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| Sunday, April 23, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
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Pakistan’s
changing scenario
by Harihar
Swarup THE most remarkable aspect of Jhumpa Lahiri’s personality is her adherence to Indian heritage even though she has lived 30 of 33 years of her life abroad. The London-born Jhumpa grew up in Rhode Island, got her education in Boston University and now lives in New York but she never bade goodbye to the culture and tradition of a society which is considered dogmatic in the West and India is seen as a dirty and poverty-laden country. |
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MPs
fix one another
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Pakistan’s changing scenario The year 2000, the first year of the century, may well unfold a new chapter in Pakistan's history quite distinct from the previous 53 years. The turning point has in fact come, but because of our proximity to the ongoing events, it is perhaps difficult to comprehend the gushing changes that are in store. There is a multiplicity of factors which is determining Pakistan's altered picture. But by far the biggest is the about turn in the United States stance, dictated by its basic interests and strategy, in relation to Pakistan and the South Asian region. It is history's gimmick at play. The very same superpower that encouraged, supported and sustained Pakistan in a negative course at the dawn of its nationhood has now turned its face away from a beleaguered, ramshackle nation. That is the meaning of the Clinton visit to Pakistan following the trip to India. This is how Majma Sethi, the perceptive Editor of The Friday Times of Lahore, sums it up: "President Clinton spent five days in India gushing about its virtues and lauding its leaders' role beyond South Asia. He spent five hours in Pakistan warning it not to risk international isolation and become a ‘failed state’.... The gist of Clinton's message was loud and clear: restore democracy, disavow terrorism, respect the LoC, sign the CTBT, unconditional dialogue with India, focus on the economy, shun the arms race. Do these things, and Washington would be your friend. Don't do them and face them and face isolation. Blunt talking." The present US stance is in tune with today's world realities. In the fifties, when India and Pakistan emerged as free nations it was a different world. The cold war divided nations into power blocks. And while India, under the guidance of Gandhi and Nehru chose to stay away from the rival power blocks, Pakistan with hostility towards India as the focal point of its polity accepted being a surrogate of the USA. It suited the West to encourage hostility between the two South Asian neighbours but the fall-out for Pakistan was disastrous. It perpetuated primacy of the military over Pakistan's emerging edifice, military dictatorships over its nascent democracy, and a staggered economic growth, loaded with a mounting debt burden of unproductive military expenditure far out of proportion to Pakistan's economic worth. Spiralling debt burden and military expenditure lead to the Shia-Sunni civil war and ethnic and socio-political tensions, whose climax was the break up of the two wings of Pakistan resulting in the creation of Bangladesh. True, India also suffered; the Kashmir imbroglio inflicted immense damage on the people of the region and the Indian psyche. But its secular fabric nurtured by the martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi, and the healthy Nehruvian economic foundations, now projecting advanced science and technology of the 21st century as its driving force, to a considerable extent (though not fully) overcame these negative effects of the Indo-Pakistan cleavage. Pakistan's arms race with India on the other hand has overpowered its body politic and driven it towards economic emasculation. In five decades of its existence, Pakistan has for the most part been under military rule, with three dictators ruling the roost. And three wars with India have been their major output, but all proving to be gross failures. Besides this, the principal activity of Pakistan's military dictatorships has been forging links abroad suited to their horizon. Saudi Arabia and some of the sultanates in West Asia were the focus of Pak rulers for special ties because it was a dual link — Islamic as well as the money clout. Pakistan also provided soldiers and military commanders to protect the Saudi rulers from hostile elements among their own populace. And so Pakistan's 'modern' military expertise was a major commodity for display and sale in a segment of the Islamic world, mostly the oil-rich sultanates of West Asia. This, however, has been a declining capability of Pakistan not worth much in the new world that is opening up. The priority area of Pakistani military dictators has been forging ties with the Pentagon in Washington, and second, with Beijing's rulers. With Turkey and Iran it has been Islamic fellowship. In the rest of the world, Pakistani rulers have concentrated on areas where the Islamic appeal counted — African Islamic states, South-East Asian States of Malaysia and Indonesia and similar patches of the globe. But under diverse polls, all these tie-ups have floundered or are in the process of floundering. Turkey is no longer a dependable ally of Pakistan. It is, rather, closer to India, seeking economic interaction. Turkey, as its Prime Minister’s recent visit to India showed, is severely critical of Pakistan exporting terrorism. So too are the leaders of Malaysia and Indonesia — and all of them have brought this home to General Musharraf during his recent tour to these countries. Prime Minister Ecevit of Turkey went a step further by refusing to include Pakistan in his itinerary during his visit to India. That was a clear snub. The India phobia of Pakistan rulers, however, has inflicted havoc on Pakistan as a nation. The worst display has been of its military dictators plotting wars with India. Ayub Khan, putting on airs of a great strategist, proved a flop in matching India's Lal Bahadur Shastri, whom Ayub slighted. Shastri, who had succeeded the great Jawaharlal Nehru and was in ill-health right from the start of his tenure as Prime Minister of India, could be outwitted militarily — so Ayub thought. But the reverse came true. Lal Bahadur Shastri's response to Ayub Khan's stratagem of cutting off Kashmir valley from the rest of India was truly amazing: it pitch-forked Indian forces close to Pakistan's very nerve centre — Lahore — thereby throwing Ayub Khan's forces helter skelter. The lesson that Ayub or his successors did not learn was that in direct hostilities with India neither Washington nor Beijing lent outright support. By far the worst performance was of Yahya Khan in the war which delivered a shattering blow to Pakistan. This military dictator was found to be watching blue films when the war front in Bangladesh was crumbling. Such was his acumen that he failed to gauge signals from Beijing and Washington about the extent of support he could evince from them in a full war with India. He continued clutching at straw till the very end. In the event, Pakistan broke up into two while the surrender in the West and the East put 90,000 Pakistani troops as prisoners with Indian forces. Bhutto was clever in rescuing Pakistan's crumbling edifice but he, too, failed to learn the lesson of history — that it was India phobia which was Pakistan's principal enemy. The Zia-ul-Haq chapter appeared to be giving the depleted Pakistan a new lease of life. Events in Afghanistan came to his rescue. He was able to forge a strong link with Washington to pursue the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, using American money and arms in abundance for replenishing his stock while also serving the American cold war objectives in this part of the world, and simultaneously unleashing the orgy of terrorism against India. First in Punjab and then in Kashmir. It was Zia who authored the proxy war theory, of bleeding India through a cheap war funded by drug traffic and illicit arms from America's arsenal. Zia was also able to lead Washington up the garden path by promising that Taliban control in Afghanistan would open the Central Asian oil wealth for exploitation by the USA with Pakistan being its junior partner. That promise which the USA pursued for quite some time turned into a sour dream, both for the USA and for Pakistan. It has become clear that Taliban hold over Afghanistan can bring nothing but destruction, chaos and obscurantism to this part of the world, rendering any creative collaboration a futile exercise. Far from yielding economic promise, it is Islamic fundamentalism that has reared its head in the form of Osama bin Laden, who places United States as Islam's worst enemy and countries such as India come only next in his “jehadi” plans. The biggest reason why the USA and the West are abandoning Pakistan as an ally, however, is its economic performance, the core sector which drives modern nations and states forward or into oblivion. It is the process of near insolvency that is the staggering factor gripping Pakistan, which none of its friends can ignore. And at the centre of this process is the military hierarchy and its operations. With over 75 to 80 per cent of the Pakistan cake being eaten up by this unproductive expenditure plus debt and interest repayments, there is nothing left in its kitty to build or create. What is worse, this process appears irreversible — unless there is a scaling down of military expenditure. Which means giving up India-bashing and restructuring India-Pakistan relations on a healthy basis. This is what the Lahore process was all about. And sculpting the Lahore process via the Kargil misadventure has been perhaps the unkindest cut inflicted by Pakistan's rulers on Pakistan and on the prospects of reconstructing India-Pakistan relations as close neighbours, with the Kashmir issue finding its due place in the new scheme of things. The point to realise is
that Pakistan has reached a dead end. The road it has
travelled for the past five decades is blocked. There are
major obstacles to changing course — the main being
the vested interest of the military hierarchy and their
frontline, the Islamic fundamentalists and the
“jehadi” warriors. It is being said that the
military junta is by no means a unified lot, and Pervez
Musharraf heads the segment which is seeing the light. If
so, he deserves to be helped rather than being shunned.
Not only at the level of state-to-state integration but
by correct Indian postures, and helping the forces of
sanity have their full say. India has a big role to play
in ensuring such a fructification. This is the moment of
history which cannot be allowed to be frittered away. |
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“Covetousness leads to lack of happiness which, in turn, leads to turmoil and sorrow.” — Acharya Chandradaya Sureshwarji Maharaj of the Murti-pujak Jain Sect. **** “The international balance of power needs a strong relationship between India and the European Union.” — French President Jacques Chirac. **** “We are in the midst of dealing with the real heart and soul of the hardest issues — and it is incumbent on both sides to come up with new ideas.” — A US official on the West Asia peace process. **** “Terrorism, particularly state-sponsored and cross-border terrorism threatens peace and stability at national, regional and international level.” —Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi at a discussion on “UN in the 21st century” at the G-77 summit. **** “No freedom can be without limits.” — Script writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar, commenting on ‘The Satanic Verses’. **** “Does Pakistan want another loss, like it lost Bangladesh?” — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee asked while addressing a public rally as part of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s 125the birth anniversary celebrations **** “An official in the Indian Army marrying a foreign woman is not entitled to higher promotions, then how can you allow a foreigner to be Prime Minister of the country.” — Ms Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister of State for Social Welfare, emphasising the need for the Constitution Review Commission to go into the issue of a foreigner becoming the Prime Minister. **** “Public faith in the bureaucracy has taken a beating over the recent years and the dented image needs a major repair job.” — Delhi Chief Secretary P.S. Bhatnagar. **** “What is imperative for the people today is to practice and promote a culture of spirituality, social and moral values like courage, compassion, justice, equality, dignity and solidarity.” — Dr L.M. Singhvi, MP. **** “The Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis is now being replaced in foreign policy priorities by a still very slight yet strengthening link between Moscow and London.” — Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russian daily. **** “I have never been able to get away. I carry a bit of India with me that nobody has ever been able to take away from me all the years I have been forced to stay away.” — Indian born winner of the Booker of Bookers Salman Rushdie. “What the enemy wants is for women to shed their veils, moral boundaries to be broken, and an end to the role of religion is our laws.” — Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. **** “Left is the bulwark of secularism. By opposing it in West Bengal, the Congress will be damaging its own image as a secular force.” — Former Prime Minister V.P. Singh. **** “Indeed, protection and promotion of the interests of labour is an integral part of our philosophy of economic reforms.” — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. **** “If no concrete efforts are made, we will do what our Thalaivar (Prabhakaran) has ordered — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” — Partheeban, LTTE cadre. **** “Subsidy bills carried over till tomorrow. So, while they get subsidy today, it is their children who have to bear the burden of the expenditure tomorrow. This is hardly conducive to healthy economy.” — BJP Chief Kushabhau Thakre. **** “All games, whether athletics, football or boxing, have gone through crises. But I don’t think that the game will lose all credibility and become like a wrestling match.” — Cricketing brain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi. **** “Taiwan independence means war.” — The Liberation Army Daily, PLA’s mouthpiece. **** “English in many ways has ended up becoming my first language, even though technically my first language is Bengali (Bangla).” — Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer prize winner for fiction. **** “Our success has resulted in our opponents adopting an unpredictable behaviour. We have also been in the Opposition for a very long time, but we have never stooped so low.” — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. **** “This (cross-voting) is perversion of democracy.” — BJP Chief Kushabhau Thakre. **** “She (Jayalalitha) has become a captive of the Sasikala family and lost her sense of judgement.” — Former Union Minister Sedapatti R. Muthiah. **** “By the decision to review the Constitution, they (BJP) are trying to finish democracy and impose a communal and fascist government on the country.” — Congress
President Sonia Gandhi. |
Profile THE most remarkable aspect of Jhumpa Lahiri’s personality is her adherence to Indian heritage even though she has lived 30 of 33 years of her life abroad. The London-born Jhumpa grew up in Rhode Island, got her education in Boston University and now lives in New York but she never bade goodbye to the culture and tradition of a society which is considered dogmatic in the West and India is seen as a dirty and poverty-laden country. Her experience during her visits to Calcutta provided her the initial inspiration to rise to the dizzy height of fame and glory. Only last week she became the first Indian writer to be honoured with the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Jhumpa depends heavily on her experience in Calcutta because it gives her a perspective of her heritage. She says: “It is the place where my parents are from, a place I visited frequently for extended time and formed relationships with people and with my relatives and felt a tie over time even though it was a sort of parenthesis in my life to be there”. She feels proud that she was able to absorb Indian culture in a natural way. Having been educated and lived in America for such a long time, Jhumpa still has a feeling that she is an outsider there.” I have observed a sense of emotional exile in my parents and in their friends that, I feel, can never go away”. Her father is a librarian and her mother a teacher. She says: “My parent never consciously sat down and told me things about India; they sort of correctly assumed that I would learn things just by the virtue of being their child. I think it has always been important to them to maintain strong social ties with Indians living abroad and visiting India”. Jhumpa vehemently disagrees with those in the West who dub India as a country of squalor and poverty. Her reply to them is: “India is vibrant, it is stimulating”. She was a lonely and only child of her parent till she was seven. “ Emotionally, it was nourishing to be the centre of attention with loving uncles and aunts devoted to my every whims. In America, we experience a malnourished version of family. In India, it was comforting to see my parents let go of the every day concerns of being foreigners. There, everything was established — so many homes that we could visit, all family. Generations were connected to them. In the USA to be connected to anything, we had to reach out”, she says in an interview to Newsweek. The Pulitzer Prize was a surprise to Jhumpa; she did not expect it. According to reports from New York, her friends were joking two days before the pleasant announcement — “the Nobel is the next”, said one while the other butted in “no, no, the Pulitzers come before that..ha, ha”. Lo and behold, what was a sheer joke, turned into reality. Jhumpa bagged the renowned award for her work, a short story, “Interpreter of Maladies”. Where and how the idea of the story and the title originated ? She, in fact, hit upon the title first and the fiction came later. When Jhumpa was a student in Boston University, she was introduced by her friend to a man who was a Russian-English translator and worked with a doctor. The medical man had many Russian patients and the job of translator was to “interpret” their ailment to him. In Jhumpa’s words “ I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was working as a translator for a doctor who had a number of Russian patients who had difficulty explaining their ailments in English. I had never heard of a job like this, but realised it was necessary in places where doctors and patients don’t have a common language”. By the time Jhumpa reached home, the phrase “interpreting” was echoing in her mind and the reverberations grew louder and louder as time rolled by. This somewhat unusual occupation set the Indian-American writer thinking about how interesting being an “Interpreter of Maladies” must be. That evocative phrase blossomed into a short story, the outline of which Jhumpa jotted down while sitting through a graduate seminar and that won her the Pulitzer. “Interpreter of Maladies” has not only been lauded in literary circles and praised by critics but it has also been sold in Germany, the UK and several other countries. She is being likened to old masters of the short story for elegance of her plots and the clarity of her prose. The young writer has been influenced by writers like Mavis Gallant, Joyce and Chekov. Apart from the literary genius that Jhumpa is, an object that motivated her was a personal computer. While working as a research assistant at a non-profit organisation, she discovered that a personal computer could be very motivating and, as she puts it: “I started writing fiction more seriously staying late and coming early to work on my stories”. Once Jhumpa obtained her Ph.D she did not know what to do next; she was not going to be a scholar or take to teaching. Luckily, she got a seven-month residency at the Fine Arts Work Centre. This gave her financial support and she could go ahead with her writing work unhindered. Jhumpa won plaudits for
three stories published in The New Yorker. She has been
selected for the O’Henry Award and “The Best
American Short Stories”. She is now afflicted by a
malady of another type; explaining her runaway success.
The young short story teller uncharacteristically lack
eloquence when she says: “I am totally freaked
out”. This emotional expression does not require any
interpretation. |
Delhi
durbar PARTICIPATING in a discussion over the issue of match-fixing, Members of Parliament did not spare even their colleagues and readily took a dig at one another. Santosh Mohan Deb was at the centre of one such exchange of words when he shouted that his comments warranted special attention. While BJP MP Kirti Azad has been the star attraction for comments on the TV channels for being the only MP with international cricket experience, Mr Santosh Mohan Deb was of the opinion that his comments were equally important as he was the best wicketkeeper in the match between the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha MPs. He said, “There were just two members who could give expert opinion on cricket-Kirti Azad and me. For, Mr Azad has been the best player among parliamentarians and I am the best wicketkeeper. This was evident in the last match between the Elders and Lok Sabha MPs.” As he wanted to say something more, some other MPs shouted, “even that match was fixed.” Cronje stumps Minister Disclosures about the former South African skipper Hansie Cronje being involved in match-fixing has had a lot of people in a spin. Initially from the men tapping the telephones of Sanjeev Chawla, to the Crime Branch official of the Delhi Police to the Commissioner of Delhi Police, Home Ministry officials, the External Affairs Ministry officials and finally the South Africans themselves, all were in a bind at some stage or the other of this sensational incident. The latest to be caught off guard on Hansie Cronje was the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Mr Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa. While making a statement in Parliament on the issue of match fixing which was raised by members cutting across party lines, Mr Dhindsa was in a spin while trying to pronounce the name of Hansie Cronje. Not many people realise that the last name Cronje is actually pronounced with ‘J’ silent and sounds as Cronea. So it was not surprising that the Sports Minister also had trouble pronouncing his name and after the initial difficulty settled down to Cronjay. Benevolent Bindra Former BCCI President and President of the Punjab Cricket Association, Mr I.S. Bindra, was in the news last week during his visit to the Capital. Known for his bold statements, virtually the entire international and domestic electronic media had lined up to interview him on the controversial match-fixing controversy. Since television channels are known to pay the interviewee, Mr Bindra put a pre-condition to all the channels. He was of the view that any payment should be made in the name of the Punjab Cricket Association, as it was due to his association with the institution that he was privy to so much of inside information. “My status is only due to my connection with the BCCI and the PCA and it is only logical that they receive the payments for my comments” was his stand. Cow slaughter The saffron lobby, which has been pressing for a complete ban on cow slaughter, is delighted as a non governmental organisation (NGO) has taken its campaign abroad, albeit for a different reason. Volunteers of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an international organisation dedicated to protecting the rights of all animals, have been visiting major retailers abroad impressing upon them not to use leather from animals killed in India. PETA members, led by Chrissie Hynde of the rock and roll group, have been showing photographs of how cruelly Indian cows and buffaloes are treated on their way to becoming jackets and handbags. According to PETA, demand for cheap leather in the West has spawned a grotesquely cruel underground industry in India. Because it is illegal to slaughter cows and young cattle in most Indian States, corrupt skin traders use bribes to smuggle the animals at night across state borders. Cows and calves, which collapse while being smuggled have chilli peppers and tobacco rubbed into their eyes and their tails broken in an effort to keep them moving. The Indian leather trade has become the target of animal activists around the world who agree with Mahatma Gandhi’s belief that the “greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”. Milk or blood? Animal activist and Union Minister, Ms Maneka Gandhi, seems to have a penchant for controversies. She was in the news once again when a section of the press reported her as having said in Ahmedabad that cow’s milk is the blood of the cow. The Sangh parivar naturally did not take kindly to this campaign as they revere the cow as a holy animal. Realising the adverse reaction to her remarks, the Minister made it a point, though belatedly, to clarify her remarks. Blaming the press for misreporting her, the Minister said the fourth estate had turned an entire scientific discourse of hers about the misuse of cow into a misleading headline. “I actually said that, due to milk having been turned into a business, the cow’s milk is no longer fed to its calf but sold to humans.” Since the calves are sent for illegal slaughter, anyone who drinks the milk should realise that he or she has the blood of the calf on their hands. Monkeys in Delhi High Court Litigants visiting the Delhi High Court have recently been waylaid by monkeys on staircases and corridors leading to the lawyers chambers. Lawyers apprehend they might snatch their belongings and run away with their indispensable files as a monkey did a couple of years back. A senior counsel recounts how a monkey entered a chamber, ate up a lawyer’s food from his tiffin and even tore apart his books. For once, it is the lawyers who are awaiting speedy justice for the public menace posed by the monkeys. Latecomers Reporting late for an event is not uncommon in the Capital. But when a leading dignitary avoids punctuality, it becomes news. Recently German Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook were in the Capital and both of them addressed separate press conferences. There was one thing common in the two media events. Both dignitaries reported late for the conference. Since the Germans and British are known for their norms of punctuality, their late arrival disappointed the reporters. A scribe summed up the trend by commenting that in India even the Brits and Germans go the Indian way and adopt to Indian standard time. (Contributed by
Satish Misra, T.V. Lakshminarayan, Girja Shankar Kaura,
Tripti Nath and P.N. Andley) |
THE New Baroda Press Act, which came into force only recently, is liberal in several respects. The necessity for getting permission to keep a press or start a newspaper has been done away with. But it contains a drastic provision, which vests in the Executive arbitrary power to close a press for a period not exceeding one year by ‘Huzur order”. Those who have ample experience of the working of the Press Act in British India during Noncooperation days, realise how dangerous it is to place such power in the hands of the Executive. The fact that the suspension order will remain in force for only one year does not make it less obnoxious because there is nothing to prevent the Executive from reissuing the order. The manner in which the said provision has been incorporated is also strange. It is stated by Nava Gujarat that the provision was inserted after the Bill had been passed by the Dhara Sabha (Legislative Council) and evidently it has no legislative sanction behind it. The Baroda State will,
indeed, be taking a statesmanlike course if it submits
that provision to the Legislature for sanction and modify
it according to the wishes of the people. |
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