by Harihar Swarup

A victim of Nawaz Sharif’s wrath
“GIVE the dog a bad name and kill it”. So goes the popular saying in the English language. Both in Pakistan and India if you want to defame someone call him “an Indian agent” or, conversely, “Pakistani agent”. If you want to dub someone as anti-national in Pakistan call him “a RAW agent” if you happen to be in India call him “an ISI agent”. The two most dreadful words have been repeated umpteen times in the legislatures of both India and Pakistan. Nobody has seen how a RAW or an ISI agent looks.

By M.L. Kotru

Derailing the Lahore spirit
IS the spirit of Lahore declaration evaporating? The potents seem to be all too ominous. It’s not just the resumption of shelling of Kargil by the Pakistan army which it had ceased to do around the time Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif met in Lahore.

75 Years Ago

The Sikh Movement
There are two observations in the statement made by Sardar Mangal Singh, President of the Central Sikh League, to the Akali Sahayak Bureau which are of particular interest, as going far to remove two very serious misapprehensions that seem still to exist in some minds regarding their present activities.

by Harihar Swarup
A victim of Nawaz Sharif’s wrath

“GIVE the dog a bad name and kill it”. So goes the popular saying in the English language. Both in Pakistan and India if you want to defame someone call him “an Indian agent” or, conversely, “Pakistani agent”. If you want to dub someone as anti-national in Pakistan call him “a RAW agent” if you happen to be in India call him “an ISI agent”. The two most dreadful words have been repeated umpteen times in the legislatures of both India and Pakistan. Nobody has seen how a RAW agent, operating in Pakistan, looks like or an ISI James Bond, seducing Indian girls in Delhi and Bombay.

Almost in keeping with the same psyche, Najam Sethi, the Chief Editor of The Friday Times, a weekly tabloid published from Lahore, was arrested after being labelled as “the RAW agent” and accused of “endangering the security of Pakistan”. His detention climaxed large-scale crackdown on journalists in Pakistan and evoked sharp reaction in the UK and the USA. The State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, conveyed Clinton administration’s concern to Islamabad saying “physical mistreatment and arrest of Sethi and several other journalists without charge are certain to raise certain serious doubts within the international community about commitment of the Nawaz Sharif government to the freedom of Press and the rule of law.”

The most significant protest has, perhaps, come from America’s noted South Asia security analyst, George Tanham. He says: “Najam Sethi is a patriotic Pakistani, and a fine human being. He is trying to improve his country and practice a free press, which is essential to democracy. It is not in Pakistan’s interest for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to imprison him or to close down the free press”.

According to those who know Sethi intimately, he is a bold and committed journalist, uncompromising on what he believes to be a right cause and steadfastly stands for liberal approach in Indo-Pak relations. “He is a lively, jovial person, full with fire of life having a ready stock of jokes”, says Kuldip Nayyar, noted journalist and member of the Rajya Sabha, who has known Sethi for the past 25 years.

Sethi began his career as book seller, owning a small shop, known as “Vanguard” in Lahore. Nayyar, who was inquiring into piracy of his popular book “In between the lines” met Sethi for the first time to seek his help and both became life-time friends. Since then Sethi’s business thrived. He moved to a bigger shop and started “The Friday Times”.

Sethi’s wife Jugnoo is also an accomplished journalist and known to be one of the prettiest women in Pakistan. The husband and wife team make a deadly professional combine and the expose of the establishment in “The Friday Times” has thrown the Nawaz Sharif government in a tizzy. The paper has picked up wide circulation in Pakistan because it broke many behind-the-scenes and never hesitated in making bold comments. Now in early fifties Sethi also contributes to several Indian papers.

From all available account, Sethi is a staunch Pakistani and his loyalty to his country remains beyond question. But, at the same time, he is a die-hard critic of the Nawaz Sharif Government. True journalists, whether in India or Pakistan or for that matter in any country having freedom of the Press, are pathologically anti-establishment.

Sethi’s trouble started following his brutally frank exposure of the current ailment of Pakistan’s polity — judiciary, economy, political goings on and the social evils — at the Kewal Singh Memorial lecture organised by the Indo-Pak Friendship Society. As Chairman of the Society, former Prime Minister, I.K. Gujral, presided over the lecture and the speaker was the “eminent journalist” of Pakistan, Najam Sethi. Delhi’s prestigious India International Centre was the venue.

Some of Sethi’s observations were so correct, so to the point that they are worth reproducing. For instance he is absolutely right when he says “India remains a determining factor in Pakistan and my country’s obsession with India hurts Pakistan deeply”. The harsh reality that Pakistan’s Constitution has been flouted time without number has to be accepted. In Sethi’s words: “The constitution has been mangled by democrats and dictators alike. Even courts have acted as handmaid of the ruling establishment and the best of our judges are held in contempt” and so far as democracy is concerned “we have ritual and not essence”. Also “we do not know who is supreme, Constitution or Koran”.

His assessment of the crisis in Pakistan’s dogmatic society also reflects realism. “The crisis in society is reflected in the low turn-out in elections, deteriorating law and order, increasing sectarianism and regionalism, mass criminalisation and alienation of the people, rising graph of mental disorders and rape.......”, he says. Many of the same maladies afflict the Indian society too.

Had Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Delhi, Mr Asraf Jehangir Qazi, not been present among the audience, the outburst of Sethi might have been only taken note by the ISI or authorities in Islamabad. The occasion, in fact, turned out to be a war of words between an eminent journalist from Pakistan and head of Islamabad’s diplomatic mission. In a report to his government, which he was duty bound to send, Qazi observed: “My own view is that Najam Sethi’s attempt to pose as a heroic liberal fighting against corruption and tyranny by portraying his country as an irrational, contradictory, corrupt, unstable and dangerous entity — and that too in India of all places — is an act of contempt against Pakistan amounting to the most contemptible treachery”.

Sethi’s crime was that he talked of multifarious problems of Pakistan on Indian soil and, to his bad luck, in the presence of Pakistan’s envoy. His Delhi lecture only added more fuel to the Nawaz Sharif Government’s piling wrath against him. The fact is that Sethi has been on the hit-list of the ISI for quite sometime. According to his wife, her husband had started getting threats following his interview to a BBC team, which was shooting a documentary on Government corruption and alleged involvement of Nawaz Sharif’s family members in the graft. Many senior journalists, who were either interviewed by the BBC or connected with the film, have been harassed or detained.

One does not know what is in store for Sethi. The court in Pakistan at the time of writing this profile has refused to quash the arrest of Sethi. It has, instead affirmed the ISI’s drive to arrest “persons” involved in anti-state activities.

Derailing the Lahore spirit
By M.L. Kotru

IS the spirit of Lahore declaration evaporating? The potents seem to be all too ominous. It’s not just the resumption of shelling of Kargil by the Pakistan army which it had ceased to do around the time Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif met in Lahore. It’s not even the stepped up infiltration of mercenaries into the Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in what is called the Jammu region of the State, and where the objective appears to be clear: to change the demographic balance of the districts closer to the winter capital of the State. It’s not the sickening appointment of the dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist and the Jamat Tabligh leader retired General Javed Nasir as, of all things, the head of the Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee of Pakistan. Mind you, some of the holiest Sikh gurdwaras, including Panja Sahib, are in Pakistan. And General Nasir, a former Director-General of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency has already served notice of what he plans to do. He took the first opportunity to revive his links with some of the London-based, separatist Sikhs, some of them rich and notorious supporters of the “Khalistan” movement. What’s more, take a look at General Nasir’s background, his known links with the Islamic fundamentalist rebels in Afghanistan, his known involvement with the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and, above all, his widely acknowledged proximity to the Islamic Extremists in Pakistan. No wonder the fundamentalists in Pakistan were among the first to hail Nasir’s appointment as the PGPC chief.

The note of the utter disdain with which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government ignored the protests over the appointment of General Nasir as the PGPC chief by leaders of the Sikh community in India. Contrast this with the warmth with which Sharif and his younger brother and Chief Minister of Pakistani Punjab, had greeted the Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal when he accompanied Vajpayee on his trail-blazing bus ride to Lahore. In a gesture so typical of the feudal Pakistani Punjabis and also to certain tribes of NWFP, Badal’s Pakistani counterpart even made a rare gift of sheep (Dumbas) to him. The very same Pakistani hosts of Badal now cared not two hoots for his protests and those made by other Sikh leaders over the choice of the former ISI chief as the head of the PGPC. Apparently it did not occur to Pakistan that such a religious body, if anything should be headed by a Sikh. With General Nasir’s antecedents the day may not be far when he invites separatist Sikhs, known for their “Khalistan” views, from the UK, the USA and Canada to come over and rekindle the militancy in Indian Punjab. The gurdwaras in Pakistan would be ideal sanctuaries for such disgruntled elements and the rest they could well leave to General Nasir’s destructive genius.

General Nasir, was dismissed as the ISI Director-General by Benazir Bhutto, after he became a major source of embarrassment for her. He had later accused Benazir of having bailed out India as a time when the “Khalistan” movement was at its peak. There is another aspect to the Nasir appointment, one not easily discernible on the surface. As a leading light of fundamentalism in Pakistan he might even be seen by Sharif as counterpoise to the ISI. You will presently see how that becomes a valid possibility.

More worrisome than the Nasir appointment is the growing dissent faced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif domestically. Even a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly appears to be inadequate when it comes to his seemingly loosening grip over the country. The economy continues to be in tatters, centrally ruled Sind, Karachi in particular, continues to be on a boil, political rumblings can be heard loud and clear in Balochistan and NWFP and the simmering discontent in his own Pakistan Muslim League threatens to surface any time. The threat from within the party, is not as grave to cause immediate concern. It’s to keep this discontent within bounds that he needs the street-smart fundamentalism rabblerousers of whom Nasir is one. His nervousness, though becomes very clear in a different context albeit potentially damaging, when one considers his reaction to the presence in the country of a BBC TV crew investigating the Sharif family’s corrupt dealings over the years. He had at least four of the country’s leading journalists arrested for having allowed themselves to be interviewed by the team.

Another reputed journalist who was a Federal Minister in one of the interim governments of the country, Najam Sethi, was packed up from his house at the dead of night and taken to an unknown destination for the twin crimes of talking to the BBC and of having told a restricted meeting (the Pakistan High Commissioner was present) at New Delhi’s India International Centre that the Pakistan State was in the doldrums.

The fact is that the allegations against the Sharif family are indeed of a very, very serious nature. The family business, Ittefaq group, has not repaid ten-figure loans drawn from Pakistani banks, it own large properties outside the country including London and Nawaz Sharif’s various tenures as Prime Minister have seen the group surging ahead way beyond its known capacity. For a country that is yet to come to terms with the conviction of Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari on charges of corruption, the experience must be very unnerving for Nawaz Sharif. He is under ferocious attack for having double standards, one for his political enemies, the other for himself and his cronies. His handpicked accountability Czar, a known Sharif crony and a Muslim League Senator, has been accused of being biased against Benazir and in favour of Sharif. If Benazir is accountable why isn’t the same yardstick applied to Sharif, it is openly asked. Add to it the family feuds within the Sharif family that have surfaced recently with the Prime Minister’s cousins accusing him of trying to shortchange them. His father and brother, the Punjab Chief Minister, it is alleged have been less than fair to the Prime Minister’s cousins while dividing the family assets. The irony of it is — and it must hurt the Pakistani people a lot — that Nawaz Sharif on his return as Prime Minister this time over did project himself as Mr Honest, a knight in shining armour out to slay the demons of corruption. In the event it is said that the only demon the Prime Minister had foreseen was Benazir and her husband.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that Nawaz Sharif should find it very attractive to take cover under a cloak of Islamic idealism and in the bargain give the fundamentalists a freer rein than he would ordinarily give. The recent murder of a young woman, who had refused to marry a man of her father’s choice, in the chamber of her lawyer by her father’s gunmen, saw Sharif turning a blind eye and agreeing with those who argued that it was an act of honour. The fundamentalist even tried to have the woman lawyer’s licence to practice revoked. Luckily for her, she was the sister of the high profile woman human rights activist, Usma Jehangir, herself an eminent lawyer.

Against this backdrop, it should not come as a surprise if Nawaz Sharif should tempted to allow the extremists to assert themselves a little more than they have in recent weeks. It suits the fundamentalists to whom extremism comes naturally, it keeps the other religious groups also happy for Sharif hasn’t given the ultimate lollipop, imposition of the Sharia law to the Islamists. General Nasir’s appointment as the chief of Pakistan Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee also needs to be seen in this context. But, even as I say this, I do hope that reason will prevail and that domestic compulsions will not persuade Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to derail the Lahore declaration.

At the beginning reference has been made to efforts to change the demographic balance in various regions of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Specific mention in this context to the neighbouring districts of the winter capital of the State Jammu. This, indeed, seems to be happening on the ground. The squeezing out of Kashmir Pandits from the valley is reality with which we are living but lately the Hindus from the higher hilly ranges in Doda, Rajouri, Poonch etc, have been put under great pressure by Pakistani militants to leave their homes and hearths. They have succeeded to a large extent with neither the Central or State Government able to do much about it, apart from promising them security. Unfortunately, the State Government, too, appears to be falling into the trap with its ill-conceived plan to create new districts. And if you don’t know what that means, spare a thought for what Mr Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistan Foreign Minister says. He told an Indian delegation headed by the West Bengal Assembly Speaker.

Mr Hashim Abdul Halim said that “we should have a districtwise referendum in Jammu and Kashmir to resolve the 52-year-old dispute”. At their meeting with Mr Nawaz Sharif they, of course, heard the familiar refrain that the Kashmir issue was part of an unsettled account of partition”. But Aziz had other ideas as well like having autonomous regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh which would be jointly financed by India and Pakistan. He chose not to go beyond that but this is what Halim had to say of his talks with Aziz. The American hand is very much involved in this process of letting ideas float around. If there is one prize the Americans are seeking in the region, it is the Kashmir valley. They have been eyeing it ever since Indian independence. The tragic part of it is that the State Government too, seems to have taken the bait and we might soon hear from it about the State being divided into autonomous regions.
— Asia Defence News International

75 YEARS AGO
Notes and Comments
The Sikh Movement

There are two observations in the statement made by Sardar Mangal Singh, President of the Central Sikh League, to the Akali Sahayak Bureau which, though they contain nothing new to those who have closely and with sympathy watched the brave struggle in which the Sikhs are engaged, are of particular interest, as going far to remove two very serious misapprehensions that seem still to exist in some minds regarding their present activities.

One is the belief that the ultimate object of the Sikhs is to establish Sikh Raj in the Punjab and the other is the belief that the object of the Jaito struggle is to secure the restoration of the Maharaja of Nabha to his gaddi.

Both allegations are contradicted by Sardar Mangal Singh in the most categorical manner and with the utmost emphasis. As regards the first, he says :— “I declare it emphatically that the idea of establishing Sikh Raj has never been entertained by any Sikh.

The SGPC stands only for the purification of the places of worship. As for the national aims of the Sikhs, they are directed towards the attainment of Swarajya in common with their sister communities.”