Highlights of the December 2007 issue

Between the Lines

Idrees Bakhtiar

A fresh breeze blows — softly. Something appears to have changed somewhere, even if we find it difficult to put our finger on it — the hapless people of this country are kept as ill-informed as the masters like. These changes, according to the indications, are going to be followed by more — and we can only keep our fingers crossed that they change for the better. 

Or perhaps this is just daydreaming as one has always done? But, surely, this has never happened before. When an army chief, usually, takes over the government, he wants to continue in the uniform till he breathes his last. He insists that the country needs him, that if he were not there all hell would break loose and that he wants to pursue his agenda in the interest of the people. Needless to say, the agenda keeps changing from time to time, from support for the ‘mujahideen’ to the ‘war against terror’. What remains a constant in the equation is the desire to keep ruling.
 

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The Latest Flashpoint

By Zahir Shah Sherazi

The militants may be retreating from Swat but it is only a matter of time before they emerge in another region in Pakistan’s north

By the morning of November 2, the policemen in the Matta police station were ready to vacate. Under siege in the office building, they had run out of food and ammunition and had made innumerable phone calls for backup support and some assistance. However, none had been forthcoming and the nearby surroundings were swarming with militants.

Mohammad Sharif Virk, the Inspector General of Police in Peshawar, realised the gravity of the situation and ordered all his men to vacate the station. Once the orders reached Station House Officer Amir Zaman Khan, he ordered his 70 men to vacate the building. Theirs was not an isolated act. In the nearby town of Khwazakhela in Charbagh tehsil, around 40 policemen had already vacated their police station. By November 5, the two stations had been taken over by the militants. It seemed as if these policemen had opened the proverbial floodgates: on November 6 the 40 men in Madian police station vacated the premises while the Kalam police station with nearly 60 to 70 policemen inside fell a day later.

The Truth is Out There

Questions have swirled about Mir Balaach Marri’s death since November 21 when the nation first began to grapple with the latest source of public mystery. Both the means and the motive of his death have become subjects of intense debate, fuelled since the first hours by contradictory statements, a climate of tribal secrecy and opposing claims by the government and Baloch nationalist groups. Whether he was killed by accident or counterrorism work, it is clear that domestic theorists have gone into overdrive in their ambition to flog the truth.


 
 

Change of Face

By Massoud Ansari
 

The curtain finally dropped on November 29. Having ensured a pliant judiciary and a defanged media, the one-time reluctant coup-maker took off the very uniform he had once likened to his skin. General (retd) Pervez Musharraf then took a fresh oath under the Constitution that he had suspended just days before for the second time — this time around, though, the civvies that he wore were not merely symbolic.

The military and the fault lines

Generals at present have much greater political and economic interests than their predecessors and will not endanger them for abstract ideals such as democracy. This is, clearly, one reason why Musharraf was not asked to make as ignominious an exit as Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan.

It was a crisp November morning when General Pervez Musharraf handed over charge of the military to General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. It was a day that many had looked forward to for a long time. Indeed, in view of the legal community’s agitation since March and the post-emergency turmoil and protests, there were many who believed that Pakistan’s civil society had grown vibrant enough to change the fabric of the state itself. Unfortunately, the nascent society was not strong enough to push out a general heading a professional yet praetorian military. Hence, the focus returned to the military, which was expected to deal with a powerful general who had crossed too many lines. Though it is too early for everyone to be aware of the exact role played by the military behind the scenes, which led to the handing over of the ceremonial baton, logic suggests the institution must have had a say in it. Indeed, this is what history would have us believe: previous military dictators running the country were eventually removed due to the military’s intervention. And the manner in which they were removed is a commentary on the way the institution has evolved.

A Difficult Passage to India

 
Inconsistent performances keep Pakistan on the mat in the Test and One-Day International series against India

Coaches of mercurial cricket teams are often compelled to eat their words. Take, for instance, Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson who swore by the fact that there was plenty of fight left in his team at the end of the third day’s play in the first Test against India. Long before lunch on the fifth day, however, Pakistan had tamely surrendered the game to their long-time rivals, opening the Test series on a losing account. The same slackness and paralysis of spirit had crept into their form and mindset in the home series against South Africa less than a month earlier.
 

 

 By Irfan Husain
 

As with other developmental disorders, in our country autism remains largely overlooked and misunderstood

Rayan is playing with a bowl of seashells. He picks up each shell, turns it over in his hand and then puts it down on the coffee table. “Work time, Rayan,” says Seemi Mohiuddin, showing him a picture card with a table and chair drawn on it.

 

Academic pressures, cynicism and the absence of organised leadership have already begun to cut into the numbers of protesting students who took the country's imagination by storm after the imposition of emergency

Monday, November 5, 2007. On the verdant grounds of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) – a day after four members of the university faculty were arrested at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s (HRCP) office – students of Pakistan’s leading educational institution are being called to action.




 

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Arjun Rampal, Shreyas Talpade,
Kiron Kher, Javed Shaikh
Directed by Farah Khan
Paisa vasool — adj. money’s worth, value for money. See also: Om Shanti Om. Just when you thinks he’s out, he muscles his way back in. Literally. I’m referring of course to the star of Farah Khan’s magnificent opus, Shahrukh Khan (SRK), who makes short shrift of the supposed competition from every Tom, Dick and Hrithik with designs on his crown by pulling a quasi-Salman Khan on his now very camera-friendly physique. The result is impressive to be sure and has been the hot topic of water-cooler conferences and aunty parties ever since the promos for the film first started airing, but to reduce Om Shanti Om (OSO) to the moment when SRK’s six-packs make their shirtless debut would be a grave sin. For the film is a much bigger critter than simply a vehicle for its star’s washboard torso (as opposed to, say, Dhoom 2). Indeed, director Khan’s follow-up to the so-so Main Hoon Na is nothing less than a virtual smorgasbord of zingy self-referential humour, spot-on filmi emotion, eye-popping visuals, dazzling star cameos, eminently catchy music and a thoroughly infectious nostalgia for 1970s Bollywood that also results in one of the most inspired opening sequences ever committed to celluloid..