Three questions about Pakistan

Fri, 04/24/2009 - 1:02pm

The New York Times reports that Obama administration officials are increasingly worried about the Pakistani government's willingness to mount an effective defense against the Taliban. Although the Pakistani military is large and fairly well-equipped, it remains focused on defending the state against long-time rival India and is not well-prepared for a counter-insurgency campaign. Given that Pakistan reportedly has sixty or more nuclear weapons, the possibility of complete government collapse at some point in the future needs to be taken seriously, though other dangers may in fact be more likely.

I don't know enough about the situation to offer firm answers on what we should do, but here are some questions and comments.

1. First, why is there so much disagreement about Pakistan's prospects among knowledgeable experts?

Juan Cole is no Pollyanna and knows a lot more about Pakistan than I do, and he’s still relatively sanguine at the prospect of Pakistan turning into a failed state, in part because he believes the army will hold together. By contrast, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who presumably has some knowledgeable people advising her) recently said that extremist elements in Pakistan pose "a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world." Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, now an informal White House advisor, offers a similarly grim prognosis, saying "We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now."

This disagreement partly reflects the inherent difficulty of anticipating revolutionary situations. As Timur Kuran and Susanne Lohmann explained some years ago, revolutionary upheavals (and state collapse) are hard to predict because individual political preferences are a form of private information and the citizenry's willingness to abandon the government and/or join the rebels depends a lot on their subjective estimate of the costs and risks of each choice. If enough people become convinced the rebels will win, they will stop supporting the government and may even switch sides, thereby create a self-reinforcing snowball of revolutionary momentum. Similar dynamics may determine whether the armed forces hang together or gradually disintegrate. As we saw in Iran in 1979 or in Eastern Europe in 1989, seemingly impregnable authoritarian governments sometimes come unglued quite quickly. At other times, however, apparently fragile regimes manage to stagger on for decades, because key institutions hold and the revolutionary bandwagon never gains sufficient momentum.

The dispute may also reflect different views on what the real danger is. Even if the Pakistani state doesn't fall, anti-Americanism and Taliban influence may continue to grow within the Pakistani population and within key institutions -- including the military -- thereby creating serious problems even if the country as a whole is not a "failed state."

In any case, this is a disagreement with enormous implications, and I’d like to know who’s got the better case here.

2. Will India Help?

If Americans are worried about Pakistan turning into a failed state, Indians ought to really concerned. How would you like a Talibanized Pakistan armed with nuclear weapons on your border? So instead of its traditional goal of trying to weaken Pakistan, you'd think India would be going to considerable lengths to shore up the Zadari government. Pakistan's military isn't strong enough to pose a conventional threat to India, and New Delhi ought to be looking for ways to allow Pakistan's armed forces to reorient their attention away from India and towards the real danger. This wouldn't a concession on India's part; it would be a smart strategy. But it would also require a level of foresight that few governments manage to display, so I ain't optimistic.

3. The Big Question: What is the best way to protect Pakistan's nuclear arsenal?

For Americans, the greatest concern regarding Pakistan's future is the possibility that its nuclear arsenal might fall into the hands of anti-American terrorists who might try to use one against the United States itself. I assume U.S. intelligence has gone to considerable lengths to figure out where Pakistan's warheads might be and that we have contingency plans for trying to secure them in the event of a state collapse. But any attempt to grab them by surprise, stealth or force would be a high-risk affair, and might trigger a very hostile reaction from within Pakistan itself. As one U.S. official said back in 2007, "it could be very messy." Another official involved in efforts to war game the U.S. response to this nightmare situation has admitted that "most of them don't end well." Moreover, the more that the Pakistani military worries about this possibility, the greater the risk that they move the warheads preemptively or take other actions to preclude that possibility.

In a perfect world, the United States would quietly establish connections to key figures within Pakistan's armed forces and work out arrangements for the U.S. (or conceivably some third party) to airlift the weapons out if it looked like bad guys might get their hands on them. Unfortunately, rising anti-Americanism in Pakistan is probably making it harder for key officials to maintain close ties with the U.S. military or U.S. intelligence, and has made the generals in charge of their nuclear arsenal more reluctant to cooperate with us on issues of nuclear security. Indeed, given that the head of Pakistan's nuclear program, General Khalid Kidwai, has declared that their security arrangements are "foolproof," it's likely that some Pakistani leaders see us as a greater threat to their nuclear arsenal than the Taliban. As David Sanger of the Times has reported, "Pakistani officials are understandably suspicious that the real intent of the American program [to help improve nuclear security] is to gather the information needed to snatch, or neutralize, the country's arsenal."

And if I haven't scared you enough, the real danger may not be state failure and a subsequent Taliban takeover. The more likely danger could be a progressive radicalization of the Pakistani military and the possibility of an "inside job," (i.e., the seizure of some part of the arsenal by anti-American radicals within the Pakistani armed forces). A less immediate but still serious danger would be infiltration of the nuclear program by scientists sympathetic to radical forces, and the dissemination of information to them. So if our real concern is Pakistan's nuclear arsenal -- and it ought to be -- then we need to reverse the rising tide of anti-Americanism within Pakistan more generally.

And that's my last question: If nuclear security is our main concern, does the current emphasis on targeting suspected al Qaeda or Taliban leaders with Predators and Reapers really make strategic sense, if it inevitably leads to significant civilian deaths and reinforces anti-Americanism among the Pakistani population and possibly the armed forces as well?

Roots of Violence in Pakistan

To say that Eqbal Ahmad was as a political sociologist, par excellence, would be to describe only one aspect of this scholar, writer, activist, humanist and thinker of rare quality. This aspect was perhaps fundamental to his ability to see so much clearer and further in to political events and developments than most political scientists and analysts could hope to. We are reproducing an article here that he wrote for Dawn, in January 1998, in which he not only analyses the roots of Pakistan’s present predicament, but also predicts it.

Roots of Violence in Pakistan
[Dawn, 25 January 1998]

Proliferation of violence has become the most serious social problern in Pakistan today. Not a week, often not a day, goes by without some terrible act of violence shaking public confidence in the state’s ability to protect citizens, and reminding us that a serious decline in civility has occurred in our country. Officials announce ever?strong measures as the cure while citizens wonder over the causes which underlie our descent into insensate savagery such as the recent massacre of mourners in a Lahore cemetery.

This and subsequent essays offer but one man’s perspectives on the roots of contemporary violence in Pakistan.

I should begin with five simple observations: One, apart from war and aggression as defined under international law, nine forms of violence may be identified as among the most commonly observed world?wide. The degree of their incidence differs in place and time. They are: domestic, criminal, official, ethnic, chiliastic, political (protest oriented), religious?sectarian, terrorist, revolutionary violence, and warfare.

Often these forms overlap. For example, official violence can be as terroristic in nature as revolutionary and criminal violence. Officially sponsored death squads and foreign covert operations arc examples. Similarly sectarian violence frequently takes terrorist forms as Pakistan has been witnessing with some frequency. And revolutionary violence nearly always involves the use of protest, terrorism, and warfare.

Two, of these forms of violence only one, the revolutionary type is not currently in evidence in Pakistan. Typically, revolutionary violence differs from the other forms in that it seeks system change and tends to be practised in a sociologically and psychologically selective pattern. The other eight forms not only prevail in Pakistan today but have also been on the rise in the last two decades. However, one should note that conditions for revolutionary violence have been gathering in Pakistan since the start in 1980 of the internationally sponsored Jihad in Afghanistan.

There are indications that we might be on the threshold of the outbreak of organized violence aimed at system change. If it does occur, it is unlikely to be selective in the manner practised earlier by the secular revolutionary movements in China, Vietnam, Cuba, or the Algerian struggle for independence. This lack of selectivity shall be ascribable to the fact that revolutionary violence in Pakistan is likely to be employed by religious and right?wing organizations which have not set theoretical or practical limits on their use of violence. In the countries where Islamists have so far engaged in violence with revolutionary objectives, i.e. system change, they have tended to be quite indiscriminate in its use. Contemporary Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt and, increasingly, Pakistan are examples.

Three, the convergence and accentuation of multiple forms of violence, such as now exists in
Pakistan, has historically signalled the decline of the state, Its legitimacy, and its institutional will and
capacity to govern. Violence?practising groups emerge as the weakened state’s competitors. As such, in countries where the phenomenon persists the state gradually loses the attributes of authority, and anarchy ensues with power passing to a myriad of militias, warlords, and other more or less lawless and predatory groupings.

The Indian sub-continent experienced this process in last century of Mughal power and the early years; of British state formation in India. In recent years, this development occurred in Lebanon, Somalia, Rwanda, and Liberia. On a safe-to-critical scale of 1-10, Pakistan falls, in my estimation, somewhere between 6 & 7 among contemporary states. In other words, it is not quite there but is moving perilously toward a critical zone from where it will take the state and society generations to, return to a semblance of normal existence. When such a critical point of hard-return is reached, the viability of statehood depends more on external than internal factors.

Four, durable and efficient governing structures and mechanisms often develop when there is a timely and meaningful response to the challenges posed by the enfeeblement of state institutions, and the growth of an environment of generalized violence. A meaningful response is normally one that is based on precise understanding of the roots of the violence and character of its perpetrators; it also requires a certain taming of the repressive instincts that favour augmentation in the coercive capabilities of the state as the best way to deal with violence in society.

Needed then is a two-fold and simultaneous policy: a carefully planned and methodically executed programme of reform aimed at removing the root causes of the proliferation of violence in society, and improvement in the investigative, preventive, and prosecution capabilities of security and intelligence agencies, and the administration of justice. The enactment of harsh laws and tolerance of extra judicial practices rarely contribute to solving the problem. More frequently they blur the distinction between law and crime. .

Five, throughout history violence has served as a principal weapon of domination and final arbiter of disputes and discontents. While social attitudes toward and expressions of violence have not significantly changed in many societies, modern technology has totally distorted the traditional equation of means and ends in the uses of violence. Countries and cultures which fail to narrow the gap between their traditional instincts and the modern reality run the risk of self-destruction.

For example, Afghanistan’s was always a warrior culture in which the tribal balance of power, the individual’s social mobility, and authorities’ power shifts were defined by a groups or individual’s mastery of violence. The ‘Saur revolution’, the religious uprisings against it, and superpower involvement in the Afghan conflict transformed Afghanistan’s arms environment. The instincts and styles of a warrior culture became linked to modern technology. The outcome, literally, is the destruction of a state which had earlier survived many violent challenges including three colonial wars, and countless local conflicts. \par

\par A similar process was at work also in Somalia and Rwanda. Social peace and ultimate survival requires that governments, the educational system and news organs such as radio and television should refrain from reinforcing traditional hatreds, ideologies of difference, outlook on violence. It is a simple, civilized demand which is not being met in this country.

Cripps and Partition

Usman Sadozai

“Under my scheme the Muslims will have four Muslim States: (1) The Pathan Province or the North-West Frontier; (2) Western Punjab (3) Sindh and (4) Eastern Bengal. If there are compact Muslim communities in any other part of India, sufficiently large to form a province, they should be similarly constituted. But it should be distinctly understood that this is not a united India. It means a clear partition of India into a Muslim India and a non-Mulsim India.” For those who are not sure who said this, it was not Jinnah. Nor Allama Iqbal. Not even Chaudhry Rehmat Ali. It was ‘Veer’ Savarkar, instead, the iconic idealogue of modern Hindutva, who articulated these thoughts in 1924. He said it before any of the above mentioned names did.

A similar idea became the Muslim League’s Lahore Resolution, 16 years later, albeit with one or two distinctions. The Lahore Resolution envisaged an ‘interim period’ when India would have a single, shared centre before final settlement of India’s constitutional settlement (interesting how the Pakistan Studies school curriculum does not include a single sentence from the reasonably short Resolution). And, of course, the Lahore Resolution made no mention of any other ‘compact Muslim communities’ (that, of course, was Chaudhry Rehmat Ali and his never never land of ‘Dinia’).

Does this mean that Jinnah’s portrait should also hang in the Indian Parliament, alongside Savarkar’s? Should the Government of India honour Jinnah too, as it did Savarkar, by putting his image on an Indian postage stamp? Indeed, unlike Savarkar, Jinnah was at one time a leading and well regarded Congress man. These may be rhetorical questions but they do exemplify how both India and Pakistan have deviated from the vision of their respective founding fathers, albeit to distinctly different degrees. While Nehru and Congress thrived and were able to institutionalise democracy in India, the Muslim League was decimated and hijacked by the authoritarian state that Pakistan quickly became. Ayub Khan carried out the final sweep with his EBDO.

It is important to note that the Jamiat Ulema e Hind (JUH) was with Congress since the days of the Khilafat Movement. They had what they called a meesaaq or mu’ahida with Congress. Al-Maudoodi’s Jamaat e Islami was vehemently opposed to Pakistan and Jinnah. The Majlis-e-Ahrar was not welcome in Jinnah’s Muslim League. Yet the Jamaat claimed Pakistan for itself. In return, it was all too eager to put its services at the despots’ disposal. They found a kindred soul in the dictator Zia-ul-Haq. But that is a discussion we hope to have more fully at a future date. There was no love lost between Congress and the Hindutvadis either. Indeed, Savarkar was one of the suspects of the successful conspiracy by his friends and comrades that killed Mr Gandhi. If only they had been as lucky as their Pakistani counterparts and did not have to contend with the constitution and rule of law standing in their way.

For now we must return to the ongoing discussion we are having on PTH about Partition and this latest article in that series. Written by A G Noorani, it appeared in two parts in The Hindu’s Frontline magazine in December 2001. Our main objective in having this debate at PTH is to try and educate ourselves and our readers about Jinnah’s vision, politics and role. The history surrounding that is of interest because, without it, it is not possible to understand Jinnah. Especially since Jinnah wrote no books or memoirs and kept no diary. We keep using articles from A G Noorani because he is a secular, patriotic Indian. He must be less likely to be accused of bias than a Pakistani writer. It helps us stay objective.

The article below concentrates on the role played by Sir Stafford Cripps leading up to Partition. Noorani assesses the role to be damaging. His unprofessional and less than honest approach ended up squandering an opportunity for reconciliation, or at least a less messy disagreement. The secret parlays between Congress command and Cripps undermined any chance India remaining united for the totally false achievement of a fudged agreement between the Muslim League and Congress. Predictably, such an agreement did not last. But the whole episode did much damage. The more disturbing revelation made through this article is that Congress was party to this fudge, and the means adopted to achieve it, knowing that this was the last chance to reach an agreement.

Maulana Azad, the precocious young journalist, wrote in his al-Hilal about Muslim revivalism and the inseparability of religion from politics. He was a comrade of the founding fathers of JUH and a guiding light for the newly formed organization. His ideas naturally led his to the fervent support of the Khilafat Movement. The association with the Mahatma and then Congress also added a strong Hindu-Muslim unity theme to his writings (e.g. in al-Hilal).

Before the 1946 general elections, Azad came up with a scheme for a federal structure for India with Hindu-Muslim parity at the centre. In reply to his proposal sent to Gandhi on August 2, 1945 (Nicholas Mansergh and Penderel Moon (ed.), The Transfer of Power,1942-7, Vol VI, doc 68), he received an indifferent response (Ibid. doc 76). He was asked to quietly consult with members of the Congress Central Working Committee. The Mahatma turned down as a non-starter Azad’s suggestion for the office of the head of the federated state to alternate between the communities. Both Congress and the Muslim League entered the general elections with their ‘maximalist’ manifestos instead.

Maulana Azad asks the question in India Wins Freedom, “…if the League was willing to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan - which denied the right of Muslims to form a separate state - why had Mr Jinnah made so much fuss about an independent Islamic State?” Ayesha Jalal’s, by now well-known, answer to that question is “By apparently repudiating the need for any centre, and keeping quiet about its shape, Jinnah calculated that when eventually the time came to discuss an all-India federation, British and Congress alike would be forced to negotiate with organised Muslim opinion, and would be ready to make substantial concessions to create or retain that centre. The Lahore resolution should therefore be seen as a bargaining counter, which had the merit of being acceptable (on the face of it) to the majority-province Muslims, and of being totally unacceptable to the Congress and in the last resort to the British also. This, in turn, provided the best insurance that the League would not be given what it now apparently was asking for, but which Jinnah in fact did not really want.”

Azad’s August 2, 1945 scheme was almost the same as the one suggested by the Cabinet Mission Plan. Jinnah accepted the same. Was Partition Jinnah’s victory and Congress’ defeat? Or was it Congress’s victory and both Jinnah and Azad’s defeat? These may be difficult questions to answer. What was being discussed by the Congress Central Working Committee that summer of 1946 was the future of the muslims of India. Azad was one of those Muslims. He decided not to chronicle, indeed, remain completely quiet about the discussions he was part of for two months. That was his choice, whether as a party man, politician or chronicler.

As Noorani explains, the federation defined by the Cabinet Mission Plan did not stop any of the groups from making the centre stronger. From the Congress’ point of view, the hindu majority Group A could have made the centre as strong as it wished, vis a vis itself, and still hold the three central subjects (defence, external affairs and communications) over the other two groups. Nehru wrote in his autobiography “Many a Congressman was a communalist under his national cloak” and that “the Hindu Mahasabha’s communalism “masquerades under a nationalistic cloak.” Only in April 1950 he wrote to G B Pant “Communalism has invaded the minds and hearts of those who were the pillars of the Congress in the past.”

Was Congress more worried about holding on to these “pillars” and prevent them walking over to the hindutvadis than to prevent Partition? Indeed, it was Nehru’s stand for secularism after Partition that allowed India to build the constitutional and democratic foundations it stands on. The ‘walking over’ of some to the hindutva side did not happen until much later (in the second generation in case of Pant, and fourth in case of Nehru himself). Nehru was successful in preventing it and in upholding Indian secularism. The Indian constitution still upholds the same, and the judiciary has shown that it can be relied upon to stand by it. But either of those two things do not remove causes for concern. The unashamedly non-secular trends in politics should be a cause for concern.

Nehru wrote in a note to Cabinet Ministers on September 12, 1947 “Are we to aim at or to encourage trends which will lead to the progressive elimination of the Muslim population from India, or are we to consolidate, make secure and absorb as full citizens the Muslims who remain in India? That, again, involves our conception of India, is it going to be, as it has been, in a large measure, a kind of composite state where there is complete cultural freedom for various groups, but at the same time a strong political unity, or do we wish to make it, as certain elements appear to desire, definitely a Hindu or a Non-Muslim state? If the Hindus think in terms of any domination, cultural or otherwise, over others, this would not only be against our own repeated profession, but would naturally displease other and smaller minorities in India.”

There was clearly anger against Indian Muslims not just as a result of the communal riots, but for their voting overwhelmingly for the Muslim League in the 1946 elections. Nehru’s note continues: “The Hindu mind has felt during the past many years that it has been obstructed by Muslim activities, political and cultural, and, therefore, not allowed full play. Now it is obvious that there can be no such obstruction in future, both because of the numerical preponderance of the Hindus as well as many other reasons. The point is whether the same free play and open opportunities should be given to other groups and communities, who may in the past have misbehaved politically or otherwise but who are not now in a position to obstruct effectively or make a vital difference to the general trend in India” [emphasis added] (S. Gopal and Uma Iyengar (Eds.); The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru; Oxford University Press, 2003; page 165).

While it is very interesting to note the emphasized section, it is equally interesting to note that this was Nehru speaking to cabinet ministers, not addressing a public or mass gathering. If Jinnah’s ‘calculation’ was, indeed, as Jalal sees it, then, did Jinnah fail to see this aspect of Congress’ political compulsions? For whatever reason, the secular and moderate leaders of India failed to come together and stand shoulder to shoulder as they ought to have done. Again, a fuller discussion must await a future opportunity.

These events are interesting but not necessarily easy to analyze. We intend to continue this discussion on PTH and hope it can shed some light on the issues. Partition is part of our history in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. We cannot remain hostage to that history. But the only we to move on and forward is to make an objective and competent effort at understanding it. The following article sheds light on a very important part and aspect of this history.

Cripps and India’s Partition

A.G. NOORANI

ALLEN CLARKE’S work is in the fine tradition of English biographies. It fits into the classic mould; objective, thorough, elegant in style and civil to the adversaries of his subject. More than any other British leader, Stafford Cripps shaped his country’s policy towards India in the crucial five years preceding its Independence. His was the dominant and domineering influence. But affection for the country was not matched by sound judgment. Impatience for success overcame prudence and even concern for justice. A man of integrity, he was, like such, self-righteous and given to self-deception. Worse, he was, in sheer zeal, also capable of practising deception on others. In June 1946 he did just that. It did not help the India he loved. He contributed to its Partition and harmed it grievously. In this, he received handsome assistance from India’s leaders. They collaborated with him - the entire group of titans of the Congress, the likes of whom we shall never see again - Gandhi, first and foremost, Nehru, Patel and Azad. The material which the author has unearthed explains why Cripps behaved as he did.

The first part of a two-part article.

Much of the story was told by Prof. R.J. Moore in his able works Churchill, Cripps, and India 1939-1945 (1979) and Escape from Empire: The Attlee Government and the Indian Problem (1983) which covers the period from 1945 to 1947. He had delved into the archives and consulted the diaries kept by Cripps and his associates. Peter Clarke’s book “rests to a large extent on diaries”. The footnotes - which prove that the tortures of end-notes are avoidable - and the bibliography testify to mastery of published literature. “It is now possible to provide a fully three-dimensional image through access to a richer range of archival sources than any previous author has been able to draw upon”. Moore’s work is fully acknowledged; but “there are sections of Cripps’ own diaries - notably the important Indian diary of 1946 - that have never previously been available for citation” (emphasis added, throughout). The year 1946 was a decisive one. It made Partition inevitable which, earlier, was not.

Cripps came to India three times - in December 1939, as a private individual; in March-April 1942, as Lord Privy Seal and member of Churchill’s War Cabinet on the Cripps Mission to secure India’s cooperation in the War effort on the basis of a tripartite Anglo-Congress-Muslim League accord in the form of a “Declaration”; and in March-June 1946 as the sole India hand in a three-member Cabinet Mission, comprising himself, Secretary of State Pethick-Lawrence and First Lord of the Admiralty A.V. Alexander. This review concentrates exclusively on “the India connection”, to the neglect, unfairly perhaps, of the rest of the book.

“As early as 1937 Cripps was publicly calling Nehru’s friendship the greatest privilege of his life. The two men were not insensible to the genuine mutual affinity they discovered, and they seem to have developed real warmth when they met, first on Nehru’s visit to Europe in (June) 1938, when he and his daughter Indira stayed at (Cripps’ country home) Goodfellows one weekend, and again in India the following year.” The closeness was sustained “until the face-to-face negotiations of the Cripps Mission put it under fatal stress.”

Both were Marxists, of sorts, who believed, for a time, that there was no communal problem in India; only class conflict. Nehru was a voracious reader. “Cripps was not a bookish man.” Both had privileged backgrounds and were arrogant and opinionated. Men of deep commitment, they were fated to clash. Cripps’ was “a practical intelligence, highly geared and sharply focussed on clearly specified issues”. Nehru was apt to wander into the Elysian fields and always avoided binding himself to specifics.

The other guests at Goodfellows along with Nehru were Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan, Richard Crossman and Harold Laski. They discussed how a Labour government would transfer power to India. All agreed on the mechanism of a Constituent Assembly. They were later to differ on safeguards for the minorities in a plural society.

“Cripps’ plan was enshrined in a document that he was to take with him in the form of a draft statement. It proposed offering India Dominion status - with the right to secede from the Commonwealth if so desired - as testimony to the British government’s aims ‘in the present war for freedom and democracy’. Within a year of the termination of hostilities, a Constituent Assembly should be summoned, based on the present provincial electorates if no better system could be agreed. The Assembly’s decision would be binding if carried by a three-fifths vote; their implementation over a fixed period of, say, fifteen years would be guaranteed by a treaty with Great Britain; and during the transitional period the treaty would also protect minority rights.”

Safeguards were essential. Cripps knew that India’s plural society was riven with “a perpetual majority and a perpetual minority” on communal, not political, lines. The solution to the problem lay neither in Partition based on a false two-nation theory, nor the Congress’ insistence on an unqualified “one man-one vote” system. It lay in a communal compact for a united India in which the minorities were assured of sharing of power. This the Congress rejected consistently. Compare the situation in Sri Lanka. On December 20, 1986 the spokesman for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Chennai said it was possible for “two nations to co-exist in one country” if a “viable alternative to Eelam” could be devised (Indian Express, December 21, 1986). There is, of course, but one nation in Sri Lanka. It however needs a pact on power-sharing.

THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
Sir Stafford Cripps, who came to India in March 1942, with Mahatma Gandhi.

“Cripps undoubtedly started with views that he had accepted rather uncritically from his close contacts with Congress”; especially with Nehru who was smug and glib. “The Congress as a whole is definitely left politically, including the old guard,” he assured Cripps confidently. He said Jinnah objected to “democracy itself in India for democracy means the dominance of the majority”. When Nehru found Cripps learning by himself, during the visit, he told Mahadev Desai that while Cripps was able and straight “his judgment is not always to be relied upon”. In February 1940 he rejected Cripps’ scheme. “I feel Stafford has completely failed to understand the elements of the Indian problem,” Nehru wrote to V.K. Krishna Menon.

How poor his own understanding was is reflected in his opinion that “essentially the conflict between the Congress and the League is a conflict between the lower middle classes with a large mass following and the Muslim feudal and middle classes”. Marxists did not have too high a respect for Nehru’s grasp of, or commitment to, Marxism.

In an article in Tribune, the leftist journal, on May 3, 1940, Cripps held that “the religious differences are often stirred up and exaggerated to serve what are really class ends”. Cripps knew even less of Marxism than Nehru did. Two years later Jinnah recalled the article to its contrite writer when he came on an official Mission.

The author’s criticism of Cripps’ stand is trenchant but fair. “Cripps… sought to reduce the complex manifestations of nationalism, imbricated with communal tensions, to the simple maxims of democracy, imperialism and class struggle. He not only abandoned his rather vacuous optimism about a possible settlement but suppressed the evidence of his own eyes and ears about the intractability of the communal issue. He was thus led to dismiss Jinnah’s case as a ‘dog-in-the-manger’ attitude which does not deserve our support.”

In May 1940, Cripps had, in fact, gone back on a sound formula he had crafted five months earlier which Prof. Moore quotes from Cripps’ diary. On December 11, 1939, a “new thought” occurred to him after his talks in Delhi, as he took the overnight train for Lahore: “There emerges a picture of a rather loose federation of provinces with few reserved subjects and with the right of the provinces to withdraw if they wish and new boundaries to make provinces either predominantly Muslim or Hindu - as the sort of lines of a possible settlement, with a Constituent Assembly to work out the scheme. It might be necessary to agree to the basis of the outcome of the Constituent Assembly in advance” (Churchill, Cripps and India; page 12).

Implicit in this private venture were three propositions on which alone could a compromise have been devised - a federation of limited powers; liberty to the provinces to secede from it with revision of boundaries if they did so; a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution “on the basis of the outcome” agreed “in advance” in a Congress-League pact. Under the Cabinet Mission’s Scheme of 1946, the League agreed to abandon the right to secede if only groups of sub-federations of the Pakistan provinces (NWFP, Baluchistan, Punjab and Sind in the west and Assam and Bengal in the east) were allowed within the all-India federation. The Congress rejected groups. The federal idea collapsed. Five provinces seceded and the boundaries of two of them were revised on their partition (Punjab and Bengal).

The declaration, which Cripps officially offered in 1942, explicitly permitted the provinces to decline to accede to the “new Indian Union” at the very outset. The exact procedure was defined in Cripps’ letter to Jinnah dated April 2, 1940. A province “should reach the decision… by a vote in the Legislative Assembly on a resolution to stand in.” If the majority for accession to the Union was less than 60 per cent, the minority had the right to demand a plebiscite of the entire adult population. This was the first time ever that the British had spoken of the partition of India. Jinnah must have found this incredible. The Lahore Resolution on Pakistan was adopted on March 26, 1940. However, the crux of the Declaration was an interim coalition to run the country and pursue the War effort. The Congress concentrated on this, quibbled and foiled the venture. It is not unlikely that the coalition would have coalesced the two parties and narrowed their differences as Rajagopalachari strove to persuade the Congress. He wrote to Cripps on May 19, 1948: “How I wish that you and I had been listened to six years ago instead of being distrusted.”

THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
Sir Stafford Cripps with Jinnah after a meeting.

Forty years later, Prof. R.J. Moore revealed the existence of a file in Jinnah’s papers in Islamabad containing correspondence between him and Cripps “regarding the creation of a new Indian Union” (Escape from Empire, page 54). Significantly, it is embargoed. Prof. Reginald Coupland, Cripps’ constitutional adviser, noted in his diary that Jinnah was mentally prepared for partition of Punjab and Bengal in January 1942. It is equally significant that he nonetheless parlayed for a new union three months later. This happened in 1946 also, as we shall see. Jinnah preferred a loose all-India federation to partition.

The Cripps offer was rejected by the Congress mainly on the issue of defence. It wanted transfer of power to the Governor-General’s executive council as a Cabinet with the Governor-General as a constitutional head. Cripps was “tipped off that the Muslim League was ready to accept; he knew that the attitude of Congress was the crux”. Jinnah rejected the offer once the Congress revealed its hand. “For Cripps, the political reality was that Congress would have had far more leverage once inside the Executive Council.” Churchill and the Viceroy Linlithgow tied Cripps’ hands. He was isolated. “Yet none of this was fatal. Had Congress accepted the terms on offer on 9 or 10 April (1942), it is difficult to see how Churchill’s concurrence could have been withheld.”

If the proposals were as bad as the Congress made them out to be, why did it take a fortnight to reject them? The truth is that the Congress was badly split on the Cripps offer as it was on the “Quit India” resolution. In each case Nehru followed Gandhi’s line; to his regret, as his jail diary records (Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, First Series; page 185; “With all his very great qualities he has proved a poor and weak leader” (July 10, 1943). Nehru contemplated “breaking with Gandhi. I have at present (August 5, 1944) no desire even to go to him on release… I suppose I shall see him anyhow…” page 454).

Cripps drew a wrong lesson from the episode. “From first to last the Cripps Mission did not impress Gandhi.” Cripps regarded him as the architect of his defeat and seemed to reproach himself for neglecting Gandhi. In 1946 he banked heavily - too heavily - on Gandhi and lost, once again.

H.V. Hodson, who was Constitutional Adviser to the Viceroy (1941-43), noted: “Whereas Mountbatten never made the mistake of treating Mahatma Gandhi as a negotiator, Cripps to the end regarded him as the key to the whole problem. For Mountbatten he was a friendly if baffling personality to be cultivated, listened to, and kept sweet, but not one capable, even if willing, of clinching a bargain in the name of the Congress” (The Great Divide; 1985; page 212).

In 1946, Cripps strove desperately to remove the sourness that had crept into his relationship with Nehru on the collapse of his Mission. The choices before the Cabinet Mission, the Congress and the League were obvious and limited - a loose federation or Partition (and with it of Punjab and Bengal). It fell to Cripps, inevitably, to draft a alternative formulae. On April 10, 1946 he prepared Scheme A for a flexible form of Union and Scheme B for Partition.

It may be noted thus, Jinnah preferred a loose federation to Partition; the Pakistan of today. He told Cripps on April 25 “he was prepared, however, to consider Plan A if the Congress were prepared to consider it and if he could be assured of that he would put it to the Muslim League Working Committee. He had assured Sir Stafford that he would do this not with a recommendation for its rejection but as a proposal that they should consider….” On May 6 he offered to come into a Union if the Congress would accept grouping of provinces within a Union. His own proposals at the Simla Conference, on May 12, were not for Partition, but for a confederation. He was obviously prepared to settle for less - for a federation; and, he did.

Jinnah accepted the Cabinet Mission’s proposals of May 16. They envisaged an Indian federation based on three groups of provinces. The provinces were free to secede from the groups, in which they were placed, by a vote in the first general elections after the scheme took effect. But they could not secede from the Union. India’s unity was preserved. All they could ask for was “reconsideration of the terms of the Constitution” - a Sarkaria Commission - after 10 years and no more. It would have been open to provinces of Group A (the States which now form the Union of India) to confer on the Union voluntarily subjects beyond the minimum subjects of defence, foreign affairs and communications. Group B comprised Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and the NWFP. Group C comprised Bengal and Assam. Far from establishing a “weak” Centre, it would have yielded a strong centre, the India of today, in Group A in federal union with Pakistan. India would have had a majority, though confined to defence, foreign affairs and communications.

How did it collapse? Azad fostered the myth, which became conventional wisdom, that it was Nehru’s remarks on July 6, shortly after he took over the Congress presidency from Azad, that altered the course of history. Nehru had said that there would be no grouping and the Constituent Assembly would be a sovereign body free to decide as it pleased. However, Jinnah had complained of Congress’ equivocation well before that, on June 27. Letters by Azad himself to the Mission, on May 20 and June 14, and the Congress Working Committee’s resolutions, of May 24 and June 26, put a disingenuous interpretation on the Mission’s Proposals.

Paragraph 15 contained elements of the “basic form” - the Union, its powers, and so on. Clause 5 said: “Provinces should be free to form Groups with executives and legislatures and each Group could determine the Provincial subjects to be taken in common.” Paragraph 19 laid down procedure which the Constituent Assembly had to follow. It would meet first to settle the preliminaries and next “divide up into three sections”. Clause V added: “These sections shall proceed to settle the Provincial Constitutions for the Provinces included in each section, and shall also decide whether any Group Constitution shall be set up for those Provinces and, if so, with what provincial subjects the Group should deal. Provinces shall have the power to opt out of Groups in accordance with the provisions of sub-clause (viii) below”. This provided that “such a decision shall be taken by the new legislature of the Province after the first general election under the new Constitution” - not before.

The Congress argued that Provinces could refuse to join the section at the very outset; that Para 19 (v) affected the freedom to form groups (Para 15 (5)) and had to give way. Grouping was the only sop to Jinnah to get him into the union. Azad exclaimed: “All schemes of partition of India have been rejected once and for all.”

Vallabhbhai Patel was as ecstatic in a letter to K.M. Munshi the very next day, on May 17: “Thank God, we have successfully avoided a catastrophe which threatened our country. Since many years, for the first time an authoritative pronouncement in clear terms has been made against the possibility of Pakistan in any shape or form.” Clearly in this astute lawyer-politician’s view the proposals barred Pakistan. Was the grouping too high a price to pay for the union?

That very day, however, a small nail was being dug into the proposed coffin of the Plan. Had it been removed in time, the others would not have followed. The Plan would have survived. This is by far the most neglected part of the entire episode - Gandhi’s enunciation of a right to interpret the proposals unilaterally.

Harijan of May 17 carried his view that “the provinces were free to reject the very idea of grouping. No province could be forced against its will to belong to a group even if the idea of grouping was accepted.” He wrote to the Mission on May 19 asserting that “the State Paper is a recommendation” which could be ignored by the Assembly. Gandhi’s article in Harijan of May 20 was even more strident. He told the Mission on June 24 that they were “the law-givers and could not interpret their own law”. His own interpretations had been “upheld by eminent lawyers. (In those days, courts ruled that they could not consult parliamentary debates while interpreting a statute. They do so now.)

In fact, the proposals were a political not a legal document crafted to serve as a solemn compact binding all the three sides. The Congress adopted Gandhi’s line. He stuck to it till the very end. So did the Congress. On December 15, 1946 he told Congressmen from Assam: “As soon as the time comes for the Constituent Assembly to go into sections, you will say ‘Gentlemen, Assam retires…’ Else, I will say that Assam had only manikins, and no men.”

The plan broke down because the Congress refused to accept the grouping formula. It had 207 members in the entire Constituent Assembly against 73 of the League. In the crucial Group C, comprising Bengal and Assam, it had 32 members against 36 of the League, in a House of 70, with two Independents. Since the League would have had to provide a chairman to work Group C, it would have been left with 35 members against 32 of the Congress. How could the League possibly have prevented Assam’s secession? If it did, it would have faced Congress’ retaliation in the entire assembly as the Mission reminded the Congress. Yet, it was this bogey which destroyed the last best chance for preserving India’s unity.

The Cabinet Mission formally issued a statement on May 25 rejecting the Congress’ interpretation. “The interpretation put by the Congress Resolution on paragraph 15 of the Statement to the effect that the provinces can in the first instance make the choice whether or not to belong to the Section in which they are placed does not accord with the Delegation’s intentions. The reasons for the grouping of the Provinces are well-known and this is an essential feature of the scheme and can only be modified by agreement between the parties. The right to opt out of the Groups after the constitution-making has been completed will be exercised by the people themselves, since at the first election under the new provincial constitution this question of opting out will obviously be a major issue and all those entitled to vote under the new franchise will be able to take their share in a truly democratic decision.”

But faced with the Congress’ stand, the Mission began to equivocate on its own proposals while formally rejecting Congress’ interpretation. Cripps was mainly responsible for this. He wanted to discuss the Mission’s proposals in advance with Gandhi alone. Colleagues vetoed this. His diary entry of May 14 explains why he behaved as he did. “I think that more than ever he (Gandhi) holds the key to the situation. It is very doubtful whether Congress will ever acquiesce in our statement and its suggestions. Gandhi alone can persuade them to do it and I believe we could have got his support if we had trusted him and consulted him first. I see the dangers but I would have taken the risk… The really critical situation has been reached because if Congress turns it down and refuses to come into an interim Government, it will be impossible for us to carry on in the existing state of tension without wholesale suppression which will in effect mean war. My own view is that we must at all costs come to an accommodation with Congress. We can get through I believe without the League if we have Congress with us but not without Congress even if we have the League.” The rest followed inexorably from this - to the wrecking of the country’s unity.

If the Mission had played fair and flatly told the Congress that its acceptance was no acceptance at all, conditional as it was on its “interpretation”, it would have confronted both sides with the reality - a union could be set up only by accord; the alternative was Partition of India and of Punjab and Bengal as well. Jinnah’s supporters there dreaded that. Had this been declared publicly in 1946 - and not sprung upon the people abruptly in 1947- maybe saner counsels would have prevailed. At least the rancour generated by charges of bad faith over the year would have been avoided. The Congress professed to “accept” the May 16 long-term Plan but rejected the Mission’s June 16 proposal for an interim government. The Mission considered that fair game, to Jinnah’s resentment. The Viceroy Lord Wavell resented Cripps’ tactics. He had insisted on May 20 that “in future we must all see him (Gandhi) together or none at all.” Cripps and Pethick Lawrence flouted this - secretly. As in 1942 the Congress Working Committee split. Cripps was exasperated. He wrote on June 18: “Nehru who had opposed Gandhi yesterday gave in to him to-day and went round to his side - most disappointingly through, I fear, weakness.” He added with memories of 1942 resurfacing, “It really is rather maddening that after these three months the whole scheme, long and short term, look like being broken down by a completely new stunt idea introduced by Gandhi and apparently the Working Committee haven’t the guts to disagree with him! He is an unaccountable person and when he gets those ideas in his head is as stubborn as an ox because he is convinced that he is right and no arguments will move him.”

The Cripps Version: The Life of Sir Stafford Cripps by Peter Clarke; Allen Lane, The Penguin Press; pages 573, &pound25.

Pakistan: Reclaiming the Indus Person

Computer-generated image of what Mohenjodaro must have looked like all those years ago (Courtesy Wiki)

By Aisha Fayyazi Sarwari

There are so many ways for Americans to find themselves if they are lost: They can read Eyewitness to America, an anthology of people who were there when the US was created; they could go to Gettysburg or heck, just rent the TVC; or they could go to the Metropolitan Museum in New York; or take a course with Professor Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn.

What are Pakistanis supposed to do to find themselves? And quick? Because 100 miles away from Islamabad’s serene capital and parliament are a group of hooligans with arms supplied by Russia or India and these Taliban are marching into the parts of Pakistan that are populated by people less able to fight a guerilla war and more complacent about things like drone attacks.

All this notwithstanding that we won ourselves an independent judiciary after over a year’s struggle, restored the Supreme Court chief justice and were well on our way to feeling like the middle class bourgeoisie of Pakistan finally had become closer to reclaiming their inherent character and national ethos.

Yet there is an eerie silence as the same populace watches the Taliban descend in Buner and watch youtube videos of beheadings and floggings. What are we supposed to do? In recent statements coming from all directions of the foreign world ask us to stand up and defend our country from the militants. Intellectuals ask us to remember how Nazi Germany watched its nation decline in a wave of dogma that cannot be challenged because it seems absolute and powerful.

We are not collaborating with some Nazi regime to ethnically cleanse a race, on the contrary we, the people of Pakistan are victims of terror: The kind that keeps our children out of co-educational schools because of bomb threats. We rightfully fear the Taliban because like terror they operate outside normalcy and are masters of disrupting familiarity, and they certainly cannot be underestimated because they show fierce resolve when fighting women and children.

The militancy in the North of the country has been nurtured since 2001, and now they are been drawn in to the cities, after allowing them to air their sermons on FM radio unabated, and take over the lands of rightful owners. They have no agenda but that of fear. On 28^th of February 2008, Taliban militants took 250 schoolchildren hostage in a Primary school in Bannu, after a failed attempt to kidnap an official. They threatened to blow up the school if not guaranteed a safe passage. Today, April 26^th 2009, 10 school children in Dir have been murdered by the Taliban in what is a most horrendous account at prime time news. A young school boy was given a bomb by the Talib and told it was a toy. The bomb exploded as a group of children played with it.

The policy of negotiating with terrorists has been unaltered since the Musharraf era, if not strengthened by the Zardari regime after signing off Swat to the Taliban under the Nizam-e-Adal led by an uncharismatic clown character who loves to call narcissist press conferences while his goons spread lawlessness of the most vengeful kind, the kind that lacks purpose and cause.

As confusion mounts about why the government is letting anyone challenge the writ of the state, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee. There is a good chance that the time is here to give Pakistan one last chance of returning it to its original intended state: the one defined by Mahomed Ali Jinnah and by the rationale of its own Indus civilization’s lessons – A secular liberal and egalitarian state.

As a first step, Pakistanis must shed the hesitation to call a spade a spade and say that all this talk of Sharia is nothing but nonsense, both inapplicable because this region is not homogenous in its religious construct and also because Sharia’s interpretational gurus have proven time and again to be collaborators with petro-money. As a second step we should point at the enemy, and stop sleeping with it. The enemy can be identified by its attack on a people’s identity: Its language and its heritage and the signs that remind them of their heroes and their roots. The one thing that confirms the purpose of the The Taliban is their recent vow to destroy the ancient ruins of Mohenjodaro in Taxilla.

It was Ghulam Abbas in 1957 who recognized the central battle point for the two diametrically opposed forces of liberalism and obscurantism in Pakistan. In the short story called Hotel Mohenjodaro, he wrote about a dystopia in the state of Pakistan that was on one hand ready to launch the first man to space, and on the other facing a growing mass of mullahs who thought scientific advancement to be against Islam. Eventually after a triumph of the mullah there stood, Hotel Mohenjodaro, the hotel where the launch ceremony took place. He writes, in each pen stroke spelt catastrophe, “This is the spot, before the enemy struck, stood the Hotel Mohenjodaro, with its 71 storeys.”

There is truly something gripping about Taxila’s ancient ruins that makes’ ones soul restless with questions.

Those questions are quenched by none other than Aitzaz Ahsan’s The Indus Saga. As a central figure in the lawyers movement that won Pakistanis a breath of self-confidence and dignity, this politician, poet and mentor to a leftist rock band, he is the person Pakistanis can turn to, if they want to find themselves. And in doing so they will discover that many a times, Pakistanis and found themselves and overcome their calamities though a relentless struggle, sometimes internally and sometimes though invisible forces. Each time, the battle has been won by asking the right questions and by finding this land’s heroes.

Define the Indus person, the Pakistani Citizen.

Professor Ahmed Hassan Dani, who was an authority on the antiquities and Pakistan’s most internationally acclaimed anthropologist said about Aitzaz Ahsan’s book, “This book ably represents the History of the land of the people who have lived and labored here.”

Aitzaz is a poet himself, a man who honors the written word and masters the power it has over people. He writes about the Indus region which he explains is modern day Pakistan and paints a picture of how the regions elements influence the resilience of the Indus person’s character.

“The hooves of a million galloping horses reverberated in my ears as they raised Indus dust to the farthest limits of outer space. The swords of Indus battalions rose in defense and flashed before my eyes. Mighty and turbulent rivers surged and shrank marking the unending cycle of immoderate seasons. Dry and burning desert winds swept across the endless plains every summer to be quenched only by the relentless and thunderous monsoon clouds. Cold and freezing winter nights made survival all but impossible except for the most hardy and robust forms of life. The cycle continued unabated. The invaders never relented. The resistance never tired. The seasons continued extreme. The Indus person remained tough and indefatigable. He was a survivor.”

A recent testimony to this character was when the lawyers movement was on a head to head collision course with the Zardari administration and Aitzaz Ahsan was asked on camera as he sat in his car what he was going to do about the march to Islamabad because trucks and trolleys were brought in to block all roads, making failure of the movement inevitable. He said, “We will come out tomorrow, and the next day and the day after, until those trolleys are removed.” There have been few leaders whose resolve resonates so strongly, as if it finds its power from something that was dated years ago, and runs miles deep into this land.

Aitzaz Ahzan writes: “If a culture that refused to support questions and inquiry are adopted, fundamentalist dogma is bound to creep in and take over. The establishment fears that if questions are indeed asked these may lead to conclusions that the present day and presumptive moorings are not the rationale for the creation of the state of Pakistan. The only two things that have survived are the questions and our heroes. They must survive.”

The book outlines myths set to confuse and complicate the people of Pakistan:

Myth #1: the people of this land are religious fundamentalists

Mohenjodaro and Harappa spread over half a million square miles, are a wonder for every archeologist, each of whom, point to various factors that made this first most advanced civilization known to man, more advanced than Mesopotamia and Egypt.

It was perhaps the discovery of the optimal size of the brick vis a vis its ratio to the human palm, or the fertile alluvium soil that allowed for cotton textiles, which gave this civilization a certain class structure. They had an excellent drainage system, large houses, and the sculpting of statues. This civilization had an expert manufacturing factory where its products reached the merchant class in Egypt, indicating that they traveled and imported items as well. Though it is mere speculation why the Indus civilization, once so wondrous declined so abruptly, it is a fact that there seemed to be an absence of a central authority in the architectural remains, rather a presence of ritualistic baths and temples.

Sculpture of the "Dancing Girl" found in Mohenjodaro excavation

The priests and not the kings therefore distributed the Indus surplus, perhaps based on piety, susceptible to religious corruption. There was also an absence of sophisticated weaponry, as compared to the advanced tools that the region developed. The Indus person was right from the start controlled by a bunch of fundamentalist priesthood that superseded both the military and the politics of the land. Though much of the decline of the civilization is suspicion but this could well be one of the major reasons.

For any civilization to have reemerged, it had to have built its foundation on the lessons from the downfall of the Mohenjodaro and Harapa era. The rebuilding of that ruin in the Indus region began with a rejection of the high church, a need for a strong central authority, a commitment towards a strong defense against an invading enemy and nothing more than a devotional commitment to religion.

The Indus person is inertly a liberal creed follower; and fundamentalism is known to the Indus person as what killed the innovation and superiority of its forefathers. Left to his own will, the Indus person has rejected the call to a theocracy.

The current voting patterns of Pakistanis in elections to this day bares testament to this lesson. The history of modern day Pakistani religio-political parties such as the Jamat-e-Islami and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam have both been unable to secure more than 15% support in Pakistan in any general elections and are both known more for their pragmatism than their dogmatism to establish Sharia in Pakistan, and their corresponding successes and failure is really measured by how much their swinging ideology is in tune with the changing times.

Myth # 2: That Barrister Mahomed Ali Jinnah was somehow an orthodox fundamentalist who demanded an exclusivist Islamic Pakistan

Mahomed Ali Jinnah: The Founder of Modern Pakistan (Indus)

Jinnah’s story is not taught in our official media and our textbooks are censored. His valiant effort to bring Hindus and Muslims together, his own secular lifestyle and above all his commitment to bring his constituents to modernity and a progressive future are all forgotten. The man was a parliamentarian, a defender of liberal ideas, an activist for human rights and above all an advocate for the people of India (and Indus). While in dress, he was a Bond street gentleman, he was very much the man for the people of India and man from the people of India (and Indus). His legislative record bears testimony to a passionate idealist and defender of people’s interests against moneyed classes, businesses and other vested interests.

It is never explained how a secular minded man – thoroughly unbiased and without any color of prejudice- came to champion the cause of Muslims. What was his greatest push for affirmative action for his community- which was a minority- has been falsely portrayed as an exclusivist demand.

Yet it is through stories of betrayal and deceit that this region’s students (Read: Taliban) are imbued with an unmitigated sense of betrayal and in vengeance alone do they thus seek to purge themselves of a sense of guilt and betrayal.

Myth # 3: India and Pakistan are Historically one unit

Among other things, Pakistanis are made to feel guilty about the fact that they “vivisected” an intrinsically singular piece of land. Nothing could be farthest from the truth. If the creation of Pakistan itself did not prove that there were much larger historical forces at work that overrode any gift of nature that made the Indian subcontinent have an “island-like unity” then certainly the further partitioning of Bangladesh from Pakistan did.

Interestingly, during the last six thousand years, Indus (Pakistan) has indeed remained independent of and separate from India for almost five and a half thousand years. Only during the rule of the Mauryans, the Mughals and the British, was the entire Subcontinent be ruled as one land mass. The total period of these three empires rule was not more than five hundred years which is only about 8% of this land’s History.

The belief in the unity and oneness of the subcontinent was propagated by Pax Britannica, the unified hold of the Raj which fell conveniently in the lap of Hindu mythology and the Mahabharata scripture and later taken on by Jawaharlal Nehru and even contemporary historians in Pakistan. The Pakistani historians always argued from a position of guilt and weakness that proceeded after the partition of India in 1947. The Indus Saga is among the first serious scholarly work that reverses that view.

Myth 4: Indus has willingly surrendered before every invader

After facing successful conquests in Central Asia, it was in what is now Pakistan that most expeditions met containment when it reached the Indus region. The battles always ended at Panipat: The land that is now midway between modern Pakistan and Dehli. The Indus person has won battle over the Aryans, as testified in Hindu text. The Indus person has also weakened the Greeks in this region, and compelled Alexander the Great to turn back. Taimur Lane was harassed by Sheikha Gakkhar and Jasrat. Even the Mughals were bleeding miserably for several years by the Indus people in the frontier, in Sindh and in Punjab. Likewise the Raj was fought fiercely though uprisings for several years in the nineteenth century. And it is here when the ‘dehistorification’ of the Indus person began.

Aitzaz Ahsan explains that after the war of 1857, a new set of Chiefs were created by the British and awarded large strips of land, and their sons inducted into the imperial services, creating a new civil and military bureaucracy that was unquestioningly submissive and obedient. A new history was written to suit the elite and people were as a first step deprived of the use of local languages that embodied their history, and vernacular languages were replaced by Urdu and English.

The parables of oral and written history that talked of resistance against the foreign invaders were thus wiped away in a few years.

As the barbarian horde moves towards our capital, it would not be for the first time. This time though the Indus Valley is going to fetch deep into those wells of history and the Indus person is going to fight.

Stop Funding My Failing State

by Fatima Bhutto

Fatima Bhutto is a graduate of Columbia University and the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is working on a book to be published by Jonathan Cape in 2010. Fatima lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.

 

When Pakisan's president visits the White House next week, he’s sure to ask for another handout. But Fatima Bhutto, niece of the late Benazir Bhutto, says the billions of dollars the U.S. gives are merely propping up a government that’s capitulating to terror.

In Pakistan things move at a leisurely South Asian pace. We missed our goals to eradicate polio recently because we, a nuclear nation, could not sustain electricity across the country long enough to refrigerate the vaccines. Garbage disposal is a nonexistent concept, and plush neighborhoods in Karachi boast towers of rubbish piled on street corners and alleyways. Prisons and police cells are full of prisoners awaiting trials, and our justice system, despite the reinstatement of the Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudry, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of meting out free and fair access to justice.
One thing moving ridiculously fast, however, is the Taliban’s stranglehold on the country. After two years of fighting off Taliban insurgents camped out in the lush Swat Valley, Pakistan’s president, Asif Zardari, threw in the towel last week and gave the militants what they wanted—Shariah law.

The billions of dollars we have received have not made Pakistan safer. Instead, we now have our own version of the Taliban busy blowing up trade routes and flogging young girls.

Never mind that Pakistan’s constitution stipulates that no law contrary to Islam can be passed in the land. The no-goodnik president, who The Wall Street Journal called a “Category 5 disaster,” went ahead and unilaterally—without a vote granted to the citizens of Swat—imposed Shariah. So perhaps it shouldn’t be considered a great surprise that a week after the law was passed, the Taliban, in typical breakneck speed, have now advanced into the Buner district, a mere 70 miles from the capital.
Meanwhile, President Obama is set to meet with President Zardari (who locals have now taken to calling President Ghadari, or “traitor” in Urdu) in 10 days' time. There is, I’d imagine, much to discuss.
The most important question that will come from Pakistan, however, is a familiar one: Can we have some more please? Money, that is, not Taliban. It may surprise some Americans that even in the midst of this recession, billions of their tax dollars are given directly to the thievery corporation that is Pakistan’s government, never to be seen again. George W. Bush gave Pakistan a whopping $10 billion to fight terror, money that seems to have gone down the drain—or rather, into some pretty deep pockets. And it’s not just the U.S.—last week, international donors from 30 countries met in Tokyo and pledged $5 billion to Pakistan to “fight terror.” The IMF has given the country $7.6 billion in a bailout deal that boggles the mind. Saudi Arabia has generously pledged $700 million over the next four years, and the less-generous European Union an additional $640 million over the same period. And then there’s Obama’s promise of $1.5 billion a year, dependent, the White House says, on results.
It’s phenomenally silly to give that kind of money to a president who, before becoming president, was facing corruption cases in Switzerland, Spain, and England. Zardari and his wife, the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, are estimated to have stolen upwards of $3 billion from the Pakistani Treasury—a figure Zardari doesn’t seem desperate to disprove, he placed his personal assets before becoming president at over $1 billion.
It’s also dangerous. No amount of money, especially in the hands of a famously corrupt government, is going to help Pakistan stave off terror, especially when said government seems more than willing to capitulate to the militants they’re supposed to be using that money to save the world from. Since 2001, Pakistan has been a country in decline. We suffer a suicide-bombing rate that surpasses Iraq's. The billions of dollars we have received have not made Pakistan safer, they haven't made our neighbors safer, and they've done nothing in the way of eradicating terror. Instead, we now have our own version of the Taliban busy blowing up trade routes and flogging young girls.
The Taliban and their ilk, on the other hand, are able to seat themselves in towns and villages across Pakistan without much difficulty largely because they do not come empty-handed. In a country that has a literacy rate of around 30 percent, the Islamists set up madrassas and educate local children for free. In districts where government hospitals are not fit for animals, they set up medical camps—in fact, they’ve been doing medical relief work since the 2005 earthquake hit Northern Pakistan. Where there is no electricity, because the local government officials have placed their friends and relatives in charge of local electrical plants, the Islamists bring generators. In short, they fill a vacuum that the state, through political negligence and gross graft, has created.
To combat the Taliban's incursions further into poverty-stricken parts of the country, Pakistan's government only has to do its job less leisurely. That's the frightening truth.

Fatima Bhutto is a graduate of Columbia University and the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is working on a book to be published by Jonathan Cape in 2010. Fatima lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.

Muslim woman appointed as Obama's advisor

by Nauman Umair | April 26, 2009

Muslim woman appointed as Obama's advisor | Photo 02

see larger image

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USA, the land of opportunities, keeps on proving the great values which form basis of it's greatness. It's true that United States of America isn't great in all respects, only Guantanamo Bay is enough to validate this fact. However, it's also a fact that it's values, which it continues to practice and strengthen are phenomenal.

I quite remember those words of Obama in which he described his struggle as a continuance of what Rosa once sat for and what Martin once walked for and he ended with quite an optimistic words, something that he and the people of America always keep on proving by virtue of their acts.

Dalia Mogahed, an Egyptian-born American, has been appointed to a position in President Barack Obama's administration becoming the first Muslim woman to have this honor. She would be advising President Obama on prejudices and problems faced by Muslims. The Muslim world, including the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has welcomed this move.

We, the Muslims, hope that this will help paving a way towards inter-faith dialogue and harmony.

The Egyptian-born American who heads the Gallup American Center for Muslim Studies, a non-governmental research center providing data-driven analysis on the views of Muslim populations around the world, became the first Muslim veiled woman to be appointed to a position in the White House.
"I am very honored to be given this opportunity to serve my country in this way," Mogahed, who will be Obama's window into the Muslim American community, told media.

60 Miles From Islamabad *

Editorial

Published: April 26, 2009

If the Indian Army advanced within 60 miles of Islamabad, you can bet Pakistan’s army would be fully mobilized and defending the country in pitched battles. Yet when the Taliban got that close to the capital on Friday, pushing into the key district of Buner, Pakistani authorities sent only several hundred poorly equipped and underpaid constabulary forces.

On Sunday, security forces were reported to be beginning a push back. The latest advance by the Taliban is one more frightening reminder that most Pakistanis — from top civilian and military leaders to ordinary citizens — still do not fully understand the mortal threat that the militants pose to their fragile democracy. And one more reminder to Washington that it can waste no time enabling such denial.

Pakistanis don’t have to look far to see what life would be like under Taliban rule. Since an army-backed peace deal ceded the Swat Valley to the militants, the Taliban have fomented class revolt and terrorized the region by punishing “un-Islamic” activities like dancing and girls’ attending school. The more territory Pakistan cedes to the extremists, the more room the Taliban and Al Qaeda will have to launch attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

And — most frightening of all — if the army cannot or will not defend its own territory against the militants, how can anyone be sure it will protect Pakistan’s 60 or so nuclear weapons?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right last week when she warned that Pakistan was “abdicating to the Taliban.” American military leaders in recent days have also begun to raise the alarm, but for too long they insisted that Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of staff of the army, did recognize the seriousness of the threat. We certainly have not seen it.

On Friday, even as Mr. Kayani insisted “victory against terror and militancy will be achieved at all costs,” he defended the Swat deal. On Sunday, government officials insisted again that the deal remained in force despite obvious Taliban violations. Mr. Kayani complains that his troops lack the right tools to take on the militants, including helicopters and night-vision goggles. The army should have used some of the $12 billion it received from Washington over the last seven years to do just that, instead of spending the money on equipment and training to go after India. The next round of aid should include these items but also require that they be used to fight the militants.

Pakistan’s weak civilian leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari and the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, are complicit in the dangerous farce, wasting energy on political rivalries. They must persuade General Kayani to shift at least part of his focus and far more resources away from the Indian border to the Afghan border.

Things are not going smoothly on the American side either. President Obama was right to recognize the need for an integrated strategy dealing with both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But his team has a lot more work to do, including figuring out ways to strengthen Pakistan’s government and its political will.

Congress is mulling two different bills increasing aid to Pakistan. Whichever prevails should set clear benchmarks, especially on military spending. Like Pakistan, Washington cannot afford to waste any more time figuring out the way forward — not with the Taliban 60 miles from Islamabad.

U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Published: April 26, 2009

Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.

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Crews began sanitizing St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens on Sunday. The school will be closed Monday and Tuesday. More Photos »

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People took precautions on Sunday to attend Mass in Mexico City. Swine flu is believed to have killed 103 people in Mexico. More Photos >

Other nations imposed travel bans or made plans to quarantine air travelers as confirmed cases also appeared in Mexico and Canada and suspect cases emerged elsewhere.

Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A (H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too little information about Mexico’s outbreak — in particular how many cases had occurred in what is thought to be a month before the outbreak was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

“We’re in a period in which the picture is evolving,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, deputy director general of the World Health Organization. “We need to know the extent to which it causes mild and serious infections.”

Without that knowledge — which is unlikely to emerge soon because only two laboratories, in Atlanta and Winnipeg, Canada, can confirm a case — his agency’s panel of experts was unwilling to raise the global pandemic alert level, even though it officially saw the outbreak as a public health emergency and opened its emergency response center.

As a news conference in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called the emergency declaration “standard operating procedure,” and said she would rather call it a “declaration of emergency preparedness.”

“It’s like declaring one for a hurricane,” she said. “It means we can release funds and take other measures. The hurricane may not actually hit.”

American investigators said they expected more cases here, but noted that virtually all so far had been mild and urged Americans not to panic.

The speed and the scope of the world’s response showed the value of preparations made because of the avian flu and SARS scares, public health experts said.

The emergency declaration in the United States lets the government free more money for antiviral drugs and give some previously unapproved tests and drugs to children. One-quarter of the national stockpile of 50 million courses of antiflu drugs will be released.

Border patrols and airport security officers are to begin asking travelers if they have had the flu or a fever; those who appear ill will be stopped, taken aside and given masks while they arrange for medical care.

“This is moving fast and we expect to see more cases,” Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the news conference with Ms. Napolitano. “But we view this as a marathon.”

He advised Americans to wash their hands frequently, to cover coughs and sneezes and to stay home if they felt ill; but he stopped short of advice now given in Mexico to wear masks and not kiss or touch anyone. He praised decisions to close individual schools in New York and Texas but did not call for more widespread closings.

Besides the eight New York cases, officials said they had confirmed seven in California, two in Kansas, two in Texas and one in Ohio. The virus looked identical to the one in Mexico believed to have killed 103 people — including 22 people whose deaths were confirmed to be from swine flu — and sickened about 1,600. As of Sunday night, there were no swine flu deaths in the United States, and one hospitalization.

Other governments tried to contain the infection amid reports of potential new cases including in New Zealand and Spain.

Dr. Fukuda of the W.H.O. said his agency would decide Tuesday whether to raise the pandemic alert level to 4. Such a move would prompt more travel bans, and the agency has been reluctant historically to take actions that hurt member nations.

Canada confirmed six cases, at opposite ends of the country: four in Nova Scotia and two in British Columbia. Canadian health officials said the victims had only mild symptoms and had either recently traveled to Mexico or been in contact with someone who had.

Other governments issued advisories urging citizens not to visit Mexico. China, Japan, Hong Kong and others set up quarantines for anyone possibly infected. Russia and other countries banned pork imports from Mexico, though people cannot get the flu from eating pork.

In the United States, the C.D.C. confirmed that eight students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens, had been infected with the new swine flu. At a news conference on Sunday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that all those cases had been mild and that city hospitals had not seen a surge in severe lung infections.

On the streets of New York, people seemed relatively unconcerned, in sharp contrast to Mexico City, where soldiers handed out masks.

Hong Kong, shaped by lasting scars as an epicenter of the SARS outbreak, announced very tough measures. Officials there urged travelers to avoid Mexico and ordered the immediate detention of anyone arriving with a fever higher than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit after traveling through any city with a confirmed case, which would include New York.

Everyone stopped will be sent to a hospital for a flu test and held until it is negative. Since Hong Kong has Asia’s busiest airport hub, the policy could severely disrupt international travel.

The central question is how many mild cases Mexico has had, Dr. Martin S. Cetron, director of global migration and quarantine for the Centers for Disease Control, said in an interview.

“We may just be looking at the tip of the iceberg, which would give you a skewed initial estimate of the case fatality rate,” he said, meaning that there might have been tens of thousands of mild infections around the 1,300 cases of serious disease and 80 or more deaths. If that is true, as the flu spreads, it would not be surprising if most cases were mild.

Even in 1918, according to the C.D.C., the virus infected at least 500 million of the world’s 1.5 billion people to kill 50 million. Many would have been saved if antiflu drugs, antibiotics and mechanical ventilators had existed.

Another hypothesis, Dr. Cetron said, is that some other factor in Mexico increased lethality, like co-infection with another microbe or an unwittingly dangerous treatment.

Flu experts would also like to know whether current flu shots give any protection because it will be months before a new vaccine can be made.

There is an H1N1 human strain in this year’s shot, and all H1N1 flus are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain. But flus pick up many mutations, and there will be no proof of protection until the C.D.C. can test stored blood serum containing flu shot antibodies against the new virus. Those tests are under way, said an expert who sent the C.D.C. his blood samples.

Reporting was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington, Jack Healy from New York, Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong and Ian Austen from Ottawa.