Teen Spot

When corporations rule the world

2008-09-21T04:36:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Rabab Naqvi

When corporations rule the world is not the cry of some banner-carrying, placard-waving left-winger against the current economic order whose genuine concerns are usually condemned by corporations and governments alike as nothing more than the venting of their own personal failures and frustrations. This is an in-depth analysis by a person with impeccable credentials.

David Korten’s academic credentials include an MBA and a PhD. He has been associated with prestigious institutions such as Harvard and Stanford. Through his involvement with the US Agency for International Development, he has been able to gain personal insight into the real impact of the misguided economic policies and failed models of economic development in Asia and Africa. He is an associate of International Forum on Globalization, publisher of Yes and co-founder of Positive Future Network. The powerful and mighty cannot dismiss this book as nothing more than an expression of cynicism and despair. This is a serious and incisive study by a sensitive and caring person.

First published in 1995, it was well received by enlightened political and business leaders, consumer advocates and activists. The Financial Times (London) listed it as the ‘must-read’ book and Toronto’s Globe and Mail hailed it as the book that could make this world a better place for all of us. It sold over 90,000 copies in thirteen languages within five years of its release. This revised and updated version has three new chapters and an epilogue which outline alternatives to the present mess. The detailed proposal for change includes guaranteeing an adequate income for everyone. The book ends on an upbeat mood with hope of a better future however remote it may be.

It is not all doom and gloom. If corporations are raping the earth and depriving the people of any shred of dignity and security, the counter movement is also picking up steam. Cultural awakening is changing the way people think. In America, David Korten lists 26 per cent of the population or 50 million comprising the ‘cultural creatives’ and the number is growing. The term is derived from a book by the same title which deals with the awakening of the cultural consciousness in America. The awareness is also growing around the world. In Beirut the counter-congress, “Our world is not for sale”, was organized from November 6 to 8.

Consumerism may or may not be the path to happiness for some. It is definitely the path for spiritual, emotional, and moral bankruptcy for all. In 1992, in its article, “Pollution and the poor,” The Economist justified the dumping of the pollution on the poor countries by the rich countries on the grounds that it provided economic opportunities to the otherwise deprived.

Since September 11, activists and an increasing number of ordinary people are connecting terrorism not so much to fundamentalism as to economic deprivation. Like David Korten, these people are also very critical of the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These institutions instead of fighting poverty are justifying their existence by exploiting the poor for the benefit of the rich. As David Korten says, the corporate culture has elevated the ‘pursuit of greed’ to the ‘level of a religious mission’. It is destroying democracy, undermining human rights and stripping the powerful of social and moral consciousness.

Just one example will suffice. In 1989, James Stewart, CEO of Lone Star Industries, laid off workers and cut off their dividends. But he still did not let go the 2.9 million dollars expense account for himself.

It is only once in a while that we come across a book such as When corporations rule the world. This brilliant, penetrating, courageous, rational, and path-breaking study torments the soul, agitates the mind, evokes the civic consciousness and uplifts the spirit. It is not an ordinary book, it is an eye-opener. David Korten’s message is precise and clear. “We must break through the veil of illusion and misrepresentation that is holding us in self-destructive cultural trance and get on with the work of re-creating our economic systems in service to people and the living earth.”

It is a blueprint for the twenty-first century. A framework for maintaining the right balance between the natural world and its inhabitants. It is an agenda for change and community empowerment. Scholarly and engaging, it draws on everyday life and human experiences not on boring statistical surveys and planning models. It is rich in both historical background and recent events. The history of corporations is covered from the days of the British and Dutch trading companies in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the present. With computerization books do not go out-of-date by the time they are printed. The information is current, detailed and at times lively.

Did you know that whenever Henry Kissinger goes travelling he sends his dog, Amelia, to Maryland in a limousine to stay as a houseguest in a private room?

Naomi Klein’s No logo has been called the Das Kapital of the anti-corporate movement and When corporations rule the world has been referred to as the bible of the living democracy movement. More appropriately it should be called the bible of the movement with no name. The anti-globalization movement though strong has yet to organize under one name. Naomi Klein is also very critical of globalization, but offers no concrete proposal for change.

David Korten has many realistic and practical suggestions. It is surprising that he does not attach much importance to the power of the poor, ordinary workers around the world who are coming together under the brand identity.

With travel and free flow of information there is a new awareness, people are able to see through the system that exploits them and are not willing to accept their lot as the will of God. They may be powerless, but they are well aware of their rights.

Political and business leaders will be wise to heed its message of a civil society and not to ignore this exposition as an idealistic discourse. This book will appeal most to people who want a point of view other than those published by the advocates of globalization: Fortune, Business Week, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist.

When corporations rule the world
By David Korten
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. and Kumerian Press
ISBN 1-887208-04-6
408pp. $15.95

A study in revolution

2008-09-21T04:34:00.002-07:00

By Sami Saeed

Revolutions are important landmarks in the history of civilization although the process of social and political change goes on continuously. The forces of continuity are constantly pitted against those of change. It is not possible to maintain the status quo beyond a certain point, as every system generates its own contradictions. Revolutions occur when progressive forces are too dynamic to be controlled.

The French revolution (1789-1799), that not only sealed the fate of feudalism in Western Europe but also generated modern ideas of democracy and liberalism throughout the world, was the culmination of a process that had started three centuries earlier. The power of the privileged classes, the nobility and the clergy, had gradually eroded under the expanding wealth and influence of the bourgeoisie. The winds of change started to blow in the fourteenth century when Europeans engaged in trade on an ever increasing scale and towns began to emerge all over the continent. The clergy and the nobility were confronted by a new class rapidly growing in power and resources. This was the middle class consisting of tradesmen and professionals seeking social status and political power commensurate with their newly acquired wealth.

A third element was the monarchy. The monarchs had traditionally been engaged in an internal struggle for power with the turbulent nobility but their own authority was deeply embedded in the feudal system. The monarchies, faced by this dilemma, reacted mainly in two ways. Where the monarch and the middle class stood together against the feudal aristocracy, the way was paved for a steady political evolution. This underlay the peaceful evolution of constitutional monarchy in England, where the monarch played into the hands of the feudal aristocracy to deny the bourgeoisie their share of social recognition and political authority. In France the monarch, irresolutely wavering between the assertive bourgeoisie and the obstinate aristocracy, set the stage for a bloody revolution that swept both the monarchy and the nobility out of political power. The revolution steered by the bourgeoisie and supported by peasants and urban riffraff generated its own momentum and ignominiously led to dictatorship. The revolutionary army secured victories and suffered setbacks on the battlefield against conservative Europe and at home Napoleon Bonaparte rode the crest of absolute power that even monarchs would envy.

Vaulting personal ambition combined with revolutionary ardour to determine Napoleon’s actions and led him through a hectic life of romance and adventure to a lonely death on the remote and rocky island of St Helena. The revolution passed through various vicissitudes, from republicanism through terror to benevolent despotism. But revolutionary ideals proved irresistible and caught the imagination of the modern world and became the very basis of its society, politics and culture.

Revolutions are extremely complex movements in which events, personalities and institutions interact in unprecedented situations. As such, it requires minute analysis of historical facts to identify the true face of a revolution. Historians of the French revolution have advanced three main theories on the genesis of this upheaval.

First, it has been looked upon as the doing of an active minority who, having imbibed the sceptical spirit of the age, wanted to overthrow established institutions. Secondly, it has been considered as an expression of popular aspiration for political reform. Lastly, it has been held that the origins of the revolution lay in the widespread dissatisfaction of the underprivileged classes which struggled to rectify the injustices to which they were being subjected.

The British statesman Edmund Burke put forward the conspiracy theory in his Reflections on the revolution in France published in 1790. He regarded monarchy and aristocracy as sacred institutions that a mischievous minority poisoned by the doctrines of the philosophes sought to overthrow. This view obviously reflects the conservative bias of Burke; it is also out of tune with the universally accepted fact that the revolution was fairly broad-based and involved a vast majority of the French people. It would also be unfair to consider the philosophes the villain of the piece, as their role in the making of the revolution could hardly be overemphasized.

The philosophes were a group of French writers and intellectuals who popularized the ideas put forth by contemporary philosophers. Prominent among them were Fontenelle, Bayle, Voltaire and Diderot. Though men of divergent views and interests, they were all imbued with the sceptical spirit of the age. They criticized traditional Christian faith, protested against injustice and intolerance, upheld the rights of man and the rule of law, and deeply cherished the freedom of opinion. Voltaire made a scathing indictment of the superstitious aspects of Christianity: “Ecracez l’infame! (wipe out the infamous thing)”. Diderot wrote in the first volume of his Encyclopedie: “No one man has received from nature the right of commanding others.” There is no doubt that the philosophes contributed to the general climate of doubt about traditional values and institutions but they were basically reformists.

The intellectual impetus of the revolution in fact came not so much from the nagging scepticism of the philosophes as from the romantic movement sparked by Rousseau, developed by German idealists and inspired by a new school of English poets. In his Discourse on inequality, Rousseau held that man is naturally good, that inequality is caused by privileges authorized by convention, and that all men should be made equal before law.

What lends weight to the second explanation is a widespread dissemination of democratic ideas in Western Europe throughout the eighteenth century. Spearheaded by the middle class as they made a determined bid to capture political power, the rising spurred forward under the stimulus of patriotic sentiment triggered by foreign invasion of the motherland. Thomas Carlyle, though writing from an opposite standpoint, called the revolution a tragedy of the frenzied mob.

Marxist historians, taking their cue from De Tocqueville, trace the genesis of the revolution to sharp class distinctions in French society. There were mainly three social classes at that time: the clergy was the first estate, the nobility the second and the commoners the third. A tiny aristocracy was poised on the mass of the people. It was a highly ascriptive society in which class entailed a host of rights and privileges that were denied to the lower strata of people.

The clergy possessed large land holdings that amounted to one fifth of the total landmass of the country. They also received from their landed parishioners a tax called tithe. The clergy rolled in wealth and lived in luxury. The nobles were also a landholding class and occupied elevated positions in government. The commoners at the base of the social pyramid were mostly townsmen and peasants. The tillers of the soil constituted an overwhelming majority. The townsmen included not only merchants but also professionals. They were the most vocal and enterprising section of society.

The peasants chafed under the triple burden of taxation. They paid customary dues to the nobility, tithe to the clergy and a host of taxes and levies to the king. They were the most depressed section of society.

The whole system was based on discrimination involving privileges and immunities for the clergy and the nobility. The commoners were burdened with taxes and levies imposed by both and denied their rightful share of representation in civil and military establishments. Rightly was it said that the clergy prayed, the nobles fought and the commoners paid. The first two estates numbered half a million out of a total population of 26 million but owned most of the land and monopolized high positions in church and state. The peasants believed that they could earn a decent living from the fertile French soil but for the triple burden of taxation slapped on them by a parasitical minority. Against this background of sharp class cleavages, French society was bound to disintegrate.

Although a complex of motivational forces lay behind the revolution, it could not have ignited without the undertow of popular resentment against the privileged classes. This was translated into action as peasants in rural areas and commoners in towns found leaders in the middle class who nurtured political ideals and aspirations. The social background of the revolution was as unmistakable as perhaps its almost universal popularity in France, but both the facts militate against the highly prejudiced version of Burke.

No minority, however active and enterprising, could trigger such a powerful and profound movement as the French revolution without popular support.

The current of revolutionary ferment rode high in France and even spilled over into the neighbouring countries, but the old order of things was too deeply entrenched to be overthrown summarily. The counter-revolution petered out and it was around the middle of the nineteenth century that Western aristocracy finally succumbed in an industrialized Europe.

The French revolution ran a chequered course but it was a unique event of far-reaching consequences for modern history. Its most enduring legacy was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen which held aloft the liberal values that distinguish modern culture — rule of law, equality of opportunity, intellectual freedom. It engraved the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity on the minds of men.

Remembrances: Come fire, come rain

2008-09-21T04:34:00.001-07:00

By Khalid Hasan

Khalid Hasan recalls fondly the images of Nargis, that immortal star of the Indian film world of yesteryear

Finally, there is a book on that most marvellous of women, the oval-faced, sad-eyed perpetually effervescent and forever-to-be missed film star of film stars, Nargis. This was the name by which she was known when alive, but when she died, her loving husband Sunil Dutt, proud son of the city of Jhelum, had her returned to earth bearing the name her mother, star in her own right from an earlier time, the great Jaddan Bai, had given her at birth: Kaniz Fatima.

A new book just published in Delhi by T.J.S. George tells the story of Nargis’s life and for the first time perhaps reconstructs her doomed love affair with Raj Kapoor. They first met when she was eighteen and he twenty-two, Raj, having raised money from his friends and sold what he could, was about to make his first film “Aag”. But he had no studio. At the time, Jaddan Bai was shooting Romeo and Juliet, a film that was never completed, at Famous Studio which she owned. Someone suggested to Raj that perhaps she might be of help.

One day, therefore, he presented himself at her Marine Drive flat. The door was answered by Nargis who had been working in the kitchen. The dough that she was preparing was still on her hands and being somewhat nervous at the unexpected appearance of “this fat blue-eyed pinkie” (which was how she later described him to her friend the actress Neelam), she ran her hand over her face and some of the dough settled on her forehead. Years later, Raj filmed this romantic encounter in his film Bobby.

In a memoir, this is how Raj recalled the incident, “She asked me who I was and I said I was Prithviraj Kapoor’s son because, at the time, those were the only credentials I had. She said she knew me very well because she had seen me on stage in “Dewaar” (a popular Prithvi Theatre play). I inquired whether Bibiji (that was how Jaddan Bai was known) was home. She said, ‘No, nobody is here. I am alone in the house.’ And she asked me to sit down but I said, ‘No, no, I must go’ and left the house. But I didn’t leave her behind. Her memory stayed with me.”

He cast her in “Aag”, because he was smitten, though he had to have the screenplay rewritten. The film bombed and Raj thought it was the end. But then he gathered himself together and began another film which became one of the greatest hits of all times, the memorable “Barsaat”. The affair between the two flowered, but it was never to be consummated in permanent union because Raj was already married and under family pressure and Hindu custom, either or both, he was not willing or able to divorce his wife, Krishna, Nargis and Raj became perhaps the greatest love team the Indian cinema has ever known, but as time passed and Nargis realized the improbability of her situation, she broke the relationship.

It was in Berlin that they met for the last time. She was on her way to Bombay (now Mumbai) and he to Kariovy Levy in Czechoslovakia to receive his first international film award. They never made another film together either, though their love lives forever in the minds and hearts of their fans and imperishable testament of their union, the celluloid illusions called “Barsaat”, “Awara” and others.

By the time Nargis was eighteen, she had made five films, including “Taqdeer” which was released before Independence and was said to be autobiographical of her mother Jaddan Bai’s great love affair with Mohan Babu whom she married. In her time, Jaddan Bai was a noted courtesan who was the toast of many princely states, rajwaras, taluqdaris and nawabdoms across India. She was also a gifted singer. The classical music cell which Faiz Ahmed Faiz established in Lahore, contains a number of her ghazals and light classical songs. She was a most remarkable woman who loved poetry and presided over her family imperially. We fortunately have a sharply drawn portrait of her in Saadat Hasan Manto’s Ganjey farishtey in the piece he wrote on Nargis.

Manto, recalling his meeting with Nargis around 1946 or thereabout, writes, “There was something very playful and innocent about her. She would blow her nose every few minutes as if she suffered from a permanent cold. This was captured in “Barsaat” as one of her endearing habits. However, it was evident from her wan and somewhat melancholy face that she had the makings of a character actress ... It was my strong perception that Nargis knew fully well that one day she would become a great star, but she seemed to be in no particular hurry to bring that day closer. She was not yet prepared to relegate the tiny and innocent pleasures of her girlhood to the large and disorganized world of future success and fulfilment.”

Though it was Raj Kapur she was in love with and it was he with whom her name is forever linked, she made four memorable films with Dilip Kumar, starting with Mahboob Khan’s “Andaz”, followed by Kaidar Sharma’s “Jogan” and, in quick succession, by “Babul” and “Deedar”. There are certain images of her which forever remain imprinted on the mind. Among them: Dilip placing his hat upon her head and blowing smoke in her face in “Babul”; and in “Jogan”, Kaidar Sharma’s classic retelling of the legend of Mirabai, the angelic Nargis, all in white, sitting in deep contemplation but distracted by Dilip’s longing for her and, finally, whispering to him without looking in his direction, “Why do you disturb my peace?” Her great friend in Bombay (now Mumbai), Qurratulain Hyder wrote to me after Nargis finally lost her battle with cancer. “Yes, Nargis has left us all immeasurably saddened. She was a part of the time of our growing up, which time itself is now almost mythological. Her old movies, when one sees them on TV now, look quite amateurish, but how romantic they used to appear then. She moved ahead in life with tremendous grace and dignity; and when she died, she died as a formidable national figure. She had become exceedingly dignified but she was not averse to using strong language, which was an endearingly contradictory aspect of her personality.

“Once she told me that tottering old men often assured her that they had been watching her movies since childhood (in the same way that very white-bearded gentlemen inform me that they have been reading my stories since infancy). That aside, she was a fascinating woman who had no hang-ups about her mother’s origins. In fact, the last time she met me, I recall her saying that her mother was such an independent woman that once when the Nawab of Rampur, who was celebrating his birthday, asked her to dance on takht-i-dawan moving a platform carried shoulder high on such ceremonial occasions of joy, she refused. She was a great admirer of her mother and it was her desire that she should be buried next to her. And among those who stood in silence that day to pray for her was Sunil Dutt.”

Excerpts from
Remembrances
By Khalid Hasan
Vanguard Books, 45 The Mall, Lahore
Tel: 042-724783
Email: vbl@brain.net.pk
ISBN 969-402-352-1
283pp. Rs495

Poverty from the wealth of nations: integration and polarization in the global economy since 1760

2008-09-21T04:29:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by S. Akbar Zaidi

There is a tendency amongst lay people in general, and politicians and bureaucrats in particular, to blame much of the ills that afflict their (underdeveloped) countries, squarely on the developed countries. Whether it is poverty, illiteracy or any other manifestation of ill- or non-development, the collective West is held responsible. In post-colonial societies, even fifty years after independence, the nature of many of the problems of the now independent countries, are said to be manifest in the distortions created as a consequence of colonial rule.

The theory of imperialism in early twentieth century, and of the dependency school in the 1970s tend to hold unequal and unfair relations of power and domination between nations, responsible for the underdevelopment in our countries. In more recent times, the domineering role of the United States and that of the IMF and World Bank, under the incorrectly named concept of ‘globalization’, take much of the credit for keeping the poor nations of the world in a perpetual state of underdevelopment and poverty.

There is, quite clearly, a great deal of truth in this perception, and volumes have been written, primarily by scholars in the underdeveloped countries, which support these claims. M. Shahid Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston, is another voice which helps us understand the extent, degree and nature of the consequences of colonialism on the world stage. Alam’s contribution, in fact, is far more nuanced than most writers examining the impact of imperialism and colonialism. More importantly, he relates developments of two centuries ago, with far more recent changes in international power relations, and also questions some key tenets in what is considered, rather uncritically, one must add, as ‘conventional’ wisdom.

There are two clear strands in the book, one which deals with imperialism/colonialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the second, with the more contemporary post-1970 world. Alam calls these two eras, Imperialism I and Imperialism II. Making extensive use of data and by building econometric models, Alam spends far more time on Imperialism I and then having established his basic model, credentials and arguments, extrapolates those arguments onto the contemporary world, drawing parallels with the past.

Let us first examine the basic features of Alam’s model and his results for Imperialism I, and then turn to Imperialism II, before we offer any comment on what he has tried to do.

With an examination of global economic and political trends between 1760 to the middle of the twentieth century, Alam develops a model of country ‘sovereignty’ which forms the core to much else in the book. Countries are divided into four declining scales of independence/sovereignty, from those which are sovereign and have governments which can make treaties, to dependencies, quasi-colonies, and to colonies, which are the least free or sovereign of countries in this typology, where these countries are governed by expatriates appointed by and from advanced countries.

It is important to point out that by sovereignty, Alam here means ‘the capacity of a state to articulate the interests of indigenous classes’. After spending a great deal of effort and time examining data, Alam shows us that in the first phase of Imperialism, those countries which were least sovereign, were also the least developed, had the lowest levels of economic growth, lower human capital, and so forth. While this would not come as a surprise to most scholars in the underdeveloped world today, it is Alam’s notion of sovereignty which supports a much repeated claim about the impact of colonialism.

As he argues, ‘the advanced countries used their superior power to rearrange the markets of lagging countries to create the greatest advantage for their own capital’. Importantly, this notion of sovereignty leads him to argue that what we see today is actually a version of the same theme and is, in fact, Imperialism II, with similar consequences.

Imperialism II is manifest in the form of the market economy and the policies of the IMF and World Bank, where the main argument seems to be one of integrating lagging or underdeveloped countries into the world economy, or the argument for greater ‘globalization’. In the first phase of imperialism, those countries which actually benefited — the sovereign, colonial countries — developed by setting the rules to the global economy, which included high tariff and trade barriers and protection for their manufactures and their capital. Today, the underdeveloped countries are being told exactly the opposite, being forced to integrate and drop all forms of protection. Moreover, the extent of sovereignty, as Alam has defined it for the poorer, underdeveloped, countries, seems almost nonexistent.

In addition to building this model where sovereignty is the key explanatory variable for economic growth and development, Shahid Alam tackles a number of highly celebrated and contentious theoretical themes. Perhaps the most important is that related to the civilizing nature of colonialism. Some theorists argue that it was the greater integration of peripheral, traditional, backward, states into the global order even in the guise of colonialism, which eventually ‘developed’ or modernized or civilized these states. Alam dismisses these supposedly eurocentric claims, citing economic data based on his sovereignty principle showing, not surprisingly, that colonised states performed far worse than sovereign countries.

While his empirical evidence does support this argument, many scholars, and not all of them lackeys of imperialism, would equally dismiss Alam’s claim since it ignores social and structural transformation, class analysis and arguments which address themselves to issues of the transformation in the mode of production. The impact and role of colonialism is too complex to be dismissed simply on the grounds of economic growth data.

There is a great deal to recommend in this book, not least the theory of sovereignty postulated by Shahid Alam, as well as the intricate details on data and empirical calculations. Probably the most important contribution of this book looking at economic history, is how it relates the age of colonialism and earlier imperialism, to the modern world. Shahid Alam argues that not only was the concept of sovereignty after the independence of most colonised countries illusory, but the integration of a highly unequal world into a highly globalized economy, ‘is likely to re-create the erstwhile colonial economies’. Clearly, not just in economic terms, but politically and militarily as well, the events of recent weeks support such a thesis.

Poverty from the wealth of nations: integration and polarization in the global economy since 1760
By M. Shahid Alam
Macmillan Press Ltd, Houndsmill, Basingtoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
ISBN 0-333-77931-2 xv+215pp.

Security in Europe and South Asia: challenges and options for the twenty-first century

2008-09-21T04:28:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Shahid M. Amin

The Area Study Centre for Europe of the University of Karachi has undertaken a useful exercise by studying the prospects for cooperation in the 21st century between Pakistan and what is described as the “post-ideological” Europe. Perhaps “post cold war” Europe could have been a better description since, even now, ideology continues to play a part in Europe’s world view. It continues to lay emphasis on democracy and human rights and the free enterprise system and has, in many instances, linked its policy towards a given country on the basis of the latter’s ability to adhere to these values.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that the disappearance of the Soviet bloc has altered the ground realities in significant ways. The world has entered a very different era and the implications of the changed situation need to be clearly understood, particularly for a country like Pakistan, which was something of a frontline state during the Soviet period.

The book under review is a collection of articles contributed by several authors on the various aspects of Pakistan-Europe relations. These articles were written about a year ago. But as ex-British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said “one week is a very long time in politics”, one year is certainly even more so. What we have witnessed since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in September 2001 has in many ways affected the conclusions reached by the authors of this book.

The geopolitical importance of Pakistan has again come to the fore in a dramatic fashion. Islamabad has been more or less pushed to play a vital role in support of the US-led global coalition in the current war against Afghanistan. The strategic importance of this role has brought about a change in the attitude of the various European states towards Pakistan. Top European leaders have almost made a queue to visit Islamabad to express their appreciation for the stance taken by Pakistan, together with promises of economic support for the country.

The same General Pervez Musharraf, who was ostracized by Europe for almost two years as a military dictator, is now the recipient of lavish tributes from the Europeans. The pledge of Chris Patten, the EU Commissioner for External Affairs, quoted in this book, that “human rights, democracy and equal opportunities for women, will henceforth dominate the EU’s foreign policy agenda” has clearly been overtaken by events, in so far as Pakistan is concerned.

In the altered global picture, terrorism has emerged as the big issue. Even if an attempt has been made by the West to play down the religious factor, the thrust of their campaign seems to be against Muslim terrorists and “Islamic fundamentalism”. In this context, the value of “moderate” pro-West leaders like Pervez Musharraf is absolutely important.

What is more, Pakistan is a key Islamic country — the only one possessing nuclear capability — and it would hurt the vital interests not only of the West but also those of Russia and China if the vocal Islamic religious groups were somehow to seize power in Pakistan. Hence, it is now becoming an important interest of the West to strengthen the hands of the moderates in Pakistan by sustaining the country’s economic growth and helping it to come closer to the mainstream of global politics.

At the same time, pressures will grow on Pakistan to restrain if not curb the activities of the various Jihadist groups operating on its soil who make no secret of their involvement in Indian-occupied Kashmir. Indeed, India is hoping against hope that somehow the West could be induced, next, to attack the “cross-border terrorists” based in Pakistan.

The situation in Afghanistan continues to have a bearing on Pakistan-Russia relations. Russia has deep apprehensions about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism which could destabilize the pro-Moscow regimes in Central Asia, apart from security concerns in respect of Chechnya and Muslim majority areas in the Russian Federation itself. In the current situation in this region, Russia has more commonality of interests with India rather than with Pakistan. However, Moscow has always been conscious of the importance of Pakistan and has never shut the door on improving ties with Islamabad.

The thesis that the Great Game is being replayed in Afghanistan finds an echo in this book also. There is also the related theory that the West is determined to get hold of the vast natural resources of Central Asia. The question does arise that if this is indeed so, then why is Russia — as well as China and the Central Asian countries themselves — cooperating with the current US campaign in Afghanistan. In fact, the assertion about the vast natural resources of Central Asia is only a partial truth.

Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have few resources. There are important gas and oil deposits in Kazakhstan but these are already being exploited via the Black Sea route with Russian blessings. The resources of Turkmenistan can best be marketed in South Asia via Afghanistan when there is peace in that country. Moscow is not really in competition here as a transit route.

Similarly, the argument by some analysts, reflected in this book, that Russia and China are in agreement on “making a concerted effort to resist American hegemonism” is also negated by recent trends which suggest that Russia has drawn closer to the US and China is also building fences with Washington. China is no less worried about the threat posed by Islamic extremists in its Muslim-majority areas. In fact, the “post-September 11” world is beginning to look quite different from the “post-ideological” world. Old concepts may have to be put aside as the 21st century enters new directions.

Edited by Naveed Ahmad Tahir
Area Study Centre for Europe, University of Karachi and Hans Siedel Foundation, Islamabad
306pp. Rs300. US $20

The enlightenment: a brief history with documents

2008-09-21T04:25:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Jamil Rashid

The concept of enlightenment has been challenged once again in our present age following the horrific events in New York on September 11, 2001 and their aftermath — the Afghan war. Innocent people have been killed and ‘enlightened’ scholars, academics and journalists are in a quandary. How do they explain the barbarity of the war. For a secular humanist, these are trying moments. How does one convey the message of enlightenment which entails respect for human beings and sanctity of life, for its own sake.

Margaret Jacob, an American professor of history, has written a small book, with supporting documents, to expound the idea that enlightenment in Europe during the eighteenth century was a world cultural epoch.

Enlightenment created the modern environment wherein open-minded people are asked to shape their own identity and destiny distinct from whatever religious or ethnic affiliation they possess. The West may have started the enlightenment, but all the people of world are now challenged to complete it.

The search for ‘enlightenment’ is universal. All religions, ideologies, and philosophies have been looking for a universal enlightened civilization. A number of questions arise in this context. Are ideas portable like commodities and don’t international boundaries restrict them? Can ideas by themselves change the world? Don’t structural changes and the archaeology of human development create cultural dynamism leading to enlightenment?

What needs to be pondered is: 1) What is the exact nature of ‘enlightenment? 2) Can we get enlightened, just reading about enlightenment or assimilating ideas of enlightened philosophers/educators/propagandists from Europe? 3) Can mixing with the enlightened people across the globe enlighten us? 4) Can travelling or immigrating to the so-called enlightened world enlighten us? 5) Is it mutual structural dependency, determined within a society, where people get enlightened, become open minded and behave tolerantly? Finally, is the open mindedness within a society transnational?

To explore the answers one might be required to reconstruct the European ideas of the eighteenth century, which the Western politicians and academics claim as being relevant even in today’s world crisis. How could we have our own enlightenment? Some philosophers may argue that there are ‘universal’ truths, which are part of enlightenment, such as principles of not stealing, not hurting others, and respecting human lives, in war and peace.

The author devotes 72 pages of her introduction to summarizing the nine documents on enlightenment written in 1685-1800. The introduction is captioned as “The struggle to create a new culture”. In 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes; more then 200,000 Protestants fled France. Newton’s Principia published in 1687 was a great celebration for practical scientific theories, leading towards the unfolding of the mysteries of space and the physical world. By 1800, the curtain fell on enlightenment, with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror in Europe, among the so-called enlightened people. Within a span of a few years, liberty and the cry of freedom became the era of terror. And yet Jacob claims that enlightenment was at the core of Western civilization.

The preface lays out some guidelines for historical research. But they too contain contradictions. The author expounds that every generation and every country needs to rediscover the enlightenment. Students have often heard the term used in reference to the eighteenth century, but they did not realize what it meant at that time. She says that enlightenment today means that the person is open-minded, fair, or without prejudice, accepting people of all ethnicities, colours, and gender. This positive connotation is a result of the battles waged by a group of eighteenth century writers, publicists, political reformers and sometime just angry men and women. The author romanticizes ‘enlightened’ writers/theorists of that century, and then comes out with an expose:

They saw prejudice and superstition everywhere around them, and armed with their own biases, particularly against the clergy, they entered into a war of words with the upholders of tradition, authority, and the status quo.

If the champions of enlightenment had their ‘biases’ how could ‘enlightenment’ enjoy universal acceptance? Do we reach conclusions by cultural relativism, where each culture is accepted for its own values? Francis Fukuyama expounds the thesis of ‘end of history’ and the triumph of the Western liberalism (enlightenment). Does that mean enforcing universal civilization (Western liberalism) with the barrel of the gun?

The biases have taken a new turn today. Samuel Huntington has based his definition of civilization on religious ideologies as the ‘clash of civilizations’. The eighteenth century enlightenment was built on religious free values, and so there is a revival of Christianity against other religious domains in the Huntington thesis.

Immanuel Kant defined enlightenment as man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage which is the inability of man to use his own understanding without another’s guidance: “Have the courage to use your own understanding is therefore the motto of enlightenment”. In the imperialist age of the nineteenth century, the Europeans used the concept of nonage, to describe the world of the non-Europeans.

Travel literature is also considered as a part of enlightenment in Europe. Almost simultaneously, European travellers were discovering two new worlds: one in the heavens, as detailed by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton; the other on the earth, as experienced by merchants, slave traders, and missionaries.

She points out “generally, the authors (of their travelogue) treated these people as exotic, inferior, or odd. But some commentators also saw the linkages between travel and empire, and they used the accounts of travel and empire, to point out the injustice that could accompany discovery”.

What we can learn from this book on enlightenment is that search for an enlightened world is a continued process. It can’t be Euro-American centric. Enlightenment should mean the struggle for a socially just and humane society. It is not in a fortified castle of the so-called Western civilization. Some enlightened scholars in Europe are today questioning the classical concepts of renaissance, reformation and enlightenment in favour of post-modern discourses. There is no need for a clash of civilizations. Cultures can be harmonized for peaceful co-existence. Each cultural group evolves and develops its own momentum for change; and these changes could lead to a peaceful universal civilization.

The enlightenment: a brief history with documents
By Margaret Jacob
Bedford/St. Martin’s Press
ISBN 0312179979
237pp. $10.00

Tuesday’s literati

2008-09-21T04:24:00.000-07:00

By Aquila Ismail

Every alternate Tuesday, 12 women get together in what is primarily a social exercise. But it doesn’t end with biscuits and cakes. The common denominator among these women of diverse backgrounds is their love of the printed word. This is the Abu Dhabi book club which brings together one Iraqi settled in Kuwait, two British, four Americans out of whom two are married to Arabs and one has converted to Islam, one Palestinian Muslim from Nablus, one Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem, one from Bahrain, one Lebanese, and me a Pakistani. We have become firm friends as well.

We hardly miss a meeting because for us the act of reading is not simply an individualistic activity performed in isolation. True, reading has to be undertaken by an individual but when a book has moved or stimulated the reader it is natural for him to want to share, reach out and discuss it with someone else. This is when reading becomes a social activity. Book clubs or reading groups give you the opportunity to think a bit more about the book you read. Why is it that you like some and hate others? To answer this question you have to analyze the book you read like critics do.

A book group is like a half way house between the critic and a casual reader. It encourages you to delve a bit deeper and this truly enhances the pleasure of reading. Book groups are growing in popularity as places to meet, think and enjoy. They wake up the brain a bit with lively, often aggressive, discussion.

In Abu Dhabi, where I live, there are several book groups, all very active and serious about their reading. The groups function for Arabic, French, and English readers. Most members are women and in fact there are no mixed groups that I know of. This could be because the groups meet in the mornings and on working days. Most groups meet in members’ homes and usually twice a month on fixed days.

At the end of the reading year (in June) before everyone disperses for the summer vacations, we have planning sessions to draw up a list of books to be read in the subsequent months after we return in September. Each book then has a specific date on which it will be discussed and where.

The groups could be specialized ones reading specific subjects (history, politics, philosophy, etc) or they could be randomly chosen. But most groups tend to read fiction. Even so one could have groups reading award winning fiction only or bestsellers or books recommended by the New York Times or Oprah, etc. The variety is endless and depends upon the group the members of which are invariably friends as well.

This year our group will read two classics, namely, Waves by Virginia Woolf and Dubliners by James Joyce. Last year we read Sons and lovers by D.H. Lawrence and Heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad. The most evocative and best discussions ensue around these classics. They bring out the history, the politics, the social milieu as well as literary styles of not only the country these writers have written about but the universality of the emotions and relationships touches each one deeply. Since the members of the group are multi-ethnic and multicultural each one relates to with the time and space in the book and through narrating what they know or have experienced, for example of colonization, make the books come alive.

These side activities apart, you have to make sure you are explicit about the fact that it is a club of people who read the same book and discuss it. However if all your members have similar views, your book discussion will be short and lacklustre. Also your book group will fade into oblivion. Book group members should be cautious about the number of people admitted in the group. Too large a group can act as a constraint and some individuals may shy away from offering their opinions. Alternatively a couple of individuals may dominate the discussions, intimidating other group members.

The membership of our group is limited to twelve. One of us acts as the leader, keeping records, etc. A new member comes in only when one leaves and there is a vacancy. The group is subdivided into four sub-groups, based on proximity of residence and the ease with which they can exchange books among themselves. The entire group contributes money to the kitty and four copies of each book selected are purchased. Usually the members are given the task of buying specific books in their country when they go home for summer.

Books are also ordered from local bookstores and Amazon. com. The books are then handed over to the subgroups as they become available. The subgroups then share the books depending upon when a particular book is scheduled and how much time would be needed to go through it. The thicker books are scheduled later in the year so that the members can start reading them ahead of time. Some books are available in June so that the members can start reading in summer.

The first fifteen minutes at the start of each meeting are set aside to catch up on gossip and wait for latecomers. We then focus on the book. Maybe it sounds too regimented but everyone is there primarily for the book and that is the only way it works. After the discussion, which usually takes up about two hours, sometimes even three, the members can go back to chit chat and gossip over the food. Coffee, tea and other drinks can be had throughout the session . Talking with the person sitting next to you when one member is giving her view is not acceptable. Everyone’s point of view is to be respected.

The person who has suggested the book introduces it by saying why she chose it and gives some background information about the author. She then leads the discussion by throwing in five or six questions. We first go round robin. Each person starts with her reaction to the book, did she like it, loathe it, or remained indifferent to it and why. We have had absolute disgust expressed at a book by some members and sheer adoration of the same book by others. Thus there was, I remember, a heated discussion we had on Disgrace by Coetzee, a book that won the Booker prize. In the end it was decided that he got the prize because they needed to give it to someone from South Africa!

Members are civil towards each other in their discussion. But they are outspoken too. If a member doesn’t like a book she says it. Her dislike of the book will liven the discussion, force her to think of the reasons and thus lead to intense interaction with those who loved the book. After the discussion she may discover an appreciation for the book that she had failed to understand before. If one member appears to be excluded, she is prompted for her opinion.

Proceeding with the discussion, the members can then talk about what the book is really about, and its theme. Are the characters true to life? Who do you sympathize with? Is there a particularly memorable piece of writing or scene in the book? Does the book have a message? What does it tell you about the author? Does it remind you of anything else? Do you want to read more by the same author? If it is a prize winner did it deserve to be? We read Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian and none of us were impressed. Why was it awarded the Nobel Prize last year!! Keeping notes while reading helps. Also if specific passages can be read out it helps deepen the discussion.

When reading a collection of short stories it is important that one discusses each story in turn. This year we read Tales from Firozeshahbagh by Rohinton Mistry and last year it was Interpreter of maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Some of the stories in each evoked much debate and some were not liked too much. Everyone agreed that Mistry was a master of his craft. Poetry cannot be discussed too much so what we did was ask each member to recite her favourite poem and we got from Pablo Neruda to Robert Frost and Iqbal and even Omar Khayam. Our Palestinian friend from Nablus recited from a translation of Iqbal.

When we were reading Songlines by Bruce Chadwin, which is about the Australian aborigines we got an Australian woman who has been adopted by the aborigines because of her intense and deep study into their culture and now is posted in Abu Dhabi, to give us a lecture on the subject. Our dream is to be able to invite an author we have read to talk to the group. The book group can thus take on many dimensions but it is important to keep it fixed firmly primarily on books. Each one of us looks forward to our alternate Tuesday meetings as an occasion to stretch our intellect and to exercise our debating skills.

End of the line: the story of the killing of the royals in Nepal

2008-09-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

By Neelash Misra

Neelash Misra describes the last eventful moments in the life of Prince Dipendra, which ended in his dramatic killing of his father, King Birendra of Nepal, and other family members

It was a few minutes to 8p.m. The crown prince walked up to his mother, who was with Princess Helen Shah in the central part of the room. Dipendra leaned over and muttered to Queen Aiswarya: ‘Shall I go and receive the queen mother?’ The queen gave her permission.

He walked to his Land Rover and drove to Mahendra Manzil, the royal mansion of the queen mother. Meanwhile others trooped in. The king was delayed — he was in the middle of a seventy-five-minute meeting with magazine editor Madhav Rimal.

In the Billiard Room, the men huddled together, engaging in a polite conversation about the weather. Then the queen mother arrived in her Mercedes, holding her purse and a hand fan kept in a cotton bag.

The elder guests rushed to pay their respects to her, after she walked straight to the small chamber adjoining the Billiard Room. The queen mother would remain here for most of the evening with Princess Helen Shah.

In another part of the palace, King Birendra was winding up the interview. He rose from his chamber and gave last-minute instructions to Mohan Bahadur Pandey, his press secretary. Pandey then sought the monarch’s leave, and saw the king walk away towards the venue of the party. The king’s ADC, Gen Sundar Pratap Rana, walked him to the Tribhuvan Sadan. In the Billiard Room, Dipendra returned to his drink. Then he flipped out his stylish Motorola mobile phone and made two quick calls. He first dialled a familiar number: 98102-4339.

The telephone belonged to Usha Rana, his future mother-in-law. Devyani picked up the phone. She was hoping to meet the crown prince that evening, at a party at the residence of her affluent friends, the Malla family. The crown prince would come there after the Billiard Room dinner, if it got over early. Dipendra and Devyani spoke for one minute and 14 seconds.

The subject of the conversation is not known, but it seems to have agitated him. A few minutes later, he dialled 98102-1509, the number of his aide, Gajendra Bohra. It was 8:19 p.m.

‘Get my cigarettes,’ he ordered.

Sitting in the ADCs’ room, Bohra hung up and looked for a royal orderly. He found him soon. The orderly knew the drill; he had been doing this for a year. Five cigarettes were quickly laced with hashish. He walked to the eastern gate of the Billiard Room and gave them to the doorman, who passed them on.

The elders were all away in the smaller room now, with the queen mother. The crown prince and the youngsters remained in the Billiard Room.

Minutes later, at 8:25 p.m., Dipendra’s telephone rang again. The number flashing on the display was a familiar one: 423051, Devyani’s private land line. The crown prince did not take the call. The phone was programmed to transfer all unanswered calls to his ADC, and Devyani was on the line next with Bohra.

She was very worried.

According to her, the crown prince sounded slurred when she last spoke to him, and he spoke slowly. Devyani had panicked and called the two ADCs of the crown prince — Gajendra Bohra at his office, close to the Billiard Room, and Raju Karki at his residence.

‘He wasn’t speaking properly. His voice was slurred. Is he sick? Could you check in his bedroom?’ she told Bohra. The ADC said he would.

Some drama was about to take place in the Billiard Room. According to Paras and Dr Shahi, Dipendra soon appeared to lose control of himself. He began to stammer and struggled to keep standing. He swayed, lost control, stumbled, and fell.

It was almost 8:30. The king was about to come into the hall after meeting his mother. It would be a deep embarrassment for King Birendra before his immediate family if the crown prince was seen in this state. According to Shahi and Prince Paras, the crown prince fell down and fainted. Soon he seemed to be asleep.

This was very unusual behaviour. Dipendra was described among his friends as a very controlled drinker. He never started shouting, never became too emotional, never abused and never did anything in a drunken state that went against his honour, grace and position.

Most of all, he had never passed out after having drinks. Tonight, he had either become the great pretender, or was under high levels of stress.

‘Your Highness, please don’t sleep here. His Majesty is here. It is not proper for you to sleep here,’ Paras said loudly as he bent over Dipendra.

He did not respond. Then Dr Shahi and princess Paras and Nirajan lifted the overweight prince, holding his hands and legs.

Dr Shahi held him on his left side, Prince Nirajan the right, and Paras held his feet as the three hauled him up and carried him. Kumar Gorakh walked behind. The men heaved hard as they lugged the crown prince through the garden, towards his bedroom in the mansion.

When they reached his bedroom, they kept him on a mattress on the floor, not the main bed, apparently too tired to lift him higher.

The crown prince’s lethal toys — pistols, sub-machineguns and rifles — were placed in a drawer. Cartridge cases were in the next drawer. The crown prince’s fetish for arms was well known.

As the men turned around to go, Paras told Nirajan: ‘Take the weapons from here.’

‘It’s all right, let it be. Why bother?’ Nirajan said as he shrugged his shoulders. The crown prince seemed to be asleep. They switched off the lights and walked out, back to the party.

After they left, Dipendra got up and made another call to Devyani Rana. It was 8:39 p.m.

According to Devyani, the crown prince said: ‘Goodnight, I will call you tomorrow morning.’

Act One had ended.

* * * * *

In the silence of his bedchamber, the crown prince was rising from his sprawled position. Sometime after being left in the room, he had taken off his shirt. Ram Krishna K.C., his valet, came in from the kitchen. Dipendra was inside the bathroom, dressed only in his trousers. Ram Krishna heard him retching.

He stepped out and ordered the staff to leave.

Dipendra took of his shirt and trousers and started changing into an unusual party dress. He wore army fatigues: a camouflage vest, trousers and a jacket, a cap, black socks, boots and black gloves.

‘Shall we take the emergency bag, Your Highness?’ asked Ram Krishna, standing outside the room. The emergency bag contained a weatherproof jacket, chapstick, spray, extra batteries and other equipment sometimes required when Dipendra was travelling.

‘No, it’s not needed now,’ Dipendra snapped.

There was a reason why Dipendra was in the fatigues: he was now transformed from a crown prince to a commander of the army, and all military aides were, by protocol, bound by authority not to defy him in any circumstance.

Unnoticed and unheard, a stealthy shadow entered the room and walked briskly to near the snooker table. It was what would seem to many guests as ‘the man in black’.

Maheshwar Singh heard someone’s footsteps behind him, to his right. The brisk steps went pat-pat-pat as the hard leather boots hit the shiny marbled floor. Singh looked over his shoulder and saw the crown prince walking towards him, at least one assault rifle in his hand.

Next to the snooker table, Rabi Shumshere Rana froze as he raised his head from his drink. He found himself staring into the stony, expressionless face of Dipendra. The crown prince stood only about six inches away from him. Rana, puzzled, anxious and tense all at once, lifted his eyebrows, as if querying: ‘What’s up? What’s all this?’

Dipendra did not react. He looked at the king, his father, with a face that seemed sapped of all emotion. A split second later, his right finger pressed the trigger on his 9 mm German-made MP5-K automatic submachinegun, which he held pointing upwards, close to his waist. Many could barely see the foot-long weapon.

A deafening burst of gunfire followed. One bullet pumped into the ceiling. Some plaster peeled off.

For a second, it seemed the massive burst had made him deaf. The gunfire seemed to have ripped through Singh’s right ear. Singh felt as if a dozen iron nails were piercing his ear. Instinctively, he thrust his index finger in his right ear, and shut his eyes in horror.

Then Dipendra went for his target. His father.

For those who watched the sequence of events over the next few minutes, a massive juggernaut of horrific images was being recorded in their numb minds. It was as if two dozen camcorders were rolling at once, and the shaky images would haunt them for the rest of their lives — if they lived beyond those few blood-soaked minutes.

King Birendra stood a few feet away from Rana, to his left, beside the snooker table. In his immediate semi-circle were Maheshwar Kumar Singh, Gorakh Shumshere, Kumar Khadga and Dhirendra Shah. It was past 9 pm.

Dipendra looked straight at the king and pressed the trigger. With his eyes still squeezed shut, Singh heard the loud, deafening rattle of an automatic weapon.

Singh opened his eyes, imagining the worst possible. But nothing seemed to have changed. The men were still standing in their semi-circular formation. Their drinks were still in their hands. As far as he was concerned, the party was still on.

For several seconds, the guests stood where they were, frozen, waiting for the next move of a rampaging prince. Onlookers thought Dipendra was having a prank at the expense of others, showing off his new weapons, and that he had misfired.

The crown prince turned around and walked out of the room through the only door, towards the garden adjoining the Billiard Room.

About three or four seconds after the gunshot, the stunned men standing closest to the king realized that Dipendra had not misfired. King Birendra had got hit on the right side of his neck, at least three bullets tearing through the skin and landing somewhere across the room. Another burst had torn through his abdomen. He looked towards the crown prince, shocked and dazed. It was what Singh would later describe as a ‘strange look’. A tiny river of blood sprouted from his injuries. As if in slow motion, King Birendra started falling to his right, along the snooker table.

He slumped slowly, staying on his feet for much longer than one would expect.

The men around him snapped out of their blank state.

‘Where is the doctor?’ Rabi Shumshere called as the men lunged forward. He hurriedly kept his glass of whisky on the snooker table.

The king was falling. Seconds before the gunshot, his ADC had brought his cigar to the office and was waiting to deliver it.

In the Billiard Room, Dr Shahi was leaning over the CD player to raise the volume of a song. As he heard the gunshots and the shrieks, he dropped his cigarette, and tore across the room. He had taken a few seconds to realize what had happened. Shahi ran to the king and scampered around him, holding him from the back as he lay him down on the carpet.

The Shahi took off his ash-coloured coat, and started pressing it against the king’s neck to staunch the blood.

‘Rajiv, also in the stomach,’ King Birendra said, pointing to his other wound.

‘Please don’t worry about that, Your Majesty. It is important to stop the loss of blood,’ Shahi replied as he tied the jacket tighter.

The king tried to raise his head and muttered in Nepali: ‘Key gardeko? (What have you done?) Those would be his last words.

Excerpts from
End of the line: the story of the killing of the royals in Nepal
By Neelash Misra
Penguin Books, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India.
Website: www.penguinbooksindia.com
ISBN 0-14-362785-9
205pp. Indian Rs200

An incredible story

2008-09-21T04:16:00.000-07:00

By Rudolf Hartog

Not many people now remember the Indian Legion which was set up by Subhas Chandra Bose with the cooperation of Nazi Germany to fight British India. Rudolf Hartog sheds light on that forgotten phase of history

The story of the Indian Legion in Germany, in which former soldiers of the British Indian Army volunteered to fight for the freedom of their country on the side of the Axis powers, is one of the strangest episodes of the Second World War. It was set up as the Infanterie Regiment (ind) IR 950 under the German High Command, staffed by members of the German Army and supported by the German Foreign Office.

It was inspired by Subhas Chandra Bose, pre-independent India’s third outstanding politician beside Gandhi and Nehru, whose aim, after an adventurous escape from India to Berlin, where he lived from 1941 to 1943, was to declare an exile government and set up an army which would advance into India from the west with the help of the Axis powers and so free it from British rule. However fantastic this might sound today, this plan corresponded with German plans to advance into India through the Middle East, Transcaucasia and Afghanistan and to join forces with the Japanese. But, whereas Japan occupied Burma (now Myanmar) in 1942 and advanced as far as the Indian frontier, the German advance got stuck in the Caucasus and North Africa. The military situation had fundamentally changed.

In spite of these bold plans to conquer the world, Hitler could not be brought to make a declaration in favour of India’s independence. Apparently he still hoped to come to some sort of understanding with Britain about India’s future. Furthermore, the racist policy of the ruling Nazis contradicted any association with a people who belonged to the “coloured races”. That it was nonetheless possible for Bose, in spite of this official anti-Indian and pro-British line, to get the means to run his “Free India Centre” in Berlin and to set up an Indian Legion of regiment strength with the support of the German High Command is one of the incredible stories of this time.

The story is even more extraordinary for the decisive role that the head of the Special Department for India in the German Foreign Office, Adam von Trott, later executed for his involvement in the conspiracy against Hitler, played in it. Equally extraordinary was Bose’s secret departure from Berlin to Singapore in February 1943 in a German submarine from where he was transferred to a Japanese submarine on the high seas of the Indian Ocean.

* * * * *

The Indian Legion was set up as the result of an agreement between Subhas Chandra Bose and the German government in which even the cost was regulated as a loan, to the future government of free India, the first instalment of which Bose repaid from Japan. Its soldiers, volunteers from the PoW camps, took their oath of allegiance not only to Hitler as the Supreme Commander, but also to Subhas Chandra Bose as the leader of free India. This double allegiance was in itself unique for a troop of the German Army; but even more unique was Bose’s condition that it could only be deployed to fight against the British on the way to India....

Hitler himself ridiculed this 3,000-man strong regiment of Indians.... But, however odd the story is, and however insignificant its military value, the Indian Legion was to embody Subhas Chandra Bose’s vision of the army of a united and free India for it was a part of his political programme. It was also the forerunner of his Indian National Army in Burma and Malaya (INA) which has received more publicity because it played more than just a peripheral role in the Far Eastern campaign.

When the war was over the Legion did not suffer the same tragic fate of so many eastern European contingents, who were repatriated only to face execution or transportation for life in Soviet Russia. Unwilling to admit that soldiers of their Indian Army, on whose loyalty so much of Britain’s imperial power rested, could defect to the enemy, the British, if they admitted their existence at all — and there were many who categorically denied that such a unit ever existed — preferred to regard it as made up of men who had been “forced to accept German uniforms by means of the most severe torture which is known to have resulted in the death of many”.

Nothing is further from the truth. However, for “waging war against the King Emperor” the Indian legionaries were returned to India as prisoners, interned, put on trial and finally discharged from the army with dishonour.

Independent India on its part was slow to give these men their due. Its rulers looked upon them as too unreliable for their army and did not re-enlist them. Although its politicians were quick to join the initial public outcry against putting them on trial for treason, it was not until the seventies that their motives were recognized and those still alive granted a government pension, however meagre.

The course of the Second World War in Europe with the planned German offensive to the East is well known. As well known are Bose’s efforts in Southeast Asia to share in the Japanese attack on India and so to overthrow British rule with his Indian National Army (INA). Plenty of historical research has been done on this. Less researched, however, is the story of the Indian Legion in Germany. Very little has been written about it, still less about its motivation. For the chronicler, it was an episode too bizarre to be taken seriously.

For the British it was an experience to be rejected and for the postwar Germans, a subject best left alone. And for the Indians themselves, Europe was too far away. Its military value was admittedly negligible; unlike the Indian National Army (INA) in the Far East, it had no part to play in the course of the war in Europe. But as an experiment in the merging of the different Indian religions, castes and races and in the development of a unified national language for a united country it has historical importance.

Who knows, for instance, that the “Jana Gana Mana”, independent India’s national anthem, was first performed in an imposing celebration at the inauguration of the Deutsch-Indische Gesellschaft in Hamburg on September 11, 1942, for Bose had chosen it as free India’s national anthem? For that matter who can explain the fantastic setup of the power structure of Nazi Germany that made such a venture possible?

I served with the Indian Legion as an interpreter for Hindustani and came to it from active service in Russia, and I was one of the last three to witness its end. Others on the German staff were seconded for their experience in foreign countries or for their knowledge of foreign languages. The uniqueness of the experience for all of us was to take part in an experiment which was revolutionary in its conception: that men were prepared to risk the slur of treason for the future of a unified India in which there were to be no distinctions of caste or creed, of race or language.

* * * * *

The flight from India
The story of Subhas Chandra Bose’s political career is well known in India. Less well known is the story of his flight from India and activities in Berlin during the Second World War in the years 1941-43.

He was arrested by the British for the eleventh time in his political career on July 2, 1940. With a hunger strike he secured his transfer from jail to his home in Calcutta (now Kolkata) where he was kept under strict surveillance. An active role in Indian politics was now out of the question and it was doubtful whether he would have a chance in the future. It was then that the plan to escape was born and it was at the end of January 1941 that it was carried out.

With the help of relatives and friends, without being recognized and on foot over difficult terrain, he crossed the border into Afghanistan. In Kabul he secretly contacted the German and Italian legations. Many secret telegrams were sent by these to Berlin and Rome to agree on a course of action. The Italians provided him with a diplomatic passport under the guise of “Orlando Mazzotta” and, accompanied by German helpers, he left Kabul by car on March 18, 1941 in the direction of the Russian frontier.

The journey took him over the high passes of the Hindu Kush and over the river Oxus to the frontier of Afghanistan at Pata Kisar. From there he went on to Samarkand. In Samarkand he took the train to Moscow on March 20. The German embassy in Moscow put him on a train to Berlin, together with the two Germans who had accompanied him from Afghanistan. He reached Berlin on April 3, 1941.

This adventurous two-month-long flight, carried through in spite of a cordon of spies and police, and entailing great difficulties and privations, was undoubtedly an extraordinary achievement. But why did Bose decide to leave India and venture into the unknown?

The answer is not difficult to give. It must be seen against the background of a country that was tired of British prevarications about granting it independence. Drawn into a war without its consent and with no assurance that Britain would relinquish power when it was over, the Indian politicians were confused about how they should react to the situation. Nobody wanted to listen to Bose and even Nehru, his onetime political ally and friend, dropped him.

In a letter dated February 4, 1939 Bose wrote to him: “I may tell you that since the Presidential election, you have done more to lower me in the estimation of the public than all the twelve ex-members of the Working Committee put together”. Bose undoubtedly realized that his exclusion from Congress politics and the strict police surveillance left him little scope to make any effective contribution, but he was impatient, for he believed the time had come to take a stand.

At his last meeting with Gandhi in June 1940 he asked for Gandhi’s blessings to start the struggle. Gandhi replied: “You don’t need my blessings, Subhas. How can I bless a movement which I consider inopportune, and which I feel is morally unjustifiable now? You have got the qualities of a great leader, and if your conscience tells you that this is the best time for striking out, go ahead and do your best”. Bose believed that the time was opportune for the Axis powers were on the verge of winning their biggest victories while Britain was only suffering setbacks.

Perhaps there was now a greater chance to free India with the help of Britain’s enemies. This was the tenor of Bose’s negotiations with the Italian envoy in Kabul, Signor Pietro Quaroni, with whom he discussed the possibility of setting up a free Indian government in Europe which would work towards freeing India. Last but not least, it seems to fit the temperament of a man who had always believed that force was the only way of ridding India of the British, and was prepared to venture into the unknown for the sake of his beliefs.

Bose’s personality
An assessment of Bose’s character is difficult, because opinions about him are divided. The British rulers judged him to be a conceited egoist who believed that he, and neither Gandhi nor Nehru, was the true representative of his people. They considered him to be an extreme nationalist who, influenced by the tradition of terrorism in Bengal, was not prepared to make any compromises. Indeed, as a revolutionary and dangerous seditionist, he was arrested eleven times in the course of his political career under conditions that were more rigorous than those for the other Congress politicians. In the end for them he was a traitor who collaborated with the enemy.

Excerpts from
The sign of the tiger: Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian Legion in Germany 1941-45
By Rudolf Hartog
Rupa & Co, New Delhi. Available in Pakistan from Paramount Books, Shop # G-22, Ground Floor, Glass Tower, Clifton, Karachi and 152/O, Block 2, PECH Society, Karachi-75400
Tel: 021-4310030.
Email: paramount@cyber.net.pk
ISBN 81-7167-547-6
206pp. Rs406

The art of calligraphy

2008-09-21T04:15:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Dr Aslam Farrukhi

The aesthetic dimension of Islamic civilization found its finest expression in its architecture and calligraphy. From Asia to Africa and even some parts of Europe, the terrain is dotted with marvellous buildings and artifacts which are representative examples of the great ideas, positive outlook and the creative ability of the Muslims. Calligraphy was an integral part of Muslim architecture. It served to enhance the elegance of the buildings while highlighting the divine verses of the Quran and the holy utterances of the prophet.

In due course, calligraphy came to be recognized as a craft closely associated with the Muslims. Even today when machine printing has deemphasized the role of calligraphy, Muslim households and offices all over the world continue to display specimens of this art in the form of either Arabic verses or verses from the Holy Book or the hadeeth. In the span of about 1400 years, calligraphy has progressed from a single khat to a variety and multiplicity of khatoot. In the book under review, Professor Mohammed Saleem has traced the evolution of this fine art through the ages.

Tareekh-i-khat-o-khatateen is divided into eight sections with a total of 46 chapters. The last chapter has been contributed by the editor of the book, Syed Aziz-ur-Rehman, and includes those specimens of the art of calligraphy which are his later acquisitions. This has enhanced the value of the book.

The story of calligraphy begins with the invention of writing. Great value was attached to this craft at all times but its significance and status varied among the Muslims from time to time. The development of the Arabic script and the historical evolution of various khatoot, specially naskh and nastaleeq, have had a great impact on calligraphy. A number of schools of calligraphy evolved over the ages, apart from these two. Gulzar, ghubar, rehan, suls, uroosul khutoot and shikasta emerged as considerably important.

Some of these have been used by poets to adorn their poetry. Gulzar and ghubar have been the most popular. Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda and Mohsin Kakorvi have referred to khat-i-gulzar while a ghazal writer has lamented the use of khat-i-ghubar by the beloved in a couplet. khat bhee likha hai us nay tau khat-i-ghubar mein. Mir Hasan, the famous masnavi writer, has referred to all these khatoot in his verses.

The history of calligraphy in the Indian subcontinent followed an interesting course. The craft saw a full beginning in South Asia in the Sultanate period and can be traced up to the contemporary calligraphers. With the passage of time, calligraphy as a decorative art lost its significance. As a result the khushnavees lost his standing while the katibs, whose role was more functional, came to enjoy importance.

There was a time when Lucknow was left with one master calligraphist who was also a poet. That was Shamsuddin Aijaz Raqam who was engaged by the famous Navil Kishore press to design the title pages of its books. Shamsuddin poignantly wrote,

Hum siyah naam thay maanind-i-qalam ay Aijaz
Aaey is safhay hasti peh kitaabat kay liyay

The author has thus recorded and preserved the achievements of the great calligraphers of South Asia. But he has succumbed to myths and legends which have grown around the contemporary names. This detracts from the authenticity of his text.

Prof Saleem’s work has great authenticity. He has consulted a number of sources, the first part of the book drawing heavily from Habibullah Faza’ili Isphahani’s historical text Atlas-ul-Khat. Thus valuable historical material has been made available to Urdu readers.

Tareekh-i-khat-o-khatateen is a useful and valuable book. With a preface by the renowned scholar and living saint, Dr Ghulam Mustafa Khan sahib, the book should generate further interest in the fine art of calligraphy.

Tareekh-e-khat-o-khatateen
By Professor Mohammed Saleem
Zawwar Academy Publications, A-4/17 Nazimabad 4, Karachi-74600. Tel: 021-6684790.
Email: al_seerah@hotmail.com
464pp. Rs450

Raqs-i-ajel : The man from St Petersburg

2008-09-21T04:14:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Desnavi

The earlier decades of the last century saw the growth of a number of political theories which found popular acceptance in cross-sections of European society. Those theories ranged from communism that believed in state control in every sector, to anarchism, which rejected the institution of the government itself. While the former led to a bloody revolution toppling a monarchy, the latter just faded away with the passage of time.

The conspiracies, acts of sabotage and revolutionary activities of the followers of these political dogmas have often provided valuable raw material for fiction writers. The book under review is the Urdu translation of one such novel, The man from St. Petersburg.

In 1914, just before the beginning of the first world war, the British seek the support of Czarist Russia and invite Prince Alex Andryovitch, a nephew of the Czar, for negotiations. Earl Waldon whose wife, Lydia, is the sister of the Prince’s mother, is selected to represent the British.

Felix is a Russian anarchist, running all over Europe to evade arrest. He knows that the Prince’s visit would result in Russia being dragged into the war. To prevent that, he decides to kill the Prince on British soil as that would make relations between the two countries too bitter to permit them to become allies. Felix goes to London with that intention.

Charlotte, the 18-year old daughter of Earl Waldon, is now awakening to the realities of life. She starts taking a natural interest in knowledge about sex and also in the movement for women’s rights. It is during a demonstration by women demanding the right to vote that she comes across Felix.

In a dramatic denouement, it is revealed that Charlotte is the daughter of Felix who had had an affair with Lydea before her marriage. To avoid embarrassment, Lydea’s aristocratic father had got Felix thrown into prison and had hurriedly found a husband for his daughter, the visiting young British Earl, with whom she was whisked away to London.

Finally, Felix is able to kill the Russian prince using the information supplied by Charlotte. But he too dies after being caught in the burning countryside house where the visitor was staying.

The novel has all the ingredients of a thriller: romance, murder and unexpected revelations. It also gives glimpses of the political and social conditions of the period and the location to which the story is related. The translation, too, is fluent. It would have been indeed useful if a brief note about the author was included in the book.

Raqs-i-ajel
By Ken Follett
Translated by Yaqoob Yawarkoti
Fiction House, 18, Mozang Road, Lahore.
336pp. Rs200

The lion, the fox, and the eagle: a story of generals and justice in Rwanda and Yugoslavia

2008-09-21T04:12:00.000-07:00

How the UN behaves

Reviewed by Tariq Ahsan

As a middle power, Canada has had an abiding interest in contributing to the emergence of a rules-based international political system. Humanitarian diplomacy and peacekeeping find broad support in Canadian society. Policies based on compassion are seen to distinguish Canadian foreign policy from the self-serving unilateralism of the United States.

This is the spirit that Carol Off (an experienced reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) brings to her fascinating account of the work done for the United Nations by three Canadians, Romeo Dallaire, Lewis MacKenzie, and Louise Arbour.

Brigadier General Romeo Dallaire, who had no previous experience in peacekeeping, was the leader of the United Nations Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) in 1993-1994. This Mission, consisting of 2,500 soldiers, was sent to help the Tutsi and Hutu nationalists in Rwanda to bring an end to their conflict in accordance with the Arusha Agreement that they had signed in 1993. But Dallaire found that extremist Hutus associated with the President of Rwanda planned to torpedo the implementation of the Arusha Agreement, and to kill the entire population of Tutsis.

Dallaire prepared a strategy to foil their scheme, but his superiors at the UN forbade him from implementing it. They feared that if Dallaire employed force, and incurred casualties, contributing nations could withdraw their men. As a result, the opportunity to nip this evil in the bud was missed and 800,000 Tutsi citizens of Rwanda were killed. Dallaire kept making practical proposals for putting a swift end to the genocide, while using all the resources at his command to save as many lives as he could. Even when his contingent of peacekeepers was reduced to 450 men, Dallaire did not quit. For this, he is characterised by Off as the lion in The story of UN peacekeeping during the 1990s.

The genocide in Rwanda ended in July 1994 with defeat of the Rwandan regime by the Tutsi army of the Rwanda Patriotic Front.

The fox in the story, is Brigadier General Lewis Mackenzie, who unlike Dallaire, was a highly experienced peacekeeper. He was based in Sarajevo as Chief of Staff to the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). As someone familiar with the limitations of traditional peacekeeping, MacKenzie wished that the parties to the conflict would quickly come to an agreement that he could help them to enforce. The issues of justice, and of saving lives did not have priority. The lives that he was most interested in saving were those of his own men. In his desperation for an agreement, he kept pressing the Bosnian leaders to give up their dream of a multi-ethnic democratic state, and to concede the demand of Yugoslav backed Serbian aggressors that the legitimate Government of Bosnia only represented the Muslim population of the country.

The widespread perception that MacKenzie was taking sides led to the premature end of his assignment. But by then, the international community had already begun to treat the conflict in Bosnia as an ethnic civil war, and had slammed an arms embargo on the Bosnians, leaving them defenceless against aggression. More than 200,000 Bosnians died in the conflict. The Dayton Accords that ended the conflict in 1995 recognized the claim of extremist Serbians that they were a separate nation, by creating an entity called Republika Srpska within Bosnia.

The eagle in the saga of the United Nations’ largely unsuccessful efforts to deal with gross violations of human rights, according to Carol Off, is Judge Louise Arbour, who became the Prosecutor of the international war crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda in 1996. Like Dallaire, Arbour had no previous experience in dealing with international human rights issues, and like him, she was idealistic, and felt that she could actually contribute towards breaking the culture of impunity that protected violators of human rights. She soon discovered that seasoned diplomats actually saw the setting up of the two tribunals as a step that was meant to deal with the clamour in global civil society for bringing the war criminals of Yugoslavia and Rwanda to justice. They had no intention of actually enabling the tribunals to succeed.

The Serbians who had been indicted for war crimes continued to live comfortably in the NATO controlled parts of Bosnia. Louise Arbour began a campaign to shame NATO governments into arresting them, and had limited success in this endeavour. She managed to convince Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi to permit her to arrest most of the prominent Rwandans resident in Nairobi, who had been indicted for the genocide of the Tutsis.

When the crisis erupted in Kosovo, Arbour highlighted the human rights dimension by making an attempt to visit sites of reported massacres. She also affirmed that NATO actions would also fall under the jurisdiction of her Tribunal, and agreed to investigate the bombing of a television station in Belgrade that was not a military target. Finally, Arbour took the bold decision to indict Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic on charges of gross violations of human rights.

It is not a coincidence that General Dallaire and Judge Arbour, who had no previous experience of working for the United Nations, were idealistic, and they tried to do their best despite the resistance that they encountered. On the other hand, General MacKenzie the experienced peacekeeper was so familiar with the culture of inertia, and of the limitations imposed by it, that he did not even make an effort to achieve the objectives of his mission.

On the basis of her study of the its failures, Carol Off has charged that the UN is an organization without a moral compass. There appears to be some evidence that the UN is prepared to change. A panel of experts headed by Lakhdar Brahimi has proposed a radical rethinking of the concept of peacekeeping, and a complete restructuring of the UN’s way of handling situations that warrant humanitarian intervention. It has suggested the creation of standing rapid reaction forces that could be quickly rushed to situations where gross violations of human rights could be expected to occur.

The International Criminal Court is expected to start functioning after seventeen more states ratify the relevant documents. When these initiatives come to fruition, the United Nations will have greater ability to take timely action to prevent gross violations of human rights, and to bring organizers of genocide and ethnic cleansing and the torturers, and rapists associated with them to justice.

Carol Off’s exclusive focus on the UN’s failings, however, misses the point made among others by eminent Canadian diplomat John W. Holmes, that the “United Nations can do only what its members find a consensus to do”. The most powerful countries of the world have sought to use the UN as an instrument to achieve their national security interests. Resources are available when the UN is used to legitimize the use of force, to clean up the mess thus created, and to provide minimal humanitarian relief when conflict is over.

We see a similar reliance on the UN in the ongoing intervention against Afghanistan. On the other hand, the behaviour is very different when the need arises to risk lives, and to devote resources in situations that are not perceived as being national security priorities. For example, in situations like the one in East Timor in 1975, Bosnia in 1991, and Rwanda in 1993, either nothing is done, or ill-defined missions are dispatched merely for the sake of making it appear that something is being done.

Carl Off has made a valuable contribution by describing how the culture of political inertia, and the lack of resources hinder the efforts of dedicated individuals in the United Nations institutions charged with the prevention of genocide and ethnic cleansing. But for this state of affairs to change it will also be essential for individual members of the international community to give up their obsession with narrow national security concerns, and to make the necessary resources available to the UN.

The lion, the fox, and the eagle: a story of generals and justice in Rwanda and Yugoslavia
By Carol Off
Random House
ISBN 0679310495
406pp. $29.71

Women & development: the Indian experience

2008-09-21T04:11:00.000-07:00

The unequal half Reviewed
by Dr Mahnaz Fatima

Mira Seth begins her account by tracing the background of the women’s struggle for their rights in the subcontinent. While the Muslim invasions since the eleventh century touched upon the lives of both Muslim and Hindu women, it was not until the nineteenth century that landmark decisions were first taken under the British influence towards gender equality by banning sati in 1836 and infanticide in 1870.

A social reform movement was also initiated around this time when monogamy and widow remarriage were supported and child marriage was opposed. Women’s education was also promoted strongly which would have the most empowering effect in the centuries to come. However, female literacy rate improved by only 0.2 per cent during the last decade of the nineteenth century. It stood at only 0.7 per cent in 1901.

While the women’s rights’ movement gathered pace in the twentieth century on all fronts, including political rights, it received a fillip particularly during the freedom struggle in the subcontinent. Women were encouraged by Indian men to hold the banner of freedom aloft which was not an easy task. It was like the participation of labour in political life in the West that was encouraged during the second world war.

However, while Labour won government office in Britain for the first time soon after the end of the war, the women of the subcontinent were ironically excluded from the national mainstream and had to start their own freedom struggle after the liberation of the subcontinent from British rule. As the men came to dominate the positions in both politics and economics, women found themselves marginalized. This brought a new awakening to women in both India and Pakistan!

The book is about the women’s struggle in India and is a piece of work that could be replicated for Pakistan and other developing countries in the region and elsewhere. It is worth noting that the Indian Constitution pronounces equal rights for women in all spheres including vote, employment, and all fundamental rights. Under these guidelines, Indian legislators got down to the social uplift of Hindu women through a series of social and labour legislation covering the issues of succession and inheritance, marriage and divorce, adoption, child marriage restraint, dowry prohibition, sati, immoral traffic, indecent media representation, equal remuneration, and maternity benefits, etc. The rights of women were further safeguarded in the Factories, Mines, and Plantation Labour Acts. Inheritance of agricultural land still remains an issue which requires exceptional courage on the part of women at individual levels. As for minorities, their women are governed by their own customary laws. The minority communities would need to demand treatment on the basis of gender equality, if they so desire.

The author concedes that legislation by itself cannot bring about social revolution, more so, if there are loopholes in legislation. Nonetheless, the policy makers, administrators, and voluntary organizations should play a role and formulate/execute policy as close to the spirit of the law as possible. However, despite over eight five-year plans and despite an expanding share of women in development with 33.3 per cent seats’ reservation in Panchayats and other local body institutions, “...women are as yet nowhere near receiving their due share of planned development...”

The inferior status of the girl child continues to be determined by the cultural norms which, in turn, are determined by historical and politico-economic reasons. These norms cut across all social strata, religions, and castes. Female foeticide and infanticide are common despite scientific and technological developments. In fact, high technology is further facilitating the perpetuation of morally and religiously repugnant practices as above. These tendencies show up in declining female sex ratios which decreased from 972 per 1000 males in 1901-11 to 927 per 1000 males by 1991-96.

Sex ratios have declined the most in the case of Hindus and less so in the case of Muslims. In the case of Christians, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, the sex ratios have improved although marginally for Christians and significantly for Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs even though the sex ratio for Sikhs is the lowest of all the religions studied. With widespread foeticide and infanticide, crimes/violence against women are also on the rise.

A key reason is an inability on the part of women to take charge. This, in turn, emanates from their low levels of literacy, education, and gainful employment. The female literacy rate stood at 39.29 per cent in 1991 compared to 64.13 per cent for males in the same year. The enrolment figures for females are similarly lower than those for males. The females’ dropout rates are higher than men’s. And, only 28.58 per cent of those employed are females.

So, even though legislation has created an enabling environment and the social status of women has improved, the Indian psyche has not undergone a transformation which is why efforts towards true empowerment of women keep encountering the formidable hurdle of cultural norms and mores. While women from the privileged affluent classes could choose to progress more smoothly if they so desired, the ones from the less privileged could break class barriers by first ignoring the social norms.

Desire to conform to norms and to seek empowerment at the same time poses conflicting requirements with the more docile settling down for the former after discovering that the twin goals were self-contradictory. The author concludes, “It is their (women) lack of awareness, motivation and mobilization that has created the gender gaps. Women should adopt the strategy of demanding the cleaning up of our public life.” She further suggests, “They (women) can also play a powerful and positive role in confidence-building in their daughters and other women to promote self-reliance and the strength to resist crimes.”

The above study clearly demonstrates that no matter what be the intensity of supportive macro-level policies, unless there is an intrinsic micro-level desire in women to change their destiny, sordid stories will continue to be told of their plight. The decadent and obstructive cultural norms will change only when these are rejected by women themselves at micro-levels. And, these norms will continue as always for as long as mothers and grandmothers will continue to prefer male children over the female offsprings. Until then no new century will have really dawned on the girl child in any developing part of the world.

Despite movement at a slow pace with several steps backwards, the author is optimistic about reaching the end of the tunnel. How long would it take to reach this goal is unclear. The author makes no predictions about when the conditions of gender parity will be created. Probably, her long association with the Indian government as a civil servant instils a certain confidence in governmental effort that others would like to see as more focused and result-oriented.

Nonetheless, this is a commendable study that should also be undertaken in other South Asian countries in an attempt to close the gap between rhetoric and actual delivery in the field of women’s development.

Women & development: the Indian experience
By Mira Seth
Sage Publications, M 32 Market, Greater Kailash 1, New Delhi-110 048.
Email: marketing@indiasage.com
ISBN 0-7619-9488-2
282pp. Indian Rs295

Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib

2008-09-21T04:10:00.001-07:00

Assessing Ghalib

Reviewed by Haroon R. Siddiqi

Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib, as the name itself reflects, is a zealous analysis of Diwan-i-Ghalib in which Dr Abdur Rehman Bijnori has unveiled the ever prevailing freshness and beauty of Ghalib’s poetry. Bijnori has compared Ghalib with the greatest poets of the West and has attempted to prove eloquently the due stature of this khaknashin of Delhi.

Drawing inspiration and support from a wide range of fine art, in addition to resting his beliefs on the solid structure of philosophy, Bijnori draws daring conclusions. His proclamation that “Hindustan ki ilhami kitaben dou hain — Maqaddas Vaid or Diwan-i-Ghalib” has become a proverbial expression over the years that is invariably quoted in every discussion on Ghalib’s poetry in literary forums of the subcontinent.

Bijnori’s concise but scholarly appreciation of Ghalib’s poetry was first published in 1920, more than two years after his death, by Maulvi Abdul Haque in his magazine Urdu, a quarterly publication. The same year, it was also published in the form of a booklet under the auspices of Anjuman-i-Taraqqi-i-Urdu.

Additionally, it was published as the preface to Ghalib’s unabridged collection of Urdu poems — better known as Nuskha-i-Hameediya, the manuscript of which in Ghalib’s own handwriting was luckily discovered from the State of Bhopal’s Hameediya Library. It reached Dr Bijnori’s deserving custody, who was then Educational Advisor in the State of Bhopal. Bijnori was intensely involved in bringing out the Nuskha-i-Hameediya, a rare find, in a befitting style of aesthetics when he died in the influenza epidemic at the young age of 33 in Bhopal.

He, therefore, could not review and conclude his preface to Nuskha-i-Hameediya and for this reason Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib gives an impression of ending rather abruptly. Despite this inadequacy, Mahasan-i- Kalam-i-Ghalib has carved out a unique and distinctive niche for itself in the realm of Ghalibyat. It has continued to serve as an authoritative reference book for serious students of Urdu literature who set out to research new dimensions in Ghalib’s poetry.

Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib is the focal point which is the starting point of Ghalib shanasi. This trend has spread far and wide and is still vibrant. This book has seen many editions since 1921, mostly in India, but a few in Pakistan as well. The latest edition from Islamabad published under the aegis of Dr Abdur Rehman Bijnori Trust is undoubtedly the best. The President of the Trust, A.R. Siddiqi, deserves full appreciation for his valuable efforts in reviewing the entire book and removing the misprints in a long over-due exercise.

The difficult to grasp names of the philosophers, poets, artists and multilingual fine art references interspersed in Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib have now been correctly cited. Such lapses found way in the book due to the untimely death of the author in 1918, before he could review his manuscript. The present edition also includes a glossary of difficult words and their present day meanings for the greater benefit of the readers, specially students. The preface written by A.R. Siddiqi is enlightening and makes good reading.

Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib was conceptualized by Bijnori in topical segments that can be subdivided into eighteen parts, each one dealing with a distinct aspect of Ghalib’s poetry. Each of this has been assessed eruditely by Dr Abdur Rehman Bijnori to evaluate the true stature of the poet. This distinguishes Ghalib from other poets or puts him at level with the greatest poets of the world. Subject-wise Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib can be classified into the following topics:

• Transmundane elements and universality in Ghalib’s poetry
• Music and rhythm in Ghalib’s poetry
• A distinction in Ghalib’s grandeur and greatness
• A latent charm in Ghalib’s complex poetry
• Ghalib’s craftsmanship in coining new words and expressions
• Use of self created similes and metaphors by Ghalib
• Art in Ghalib’s poetry
• Ghalib’s enunciation of the secrets of nature
• Ghalib’s simple poetry and its profound sensibilities
• Philosophy of monism and monotheism in Ghalib’s poetry
• Soul and matter
• Religion
• Reality of life and the concept of nihilism
• Death
• Laughter
• Interrogatory doubts
• Wine and love
• Imagery

From all these subjects, it is evident that Bijnori has chosen to either deal with the poetic excellence of Ghalib or has focussed on his intellectual ability and philosophical greatness of the poet. This has enhanced Ghalib’s image to lofty heights. Bijnori has traced the predominant impact of Ghalib on Urdu language which he believes had to bend and bow before his awesome pen just as Shakespeare commanded English for his creative pursuits.

Bijnori has unreservedly announced that Ghalib’s diction is decidedly inimitable. Every word appears perfectly placed, be it in the context of syntax or meaning. The imagery is splendidly beautiful and has no parallel. The stunning beauty of Ghalib’s poetry oscillates between amazing simplicity and mystifying complexity, the two extremes that come to the poet naturally, although Ghalib relies heavily on the latter form; and rightly so. Complex poetry is fanciful and carries a latent beauty and charm that cannot exist superficially. Nonetheless, some of Ghalib’s verses are so deceptively simple that a reader feels that he too could write it, but that feeling is an illusion which soon disappears like a mirage when the mind is put to work.

Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib is as intricate and profound as Diwan-i-Ghalib itself. One needs a firm grip on language and philosophy and a profound knowledge of comparative study of fine art and other literatures to measure its true depth and quality.

Mahasan-i-Kalam-i-Ghalib
By Dr Abdur Rehman Bijnori
Dr Abdur Rehman Bijnori Trust, House # 684, Double Road, Sector 1-8/4, Islamabad
Tel: 051-4434085.
Karachi: 021-5854231
84pp. Rs100

Single and happy?

2008-09-21T04:09:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Aisha Khalid

Until recently, women from all classes in India were not allowed to wear revealing clothes or behave “immodestly”. In other words they could not openly display affection for members of the opposite sex. The story, in the book under review, is about Akhilandaswari (Akhila for short), a 45-year-old female income tax clerk living in the claustrophobic India of the 1980s. Unmarried and urged by a more extroverted friend, she has decided to take a holiday all by herself at a seaside town. Of course many eyebrows are raised by her own siblings, her only family.

While waiting for the train, her story unfolds. Born in a Brahmin family she watched her mother become the “perfect” wife by submitting to all her husband’s whims and finding excuses for his faults. She also discovered the disdain her mother showed when as a child Akhila asked her to give singing lessons to earn some extra money for her daughters’ pocket money.

Akhila was exposed to the male chauvinistic society when a family living in the neighbourhood loses the father and is forced to vacate their home when the daughter is accused of prostitution. Her sin? She turns to modelling to help support her family. When Akhila’s own father dies, she gives up her youth for her mother and siblings, and takes up a job as a clerk in a government office. Along the way, she meets and falls in love with a man younger to her. But she turns away from him for fear of being reprimanded by society for marrying somebody younger.

On the train journey, she finds a seat in the ladies coupe similar to the ladies compartment in trains in Pakistan. She meets five women and through them is exposed to the five choices they are faced with. Some have compromised and adjusted to their husbands. Others are living in the dungeons that their homes have become. Yet others have broken free to make their own way in the world.

Margaret Shanthi married her husband at an early age imagining her life to be filled with wedded bliss. She had not bargained for a man who attached no importance to her emotional needs. He was a man who prided himself on his slim waist, and Margaret exacts her revenge by turning him into a fat and ugly man through her delectable cooking and hence totally dependent on her.

Marikolanthu was impregnated by a rape for which she was blamed by most people, including her mother and siblings. She hates the boy she gives birth to, and sends him to work in his father’s factory.

Prabha Devi was born when her father wished for a daughter instead. A lone sister to a string of brothers, Prabha led a happy life. Married at a young age, she discovered the mellowing down of affection.

Janaki was a pampered wife, and a confused mother, hopelessly devoted to her family and hence the embodiment of the “perfect wife”.

Sheela is a fourteen-year old, attached to and yet repulsed by her maternal grandmother, who is the base of frequent disputes and shouting in her home. However, on her death, Sheela, paints her grandmother’s face because that is how she would have liked to have died — beautiful.

The book ends with Akhila reaching her destination and finally finding her salvation in breaking the chains that bound her to live a controlled, affectionless life.

Ladies Coupe is a book close to the heart of any educated Indian or Pakistani woman, who wants to be able to make her own decisions instead of conforming to the guidelines laid down by the male-oriented society in the Indo-Pak subcontinent.

Ladies coupe
By Amita Nair
Penguin Books, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India.
Website: www.penguinbooksindia.com
ISBN 0-14-100545-5
276pp. Indian Rs250

Taboo: the hidden culture of a red light area

2008-09-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by M. Abul Fazl

Bernard Shaw says somewhere that there is no harm in a Cleopatra using her physical charms to earn money. It is, however, quite another thing for a madame to get hold of a dozen Cleopatras and earn through them. He thus brings out the economic underpinning of the institution of prostitution, the element of exploitation in it, its class origin and class basis.

Dr Fouzia Saeed, in her research on prostitution, says incisively that marriage and prostitution are two sides of the same coin. They only separate the sex-in-itself from sex-for-procreation. But, in tracing the origin of prostitution, she confines herself to the dialectic of tradition and power. The latter is represented in her work by money and the agents of state, whom she regards either as constituting a class in themselves or as a sort of extraneous element inserted into the picture by the professional requirements of the politicians. She also holds the patriarchy responsible for the perpetuation, if not the invention, of prostitution.

Patriarchy replaced matriarchy as soon as agriculture became the main branch of production, followed by pastoralism in areas too arid for stable farming. This led to two major developments — the woman yielded place to man in the principal fields of productive labour and the agricultural surplus made the advent of property possible, triggering the decline of the primitive community and the first stirrings of class formation.

The monogamy, which Engels calls the “subjugation of one sex by the other” (Origin of the family, private property and state), was the immediate outcome of the appearance of property. The male wanted his property to pass to his offspring. He, therefore, entered into an agreement with the female, who had already withdrawn from productive labour, that he would feed and guard her and her children, if she conceived only from him. W. Reich believes that this coercive form of marriage cannot end while patriarchy exists. (As quoted by Reimut Reiche in Sexualite et Lutte de Class).

Thus the appearance of property in things led to property in women. However, polygamy was not possible at this early stage, because the low productivity of labour did not permit most males to support more than one wife, some not even one.

Just as the propertied class appropriated some women, preferably those connected with property, exclusively for procreation, so it designated some others for sex-in-itself. The latter were equally at the disposal of the propertied class but, this time, of the class as a whole, instead of being appropriated individually.

The prostitutes became a caste, the kanjar in our society, in the same manner as other castes. At a time, when the society did not produce enough surplus to be able to maintain and train the new entrants into a craft or a profession separately, these functions were performed by the castes. The experience of the profession, instead of being objectified in professional teachers, was carried by the elders of the family, who transmitted it over the years to its younger members. The families also reared and maintained the younger members during their unproductive periods. The latter, when grown up, in turn, maintained the elders, which was a kind of social security. In addition, the families within a caste had a mutual support system.

Some of Dr Saeed’s interlocutors complained that the traditional kothas and mujras, providing all-round entertainment and with emphasis on the refinement of manners, were losing out to kothi-khanas run by pimps. This is natural. Every ruling class re-organizes the society and re-shapes the institutions to suit its own class requirements. The transition from the kotha to the kothi khanas reflects the transition from the values of the landed class to those of bourgeoisie in our society. The result is that the “best customers have all been taken by those girls who moved into the Gulberg area”.

The traditional prostitute families of Shahi Mohalla have strong traditions: prostitutes are not expected to fall in love or actually marry, their “marriage” is a long-term arrangement with some client, they consider themselves superior to mirasis and think the “respectable” married women are slaves, while they are themselves free, with a kind of matriarchal society. There are also gradations among them, the lowest being the street-walker.

Dr Saeed also points out that a typical prostitute has neither been forced into the profession nor bought. She enters it by birth. That may be true. But, on the other side, the society bars the attempt of the prostitute to leave the caste, except those who make it as actresses. This is also a form of force. Furthermore, the kanjar caste may be matriarchal in the sense that the family is headed by the woman. But it is a part of the patriarchal society, which has assigned the profession to the caste. Matriarchy within the caste fulfils the objectives of the patriarchy in the society. This is reflected in the fact that the society castigates the prostitute but not the client.

Dr Saeed’s commitment to her research is awe-inspiring. She not only gained the confidence of the prostitutes, young and old, but also decided, at one point, to move into the Mohalla to study her subjects more closely. She was dissuaded only when her friends told her of the mortal danger she would be courting if she did so.

She has done a great job of study and description. However, she has not given the same importance to analysis as to description. For example, she wonders if there can be prostitutes without prostitution. A valid question, but one which cannot be answered by a class society.

In her last chapter, she and a cousin discuss her conclusions with a prostitute. It is interesting in spite of being sentimental at places. For example, she calls man’s ‘natural inclination to polygamy’ a myth and says about ‘honour’, “Men created this concept and housed it in women’s bodies. So I am the honour of my father and my brother and my husband.”

It is a serious book — the result of serious work, where the heart does not leave the field entirely to the intellect.

The foreword by I.A. Rehman is of a very high intellectual standard. He points out the bankruptcy of the policies of various governments on prostitution and concludes “the woman of Pakistan has to fight on many fronts. Shahi Mohalla is only one of them”.

Taboo: the hidden culture of a red light area
By Fouzia Saeed
Oxford University Press, 5 Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal, Karachi-75350.
Tel: 021-4529025.
Email: ouppak@theoffice.net
ISBN 0-19-579412-5
324pp. Rs595

Anita Brookner: The twentieth book

2008-09-21T04:05:00.001-07:00

Anita Brookner trained as an art historian, taught at the Courtauld until 1988 and won the Booker Prize for Hotel Du Lac. She rarely gives interviews

Observer: First, what is The bay of angels about?

Brookner: It is about the sort of misfortune that can come upon you without warning; which finds you totally bereft trying to get yourself out of it.

Obs: Was there a particular moment of inspiration?

AB: Well, the curious thing is that I didn’t intend to write it. I didn’t know I was going to write it, so it came upon me quite suddenly and quite easily and I enjoyed writing it. I’m sorry if it’s very bleak. I’m sorry if it’s mournful. I had a good time, that’s all I can say about it.

Obs: It’s your twentieth novel in about 20 years. Is that how you like to work - at the rate of a novel a year?

AB: I’d like to be writing all the time, but that’s not possible.

Obs: Why not?

AB: Lack of ideas, I suppose.

Obs: Where do you think your ideas come from?

AB: I wish I knew. I’d tap into them straight away. I think it’s mostly dreams and memories, isn’t it, as with all novelists? And a certain amount of observation, obviously.

Obs: Did you always want to be a novelist?

AB: No.

Obs: What made you switch from teaching?

AB: Well, I was a teacher most of my life, which I loved, I had a very happy working life and when I retired I thought I must do something and I’ve always read a lot of fiction, you learn so much from fiction. My sentimental education came mostly from fiction I should say, so I thought I’d try.

Obs: You’ve been very successful for a late starter.

AB: I wouldn’t say that. I’m not very popular, because they’re bleak and they’re mournful and all the rest of it and I get censorious reviews. But I’m only writing fiction. I’m not making munitions, so I think it’s acceptable.

Obs: In this book there are several references to art. How much does your art history influence your fiction, if at all?

AB: Not at all.

Obs: So you keep your art history and your fiction in separate compartments?

AB: Absolutely. Well, they keep themselves in separate compartments. I’m a member of the public these days. I go to the galleries and wander around like everybody else. I love it.

Obs: What did you read as a child?

AB: Ah! Dickens. My father fed me Dickens. Two novels for my birthday, two novels for Christmas until I’d read the lot. And after that I think it was H.G. Wells, for some reason. I’ve been talked about in the same context as Jane Austen. I didn’t stick that label on myself, other people did. Quite inaccurate. I’ve never got on very well with Jane Austen.

Obs: Where do you see yourself in the tradition of English literature?

AB: I don’t know anything like that. I’m a middle-class, middle-brow novelist. And that’s it. It amuses me.

Obs: With a middle-class audience?

AB: Yes. Mostly women, but the best letters I’ve had have been from men. One man said a marvellous thing. He said: ‘You write French novels’, which pleased me enormously.

Obs: Which foreign country are you most popular in?

AB: America. And France. I do better in America than I do here.

Obs: Who was your father?

AB: My father was a small businessman, extremely virtuous, not very successful. He had a number of enterprises. He had a lending library at one point, I remember, which was, of course, very congenial. My mother had been a professional singer in America. And they were a virtuous couple and very unhappy and that sent mixed messages, as you can imagine.

Obs: Were you close to your father?

AB: I was closer to my mother, but I loved them both. [Let me get you a cup of tea].

Obs: Who are the writers you admire now?

AB: I read a lot in French and I read the Russians. Here’s my favourite novel.

Obs: Oblomov.

AB: Yes. It’s about a man who fails at everything.

Obs: I confess I’ve never read it.

AB: It’s great. He fails at everything — not through any fault of his own, but through sheer inactivity. I learnt a terrific lesson there.

Obs: Do you think failure is a subject to which you’re drawn in your fiction?

AB: Much more interesting than success.

Obs: There’s a very powerful passage here. You write: ‘As a woman approaching middle age I know that certain changes are inevitable, but I may not always be as adaptable as I have so far proved to be. I feel very tired, cranky, inclined to insist on a life of my own. I miss children, as all middle-aged women do, if they’re childless’. Are your books, in some sense, your children?

AB: No. Not at all.

Obs: And do you identify with that passage?

AB: I think so.

Obs: The bay of angels is a book that the people who admire your work will recognize immediately.

AB: And denigrate.

Obs: Do you ever think of writing a different kind of book entirely?

AB: I wish I could, I wish I could, maybe it’ll come. I don’t know. I’ve no control over these things.

Obs: What would you do if you couldn’t write fiction?

AB: Read fiction.

Obs: So your life is really immersed in various kinds of fictional activity?

AB: Well, I live in the world, like everybody has to, and I go out, do the shopping, and do the cleaning — that sort of thing. See friends. I suppose what one wants really is ideal company and books are ideal company.

Obs: And are you working on a new novel now?

AB: No.

Obs: Where will the next idea come from?

AB: I don’t know, that’s the point. I have no control. I’m a great believer in unconscious processes. They usually work.

Obs: When do you write?

AB: I start work at seven.

Obs: Pencil or pen?

AB: Pen.

Obs: In manuscript?

AB: I haven’t got any of these machines.

Obs: And do you type them up later on?

AB: Yes, I do that.

Obs: And how long do you write for?

AB: Two or three hours. I think about it most of the day.

Obs: All your books have this very intense atmosphere.

AB: That comes from the early reading, I think. One has left oneself behind, but it lingers.

Obs: Do you write quickly?

AB: Yes.

Obs: Do you revise a lot?

AB: No, not at all.

Obs: It feels that way, as a reader.

AB: Yes, only one draft.

Obs: So you’ve now finished the book, and you’re a free woman?

AB: Very boring.

Obs: You’re bored?

AB: Oh terribly. — Dawn/Observer news service

A poem a day, everyday

2008-09-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

Reviewed by Murtaza Razvi

Did anyone know when Shahryar Rashed, son of Noon Meem Rashed — that at once celebrated and controversial doyen of the Urdu vers libre — breathed his last? Fewer still are likely to know that Shahryar in his own right was an excellent poet, writing in English. Since his birth in 1948 (most likely in Pakistan) and until his death in 1999 (probably in Europe where he lived for most of his adult life), Shahryar’s life — at least for many in Pakistan — was shrouded in mystery and went unnoticed even by the literati. Now, thanks to Alhamra Publishing’s poetry calendars, those who might find his writing stimulating, can dig up more on him.

The year 2002, to many of us, is a mixed bouquet: There are hopes for better times ahead and fears about what may yet go wrong. Nobody knows what lies ahead. So if you’re among the ones suffering from that anxiety, try Alhamra’s year long prescription of a poem a day, everyday. The catch is that you’ll just have to turn a new leaf to swallow your potion for the day.

Poetry calendar, they are both titled — one in English and Urdu each — and come in a desktop, self-supporting stand-alone, format. Each one contains verses by 208 — one of those magic numbers you’ll have to crack for yourself — poets, with each of the 365 leaves imprinted with a poem. There is no order to how the poets or their particular poems are selected; and until you turn the leaf of a particular day, you don’t know who or what you are going to get. However, for the enthusiasts, there are two indices at the back of each calendar that list the names of the poets in alphabetical order complete with the dates on which their poems are to be found.

The English calendar contains poems by both contemporary and classical poets — renowned as well as the lesser known — from England, the US, and translated poems by celebrated non-native poets from around the world, including a few from the subcontinent. As a handy reference to the life and times of the selected poets, the indices give the years of birth and death — the latter, where applicable — followed by the poet’s name. No significant poet of any standing is given a miss.

Unlike the English calendar, one may find a bone or two to pick in the Urdu one. My short list stands completed with the following rather obvious observations:

The calendar contains both ghazals and nazms and should have been titled more appropriately than Ghazal calendar. Where indices are concerned, the publisher should have perhaps added short notes on the lives and works of the lesser-known poets, if indeed not all. This is of particular importance to the Urdu reader, as information about Urdu poets is not as easy to come by as their counterparts writing in English.

Alternatively, some footnotes (with a credit line to their author) would have been in order in cases where some verses of a particular ghazal have been edited out, as, for instance, in a ghazal by Dagh, which runs:

Lutf woh ishq mein paaye hain ke ji jaanta hai;
ranj bhi aise utthaae hain ke ji jaanta hai.
The verse:
Tum nahin jaante ab tak ye tumhare andaaz;
yoon mere dil main samaaye hain ke ji jaanta hai,

has been edited out for no reason even though there is no lack of space on the page.

Unlike its English counterpart, the Urdu calendar, besides containing spelling and typographical errors, does not adhere to any standardization when it comes to the poets’ names. Firaq Gorakhpuri, for instance, is listed as Raghupati Sahai Firaq Gorakpuri (his full name), while Gulzar is listed only by his pen name and not as Sampooran Singh Gulzar.

That said, both the calendars are anthologies of sorts in a ‘made simple’ mode. The good side to this very useful endeavour is that there is always the next year in which to set right what you messed up the last time round.

Alhamra English poetry calendar 2002 Alhamra ghazal calendar 2002
365 poems; 208 poets (each edition)
Published by Alhamra Publishing, Saudi Pak Tower, Jinnah Avenue, Islamabad
Website: www.alhamra.com
Rs295 each edition

EXCERPTS: Of stereotypes and much else

2008-09-21T04:02:00.001-07:00

By Nayana Bose

The Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in Colombo sponsored a trip to Pakistan by a group of Indian youth. Nayana Bose narrates her impressions

“Hindus and Muslims can’t live together.” That’s my first recollection of a Pakistani. I met Shazia 15 years ago, at a welcome party for international students at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts. Almost predictably, when we graduated four years later, Shazia’s closest friends were Indian (read Hindu). Shazu is one of the kindest people I’ve ever known. And gracious too: “Look, I’m sorry for what I said before. It’s just that we are taught that in Pakistan, and I didn’t know any better.”

Growing up in the civilized south (Bangalore), I was spared the “Pakistan, our enemy” paranoia. Or the extreme nostalgia — as a child I knew no one whose family was affected by Partition. Contrary to what most in Pakistan still believe, all of India is not obsessed with Pakistan. The further away from Delhi you move, the less and less relevant Pakistan becomes. To me it was a country where people drew strange maps, chopping Kashmir off from India. It was also the country that produced the best-looking cricketers, Imran Khan being the idol of my generation. Nothing more.

Kashmir then, was blissful. A land of towering chinars, still lakes and majestic mountains, gliding shikaras and stately houseboats, gurgling rivers, meadows and flowers, apple-cheeked, happy children. This was the time of Sheikh Abdullah, and the initial years of Farooq Abdullah. The first bomb blast (July 31, 1988 by the JKLF) was still more than two years away. Cross-border terrorism was an unknown term, training camps were still unfamiliar. In spite of Punjab, terrorism itself was still a frightening word.

Pakistan just didn’t figure anywhere in my day-to-day existence. That’s why Shazia’s initial reaction to meeting an Indian remains puzzling. We were all of 18 then, young minds well influenced by what the state preaches. I thought Jinnah was solely responsible for Partition, but the crucial difference is, I was never taught that Muslims were.

While RCSS can justifiably take credit for most first encounters between Indians and Pakistanis, in my case, it can take all the credit for actually taking me to a country that I had often visualized. It wasn’t much different from what I thought it would be, since over the years in America and England, I’ve always had Pakistani friends who would often talk about their home.

Friends who also gave me sound advice for my first visit to Pakistan: “Pack shalwar-kameezes, no ripped jeans.” On a balmy March evening, Arpit, Suparna and I landed in Lahore. It felt unreal to be on Pakistani soil....

Regardless of how much I may have been told about Pakistan, certain aspects of life there, which become part of daily life for a Pakistani, stand out for a visitor. Nothing prepared me for the visual shock of seeing AK-47s everywhere. Beginning with the darwan (guard) in Waqar’s house, whom we duly embarrassed by insisting on posing for a photograph with him and his gun. Of course, I had heard about the famous arms bazaars of Peshawar, but I knew of the Kalashnikov route all the way from NWFP to Karachi. But still, to see a weapon that I, like most Indians, associate with terrorist violence, slung about casually by guards at private homes, outside shops and on personal bodyguards, was frightening....

But I will say this: I’m relieved I live in a country where darwans (guards) still carry dandas. (sticks). Never mind that Pakistan is less polluted and much cleaner.

“Men at their best: PAKISTAN ARMY.” Lahore and Islamabad were plastered with this particular bumper sticker on many cars. Military pride is evident: on the floats in the canal in Lahore with replicas of Ghauri and Shaheen missiles, on the many models of the nuclear tests at Chagai, on the stray Indian tank captured, displayed proudly. Even in a hill station, Murree, nondescript hotels had models of Ghauri and Shaheen pointing towards India. That I found particularly distasteful. What is this obsession? An insecurity expressed through cheap populism? Yet, at the same time, the average Pakistani was so welcoming and hospitable. And curious about India, irrespective of the daily diet of Hindi films.

* * * * *

The middle class that we take so much for granted in India is visible by its absence in Pakistan. In all fairness, we did not visit Karachi, a city with a thriving middle class. But in Lahore and more in Islamabad, there was a strange palpable void. Simple indicators such as the lack of cyber-cafes in premier cities spoke volumes....

Women, or rather their sheer lack of numbers on the streets of Pakistan, in the bazaars, in public places, was disquieting. You just saw men and more men. The dress code too, was strictly shalwar-kameez in public. The elite, of course, wear what they like behind closed doors or from point to point. I found claims that the average urban woman in Pakistan has just as much freedom of choice and opportunity as the average urban woman in India, absurd. A small though illuminating example focused on the three female RCSS alumnae who visited here, who are not representative of average urban women but of the elite, arguably even more independent.

Despite spirited academic debate at the workshops and claims of being liberated women, they expected to be chaperoned all the time. It wasn’t possible to let them shop on their own, even in a place like Dilli Haat or Ansal Plaza. Never mind that they had the car and driver at their disposal, the men had to “escort” them, shopping till late in the evenings....

Whether it was lack of independence or paranoia of being in an “enemy” country is irrelevant. Even within Pakistan, one of the Ahungalla RCSS alumnae, again very much part of Pakistan’s elite, wasn’t allowed to travel to Lahore from Islamabad for Waqar’s (a male friend’s) wedding.

Digressing a little, Islamabad was a pleasant surprise. I had expected it to be similar to Canberra, Australia’s planned modern capital city, devoid of any spirit. Islamabad, though planned to the last acre, has a certain charm, nestling in the shadow of the Margalla hills, with its wide tree-lined boulevards and palatial homes. Driving here, unlike in Delhi, was a pleasure. There was none of the hustle-bustle associated with daily life in the subcontinent. Instead, a serene calm, spotless cleanliness and no beggars at traffic intersections.

* * * * *

In Lahore, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting historical Mughal monuments. The Badshahi Masjid is truly impressive and beautiful. To me, it is an outstanding example of Islamic architecture. Unlike the modern Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, there is nothing particularly “Pakistani” about Badshahi Masjid.

Yet, here, when the Pakistanis visited, I got the distinct impression that any Mughal or Islamic monument they saw (and they saw plenty given Delhi’s rich Islamic heritage), in their minds, was automatically “Pakistani”, unfortunately geographically placed in the wrong country, “Hindu” India. There were enlightened exceptions within the group, but for the most part, anything Muslim — including Lucknow’s Avadh cuisine, was “Pakistani”. This obsession with equating “Muslims” with “Pakistan” and “Hindus” with “India” beyond a point was not only superficial, but also irritating.

Comments, more than anything else, gave the game away. Walking to Humayun’s tomb, we heard the call for prayer (azan). It was dusk. “I never expected to hear that in India,” said one of the Pakistanis. Why? Do our minorities not pray? Do they believe everything the Pakistani state says about Islam being suffocated in India?

At the dargah in Fatehpur Sikri, I sat outside soaking in the sun, as I have been inside many, many times. I’ve even tied a piece of string wishing for the impossible. One of the Pakistanis, just making polite conversation, asked why I hadn’t gone in. Before I could answer, he said: “Of course, its not your religion, I shouldn’t expect you to pay your respects by going in.” He was taken aback when I told him that Hindus and Muslims pray together in dargahs. It may not be my “religion,” but it is my heritage.

That’s where the biggest difference lies. A Pakistani finds it difficult to accept the plurality of Indian society. In our (Indian’s) minds, there is an easy mingling of religions, cultures and cuisines. In their minds, its an unholy mess (pun intended!). That’s why Kashmiriyat is incomprehensible to a Pakistani. Blurred boundaries — religious, cultural, linguistic — become threatening.

Without going into a detailed analysis of the merits and demerits of democracy, it is evident that Indians and Pakistanis have very different opinions. Limiting myself to examples gleaned from this trip, I began to understand why democracy may never take firm root in Pakistan.

As always, it was in the little insignificant comments that the greatest significance lay. In Agra, the group was divided as to whether to see Agra Fort or shop for shoes. It was possible to drop the shoppers off while the rest saw the Fort and then pick those shopping from a designated point at a certain time. But no, it had to be either everyone to the Fort or everyone to the bazaar. I mockingly asked if they believed in democracy. The reply: “You don’t believe in democracy but in anarchy!”

Similarly, in Delhi, ordering lunch at Karims was left entirely to me. I found that strange — surely people would have preferences? Meat or chicken? Roti or sheermal? I realized I was asking too many questions, creating an “anarchic” mess instead of steamrolling everyone and just ordering what I thought they would like.

Though I may jest about this, the part I found unnerving was that within the group of eight, they were quite happy to go along with the decision one person would take for all, often without consulting everyone. Because if you began asking everyone what they wanted to do, it would get out of hand. The idea that one must compromise and be receptive to different suggestions, was strangely lacking. But no one seemed to mind.

* * * * *

Politically, very different. A people who welcome military rule for whatever reason, have little in common with those who live for Panchayati Raj. A people who constantly see things through a Muslim vs Hindu lens are anathema to those who try to defuse differences. A people who are taught in their compulsory “Pakistan Studies” courses that Hindus are cunning and sly are inherently different to a people who are taught that all religions are equal and must coexist in peace. These are fundamental differences, justified by our peculiar history.

But it is left to our generation to move beyond history and a hostile legacy. Indians would do well to realize that well-meaning comments about how “similar” we are lead to insecurity and a completely irrational fear that India will annex Pakistan. That’s why they need the “Bomb”.

* * * * *

What such trips undoubtedly do, however, is give us, the post-Partition generation, the future of this volatile and vibrant region, a first-hand impression of the “other”. In more ways than one, valuable lessons learnt.

Excerpts from
Cross currents: A Pakistan-India odyssey
Edited by Nayana Bose and Adnan Rehmat
Published by Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, 2 Elibank Road, Colombo-5, Sri Lanka
Tel: 94-1-599734-5
Email: rcss@sri.lanka.net
Websire: www.rcss.org
ISBN 955-8051-23-3
100pp.

Tears for the poor

2008-09-21T04:01:00.001-07:00

By Shaukat Siddiqi

This is the concluding chapter of Shaukat Siddiqi’s epic novel Khuda ki basti, translated into English. It is a story of a poor but respectable family which has fallen on hard times

The next day, Salman arrived in town and made his way at once to the Skylarks’ headquarters. The streets he knew so well were cold but sunny; he recognized the low-roofed houses, at whose doors women were hanging, gossiping to their neighbours. Nothing had changed.

He reached the headquarters, where not a sound was to be heard. He made his way to the library, where a woman was sitting, her back turned to him, reading a newspaper. As he entered, she heard his footsteps and turned round in surprise. Their eyes met, and there could be no mistaking that it was Sultana — the very same Sultana, fresh, beautiful and simple in her dress, who somehow or other had given her endeavours to the society Salman had served so long ago.

At that moment so many things flashed through his mind. He and Sultana were on the same road together, but they lost each other at every turning. They met like ships in the night and departed from each other in the darkness, but now they were together once more. Like her he had suffered from life, but this chance meeting had changed all that. As they talked, suddenly he though of Niyaz, the only obstacle in his way. ‘He died a few months ago,’ Sultana told him.

Ali Ahmed came into the library at that moment, and seeing Salman standing there rushed up to embrace him. He could not conceal his joy. ‘Salman,’ he cried. ‘I knew you would return one day.’

‘I’m sorry I never wrote to you,’ replied Salman, ‘but recently I’ve been in such a mess. Anyway I’ll tell you about it later.’

Ali Ahmad, patting his back, smiled: ‘Yes, you were deceived by the glitter of a life that was not yours to have. It is like the golden mountain. The nearer you try to approach it, the further off it stands.’

He was beginning to expand on his philosophy of life, when little Ayaz, missing his mother, who had gone out of the room, tugged at the hem of his coat, and started to cry. Ali Ahmed picked the child up, and, cradling him in his arms, kissed him tenderly. He turned to Salman: ‘Let me introduce you to the youngest member of the Skylarks,’ he laughed.

‘But whose child is it?’ enquired Salman.

‘Well, for the moment he’s mine.’ Hearing the baby crying, Sultana came back into the room, and relieved Ali Ahmed of his charge. She nursed the child in her arms, looking at Salman with the same bright, innocent eyes that he had never forgotten, and would never forget until the day he died.

‘I am sorry, I did not introduce you,’ said Ali Ahmed. ‘This is Sultana, my wife.’

Salman, hearing these words, reeled under the blow. Sensing his consternation, Ali Ahmed looked embarrassed. ‘I married her last month.’ He was obviously delighted with his wife, and the professor, who had always been so serious and dedicated to his cause, now had the air of a simple young man with a future.

It was with great difficulty that Salman stammered the words: ‘Well ... then, I must congratulate you.’

‘Thank you,’ replied Ali Ahmed. ‘But you must be tired after your journey. Go and rest in the other room and we’ll talk later. I have to go to court to attend a case.’

‘Not the case over what happened here that night? It still can’t be going on.’

‘No, no,’ said Ali Ahmed. ‘That’s been over for ages, and there was hardly any point in contesting it. This is something else.’ Then turning to Sultana, he asked: ‘Will you come as well?’

‘I’ve been ready for a long time,’ replied Sultana. ‘Do you want a cup of tea before we go? There’s just enough time for me to make you one. But these days, you’re drinking far too much tea. It’s bad for your health, you know.’

‘Very well, my dear,’ said Ali Ahmed, smiling. ‘I’ll do my best to cut down.’

The care with which she spoke to him bore witness to the love and affection which had grown up between them.

Salman could bear it no longer and picking up his things went to the room where he had been told to stay.

Exhausted, sad and frustrated he sank onto his bed, and as he thought of the miserable hand that life had dealt him, he fell asleep. It was for Ali Ahmed that he had joined the society in which he had worked with such great enthusiasm; it was for Sultana that he had left it. And now that his two most important influences were together, he seemed to have nowhere to go. Once more his world had collapsed around him.

By evening his spirits revived. His old friends welcomed him back to the fold with joy, and Salman was reinstated to his former position. What else could he do but donate the five thousand rupees he had saved to the cause in which he still believed?

During the following days he immersed himself in his work, rejoined his old class, read until late in the evening, trying to forget Sultana whose constant presence bothered him. But he reasoned with himself. She was no longer the girl who once attracted him with her bright, innocent eyes; she was the wife of his old friend and mentor, the mother of a young child. No longer the same girl whom he had loved.

Salman soon became appraised of all that had passed; how Nausha had murdered Niyaz, whose baby Ali Ahmad had adopted; how Khan Bahadur had used his thugs to take over Sultana’s house and put her out on the street. That wretched man had become chairman of the Municipality and, having acquired the directorship of several companies, now had aspirations to become a minister in the government. His sons were doing well. One had a very comfortable position with the Colombo Plan; the other was in higher education in the States. The Skylark society had become a thorn in Khan Bahadur’s side, and he was now threatening to have the whole lot of them jailed under the Security Act.

‘What a society!’ though Salman. ‘On the National Day of Independence, our ministers and intelligentsia, well trained in foreign universities, take out their handkerchiefs and shed tears for the poor like Nausha, Raja, Shami and Annu. Perhaps it was destiny that made them what they have become — a murderer standing trial in a corrupt court; a leper, who has no more to do than wait for death to visit him; a rickshaw-driver, who spits blood from his lungs at every turn; a promising young boy, now in the pay of the eunuchs, who amuse those who piously condemn them!

‘Allahu Akbar! God is Great! Praise your Creator, and let Him hear the shout from the minaret, as we prostrate ourselves before the Beneficent and the Merciful!’

Nausha’s trial was witnessed by Sultana, Ali Ahmed and Salman, who sat with bated breath to hear the decision. The police seemed to take hours over their account, and there could be no doubt that in the eyes of the law Nausha was guilty. But since Nausha was a minor, he was given a life sentence. And as he was led away by the constable, his hands, which at one time had wielded a pen, were now firmly handcuffed. Nausha finally broke down, and smashing the iron handcuffs over his head, screamed pathetically: ‘Hang me, hang me. I’ve had enough of this life!’

The blood streamed down his forehead, and the police had to restrain him. The last words he heard were the sobs of his sister, Sultana, who clung to Ali Ahmad in despair: ‘Nausha, my little brother. Nausha, please don’t leave me. Nausha, I’ll die. Nausha, Nausha!’

Salman, wiping the tears from his eyes, walked silently out of the court.

Excerpts from
God’s own land: a novel of Pakistan
By Shaukat Siddiqi
Translated by David Mathews
Alhamra Publishing, Saudi Pak Tower, Jinnah Avenue, Islamabad
Tel: 051-2823862.
Email: alhamra@isb.paknet.com.pk
Website: www.alhamra.com
ISBN 969-516-033-6
350pp. Rs295

CHILDREN’S BOOKS: All the big names

2008-09-21T03:48:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Rumana Husain

The first children’s book in England was printed in 1744. Mary Cooper’s Tommy Thumb’s pretty song book is credited as such, and is a collection of nursery rhymes. In the subcontinent, as in several other Asian and African countries, the oral traditions have lasted longer, and children’s literature developed later.

Pakistan has been a relatively new entrant in the field. Admittedly we cannot match the expertise of countries that have been producing children’s books for more than 200 years. But we cannot continue seeking refuge on this pretext. We must try to catch up fast, bearing in mind examples of some of the ‘newer countries’, who have done a lot of good work in this field. They realize that a dearth of good books for children will only mean that their future generation will lack in sound reading habits. We need to develop good books not only in Urdu and English, but also in all the regional languages.

Selection of existing work, or the original writing of appropriate text set in the culture and tradition of the country is the initial, most vital step in the production of books for children. Suitable vocabulary, attractive illustrations, design and layout of the books, together with the selection of appropriate typography are the various aspects that have to fall in place for a good book. Finally, ingenious printing expertise is required to reproduce the book as faithfully as possible. It is important that its original colours are retained, the copies are properly cut and bound, and the entire production is slick and smart.

Ushba Publishing International (UPI) is the brainchild of Shahbano Alavi, who has formerly worked with the Oxford University Press. Its first production of a set of eight books, an anthology of poems in Urdu for classes one to eight, is called Dhanak, belying the fact that dhanak (the rainbow) in fact has only seven colours.

It is perhaps for the first time that a graded series of poetry books in Urdu have been published for school children. The effort is, therefore, most commendable. However, a more thorough review of the selection of poems, some careful editing and close scrutiny would have ensured correct proof, uniform spacing between the lines, and would have avoided a rather unnecessary profusion of punctuations, overlapping of the illustrations with the text, etc. Overcoming these weaknesses should improve the books significantly.

Credit has been given to one illustrator only, making one wonder why the others have not been acknowledged. The illustration, on the cover of the class eight book is rather morbid. It illustrates a poem included in the book, which is anonymous.

This set of eight books under review has all the big names of Urdu poetry that one can list, including, Mirza Ghalib, Allama Iqbal, Maulana Hali, Ismail Meerthi, Abdul Majeed Salik, Chiragh Hasan Hasrat, Hafeez Jalandhari, Ghulam Abbas and Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. Poems written by the well known children’s poet, Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum, are of course also included.

Each book in the series contains a chapter about the teaching of poetry. It emphasizes that the teachers need to equip themselves with some technical points, in order to do a good job of it. A glossary given at the end of each book is useful for easy reference of some ‘difficult’ words. It would be useful for teachers and publishers to omit the word ‘difficult’ from their vocabulary while teaching ‘new’ words to young children. ‘New’ somehow eliminates the fear of dealing with ‘Mushkil’ words.

The number of publishers of children’s books in Pakistan needs to increase. Ushba, therefore, is a welcome addition to the tribe.

Dhanak
Compiled by Shahbano Alavi
Ushba Publishing House,Karachi
Eight books for Class I to VIII.
22pp. 22pp. 26pp. 26pp. 28pp.
36pp. 36pp. 40pp
ISBN 969-8588-01-9. 969-8588-02-7.
969-8588-03-5. 969-8588-04-3.
969-8588-05-1. 969-8588-06-X.
969-8588-07-8. 969-8588-00-0

Media language and politics

2008-09-21T03:47:00.001-07:00

By Ajmal Kamal

These days one hears more often than ever before about truth being the first casualty of war. The war, in this case, being the ongoing unilateral bombing of one of the world’s most destitute nations by a coalition of world’s most powerful forces led by the United States. Looking from a different angle, however, this war becomes merely a link in a long chain of events. Truth, it would seem, becomes a casualty much before the actual hostilities start.

Before you begin to bomb (or gas) a whole population which has done absolutely nothing to deserve this, you need to prepare the ground for it. In the words of Professor Amartya Sen, “to see the disaster of September 11 as being caused by, say, people sheltered or harboured by Afghans, places all people in Afghanistan in the same descriptive category, and this can play a very important part in making it acceptable for normal human beings with usual sensibilities — whether in America or in Europe or even in South Asia — to accept that some innocent people in that identified group may well have to die in an operation that has to follow the killing of innocent Americans by criminals harboured in Afghanistan.

Of course, the innocent Afghans are not taken in any way to be the target, but merely seen as collaterally damaged Afghans, whose lives cannot be spared if Osama bin Laden is to be caught or killed, and his organized terrorism is to be ended. The gross imposition of the identity of Afghans does not, of course, have any direct military value, but the civil acceptance or the public indulgence of acts with brutal consequences on an identified group can have momentous effects.”

This “civil acceptance” or the “public indulgence” cannot be achieved by the political establishment alone, It has to be aided in no small measure by the mainstream media. To state the obvious, media in our times have acquired the absolute power to make anything visible or invisible at the choice of their managers. The unbelievable connivance of the US media with the political establishment has been consistently exposed by people such as Edward S. Herman.

A Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a contributor to Z Magazine since its founding in 1988, Edward Herman is the author of numerous books, including a number of corporate and media studies. These include Corporate control, corporate power (1981), the two volume Political economy of human rights (1979) and Manufacturing consent: the political economy of the mass media (1988), both of which he co-authored with Noam Chomsky, as well as The terrorism industry: the experts and institutions that shape our view of terror (1989), which he co-authored with Gerry O’Sullivan. He edits Lies of our times (LOOT) available at the website of Z Magazine: http://www.zmag.org/. A search on the website by the author’s name and/or topic will reveal a list of articles.

Prof Herman is of the considered view that “media collaboration with the government in fostering a world of doublespeak is essential, and this collaboration has been regularly forthcoming”. To a question by David Bersamian in an interview that given the political economy of the media and the propaganda model, as outlined in Manufacturing consent, isn’t he beating a dead horse, Herman says, “Yes, you’re beating a dead horse. But most people aren’t aware that the horse is dead.”

An excellent example of how, by employing language in the service of misinformation and distortion, media can make two similar sets of events look entirely different, is Professor Herman’s essay “Pol Pot’s death in the propaganda system”. In this essay, available under the head of “Fog Watch” at the Z Magazine website, Herman analyses the treatment given to the media to Cambodia’s erstwhile despot Pol Pot and contrasts it with the indulgence with which Indonesia’s Suharto is dealt with, although there is nothing much in the real sense to distinguish between the two, except of course that the US political establishment prefers to see the two in different lights.

The Cambodian genocide, Herman says, had two phases, in the first of which — 1969-1975 — the US Air Force dropped over 500,000 tons of bombs on rural Cambodia, killing scores of thousands, creating a huge refugee population, and radicalizing the countryside. The number of US-caused deaths in the first phase is comparable to, or greater than, CIA and other serious estimates of Pol Pot killings by execution (50,000-400,000). According to Herman, focusing solely on Pol Pot and making the US an innocent bystander in the Cambodian genocide requires well-constructed blinders. Furthermore, following their ouster by the Vietnamese in December 1978, Pol Pot’s forces found a safe haven in Thailand, a US client state, and for the next 15 years or more were aided and protected there by Thai, Chinese, British, and US authorities.

Suharto, on the other hand, came to power in 1965 accompanied by a slaughter of over 700,000 people. This was cold-blooded killing, designed to wipe out a mass movement that was seen as a political threat, without even a vengeance motive. Suharto also invaded East Timor in 1975, and over the years was responsible for the death of perhaps 200,000 of a population of some 700,000. So Suharto was guilty not only of a huge internal slaughter comparable in scale to that of Pol Pot, he also engineered a genocide in a neighbouring country. But of course all of Suharto’s killing was done with the approval and active support, or acquiescence, of the US government and the West in general.

The US mainstream media, in deference to the politicians’ preferences, completely black out the role of the US in the Cambodian genocide and attribute all deaths to Pol Pot. For the US backing and active support to him after he lost power, the media’s weapon is evasion. While Pol Pot has been described in the editorials and news columns as “crazed”, a “killer”, “war criminal”, “mass murderer”, “blood-soaked”, and as having engineered a “reign of terror” and “genocide”, Suharto was occasionally referred to as a “dictator” and running an “authoritarian” regime, he is often a “moderate” and even “at heart benign” — never a “killer” or “mass murderer” or one responsible for “genocide”.

The linguistic double standard is maintained reliably throughout the mainstream media. In the case of Pol Pot, there is no uncertainty: editorials and news articles uniformly make him and the Khmer Rouge leadership clearly and unambiguously responsible for the killings of 1975-78. But in the case of the “good genocidist”, we move to an ambiguous responsibility, which means none at all: “a 1965 coup led to the massacres of hundreds of thousands of supposed communists”, where we have the passive voice and no agent doing the killing; or “a wave of violence that took up to 500,000 lives and led Suharto to seize power from Sukarno in a military coup”, where the massacre not only has no agent, but is falsely situated before the takeover of power by Suharto.

This pattern, Herman notes, parallels exactly the finding in Manufacturing consent that in the case of “worthy” victims, like Jerzy Popieluzko in communist Poland, the Times and its confreres are unrelenting in the search for responsibility at the top, but in the case of “unworthy” victims, like the four religious women murdered by “our” client government in El Salvador in 1980, the media lose their interest in identifying those in charge.

Many people consider George Orwell’s contribution vital in comprehending how our post-1984 world works. This fact is also brought out by Professor Herman’s book Beyond hypocrisy: decoding the news in an age of propaganda (1993) in which he quotes Orwell from his essay “Politics and the English language”: “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. ... Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer, cloudy vagueness.”

Professor Herman’s book includes a “doublespeak dictionary”. This lexicon defines “aggression” as “invasion of another country by someone other than ourselves without our approval”. Professor Herman was interviewed by David Barsamian after the publication of this book. This July 14, 1993 conversation is also available in the Z-Net resources. During the course of the interview Herman says: “If you had a really first class media, an adversary media, a really good one, the use of Orwellian language would be under real constraints. When they talk about ‘collateral casualties’ and ‘self-defence’ in bombing Iraq, an honest media would attack this with frenzy and with a lot of laughter, too. But they accommodate very well to language that is supportive of the ongoing establishment.”

This connivance of the media with the official US policy imperatives is nowhere more blatant than in the case of the Middle East. The US media are extremely pro-Israel. As an ally, Israel receives more than three billion dollars a year in US aid. Herman points out that even in the times of a budget crunch, the media do not allow a discussion of this aid. Israel’s image as a state retaliating to terrorist attacks has also been created by the media. That this image is not based on facts is highlighted by Herman when in one of his books he charted the number of Israelis killed by acts of PLO terrorism vs the number of Arabs and Palestinians killed by Israeli state terrorism and found that the data “yielded a ratio of something like 1 to 25...

In terms of the numbers, it’s clear that Israel outdoes the PLO and the Palestinians by a huge factor. It carries out what I would call wholesale terror. Palestinians carry out retail terror operations.” However, Israel’s image in the West as a victim of terrorism is more of an ideological position. Needless to say, the media wholeheartedly goes along with this ideology.

However, it would not be worth its while if we use all this detailed and extremely well-reasoned critique of how the mainstream media works in the US, to feed the ever-increasing demand for anti-Americanism — which has been termed as “opium of the masses” by a Pakistani columnist residing in Washington. The work of Professor Herman should open our eyes to the relationship of politics and media closer to home. One would find amazing similarity in the way the so-called “popular” and officially sanctified notions are sustained by the electronic and print media flying in the face of facts.

Bonds of the ancient kind

2008-09-21T03:46:00.001-07:00

By Prof Rehman Sobhan

Prof Rehman Sobhan delves into history to establish the old road links between South Asia and China

The Asian land transport and infrastructure development programme’s origins ... could be traced back to the intercourse which prevailed between Asian states even before the birth of Christ. Over 2000 years ago Yunnan was the overland bridge between India and China. Some historical records suggest that the Emperor Asoka who ruled India between 268 BC and 226 BC travelled to Talifu the then capital of Yunnan and married a Chinese princess named Chienmeng-kui. Asoka returned to India but his descendants from this marriage are reported to have ruled Yunnan upto AD 902.

Chinese records dating back to the second century BC report of imports of cloth into India from Sichuan. This suggests that a south-west silk route was in use between India and China long before Marco Polo established a silk route over the Karakoram in the thirteenth century. In the seventh century Hiuen Tsang, a Chinese monk, mentions, in his Records of western travels, his journey to Kamrup in north-east India and reports on the geographical contiguity of Kamrup and Sichuan. Contemporary Chinese scholars report of the use of the south western route as a line of communication between India and China.

* * * * *

In more contemporary times the southern silk route or Burma road, which was possibly used by Chinese emperor Kublai Khan’s armies to conquer Burma, was resurrected as an important logistical artery by General Joe Stilwell, the US officer commanding allied forces on the Indo-Burmese front and designated to liaise with the Chinese forces resisting the Japanese occupation of China during World War II. Stilwell used the Burma road from Wangding on the Yunnan-Myanmar road to Kunming as an artery to the Chinese forces headquartered in Chunking. Stilwell essentially attempted to upgrade this historic route to enable it to sustain vehicular traffic to ferry military supplies from bases in Assam in India to the Chinese forces based in Kunming and Chunking. Access to the original Burma road was eventually cut-off when the Japanese invaded Burma.

* * * * *

These links between north-east India and China were recognized by none other than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, who as far back as December 1945, prophetically observed, “I have no doubt that great highways by road, air and rail will go across here (Assam) connecting China with India and ultimately connecting east Asia with Europe. Assam will then no longer be an isolated far away province but an important route between east and west. This prescient observation by Nehru, made half a century ago may be used as the defining statement articulating the rediscovery of the Asian Highway and may serve as the philosophical inspiration underlying the ALTID programme.

Nehru’s rediscovery of an Asian identity during the last days of Empire derived from the reconstruction of historic arteries of communication within Asia to serve the strategic and economic imperatives of the colonial powers who sought to establish their respective spheres of influence in Asia. The compulsions of the Empire builders sundered the lateral links which took Huien Tsang to Kamrup in the seventh century and rebuilt these transport routes on a north-south Axis. The economics of colonialism witnessed the development of the port cities of Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Colombo and Rangoon, as islands of modernization linked to the metropolitan centres of Europe. There was a corresponding hollowing out of those potentially resource rich regions in the interior such as Yunnan, which were either seen as sources of extraction for raw materials or simply allowed to languish in a state of economic neglect.

These arbitrary attempts to divide Asia were perpetuated by the successor post-colonial states who went through their own phase of autarchic development as part of a process of rediscovering their respective national identities. In this initial phase of national assertion within Asia, not only were the links between China and South Asia disrupted but within South Asia, road networks developed as far back as the Mauryan Empire in the fourth century BC which linked the Indus in the north-west in India to Brahmaputra in the north-east were allowed to atrophy. The Great Royal Road of the Mauryans began at the Himalayan border, ran through Taxila, crossed the five rivers of the Punjab and went on to the mouth of the Ganges. A Ministry of Public Works was responsible for the construction and maintenance of these roads as well as the ferries and resthouses along the way.

A millennia later the Great Royal Road was further developed by Sher Shah Suri, a Muslim Emperor of India in the fourteenth century, into the Grand Trunk Road which originated in Sonargaon in Bangladesh and traversed through Delhi, Lahore and Peshawar, terminating in Kabul. Thus if we put together the southern Silk route and the Great Royal Road the Asian Highway was already a living reality long before the colonial era, serving the movement of people and commerce across Asia and even possibly establishing spiritual as well as dynastic links between the empire of Asoka and Yunnan. The British drew upon the infrastructure they conquered from the Mughals and used it to build a unified market within their Indian Empire which stretched from Rangoon to Bombay and beyond to metropolitan Europe.

The post-colonial South Asian states squandered the legacy of the Mauryans, the Mughals, and the British which had bequeathed to them one of the most developed and integrated transport systems in the then developing world. For largely political reasons these invaluable developmental assets in South Asia now lie fractured to the point where South Asian’s have found it more convenient to trade amongst themselves through Dubai or Singapore than to use the now segmented transport systems within South Asia which have become obstacles rather than facilitators to trade between neighbours. The costs to their respective economies of this process of economic vandalism remains incalculable.

Excerpts from
Rediscovering the southern silk route: integrating Asia’s transport infrastructure
By Rehman Sobhan
Centre for Policy Dialogue and the University Press, Dhaka. Distributed in Pakistan by Oxford University Press, 5 Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal, Karachi-75350. Tel: 021-4529025.
Email: ouppak@theoffice.net
ISBN 984-05-1519-5
185pp. Rs560

REVIEWS (ENGLISH): Of birds and flowers

2008-09-21T03:45:00.001-07:00

Reviewed by Rifaat Hamid Ghani

Something to delve into, browse through, linger over, and return to! This is a book to keep and enjoy and it is the fruit of love — a love of nature and homeland — Pakistan’s birds and flowers, its landscape and wildlife — and a truly happy marriage. The compiler of this small nature atlas, Syed Asad Ali’s widow, Syeda Fakhr-e-Jehan, sublimates her personal bereavement into distilling the character of her husband’s appreciation of the gift of life through the recording eye of his camera.

The book is amateur in the best sense. Syed Asad Ali, scion of one of Pakistan’s ‘twenty families’, was not a professional photographer. His wife, one of the ‘banished’ President Iskander Mirza’s aristocratic daughters, was scarcely reared to the technicalities of book production. But she has an innate taste and sense of order; and his association with the WWF and range of devoted friends meant that many of the best recognized and most knowledgeable persons in the field put their expertise at the disposal of the task in hand: a nature album culled from the photography that Syed Asad Ali was able to indulge in as a hobby.

The renowned ornithologist, Dr T.J. Roberts, gave some time to helping identify species and has written the foreword. Raza Abbas, a professional cameraman, whose work won an international wildlife award for Pakistan, helped compile the transparencies. Al Lee, Secretary of the Pheasant Association of Pakistan, and other friends and associates of Syed Asad Ali from the Zoological Survey of Pakistan and the Sindh Wildlife Management Board also helped vet the contents. The outcome is a book that has both educational and aesthetic value. A beautiful and carefully authoritative pictorial souvenir of some of Pakistan’s birds and flowers. It makes a delightful gift to one’s self or a visiting friend.

Wanting it to reach a gamut of people, particularly students, Syeda Fakhr-e-Jehan subsidized the sale of the book. Handsomely produced though it is, it is priced at three hundred rupees and the proceeds go to WWF-Pakistan for the conservation of nature.

The living city

2008-09-21T03:43:00.002-07:00

Reviewed by Mairaj Fatimah

Mohenjo-daro: the living city is one of the series of homespun tales from Pakistan. The booklet is a collection of short stories for children — six in all, which are interrelated and are set against the backdrop of the ancient civilization that had taken root more than five thousand years ago. Mohenjodaro, the ancient city of the Indus valley, was named mound of sand, because that is the state in which it was excavated. It had remained buried under the sand till 1923, when it was discovered during one of the excavations being conducted by archaeologists. The ruins reveal a lot about the people, their culture and their civic life. It is now known that they had a highly developed sense of health and hygiene. Their concern for the social well-being of their compatriots was exemplary while their transactions in trade and business were based on moral and ethical principles.

Zubeida A. Dossal, the author of this book, admits that knowledge about the people of the Indus Valley as gleaned from the writings of archaeologists is quite scant. It is quite basic and based on the few inscriptions, names and numbers, which have been deciphered. This has preempted historians from writing a detailed account of the life and culture of the people of Mohenjodaro. Weaving stories round them has ben even more difficult. Dossal has, however, managed to do it with the help of some research on the history of that period, complemented with her own perceptions and imagination.

These tales will definitely help the children in enhancing their level of information about the people who lived in this region more than 5000 years ago, their customs, culture and habits. The writer, has very tactfully tried to keep a lid on a few aspects, which she too, appears to have been, not certain about. The reader is carried away to the age where people were simple, hard working, honest and dedicated. The love and respect were their tools by which they gained maximum security and utmost serenity.

It’s a laudable effort to ink down the historical facts in short, fascinating and enchanting episodes but then again there appears a wide gap between the book and the readers. Today’s majority of zoom babies are so well informed that to make them consume their time in going through this stuff would possibly be a tough job. Had the present-day scenario been added to these stories, these might have attracted more readers. The high cost of books, which makes them beyond the reach of middle class families, also limits the readership. There is a possibility that if these stories are transferred on to CDs and floppy disks along with the animation of characters, they would kindle popular interest. If added to the school syllabus, it will definitely increase the historical knowledge of the children. The author is to be commended for trying to revive the dying reading habit in children, which is a daunting task.

Mohenjo-daro: the living city
By Zubeida A. Dossal
Oxford University Press, 5 Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal, Karachi-75350
Tel: 021-4529025.
Email: ouppak@theoffice.net
ISBN 0-19-577824-3
40pp. Rs100