Why Vajpayee will always prefer Zia to Musharraf: DATELINE NEW DELHI

AT the height of the post-Partition Hindu-Muslim riots, Asrarul Haq Majaz, a legendary poet of the freedom struggle but known today, if at all, as the maternal uncle of Javed Akhtar, was asked by the Communist Party of India to take shelter in a friendly Hindu dharmshala of Mumbai. He was advised to hide there with his other colleagues from the progressive writers group, including Sardar Jafri, Kaifi Azmi and perhaps Banney Bhai aka Sajjad Zahir, too.

They were all supposed to pretend to be Saryupaari and Kannauji Brahmins and it seemed easy to do that since they all came from the Avadh region of what is now Uttar Pradesh, heartland of a remarkable variety of the erstwhile priestly class. They could all speak the Avadhi dialect of Tulsidas with facility, knew more about the legend of Lord Rama and even of the more involved Hindu traditions than many Hindus themselves would be familiar with.

But something was to go wrong anyway. And so, after the priest at the dharmshala welcomed the horde of masquerading Brahmins, and they had sat down for tea, the portly pundit turned to Majaz and asked: “So, sir, you are a Saryupaari Brahmin? So am I. And what may your gotra be, sir?” Majaz, usually a great wit, lost his speech, spat out the sip of tea in his mouth and wondered aloud to himself, in chaste Urdu mind you: “Ma’az Allah, Ismey gotra bhi hota hai?” (Goodness gracious, why didn’t they warn me about this gotra business too?)

The complex skein of Hindu social order, whose yet one more hidden strand was casually re-discovered by Majaz in 1947, is not any more complicated than what obtains among Muslims, Christians, Jews, even Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in India today. If I have left out any religion, you may include that too in this argument and it wouldn’t alter much. Therefore, in discussing the cut and thrust of Islam during the passing year, it would be prudent to keep an eye on what was happening that was different with other religions.

The fact is that there is a rightwing thrust across the world today, and that includes the world of Islam. If we take a cursory look at our own neighbourhood, and see the governments that are in charge of a billion plus people, it would not be difficult to come back to the issue at hand, wither Islam? Ranil Wickremasinghe, represents the Buddhist right, the new king of Nepal is by no means a dyed-in-the-wool centrist. Begum Khaleda Zia, leaning heavily on the Muslim clergy for support and our own Atal Behari Vajpayee, all have one thing in common — they represent strong rightward-leaning religious lobbies although in my humble but potentially unpopular opinion in India, President Pervez Musharraf seems to challenge the pattern. This was made amply clear by his landmark and globally watched address on Saturday.

So Gen Musharraf is a rare exception to this generally overarching pattern of religious metaphor intruding into the body politics of nations which no doubt adds to the chagrin of his many detractors, including the ones in India. (It must surely be rightwing opinion that gets worried at the thought of Gen Musharraf’s unravelling of the religious obscurantist agenda of Gen Ziaul Haq.) Look beyond the region and you would perhaps notice that the ascendance of President George W. Bush and the decay of the British Labour Party into some kind of ideological rudderlessness are by no means signs of more tolerant and open societies ahead. Religious intolerance has seen war and persecution in Europe.

Anti-Semitism was one such reflection of predominantly Christian Europe not anywhere else. And be sure that it wasn’t Adolf Hitler, but more genial people like William Shakespeare who popularized and sustained this hatred of Jews for centuries. It may sound banal, and I confess it may even be a crass analogy, but it remains a fact in more ways than one that the anti-Semitic Nazis were essentially Christian Germans, who were eventually defeated not by a determined Jewish resistance, but by the overwhelming force of a Christian Britain and a Christian United States.

In India today, the rightwing thrust of Hindu nationalists, including some very menacing self-pronounced zealots, is not being stalled so much by Muslims, Christians or other assorted minorities as by the majority Hindus themselves. In Sri Lanka, too, a complete and brazen domination of Hindu and Christian Tamils by the majority Buddhist Sinhalese could not have been thwarted without very influential saner voices within the predominantly Sinhalese formations.

And yet there is a rising tide of religious atavism right across the world. What could be giving rise to it? Or is there something peculiar about Islam that we should guard against in particular? Or is it possible that “fundamentalism” is actually the natural progression of orthodox believers, including Muslims? If not, could it be a calibrated, cynical and deliberately crafted new ideology that uses religion as a vehicle, regardless of which religion, as long as the objective to crush a more liberal and socially fair world order is achieved?

For all practical purposes the word fundamentalist originated in the energy shock of 1973 when the Arab countries discovered oil embargo against the West as a weapon to bring their quarry to their knees. It is here at this stage that we have to take note of the other linkages in the drama. For example, the Vietnam war was not going too well for the United States and in fact the 1973 oil crisis and the Arab-Israeli war that triggered it had a clear if understated hand in the ignominy for Washington in 1975 in Saigon.

In the Middle East, during this phase of Arab politics, the leading voices against Israel and its Western supporters had little or nothing to do with Islam. It was an Arab-Jewish or as the Arabs prefer to say Arab-Zionist standoff in which the leading lights were leftist groups of Palestinians and completely secular groups from other frontline states. Leila Khaled, for example, who became the world’s first woman hijacker when she commandeered an Israeli plane, no less, in 1968 was the member of the communist PFLP group of Palestinians.

The secular imprint on the Palestinian movement was so strong in the early days that even Yasser Arafat, a product of the truly reactionary Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, could become acceptable as its leader only after taking a secular position, not an Islamic one, as even recently partly reflected in his quest to go to Bethlehem for Christmas.

The factors that forced a secular movement of the Palestinians to find itself inexorably overwhelmed by rightwing religious movements like the Hamas are not different from the ones that marginalized a secular, albeit leftist, uprising against the Shah of Iran, a feature that repeated itself in Afghanistan with minor variations and a longer time-table for creating right royal religious chaos.

The finger of suspicion points to the role of the United States. Indeed there’s no suspicion, it’s an accepted fact. In 1998, former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told Le Nouvel Observateur that he persuaded president Jimmy Carter to create the Mujahideen in 1979, with the goal of “drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.”

Asked how he could justify the subsequent collapse of any government in Kabul and the Taliban takeover, Brzezinski said: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” History will judge. Is the Northern Alliance of non-Pakhtoons not crammed with former religious zealots of the Mujahideen days? And was it not the Pakhtoons who were fighting for a secular Pakhtoonistan not too long ago, with a little bit of help here and there from the Soviet Union and India?

What Brzezinski achieved so cynically at a global level, Indian politicians have been busy crafting for decades at a smaller but equally vicious scale at home. The kind of support that orthodox and often reactionary Muslim bodies get from the state, not just the governments of the day, in their political calculations does not require mention here.

For its short-term gains, the state of India has systematically eroded its secular foundations to make room for the more pliable and manoeuvrable social groups at the cost of the liberal silent majority. That’s one of the many heavy costs we have to pay for the running of this behemoth called the world’s largest democracy. Muslim vote, Christian vote, Hindu vote, Dalit vote, and then we have Jat vote, Gujar vote, Paasi vote, Shia vote, Sunni vote.

But look closely again, for example, at the Muslims of India and you would perhaps notice that not only are they varied in regional cultures, well beyond the grasp of ordinary parliamentarians, but are religiously rooted in sects with diverse agendas, that include Wahhabis, Ahle Hadis, Deobandis, Nadwat-ul-Ulema, Tablighi Jamaats, Jamiat Ulema-I-Hind, Jamaat-i-Islami, Barelwis, Shias, Ismailis and why not even Qadianis. All or anyone of them could have inspired Akbar Ilahabadi, himself an orthodox Muslim, to guffaw thus:

“Wo miss boli ke main milwaa to deti apney father se; magar tume Alla Alla karta hai, paagal ka maafiq hai.”

Why single out Osama bin Laden for madness? As Fidel Castro said: “The more the world moves to the right, the more leftist I look, without even budging an inch from my original stance.” Gen Musharraf’s crackdown on Muslim extremists in his country could be the trigger to check this global drift to the right.

BPSC in safe hands: DATELINE QUETTA

FOR a variety of reasons, incompetence and inefficiency reigned supreme in Balochistan till recently. As the province is backward, it was ruled by elements, both locals and aliens, who had their own axe to grind. The politics of vote banks or secured political constituencies with an army of public servants were the additional reasons under a political government.

Politicians or political groups ruled this province for less than 10 years. For the remaining period, the bureaucracy, both military and civil, ruled supreme since the creation of Pakistan. Even during a political rule, police action continued for years and more than once took away the decision-making power from the civilians. The other provinces enjoyed a quasi-political government ruled by their chosen representatives under Ayub Khan or Z. A. Bhutto.

All decision-makers made unguarded attempts to recruit as many people in the administration as they could. Some ministers and secretaries of the administrative departments were able to auction posts at the cost of administrative efficiency.

The Regional Accountability Bureau detected many cases of corruption, besides others, in which government jobs were sold or given to the highest bidders. In the present accountability process some of the people were found guilty in the courts of law. Once the dismissed provincial government had to face an embarrassing situation when it was proved that members of the Public Service Commission had taken money for selecting assistant commissioners.

One of the most corrupt officials of the food department, at present behind the bars, bought posts of assistant commissioners for his two sons. “I have enough money and now I need prestige,” he offered a handsome amount to a former member of the BPSC for posts of ACs for his sons. The previous PML government thought it expedient to regularize the dubious selection despite a massive uproar in the province.

In the backdrop of corruption in recruiting people for government jobs, the decision of the federal government to grant autonomy to the Federal Public Service Commission was well received. They hoped that the Balochistan Public Service Commission would too get complete autonomy, ending the stranglehold of the bureaucracy on this vital institution.

With the army taking over the administration in 1999, the government replaced the entire team of the Balochistan Public Service Commission and appointed a group of retired educationists and officers of integrity.

There are reports from credible sources that the government is ready to grant complete autonomy to the BPSC. Local newspapers carried a story when the chairman and members of the BPSC met the governor who had reportedly agreed to grant autonomy to the BPSC on the pattern of high courts or the superior judiciary.

At present, the BPSC is dependent on the provincial finance department for release of funds for holding examinations, purchasing stationery, preparing examination papers, paying the examiners, etc. The department of services and general administration is exercising full control over the administrative affairs — whether it is the provision of an official car or POL.

Official circles are still insisting that a sitting senior bureaucrat should be appointed as BPSC chairman, retaining the administrative control. On the other hand, the governor, who is also the chief executive of the province, did not agree to it and reportedly told a delegation that the BPSC would exercise autonomy. The proposed draft law granting autonomy to the BPSC is pending with the provincial law department.

Under the proposed law, the chairman will be appointed on a contract basis for five years. He must be a retired official or an educationist and should not be a serving officer. The same will be the case with the appointment of other members. The purpose is to keep the institution away from the influence of bureaucrats, official sources said.

Its own building is under construction in Shahbaz Town in Quetta. It is a three-storey building catering to the basic requirements of the BPSC. It has two big examination halls on the top floor with a separate entrance so that the candidates should not enter the administrative and other blocks. The building is being constructed at a cost of Rs38 million. The provincial government plans to complete the construction by next year.

At present the BPSC is facing a number of challenges in coming up to the expectations of the people. It has conducted examination for over 500 doctors and made a transparent selection. Even the members did not know that two nephews of the chairman had also appeared in the examination but they did not qualify for the interview.

With the devolution of powers from the province to the district government, the department of planning has suggested creation of two special cadre of development planners and finance managers for the district governments all over the province.

The ACS, Development, Mir Ahmed Bakhsh Lehri, has suggested creation of 100 posts for meeting the future requirements of the district governments. Twelve posts will be on general merit at the provincial level and others on the basis of district quota within the province. Examiners and paper-setters are being selected through a ballot so that examinations are held with the maximum care to check a possible leakage.

The BPSC conducted the examination for tehsildars recently. Some 2,500 candidates appeared and only 124 qualified the written tests. Those qualified included doctors, engineers, post- graduates and also those who appeared in the superior service or competitive examinations in the past. There are only 24 posts for which the interviews will be held.

The most interesting aspect is that hundreds of posts of senior teachers are lying vacant. Candidates are no more interested in being teachers. Naturally, they will not be manning the ghost schools as was done in the past. On the contrary, a previous political government had appointed hundreds of teachers on political consideration. Since the World Bank finances the primary education project in Balochistan, it applied its veto power asking the government to dismiss all the illiterate teachers — some of them did not know how to read and write.

In the case of nurses, the BPSC is observing the national merit for recruitment of candidates. It is accepting candidates from all over Pakistan and selecting them on the basis of general merit.

Rekindling hopes for the locals: DATELINE LARKANA

WITH the implementation of the devolution plan at the district level, the local people are much optimist about the revival of the sick industrial units. The local governments can benefit a lot in term of generating local revenues for running the local administration and, on other hand, the economic uplift at the local level can raise the standard of life of the people.

The fate of the Shahdadkot Textile Mills hangs in the balance since its closure. The mill was established in 1976 in the backward area of Shahdadkot, which is geographically adjacent to the Balochistan province. The mill started its production in 1980 but could only continue its production till April 1988. The closure of the mill is blamed on the scarcity of working capital, recurring losses and corruption.

However, after its closure from 1988 to 1994, the spinning section of the mill was reactivated during 1994-1995. The government provided an assistance of Rs51.5 million for BMR and working capital requirements. The mill then started picking up, and the yarn production remained encouraging up to 1998-99. But later on the go-slow with the yarn production was maintained to meet the market requirements.

The trouble with the mill is that it is situated in a remote area where there is neither the facility of raw material nor is there available any market for finished products. The PIDC had always been critical of the unskilled mill hands which it had regarded as an obstacle in the running of the mill, though the labour leaders had vehemently contested this view. They would call this a calculated attempt by the management to disown their responsibility.

The mill is reported to have incurred extra amount on transportation of raw material and its finished products. That is the snag that was not considered while the mill was to be operated in the remote area of Sindh. Now the mill is facing trouble because of bad planning.

Basically, it was started to beat unemployment at the local level and to train, in due course, the unskilled hands into skilled labour. The plan was thus a good start as the mill drew its strength from the local people. At present 1,000 people are employed by the mill which is indirectly providing a means of subsistence to over 5,000 people of the adjoining area.

When the mill was re-started in 1994, it had greatly influenced the development of the city: new shops, rice mills, flour mills, etc, had sprung up, presenting a healthy economic scenario. On the whole, the city was on the way to progress and development, but with the closure of the mill the lives of about 5,000 persons are at stake.

Now this unit of the PIDC is put on the liquidation list. The closure would adversely affect local development. The situation can be reversed if such units are run with proper planning and management. Then these units would contribute to the national exchequer by means of taxes and duties, thereby raising the GNP.

The Shahdadkot mill had been contributing Rs212.220 million from 1994 to 1999 to the national exchequer through sales tax, excise duty, income-tax and utilities tax. It can further contribute to the GNP and open more employment opportunities for the local people if proper planning is done to run it.

Above the law

GOING OUT to run some errands can become quite a nightmare, especially if you happen to have a car and have to go anywhere close to Saddar. This is precisely what happened to me some time back. A trip to Empress Market to buy some of the freshest and best fruit in the city, and to check out some new CDs at Rainbow Centre, became a nightmare. I took the rather long route of going down Abdullah Haroon Road, cutting right past Dr Daudpota Road (past the original Grammar School building) and cutting right on Mansfield Street to enter the Empress Market area from the other side.

The best place to park usually is around Rainbow Centre or the stretch of road before it. Usually the Karachi Cantonment Board and the now-defunct KMC charge motorists for parking. Luckily enough, I managed to find an excellent spot right in front of Rainbow Centre. But the approach was blocked by a couple of taxis (the black kind). At first I stood there, hoping that after seeing a car waiting to get into the parking spot they would give way. But no such thing. Even after considerable use of the horn, the drivers did not move their vehicles. However, both of them were more than willing to point out another spot to me, which no double-parked car was blocking.

To make matters worse, both these men had not paid the Rs 10 parking charge. And why, I asked the attendant. “We can’t force them to pay. They don’t listen to us,” one of them said. So, not only did were these taxi drivers blocking the way for other motorists looking to park their cars, they also didn’t pay the fee themselves.

I would have thought that this would have been enough. I was wrong. After, spending a good half hour inside the market, as I came back out, what do I see but a light green Suzuki Hi-roof blocking my car. Infuriated, I went to the attendant and asked him just why he let this moron double-park his car. Apparently, it was a police car, he said, so nothing could be done. A look at the number plate (GL 4760) and I could tell it was an official car all right but not of the police. After 15 minutes of waiting, the moronic driver of this car came — he looked quite the goon-ish type so it made sense not to pick a fight with him — and moved his car.

There was not even a hint of an apology from this man. He didn’t even look sheepish or slightly apologetic; surely, he thought he owned the road. At least the parking attendant this time asked the government car driver to pay Rs 10 but I could overhear him replying: “Can’t you see this is a police car?”

And, as I drove off, I could see another car, also with green number plates, drive in and double-park right in front of other parked cars. The driver of this car, too, (number plate GP 8500) also refused to pay anything.

Maybe it’s not a bad idea if all official and military cars have a sign affixed to the bumper that says: ‘Above the law’.

Are we, being born and bred in this city, taking it for granted? For many it is a dream come true to be able to earn a living in Karachi. Recently a friend told me this story about his driver who came to the city in April last year.

His driver, Farooque, never planned to come to Karachi. It just happened or as the man puts it, it was his khush kismati. He ran a small denting painting workshop in Attock with his partner but something happened and after a dispute they went their separate ways.

There weren’t many things for him to do in Attock so together with his younger brother, Farooque left the place and went to Larkana. Finding that no jobs were to be found there, the brother thought that it would be better to return to Attock. Farooque, however, reasoned that since they had come this far there was no harm in travelling a little further to Karachi and trying their luck there.

Farooque made the right decision because on the very first day he reached Karachi he was hired as a driver — a job he holds to this day. A distant cousin settled in Karachi knew of a family who needed a driver and that was that. Today, Farooque’s younger brother is a guard with a well-known security firm.

Farooque’s story, though inspiring, isn’t as phenomenal as the success story of a printing press worker I once knew. After a stint at the press, Muzammil became a carpenter, then a construction contractor and eventually a furniture designer. A few years passed and he came to be known as an architect and interior designer, building houses in Defence. Now age seems to be catching up with him. He cannot run around town like he used to.

Recently, I came across his name again when someone threw an envelope inside my gate with a card inside which spoke of his new occupation: Reiki master.

Seminars and workshops have evolved over the years. Gone are the days when these functions were drab and you to pinch yourself to stay awake in the onslaught of unending monologues. Now, thanks to technology, there are specialists who go through pains to make it all picture perfect. Consultants charge a whopping sum to come and deliver a lecture and make others participate by ‘play-acting’. At the end of it all, participants are given a briefcase full of reading material picked up from the Net.

Coming to details, attention is paid to the seating arrangement, the temperature of the room, the stationery, the acoustics, the presentation slides and the food, and the water (always mineral). It is quite ironic that a lot of time is spent by participants talking about the down-trodden but that they guzzle mineral water as they do this, and leave their eating plates almost always with left-over food.

But a colleague noticed, much to her consternation, that while everything seemed almost perfect with a floor seating, the organizers forgot one important detail. When the male participants took off their shoes to sit on the white chandni, the sweaty odour that wafted into the room from their feet made things quite unbearable. Surely, the consultants couldn’t have planned for something like this.

Delivering food to people’s homes has come a long way since the mid-90s. In those days, only a handful of domestic fast food restaurants were in the business and their area of coverage was quite small. Gradually, and especially with the arrival of the franchise restaurants, things began to hot up.

Now, there is no part of the city really, perhaps maybe the kutchi abadis, where you can’t have food delivered to your home. Clifton and Defence are served not only by the larger, more organized eating places, they also offer residents several other options. Even the famous Students’ Biryani has joined the fray with billboards at several major traffic intersections advertising its ‘111’ UAN delivery service number.

Other parts of the city have their own delivery options. Sindhi Muslim has this place where you can order from a huge Chinese menu. The plus point here is that the helpings are truly massive, prices are relatively cheap, and they deliver anywhere in the city — something that their take-away menu makes a point of mentioning.

One would have to say that the area around Chundrigar Road, the city’s main business district, definitely has the most food delivery services. From the local restaurant to the foreign fast food restaurants, there is so much variety that probably any kind of palate can be satisfied. Of course, this rage in home deliveries has probably been necessitated by a change in people’s lifestyles with things become more hectic, both at home and in the workplace. This has also meant that some connoisseurs are now wondering why is it that their favourite restaurants can’t also deliver just like everyone else. — By Karachian

Marine pollution along coastline

KARACHI: The ecosystem of the Karachi coast is dangerously stressed because of unbridled industrial and municipal waste discharge into the Arabian Sea. Out of the country’s 825km coastline, 135km stretches around Karachi. Over the years the Karachi coast has earned the distinction of being among the ‘most polluted’ in the world. This pollution directly affects the shoreline, including the mangroves, and has serious implications for the health of the villagers who live along the coastline.

Karachi’s five major industrial areas, with thousands of industries, most of them located around the coastal belt, generate enough pollution to make life difficult for its 13 million people.

Industrial effluent generated by these factories in Sindh Industrial Trading Estate, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi Export Processing Zone and Landhi Industrial Trading Estate is directly discharged into the sea through Malir and Lyari rivers, virtually without any treatment.

The worst hit portion of Karachi coast is the Korangi creek, where the effluent from Korangi, Landhi, Karachi Export Processing Zone, Bin Qasim Industrial Areas and the country’s largest industrial unit — Pakistan Steel — are directly discharged into the sea. In the Korangi industrial area alone, at least 2,500 industrial units, which include about 135 tanneries, are disposing of their untreated waste in the sea. Organic and toxic waste from these tanneries is one of the main sources of water pollution. The Pakistan Tanners Association (PTA) has been negotiating for past some time to install a treatment plant in Korangi, but its installation and operation at full capacity is likely to take a long time.

The city’s two ports — Karachi Port and Port Bin Qasim — also contribute to the coastal pollution considerably. It has been learnt that some 20,000 tons of oil is added to the blue waters of the Arabian Sea annually through bilge cleaning, leakage from vessels, accidental oil spills and refinery effluent.

Karachi Port handles the majority of the country’s sea-borne trade. The port authorities are ill equipped to deal with the environmental degradation being caused by the shipping industry.

Moreover, because many landlocked Central Asian countries are beginning to view Pakistan as a conduit to ship out their exports, the port activity is likely to increase in the near future and so will the pollution.

Inquiries show that major pollution at Karachi port occurs because of its extensive usage by the vessels that pump out bilges and refuse illegally at the port’s oil terminal. A World Bank study shows that sewage and toxic matter pollution in the Karachi Port includes toxic effects, either direct or indirect, by bioaccumulation of oil, DDT, PCB, and various metals. It also shows that poor water quality is contributing in distortion of aquatic organism and reduction in the reproduction of fish and shrimp.

The port is also affecting the environment with its heavy shipping of oil and subsequent dredging activities. According to a rough estimate, about 90,000 tons a year of oily discharges are pumped out within port limits and, unfortunately, there exists no oily ship waste reception or treatment facility within the port.

In addition, the dredging of the sea is having a major impact. The dredged material is dumped out to maintain the port. However, there is no system for monitoring trace metals in the dredged soil that is likely to further deteriorate the environment.

The 1991 Pakistan National Environmental Plan estimates that three main coastal industries located near the port with the largest volumes of effluents are the steel mill, power plants, and refineries and notes that many smaller industrial units are having more significant polluting effects on the marine environment.

In 1992, a UN study noted that the concept of wastes recycling, treatment, and disposal does not exist in the industrial sector of Pakistan. Even the highly polluted wastes are being discharged irrationally into water bodies, soil and in the air. Proper industrial waste treatment systems are virtually non-existent in the industrial sector. In the absence of any viable government policy on environmental controls, the industries are able to dispose of their waste in the cheapest way by dumping it into the sea.

Moreover, Pakistan cannot do much to prevent dumping of wastes into the sea because it is not a signatory to the 1972 Convention of Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Waste and Other Matter or the 1978 MARPOL Protocol relating the International Convention for Prevention of Pollution from Ships. For this, the government needs to review its interest in becoming a party to all such global agreements.

Manghopir crocodiles go cannibal for lack of space

THE SACRED crocodiles (crocodiles palustris), living in a small brackish pit, are fighting for space to bask on the craggy sandstone outcrops to ward off the shivering cold.

They lie motionless up the early noon every day to raise their body temperature which is necessary for them to digest their food. In winter the heat from the sun assimilates the fat deposited in their body to meet this exigency. In winter they do not eat much as their bodies do not need energy to survive.

The cold-blooded reptile are considered sacred because, as the legend goes, they were transported to this small brackish pit by Mor Mubarak from ‘Waghodar’ in the dim past. His tomb is located some 120 km in Hinidan, 120 km from Hub Dam in the stony wilderness at the foot of Pub Hills, wherefrom the Hub river originates at Aari Pir which is a rocky depression, near Dureji, where a perennial lake still houses ten marsh crocodiles that have been living here since time immemorial, when the Hub River flowed full.

There were many of them only a few miles from Karachi in pits at the Hub Chauki right after partition. They have all been shot down by unscrupulous hunters.

Another legend is more colourful. Mangho Wasa, the Hindu dacoit who plundered all those who straggled into his path. When he came across Hazrat Khawaja Hasan Maroof, Sakhi Sultan Baba buried in the shrine of Manghopir, he, out of repentance for is sins, converted to Islam and served the wayfarers all his life, who came to pay homage to the holy man. The shrine is known as Manghopir in association of Mangho dacoit who turned into a pious soul in his later life.

In the early sixties, the number of crocodiles had dropped to three. The scribe, through Wildlife Conservation Society of Pakistan that he head formed, convinced the local administration to deepen the lake that had silted up to only three feet.

The shallow water made crocodiles miserable. The warden was trained to breed them. The first clutch was four raising the population of the threatened reptiles to seven. Now the population is hundred plus.

Now, the pit is too small for them. Cannibalism has ensued due to mutual fight for space and grabbing for food.

‘Auqaf’ is not doing much for regular food supply; the overpopulated animals subsists on meat offered by devotees.

“The daily requirement of food in summer for all of them is about one bullock”, Sajjad, the keeper said. In winter they eat once a month, but cannibalism has resulted in low survival.

In the first week of Feb, there will be a four-day mela of Sheedis who still practice pagan rituals to venerate them, offer meat plus sweet to ensure fulfilment of their wishes.

—Dr A.A. Quraishy

Bill Clinton in and out of power

I HAD the great good fortune to listen to Bill Clinton’s Richard Dimbleby lecture over BBC-TV. The former US president got an ovation at the end of his speech which he never got while he was in office. The speech is too long for me to reproduce here in full. However, I present some excerpts here.

Mr Clinton said:

“It was exactly a year ago today (December 31, 2000) near the end of my tenure as president, on my final trip overseas, that I went to Warwick University with Tony Blair to deliver a speech. As Mr Dimbleby said just a few moments ago, none of us at that time could have foreseen the exact difficulties of this time, but what many of us could see even then and what Prime Minister Blair and I talked about, was a larger battle brewing, one that made it clear to us at least that we could no longer delude ourselves that the harsh realities a world away were without real consequences for own people.

“On that day a year ago, I said: “We have seen how abject poverty accelerates conflict, how it creates recruits for terrorists and those who incite ethnic and religious hatred, how it fuels a violent rejection of the economic and social order on which our future depends.” And then down the line Mr Clinton said:

“I think victory for our point of view depends upon four things. First, we have to win the fight we’re in, in Afghanistan and against the terrorist networks that threaten us today. Second, we in the wealthy countries have to spread the benefits of the 21st century world and reduce the risks so that we can make more partners and fewer terrorists in the future. Third, the poor countries themselves must make some internal changes so that progress for their own people becomes more possible. And finally, all of us will have to develop a truly global consciousness about what our responsibilities to each other are and what our relationships are to be.”

And Mr Clinton went on to say:

“But what are the burdens of the twenty-first century? They are also formidable. Global poverty. ... Think of this when you go home tonight. Half the people on earth live on less than two dollars a day. A billion people (on) less than a dollar a day. A billion people go to bed hungry every night and a billion and a half — one quarter of the people on earth — never get a clean glass of water. One woman dies every minute in childbirth. So you could say, ‘don’t tell me about the global economy, half the people aren’t part of it, what kind of economy leaves half the people behind?’

“.... the global environment. The oceans that provide most of our oxygen are deteriorating rapidly. There’s a huge water shortage. I already said a quarter of the people never get any. It could change everything about how we grow food and where we live.

“.... If the climate warms for the next 50 years at the rate of the last 10, we’ll lose the whole island nations in the Pacific that will be flooded by the rising water table as the South Pole and the North Pole get smaller. We will lose the Everglades in America that I worked so hard to save, we will lose 550 feet of Manhattan — prime real estate — gone. But more to the point there will be millions of food refugees created, more terror, more destabilization.”

Then Mr Clinton added:

“This year, one in four of all the people on earth who die, will die of AIDS, TB, malaria and infections related to diarrhoea. Most of them little kids that never get any clean water. If you just take AIDS alone we have 40 million cases by 2005. If that happens, it will be the biggest epidemic since the plague killed a quarter of Europe in the 14th century.

“And it will destabilize countries and a whole lot of young people around the world will say: ‘Well, I’m HIV positive, I’ve got a year or two to live, why shouldn’t I go out and shoot up a bunch of other people?’ It’ll look like one of those Mel Gibson road Warrior movies in a lot of countries if we have a hundred million AIDS cases. And lest you think it’s an African problem, the fastest growing rates of AIDS are in the former Soviet Union, on Europe’s back door. The second fastest growing rates of AIDS are in the Caribbean on America’s front door. .... The third fastest growing rates of AIDS and the largest number of cases outside South Africa are in India .... And China just admitted they have twice as many cases as they thought they had, a 67 per cent increase last year, and only 4 per cent of their adults know how AIDS is contracted and spread.

“.... One of the big burdens of the modern world is high-tech terrorism — and a lot of people knew it before September 11. The marriage of modern weapons to ancient hatreds: Rivanda, Sierra Leone, the Balkans, East Timor, the Middle East or — until God bless them, the people of my ancestors, the Irish, did the right thing — Northern Ireland. Don’t you think it’s interesting that in the most modern of ages, the biggest problem is the oldest problem of human society — the fear of the other. And how quickly fear leads to distrust, to hatred, to dehumanization, to death.

“So we now live in a world without walls that we have worked hard to make ...... let me mention some specifics. First we have to reduce global poverty and increase the economic empowerment of poor people ....”

Towards the end, Mr Clinton turned philosophic. He said:

“Think about how important your differences are to you. Think about how we all organize our lives in little boxes — man, woman, British, American, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Tory, Labour, New Labour, ... Our little boxes are important to us ... And the fanatics of the world, they love their boxes and they hate yours ....”

Getting increasingly emotional, Mr Clinton said:

“... Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, .... were murdered by their fellow Americans for trying to reconcile the American people to each other. Gandhi ... (was) murdered not by an angry Muslim but by a fellow-Hindu because he wanted India for the Muslims and the Jains and the Sikhs. And the Jews and the Christians. Sadaat — was murdered not by an Israeli commando, but by a very angry Egyptian. ... And one of the people I have loved most .... Yitzhok Robin, was murdered not by a Palestinian terrorist but by a very angry Israeli Jew who thought he was not a good Jew or a good Israeli because he wanted lasting peace for Israel through the recognition of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians for a homeland. And that guy who murdered him got exactly what he wanted — he derailed and delayed the peace process and let it be swarmed and mauled by all those people who were under the foolish illusions that their differences mattered more than the fact that they were all the children of Abraham.”

And finally, Mr Clinton concluded:

“... It’s great that your kids will live to be 90 years old but I don’t want it to be behind barbed wires. It’s great that we’re gonna have all these benefits of the modern world, but I don’t want you to feel like you are emotional prisoners. And I don’t wont you to look like a people who look different from you and see a potential enemy instead of a fellow-traveller. We can make the world of our dreams for our children, but since it’s a world without walls, it will have to be a home for all our children.”

I’ll talk some more about this Clinton speech some other time but since I’ve a little space left, I wonder why Mr Clinton never talked like this during all his eight years in the White House. Is Bill Clinton wiser out of power than when he was the commander-in-chief of the United States? Did he never know that there was no difference between a crusading Christian and a Muslim fanatic? But that, as I said, will have to wait.

Need for HRC-like inquiry commission: VIEW FROM MARGALLA

PRESIDENT Gen Musharraf perhaps articulated the precise sentiments of the entire nation when he warned India on Saturday that it should not dare cross the Line of Control. He was also right on the dot when he said in his speech on the national hookup that nothing can keep Pakistan from extending political, diplomatic and moral support to the people of occupied Kashmir. And he would certainly find the entire nation backing him on the issue of Pakistanis wanted by India. His invitation to the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to come forward and help create peace and harmony with a view to resolving all disputes through peaceful means and dialogue is also in line with what the nation wants. And he was again reflecting the sentiments of the nation when he asked the US to play its role in resolving the Kashmir dispute. Above all it is highly reassuring to note that India has responded positively to Gen Musharaf’s repudiation of ‘cross-border’ terrorism. He did not say it in so many words. But this is what perhaps he had wanted to convey in effect to the Indians when he announced the banning of all those Jihadi organizations which were known to have been very active in the Indian Held Kashmir and also by making a firm commitment to punish those who would be found using Pakistani territory for launching terrorist activities in other countries. This is exactly what the Indians had wanted him to do in Agra in return for agreeing to treat Kashmir as the core dispute between the two countries. But for some reason he did not oblige the Indians in Agra. Perhaps he was waiting for an opportunity like the one offered by the December 13 to respond positively to the Indian demand. Well as they say, all is well that ends well.

The president’s speech has, however, raised a number of questions on the domestic front, though. And there are many in Pakistan who would like Gen Musharraf to answer the following questions so that the whole thing of religious extremism in this country is put in its proper context and effective measures are taken to keep it under control in the future. These questions are: Who had he meant when he referred to ‘those’ and ‘they’ when he said “‘Those’ who set up Afghan Defence Council did not do any service to Pakistan and Islam rather ‘they’ got hundreds of innocent Pakistanis killed by sending them to take part in the so-called Jihad in Afghanistan”? Who had actually created the organizations like the banned Jaish-i-Mohammad (JM), Lashkar-i- Taiba (LeT), Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Tehrik-i-Jaferia Pakistan (TJP), Tanzim-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM)? Who had encouraged the setting up of those Madaris which he said were involved in encouraging hatred, violence and terrorism? Who had encouraged the ‘religious extremists’ to defy the writ of the government and why? Who had authored the policy of interfering in the affairs of others (countries) and using violence as a means to thrust our point of view on others? Who had actually sponsored and strengthened the policy of allowing Pakistan to be used for carrying out terrorist or subversive activities in and outside the country? And who had actually allowed foreign Muslim extremists to use Pakistan as the hub of their activities?

Simply put, it appears that in his speech the President had tried to blame every ‘sin’ related to violence in the name of Afghanistan, Kashmir and sectarianism inside and outside the country in the last 15 years or so on the so-called religious extremists. A very convenient way of side stepping accountability of the Establishment itself which has attained an uncanny mastery in finding scapegoats for its own sins and getting the nation as well as the world accept its version of the story lock stock and barrel!

What is actually needed, therefore, is another inquiry body to be set up on the lines of Hamoodur Rehman Commission which should go into the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of the emergence of the so-called ‘Jihadi’ elements in this country. Of course, every body knows the genesis of modern day Jihad. It goes back the US war against the USSR in Afghanistan in the decade of 1980s. The Americans had given global respectability to the terms ‘Jihad’ and ‘Mujahid’ for their own purpose. They funded these Mujahideen and armed them to teeth. And these misled Mujahideen flocked to Afghanistan from the Muslim countries to fight the American ‘Jihad’ against the Soviets. After they had won this ‘Jihad’ for the USA, their benefactor just walked away leaving them high and dry. This is when they were adopted by Pakistani Establishment. And why not? The Pakistani Establishment had the grandiose visions of extending its ‘strategic depth’ to the northern borders of Afghanistan and bleeding India in the Indian Held Kashmir. The Establishment sponsored these Mujahideen without a Jihad with money, guns and another Jihad. Even the Pak-Afghan Defence Council was formed at the behest of the Establishment. Remember the formation of IJI in 1988 and the money the ISI is supposed to have distributed among politicians then to get them to stop Benazir Bhutto-led PPP from sweeping the 1988 elections? Well an affidavit to the effect by the then ISI chief, Lt-Gen (Rtd) Asad Durrani, the present Pakistan Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, is pending before the Supreme Court. If the ISI can spend money to interfere into the internal affairs of Pakistan what was there to stop its external wing using the hard-earned money of the taxpayer as well as that doled by the foreign donors in doing the same for achieving its global objectives?

The President cannot pass the entire responsibility for this on his predecessors? In December 1999 when Masood Azhar of Jaish emerged from the hijacked Indian airline in Kandahar Musharraf was the all powerful military ruler of this country who could exile Nawaz Sharif with a stroke of pen, stop Benazir Bhutto from coming back and ban legitimate political activities of the mainstream political parties. Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed, whom Gen Musharraf arrested only last week, had the full field to themselves and they could go to any place in full public view, hold meetings, display arms and issue threats to India. Nothing was done against them. And when just before he was about to embark on his Agra Yatra, he was asked by an Indian journalist if he would like to ask these Jihadis to curb their activities now that peace talks were starting his answer was in the negative.

So, the Pakistani Establishment cannot escape its role in promoting the Jihadi culture in the country. And it will have to be held accountable for this, if as Gen Musharraf says the Jihad culture has brought such a bad name for Pakistan. We must find out who corrupted the simpletons of Madaris and the mosques. Unless we do this we cannot hope to have repudiated violence completely. —ONLOOKER

When discrimination begins at birth

DESPITE naturally outliving men and statistically higher in number by birth, there are less women in the world today as compared to men, and have been so, for a long time. According to the United Nations 1995 Report on the World’s Women, Trends and Statistics, women haven’t had the numerical upper hand worldwide since 1965.

Denial of food and healthcare to females has engineered a shift in the planet’s demography, and although in most countries of the developed world like the US, women still outnumber men, the part of the world that is still grappling with disease and poverty has fewer women than men. The reason is simple: females are neither given enough to eat, nor provided with adequate medical care.

The situation is no different in Pakistan (and ironically a high female mortality rate here is directly or indirectly related with motherhood), where now there are 49 per cent women as compared the long-ago figure of 52 per cent. For every 100 men there are 96 women in our country. A statistical thunderclap like this never hit the headlines of our media and a very few of us are aware of this statistical upset. What should, therefore, be a cause of concern for philanthropists and social analysts alike is the general ignorance and the lack of any sense of guilt regarding this man-made imbalance, as most nevertheless believe that there are more women in every home of our country than men, and the birth of a daughter is still a regrettable occasion for most. How many social evils erupt consequently and how many baby girls are abandoned or offered for adoption is anybody’s guess. In many cases girls are denied a stomachful of meal or a visit to the doctor, to give precedence to a male sibling. Hence, women start facing discrimination as soon as they are born and often, women themselves are also responsible for reinforcing these behaviour patterns.

According to recent statistics, in the Punjab alone, over 40 per cent of the pregnant and lactating women are severely anaemic. Every 20 minutes a woman dies during pregnancy or labour, and only a meagre 18 per cent of the deliveries are assisted by doctors or professionally trained midwives. In the far-flung areas of the province, the situation is even worse, because long distances often deter women from seeking medical help. They mostly resort to visiting quacks closer home or use on some home made remedy, which often aggravates their health problems. As one sociologist puts it: “The self-esteem of our rural and illiterate women is so low that they are neither aware of their human rights, nor their rights as women. Without basic education they cannot be expected to develop it.” Even in the 21st century the girl child in the Punjabi villages faces dietary discrimination, besides other forms of injustice, and to supplement the male sibling, she is denied meats and greasy curries and consequently the right to grow up in reasonable health.

“Turning down a girl’s right to a balanced and nutritious diet results in a poor health base which affects the whole process of motherhood when they grow up. Our average woman is anaemic and usually not strong enough to undergo the toil of pregnancy and lactation, resulting in a high number of deaths,” says a sociologist. Another form of injustice against the girl child is that more girls have to drop out of school after the primary level than boys, despite showing better results at school. Even out of the total infant mortality ratio in the Punjab, 12 per cent more girls die than boys because girls are denied proper post-natal care more often than boys. These figures make themselves felt, though to little remedial measures from us. The inequity that women have to face in psychological terms, can neither be documented in statistics, nor has ever been investigated into.

A high number of women in the Punjabi villages, especially young girls engaged in the carpet industry, suffer from tuberculosis, a disease that has been mostly eradicated from the developed world but which still poses a great challenge for our health planners. Due to their nimble fingers, girls are also engaged in our carpet industry. Under-paid and under-fed, they hardly get to share anything of the megabuck market. The provincial government has undertaken various projects focusing on women’s health, yet their intensive implementation and results will take time. What is perhaps also needed are projects that diffuse positive attitudes and trigger useful behavioural change among people entangled in the web of ignorance and prejudice.—Faryal Shahzad

The Billo legend and her ranis

OF late, a song by the name of Billo by that most creative of Punjabi singers, Ibrarul Haq, has been top of the pops. There is good reason for it to be there. The name Billo has a curious spell about it, with the attraction being grouted in Punjabi history, and for the people of Lahore it has a very special place.

Like all magnificent emperors in history, Ranjit Singh, also had his harem, though it was not as large in size as was that of the Mughals or the other rulers before him. While Maharaja Ranjit Singh ruled supreme over the land sitting atop his small room on the Shish Mahal, his harem was divided strictly into four categories. The first two had nine women each, the third had seven women and the fourth 21 women. The number of women in each group were selected by a band of Sikh and Muslim religious leaders who excelled in the “science” of astrology and numerology.

The first category consisted of royal wives, all selected strictly in accordance with political needs of alliances and likes and dislikes. The second category comprised widows, who he also treated as his wives. The third was a select band of courtesans, all of them talented and educated women. The last group was an array of concubines. All these women were chosen for their beauty and came from all over his kingdom. It was normal for them to retire when they reached the age of 25, when newer and younger ones would be added. And so went on life in the royal household.

In Lahore, there was a woman of exceptional beauty by the name of Bashiran. She was an excellent singer and knew how to hold the Maharaja spellbound. Ranjit Singh called her Billo because she had light brown eyes like that of a cat. Her beauty was such that the whole of Lahore knew that Billo was out of bounds for all men except the Maharaja. She was, by all accounts, the favourite of the emperor, who had ordered an annual jagir of 8,000 rupees for her, double that given to any of the other women. Her strongest asset was her ability to sing ghazals from the Diwan-i-Hafiz, most of which she knew by heart. Her voice had a melody few could match. In the streets of Lahore any young beauty who had an ego larger than herself would be taunted as a ‘Billo’. Such was the rage of Bashiran of Lahore. One account puts her residence as being one of the large havelis in Paniwala Talab.

Another account narrates an interesting episode when one day Ranjit Singh, in a playful mood, offered her jewellery worth Rs15,000 and a further jagir of Rs4,000 if she could win the affection of his pious Muslim minister, Fakir Nuruddin. “No thank you, Maharaja”, said Billo, “I fear I will be stricken blind for sinfully looking at that holy man.” However, Fakir Nuruddin’s brother, Fakir Azizuddin, also a court minister, fell to her charms. One day when he went to see the Maharaja, he noticed that the king was busy listening to a ghazal by Hafiz. He stood by listening to the poetry and at one point was so overcome that he shouted “Allah-o-Akbar” and jumped into a nearby water tank to cool off. Royal attendants jumped in to rescue him, for he fell unconscious. From that time onwards, whenever Fakir Azizuddin was announced in the Maharaja’s presence, all music was stopped. The Maharaja would say: “Run away bharaus”, bharau being the Punjabi name for cuckoo, but him meaning the musicians. This usage is still current inside the old city of Lahore.

Just a touch of odd detail about the sessions Maharaja Ranjit Singh used to have in the presence of Billo. The wine served at these sessions was made of the extraction of the choicest raisins, which were mixed with finely crushed pearls. Victor Jacquemont was to write much later that the wine was of the highest calibre, and the sessions with Billo did not smack of vulgarity, but were sober and had a class of their own. “The popular belief that they were orgies is far from the truth. The sessions were for the connoisseur and for those who love poetry and the arts.”

In her prime, Billo had a troupe of about 40 young dancers. She had the ability to create mimes in the background while she sang, adding to the over-all effect of the ghazals she sang. Each of the girls was called ‘Billo Rani’, a usage that is still current in the Walled City. The clothes that Billo used for these ‘ranis’ is still current among girls following the profession in Tibbi in Lahore. Undoubtedly, Bashiran alias Billo of Lahore was a prima donna of her time. The legend lives on.

Creating a new image of Billo in the minds of the people of not only Lahore, but of the whole of the Punjab, goes to the credit of Ibrarul Haq. It would not be a bad idea if this creative genius could read more about the wondrous women and restore in the popular mind Billo’s genius and talent.