Uneven Democracy : The Cry from Chhattisgarh Re: # 20: "Thankfully for India, Obama has to work under the US institutional constraints."

DM: You are right about the institutional constraints on Obama, as his recent retreat from Israeli settlement freeze has shown.

Pakistani Ambassador Hussain Haqqani recently told a US publication that the Indo-U.S. relationship is robust and multifaceted. He mentioned that 26 members of the Obama administration are Indian-Americans. Some of them, such as Sonal Shah, have had known ties with the extremist Hindu Sangh Parivar. An Indian-American Rajiv Shah has been named by Obama as the head of US Agency for International Development (US AID). When confirmed, Mr. Shah will be deeply involved in handling aid to Pakistan under Kerry-Lugar bill.

Taha Gaya of Pakistan's nascent Washington lobby PAL-C explained to the BBC recently that on some issues the Indian and Pakistani lobbies had sometimes cooperated. But the Mumbai attacks last year changed all that.

"When Mumbai happened," Gaya told the BBC, "we saw a resurgence of participation from the older generation of Indian-Americans - those who had grown up in India" - who, he claimed, reverted to what he described as "the old more negative dynamic".

There is inevitable conflict between the two lobbies. The recent Kerry-Lugar aid bill for Pakistan is a good example of this conflict. Pro-India groups lobbied hard for all sorts of conditions to be included in the bill.

Sanjay Puri of USINPAC, the India Lobby, was part of this campaign. This was not about supporting India's interests, he claims, and neither was it motivated by hostility towards Pakistan.

It's clear that Indian-Americans have taken a page from the successful Jewish-American playbook. Not only are they active in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill, they are also being increasingly seen in the powerful financial services sector, high profile US media, major US universities, Washington think-tanks and other places which shape US public opinion and policies. And they are exercising rising influence on South Asia policy in the same way that the Jewish-Americans have on the US position in the Middle East conflict. The rising Indian influence in Washington and close multi-faceted collaboration between India and US are seen as a big threat by Pakistanis.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/11/obamas-retreat-in-mid-east-and-sou th.html
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Uneven Democracy : The Cry from Chhattisgarh Re: # 13 DM Sahib, "Hindustani: Meray pass damokracy hai! "

Interesting commentary. Hope you are enjoying your stay there, meeting friends and family.

BTW, What's been the reaction to Obama's Beijing visit and joint Obama-Hu statements recently?

It seems to me that the US, as the reigning superpower deeply involved in South Asia, has essentially acknowledged China's stature in the region when the following paragraph found its way into the joint communique issued by President Barak Obama and President Hu Jintao at the end their recent summit in Beijing:

"The two sides welcomed all efforts conducive to peace, stability and development in South Asia. They support the efforts of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight terrorism, maintain domestic stability and achieve sustainable economic and social development, and support the improvement and growth of relations between India and Pakistan. The two sides are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region."

Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

I Want Jinnah\'s Pakistan Re: # 30: "29 posts on "Jinnah's Pakistan". 27 from indians, 2 from a pakistanis!!"

Ahmed Sahib,

I think Shekhar Gupta, who recently wrote in India Express about the undisguised glee in India, knows some of the most hateful Indian bigots lurking here on Chowk, and their misguided cohorts in India. Gupta is calling them "the mobs" and singling them out for his most caustic warnings against "jubilating" and "utterly unconcealed sense of delight" at the unfolding tragedy in Pakistan.

"Finally" he is sounding the alarm to all anti-Pakistan chauvinists in India that "time has also come to set in place some kind of diplomatic standard operating procedures in case more terror attacks take place because a third round of coercive diplomacy may spin out of control".

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/10/taliban-or-raw-liban.html
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Uneven Democracy : The Cry from Chhattisgarh Democracy or not, the South Asian nations are badly governed by narrow elites insensitive to the needs of the most vulnerable in society. The so-called "democratic rulers" say all the right things but then their actions fall far short of their words.

The kind of conditions of abject poverty, serious hunger and widespread deprivation that prevail in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh require drastic actions by the ruling elites to forestall bloody revolutions.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

The Strange Case of the Indian Channels That Did Not Air the 26/11 Documentary Re: # 64: Suresh "Pakistani Brain Washing Example."

Clearly, the Daily Times reporter has made an error in reporting, but the fact that he referred to his source indicates that it's not deliberate.

You, on the other hand, are either brainwashed yourself or guilty of deliberately ignoring other relevant data in the same UNPF report that makes Pak look better than India.

Take life expectancy as an example: Pak 66.5, Ind 62.6 yrs.

Maternal mortality ratio: 450 in India vs 320 in Pakistan

Teenage Births per 1000: 68 in India vs 46 in Pakistan

M/F proportion reaching gr 5: 68/72 Pak vs 66/65 India

Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

The Strange Case of the Indian Channels That Did Not Air the 26/11 Documentary S.M. Mushrif, former Police Chief of Maharashtra and the author of "Who Killed Karkare?", believes that the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) is up to its neck in conspiring with the extreme Hindutva groups against Indian Muslims and creating trouble between India and Pakistan, and now it is ominous to see one of the former IB leaders K.C. Verma heading RAW as of early this year.

The power establishment that really runs the affairs of India (Mushrif says it is not Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh or Rahul Gandhi) does not want to expose the rabidly anti-Muslim Hindutva terrorists.

Verma was appointed earlier this year as the new head of RAW, regarded as one of the top intelligence agencies along with Mossad, ISI, SVR, MI6, and the CIA. This choice appears to have been made at the suggestion of intelligence hawks like B. Raman to appoint an outsider, in spite of significant resistance from within the agency. Mr. Verma has been tasked with rapidly building strong covert ops capabilities within RAW. It is not a coincidence that the terrorist attacks in Pakistan have dramatically increased since Verma took the reins of RAW.


I think Shekhar Gupta, who recently wrote in India Express about the undisguised glee in India, knows some of the most hateful Indian bigots lurking here on Chowk, and their misguided cohorts in India. Gupta is calling them "the mobs" and singling them out for his most caustic warnings against "jubilating" and "utterly unconcealed sense of delight" at the unfolding tragedy in Pakistan.

"Finally" he is sounding the alarm to all anti-Pakistan chauvinists in India that "time has also come to set in place some kind of diplomatic standard operating procedures in case more terror attacks take place because a third round of coercive diplomacy may spin out of control".

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/10/taliban-or-raw-liban.html
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Why MQM Wants To Enter Punjab? Re: # 51
banjara, this discussion reminds of the following lines from a popular ghazal often sung by munni begum:

JAB BHI GULSHAN KO LAHOO KI ZAROORAT PARI
SUB SE PEHLE GARDAN HAMARI KATI
PHIR BHI KEHTEY HEIN YEH AHL-E-CHAMAN
YEH CHAMAN HAMARA HAI TUMHARA NAHI
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Why MQM Wants To Enter Punjab? Re: # 43
Rashid,
I am not familiar with the MQM org to know what kind of structure they have. And I don't think they need to enforce voter loyalty in an urban setting. From my visits there, I do think the MQM support in Karachi appears to be genuine and strong.

On the other hand, it has been well documented by many that the feudal zamindar MNAs and MPAs of the PPP and the PML do enforce loyalty through a system of their "station, kutchery and private prisons" in the rural areas, in addition to exploiting the economic dependence and spiritual needs (most of them are syeds and makhdooms) of the peasant voters.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Why MQM Wants To Enter Punjab? Re: # 36 Rashid: "Please answer the points I raised about no urban population being politically loyal to one political party. What causes this MQM domination? It is their militarised organisational structure. Journalists in Karachi know this well but they cannot raise a voice."

Such regional domination by one party or another in different places in Pakistan is fairly common. Before MQM appeared on the scene in 1980s, Karachi was dominated by JI, another urban-middle-class party in Pakistan.

Similar regional "ownerships" can be seen in urban Punjab by the PML(N), rural Sind and southern Punjab by the PPP.

Ethnic and regional parties also dominate in our neighboring "democracy" of India where voters also vote based on caste or ethnicity.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Why MQM Wants To Enter Punjab? Re: # 14: "The point writer is trying to make, I think, concerns the fascistic/mafia style structure of this organisation. PPP or PML do not have this ailment but they suffer from other ills."

Unfortunately, there is incredible daily violence of private prisons, bondage, and slavery perpetrated by the PML and PPP feudal zamindars on a daily basis against millions of poor landless peasants.

Pakistan remains an unjust feudal society at its core where millions are held as slaves, and it is currently ruled by these brutal feudal lords in the name of democracy.

The Pakistani landlord’s “private prisons” came in sharp focus recently, during Hillary Clinton’s visit, with the news of 170 peasants being held against their will by Sindhi landowners, in violation of the court orders.

A 2004 study by the International Labor Office (ILO) estimated that there are up to a million haari families in Sindh alone, the majority living in conditions of debt bondage, which the U.N. defines as modern-day slavery. Last fall, Pakistan’s Daily Times newspaper quoted the labor minister of neighboring Punjab province as saying that landlords hold millions of forced laborers in “private prisons” across the country.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/11/slavery-survives-in -south-asia.html
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Why MQM Wants To Enter Punjab? Re: # 4 "Excuse me, but your talking of MQM "owns Karachi" sounds like you a hoodlum talking."

That's why I used quotes around the word "owns". It "owns" Karachi in the same way that PML(N) "owns" Lahore or the PPP "owns" rural Sind and the Seraiki belt. It's just a statement of fact about the regional/ethnic nature of all of Pakistan's political parties.

Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Why MQM Wants To Enter Punjab? There are only two political parties in Pakistan which are dominated by the urban middle class people: JI and MQM. That makes MQM the only secular middle class force in the midst of a feudal zamindar dominated politics of the country.

The fact that MQM "owns" Karachi which is essentially a microcosm of Pakistan can help MQM build relationships with many different ethnic groups and regions. The recent MQM win of a seat in GBL was the result of the MQM Balti connections in Karachi.

If MQM does succeed in gaining support among other ethnic groups and different provinces and regions of Pakistan, I believe it will most likely help moderate its policies to give it a truly national character representing the growing urban middle class in the country and help make the nation more democratic in its governance.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Pakistan People’s Party and Urban Pakistan: Reasons for Erosion of Support Re: # 47 Raza: "Votes are given on a perception"

Votes in Pakistani democracy are given based on the power and status of the person...such as the big landlords and tribal chiefs. It's a matter of entitlement in a "feudal democracy" that does not feel the need to deliver anything to improve the lives of its voters.

Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Pakistan People’s Party and Urban Pakistan: Reasons for Erosion of Support Re: # 45
Raza, And after abolishing rajas, what did Bhutto do? What prosperity did he bring? I suggest you read Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea to understand reality on the ground.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Pakistan People’s Party and Urban Pakistan: Reasons for Erosion of Support Re: # 42
Raza,

Prosperity? What prosperity?

Here's what Dawn editorial said about it, "The usual campaign promises have been made by candidates, but the socio-economic problems are serious. For example, Gilgit city has no sewerage system or major hospital, issues that have not drawn the attention of candidates."

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/da wn/news/pakistan/provinces/11-gilgit-baltistan-polls--il--03
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Kerry-Lugar Bill – A Pyrrhic Victory Re: # 52

Hillary met a number of Pak journalists, including Najam Sethi who revealed what she said in the end:

"Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami asked her why there were so many conditions in Kerry-Lugar, but none in the aid to Israel?

Hilary said there were also many conditions on the Israel aid, but they don't meet many of those, but still the aid continues. Depends on circumstances prevailing at the time of certifications."

What she meant was that Pakistan should just take the money first, and worry about the conditions later. These don't count to anything and if Pakistan does not comply, it would already have received some tranches and the money may still keep flowing through Presidential waivers!
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide