Jahane Rumi In search of the unsearchable: O, my soul! where would you find your house?

14Aug/095

what is there to celebrate?

Raza Rumi
Today was a usual day despite the platitudes churned out by the media and the struggle to ‘celebrate’ something. Naeem Sadiq’s email was instructive as it said many things that I wanted to write today:
I decided not to celebrate the 14th August this year, to record my personal grief, shame and solidarity with the innocent citizens of Gojra, who were killed , wounded and burnt, for belonging to the same God, but a different religion. In my room I will fly the Pakistan flag at half mast, I will put my TV off, have none of those “milli naghmey” and sing no national anthem. I am sad, ashamed and distressed. I will call up all my Christian friends to say I am deeply sorry and I apologise.
I do not wish to celebrate the birthdays of a land where the Mullahs spread hate from the minarets of their mosques. Where 20,000 Muslims unite to kill a few hundred Christian men, women and children. Where the administration provides bullet proof vehicles and multi layer protection to its leaders but will do nothing to protect the life and property of its ordinary citizens. I am ashamed that not one person, the CM, the PM, the Governor or the President resigned from his job as an admission of failure to perform their primary duty.
There are plenty of flags, parades, speeches and ceremonies, but no real sense of guilt, remorse, or reform. The Dawn newspaper alone has 24 ‘ad’ nauseam ads, sponsored by the government departments, with the tax payers’ money, most carrying the pictures of four members of the same family. All under the garb of a “Happy Birthday to you, dear Pakistan”. The theft and plunder of peoples’ money does not pause for rest, even on the 14th day of August. Should not a state, at a minimum, protect the life and property of all its citizens, to deserve ‘a happy birthday’.
I love my country, this is the only one I have. It is our identity and our future but being a Pakistani is a painful compromise with so much that is not in our grain. In one year, we have treated millions in the northwest like cattle, burnt non-Muslims and our state has withdrawn behind high fences and barriers leaving the citizens to deal with the menace that is not of their making. The recent success of the military operation is a glimmer of hope.
Let us pray that next year things are not as grim as they are today.

Today was a usual day despite the platitudes churned out by the media and the struggle to ‘celebrate’ something. Naeem Sadiq’s email was instructive as it said many things that I wanted to write today:

I decided not to celebrate the 14th August this year, to record my personal grief, shame and solidarity with the innocent citizens of Gojra, who were killed , wounded and burnt, for belonging to the same God, but a different religion. In my room I will fly the

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19May/094

Jinnah’s fabulous picture

Amit has asked me to find a framed copy of this picture and what a great portrait it is. The only other portrait that has fascinated me is one painted by the great Pakistani artist Zahoorul Akhlaq.

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14Dec/0811

A new book on the Partition saga

Changing mindsets by SYED ALI NAQVI

titleOne might cry out, humanity is dead if there was any, in disgust and disbelief after going through the events of the partition of the subcontinent. It is hard to believe that hatred and instinctual savagery can derive men to the edge of morality. Politics, religious bias and ethnicity do have the poison to make men so vulnerable that they get ready to put everything at stake.
Partition of the Indian subcontinent is seen as one of the most brutal and unfortunate events in the world history. There are incidents of mass murder by every religious and ethnic community of each other as well as rapes and abductions of women, looting and separation of families during the

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20Aug/083

national identity sans freedom

A few quotes from this article in the Hindustan Times - incidentally it also includes what I rambled....

Freedom means everything. But I’m not free. All these concepts are self-imposed imprisonments.—Roshan Seth, actor

Independence has provided me with a national identity but it hasn’t meant freedom. I find myself enslaved to narrow ideas of patriotism. I’m trying to break free. And writing a book on Delhi, the capital of the ‘enemy’ nation, is my first step.
—Raza Rumi, blogger

Personal freedom is crucial to my growth as an artist. ‘Independence Day’ is a distant celebration for me. Each year, as mid-August approaches I am conscious of a sense of loss — I wonder what could have been had the subcontinent not been splintered.
— Sehba Sarwar, poet

Being a (somewhat) responsible parent, I will share with my children the notion that today we remember our national heroes. And amidst the nationalistic pop nuggets being broadcast round the clock, I hope they hear Yeh watan tumhara hai, tum ho Pasban iss kay, yeh chaman tumhara hai, tum ho naghma khwan iss kay…
— Shandana Minhas, author

More here

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6Jul/082

South Asian Cooperation and the Role of the Punjabs

South Asian Cooperation and the Role of the Punjabs. Tridivesh Singh Maini. New Delhi: Siddharth Publications , 2007 

South Asian Cooperation and the Role of the Punjabs is a book that approaches the topic of conflict resolution with a difference. Trividesh Singh Maini’s book does not approach peaceful cooperation from the normative security framework. Nor, for that matter, does the author take the increasingly emergent economic approach to conflict resolution despite the fact that the book’s content deals with the subject of regional cooperation. Alternatively, Maini’s book helps its reader understand the dynamics of cooperation and peace among members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation or SAARC (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan and the island nations of Sri Lanka and Maldives) by presenting a cultural analysis.

This use of culture is persuasive. The author posits himself and his book as scholarship that thinks outside the bureaucratic box of normal research on South Asia with its vested interests in the region to reveal the “emotional” trajectory of cooperation that is occurring in this region. Using culture to support his thesis, Maini illustrates for the reader various cultural exchanges between two cities, Amritsar in East Punjab in India and Lahore in West Punjab in Pakistan. These include visits to religious shrines, literary exchanges and especially recent transportation events such as the initiation of bus services to help people meet their relatives on the other side of the border.

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