Issue 45 Vol II, August 15, 2007

F O C U S

Survey tells Musharraf that he has no future in Pakistan

A clear majority of 54.5 per cent urban Pakistanis believe that military should have no role in politics and 65.2 per cent want Gen Pervez Musharraf to quit the office of the president.

The survey, sponsored by DAWN NEWS, daily Dawn, CNN-IBN and Indian Express, was conducted by AC Nielsen in 10 major cities of Pakistan; shows that people are no more interested in elections.  36.6 per cent of the respondents said they would not caste their votes for any political party or candidate if the elections were held tomorrow.

The findings show  Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is ahead of other parties with 13.4 per cent saying that they will vote for the PML-N, followed by 12.9 per cent for the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement is placed at No 3 with eight per cent.

As many as 4.7 per cent urban Pakistanis say they will vote for the ruling PML while Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six religious parties, has support of only 0.7 per cent in the 10 cities.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also tops the ranking of those leaders having trust of the people. As many as 15.8 per cent of the respondents have full trust in Nawaz Sharif, followed by 15.6 per cent in Gen Pervez Musharraf, 14.8 per cent in Benazir Bhutto and only 7.1 per cent in Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The overall popularity graph of Gen Musharraf is at the slide with 29.7 per cent respondents saying they do not trust him at all, followed by 22.7 per cent having no trust at all in Ms Bhutto, 22.6 per cent having no trust in Shaukat Aziz and 17.6 per cent distrusting Nawaz Sharif.

The respondents were also asked questions relating to the performance of the Musharraf government in different areas. A majority of 36.2 per cent “fully disagree” that corruption has decreased during Gen Musharraf’s rule. The response of only 14.1 per cent agreed with the statement. Similarly, 29.9 per cent of the respondents “fully disagree” that Islamic militants have been kept under control by the Musharraf regime as against only 8.9 per cent who “fully agree” that the regime has controlled the militants.

Only 38.4 per cent “fully agree” or “somewhat agree” that the image of Pakistan in the world has improved while 52.3 per cent believes that it is not the case.

BACK

Pakistan's garrison state legacy
Ishtiaq Ahmed

IN his seminal work, The Garrison State: The Military, Government and Society in Colonial Punjab, 1849-1947 (New Delhi and London: Sage Publications, 2005) Tan Tai Yong, a prominent historian of the colonial Punjab era, at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore advances the thesis that Pakistan, not India, is the heir to the garrison state legacy of British colonial rule. A garrison state is one which relies heavily on its fortification and military prowess to ward off internal and external threats.

The author asserts that when the British conquered the Punjab in 1849, the policy adopted was to excluding Punjabis, especially Sikhs, from military duty because it was feared that they could be a threat to their interests. However, the 1857 uprising led by north Indian Purbiyas forced a change of policy, and the Sikhs as well as Muslims from the western districts were mobilised to crush that rebellion.

The 1857 trauma made the British fully aware of the fact that they ruled India by the force of arms and could hold on to it also by the same token. Therefore they must build a strong and formidable military apparatus. However, given the harsh climate and other difficulties a large fighting force comprising European troops could not be maintained permanently. The British Indian Army had to be recruited locally.

Moreover, from the second half of the 19th century the fear of a Russian advance into India began to haunt British strategic planning. Because of its geographical location, Punjab became the natural frontline province from where the British took part in the Great Game against perceived Russian and later German threats.

A theory of 'martial races' was devised to raise a strong, but dependent army. The groups chosen were: The Khalsa Sikh Jats, especially those of the Majha region around Amritsar, Muslims tribes such as the Ghakkars, Janjuas, Awans and Tiwanas of the Salt Range tract including Rawalpindi, Jhelum and Shahpur districts, smaller numbers of Hindu Jats of Rothak and Hissar in southeastern Punjab (present-day Haryana), and some Dogras from Kangra.

The three major groups faced acute economic hardship in their districts -- overpopulation and land fragmentation in the Majha, scarce and poor quality land in the rain-fed broken hills of the Salt Range, and recurring famines in the southeastern districts where the Hindu Jats were located. Moreover, historical enmity existed between the Sikhs and the Muslims of the Salt Range because Maharaja Ranjit Singh had inflicted defeat on their elders and curtailed their power. These three groups did not share strong fraternal bonds and were recruited in different companies and regiments but with the overall unified command of British officers.

Besides such careful selection of 'class' and 'military districts' the British evolved a sophisticated system of rewarding those connected to the army. Regular pay and allowances, land grants, especially in the canal colonies of western Punjab, pensions and other economic benefits were available to the soldiers as well as those who helped recruit them.

These included the tribal and clan leaders, village headmen, zaildars, sufedposhs and other men of influence in the rural areas. Titles such as khan bahadur, nawab and even sir were conferred on them. During World War I Punjab supplied some 60 per cent of the total soldiers raised from India and during War II one-third.

Through the Land Alienation Act of 1900, the British made sure that its rural support base in the Punjab was safeguarded against moneylenders and rising urban entrepreneurs. In political terms too a rural bias was present in the electoral reforms of 1919 and 1935. The constituencies were formed in a manner that members from the rural areas constituted the majority. The right to vote was limited by property and land tax qualifications.

Simultaneously the government maintained the threat of cancellation and confiscation of titles and land grants if their bearers did not cooperate in supplying soldiers to the Indian Army and in containing trouble in their areas. A conflict with the Sikhs broke out in the 1920s over the control of gurdwaras. It resulted in some casualties but was resolved with the orthodox Sikhs being given the charge of their holy places.

The political linchpin of British rule in the Punjab was the Unionist Party founded by Sir Fazl-e-Hussain (died 1936) and later led by Sir Sikander Hayat Khan (died 1942) and supported by Sir Chhottu Ram (died 1945), the leaders of Hindu Jats. The Punjab Unionist Party enlisted the support of the Sikh Khalsa Nationalist Party representing loyalist Sikh landlords. This coalition ruled the Punjab. Nationalist and revolutionary forces found little support in the Punjab. Therefore despite many efforts the Congress Party failed to develop a mass base.

However, the Unionist model began to crumble and the garrison state crack when the Muslim League entered Punjab politics in the 1940s with its slogan of Pakistan. Hitherto the Punjab Muslim League was a minor player. It enjoyed the support mainly of the Muslim intelligentsia and some urban professionals. From 1943 onwards it began loudly to blame the successor of Sir Sikander, Sir Khizr Tiwana, of betraying Muslim interests by opposing the demand for Pakistan.

More importantly, it joined hands with the British in the war effort, offering to use its influence to help recruit soldiers from the towns and cities of Punjab and from a social base that included castes hitherto not included among the martial races. Supply of soldiers from the rural areas, the stronghold of the Unionists, had been declining as World War II dragged on. The British increasingly began to recognise the Muslim League as the main representative of Muslims of India.

Moreover, challenges to Khizr from disgruntled colleagues resulted in splits and desertions in the Unionist Party. By the election of 1946 the former Punjab Unionist Party had virtually become the Punjab Muslim League as almost all the Muslim landlords had joined the latter.

Thus when Pakistan came into being in August 1947, the Muslim League was no longer the party of the erstwhile Muslim intelligentsia or progressive reformers who wanted to create an egalitarian Islamic utopia; it had become a party of conservative landlords. Moreover, the Pakistani Punjab emerged as the most powerful province and the sword arm of the new state. The Pakistani army was essentially a Punjabi army. Both such factors combined to pass on the legacy of the garrison state to Pakistan, argues Tan Tai Yong.

The book is a painstaking and meticulous research undertaking based on extensive use of government documents. Such works deserve to be translated into Urdu and made available to the wider public.

The author is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore on leave from the University of Stockholm.
Email: isasia@nus.edu.sg  Courtesy news international Pakistan http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=66945

BACK

An Apology for 1947 Crimes

THE partition of the Indian sub continent in 1947 saw a million innocent lives lost to the marauding communal gangs. Over 15 million people lost their homes and sources of livelihood in one of the biggest migration of people in world history. All was the handiwork of roguish British imperialists and our own nincompoop biased and ravenous political class. Should some one be held guilty for the crimes of partition sixty years later and at least apologise or should we collectively apologise, irrespective whether individually we are  responsible for that heinous act or not. It is true that this is a burden on our collective consciousness.

In any case an online signature campaign seeking an "apology for the heinous crimes" of 1947, when the Indian subcontinent was partitioned, is receiving tremendous response from people across borders. The Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA), formed in the US in 1993, has initiated the campaign to empathise with and apologise to the victims and survivors of the 1947 Hindu-Muslim riots.

Its petition, launched on Aug 1, has been signed by hundreds of netizens and will be wrapped up at the end of this year. ACHA has as its members Indians, Pakistanis as well as Bangladeshis.

India, after it gained freedom from centuries-old British rule, was divided into two countries on the basis of religious affinities and Pakistan, a federation of Muslim majority states, was born. Pakistan was later partitioned to form Bangladesh.

In the frenzy of communal violence, the petition says, around 15 million people were forced to leave their homes. Millions lost their lives. The horrific memories of mass murder, rape, pillage and suffering are unforgettable for the victims.

Sixty years since then, the wounds still ache and people have not been able to live with the rigors of the forced migration. What makes the healing more difficult is that the victims and perpetrators of the crimes were the same.

"The partition in 1947 was perhaps the darkest period in the history of the region (sub-continent)," says Pritam K. Rohila, executive director of ACHA. Rohila, who was an eyewitness to the atrocities of the partition, feels that reconciliation begins when somebody accepts responsibility for the crime and "no one has so far accepted responsibility for these heinous crimes of 1947".

"We, the members of ACHA, are inviting people in India and Pakistan to join us in the long-delayed effort by signing our petition of apology to the victims and their families at www.indiapakistanpeace.org," Rohila, who is based in Poland, told IANS through mail. The association, which also includes Pervez Hoodbhoy, a known nuclear physicist and peace activist from Pakistan, and Haroon Habib, a journalist from Bangladesh, focuses on pursuing the agenda of peace between India and Pakistan, rather than "wasting them in condemning anyone and inadvertently publicising the work of hate-mongers," said Rohila.

The association has since 2004 been conducting a campaign to encourage people to organise India-Pakistan Peace Day everywhere between Pakistan's Independence Day Aug 14 and the UN Peace Day Sep 21. The petition of apology is one of the two core elements of the peace day campaign.

It wants signatories to read aloud an "affirmative statement of peace and harmony" every day from Aug 14 through Sep 21.

The statement apologetically says:

"We, the members of the Association for Communal Harmony in Asia who have signed, believe that the time has come for all of us together to condemn, without distinction, the insane orgy of violence and intimidation that marred the great human divide of 1947.

"We undertake to shun the political use of religion and communalism.

"On the 60th anniversary of our Independence Days, we remember that dark chapter in our history so as to ensure that these tragedies will be neither forgotten nor repeated.

"We regret that our forebears, the colonial British administration and the successor governments failed to prevent the tragedy, punish the perpetrators and/or apologize to you and your families," the petition reads.

"In the spirit of harmony and goodwill among the people of South Asia, and to help build a new South Asian present and future, we grieve together for you. We offer our deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets to you and your families.

"We are sorry!"

The association has since 2004 been conducting a campaign to encourage people to organise India-Pakistan Peace Day everywhere between Pakistan's Independence Day Aug 14 and the UN Peace Day Sep 21. The petition of apology is one of the two core elements of the peace day campaign. It wants signatories to read aloud an "affirmative statement of peace and harmony" every day from Aug 14 through Sep 21.

The statement apologetically says:

"We, the members of the Association for Communal Harmony in Asia who have signed, believe that the time has come for all of us together to condemn, without distinction, the insane orgy of violence and intimidation that marred the great human divide of 1947.

"We undertake to shun the political use of religion and communalism.

"On the 60th anniversary of our Independence Days, we remember that dark chapter in our history so as to ensure that these tragedies will be neither forgotten nor repeated.

"We regret that our forebears, the colonial British administration and the successor governments failed to prevent the tragedy, punish the perpetrators and/or apologize to you and your families," the petition reads.

"In the spirit of harmony and goodwill among the people of South Asia, and to help build a new South Asian present and future, we grieve together for you. We offer our deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets to you and your families.

"We are sorry!"

Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA), www.asiapeace.org & www.indiapakistanpeace.org
4410 Verda Lane NE , Keizer , OR 97303, 503.393.6944, asiapeace@comcast.net

BACK

The Midnight Generation and India’s Tryst with Freedom
Ambassador Bal Anand (IFS Retd)

Salman Rushdie, the literary lion of the West with the umbilical cord firmly intact with the Indian sub-continent, has crafted the magical phrase, ‘Midnight’s Children’ to refer to those who were born to breathe in Free but Partitioned India. These children, who would be joining the ranks of the senior citizens tonight, could be considered to belong a special category – hopefully, not carrying too heavy an emotional baggage of the horrors visited on their families and friends during Partition. Being sixty plus, I do share the broad spectrum of thinking with the ‘midnight generation’. As regards Partition, I am tempted to quote an eminent modern historian, Prof. Mushirul Hassan, “Never in the history of mankind, was the destiny of such a large number of people determined in such a short time by such a few persons”. The Indian civilization has indeed been inflicted the deepest wound by the Partition

Summoning and stretching my memory as far back as possible and plunging deeper into the misty impressions and images of my early childhood – I was shy of four years,  to be precise – I can recall how fear, anxiety and disgust had filled the atmosphere of my small village located in the tiny Muslim State of Malerkotla in East Punjab. I could hardly make sense of what was going around except the references and whispers to the large scale killings of Muslims  in the adjacent villages falling in the ‘Angrezi Ilaka’ and neighbouring Sikh States in the wake of the formation of a new country of Pakistan for the Muslims by the British.    I can further recall that a few instruments of fighting like ‘swords’, ‘laathis’ and a big size ‘gandasa’ had been kept handy at home for any contingency. A quantity of stones and brick-pieces had also been deposited on the roof of the house. I also vividly remember that a large number of people, gathered at the Bhog ceremony of one of my two surviving great grand-fathers, who had expire on 18th of Oct., were telling that ‘Ghor Kalyug’, the Worst Time for mankind has come and that ‘Sabh Mahapurush’, the noble souls - like my great-grand-father who was an eminent scholar and physician - were obliged to depart from this wicked world!  The last long-ruling Nawab, Ahmad, Ali, of Malerkotla had also died just a day earlier!!

While pondering over immediate years of India’s new life of freedom, I naturally feel inclined to begin with almost revolutionary and missionary zeal of the Government and the people to establish institutions and facilities for education. Thanks to the visionary leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru and his comrades of the freedom struggle, the education of those born to freedom - whom he called, ‘our future masters’ - had to begin in all earnest.  Though in terms of overall perspectives, the nation might have fumbled dangerously in not providing elementary education to the vast multitude of children in the rural India, the country has certainly emerged as a knowledge-driven nation at the turn of the century. The Indian professionals have distinguished themselves as prime movers in the most sophisticated areas of modern science and technology iall over the globe. The world would be increasingly looking towards India in the 21st century for the high quality human resources.

As for the political state of the nation, India has indeed occupied the Olympian height as the largest democracy of the planet, never mind the occasional hiccups and several serious constraints accompanying the system described as ‘functioning anarchy’, ‘dynastic democracy’, ‘jugglery of elections’ and criticize for the ‘curse of casting vote to caste’, etc. The Constitution of the country, the largest such written document in the world, has withstood the strains and stresses wrought upon it by the wild practitioners of politics in this ancient land.  Some have wondered over the vitality and quirks of the Indian system of governance in the era of the politics of coalitions. The criminalization and corruption in public life need be tackled at more than war-footing – the electoral success should not be interpreted as a license to loot the hapless masses!

Coming to the economy of the country, India has been indeed the largest laboratory of mankind. The terms like ‘Green Revolution’ and ‘White Revolution’ underline the success stories in areas of agriculture and milk production. India hosts 16.7% of the population of the world with just 2.4% of its area. It has been indeed a Herculean task to provide for the basic needs of the large section of its people – a continued saga of the great accomplishments and the emerging new challenges! India has to run faster to keep walking with the world. The era of globalization and free trade confront us with promises and tougher challenges. The last decade has witnessed an unprecedented economic growth and the seemingly impossible goal of eradication of poverty does look within the realm of realization.

A survey of the social and religious divides of this ancient country would provide a mixed scenario. The country has been able to withstand large scale secessionist movements and the worst instances of periodic violence perpetrated by groups of religious fanatics. The analysts have attributed the strength of the State to its institutions and the democratic polity. The defence forces, the civil services and all the other organs of the State system have risen to the occasion in testing times and must become increasingly oriented to serve the marginalized sections of society.

The country has indeed big battles ahead in the crucial sectors of economic development including energy and infrastructure. The sector of agriculture, the main stay of the nation, has suffered decline and would require a carefully crafted strategy and investment to transform the vast rural India. The sector of public health has also manifold challenges. It is a sad commentary that the overall ranking of India in the human development chart of the world has slipped from 120 to 126. The malnutrition remains a serious problem affecting a large population.

The sixty years of Independence have been a period of an enormous growth in national life. The challenges ahead require tougher decisions by leadership and a higher level of discipline and motivation on the part of the citizens. To conclude, I may quote Vice President M.H. Ansari, from his maiden Address to the Rajya Sabha, “The Challenge lies in the need to ensure equitable distribution of fruits of development and to seek justice through substantive equality and meaningful fraternity”.

BACK