily leave it out and avoid the risk of offending customers?`` Granted that Indian movies are shown in Muslim countries with stricter social standards, but since a film is often released in different versions at different lengths, why not permit the occasional lip-lock? It is the visual metaphor for passion the world over.
In this year`s semi-steamy ``Jism`` (that`s right, American readers, and the word means the same in Hindi), supermodels Bipashu Basu and John Abraham finally smooch up a storm an hour-and-a-quarter into the film. This low-budget bodice-ripper — which is still way tamer than any of U.S. cable`s late-night erotic series, or for that matter Mira Nair`s 1996 ``Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love`` — proved a surprise hit in India. So, of course, other producers will now be inspired to tilt at the censors and go racy. But they`ll be fighting a silly, endearing prohibition that has held fairly firm for most of a century.
3. Virtually every Bollywood film is a musical. Why do the characters have to sing and dance?
A few possibilities are suggested. Song and dance are an integral part of Indian dramatic tradition — in Sanskrit, drama and dance are the same word. The first Indian sound film, ``Alam Ara,`` boasted 20 songs, and when it became a hit other producers (all other producers) made musicals too. ``Into the new medium came a river of music,`` write Erik Barnouw and S. Krishnaswamy in ``Indian Film,`` their seminal history book, ``that had flowed through unbroken millennia of dramatic tradition.``
Indian talkies started as musicals and stayed that way. The first songless film, J.B.H. Wadia`s ``Naujawan,`` was released in 1937, after some 500 sound films in Hindi and another couple hundred in Tamil, Bengali, Telugu and Marathi. Soon producers discovered another reason to keep singing: the numbers from a movie, and later the soundtrack album, would be released weeks or months in advance, become hits and help sell the movie, as well as contributing crucially to the film`s profitability. Today, the river of music is a major revenue stream
Still... big production numbers in every thriller, every romantic melodrama, every socially uplifting tale of the downtrodden? I here except art films, from ``Pather Panchali`` to ``Bandit Queen.`` Indeed, the major difference in India between popular and ``artistic`` movies is that one sings, the other doesn`t
Mind you, I`m not complaining. For non-Indian movie lovers who miss the vanished buoyancy of old musicals, the formal strategies that allow a hero like Shahrukh Khan in Mani Rathnam`s 1998 ``Dil Se`` to switch instantly from moping about a lost love to mouthing the Rahman-Gulzar Sufi chant ``Chaiyya Chaiyya,`` while dancing like a spasmic Stallone with dozens of chorines atop a train speeding to a rendezvous with a gorgeous terrorist, are among the giddiest pleasures of going Bollywood. That`s partly because ``Chaiyya Chaiyya`` is my absolute favorite song of the past few years. And to reader Jenny Ketcham, who wondered which version I preferred — the film original or the one used in the West End musical ``Bombay Dreams`` — my answer is b. It`s tighter, bolder, more expertly sung. (You can download the original at A R Rahman Music Central.)
But just because I love the trope of movie people singing at wildly inappropriate dramatic moments doesn`t mean I can defend or explain it.
4. The movies are musicals, but the actors don`t sing; they lip-synch to songs previously recorded by playback singers. How come?
Once upon a time, in early talkies, all sound was ``live``; actors like K.L. Saigal, in films like ``Street Singer,`` had to speak their lines, sing their lyrics, and the match of voice and face made them stars. When the playback technique was developed, it gave producers the option of having on-screen actors mime tunes that had been recorded by vocalists in a studio. This happened occasionally in Hollywood — Lauren Bacall`s singing voice in ``To Have and Have Not`` was supposedly provided by the young Andy Williams! — but the only well-known playback singer was Marni Nixon, who sang for Margaret O`Brien in ``The Secret Garden,`` Deborah Kerr in ``The King and I,`` Natalie Wood in ``West Side Story`` and Audrey Hepburn in ``My Fair Lady.``
In Indian films, the dubbing practice become the norm. Few stars in the last half-century — Kishore Kumar was one — did their own singing. (In ``Jism,`` the male lead had not just his singing but his speaking voice dubbed.) But I don`t understand why stars don`t sing. And while I`m at it, why are there so many actors, so few singers? All-time playback diva Lata Mangeshkar, who sang for Nargis in the late-40s classics ``Andaz`` and ``Barsaat`` and kept going through ``Dil Se`` and ``Lagaan,`` has recorded something between 30,000 and 50,000 songs; any way you add and divide, that`s thousands of movies. Her sister Asha Bhosle was pretty prolific herself, as was the top male singer Mohammad Rafi.
These singers could vary their tone and delivery to suit different actors, but their own star status required them to be recognizably themselves. And their influence was so seismic that their vocal timbre — Lata`s trilly soprano and Rafi`s clear tenor — could make or break careers. Amitabh Bachchan, the Hindi megastar who was voted Actor of the Millennium in a BBC News Poll (way to stuff that ballot box, Bollywood fans!), had trouble getting jobs early in his career because his voice was thought to be too deep and surly: who could sing for him? Plenty, it turned out, including Rafi. And, on a few occasions, Amitabh himself.
Still, the playback practice dominates. Why? In a land of a billion people, there must be some actors who can sing as well as they dance. Which, come to think of it, raises the indelicate question:
5. Why can`t they dance?
I could be arrested for exposing my cultural ignorance here, but here goes. The production numbers in Bollywood musicals are as extravagant as a Busby Berkeley wet dream, yet the dancing skills of the performers seem rudimentary by Western standards. In the last 15 years, the MTV mode of quick cutting has hidden some of the physical gaucheries, but it can`t give them graces they don`t possess.
The men`s movements especially look raw: vigorous but clumsy. With their jacket sleeves rolled up and their fists rhymically pounding imaginary doors, they display the stolid athleticism of a 70s steelworker unexpectedly teleported from the health club to the Studio 54 dance floor. Gene Kelly, George Chakiris, Donald O`Connor, John Travolta for Pete`s sake: these dancers had astonishing athletic skills too, plus a lot more finesse in revealing personality — a man`s subtle joys and profound chagrins — through dance. They also had lots more moves.
Indian actresses, at least, get to express themselves in dance; their supple bodies speak ancient semaphore, a kinetic language developed over centuries of pleasing God and man in temples, palaces and bordellos. No Indian actor has, to my knowledge, become a star mainly on his dancing skill, but actresses have. Madhuri Dixit, barely 21 when she made ``Teezab`` and ``Dayavan`` in 1988, exuded a Madonna-ish sensuality in dance numbers that became instantly notorious. ``A star is porn,`` one critic said. Anyway, a star was born, and Madhuri danced flamenco on men`s libidos for the next decade. Similarly, Urmila Matondkar, a movie moppet from the age of six, grew up fast in the 1995 ``Rangeela`` (she`d just turned 22) with a series of pert, vigorous, taunting dances. Urmila is still at the top; she gets scared witless in this year`s ghostly thriller ``Bhoot`` — a movie, incidentally, with no songs or dance numbers. (Maybe that`s why its running time is under two hours.)
I showed my dance-savvy wife Amitabh`s ``Shava Shava`` number from the 2001 blockbuster ``Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham``: goofy and elaborate, with Amitabh switching in a wink from patriarchal elegance to jerking his body like a deranged marionette as 112 partygoers cavort around him. I`d hoped Mary would be beguiled. Instead, she remarked that the choreography was ``sub-West End.`` Ouch: the ultimate insult, as anyone who has seen Brits try to match the muscular precision and ease of Broadway terpers will realize.
We could both be wrong. Indian choreographers and actor-dancers could be working in some gestural code we don`t understand. They could have seen Astaire and Rogers and rejected a dance style we find sublime. In the Indian tradition, their form of dance could be tripping the light fantastic above ours, not clodhopping beneath. But Indian film imitated and transformed virtually every other aspect of Hollywood movies. Why wouldn`t they dance the way Astaire or Travolta did, except that they couldn`t?
6. Another touchy question: Why are the actors usually light-skinned, even in films from Southern India?
A billion people of all shapes and shades: you`d think some of the darker beautiful ones would have become stars. Not that I`ve noticed — though it took me a while to realize they are worth looking for. The melancholy fact is that in countries with lighter and darker citizens, the light ones dominate movies. It happened in Italy, Mexico, Hong Kong. In the U.S., when black actors were forbidden to be in most Hollywood films, and libeled as shiftless or scheming when they were in films, the one prominent African-American director, Oscar Micheaux, notoriously favored light-skinned blacks. What I wrote last year about Micheaux`s movies may be true of many films from many countries: if they`re not racist, they`re certainly shade-ist. Indian films would be even more glorious if they displayed the rainbow of handsome, powerful talent available.
If I`m sadly benighted on this subject, please enlighten me.
7. What`s with those kooky credits?
To study movie credits is to learn much about an industry`s inner workings and, sometimes, that of the larger society. The opening credits on Indian films differ in many instructive ways from those on Hollywood pictures of the same period.
Start with the studio logo. For the past 80 years, most Hollywood movies have came out of six to eight large studios, and their logos — the Paramount mountain, Warner Bros. shield, the MGM lion — are icons known worldwide. Indian film production is much less concentrated. In the Golden Age, producer-directors released films through their own companies, and some of the top auteurs had their own logos. Mehboob Khan`s films (``Andaz,`` ``Mother Earth``) began with the image of a hammer-and-sickle monument — odd, since Mehboob wasn`t Communist — logo and a voice intoning an Urdu saying, which can be loosely translated as ``Don`t let the bastards grind you down; God will do that for you.`` Raj Kapoor`s films (``Awaara,`` ``Shri 420``) would open on a shot of the star-director seated in prayer, swathed in incense, which dissolved to the R.K. Films logo: a silhouette of Raj holding a fainting Nargis.
In one way, Bollywood`s credits are like Hollywood`s: they`re in English and, usually, only English. (Question: If only two to three percent of Indians read English, how does the other 97% know who`s in the movie, and who made it?) Yet the film titles are usually untranslated. ``Awaara`` is known as ``Awaara,`` not ``The Vagabond`` or ``The Rogue,`` in the English-speaking world. ``Do Bigha Zameen`` is easily translated as ``Two Acres of Land,`` and the all-star 2001 hit ``Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham`` as ``Sometimes Happy, Sometimes Sad,`` but no one in the West calls them by their English titles. Then again, it`s so much more fun to say ``Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham`` — or, in current shorthand, ``KKKG.``
Hollywood films of the 30s would name perhaps a dozen actors and a few craftspeople — director, writer, cinematographer, music director, maybe art director. (Today, of course, the end credits of big films may cite 500 or more contributors; every chauffeur and caterer gets to see his name on the crawl.) Golden Age Hindi films listed many more names and crafts. First would come the star actors, often listed in order not of their star power or importance in the film, but by age. In ``Awaara,`` Prithviraj Kapoor (Raj`s father) gets top billing over his son and Nargis; ``KKKG`` toplines veteran star Amitabh Bachchan over current idol Shahkrukh Khan. Indians, or Indian credit-deciders, must respect their elders.
Even in the 50s the list of actors ran to 20 or more, some with mono-monikers that sound goofy to a Western ear: Cuckoo, Nimmi, Dyke, just to name three players in movies by ... Mehboob. (Don`t forget Johnny Walker, the comic whose name was taken from a bottle of scotch, and which was often spelled ``Johny.``) Then another 40 names, or upwards of that, from every craft: the playback singers (often listed simply as Lata, Asha and Rafi), the sound engineer on the set and the one in the recording studio, the people who did the publicity and took the on-the-set photos, plus a dozen assistants. Some credits are mysterious, tantalizing: in ``Awaara,`` Kapoor gives the large credit just before his own to ``A Friend.``
8. A lot of Bollywood movies bear a suspicious resemblance to earlier Hollywood movies. What`s the Hindi word for ``plagiarism``?
In the East, I guess, it`s called hommage. Hong Kong frequently swiped whole plots from distant climes — e.g., ``Black Cat,`` filched from ``Nikita.`` In India, the purloining is bolder and balder. As one thieving filmmaker rationalizes In ``Bombay Dreams``: ``Copyright means the right to copy.``
Sometimes just one element is used: Guru Dutt`s ``Pyaasa`` borrowed the twist from ``Sullivan`s Travels`` where the hero gives his coat to a derelict who is then killed by a train and mistaken for the hero. But sometimes a whole Hollywood movie is Bollywized. A half-dozen Hindi films, from Raj Kapoor-Nargis ``Chori Chori`` (1956) to the Aamir Khan-Pooja Bhatt ``Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin`` (1991), are uncredited, unpaid-for remakes of the 30s Oscar-winner ``It Happened One Night,`` right down to the rich girl`s jumping from her yacht into the water and the poor guy`s attempt to thumb a ride. Recent thefts include ``Raaz`` (``What Lies Beneath``) and ``Jism`` (``Double Indemnity`` and ``Body Heat``). Strangest cine-larceny: the 6th episode of Krzysztof Kieslowski`s Polish TV series ``Decalog,`` which he expanded into the minor art-house hit ``A Short Film, About Love,`` and which last year became the sexy-ish Manisha Koirala thriller ``Ek Chhotisi Love Story.``
There are many such unacknowledged adaptations. Readers are encouraged to list a few famous films I haven`t mentioned, and to explain how the world`s largest movie industry (Bollywood) gets to steal so regularly and blithely from the world`s most popular one (Hollywood).
9. Throughout the 90s, India produced something like 1,000 movies a year, with ``only`` about 200 coming from Mumbai / Bombay / Bollywood. What about the other 800?
India has traditionally been a country of regional film sites, with each state producing films in its own language for its own audiences. In the 1970s, the polyglot production pulse raced, with feature films in 18 different languages. By the end of that decade, an average of 100+ movies were being made in each of four languages: Hindi (Bombay), Telugu (Andra Pradesh), Tamil (Madras) and Malayalam (in the southwestern state of Kerala). Indeed, in 1978 and 1979, there were more films produced in each of the other languages than in Hindi.
Today, each film region has picked up its own nickname. The Telugu industry is known as Tollywood. With the T-word having been taken, Tamil film folk called their industry Kollywood. (Shouldn`t it be Tamalewood?) The Malayalam film center is called Mollywood; I`d prefer Keraliwood. I guess Bengali films — Calcutta — must be made in Bengaliwood. I`m not sure what the adjective is for the movie biz in Kannada, a region that produces more feature films per year than Canada. Canadian?
I`d like to see this fun formation spread to other countries. Poland would be Pollywood, Japan Jollywood, Finland Follywood, Mexico Mexicaliwood. West Africa could have a production center called Somaliwood. The South Pacific needs a film industry: Baliwood? Germans moviemakers could hum Wagner on the soundstages of Valhalliwood. In rainy England, film workers could take their umbrellas to Brollywood. And Israeli picture people would munch on a bagel in Bialywood. (OK. Back to work.)
Alas, India`s regional film industries are faltering. Tamil-film output has dropped by more 70%, from 150 to 43 (though Rathnam, the top Madras director, continues to make his movies there). In the same period, Telugu-language film production is down 50% in 20 years, from 152 to 65-70. The culprit is cultural centralization. Moviegoers and movie renters in every part of India now lap up both the Bombay-made product, usually dubbed from Hindi into the local language, and the American films that have long dominated the world box office and have recently made crucial inroads on the subcontinent. It`s a trend not unique to movies: the big get bigger, the small get bit. So once-flourishing regional art-industries surrender to Hindi and U.S. juggernauts: the two major Ollywoods.
10. I hear the voice of the Bollywood novice: ``OK, you`ve browbeaten us into a mild interest in Indian film. So where can I get them?``
Chances are, if you live in a city or near one, in the U.S. or Western Europe, there`s a Little India near you. Follow the curry scent and ask a local where the video store is. Come prepared with a list of films, from IMDb or Upperstall.com. The movies will be offered, as at any video store, in DVD and VHS, for sale or rental. Chat up the clerks; they`re usually helpful, and chances are they speak EDnglish as well as you do.
If you`re stranded, or shy, try the Internet. Yash Raj Films owns some of the classic films, often with beguiling extras: a homemade documentary on Raj Kapoor that accompanies the discs on ``Barsaat`` and ``Shri 420,`` and, on the ``Aar-Paar`` and ``Khagaz ke Phool`` discs, an impressive Channel 4 docu on Guru Dutt (by Nasreen Munni Kabir, who expanded the three-part show into the excellent book ``Guru Dutt: A Life in Cinema``).
Netflix.com, the rent-by-mail online service, has about 400 Indian titles, mostly of recent vintage. A bit less than half of the films I`ve mentioned here are available there, but not some of the prime ones: ``Aware,`` ``Do Bigha Zameen,`` ``Mother Earth,`` ``Jism`` (gotcha!). Your subscription price depends on how many films you have out at a time, from $13.95 for two films to $39.95 for eight. IndoFilms.com has a much more comprehensive library — 2,500 titles in eight languages — including most of the older films I`ve mentioned. ``The Hindi collection,`` says a press release, ``ranges from 1940s films such as ‘Devdas` with Dilip Kumar to the present day ‘Devdas` with Shah Rukh Khan.`` Never mind that the Dilip ``Devdas`` came out in 1955; try IndoFilms. You sign up to get two DVDs a month for $14.95, four a month for $24.95.
I hope I haven`t numbed those new to Bollywood, or shocked the savants. Some of you surely know the answers to these ten FAQs. And if you want to aid me in our next endeavor — the Bollywood Ten, a column of lists — try these topics:
1. Top composers in Indian film history.
2. Top poet-lyricists.
3. Bollywood`s best songs.
4. Top Indian cinema pioneers.
5. Most prominent actor-politicians.
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 21, 2003 03:24 pm
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/corliss/article/0,9565,471885,00.htmlBollywood FAQs
Richard Corliss is back, with questions about his favorite new national cinema. You provide the answers
Wednesday, Jul. 30, 2003
Where have I been all these weeks? Forty days ago, in my last column, I self-diagnosed my Bollywood fever — the addiction for Indian popular cinema that smote me a year ago — and promised another column or two in succeeding weeks. Then, like a levitating snake at the climax of a fakir`s performance, I disappeared. My army of constant readers e-mailed me to ask whether my next Bollywood column had been lost in cyberspace. Both of you deserve an explanation.
To quell the rumors... Perhaps I was fully occupied with my day job: writing for TIME not-com. (I did have a few assignments for the magazine, but I try not to let ephemera get in the way of my vocation.) Perhaps the fever had again abated, and my Hindiscretion cooled to Hindifference? (Not a chance.) Perhaps I had developed Indian reservations. (No way, and enough with the egregious puns.) Perhaps I thought there was nothing more to say on the subject. (Au contraire: too much.) Perhaps I went on holiday. (Yes, and I try not to let my vacation get in the way of my vocation, either. I took tapes of a dozen Indian films with me, and pored over Bollywood history books in the Massachusetts and upstate New York sun. On the way, I made a convert. I played the CD of A R Rahman`s West End show ``Bombay Dreams`` for my brother-in-law, George Horn, who was so beguiled by the music that he played it even while I wasn`t with him. At the end of our trek, I gave him my spare copy of the CD.)
Cramming for a nostalgia column: the idea is preposterous. The memories are supposed to well up and spill through my typing fingers. But sometimes what`s an old feeling for others — in the case of Bollywood, a billion others — is new, and news, to me. I can think of three such cinematic revelations in the past 15 years: when the TNT channel, and later TCM, opened the vaults of those sassy antiques, the Warner Bros. films of the early 30s; when I went kung-flooey for Hong Kong movies; and now, with the masala movies of Bombay and sometimes Madras. You see the connections. All three cinemas are marked by vigor, visual ingenuity, signposts to a land so remote and exotic it is measured in decades, or ten time zones. These are territories I can explore for years, yet not exhaust their riches.
As for Indian pop cinema, I`ve stepped inside and, like Alice, am falling into a weird, magical world. Ask me today to name ten great international filmmakers, and the list would have to include Guru Dutt — the supersensitive actor-producer-director whose ``Pyaasa`` (``The Thirsty One,`` 1957) and ``Kaagaz Ke Phool`` (Paper Flowers,`` 1959) are rhapsodic expressions of a poet`s dreamy isolation. Ask what`s the best film I`ve seen this summer, and I might reply ``Awaara`` (1951), Raj Kapoor`s volcanic parable of righteous paternal mistrust, with one of the all-time sadistic-sexiest beach scenes and a dream sequence that starts in delirium and revs up to delicious. Ask what actress has my heart at the moment, and I`d confess, without guilt or irony, Waheeda Rehman, the whore-muse in ``Pyaasa`` and Dev Anand`s radiant, misunderstood companion in ``C.I.D.`` (1956) and ``Guide`` (1965).
I traveled the length of Indian cinema — from the 1935 ``Devdas`` to the latest films — though not the breadth; there`s still so much to discover. So where have I been? I`ve gone Bollywood. And I haven`t come back. This is a message from deep inside the fever.
This time, let`s address ten Bollywood FAQs. Frequently Asked by me, that is. I don`t know the answers to all these questions. Some Hindi-film adepts, including author-screenwriter Suketu Mehta and Internet Movie Database staffer Michel Hafner have offered help. I`d also like to hear from readers. At the end I`ll give you some lists to be explored in the next column (soon). You`re the experts.
1. I love Bollywood movies, but why are they sooooooooooooo looooong?
I fell into this Bollywood trap, you may recall, when I lightly mocked the Oscar-nominated Indian film ``Lagaan`` as a four-hour film about cricket. That Aamir Khan blockbuster is longer than most Indian movies, but not much longer. Pictures starring top-guy Shahrukh Khan, supersmashes like ``Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham`` and ``Mohabbatein,`` typically have a running time (or lightly sauntering time) of three to 3-1/2 hours. In the 50s — to me, India`s Golden Age — the big movies ran between 135 and 180 mins., an hour longer than most American films of that day. And the hits just keep gettin` longer. Are Indians length freaks?
The way I heard it, Indian dramas have always been lengthy. Even a Western version of an Indian myth, Peter Brook`s ``The Mahabaratha,`` ran eight hours on stage and nearly 5-1/2 hours when filmed. When Indians go out for an evening`s entertainment, by Vishnu, they want an evening`s entertainment — in scope as well as in length. They want the full, three-generation saga, the life story, with full-throttle melodrama and comic relief, with fights and beautiful sets and aching, soulful stares. And of course with songs.
2. Why don`t the characters kiss on the mouth?
OK, sometimes they do. In the 1933 ``Karma,`` Devika Rani and Himansu Rai shared a long full-mouth kiss, with the woman on top. But these are rare exceptions. The typical Bollywood sex or love scene has, for 70 years, been nothing but a lip-tease: either an urgent hug that one might give Mom or a series of prissy kisses on the face, strategically missing the lips — to quote the title of the latest Mani Rathnam film, ``A Peck on the Cheek.`` (In Rathnam`s 1995 ``Bombay,`` Hindi hero Arvind Swamy tells his Muslim beloved Manisha Koirala, ``The quicker we marry, the sooner I kiss you.``)
The ever-helpful bollywhat.com website, which has the answers to many other Indi-movie FAQs, offers this reason for osculatory obfuscation: ``Ideas of morality differ widely from group to group. Why include a kiss when you can easily leave it out and avoid the risk of offending customers?`` Granted that Indian movies are shown in Muslim countries with stricter social standards, but since a film is often released in different versions at different lengths, why not permit the occasional lip-lock? It is the visual metaphor for passion the world over.
In this year`s semi-steamy ``Jism`` (that`s right, American readers, and the word means the same in Hindi), supermodels Bipashu Basu and John Abraham finally smooch up a storm an hour-and-a-quarter into the film. This low-budget bodice-ripper — which is still way tamer than any of U.S. cable`s late-night erotic series, or for that matter Mira Nair`s 1996 ``Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love`` — proved a surprise hit in India. So, of course, other producers will now be inspired to tilt at the censors and go racy. But they`ll be fighting a silly, endearing prohibition that has held fairly firm for most of a century.
3. Virtually every Bollywood film is a musical. Why do the characters have to sing and dance?
A few possibilities are suggested. Song and dance are an integral part of Indian dramatic tradition — in Sanskrit, drama and dance are the same word. The first Indian sound film, ``Alam Ara,`` boasted 20 songs, and when it became a hit other producers (all other producers) made musicals too. ``Into the new medium came a river of music,`` write Erik Barnouw and S. Krishnaswamy in ``Indian Film,`` their seminal history book, ``that had flowed through unbroken millennia of dramatic tradition.``
Indian talkies started as musicals and stayed that way. The first songless film, J.B.H. Wadia`s ``Naujawan,`` was released in 1937, after some 500 sound films in Hindi and another couple hundred in Tamil, Bengali, Telugu and Marathi. Soon producers discovered another reason to keep singing: the numbers from a movie, and later the soundtrack album, would be released weeks or months in advance, become hits and help sell the movie, as well as contributing crucially to the film`s profitability. Today, the river of music is a major revenue stream
Still... big production numbers in every thriller, every romantic melodrama, every socially uplifting tale of the downtrodden? I here except art films, from ``Pather Panchali`` to ``Bandit Queen.`` Indeed, the major difference in India between popular and ``artistic`` movies is that one sings, the other doesn`t
Mind you, I`m not complaining. For non-Indian movie lovers who miss the vanished buoyancy of old musicals, the formal strategies that allow a hero like Shahrukh Khan in Mani Rathnam`s 1998 ``Dil Se`` to switch instantly from moping about a lost love to mouthing the Rahman-Gulzar Sufi chant ``Chaiyya Chaiyya,`` while dancing like a spasmic Stallone with dozens of chorines atop a train speeding to a rendezvous with a gorgeous terrorist, are among the giddiest pleasures of going Bollywood. That`s partly because ``Chaiyya Chaiyya`` is my absolute favorite song of the past few years. And to reader Jenny Ketcham, who wondered which version I preferred — the film original or the one used in the West End musical ``Bombay Dreams`` — my answer is b. It`s tighter, bolder, more expertly sung. (You can download the original at A R Rahman Music Central.)
But just because I love the trope of movie people singing at wildly inappropriate dramatic moments doesn`t mean I can defend or explain it.
4. The movies are musicals, but the actors don`t sing; they lip-synch to songs previously recorded by playback singers. How come?
Once upon a time, in early talkies, all sound was ``live``; actors like K.L. Saigal, in films like ``Street Singer,`` had to speak their lines, sing their lyrics, and the match of voice and face made them stars. When the playback technique was developed, it gave producers the option of having on-screen actors mime tunes that had been recorded by vocalists in a studio. This happened occasionally in Hollywood — Lauren Bacall`s singing voice in ``To Have and Have Not`` was supposedly provided by the young Andy Williams! — but the only well-known playback singer was Marni Nixon, who sang for Margaret O`Brien in ``The Secret Garden,`` Deborah Kerr in ``The King and I,`` Natalie Wood in ``West Side Story`` and Audrey Hepburn in ``My Fair Lady.``
In Indian films, the dubbing practice become the norm. Few stars in the last half-century — Kishore Kumar was one — did their own singing. (In ``Jism,`` the male lead had not just his singing but his speaking voice dubbed.) But I don`t understand why stars don`t sing. And while I`m at it, why are there so many actors, so few singers? All-time playback diva Lata Mangeshkar, who sang for Nargis in the late-40s classics ``Andaz`` and ``Barsaat`` and kept going through ``Dil Se`` and ``Lagaan,`` has recorded something between 30,000 and 50,000 songs; any way you add and divide, that`s thousands of movies. Her sister Asha Bhosle was pretty prolific herself, as was the top male singer Mohammad Rafi.
These singers could vary their tone and delivery to suit different actors, but their own star status required them to be recognizably themselves. And their influence was so seismic that their vocal timbre — Lata`s trilly soprano and Rafi`s clear tenor — could make or break careers. Amitabh Bachchan, the Hindi megastar who was voted Actor of the Millennium in a BBC News Poll (way to stuff that ballot box, Bollywood fans!), had trouble getting jobs early in his career because his voice was thought to be too deep and surly: who could sing for him? Plenty, it turned out, including Rafi. And, on a few occasions, Amitabh himself.
Still, the playback practice dominates. Why? In a land of a billion people, there must be some actors who can sing as well as they dance. Which, come to think of it, raises the indelicate question:
5. Why can`t they dance?
I could be arrested for exposing my cultural ignorance here, but here goes. The production numbers in Bollywood musicals are as extravagant as a Busby Berkeley wet dream, yet the dancing skills of the performers seem rudimentary by Western standards. In the last 15 years, the MTV mode of quick cutting has hidden some of the physical gaucheries, but it can`t give them graces they don`t possess.
The men`s movements especially look raw: vigorous but clumsy. With their jacket sleeves rolled up and their fists rhymically pounding imaginary doors, they display the stolid athleticism of a 70s steelworker unexpectedly teleported from the health club to the Studio 54 dance floor. Gene Kelly, George Chakiris, Donald O`Connor, John Travolta for Pete`s sake: these dancers had astonishing athletic skills too, plus a lot more finesse in revealing personality — a man`s subtle joys and profound chagrins — through dance. They also had lots more moves.
Indian actresses, at least, get to express themselves in dance; their supple bodies speak ancient semaphore, a kinetic language developed over centuries of pleasing God and man in temples, palaces and bordellos. No Indian actor has, to my knowledge, become a star mainly on his dancing skill, but actresses have. Madhuri Dixit, barely 21 when she made ``Teezab`` and ``Dayavan`` in 1988, exuded a Madonna-ish sensuality in dance numbers that became instantly notorious. ``A star is porn,`` one critic said. Anyway, a star was born, and Madhuri danced flamenco on men`s libidos for the next decade. Similarly, Urmila Matondkar, a movie moppet from the age of six, grew up fast in the 1995 ``Rangeela`` (she`d just turned 22) with a series of pert, vigorous, taunting dances. Urmila is still at the top; she gets scared witless in this year`s ghostly thriller ``Bhoot`` — a movie, incidentally, with no songs or dance numbers. (Maybe that`s why its running time is under two hours.)
I showed my dance-savvy wife Amitabh`s ``Shava Shava`` number from the 2001 blockbuster ``Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham``: goofy and elaborate, with Amitabh switching in a wink from patriarchal elegance to jerking his body like a deranged marionette as 112 partygoers cavort around him. I`d hoped Mary would be beguiled. Instead, she remarked that the choreography was ``sub-West End.`` Ouch: the ultimate insult, as anyone who has seen Brits try to match the muscular precision and ease of Broadway terpers will realize.
We could both be wrong. Indian choreographers and actor-dancers could be working in some gestural code we don`t understand. They could have seen Astaire and Rogers and rejected a dance style we find sublime. In the Indian tradition, their form of dance could be tripping the light fantastic above ours, not clodhopping beneath. But Indian film imitated and transformed virtually every other aspect of Hollywood movies. Why wouldn`t they dance the way Astaire or Travolta did, except that they couldn`t?
6. Another touchy question: Why are the actors usually light-skinned, even in films from Southern India?
A billion people of all shapes and shades: you`d think some of the darker beautiful ones would have become stars. Not that I`ve noticed — though it took me a while to realize they are worth looking for. The melancholy fact is that in countries with lighter and darker citizens, the light ones dominate movies. It happened in Italy, Mexico, Hong Kong. In the U.S., when black actors were forbidden to be in most Hollywood films, and libeled as shiftless or scheming when they were in films, the one prominent African-American director, Oscar Micheaux, notoriously favored light-skinned blacks. What I wrote last year about Micheaux`s movies may be true of many films from many countries: if they`re not racist, they`re certainly shade-ist. Indian films would be even more glorious if they displayed the rainbow of handsome, powerful talent available.
If I`m sadly benighted on this subject, please enlighten me.
7. What`s with those kooky credits?
To study movie credits is to learn much about an industry`s inner workings and, sometimes, that of the larger society. The opening credits on Indian films differ in many instructive ways from those on Hollywood pictures of the same period.
Start with the studio logo. For the past 80 years, most Hollywood movies have came out of six to eight large studios, and their logos — the Paramount mountain, Warner Bros. shield, the MGM lion — are icons known worldwide. Indian film production is much less concentrated. In the Golden Age, producer-directors released films through their own companies, and some of the top auteurs had their own logos. Mehboob Khan`s films (``Andaz,`` ``Mother Earth``) began with the image of a hammer-and-sickle monument — odd, since Mehboob wasn`t Communist — logo and a voice intoning an Urdu saying, which can be loosely translated as ``Don`t let the bastards grind you down; God will do that for you.`` Raj Kapoor`s films (``Awaara,`` ``Shri 420``) would open on a shot of the star-director seated in prayer, swathed in incense, which dissolved to the R.K. Films logo: a silhouette of Raj holding a fainting Nargis.
In one way, Bollywood`s credits are like Hollywood`s: they`re in English and, usually, only English. (Question: If only two to three percent of Indians read English, how does the other 97% know who`s in the movie, and who made it?) Yet the film titles are usually untranslated. ``Awaara`` is known as ``Awaara,`` not ``The Vagabond`` or ``The Rogue,`` in the English-speaking world. ``Do Bigha Zameen`` is easily translated as ``Two Acres of Land,`` and the all-star 2001 hit ``Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham`` as ``Sometimes Happy, Sometimes Sad,`` but no one in the West calls them by their English titles. Then again, it`s so much more fun to say ``Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham`` — or, in current shorthand, ``KKKG.``
Hollywood films of the 30s would name perhaps a dozen actors and a few craftspeople — director, writer, cinematographer, music director, maybe art director. (Today, of course, the end credits of big films may cite 500 or more contributors; every chauffeur and caterer gets to see his name on the crawl.) Golden Age Hindi films listed many more names and crafts. First would come the star actors, often listed in order not of their star power or importance in the film, but by age. In ``Awaara,`` Prithviraj Kapoor (Raj`s father) gets top billing over his son and Nargis; ``KKKG`` toplines veteran star Amitabh Bachchan over current idol Shahkrukh Khan. Indians, or Indian credit-deciders, must respect their elders.
Even in the 50s the list of actors ran to 20 or more, some with mono-monikers that sound goofy to a Western ear: Cuckoo, Nimmi, Dyke, just to name three players in movies by ... Mehboob. (Don`t forget Johnny Walker, the comic whose name was taken from a bottle of scotch, and which was often spelled ``Johny.``) Then another 40 names, or upwards of that, from every craft: the playback singers (often listed simply as Lata, Asha and Rafi), the sound engineer on the set and the one in the recording studio, the people who did the publicity and took the on-the-set photos, plus a dozen assistants. Some credits are mysterious, tantalizing: in ``Awaara,`` Kapoor gives the large credit just before his own to ``A Friend.``
8. A lot of Bollywood movies bear a suspicious resemblance to earlier Hollywood movies. What`s the Hindi word for ``plagiarism``?
In the East, I guess, it`s called hommage. Hong Kong frequently swiped whole plots from distant climes — e.g., ``Black Cat,`` filched from ``Nikita.`` In India, the purloining is bolder and balder. As one thieving filmmaker rationalizes In ``Bombay Dreams``: ``Copyright means the right to copy.``
Sometimes just one element is used: Guru Dutt`s ``Pyaasa`` borrowed the twist from ``Sullivan`s Travels`` where the hero gives his coat to a derelict who is then killed by a train and mistaken for the hero. But sometimes a whole Hollywood movie is Bollywized. A half-dozen Hindi films, from Raj Kapoor-Nargis ``Chori Chori`` (1956) to the Aamir Khan-Pooja Bhatt ``Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin`` (1991), are uncredited, unpaid-for remakes of the 30s Oscar-winner ``It Happened One Night,`` right down to the rich girl`s jumping from her yacht into the water and the poor guy`s attempt to thumb a ride. Recent thefts include ``Raaz`` (``What Lies Beneath``) and ``Jism`` (``Double Indemnity`` and ``Body Heat``). Strangest cine-larceny: the 6th episode of Krzysztof Kieslowski`s Polish TV series ``Decalog,`` which he expanded into the minor art-house hit ``A Short Film, About Love,`` and which last year became the sexy-ish Manisha Koirala thriller ``Ek Chhotisi Love Story.``
There are many such unacknowledged adaptations. Readers are encouraged to list a few famous films I haven`t mentioned, and to explain how the world`s largest movie industry (Bollywood) gets to steal so regularly and blithely from the world`s most popular one (Hollywood).
9. Throughout the 90s, India produced something like 1,000 movies a year, with ``only`` about 200 coming from Mumbai / Bombay / Bollywood. What about the other 800?
India has traditionally been a country of regional film sites, with each state producing films in its own language for its own audiences. In the 1970s, the polyglot production pulse raced, with feature films in 18 different languages. By the end of that decade, an average of 100+ movies were being made in each of four languages: Hindi (Bombay), Telugu (Andra Pradesh), Tamil (Madras) and Malayalam (in the southwestern state of Kerala). Indeed, in 1978 and 1979, there were more films produced in each of the other languages than in Hindi.
Today, each film region has picked up its own nickname. The Telugu industry is known as Tollywood. With the T-word having been taken, Tamil film folk called their industry Kollywood. (Shouldn`t it be Tamalewood?) The Malayalam film center is called Mollywood; I`d prefer Keraliwood. I guess Bengali films — Calcutta — must be made in Bengaliwood. I`m not sure what the adjective is for the movie biz in Kannada, a region that produces more feature films per year than Canada. Canadian?
I`d like to see this fun formation spread to other countries. Poland would be Pollywood, Japan Jollywood, Finland Follywood, Mexico Mexicaliwood. West Africa could have a production center called Somaliwood. The South Pacific needs a film industry: Baliwood? Germans moviemakers could hum Wagner on the soundstages of Valhalliwood. In rainy England, film workers could take their umbrellas to Brollywood. And Israeli picture people would munch on a bagel in Bialywood. (OK. Back to work.)
Alas, India`s regional film industries are faltering. Tamil-film output has dropped by more 70%, from 150 to 43 (though Rathnam, the top Madras director, continues to make his movies there). In the same period, Telugu-language film production is down 50% in 20 years, from 152 to 65-70. The culprit is cultural centralization. Moviegoers and movie renters in every part of India now lap up both the Bombay-made product, usually dubbed from Hindi into the local language, and the American films that have long dominated the world box office and have recently made crucial inroads on the subcontinent. It`s a trend not unique to movies: the big get bigger, the small get bit. So once-flourishing regional art-industries surrender to Hindi and U.S. juggernauts: the two major Ollywoods.
10. I hear the voice of the Bollywood novice: ``OK, you`ve browbeaten us into a mild interest in Indian film. So where can I get them?``
Chances are, if you live in a city or near one, in the U.S. or Western Europe, there`s a Little India near you. Follow the curry scent and ask a local where the video store is. Come prepared with a list of films, from IMDb or Upperstall.com. The movies will be offered, as at any video store, in DVD and VHS, for sale or rental. Chat up the clerks; they`re usually helpful, and chances are they speak EDnglish as well as you do.
If you`re stranded, or shy, try the Internet. Yash Raj Films owns some of the classic films, often with beguiling extras: a homemade documentary on Raj Kapoor that accompanies the discs on ``Barsaat`` and ``Shri 420,`` and, on the ``Aar-Paar`` and ``Khagaz ke Phool`` discs, an impressive Channel 4 docu on Guru Dutt (by Nasreen Munni Kabir, who expanded the three-part show into the excellent book ``Guru Dutt: A Life in Cinema``).
Netflix.com, the rent-by-mail online service, has about 400 Indian titles, mostly of recent vintage. A bit less than half of the films I`ve mentioned here are available there, but not some of the prime ones: ``Aware,`` ``Do Bigha Zameen,`` ``Mother Earth,`` ``Jism`` (gotcha!). Your subscription price depends on how many films you have out at a time, from $13.95 for two films to $39.95 for eight. IndoFilms.com has a much more comprehensive library — 2,500 titles in eight languages — including most of the older films I`ve mentioned. ``The Hindi collection,`` says a press release, ``ranges from 1940s films such as ‘Devdas` with Dilip Kumar to the present day ‘Devdas` with Shah Rukh Khan.`` Never mind that the Dilip ``Devdas`` came out in 1955; try IndoFilms. You sign up to get two DVDs a month for $14.95, four a month for $24.95.
I hope I haven`t numbed those new to Bollywood, or shocked the savants. Some of you surely know the answers to these ten FAQs. And if you want to aid me in our next endeavor — the Bollywood Ten, a column of lists — try these topics:
1. Top composers in Indian film history.
2. Top poet-lyricists.
3. Bollywood`s best songs.
4. Top Indian cinema pioneers.
5. Most prominent actor-politicians.
Build Bridges, Not Bombs
Said an Indian Muslim businessman with a Pakistani wife and a large branch of his family on our side of the border, ``There used to be a time when Pakistanis would visit their relatives in India and speak of the quality of life they enjoyed in Pakistan as first-class citizens. The Indian Muslim would then bemoan his lot, and wonder whether he`d taken the right decision at Partition. But over the years, things changed. Between the Middle East, India`s economic boom, their own initiative, the Muslims have done better. Then along come the `mohajirs` from Pakistan with their tales of oppression and injustice, and suddenly the Indian Muslim thinks, `we`re not so badly off after all.``` He added that Kashmir has created another problem for the Indian Muslim. ``Always hard-pressed to prove his loyalty to his country, every time the Kashmir issue flares up, the loyalties of Muslims in India come under suspicion. Recently, I heard a group of Indian Muslims discussing the situation, and one of them turned around and said the Pakistanis are not interested in Muslims – only Kashmir. If they were, they`d worry about what happens to the huge Muslim community in India every time they instigate trouble in Kashmir.``
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 20, 2003 09:10 am
``Traditionally, the Indian Muslim has displayed a visible arrogance towards the Hindu faith. He has mocked his deities, shunned his beliefs and adopted the high moral ground in relation to the Hindu lifestyle. If this is the Indian Muslim, who has coexisted with the Hindu forever, it is presumed, naturally, that the Muslim from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan will be far more intolerant. The arrival of seven Pakistanis for the Kumbh and their obvious respect for Hindu customs, has therefore, made for a pleasant surprise. And this really is how we can build bridges, gulf the divide.``Said an Indian Muslim businessman with a Pakistani wife and a large branch of his family on our side of the border, ``There used to be a time when Pakistanis would visit their relatives in India and speak of the quality of life they enjoyed in Pakistan as first-class citizens. The Indian Muslim would then bemoan his lot, and wonder whether he`d taken the right decision at Partition. But over the years, things changed. Between the Middle East, India`s economic boom, their own initiative, the Muslims have done better. Then along come the `mohajirs` from Pakistan with their tales of oppression and injustice, and suddenly the Indian Muslim thinks, `we`re not so badly off after all.``` He added that Kashmir has created another problem for the Indian Muslim. ``Always hard-pressed to prove his loyalty to his country, every time the Kashmir issue flares up, the loyalties of Muslims in India come under suspicion. Recently, I heard a group of Indian Muslims discussing the situation, and one of them turned around and said the Pakistanis are not interested in Muslims – only Kashmir. If they were, they`d worry about what happens to the huge Muslim community in India every time they instigate trouble in Kashmir.``
In Search of the Moderate Muslim
Said an Indian Muslim businessman with a Pakistani wife and a large branch of his family on our side of the border, ``There used to be a time when Pakistanis would visit their relatives in India and speak of the quality of life they enjoyed in Pakistan as first-class citizens. The Indian Muslim would then bemoan his lot, and wonder whether he`d taken the right decision at Partition. But over the years, things changed. Between the Middle East, India`s economic boom, their own initiative, the Muslims have done better. Then along come the `mohajirs` from Pakistan with their tales of oppression and injustice, and suddenly the Indian Muslim thinks, `we`re not so badly off after all.``` He added that Kashmir has created another problem for the Indian Muslim. ``Always hard-pressed to prove his loyalty to his country, every time the Kashmir issue flares up, the loyalties of Muslims in India come under suspicion. Recently, I heard a group of Indian Muslims discussing the situation, and one of them turned around and said the Pakistanis are not interested in Muslims – only Kashmir. If they were, they`d worry about what happens to the huge Muslim community in India every time they instigate trouble in Kashmir.``
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 20, 2003 09:10 am
``Traditionally, the Indian Muslim has displayed a visible arrogance towards the Hindu faith. He has mocked his deities, shunned his beliefs and adopted the high moral ground in relation to the Hindu lifestyle. If this is the Indian Muslim, who has coexisted with the Hindu forever, it is presumed, naturally, that the Muslim from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan will be far more intolerant. The arrival of seven Pakistanis for the Kumbh and their obvious respect for Hindu customs, has therefore, made for a pleasant surprise. And this really is how we can build bridges, gulf the divide.``Said an Indian Muslim businessman with a Pakistani wife and a large branch of his family on our side of the border, ``There used to be a time when Pakistanis would visit their relatives in India and speak of the quality of life they enjoyed in Pakistan as first-class citizens. The Indian Muslim would then bemoan his lot, and wonder whether he`d taken the right decision at Partition. But over the years, things changed. Between the Middle East, India`s economic boom, their own initiative, the Muslims have done better. Then along come the `mohajirs` from Pakistan with their tales of oppression and injustice, and suddenly the Indian Muslim thinks, `we`re not so badly off after all.``` He added that Kashmir has created another problem for the Indian Muslim. ``Always hard-pressed to prove his loyalty to his country, every time the Kashmir issue flares up, the loyalties of Muslims in India come under suspicion. Recently, I heard a group of Indian Muslims discussing the situation, and one of them turned around and said the Pakistanis are not interested in Muslims – only Kashmir. If they were, they`d worry about what happens to the huge Muslim community in India every time they instigate trouble in Kashmir.``
Interview with a Historian
Cover story
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
A state of war
BY TREVOR FISHLOCK
The dispute over Kashmir has brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war. But why has this beautiful state become the subcontinent`s powder keg?
Poets hymned it as a land of love and languor. In 1627 the dying emperor Jahangir, who shaped its blissful gardens, was asked to name his last desire. “Only Kashmir,” he murmured. “Only Kashmir.”
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, promised melodramatically that its name was written upon his heart. Today, millions make the same emotive claim.
Passions for Kashmir run hot and bitter, the bayonets almost touch and the urge for war is strong. Two rivals, two ideas, two faiths stand nose to nose in one of the world’s most dangerous places. One mistake or misjudgment and the spark falls on the fuse.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir. The great bulk of their armies are based along the frontier that runs through Punjab and Kashmir. The border is always tense.
In Kashmir there has been an almost permanent grumbling small war of artillery bombardment. Apart from the all-out conflicts, India and Pakistan have two or three times pulled back from the brink, and now the assessments of their military power have to include their nuclear capability. There was a particularly dangerous stand-off in 1990.
It was inevitable that the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13 would bring India and Pakistan once more to the edge of the abyss. It was an echo of the October suicide bomb attack on the Kashmir assembly. The Parliament in Delhi is the heart and emblem of what India stands for. Now India is raging.
Poor Kashmir. It lies in the Himalayan ramparts where the borders of India, Pakistan and China rub together. Reality mocks its beauty. There is no escaping the permeating melancholy of a land that lies under the gun. It is as if malevolent gods, jealous of its loveliness, placed a curse upon it.
The poison entered the garden in 1947 when the war-weary British quit their Indian empire and partitioned it. They had no wish to cut it up: one of their imperial achievements, they said, was to have united India and made it secure. They divided it to meet the demands of Muslim leaders who said that Hindus and Muslims could not live together in one country, that the communities formed two separate nations. Pakistan was therefore created as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims.
Britain ruled India with the co-operation of more than 500 Indian princes, a galaxy of maharajahs, rajahs, ranas, raos, khans, mirs, jams, nizams and nawabs, loyal to the British crown, well-oiled with flattery, some fantastically rich and a few of them barmy. In the summer of 1947, these rulers had to choose whether to take their states into India or Pakistan. It was a personal decision, without referendum.
Public opinion hardly came into it. Most princes joined India. Most knew that they would be extinguishing themselves as a ruling class, but it was clear to all but a few that the game was up. On the eve of independence, all the princes had made up their minds except four.
The Maharajah of Kashmir, Sir Hari Singh, was one of the ditherers. He was vain, pompous and addicted to hunting bears and shooting ducks. As a young man he had an unfortunate scrape in London, being found in bed with a woman at the Savoy Hotel and milked for a lot of money by a blackmailer pretending to be the woman’s husband.
At Partition, Kashmir, more fully known as Jammu and Kashmir, was in a key position: a prize because it was a large state and famously beautiful, a honeymooners’ resort of lakes and cool alpine meadows.
Given its place on the map, it could have swung either to India or to Pakistan. Because of its overwhelming Muslim majority, Pakistan’s new leaders expected that it would join their Islamic entity. But the maharajah had to decide — and he was a Hindu. This was not unusual. In princely India, Muslims often ruled Hindus and vice versa. But Hari Singh dithered. He could not believe that the British would really go home. He did not want to join Pakistan because he could not bear the thought of his state being subsumed. He dreamt that Kashmir could somehow be an independent country and he could keep his power.
India and Pakistan became independent in August. Hari Singh was still dithering in October. As he fiddled, the storm broke. Thousands of Pathan warriors from the North-West Frontier, bordering Afghanistan, rushed into Kashmir, vowing to seize it for Pakistan. Although they were a rabble, they might have succeeded. They were close to Srinagar, the capital, when they were delayed by their lust for loot and women. While they pillaged towns and raped girls and nuns, the hapless Hari Singh gathered up his diamonds and Purdey shotguns and fled his palace in a motorcade.
India acted fast and decisively. In a flurry of action the maharajah agreed to join India, and Indian forces flew to save Srinagar. This was the first Kashmir war, not an all-out confrontation but a series of fights and communal conflicts. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of Pakistan, wanted to send the new Pakistan regular Army into action, but did not do so when the absurdity of the situation was pointed out to him: the forces of India and Pakistan shared a commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, while many officers on both sides were British.
Kashmir was left divided along the line where fighting stopped in 1948. A United Nations ceasefire came into force on January 1, 1949. In 1965 Pakistan tried and failed to annexe Kashmir and was defeated in brief and bitter fighting. At one stage Indian forces were almost at the gates of Lahore and could easily have taken it. Pakistan’s leaders believed that Kashmiris would welcome Pakistani troops as liberators. It was a shock that they did not. In 1971 India and Pakistan went to war again, India assisting the secession of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. Pakistan was left truncated and humiliated.
Yet the story of a vacillating maharajah and the ensuing bloody quarrel over territory is only the half of it.
Kashmir is a tragedy for its divided people and a continuing source of danger in a subcontinent inhabited by a fifth of the world’s population. The tragedy has deep roots. Kashmir is the offspring of bitterly divorced parents. Pakistan aches for it but will never possess it. India will never let it go: it is not negotiable. The trouble is that both sides define themselves by this feud.
Their mutual suspicions date from the 8th-century Muslim conquest of western India and the many hundreds of years of Mogul rule that were brought to an end by the British Raj. For India’s Hindu majority, independence in 1947 was a reclamation of their vast land, the end of centuries of foreign domination. Nehru and others believed passionately that this new India would be a daring concept, an embracing of all its religious, linguistic and regional diversity, a magnificent secular state.
The steely and intractable Jinnah did not believe it. His new country of Pakistan grew out of that scepticism, the belief that Muslims in India would be vulnerable, second-class citizens.
Pakistan was an invented state, a by-product of the great Indian struggle for independence. It evolved in the last few years of British rule among people who wanted to escape religious and political discrimination in the new order. Landowners especially thought they would lose out in India. Democracy barely made the journey to Pakistan.
In a sense Pakistan remains stranded in 1947. Its great debate has centred for half a century on what it is for and what it should be. Jinnah mused that it could be a secular country. But in that case, what was the point of Partition? Some of his successors said that Pakistan was nothing if not Islamic and determined to make it more so, a military theocracy.
Yet Islam proved an unreliable glue. It did not cement Pakistan and East Pakistan. Bangladesh erupted as the assertion of Bengali language and culture. Nor did it cement the disparate parts of Pakistan itself — Punjab, Baluchistan, Sindh and the North- West Frontier — or, indeed, the many shades of Islamic belief. Thus Kashmir is useful, the “unfinished business of Partition”. However much Pakistanis disagree about the nature of their society, they find common cause in Kashmir, the belief that they were robbed in 1947. This is the unifying insult. It is why Pakistan has supported Kashmiri insurgents. India’s treatment of Kashmiris during the long years of internal strife are held as proof that Jinnah was right, that Muslims needed their homeland.
It is true that India could have managed Kashmir more wisely, less roughly. But Pakistan has to live with the fact that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. India has the second largest Muslim population in the world: evidently Hindus and Muslims do live together in a secular society, Nehru’s idea of India, even if it is not always easy. And Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim majority, is in Indian minds the shining fact of secular India. Its existence throws the question to Pakistan again: what was Partition for? India has a powerful idea of its identity. It is the giant of South Asia, its Armed Forces are huge and it is proud of its democracy, even if this is somewhat battered. Pakistan, on the other hand, does not enjoy such a positive identity. It thinks of itself in terms of its neighbour and endures the negative of being Not India.
It means that even if the impossible were to happen, that Kashmir should somehow become part of Pakistan, the anxieties and insecurities of Pakistan would endure. There would have to be another issue by which Pakistan could seek to establish its identity and purpose.
In the meantime the two nations face each other again — and judging from what we see and hear, there are many on both sides desperate to fight. Centuries of prejudice are poured into the funnel of Kashmir.
People on both sides treasure the slights of history. There is an endless misunderstanding of each other’s beliefs and opinions. Estrangement is total. Trivial matters become huge. Hindu nationalists complain that Muslims cheer for Pakistan during Test matches. In both India and Pakistan, keen teams of monitors comb through guide books and encyclopaedias searching for maps that might contain instances of “cartographic aggression” — inaccuracies that seem to favour one side or the other.
Words are traps, and there is a sense that a comma could cause a crisis. But the opinions of outsiders are not welcome. For this is a feud between cousins, a quarrel in the family. It could hardly be more acrid and perilous.
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 20, 2003 08:40 am
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 09 Cover story
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
A state of war
BY TREVOR FISHLOCK
The dispute over Kashmir has brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war. But why has this beautiful state become the subcontinent`s powder keg?
Poets hymned it as a land of love and languor. In 1627 the dying emperor Jahangir, who shaped its blissful gardens, was asked to name his last desire. “Only Kashmir,” he murmured. “Only Kashmir.”
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, promised melodramatically that its name was written upon his heart. Today, millions make the same emotive claim.
Passions for Kashmir run hot and bitter, the bayonets almost touch and the urge for war is strong. Two rivals, two ideas, two faiths stand nose to nose in one of the world’s most dangerous places. One mistake or misjudgment and the spark falls on the fuse.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir. The great bulk of their armies are based along the frontier that runs through Punjab and Kashmir. The border is always tense.
In Kashmir there has been an almost permanent grumbling small war of artillery bombardment. Apart from the all-out conflicts, India and Pakistan have two or three times pulled back from the brink, and now the assessments of their military power have to include their nuclear capability. There was a particularly dangerous stand-off in 1990.
It was inevitable that the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13 would bring India and Pakistan once more to the edge of the abyss. It was an echo of the October suicide bomb attack on the Kashmir assembly. The Parliament in Delhi is the heart and emblem of what India stands for. Now India is raging.
Poor Kashmir. It lies in the Himalayan ramparts where the borders of India, Pakistan and China rub together. Reality mocks its beauty. There is no escaping the permeating melancholy of a land that lies under the gun. It is as if malevolent gods, jealous of its loveliness, placed a curse upon it.
The poison entered the garden in 1947 when the war-weary British quit their Indian empire and partitioned it. They had no wish to cut it up: one of their imperial achievements, they said, was to have united India and made it secure. They divided it to meet the demands of Muslim leaders who said that Hindus and Muslims could not live together in one country, that the communities formed two separate nations. Pakistan was therefore created as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims.
Britain ruled India with the co-operation of more than 500 Indian princes, a galaxy of maharajahs, rajahs, ranas, raos, khans, mirs, jams, nizams and nawabs, loyal to the British crown, well-oiled with flattery, some fantastically rich and a few of them barmy. In the summer of 1947, these rulers had to choose whether to take their states into India or Pakistan. It was a personal decision, without referendum.
Public opinion hardly came into it. Most princes joined India. Most knew that they would be extinguishing themselves as a ruling class, but it was clear to all but a few that the game was up. On the eve of independence, all the princes had made up their minds except four.
The Maharajah of Kashmir, Sir Hari Singh, was one of the ditherers. He was vain, pompous and addicted to hunting bears and shooting ducks. As a young man he had an unfortunate scrape in London, being found in bed with a woman at the Savoy Hotel and milked for a lot of money by a blackmailer pretending to be the woman’s husband.
At Partition, Kashmir, more fully known as Jammu and Kashmir, was in a key position: a prize because it was a large state and famously beautiful, a honeymooners’ resort of lakes and cool alpine meadows.
Given its place on the map, it could have swung either to India or to Pakistan. Because of its overwhelming Muslim majority, Pakistan’s new leaders expected that it would join their Islamic entity. But the maharajah had to decide — and he was a Hindu. This was not unusual. In princely India, Muslims often ruled Hindus and vice versa. But Hari Singh dithered. He could not believe that the British would really go home. He did not want to join Pakistan because he could not bear the thought of his state being subsumed. He dreamt that Kashmir could somehow be an independent country and he could keep his power.
India and Pakistan became independent in August. Hari Singh was still dithering in October. As he fiddled, the storm broke. Thousands of Pathan warriors from the North-West Frontier, bordering Afghanistan, rushed into Kashmir, vowing to seize it for Pakistan. Although they were a rabble, they might have succeeded. They were close to Srinagar, the capital, when they were delayed by their lust for loot and women. While they pillaged towns and raped girls and nuns, the hapless Hari Singh gathered up his diamonds and Purdey shotguns and fled his palace in a motorcade.
India acted fast and decisively. In a flurry of action the maharajah agreed to join India, and Indian forces flew to save Srinagar. This was the first Kashmir war, not an all-out confrontation but a series of fights and communal conflicts. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of Pakistan, wanted to send the new Pakistan regular Army into action, but did not do so when the absurdity of the situation was pointed out to him: the forces of India and Pakistan shared a commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, while many officers on both sides were British.
Kashmir was left divided along the line where fighting stopped in 1948. A United Nations ceasefire came into force on January 1, 1949. In 1965 Pakistan tried and failed to annexe Kashmir and was defeated in brief and bitter fighting. At one stage Indian forces were almost at the gates of Lahore and could easily have taken it. Pakistan’s leaders believed that Kashmiris would welcome Pakistani troops as liberators. It was a shock that they did not. In 1971 India and Pakistan went to war again, India assisting the secession of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. Pakistan was left truncated and humiliated.
Yet the story of a vacillating maharajah and the ensuing bloody quarrel over territory is only the half of it.
Kashmir is a tragedy for its divided people and a continuing source of danger in a subcontinent inhabited by a fifth of the world’s population. The tragedy has deep roots. Kashmir is the offspring of bitterly divorced parents. Pakistan aches for it but will never possess it. India will never let it go: it is not negotiable. The trouble is that both sides define themselves by this feud.
Their mutual suspicions date from the 8th-century Muslim conquest of western India and the many hundreds of years of Mogul rule that were brought to an end by the British Raj. For India’s Hindu majority, independence in 1947 was a reclamation of their vast land, the end of centuries of foreign domination. Nehru and others believed passionately that this new India would be a daring concept, an embracing of all its religious, linguistic and regional diversity, a magnificent secular state.
The steely and intractable Jinnah did not believe it. His new country of Pakistan grew out of that scepticism, the belief that Muslims in India would be vulnerable, second-class citizens.
Pakistan was an invented state, a by-product of the great Indian struggle for independence. It evolved in the last few years of British rule among people who wanted to escape religious and political discrimination in the new order. Landowners especially thought they would lose out in India. Democracy barely made the journey to Pakistan.
In a sense Pakistan remains stranded in 1947. Its great debate has centred for half a century on what it is for and what it should be. Jinnah mused that it could be a secular country. But in that case, what was the point of Partition? Some of his successors said that Pakistan was nothing if not Islamic and determined to make it more so, a military theocracy.
Yet Islam proved an unreliable glue. It did not cement Pakistan and East Pakistan. Bangladesh erupted as the assertion of Bengali language and culture. Nor did it cement the disparate parts of Pakistan itself — Punjab, Baluchistan, Sindh and the North- West Frontier — or, indeed, the many shades of Islamic belief. Thus Kashmir is useful, the “unfinished business of Partition”. However much Pakistanis disagree about the nature of their society, they find common cause in Kashmir, the belief that they were robbed in 1947. This is the unifying insult. It is why Pakistan has supported Kashmiri insurgents. India’s treatment of Kashmiris during the long years of internal strife are held as proof that Jinnah was right, that Muslims needed their homeland.
It is true that India could have managed Kashmir more wisely, less roughly. But Pakistan has to live with the fact that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. India has the second largest Muslim population in the world: evidently Hindus and Muslims do live together in a secular society, Nehru’s idea of India, even if it is not always easy. And Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim majority, is in Indian minds the shining fact of secular India. Its existence throws the question to Pakistan again: what was Partition for? India has a powerful idea of its identity. It is the giant of South Asia, its Armed Forces are huge and it is proud of its democracy, even if this is somewhat battered. Pakistan, on the other hand, does not enjoy such a positive identity. It thinks of itself in terms of its neighbour and endures the negative of being Not India.
It means that even if the impossible were to happen, that Kashmir should somehow become part of Pakistan, the anxieties and insecurities of Pakistan would endure. There would have to be another issue by which Pakistan could seek to establish its identity and purpose.
In the meantime the two nations face each other again — and judging from what we see and hear, there are many on both sides desperate to fight. Centuries of prejudice are poured into the funnel of Kashmir.
People on both sides treasure the slights of history. There is an endless misunderstanding of each other’s beliefs and opinions. Estrangement is total. Trivial matters become huge. Hindu nationalists complain that Muslims cheer for Pakistan during Test matches. In both India and Pakistan, keen teams of monitors comb through guide books and encyclopaedias searching for maps that might contain instances of “cartographic aggression” — inaccuracies that seem to favour one side or the other.
Words are traps, and there is a sense that a comma could cause a crisis. But the opinions of outsiders are not welcome. For this is a feud between cousins, a quarrel in the family. It could hardly be more acrid and perilous.
Transfer of Power from the British Raj & The South Asian Politicians
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
A state of war
BY TREVOR FISHLOCK
The dispute over Kashmir has brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war. But why has this beautiful state become the subcontinent`s powder keg?
Poets hymned it as a land of love and languor. In 1627 the dying emperor Jahangir, who shaped its blissful gardens, was asked to name his last desire. “Only Kashmir,” he murmured. “Only Kashmir.”
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, promised melodramatically that its name was written upon his heart. Today, millions make the same emotive claim.
Passions for Kashmir run hot and bitter, the bayonets almost touch and the urge for war is strong. Two rivals, two ideas, two faiths stand nose to nose in one of the world’s most dangerous places. One mistake or misjudgment and the spark falls on the fuse.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir. The great bulk of their armies are based along the frontier that runs through Punjab and Kashmir. The border is always tense.
In Kashmir there has been an almost permanent grumbling small war of artillery bombardment. Apart from the all-out conflicts, India and Pakistan have two or three times pulled back from the brink, and now the assessments of their military power have to include their nuclear capability. There was a particularly dangerous stand-off in 1990.
It was inevitable that the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13 would bring India and Pakistan once more to the edge of the abyss. It was an echo of the October suicide bomb attack on the Kashmir assembly. The Parliament in Delhi is the heart and emblem of what India stands for. Now India is raging.
Poor Kashmir. It lies in the Himalayan ramparts where the borders of India, Pakistan and China rub together. Reality mocks its beauty. There is no escaping the permeating melancholy of a land that lies under the gun. It is as if malevolent gods, jealous of its loveliness, placed a curse upon it.
The poison entered the garden in 1947 when the war-weary British quit their Indian empire and partitioned it. They had no wish to cut it up: one of their imperial achievements, they said, was to have united India and made it secure. They divided it to meet the demands of Muslim leaders who said that Hindus and Muslims could not live together in one country, that the communities formed two separate nations. Pakistan was therefore created as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims.
Britain ruled India with the co-operation of more than 500 Indian princes, a galaxy of maharajahs, rajahs, ranas, raos, khans, mirs, jams, nizams and nawabs, loyal to the British crown, well-oiled with flattery, some fantastically rich and a few of them barmy. In the summer of 1947, these rulers had to choose whether to take their states into India or Pakistan. It was a personal decision, without referendum.
Public opinion hardly came into it. Most princes joined India. Most knew that they would be extinguishing themselves as a ruling class, but it was clear to all but a few that the game was up. On the eve of independence, all the princes had made up their minds except four.
The Maharajah of Kashmir, Sir Hari Singh, was one of the ditherers. He was vain, pompous and addicted to hunting bears and shooting ducks. As a young man he had an unfortunate scrape in London, being found in bed with a woman at the Savoy Hotel and milked for a lot of money by a blackmailer pretending to be the woman’s husband.
At Partition, Kashmir, more fully known as Jammu and Kashmir, was in a key position: a prize because it was a large state and famously beautiful, a honeymooners’ resort of lakes and cool alpine meadows.
Given its place on the map, it could have swung either to India or to Pakistan. Because of its overwhelming Muslim majority, Pakistan’s new leaders expected that it would join their Islamic entity. But the maharajah had to decide — and he was a Hindu. This was not unusual. In princely India, Muslims often ruled Hindus and vice versa. But Hari Singh dithered. He could not believe that the British would really go home. He did not want to join Pakistan because he could not bear the thought of his state being subsumed. He dreamt that Kashmir could somehow be an independent country and he could keep his power.
India and Pakistan became independent in August. Hari Singh was still dithering in October. As he fiddled, the storm broke. Thousands of Pathan warriors from the North-West Frontier, bordering Afghanistan, rushed into Kashmir, vowing to seize it for Pakistan. Although they were a rabble, they might have succeeded. They were close to Srinagar, the capital, when they were delayed by their lust for loot and women. While they pillaged towns and raped girls and nuns, the hapless Hari Singh gathered up his diamonds and Purdey shotguns and fled his palace in a motorcade.
India acted fast and decisively. In a flurry of action the maharajah agreed to join India, and Indian forces flew to save Srinagar. This was the first Kashmir war, not an all-out confrontation but a series of fights and communal conflicts. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of Pakistan, wanted to send the new Pakistan regular Army into action, but did not do so when the absurdity of the situation was pointed out to him: the forces of India and Pakistan shared a commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, while many officers on both sides were British.
Kashmir was left divided along the line where fighting stopped in 1948. A United Nations ceasefire came into force on January 1, 1949. In 1965 Pakistan tried and failed to annexe Kashmir and was defeated in brief and bitter fighting. At one stage Indian forces were almost at the gates of Lahore and could easily have taken it. Pakistan’s leaders believed that Kashmiris would welcome Pakistani troops as liberators. It was a shock that they did not. In 1971 India and Pakistan went to war again, India assisting the secession of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. Pakistan was left truncated and humiliated.
Yet the story of a vacillating maharajah and the ensuing bloody quarrel over territory is only the half of it.
Kashmir is a tragedy for its divided people and a continuing source of danger in a subcontinent inhabited by a fifth of the world’s population. The tragedy has deep roots. Kashmir is the offspring of bitterly divorced parents. Pakistan aches for it but will never possess it. India will never let it go: it is not negotiable. The trouble is that both sides define themselves by this feud.
Their mutual suspicions date from the 8th-century Muslim conquest of western India and the many hundreds of years of Mogul rule that were brought to an end by the British Raj. For India’s Hindu majority, independence in 1947 was a reclamation of their vast land, the end of centuries of foreign domination. Nehru and others believed passionately that this new India would be a daring concept, an embracing of all its religious, linguistic and regional diversity, a magnificent secular state.
The steely and intractable Jinnah did not believe it. His new country of Pakistan grew out of that scepticism, the belief that Muslims in India would be vulnerable, second-class citizens.
Pakistan was an invented state, a by-product of the great Indian struggle for independence. It evolved in the last few years of British rule among people who wanted to escape religious and political discrimination in the new order. Landowners especially thought they would lose out in India. Democracy barely made the journey to Pakistan.
In a sense Pakistan remains stranded in 1947. Its great debate has centred for half a century on what it is for and what it should be. Jinnah mused that it could be a secular country. But in that case, what was the point of Partition? Some of his successors said that Pakistan was nothing if not Islamic and determined to make it more so, a military theocracy.
Yet Islam proved an unreliable glue. It did not cement Pakistan and East Pakistan. Bangladesh erupted as the assertion of Bengali language and culture. Nor did it cement the disparate parts of Pakistan itself — Punjab, Baluchistan, Sindh and the North- West Frontier — or, indeed, the many shades of Islamic belief. Thus Kashmir is useful, the “unfinished business of Partition”. However much Pakistanis disagree about the nature of their society, they find common cause in Kashmir, the belief that they were robbed in 1947. This is the unifying insult. It is why Pakistan has supported Kashmiri insurgents. India’s treatment of Kashmiris during the long years of internal strife are held as proof that Jinnah was right, that Muslims needed their homeland.
It is true that India could have managed Kashmir more wisely, less roughly. But Pakistan has to live with the fact that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. India has the second largest Muslim population in the world: evidently Hindus and Muslims do live together in a secular society, Nehru’s idea of India, even if it is not always easy. And Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim majority, is in Indian minds the shining fact of secular India. Its existence throws the question to Pakistan again: what was Partition for? India has a powerful idea of its identity. It is the giant of South Asia, its Armed Forces are huge and it is proud of its democracy, even if this is somewhat battered. Pakistan, on the other hand, does not enjoy such a positive identity. It thinks of itself in terms of its neighbour and endures the negative of being Not India.
It means that even if the impossible were to happen, that Kashmir should somehow become part of Pakistan, the anxieties and insecurities of Pakistan would endure. There would have to be another issue by which Pakistan could seek to establish its identity and purpose.
In the meantime the two nations face each other again — and judging from what we see and hear, there are many on both sides desperate to fight. Centuries of prejudice are poured into the funnel of Kashmir.
People on both sides treasure the slights of history. There is an endless misunderstanding of each other’s beliefs and opinions. Estrangement is total. Trivial matters become huge. Hindu nationalists complain that Muslims cheer for Pakistan during Test matches. In both India and Pakistan, keen teams of monitors comb through guide books and encyclopaedias searching for maps that might contain instances of “cartographic aggression” — inaccuracies that seem to favour one side or the other.
Words are traps, and there is a sense that a comma could cause a crisis. But the opinions of outsiders are not welcome. For this is a feud between cousins, a quarrel in the family. It could hardly be more acrid and perilous.
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 20, 2003 08:29 am
Cover story http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
A state of war
BY TREVOR FISHLOCK
The dispute over Kashmir has brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war. But why has this beautiful state become the subcontinent`s powder keg?
Poets hymned it as a land of love and languor. In 1627 the dying emperor Jahangir, who shaped its blissful gardens, was asked to name his last desire. “Only Kashmir,” he murmured. “Only Kashmir.”
India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, promised melodramatically that its name was written upon his heart. Today, millions make the same emotive claim.
Passions for Kashmir run hot and bitter, the bayonets almost touch and the urge for war is strong. Two rivals, two ideas, two faiths stand nose to nose in one of the world’s most dangerous places. One mistake or misjudgment and the spark falls on the fuse.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir. The great bulk of their armies are based along the frontier that runs through Punjab and Kashmir. The border is always tense.
In Kashmir there has been an almost permanent grumbling small war of artillery bombardment. Apart from the all-out conflicts, India and Pakistan have two or three times pulled back from the brink, and now the assessments of their military power have to include their nuclear capability. There was a particularly dangerous stand-off in 1990.
It was inevitable that the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13 would bring India and Pakistan once more to the edge of the abyss. It was an echo of the October suicide bomb attack on the Kashmir assembly. The Parliament in Delhi is the heart and emblem of what India stands for. Now India is raging.
Poor Kashmir. It lies in the Himalayan ramparts where the borders of India, Pakistan and China rub together. Reality mocks its beauty. There is no escaping the permeating melancholy of a land that lies under the gun. It is as if malevolent gods, jealous of its loveliness, placed a curse upon it.
The poison entered the garden in 1947 when the war-weary British quit their Indian empire and partitioned it. They had no wish to cut it up: one of their imperial achievements, they said, was to have united India and made it secure. They divided it to meet the demands of Muslim leaders who said that Hindus and Muslims could not live together in one country, that the communities formed two separate nations. Pakistan was therefore created as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims.
Britain ruled India with the co-operation of more than 500 Indian princes, a galaxy of maharajahs, rajahs, ranas, raos, khans, mirs, jams, nizams and nawabs, loyal to the British crown, well-oiled with flattery, some fantastically rich and a few of them barmy. In the summer of 1947, these rulers had to choose whether to take their states into India or Pakistan. It was a personal decision, without referendum.
Public opinion hardly came into it. Most princes joined India. Most knew that they would be extinguishing themselves as a ruling class, but it was clear to all but a few that the game was up. On the eve of independence, all the princes had made up their minds except four.
The Maharajah of Kashmir, Sir Hari Singh, was one of the ditherers. He was vain, pompous and addicted to hunting bears and shooting ducks. As a young man he had an unfortunate scrape in London, being found in bed with a woman at the Savoy Hotel and milked for a lot of money by a blackmailer pretending to be the woman’s husband.
At Partition, Kashmir, more fully known as Jammu and Kashmir, was in a key position: a prize because it was a large state and famously beautiful, a honeymooners’ resort of lakes and cool alpine meadows.
Given its place on the map, it could have swung either to India or to Pakistan. Because of its overwhelming Muslim majority, Pakistan’s new leaders expected that it would join their Islamic entity. But the maharajah had to decide — and he was a Hindu. This was not unusual. In princely India, Muslims often ruled Hindus and vice versa. But Hari Singh dithered. He could not believe that the British would really go home. He did not want to join Pakistan because he could not bear the thought of his state being subsumed. He dreamt that Kashmir could somehow be an independent country and he could keep his power.
India and Pakistan became independent in August. Hari Singh was still dithering in October. As he fiddled, the storm broke. Thousands of Pathan warriors from the North-West Frontier, bordering Afghanistan, rushed into Kashmir, vowing to seize it for Pakistan. Although they were a rabble, they might have succeeded. They were close to Srinagar, the capital, when they were delayed by their lust for loot and women. While they pillaged towns and raped girls and nuns, the hapless Hari Singh gathered up his diamonds and Purdey shotguns and fled his palace in a motorcade.
India acted fast and decisively. In a flurry of action the maharajah agreed to join India, and Indian forces flew to save Srinagar. This was the first Kashmir war, not an all-out confrontation but a series of fights and communal conflicts. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of Pakistan, wanted to send the new Pakistan regular Army into action, but did not do so when the absurdity of the situation was pointed out to him: the forces of India and Pakistan shared a commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, while many officers on both sides were British.
Kashmir was left divided along the line where fighting stopped in 1948. A United Nations ceasefire came into force on January 1, 1949. In 1965 Pakistan tried and failed to annexe Kashmir and was defeated in brief and bitter fighting. At one stage Indian forces were almost at the gates of Lahore and could easily have taken it. Pakistan’s leaders believed that Kashmiris would welcome Pakistani troops as liberators. It was a shock that they did not. In 1971 India and Pakistan went to war again, India assisting the secession of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. Pakistan was left truncated and humiliated.
Yet the story of a vacillating maharajah and the ensuing bloody quarrel over territory is only the half of it.
Kashmir is a tragedy for its divided people and a continuing source of danger in a subcontinent inhabited by a fifth of the world’s population. The tragedy has deep roots. Kashmir is the offspring of bitterly divorced parents. Pakistan aches for it but will never possess it. India will never let it go: it is not negotiable. The trouble is that both sides define themselves by this feud.
Their mutual suspicions date from the 8th-century Muslim conquest of western India and the many hundreds of years of Mogul rule that were brought to an end by the British Raj. For India’s Hindu majority, independence in 1947 was a reclamation of their vast land, the end of centuries of foreign domination. Nehru and others believed passionately that this new India would be a daring concept, an embracing of all its religious, linguistic and regional diversity, a magnificent secular state.
The steely and intractable Jinnah did not believe it. His new country of Pakistan grew out of that scepticism, the belief that Muslims in India would be vulnerable, second-class citizens.
Pakistan was an invented state, a by-product of the great Indian struggle for independence. It evolved in the last few years of British rule among people who wanted to escape religious and political discrimination in the new order. Landowners especially thought they would lose out in India. Democracy barely made the journey to Pakistan.
In a sense Pakistan remains stranded in 1947. Its great debate has centred for half a century on what it is for and what it should be. Jinnah mused that it could be a secular country. But in that case, what was the point of Partition? Some of his successors said that Pakistan was nothing if not Islamic and determined to make it more so, a military theocracy.
Yet Islam proved an unreliable glue. It did not cement Pakistan and East Pakistan. Bangladesh erupted as the assertion of Bengali language and culture. Nor did it cement the disparate parts of Pakistan itself — Punjab, Baluchistan, Sindh and the North- West Frontier — or, indeed, the many shades of Islamic belief. Thus Kashmir is useful, the “unfinished business of Partition”. However much Pakistanis disagree about the nature of their society, they find common cause in Kashmir, the belief that they were robbed in 1947. This is the unifying insult. It is why Pakistan has supported Kashmiri insurgents. India’s treatment of Kashmiris during the long years of internal strife are held as proof that Jinnah was right, that Muslims needed their homeland.
It is true that India could have managed Kashmir more wisely, less roughly. But Pakistan has to live with the fact that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. India has the second largest Muslim population in the world: evidently Hindus and Muslims do live together in a secular society, Nehru’s idea of India, even if it is not always easy. And Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim majority, is in Indian minds the shining fact of secular India. Its existence throws the question to Pakistan again: what was Partition for? India has a powerful idea of its identity. It is the giant of South Asia, its Armed Forces are huge and it is proud of its democracy, even if this is somewhat battered. Pakistan, on the other hand, does not enjoy such a positive identity. It thinks of itself in terms of its neighbour and endures the negative of being Not India.
It means that even if the impossible were to happen, that Kashmir should somehow become part of Pakistan, the anxieties and insecurities of Pakistan would endure. There would have to be another issue by which Pakistan could seek to establish its identity and purpose.
In the meantime the two nations face each other again — and judging from what we see and hear, there are many on both sides desperate to fight. Centuries of prejudice are poured into the funnel of Kashmir.
People on both sides treasure the slights of history. There is an endless misunderstanding of each other’s beliefs and opinions. Estrangement is total. Trivial matters become huge. Hindu nationalists complain that Muslims cheer for Pakistan during Test matches. In both India and Pakistan, keen teams of monitors comb through guide books and encyclopaedias searching for maps that might contain instances of “cartographic aggression” — inaccuracies that seem to favour one side or the other.
Words are traps, and there is a sense that a comma could cause a crisis. But the opinions of outsiders are not welcome. For this is a feud between cousins, a quarrel in the family. It could hardly be more acrid and perilous.
A Line Runs Through It
from the August 18, 2003 edition
Pakistan groups still rally for jihad
Despite a government ban, militant organizations marked last week`s independence day with call to arms.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p06s01-wosc.html
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
LAHORE, PAKISTAN – It`s about 100 degrees outside, under a blazing Punjabi sky, but Amr Hamza seems to be on a roll.
In a rally to celebrate Pakistan`s independence day last week, Mr. Hamza is calling on the faithful - about 10,000 of them, mostly members of the religious extremist party Jamaat-ud Dawa, or Society of the Call - to defend Islam against its enemies.
The word he uses to describe this defense is ``jihad,`` a term with similar historical baggage as ``crusade.`` Hamza means it as a call to arms, in this case against Indian forces that control the Muslim-majority province of Kashmir.
``Are you ready to crush the Hindus between your teeth?`` he shouts, and the entire crowd rises to its feet and says ``Hanh,`` the Urdu word for yes. ``Are you ready to crush the Americans between your teeth?`` he asks. ``Hanh.``
Rallies such as this one, in towns and villages across Pakistan, show that jihadist parties such as Jamaat are alive and thriving, more than a year after they were banned by the government of President Pervez Musharraf.
Some Pakistanis here say that rallies for Jamaat - which once called itself Lashkar-i Tayyaba, and which both India and the US listed as a terrorist group - are merely an expression of support of their religion and their fellow Muslims in Kashmir. But for Pakistanis who support the US-led war on terrorism, and for Washington, it`s a troubling sign that Pakistan remains a breeding ground for extremist groups and for an ideology of cultural war shared by Al Qaeda.
``In high-profile cases, the Musharraf government has arrested a few people, but it`s far more important to roll up the network of support for these jihadist parties,`` says Samina Ahmed, project director for the International Crisis Group, a think tank in Islamabad. ``But the network will remain in place until the government takes sustained action.``
Like many observers here in Pakistan, Ms. Ahmed argues that Pakistan`s military continues to maintain its long alliance with religious parties, who share a common goal: the so-called ``liberation of Kashmir.`` This alliance was put on hiatus after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, she adds, when Pakistan broke its alliance with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and broke relations with religious parties at home.
But in the leadup to the national parliamentary elections last October, Pakistan`s military, under commander-in-chief Musharraf, began open negotiations with the religious parties. The military released from jail many of the extremist leaders - including Jamaat`s Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-i Mohammad`s Maulana Azhar - whom it had jailed on charges of terrorism.
US embassy and Indian officials say that cross-border terror attacks continue, but they note that militant groups no longer take credit for the attacks.
``The mullahs and the military both believe that Pakistan has a rightful claim over Kashmir, and both believe in the jihad, the fight for Kashmir,`` says Ahmed. ``But it is certainly in the interests of Pakistan to contain these groups, both because of its international reputation, and also because more Pakistanis are being killed in these attacks than anyone else.``
While 90 percent of the votes went to mainstream parties in national elections last October, a coalition of religious par- ties made gains that allowed them to control two key provinces along the Afghan border, Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan.
While Western diplomats here publicly say Pakistan hasn`t changed its policy toward extremist groups, many privately worry that these two provincial governments may be tacitly supporting the resurgent Taliban.
Such worries do seem warranted. The six-party coalition that now runs the two border states have publicly stated their opposition to the US war in Afghanistan, and their desire to impose Taliban-style social rules at home. Intelligence experts also say that some of these parties maintain close ties with militant groups fighting in Kashmir.
The popular religious party Jamaat-i Islami, for instance, has long funded Al Badr and Hizbul Mujahideen, which have both gone underground in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir. And the party of Jamiat-i Ulema-i Islam long had ties with the Taliban, most of whose leaders attended Jamiat seminaries in Pakistan.
Government officials, however, say that the government`s ties with extremist groups ended after Sept. 11, and there is no going back to the old policy.
``The policy of the government is clear,`` says Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for President Musharraf. ``There is no room for extremism in Pakistan, and we are absolutely sincere in getting it eliminated on our territory.``
For the Jamaat-ud Dawa, which runs a network of social services, including 16 Islamic institutions, 135 secondary schools, five madrassahs, a college for science, and a $300,000-plus medical mission that includes mobile clinics, an ambulance service, and blood banks. Jamaat leaders reject the label of terrorism, but they say their mission under the Lashkar-i Tayyaba remains the same: preaching Islam at home, and fighting the enemies of Islam abroad (jihad).
``Jihad is not terrorism,`` says Qazi Kashif, editor of Jamaat-ud Dawa`s newspaper. ``It is not against the civilians, it is against the oppression, against the occupying forces in Afghanistan, in Kashmir, in Iraq, in Chechnya, in Palestine, in the Philippines. Our first priority is our nearby regime in Kashmir, against the Indian Army.``
Unlike Osama bin Laden, who signed a document arguing that killing civilians was allowable if those civilians paid taxes to enemies, Mr. Kashif says the Koran strictly forbids killing civilians. ``If you are against the civilians, that is not jihad. What happened [at the] World Trade Center, with the innocent women and children, we disagree with that.``
But another Jamaat member, Tahir Rabbani, sees the present war in much larger terms. The duty of jihad, he says, will eventually demand a final battle between Islam and the West.
``Our task is to end oppression, and until Islam is established over the entire world, the jihad will be continued forever,`` he says. ``There can be no peace without jihad.``
Posted by
sarwar
Aug 20, 2003 08:29 am
World > Asia: South & Central from the August 18, 2003 edition
Pakistan groups still rally for jihad
Despite a government ban, militant organizations marked last week`s independence day with call to arms.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p06s01-wosc.html
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
LAHORE, PAKISTAN – It`s about 100 degrees outside, under a blazing Punjabi sky, but Amr Hamza seems to be on a roll.
In a rally to celebrate Pakistan`s independence day last week, Mr. Hamza is calling on the faithful - about 10,000 of them, mostly members of the religious extremist party Jamaat-ud Dawa, or Society of the Call - to defend Islam against its enemies.
The word he uses to describe this defense is ``jihad,`` a term with similar historical baggage as ``crusade.`` Hamza means it as a call to arms, in this case against Indian forces that control the Muslim-majority province of Kashmir.
``Are you ready to crush the Hindus between your teeth?`` he shouts, and the entire crowd rises to its feet and says ``Hanh,`` the Urdu word for yes. ``Are you ready to crush the Americans between your teeth?`` he asks. ``Hanh.``
Rallies such as this one, in towns and villages across Pakistan, show that jihadist parties such as Jamaat are alive and thriving, more than a year after they were banned by the government of President Pervez Musharraf.
Some Pakistanis here say that rallies for Jamaat - which once called itself Lashkar-i Tayyaba, and which both India and the US listed as a terrorist group - are merely an expression of support of their religion and their fellow Muslims in Kashmir. But for Pakistanis who support the US-led war on terrorism, and for Washington, it`s a troubling sign that Pakistan remains a breeding ground for extremist groups and for an ideology of cultural war shared by Al Qaeda.
``In high-profile cases, the Musharraf government has arrested a few people, but it`s far more important to roll up the network of support for these jihadist parties,`` says Samina Ahmed, project director for the International Crisis Group, a think tank in Islamabad. ``But the network will remain in place until the government takes sustained action.``
Like many observers here in Pakistan, Ms. Ahmed argues that Pakistan`s military continues to maintain its long alliance with religious parties, who share a common goal: the so-called ``liberation of Kashmir.`` This alliance was put on hiatus after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, she adds, when Pakistan broke its alliance with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and broke relations with religious parties at home.
But in the leadup to the national parliamentary elections last October, Pakistan`s military, under commander-in-chief Musharraf, began open negotiations with the religious parties. The military released from jail many of the extremist leaders - including Jamaat`s Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-i Mohammad`s Maulana Azhar - whom it had jailed on charges of terrorism.
US embassy and Indian officials say that cross-border terror attacks continue, but they note that militant groups no longer take credit for the attacks.
``The mullahs and the military both believe that Pakistan has a rightful claim over Kashmir, and both believe in the jihad, the fight for Kashmir,`` says Ahmed. ``But it is certainly in the interests of Pakistan to contain these groups, both because of its international reputation, and also because more Pakistanis are being killed in these attacks than anyone else.``
While 90 percent of the votes went to mainstream parties in national elections last October, a coalition of religious par- ties made gains that allowed them to control two key provinces along the Afghan border, Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan.
While Western diplomats here publicly say Pakistan hasn`t changed its policy toward extremist groups, many privately worry that these two provincial governments may be tacitly supporting the resurgent Taliban.
Such worries do seem warranted. The six-party coalition that now runs the two border states have publicly stated their opposition to the US war in Afghanistan, and their desire to impose Taliban-style social rules at home. Intelligence experts also say that some of these parties maintain close ties with militant groups fighting in Kashmir.
The popular religious party Jamaat-i Islami, for instance, has long funded Al Badr and Hizbul Mujahideen, which have both gone underground in the Pakistani portion of Kashmir. And the party of Jamiat-i Ulema-i Islam long had ties with the Taliban, most of whose leaders attended Jamiat seminaries in Pakistan.
Government officials, however, say that the government`s ties with extremist groups ended after Sept. 11, and there is no going back to the old policy.
``The policy of the government is clear,`` says Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for President Musharraf. ``There is no room for extremism in Pakistan, and we are absolutely sincere in getting it eliminated on our territory.``
For the Jamaat-ud Dawa, which runs a network of social services, including 16 Islamic institutions, 135 secondary schools, five madrassahs, a college for science, and a $300,000-plus medical mission that includes mobile clinics, an ambulance service, and blood banks. Jamaat leaders reject the label of terrorism, but they say their mission under the Lashkar-i Tayyaba remains the same: preaching Islam at home, and fighting the enemies of Islam abroad (jihad).
``Jihad is not terrorism,`` says Qazi Kashif, editor of Jamaat-ud Dawa`s newspaper. ``It is not against the civilians, it is against the oppression, against the occupying forces in Afghanistan, in Kashmir, in Iraq, in Chechnya, in Palestine, in the Philippines. Our first priority is our nearby regime in Kashmir, against the Indian Army.``
Unlike Osama bin Laden, who signed a document arguing that killing civilians was allowable if those civilians paid taxes to enemies, Mr. Kashif says the Koran strictly forbids killing civilians. ``If you are against the civilians, that is not jihad. What happened [at the] World Trade Center, with the innocent women and children, we disagree with that.``
But another Jamaat member, Tahir Rabbani, sees the present war in much larger terms. The duty of jihad, he says, will eventually demand a final battle between Islam and the West.
``Our task is to end oppression, and until Islam is established over the entire world, the jihad will be continued forever,`` he says. ``There can be no peace without jihad.``
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