terrorism « Jahane Rumi

8Dec/092

My Lahore is bleeding again – an eyewitness account

I am grateful to Khurram Siddiqi for his timely and rather chilling account of what Lahore underwent this evening. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Lahore tragedy. Raza Rumi

Today, two bombs struck Allama Iqbal Town's 'Moon Market'- a place that I remember from my childhood when our family used to visit Lahore- many members of which, at the time, lived close to. My cousin Usman was actually at a store in the market when the blast went off, and survived by some miracle. He came home shocked and changed from a full grown man- into a tepid young boy again; he said that he had just witnessed hell itself. I was taking a nap since I've been sick over the last few days- and woke to the sound of a cacophony of ambulance sirens; I now live almost across Jinnah Hospital. The bomb went off in Iqbal Town; I've tried to illustrate where all of this happened on the map here:
View Moon Market Blasts in a larger map

I walked across to Jinnah Hospital's emergency ward- not that I condone people amassing together when they shouldn't be there- but I wanted to capture some of the sounds of the aftermath of mass murder. What you'll hear in the audio linked below is police officers trying to get people to clear out (I was standing clear of the entrance)- and make way for an ambulance that was about to pull in. Audio Link

Tagged as: ambulance, blast, citizens, Edhi, hospital, Jinnah-hospital, Lahore, market, moon, SouthAsia, suicide, Taliban, terror, terrorism, tragedy, victim Continue reading

13Aug/091

Land of My Dreams – of Mushirul Hasan’s woes

This is such a well written piece. I had read it a few months ago and now my friend ARK sent it via email. I am sharing it for the readers who may not have seen it. Reading Mushir ul Hasan and about him is always a pleasure. The comments on Boston Globe that published it are equally revealing as they reek of bigotry and fundamentalism that the writer is trying to depict in her piece. In a way, the non-resident-Indian (NRI) mindset is quite amusing as it shows that education and success and living in 'open' societies has little to do with socialised attitudes.

Land of My Dreams

Islamic liberalism under fire in India Martha C. Nussbaum

As it became clear that Pakistani Muslims perpetrated the horrendous terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November, many feared a wave of violence against India’s own Muslim community. The community, which represents 13.4 percent of Hindu-;majority India, suffers from poverty and systemic discrimination, as the government’s recent Sachar Commission report documents. It has also been targeted by the Hindu right, which, in 2002, murdered as many as 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, in the state of Gujarat.

That violence, like the violence of Hindu-;right mobs against Christians in the eastern state of Orissa in 2008, surely deserves the name of “terrorism.” Yet, in India as elsewhere, the word “terrorism” is now frequently confined to the actions of Muslims, and Muslims are suspects almost by virtue of their religion alone. There was reason, then, to fear that mobs would take the Mumbai blasts as the occasion for a renewed assault on an already beleaguered minority.

This assault did not materialize—largely because India’s Muslim community strongly condemned the terrorist acts and immediately took steps to demonstrate its loyalty to the nation. Muslim cemeteries refused burial to the perpetrators. Muslims wore black armbands on Eid, showing solidarity with mourners of all religions and nationalities. The world saw a deeply nationalist community, one loyal to the liberal values of a nation that has yet to treat it justly.

It was not the first time India’s Muslims have demonstrated a peaceful embrace of the country’s founding values. The personal experience of Mushirul Hasan exemplifies the same commitment. A leader of the community, Hasan has been at the center of controversy for his liberal, secular views and has weathered attempts to force him out of his job as Vice-;Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, a pluralistic university closely linked to Muslim contributions in India’s struggle for nationhood. His story illustrates three aspects of Indian and Muslim life that concerned Western observers regularly ignore.

First, the values we associate with classical liberalism—such as the defense of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and procedural due process—are not exclusively Western values. During the independence movement in India, they were reinvented by a colonized people who had seen just how little their Western masters honored such norms.

Second, these values are not tepid and centrist, as we sometimes hear, but rather, truly radical in a world of nations increasingly under pressure both from external violence and from internal quasi-;fascist forces.

And finally, Hasan’s story shows that there is a distinctive and genuinely Islamic form of liberalism, long-;lived and drawing inspiration from religious texts and their central concepts.

Hasan was born on August 15, 1949, exactly two years after the cohort of “midnight’s children” whose birth coincided with that of modern India on August 15, 1947. He spent his childhood in cosmopolitan Calcutta (now Kolkata), and later moved North with his family to the Aligarh Muslim University, where his father, a well-;known historian, had accepted a post. From early childhood, Hasan encountered the variety and plurality of Muslim life in India.

Then, as now, Muslims were respected as equal citizens by the nation’s laws and by some of its citizens, those who followed the lead of Gandhi and Nehru. But Muslims still encountered ubiquitous suspicion and discrimination, and, despite his middle-;class upbringing, Hasan was no exception. He once recalled to me how he and his brother were refused when they tried to rent a flat in South Delhi on the grounds that the smell of beef from Muslim kitchens would disgust the local (Hindu) inhabitants.

Hasan received a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University in 1977 and quickly became one of India’s most accomplished and respected historians of the nationalist movement and the modern nation. At the age of thirty-;one, he was the youngest historian ever named to a professorial chair in India. He took a teaching position at Jamia Millia Islamia and has published a dozen or so well-;regarded books on the nationalist struggle, the Nehru family, and the ideas of Gandhi, Nehru, and the liberal Muslims who joined with them.

Hasan addressed the student body, telling them that “the answer to this is to be more secular, to be more liberal in your outlook, to be more enlightened in your perspective.”

In spite of its name, Jamia has never been a Muslim university. Its location, in a predominantly Muslim residential area, and its historical association with secular liberal Muslims who took leading roles in the independence struggle have made it, over the years, an appealing place for Muslim students, but there has never been preferential admission for Muslims—the admissions form does not even ask the religion of the applicant—and the guiding values of the institution are firmly secular and pluralistic. Today about 60 percent of Jamia Millia Islamia’s students and 75 percent of its faculty are Muslim, but inclusiveness is the watchword (as it often is not in Hindu-;majority institutions, where both Muslim and lower-;caste students routinely suffer stigmatization and harassment).

Rumki Basu, a Hindu woman from West Bengal who currently chairs the university’s distinguished Political Science department, explained to me that she never encountered any discrimination or disparagement—even though, right after she got there, she proposed a radical revision of time-;honored syllabi, the sort of thing that usually drives at least some colleagues crazy. At Jamia, however, department discussions were always democratic, respectful, and cordial. (“No,” she says, “I am not making this up.”) “Jamia,” she concludes, “has busted a lot of unfair stereotypes and myths others hold about Muslims in modern India.” “Debate, dialogue, and discuss,” these are the principles that define Jamia—and that should be more common at other Indian universities.

In October 1988 Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was banned in India. Hasan spoke out publicly against the ban, defending the freedom of speech. A group of radical students in the university, attempting to stop him from teaching, assaulted him physically, inflicting minor injuries. While pressing criminal charges against his assailants, Hasan, who was then Pro-;Vice-;Chancellor of the University, was forced to work from home. He was unable to resume administrative and teaching duties for more than four years. During this time he wrote the excellent book Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims Since Independence.

Eventually he returned to the university, and the values for which he stood—always the institution’s dominant values—began to prevail even among its more radical students. Hasan dropped the criminal complaints against the ones who assaulted him (justice moves slowly in India, so by the time Hasan returned to Jamia, they were long since graduates with jobs and families to support), and his mercy made him a popular figure among students of all types. When the Congress Party took over in 2004, the President of the India, following the advice of a three-;member selection committee, asked him to become the Vice-;Chancellor of the university, equivalent to a U. S. university president.

In September 2008 police investigating a bomb blast in Delhi that had been tentatively linked to Islamic radicalism arrived at the off-;campus apartment of some Jamia students. In the ensuing violence, two suspects were killed, one a Jamia student; a police officer later died of his wounds. Two Jamia students were soon arrested on suspicion of aiding terrorism.The students were too poor to pay for competent legal counsel, and, while India’s constitution guarantees cost-;free legal assistance to “ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities,” public defenders are low-;grade, and many had recently received threats of violence should they take any case associated with alleged Islamic terrorism. With no hesitation, Hasan said that the university would pay for their legal counsel. The university had done this in other cases, just as it pays students’ medical fees. No one objected on those earlier occasions.

But the political charge in the air ensured that this time would be different. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political wing of the Hindu right, decided to make an issue of the legal support. Accusing Hasan of misusing public money (Jamia, like all Central Universities in India, is government-;funded), they demanded his resignation. Education Minister Arjun Singh quickly came to Hasan’s defense, noting that the money he was using did not come from the government, but from student activity fees and private donations. Like Hasan, he pointed out that the accused are innocent until proven guilty and have a right to a fair trial.

“What do you want us to do?” Hasan asked, “Stand on a terrace and announce that we are liberal Muslims and that we want to proclaim our loyalty to the nation?”

Meanwhile, Hasan addressed the student body, telling them that “the answer to this is to be more secular, to be more liberal in your outlook, to be more enlightened in your perspective.” He then led a peace march on the campus, a march so silent, so nonviolent and orderly, that even the press could find no incident of bad behavior to sensationalize. The national media have been decidedly unenthusiastic about Hasan’s defense of procedural due process and constitutional norms; they suggest, repeatedly, that he is part of some sinister Muslim cabal. (An honorable exception is The Hindu, India’s best daily, which published an editorial putting the matter in a balanced perspective; the Indian Express and Kolkata’s Telegraph published valuable op-;eds.)

Hasan’s fight for basic principles has been won for now, but he still faces a fight in the court of public opinion for the reputation of his university and the honor of its students and teachers. Stereotypes of the violent Muslim are so prevalent in India—as elsewhere in the world—that it is virtually impossible for Muslim liberals to be taken at their word when they say that they believe in free speech, pluralism, nonviolent persuasion, the rule of law, and the right of each person to a fair trial. ’Oh yes, a screen for darker motives,’ is the typical response, pervasive on Hindu blogs and common even in the mainstream press. You say you are a liberal, and that proves you are a radical Islamist.

Meanwhile, hooligans of the Bajrang Dal, a youth movement associated with the Hindu right, have been on a rampage in Orissa, murdering Christians who refuse to reconvert to Hinduism, but the media never refer to this carnage as “terrorism.” Nor did they use the term “terrorism” for the Gujarat pogrom. For the media, as for so much of our world, “terrorism” just means Muslim terrorism. To a skeptical Hindu journalist who had asked him why Muslim intellectuals do not condemn terrorism, Hasan (who had just finished condemning all terrorism, Hindu and Muslim alike) replied:

You probably don’t hear those voices because you don’t want to hear those voices. The media doesn’t represent those voices because the media is only interested in strident voices. They are not interested in the sane, liberal, rational voices. . . . What do you want us to do? Stand on a terrace and announce that we are liberal Muslims and that we want to proclaim our loyalty to the nation?

Hasan is a remarkable person, but his convictions are hardly sui generis. They are deeply rooted in Jamia Millia Islamia’s history: a home-;grown, tolerant, liberal pluralism has defined the institution from its anti-;colonial inception.

The university was born in internal struggles at Aligarh Muslim University, then a conservative institution very much under British control. Many wanted this situation to continue, holding that the mission of Aligarh ought to be to make Indian Muslims “worthy and useful subjects of the British Crown.” A group of younger intellectuals, however, inspired by Gandhi’s ideas and increasingly involved in resistance against the Raj, sought change. Part of their zeal was for Islamic politics: they took a passionate interest in the Khilafat movement, which worked to protect the Ottoman caliphate and sacred Muslim sites from British hijacking. But the Khilafat movement was inherently a campaign against British imperialism, and before long the young radicals of Jamia joined their Turkish concerns to Gandhi’s non-;cooperation movement, becoming apostles of nonviolent resistance to the local British rulers.

The campus soon split into two camps. The old guard, backed by the British, drove out the young radicals in 1920. Sir George Campbell, the district magistrate, confronted Mohammed Ali, one of the radical leaders, saying, “You want to bring up these students as disobedient boys.” Ali responded by reciting a verse of the eighteenth-;century Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir that neatly epitomized the behavior of the Raj at this period (though tactfully omitting its heinous acts of violence):

To taunt and sneer and wound and speak unkindly,

She has all these accomplishments, my friend;

Friendship and love and graciousness and kindness

Are things she could never comprehend.

Jamia Millia Islamia was opened the following year. After a short time in Aligarh, it moved to Delhi.

Jamia was born radical. Its curriculum emphasized the study of nationalism as well as the study of Islamic history and the Qu’ran; its admissions policy welcomed male and female, Hindu and Muslim; its pedagogy emphasized debate and contestation in the teaching of all subjects, including religion, denouncing the mere “passive awareness of dead facts.” The school had strong links with theorists of progressive education such as Bertrand Russell and Rabindranath Tagore and thus gave substantial weight to the arts and vocational education. This philosophy was applied early, since the university included a residential primary school, where “learning by doing” was the progressive norm. One founder summarized: “We believe that formal instruction should serve as a support for the exercise of initiative, that the child’s mind should be active and responsive, not passive, that the body should be made efficient along with the mind.”

Older students, meanwhile, learned that the national ideal of independence from colonial domination could also become a personal ideal, as Ali stressed:

Jamia’s objective is that Muslims should [not] follow blindly the previous ‘fixed’ path . . . the Jamia has instilled hatred in the heart of every student—be he a Muslim or a Hindu—against subjugation by foreign powers. It has kept its air free of transgression and prejudice. For these reasons, the Jamia is both Jamia Millia Islamia and a national university.

The Jamians insisted that identity politics, with its preference for insiders, was foreign to Islam’s ideal universal brotherhood.

Jamia was coeducational from the start, but initially the number of female students was small. By 1930, however, the arrival of distinguished female faculty prepared the way for full integration. A later Vice-;Chancellor wrote of the way in which the university has helped women “not only break into the spaces which are male preserves, but also . . . fight back against male tyranny and violence.” Today, women compose about 25 percent of undergraduates, but more than 50 percent of those at the master’s degree stage.

Meanwhile, the institution’s progressive educational vision led to a stream of visitors from abroad. A distinguished British observer spoke of Jamia as having “an international breadth of vision” that most Britain-;oriented Indian universities lacked. Jamia’s degrees were not recognized by the British, but they were recognized in Germany, France, and the United States.

Teachers at Jamia report a glut of detentions and arrests of students. Politicians, the media, and the police try to paint a picture of the university as a hotbed of terrorism.

Jamia’s early years were marked by recurrent financial crises. To keep the young institution afloat, a group of distinguished scholars pledged to serve Jamia for twenty years, taking only a token salary. Chief among them was Zakir Hussain, an economist trained in Germany who became Vice Chancellor in 1928, serving for twenty-;one years (and who much later served as the third President of India). A man of tireless energy, enthusiasm, and self-;sacrifice, Hussain furthered both the university’s educational vision and the nationalist ideal, and did so in close conversation with Gandhi, who viewed Jamia as an important part of a tolerant India. In one letter to the university in 1930, Gandhi wrote:

Islam enjoins upon us tolerance towards others’ religions. It doesn’t say that other religions are false. He alone who does good to others is a true man. This is the principle of the [Qu’ran] as also the teaching of other religions. The students of the Jamia, I hope, will spread the message of unity and freedom throughout the country.

The teachers and students of Jamia were passionate about these ideas, as Gandhi acknowledged, saying, “When I come to the Jamia, I feel I have come home.” Again and again, the faculty wrote about the sort of nationalism they intended to foster: not “the jingo nationalism of the German or Italian type,” but “nationalism as a step to internationalism,” “nationalism of a liberal type.”

After Independence Jamia remained a favorite of the national leadership, Nehru in particular. In a letter of 1952 to Zakir Hussain, Nehru characterized Jamia as a pet project of Gandhi’s that he was committed to nurturing. He added a gloomy coda:

Whatever I can do for Jamia, I shall endeavour to do. The world seems a very dark, dismal and dreary place, full of people with wrong urges or no urge at all, living their lives trivially and without any significance. All the more, therefore, we seek the few sanctuaries and causes and try to derive sustenance from them.

And yet Jamia’s financial woes continued. Although some of its degree programs were recognized in 1945, and it achieved nationally recognized university status in 1962, it was only in 1988 that the university was recognized as a Central University, giving it access to more government funds. Having begun as a group of rebels departing from a government-;controlled institution (Aligarh), Jamia had finally achieved full recognition by the government of the independent nation.

When Hasan arrived at Jamia, it had a glorious past, but faced many contemporary challenges. Even after it began to receive funds from the central government, it had a hard time becoming the sort of first-;rank, cutting-;edge university that could compete successfully for students and faculty against Delhi’s other prestigious Central Universities, Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Apart from his massive fundraising efforts, for which he has a gift, Hasan has insistently emphasized the institution’s pluralistic, secular character, making it clear to faculty and students from all regions and religions that it can be a very good place to be. One of his successes has been to put Jamia on the map as a dream university for students from some of India’s poorest states and regions. Such students might lack the preparation required to get into JNU, but talent and ambition could get them a place in Jamia. Another way Hasan highlights pluralism is by naming buildings after individuals from other nations and religions—including the aforementioned Hindu politician Arjun Singh, who, as Education Minister, has strongly supported the growth of the institution. Meanwhile, empowering faculty such as Basu sends a signal of religious pluralism and sex equality that aids both student and faculty recruitment.

In regard to curriculum, Hasan has strengethened specific areas in which Jamia can compete with the best: thus, a renowned Academy for Third-;World Studies (founded in 1988, but bolstered under Hasan’s leadership); an unparalleled human rights program; and both core and optional courses in public administration, social work, education management, and journalism that are not available in any other university in Delhi. Finally, as Basu emphasizes, Hasan has pushed for an educational climate of tolerance, debate, and difference that few Indian universities, where students raised on rote learning all too often find more of the same, can match.

Hasan’s own scholarship has often focused on Jawaharlal Nehru and his accomplishments, so it is not surprising that he sought, for Jamia, the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, the first institution of its kind in the country. The Centre opened in October 2004 (shortly after the electoral defeat of the Hindu right and the victory of Congress), with Sonia Gandhi, Congress Party chair, in attendance. In his dedicatory speech, Hasan said that Nehru’s legacy is more important in India now than ever because Nehru “argued for the moral value and legitimacy of nationalism in a form compatible with liberal democratic principles and institutions.” Hasan said that he feels it particularly important to honor Nehru at Jamia, in order to break with the tendency to partition India’s heritage by “saying to each other, Azad is ‘yours,’ Nehru is ‘ours,’ Tagore is ‘ours’ because we are Bengalis,” etc. “This must stop . . . . We should teach Mir and Ghalib in Bengal, and Tagore and Nazrul Islam in north India.” The Nehru Centre should be a reminder of India’s identity as “tolerant and inclusive,” through its invitation to contemplate Nehru’s “own eclectic and broad-;minded outlook and the liberal and scientific temper he created in a society that had strong illiberal and authoritarian traits.”

But Hasan also understands, as did Gandhi, that liberal values and nonviolence need to be alluring, not just morally right. Unlike Gandhi, however, Hasan is thoroughly secular, a bon vivant who has a great interest in Urdu poetry and literature. The home he shares with his wife, Zoya, a leading political scientist at JNU and a member of the National Commission for Minorities, is full of beautiful art. And both, as hosts, exemplify Mir’s notion of “graciousness and kindness.” Closer, then, to his hero Nehru, who, despite the bleak tone of many of his letters, was famous for wit and zest at dinner parties.

Hasan, in short, exudes the kind of joyfulness and playfulness that make peple feel that moral principles are not only a duty, but a delight. That is a gift, unfortunately lacking in most of the giants of the Western Enlightenment, though Martin Luther King, Jr., surely had it. Liberal politics is based on respect for the person, but if it does not have something else as well, something more akin to love, it will not capture the hearts of people who long for meaning.

In May a national election may bring to power a coalition government in which the Hindu-;nationalist BJP will play a leading role. If that happens the BJP will no doubt continue their current agenda: attacking moderate Islam, trying to convert what exists at Jamia into the bogeyman of their rhetoric. Only determined public pressure can save the day, ensuring that someone who shares Hasan’s commitments, if not he himself (since his term ends this summer), is at the helm during a crucial period of growth and transition for the university.

The story of nonreligious terrorism (for example, the Tamil Tigers) is underreported, and Hindu terrorism against both Muslims and Christians has yet to appear on the American radar screen.

Other needs are even more pressing in the short term. The National Human Rights Commission has notified the Delhi police that it is investigating the bloody September 2008 incident and wants a complete report. The police write-;up is, indeed, full of inconsistencies and gaps. For example, the police arrived at the student dwelling without backup and without bulletproof vests, as if they were not preparing to encounter armed terrorists—yet, in retrospect, they say this is exactly what they were doing. The dwelling where the policeman was shot had only one entrance, yet we are supposed to believe that, with police lined up at the door, two students managed to escape unharmed. The students in the house had submitted the usual residential questionnaire with correct names, dates of birth, etc., all rather odd if their student identities were a ruse and they were really members of a widespread Muslim terrorist organization (the Indian Mujahideen), as is alleged. Finally, the two students whose legal fees Jamia is paying have a clean record, and all who know them describe them as peaceful, even dreamy and impractical. So we urgently need to know the quality of the evidence linking them to the case.

Meanwhile, teachers at Jamia report a glut of detentions and arrests of students. Politicians, the media, and the police try to paint a picture of the university as a hotbed of terrorism, and large numbers of students in off-;campus housing have been asked to vacate their flats by landlords who fear police reprisals. Police presence all around the campus is distressing, disrupting the climate of instruction. The unfairness of disturbing an entire university of 14,000 students over the alleged actions of two of its members is obvious, but hardly anyone is complaining about it, apart from the teachers and students themselves.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the Jamia case is the atmosphere surrounding those who provide legal counsel to people accused of terrorism. One after another, bar associations in different parts of the country are announcing boycotts of terror suspects. In Madhya Pradesh, two suspects were forced to hire counsel from a different state after all local lawyers refused them. A leading state BJP official supported the boycott, saying that “a distinction must be made between criminals and terrorists.” So much for the presumption of innocence. In Uttar Pradesh, lawyers have been faced with threats to their safety if they take on terror cases. Legal and social activists believe that the Hindu right has profoundly infiltrated the mechanisms of criminal justice making it very difficult for Muslims to get a fair trial. Often, moreover, Muslims remain in detention without trial for years. Muslims constitute 18 percent of convicts in Indian prisons, 21.8 percent of those whose cases are currently being tried, and 37.2 percent of those in detention awaiting either trial or specific charges.

When the legal system works this badly, essential constitutional rights become mere words on paper. Moreover, the rhetoric of the Hindu right, which constantly equates arrest with conviction, suggests at best a tenuous commitment to the rule of law. The contention that offering legal aid means being “soft on terrorism”—a ubiquitous charge against Hasan, despite his repeated condemnations of terrorism in any form—is a communitarian idea that betrays impatience with the very idea of due process. When lots of people in a democracy think this way, there is danger. In India its source has been the same for decades: a Hindu right that never accepted the liberal values of equal respect, due process, and religious non-;establishment.

Hasan’s ordeal leaves us with four conclusions.

First, we should mistrust stereotypes of the violent Muslim. Current preconceptions, combined with media sensationalism, lead to selective reporting (in India as elsewhere). Stories of Muslim liberals, provoke boredom or skepticism. But the failure to report only confirms the preconceptions. Meanwhile, the story of nonreligious terrorism (for example, the Tamil Tigers) is underreported, and Hindu terrorism against both Muslims and Christians has yet to appear on the American radar screen. As Hasan points out, we need more prominent stories of Muslim nonviolence:

A whole auditorium can be filled up with books on Islam and violence but what about Islam and nonviolence? What about Gaffar Khan [a Muslim associate of Gandhi’s, who developed a philosophy of nonviolence using Islamic sources]? Does he not exist or is he of no consequence because he does not fit the stereotype that some people wish to create and perpetuate about an entire community?

For this reason, one of Hasan’s current priorities is the creation on Jamia’s campus of a museum of the nationalist struggle, devoted to the history elided at other museums: the prominent role played by Muslims in the nationalist movement. While we wait for the museum to be built, the book Partners in Freedom, which Hasan co-;authored with Rakhshanda Jalil, tells the story in both text and photographs.

Second, the stereotyping of Muslims as violent, when combined with economic and political discrimination, engenders among Muslims a justified anger that can all too easily spill over into unjustified violence. Gandhi knew well that the rage of his followers against the British had legitimate roots, yet he was able to convince people that the best response to oppression was nonviolent protest.

Mushirul Hasan follows Gandhi’s program. In fact, I am tempted to say, somewhat hyperbolically, that virtually the only place in today’s India where Gandhi’s ideas are being duly honored is on the campus of Jamia. But Hasan knows, like Gandhi, and like Martin Luther King, Jr., that anger will not go away, will not cease to create the possibility of violence, unless the subordination that fuels it is brought to an end.

Therefore, while working to promote nonviolence, one must also work to eradicate political and economic conditions that nourish the desire for violence. Noting the economic discrimination suffered by India’s Muslims (the lack of basic social services, such as clean water, in the poor residential areas surrounding Jamia is one ugly example)—now compounded by widespread political discrimination in the form of round-;ups on suspicion of terrorism (India’s analogue to the odious American tradition of racial profiling) and, more worrying, threats against lawyers who defend people accused of terrorism—Hasan says to that same skeptical reporter: “The fact that they are still liberals in this sort of situation—caught between the devil and the deep sea—you should give them a Padma award.” (The Padma Shri award is given by the Indian government each year to people who have performed some meritorious service to the nation. Hasan was awarded the Padma Shri in 2007.)

The third conclusion to be drawn from these events is the Gandhian one: the importance of the nonviolent response. Speaking about Muslim communities more generally, Hasan insists that the solution to Muslims’ problems lies in nonviolence and a grass-;roots demand for democracy:

The stranglehold of the orthodoxy, especially in its political and religious form, has to be loosened and slackened. The answer lies in more and more Muslim communities moving towards democracy. There is no short cut to democracy. . . . There is no place for pharaohs in the modern world.

Hasan thus joins such anti-;theocratic Muslims as Akbar Ganji of Iran in calling for a restructuring of Islamic nations through a popular demand for democratic self-;government, prominently including a commitment to the equality and empowerment of women. And he immediately adds that the move to democracy has been very much impeded by attempts on the part of the United States to impose democracy by force.

The final, and perhaps most important, lesson is that, following Gandhi, we must all rethink our understandings of strength and weakness, courage and timidity. Real strength, in an individual, is not manifested by bashing people over the head. Who does that? Only someone who feels threatened and weak. Real strength is manifested by the ability to show respect to others, to treat them as equals, and not to try to impose one’s will by force. Real strength in a community or a nation, similarly, is manifested not by a willingness to dispose of liberal values whenever violence seems easier or more fun, but by a commitment to them that does not bend when the going gets tough. That is radical. And if being radical means going “to the root” of the matter, it is the liberal, who subdues the violence and greed of the self, who is the true radical, while left and right communitarians casually allow the banal and constant desire for domination to carry the day.

In a world where so many anthems call for blood and equate manliness with abuse, here is what Jamia’s founders wrote for its students to sing as the official anthem of the university:

Here conscience alone is the beacon, . . .

It’s the Mecca of many faiths,

Travelling is the credo here, pausing a sacrilege, . . .

Cleaving against currents is the creed here,

The pleasure of arrival lies in countering crosscurrents.

This is the home of my yearnings,

This is the land of my dreams.

A radical song indeed.

Islamic liberalism under fire in India Martha C. Nussbaum

Tagged as: Delhi, Hasan, India, Jamia, Millia, Mushirul, Pakistan, terror, terrorism Continue reading

3Aug/090

US assistance needs an alternative paradigm

An oped published by The NEWS

The gods are smiling at Pakistan's development industry once again. Such a moment was experienced almost a decade ago when Pakistan's strategic location made it into a hub of post-9/11 investments to secure the world peace. However, this time the United States of America has undertaken a historic step of aiding the civilian government and addressing the structural imbalances such as poverty, unemployment and lack of opportunity that quite rightly fuel militancy and promote factories of suicide bombers. Some would think this is naive in view of the imperial occupation of Afghanistan and the rather schizophrenic and counterproductive policies of the US elsewhere in the Muslim world.

This is not an invalid position taken by the rejectionists of US assistance. But this is an equally naive postulate for it is far more important to invest in civilian governance than hi-tech arms and domestic war machine. Haven't we reaped the disastrous

Tagged as: Afghanistan, aid, assistance, development, FATA, Iraq, NWFP, ownership, Pakistan, paradigm, political, Poverty, terror, terrorism, US, USAID Continue reading

22Jun/094

Pakistan’s martial state is a self-perpetuating reality

The Taliban phenomenon was erroneously, and rather dangerously, projected as a herald of a new dawn

The Pakistani state policy of nurturing jihad factories over the decades is staring back at its architects, supporters and sponsors. Zafar Hilaly, a close aide of the late Benazir Bhutto, recently divulged in his memoirs that BB had confessed how the support to the Taliban was perhaps her most regrettable mistake. She could recognise it was more of a function of being out of the power ambit for nearly a decade. The compulsions of exercising power and playing it by the rules set by the national security obsessed state are perhaps germane to Pakistan's creation as an insecure postcolonial state that was neither prepared not committed to reverse the colonial modes of governance.

Tagged as: Afghanistan, Baba, Barelvi, Buner, Deobandi, Hangu, Islam, Islamism, Justice, military, NWFP, operation, Pakistan, Pir Baba, Rehman, Shias, sufi, Swat, Taliban, terror, terrorism, USA Continue reading

19Jun/093

Literature in the time of terror

My piece that appeared in The Friday Times (May 29-4 June, 2009 issue). I have argued that the silence of Pakistani writers on terrorism and extremism is finally breaking



	‘Fallen Indus’, a painting by the author

	‘Ignorance Is Bliss’, a miniature by Saira Wasim

Since the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and the global hysteria about 'terror' and 'terrorism', Pakistan has faced the greatest of existential challenges after its dismemberment in 1971. As a frontline ally of the US in the war on terror, Pakistani society and polity have been engulfed by growing militancy and acts of violence. Whilst there is no single definition of 'terrorism', the mainstream media and policymakers – in the service of imperial rhetoric aimed to justify and perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq – have established terrorism as the major threat to domestic and regional peace in South Asia. Acts of premeditated and organised violence in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have thus assumed a central place in discourse on regional cooperation or its converse: the rivalries between the constructed nation states and their irresponsible power-elites.

In this milieu, South Asian citizens have been the victims of violence, uncertainty and acrimony that have only led to the exacerbation of poverty, inequality, ascendancy of militarism and the war-mantra. All of this is taking place when globalization is relentlessly seeping into domestic economies, cultures and social systems. Where does this leave the writers and poets of the

Tagged as: Afghanistan, Agra, Asia, Bajaur, FOSWAL, literature, Pakistan, Pakistani, SAARC, society, South, terror, terrorism, United States Continue reading

18Jun/093

This is a long war

Published in The NEWS
By Raza Rumi

This is a critical moment in our history perhaps unmatched for its severity and its brutal reality. The experiential nightmare that our country is passing through is perhaps unparalleled for the enemy is neither foreign nor fully identifiable. At the same time, never has there been a clear backing of a military campaign against domestic agents of subversion and anarchy. Forget the doctored samples of opinion polls, often conducted by foreign agencies. That by itself should make us ashamed for our proclivity to accept what others have to analyse and determine for us. Even ignore the fringe voices of dissent led by those who neither have credibility or sagacity to comprehend the existential crisis faced by Pakistan. The army has shown vision and displayed courage in tackling a menace that alas is a home-grown cancer due to our short-sighted strategies in pursuit of phantom depths. The battle to be won is now the country itself.

The political consensus of sorts that has accompanied the military action against the Taliban is also remarkable. Notwithstanding the spin doctors posing as analyst-anchors on the idiot box, the political class has recognised that its survival is embedded in the battle against extremism that predicates itself on elimination of sane, moderate and secular politics itself. This was the Swat model – blow the polity to bits and create a vacuum for a takeover. An age-old recipe employed by the hordes from Central Asia that invaded Muslim Delhi again and again during Sultanate and Mughal periods of our common histories which refuse to be partitioned.

18May/092

Falsehoods about terrorism

I was fascinated by my dear friend Adnan's post - Falsehoods about terrorism: 'Islamic' and 'un-Islamic' terrorists [Indian Muslims and Media] - that was a breath of fresh air. In a non-ideological, dispassionate manner he critiques the media power and association of the word Muslim with terrorism. I have known Adnan since I started blogging. Even though I have never met him in real life, I know that we could have been great actual (as opposed to virtual) friends had the walls of borders, distrust and competing nationalisms not stood between us. But cyberspace has allowed us to be friends and this is remarkable by itself. Perhaps the tone of his post has to do with the essential good manners that come with the Ganga-Jamni tehzeeb (high Indo-Muslim culture) of which Adnan is a torchbearer. He is equally into politics, activism as much as he is steeped in the culture of internalising Urdu poetry and its refined nuances. See his blogs with the finest selections from Urdu poets.

Back to Adnan's excellent post. I am reproducing an excerpt here:

Believe me, had any of these attacks involved a Muslim, it would have been termed a Terrorist attack and for days, we would have been shown images of 'trained Muslim youths', their links, cell phone records, the masterminds, the names of obscure organisations with Arabic names and what not.

"...I would request you to just have a look at the frequency of attacks mentioned below:

1. 11 CISF personnel gunned down in Naxal attack on NALCO bauxite mine in Orissa (April 13) [Link courtesy The Hindu]

Tagged as: Indian, Islamic, Jihad, militancy, Muslims, political, terrorism, unIslamic Continue reading

4May/093

Amankaar Tehrik (peace movement) in Pakistan challenges the status quo

Courtesy Fouzia Saeed

DISSPELLING THE MYTHS ABOUT TALIBAN

Myth: The root cause of Terrorism is extreme poverty and lack of education
Reality: This is not true. There are many countries in the world that suffer from extreme poverty but do not have terrorist groups. Within Pakistan many areas are more poor than Swat, but have not become violent. On the other hand people who have become terrorists are not doing anything to eradicate poverty or provide education. Terrorists merely use the resentment of the marginalized and those resentful of other state actions in the initial phase of their ideological campaign. Once in control, they tax the poor, destroy school buildings and stop girls from going to schools. Most of those who have been killed due to militant attacks are women, peasants and the poor.

Tagged as: Amankar, citizens, civil, movement, Peace, rights, society, terrorism Continue reading

21Apr/094

Brewing storms

Raza Rumi laments the tragedies of our times, and says that the state cannot be absolved of its responsibility to protect citizens against terrorism (The Friday Times)

Lahore has finally been encircled by the layers and tremors of violence. If the events of March 2009 were not enough, there is now a concerted effort to create panic in the city. In the past few weeks, girls’ schools have been threatened that they would face the music for educating girls and promoting co-education. How can children and their middle-class urban parents survive these gruelling times? (pic left:Pir Baba’s shrine is now closed to visitors )

Tagged as: Afghanistan, citizens, India, Pakistan, society, state, Taliban, terror, terrorism, USA, violence Continue reading

14Apr/093

Civil society speaks

Zinda dilaan-e-Lahore say no to Talibanisation, reports Raza Rumi

Never before have we citizens been traumatised with an uncertain future and the knocks of destruction at our door as is the case in the year 2009. The celebrated twenty first century has, if nothing else, blown the contradictions of Pakistani society and state right into our faces. One hundred and eighty million people cannot be spectators to the imperial great games and a callous state that gropes in the dark trying to locate the ‘enemy’ outside, instead of looking into its own crevices and cracks.

Not that Lahore has been a haven of peace in recent years – the inequities, the crime levels have been on the rise. However, March 2009 witnessed two full-scale terror attacks in the city of gardens, shrines and a centuries-old tolerant culture. Media gurus were quick to involve India, RAW, the Americans, everyone under the sun except the enemy within. First the friends of Pakistan – the Sri Lankans and then the ill-equipped and vulnerable Police Academy at Manawan, were attacked by trained assassins who espouse a version of Islam that no sane Muslim can ever live with.The panic and fear generated by these two incidents had not ended when the brutal video of Chand Bibi getting lashed on the streets of Swat was released.

Tagged as: Bhutto, civil society, CMKP, Extremism, flogging, Labour, Lahore, Mall, militancy, militant, Pakistan, Peace, PPP, rally, RAW, resistance, Sufis, Swat, Taliban, terror, terrorism, urban, wahabi, wahabism, Wahhabi, Zinda dilaan-e-Lahore, Zulfiqar Continue reading

3Apr/092

Fighting terror

Today it is Chaand Bibi - the unfortunate victim in Swat and tomorrow it could be civilisation itself or whatever remains of it in the rest of the country.

The citizens of Lahore and the numerous groups will get together tomorrow to protest on the Mall Road. Similar rallies are being organised elsewhere most notably in Karachi by the People's Resistance group.

This is a chance for you to stand up and be counted against the forces of extremism and aggression who are hellbent on destroying our beloved city Lahore and the country. If we will not raise our voices then we are condemned to be victims of history.
Let us march on the Mall tomorrow, to counter darkness with peaceful protest with OUR STATE MUST FIGHT THE TERRORISTS

Date: Saturday, April 4, 2009
Time: 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: The High Court/GPO Chowk
Street: Mall Road
City/Town: Lahore, Pakistan

Tagged as: Lahore, Pakistan, Peace, rally, state, terror, terrorism 2 Comments

31Mar/094

Postcard from Agra

Published in The Friday Times

As Indian TV channels broadcast stories on Pakistan's domestic infighting, and rumours of a new coup d' etat, my less perturbed alter-ego is calmed by Agra - the run down city that was once the capital of the Mughal empire. I have spent three days with a delightful group of South Asian writers, poets and academics who have congregated to celebrate the SAARC writers' festival organised by Ajeet Caur, the legendary Punjabi writer whose love for Lahore has not waned despite the iron curtain erected sixty one years ago. Caur has been managing the Foundation of South Asian Writers and Literature (FOSWAL) since 1992 and single-handedly she has challenged the many geographical and political barriers that have been erected. FOSWAL is now a platform for writers and poets on the margins of power-drama, lighting little lamps of hope. (picture above left : SAARC writers with Pakistani delegates Ustad Akhtar (middle), Parveen Atif (second from left) and Zahid Nawaz (extreme right)

I had been reading Caur's earthy, profound stories for decades, and always wondered if I would ever meet her. Therefore, receiving an invite from her a month ago, was a long cherished wish come true. In a few, scattered and sparkling conversations she told me how she had found me through my writings urging for Indo-Pak amity which, in the words of my cynical friends, are dreamy rants asking for the impossible. This March, the gods overseeing visas and border crossings were not too cantankerous. So I made it to Delhi the day before the conference was due to start.

Tagged as: Agra, Ajeet, Ajmal, authors, Bangaldesh, Caur, festival, India, Kasab, Lanka, Pakistan, poem, poet, SAARC, Sri, terror, terrorism, writers Continue reading

30Mar/094

Lahore is burning

Raza Rumi

[reportedly] 27 dead and dozens injured - no respite for us.

Once again, in less than a month Lahore has been ravaged by terrorists. Who said that Pakistan was a hub of terrorism - we are now the greatest victim of terror and militancy. The residents of Lahore are scared and the vibrant city seems to be enveloped in a mist of uncertainty and fear.

The Mumbai and later Lahore 3/3 model seems to be in vogue now. Extremely well trained commandos, with sophisticated weapons and not afraid of death are let loose on the society. The media is hysterical as well and following the Indian media's cue[s] is now a participant and embedded in the so-called operation.

Tagged as: academy, city, Lahore, Manawan, militancy, militant, NATO, operation, Pakistan, police, terror, terrorism, traning, violence, War Continue reading

4Mar/096

Sad times in Lahore

Raza Rumi

What a sad day it was - a city that usually glows with spring colours and crisp air was a death-zone. Everyone was afraid and depressed after the morning killings. The wound is far deeper than it appears. It has to do with how our country is moving towards anarchy and mayhem. And, we all continue to be bystanders at best screaming spectators. There were brave policemen today which was a silver lining. These men of courage offered their lives to protect the guests from Sri Lanka. Cricket fans were devastated for what will happen to the favourite sport? Who will come to Pakistan.

But more importantly, this is not what Lahoris and Pakistanis deserve. The great games outside and inside have made us hostage to grand,vested interests. About time, we spoke about it and registered that we count.

Apologies to the people of Sri Lanka. We tried to protect your team but failed. Hope you will understand that we are now unable to protect ourselves.

Photocredit: Mohsin Raza/Reuters - funeral of the policemen who were killed by the terrorists.

Tagged as: Cricket, Lahore, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, terror, terrorism 6 Comments

27Dec/086

Remembering Benazir Bhutto

Raza Rumi retraces the bittersweet legacy of Benazir Bhutto (published in the Friday Times)

It was only yesterday that we were mourning for the loss of an icon of our times. The much loved, and passionately hated Benazir Bhutto whose tragic murder in broad daylight was the greatest metaphor of what Pakistan has turned into: a jungle of history, ethnicity and extremism. Little wonder that Bhutto’s worst enemies cried and lamented the loss of a federal politician whose life and times were as unique as her name. The populist slogan – charon soobon ki zanjeer (the chain of the four provinces, literally) could not have been truer than the most tested of axioms. As if her death were not enough, the state response was even more brutal. Why did she participate in public rallies? On that fateful day of December 27, 2007, why did she invite death by sticking her neck out – literally and metaphorically? This was tragedy compounded by invective and betrayal. After all, had she not received a tacit understanding from the then military President, General Pervez Musharraf?

The official machinery then went to work in a super-efficient frenzy. Within hours, the murder scene had been washed away, right opposite the Liaqat Bagh in Rawalpindi where Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was also shot dead. If anything history repeated itself with a bang – only to restate that Pakistani Prime Ministers are dispensable accessories of the power game. The misogynistic thirst for blood-letting once quenched, patriarchy dictated that the autopsy of a woman became an issue of honour, confusion and violation of the law. How telling, that the laws of the land remain subservient to the imperatives of culture and tradition.

Within a day, Pakistan shook and the world also felt the tremors from an already stinking cesspool of violence, terror and global mischief. Many Pakistanis think these labels are of imperialist manufacture, reeking of hogwash. But the case has been made: Pakistan is a rogue and failing state and no one is safe.

Tagged as: Ali Bhutto, autopsy, Bagh, Benazir, Bhutto, ethnic, Extremism, federal, Garhi Khuda Bux, General Pervez Musharraf, Liaqat, murder, Pakistan, Pakistanis, Sindh, Suskind, terrorism, US, Zulfiqar Continue reading

14Dec/0810

9 Is Not 11

I am completely under the spell of this fabulous piece of writing, brutally honest and eminently sensible.

essay: terror in mumbai

9 Is Not 11

(And November isn't September)

ARUNDHATI ROY

We 've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching "India's 9/11". And like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we're expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it's all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that if it didn't act fast to arrest the 'Bad Guys' he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on 'terrorist camps' in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's 9/11.

But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

Tagged as: 9/11, Afghanistan, Arundhati Roy, Hafiz, India, Lashkar, Mumbai, Pakistan, Roy, Saeed, Taiba, terrorism, USA, War, X Arundhati Roy X India X Mumbai X Roy X terrorism X Pa Continue reading

8Dec/081

Islamabad: “This too shall pass”

Raza Rumi
bemoans Islamabad's fall from grace



	Many of the new roads in Islamabad have nothing to offer to those who do not own cars


	The view outside the Diplomatic Enclave


	Contitution Avenue, Islamabad


	The Serena Hotel, an architectural gem, is no longer accessible to the public


	Today, sleepy Islamabad, with its clear skies and majestic hills, has turned into a classic capital under siege. It is not just under siege from Islamists; internal forces are also set to eat it up in pursuance of a suicidal streak that runs along the faultlines of Margalla-land



	Chiding me for returning to Pakistan when its end is nigh, this corporate type endlessly complained about what a s**t hole Pakistan had become. Predictions of decay and disintegration flowed out as his clean, nimble fingers played with a BlackBerry

Not long ago, Delhi and Lahore were vulnerable to hordes of foreign invaders. The Mongol fear was overwhelming and indeed Delhi, the capital of the Caliphate for nearly eight centuries, was time and again ravaged by Central Asian fortune hunters. The builders and beneficiaries of idyllic Islamabad may have forgotten the shrill lesson of history: once the central throne was weak and maladministration at its peak, invasions and insurgencies were almost a natural consequence.

Today, sleepy Islamabad with its clear skies and majestic hills has turned into a classic capital under siege. It is not just under siege from the Islamists; the internal forces are also set to eat it up in pursuance of a suicidal streak that runs along the fault-lines of the Margalla-land.

After a long time away, a day in the capital was a trip into a fear-zone. Although it was admittedly for work reasons, the experience was nevertheless insightful and a little melancholic, especially when one has lived in Isloo during peaceful times. It is not pleasant to see a loveable city turn into a ghetto of barricades, echoing of trepidation; and incessantly wobble on the slippery foundations of civilian power-sharing arrangements. Since the suicide bombing at the Chief Justice's reception last summer, the slide of the city's law and order into chaos has been remarkably swift and unrelenting. The Lal Masjid saga, its location, proximity to the invisible force of the power market and bungled operations were clearly reflective of the seething unrest within the polity.

My parents were locked inside the house and recounted those few days with curfews, blackouts, nightly explosions and panic in the air. This had never happened before and a new history akin to the mainland was being scripted for the capital. The rest is history as they say – from the targeting of foreign missions, restaurants, hotels and not to mention the excesses against the sitting Chief Justice and later the lawyers and the media personnel.

This has surely made the proverbially oxymoronic Constitution Avenue a no-go area. On the crisp Thursday morning when I arrived in the city to attend a meeting in the besieged diplomatic enclave, the multiplicity of barricades was astounding. The Serena Hotel, an architectural gem, is no longer accessible to the public; in fact, normal traffic cannot pass on the road that leads to Constitution Avenue. The diplomatic enclave, now proposed to be a gated hamlet within the capital, is also nearly impossible to enter unless you have passes, stickers on vehicles and various identifications ready for inspection.

I wonder what the inhabitants of the diplomatic enclave feel. Apparently, nervousness is rampant despite the sense of adventure that many an international staff share as a life trait. Once inside, life within the compounds replicates "home" with ex-pat clubs, festivals and international nights, or so I am told. My friend, LA, from Canada, is undaunted as she continues to attend parties and even sneak into local markets with Pakistani friends and acquaintances. Not all ex-pats are so lucky: most have sent their families back to the countries of their residence and are barred from going to local markets and restaurants. Essentially, they are limited to the securer circles of work and living.

The obvious question that evades the attention of foreign missions is how much are they, if at all, responsible for all that is happening to Pakistan, particularly Islamabad. If the NATO allies are unable to control Afghanistan despite the massive amounts spent on the war machine, then there is something wrong somewhere. And, if billions in relief, emergency and development aid have been unable to alleviate the miseries faced by Afghan people, then the aid architecture should be revisited or perhaps scrapped to avoid senseless technical assistance on sophisticated government machinery in a country where millions are maimed, hungry and shelter-less.

Tagged as: Capital, India, islamabad, Lal masjid, marriott, Pakistan, secretariat, siege, terrorism Continue reading

5Dec/083

Policy shifts not war

Raza Rumi

The dastardly attacks in Mumbai have irritated the old wounds and replayed the familiar, jingoistic tunes across the Indo-Pak borders. The Pakistanis, clamouring for friendship with their larger and problematic neighbour, have condemned these attacks in no uncertain terms. Who could be a worse victim of terrorism than Pakistan in these extraordinary times? Yet, the Indian media and sections of its establishment are quick to involve ‘Pakistan’ as the key perpetrator of the terror regime. This has obviously angered some and allowed a few Cold-War practitioners to call for self-defence and fighting with India till the last. The truth is that much of Pakistan does not want war. Hopefully, the Indian citizens are also not looking at war as a solution, or so it seems.

It is almost a cliché to state that war is not a solution to the current imbroglio despite the hysterical calls by the Hindu right to ‘neutralise’ Pakistan. The saner elements in India have already pointed to the implicit and deep-seated issues of misgovernance, short-termism and the mess of Partition that were neither carefully deliberated nor rectified during all these decades. The non-state actors in both India and Pakistan have gained ascendancy due to the power distance of the Raj induced steel-frame structures of governance. If there are dozens of districts in India that operate beyond the writ of the formal state, there are areas in Pakistan that are not just outside the scope of the formal state but in a state of rebellion due to the war on terror.

Tagged as: Asia, Azad, India, Indpendence, Mumbai, Pakistan, Partition, South, state, terror, terrorism, violence, War Continue reading

21Nov/0819

The native returns

Unaffected by the prophets of doom, a Lahori decides the city is the place to be

Twenty years ago, I left Lahore. Excited by prospects of quality higher education and the adolescent yearning for freedom, this was a moment that only with age I have understood. A flash that alters the life-path even when one is not aware of it. As I grew up and visited Lahore from a multitude of cities and continents, Lahore's provincialism and inward-looking ethos irked me. However, the splendour of its lived history and multi-layered present fascinated me endlessly. A false sense of fatalism whispered that my exile was going to cover a life-span.

The last few years were spent abroad: so dejected I was that not living in Lahore would mean living just anywhere. When I decided this summer to return to Pakistan, I was astounded by the reactions from all and sundry. I was told that I am 'mad' to have chosen to return to a burning, imploding and crashing Pakistan. Such is the power of global corporate media that even the discerning and schooled Pakistanis have started to believe in the failed state mantra scripted outside Pakistan.

My own parents, temporary residents of Islamabad, scared by the blasts advised me against it. Others from the more indulgent school of thought were aghast with my decision to return to a country where power outages, crumbling urban infrastructure and pollution define urban living. Of all the nightmares cited was that who knows if the country would survive? Such cynicism and unmasked pessimism about Pakistan is always disturbing, yet familiar. My question is when was the country not about to unravel since 1947?

Such has been the level of insecurity propagated by the state and of late its international partners or the ubiquitously infamous band of its 'friends'? After all, if this was such a grave situation then I might as well be with the loved and the familiar instead of living a life of an unrequited exile?

Tagged as: breakdowns, exile, islamabad, Lahore, Pakistan, power, return, terrorism Continue reading

8Oct/087

Lahore blasts fail to terrorise Lahoris

Posted by Raza Rumi

Having lived two days in Lahore as a 'resident', the three low intensity blasts are a rude reminder that there is a war all over the country..It does not matter whose war it is; what matters is that it is real and not a fantasy and that it continues to harm ordinary, unarmed citizens who perhaps have no hand in formulating policies in Pakistan.

The fodder of terrorism - home grown and external - are innocent victims, children and more often than not, the poor..

What can be done, is the issue. And, the answers to this ostensibly simple question are in short supply.

Tagged as: blasts, bombs, garhi shahui, Law, order, terror, terrorism, violence Continue reading

23Sep/081

Delhi and Islamabad blasts: Deadly tale of two cities

A reader directed me to this lovely post.

13/09/08: A series of bomb blasts ripped through the crowded market places of Delhi claiming a number of lives and shattering the lives of many survivors.

20/09/08: A powerful bomb blasts takes place outside Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani city of Islamabad. From initial news coming out explosive laden dumper truck has wreaked this havoc. Some 40 people have already been declared dead.

If it were not for the difference in the Hindi and Urdu ticker running at the bottom of the television screen one could have mistaken scenes of one city’s mayhem for the others. Before Delhi it was Ahemdabad in India and Peshawar/Karachi in Pakistan.

Tagged as: blasts, deadly, Delhi, India, islamabad, Pakistan, SouthAsia, terrorism Continue reading

20Sep/0814

Islamabad is burning – down with terrorism

What jihad, what Islam and what kind of Muslims these butchers are - they kill innocent people, the underclass outside a posh hotel in Islamabad and think that they are serving some cause. And, this is the month of Ramzan when the Satan is apparently locked up....

The numbers of dead and injured are mounting - there is blood everywhere and a commentator has termed it Pakistan's 9/11.

About time Pakistani government weeds them out and saves us all from this menace.

Horrific. Barbarity at its worst.

www.chinaview.cn

ISLAMABAD, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- A blast occurred outside Marriott hotel in the center of Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Saturday evening, leaving at least 30 dead and scores of people injured, said the Pakistani Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik.

Tagged as: blast, islamabad, Pakistan, suicide, Taliban, terror, terrorism Continue reading

21Apr/085

Pakistan Suicide Bombings: The narratives of terror

An overwhelming majority of Pakistan's population finds itself hostage to narratives of terror that are either alien to its ethos or are constructed by its home-grown theologians and opinion-makers. This is not to say that the issue of suicide bombings is easy to define and understand. They are essentially complex and located in decades of Pakistan's evolution into a society that is difficult yet again to label: Islamic in name, struggling to be democratic and a republic it is not, well, not yet.

If we take the viewpoint of liberals, it is our war as much as a war of others. If we were to hear the west, it is about countering terror and preserving world peace; and if we listen to Pakistan's right it is someone else's battle fought on our land 'the land of the pure' lest we forget.

Where does this leave the confused, battered citizen who now has to strive for personal security among other daily struggles of existence? There are no clear answers and if one were to probe further, the questions are as murky as their geneses.

One thing is clear though: to identify the recurrent suicide bombings in the name of theological, tribal and imperial grievances is at best a half-truth. The genie is far more complex than a response to the reductionist narrative of âwar against terror and such other imperial phraseology. At the core of this phenomena, if one were to be rather blunt, lies an exclusive, bigoted ideology of a few men of holy intentions orchestrating a script written by others.

Tagged as: bombing, FATA, haram, Islam, Islamism, Muslim, narrative, Pakistan, suicide, terror, terrorism Continue reading

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