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| Saturday,
March 10, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Labour reforms are here Hawk's peace
overtures
Five minutes that shook India |
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“Holi Milan” that wasn’t
Tavleen Singh
“Macbeth hath murdered sleep”
Rising tide of
Talibanisation
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Labour reforms are here BARELY a week after the budget, there are whimpers of dissatisfaction wiping out the initial euphoria. Now many realise that the devil lies in the tail as they pore over the fine print. Manufacturers and workers of readymade garments are on an indefinite strike protesting against the new 16 per cent excise duty. Balco employees are on a strike to denounce privatisation and the Chief Minister of the newly created Chhattisgarh is openly encouraging the work stoppage. Central trade unions have deferred their direct action plan for the time being, waiting for the opposition political parties to create a proper atmosphere by raising the issue first in Parliament. What worries the trade unions is a statement by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha that the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 will be amended to free employers from a crippling restriction. At present any industrial unit wanting to close down, or retrench or even layoff workers has to get the proposal cleared by the state government if it has more than 100 workers on the roll. The threshold is being raised to 1000 and one newspaper has reported that all but a few very big factories will be free to sack workers at will. But there is a sweetener in the proposal for the workers. They will get an additional retrenchment compensation of 45 days wages for every completed year of service. But for young workers this is no source of comfort and senior workers will get 45 days wages for every remaining year of employment. Those in their middle age will get an amount that is lower – of the years in service or years of working still remaining. In terms of rupees, a worker in the age group of 40-45 years will get good compensation but given the non-existence of social security measures and his family obligations, and also the shrinking job market for all but the technologically qualified, he has no reason to be happy. The Left parties and one or two regional parties are bound to kick up a ruckus. It now appears that even the Congress MPs may vote against it. They cannot stall the Bill since the NDA has a clear majority in the Lok Sabha and a rejection by the Rajya Sabha is mostly symbolic. But what it will do is to intensify the confrontational nature of politics in the country. Confrontation rather than consensus is the dominant feature of politics and it threatens to delay, if not derail, economic policies. The ruling alliance should have known that economic reforms do not enjoy a national endorsement, whatever it may say in its election manifesto. So a kind of back channel consultation is necessary with the Congress and accommodating its viewpoints before formally announcing legislative plans. Two, Mr Sinha has decided to go against organised labour believing that its votes will not seriously damage the poll prospects of his BJP and allies. This is so even if the urban middle class, hit by the lower interest rate on provident fund and small savings, joins hands with the agitated labour. As a liberal newspaper has commented, the government has taken the plunge in the hope that an American style labour regimen will open the floodgates of American investment. It may or may not. But it has to reconsider its priority: does it want foreign investment or retaining its image as a gentler and kinder government. Economic reforms cannot, and should not, be reversed but the poor should not feel that they are alone asked to pay the price. |
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Hawk's peace overtures ALMOST all his life, Mr Ariel Sharon has thrived on his image of a ruthless hawk. His role in the Lebanese massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees in two Beirut camps is still remembered with tremendous bitterness. The current round of the Palestinian intifada (uprising) was also triggered by his late September visit to a Jerusalem site considered holy by both Jews and Muslims. But now that he has become the Prime Minister, he should be displaying a greater sense of equanimity. He has moved in that direction by offering to hold talks with Mr Yasser Arafat, although in the West Asian atmosphere, words do not carry much weight. The first imponderable is whether he indeed wants to give peace a chance at all or is he still the fire and brimstone General that he once was. Presuming that he has genuinely changed his perspective, he will still not find it easy to make very many concessions. His national unity government is a patchwork of seven parties with diametrically opposite policies, that can start breaking up on various ideological issues sooner than expected. To make life a little easier for Mr Sharon, the Israeli Parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favour of reforming its election law to abolish the system of directly electing the Prime Minister. Israel is not India and the offer of Ministership to as many as 42 of the 70 MPs of his coalition of left, right and religious parties may not be sufficient to keep the flock together. At the one end of the spectrum is Mr Shimon Peres as Foreign Minister, who would like relaxation of the army's siege of Palestinian areas. But he would be more than neutralised by religious leaders who are even more intransigent than Mr Sharon himself. Then there is also the Israeli public which gave Mr Sharon two-thirds of popular vote in the February 6 elections on the security plank. They want peace all right, but not at gunpoint. Palestinians on their part are desperate too. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are reverberating with violence. The uprising has taken 423 lives in the past five months. Most of those killed are Palestinians. They see Mr Sharon's elevation with extreme suspicion. The Islamic Hamas movement has claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on Sunday in the coastal city of Netanya that killed three Israelis and the bomber. It has declared that it would send 10 more suicide bombers to greet Mr Sharon. Ironically, every such act of violence can steel the Israeli resolve. Bloodletting on Palestinians' part tends to justify the Isreali cause in the world's eyes. The trouble is that aggression and atrocities have been committed by both sides and West Asia is caught in the chicken or egg dilemma. Unless both sides stop blaming the other for all that has gone wrong, no meeting point can be found. What the death merchants don't realise is that the killing has been going on since the time when they were not even born. That can never solve the vexed issue. Picking up a gun and start shooting is the easiest thing to do in these bloodied killing fields. It will require bloodless surgery to make a clean break with the past. Burly 73-year-old Sharon is hardly the man for the job. Nor were his four predecessors in the past five years. Oh Jerusalem! |
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OPINION THOUGH tragedy and trauma are an abiding aspect of creature existence, and therefore, inevitable, ineluctable, eternal man has, since the Creation, managed to live and create a sentiment for life and for its urgencies and its poetry amidst ruins, waste and wilderness. Life, dear life, plumes up in stalk and bush, in bird and beast, to show the bewildered man, the profound nature of the sacred in a mysterious way, and of its unique energies. In all manner of civilisations — from the stone and pagan ages to the religious, secular, humanist, even, profane, the human tragedy has at once devastated and elevated man. That’s the divine paradox, the enrichment of life through polarities, through a dialectic of contraries. And we find this great ambivalence structured in the greatest pieces of art, poetry, drama etc. It’s, then, against the backdrop of such large variations, such musings that I wish to consider the devastating earthquake that shook India — and the world — and this little essay is an effort to understand the nature of such disasters, of God, of the men (and women) who stand up to the assaults of the unknown, the incomprehensible catastrophes, and of those crawling creatures of God who have the human form, but not its graces. Watching for days on end scenes and images of utter devastation or havoc on one TV channel after another, outraged by the magnitude of the tragedy, “fascinated” darkly, as it were, by a spectacle of forces, natural human and divine. I could weep — and I did, time and again — for all those who were, in a matter of minutes, entombed in stone, concrete and steel, or in small tenements, and lonely little houses eclipsed by the towers and skyscrapers and like servitors, drooping, I was reminded by several horrendous events witnessed by me since attaining the age of reason. But a few that possessed “the imagination of disaster”, to use Henry James’s famous phrase for evil in its profoundest and richest form, naturally put the clock of my distressed, stretched mind to such happenings during these, 81 winters on my head as the Great Partition Tragedy of 1947) in which I lost my father with the family turned destitute) and the consequent migration of millions, the biggest of its kind perhaps in human history, the Golden Temple Tragedy of June, 1984, the ravaging of the Sikh psyche, and the darkening of the Indian corporate mind, to name just two catastrophes that seemed to be beyond our ken beyond a point. And my ever restive imagination though riled by other tragedies in India (Kashmir, NEFA etc) was brought, once again, to the boil as I reflected over the greatest natural disaster in Asia, as a BBC observer of the scenario in Gujarat put it. Why did this particular tragedy reduce me to tears and prayers in a way I couldn’t fathom in all its dark fecundities? As I dived deeper and deeper into human history, different theologies, philosophies and sciences — and, above all, into my own inner self —, it slowly began to dawn on me that there was some design even in geological disasters, not only in terms of the scientific argument, but also in those relating to the ultimate mystery and truth of life. And, there, compulsively to the First Cause. And it’s only when a tragedy is so huge in magnitude, so much shattering that its dialectic comes into play to set certain order of minds on a metaphysical quest. That’s to say, to use Hegelian-Marxian idiom, the quantity turns into quality. And if I may, in a lay’s language, consider it in the light of the nuclear sciences. I may recall that point in the fission when the moment of criticality is reached to set off a chain reaction. Hiroshima or Nagasaki is an experience repeated endlessly in our own lives! I guess, it’ll be quite some distance in this little discourse that I may — and I must come to the specific horrors — and wonders: — of what our eyes saw, and our ears heard when frames after frames of unimaginable devastation made the TV screen a visual, palpable homily in extenso. I’m aware of the risks of drifting into theological, doctrinal, theories of sin and evil, of God’s wrath or of Jehovah’s chastisement of “the fallen man”, but despite my own pronounced leanings towards radical humanism, I’m prepared to take the leap, as it were. And if I may add a little confessional note, my own state of mind after nearly eight years of paralysing illness and pain, has now, thanks to God’s grace, reached that stage which in geological idiom is known as “the angle of repose” — the angle where the rolling, hurtling rocks in a natural or man-made disaster come to rest mid-way or downhill, creating a sculpture that causes awe. How precariously one big bully of a rock comes to a halt when another of the kind bars the way, at an angle that’s awkward, strangely fascinating! In Hindu and Sikh thought, such a state of mind is reached once the self has dropped its trappings, and stands naked before its Maker, an arduous spiritual ordeal beyond our reach in general. I’am as yet nowhere close to it, for the dark Freudian past keeps erupting, like tremors of an inner “earthquake”, and I can only feel its presence in moments of my immersion in Gurbani music. Poets and country bards attuned to the Higher Essences instinctively attain that plateau of peace “that passeth understanding”. In T.S. Eliot’s profound poem, Four Quartets, the great American poet described that “still centre” which is compared to the movement in stillness and the reverse of “the Chinese vase” — a piece of porcelain shaped by the hands of an artist, but imbued with an aesthetic energy which proceeds from his spirit. Returning, then, to the Gujarat soulquake, I noticed, among many a scene of horror, desolation, despair, alienation etc on the TV screen from different channels, including the BBC World, some scenes that quickened one’s pulse, ignited the imagination of recovery, and re-created the poetry of hope and faith in tune with the eternal rhythms of life, dear life. Imagine the utter “wonder” of a six-year-old girl who with death and stench and tons of steel and stone piled up in grotesque postures over her head rescued an unknown eight-month-old baby, and managed for nearly a week to cling to the earth which had swallowed up parents and pundits alike! And yet another miracle, something that returns you, for once, to the sources of the awesome and the supernatural! One baby-girl rescued by the Israeli relief team after heroic labour — and her parents, her people all gone, gone to the dust, “the way of all flesh” — and taken to the Biblical land of history, fable and tragedy — and named Israelita to be brought up among the aliens, owned and loved! Imagine her origin, her passage to Jerusalem, and her future ! And God knows, there must be scores and scores of such incidents in the ravaged, remote parts of Gujarat where no relief team or worker had reached even after nearly two weeks of the holocaust! And if we turn now to another order of scenes that the TV screen brought to life, the vast picture is a grim reminder of the ironies of history, of time’s depredations, of magnificent ruins still eloquent after thousands of years in sun and sand — and, above all, of the story of different civilisations, once a glory of their times, and then gone in all manner of disasters and through human failings — and still there to speak in the rhetoric of stones. The Harappan ruins, Mohenjodaro, Taxila, to talk only in our own context, all, all suggest the strange human katha of chance, accident, contingency to one kind of imagination, design and paradigms to another. The Gujarat story in a smaller scale still falls within the Great Story. Yes, our resources today are immense and we may well wipe out the traces of what happened during these fateful five minutes, but I aver, there’ll yet be some fugitive, forsaken ruins in place for the historians of civilisations. And can you imagine that one particular “sculpture” of ruins belonging to the Mohenjodaro Story was shown by the BBC World almost intact, mocking the present disaster, as it were? And before I move on to other aspect. Let me record that Mahatama Gandhi’s statue in Gandhidham (if I remember correctly) was tilting, but still rooted there, reminding Gujarat, the land of his birth, of its present day travesty of his dreams and ideals! Nay, India since Independence, particularly after Nehru, has been pouring dirt upon the Mahatama’s spirit, and the culprits include nearly all political parties and their patrons, the Congress not excluded. Such thoughts cannot but make us restive and anguished if we lay aside for a moment, our low pragmatic means and ends. As my narrative draws towards its close here (the larger variations may yet appear in my unfinished and stalled autobiography), I feel more and more distressed. For if our wholly inadequate response in terms of immediate relief can with some justification be ascribed to the unpredictable nature of earthquakes despite geological signals and warnings, and to the magnitude and vastness of the tragedy, it can also be at another level, not only a story of state or governmental shame, but also of the Indian proneness to sheer incompetence, callousness and confused thinking. Not the Eternal India of our song and story, but the Ugly India of our times is what the foreign relief teams saw in action to their horror and dismay. The crisis of management seemed beyond our competence. I have so much to say on men, and mice, in this connection that I’m afraid, I wouldn’t be able to hold my incensed horses. So a few bare truths, and a couple of tart observations should suffice for the moment. On God’s role, one could fill volumes, and yet be no wiser in the end unless, of course, a godly intelligence finds a tongue close enough to the mystery and miracle of things. So let us leave it, therefore, the peace of our mind. First of all about our “men” — persons who stood up to the assault of a devastating reality and summoned those energies from the reservoirs of their spirit to meet the challenge. Scores of stories have come to light, men and women, old feeble folk and children, street urchins, for once rose above their self to assert the dignity of man. Some voluntary organisations too are in this select list. No names here, only the deed abides. Ah, but there were scores and scores of rogues, thugs and “politic worms”, to recall Hamlet’s mordant expression, seen turning to the spoils — among them not only the depraved and the evil, but also, as reported in the news channels, outlaws in police — and (hold your breath) Army jawans turning everything to commodity. Again, no names, though one Regiment was named! Something for our rulers, and for the Defence top-brass to ponder. The Air Force and the Navy, no wonder, did a magnificent job under menacing circumstances. I hope to deal with the pack of trader-politicians and tout-cadres, the tribe of vote-catchers some other day, for their rhetoric, partisan as ever looked more depraved than ever before. This essay, than, is as much a requiem for those swallowed up by the Gujarat tragedy as a little “ode” to the spirit of man. No one can yet predict the occurrence or magnitude of a future earthquake. Stephen Hawking, the celebrated crippled genius, in his address to a vast assemblage of admirers in New Delhi lately observed, among other things that even “God can’t predict future”. Again no comment for the present. For if the world is but “a mathematical idea in the head of God”, as Whitehead once observed, we may keep our fingers crossed, and our minds in place. |
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MIDDLE MY first posting as an IPS officer was in district Gurdaspur, Punjab, where I had joined as an Assistant Superintendent of Police in February, 1971. Soon thereafter fell the festival of Holi. My heart longed for the pleasures of my home town Lucknow, which were afforded by such an occasion. My logic, however, refrained me from applying for leave, as I argued that going on leave so soon after joining the first assignment might invite displeasure of my boss, the Police Superintendent. The day of Holi dawned and I virtually remained holed up in a room of the
rest house in the Police Lines with nobody to apply “gulal” to, and nobody to sprinkle coloured water on, and with nobody to offer to me delicious “gujhias” (a special preparation sweet on the tongue and made on the occasion of Holi). When the rays of the afternoon sun were casting lengthening shadows of the eucalyptus trees standing majestically in front of the
rest house, my mind hovered on the scenes imagined, back at home in Lucknow, where hordes of relatives and friends would have collected, dressed in their best, after the forenoon bout of colour-splashing, bathed and scented, to feast on sweets and other delicacies, and for the “Holi-Milan”. As the evening fell, my gloom increased, but I thought I would not let the festival pass without having a joyous moment. A little inquiry revealed that my boss, the Superintendent of Police, was at home, and it occurred to me that it would be the best to go up to him, exchange greetings with him and partake of the “gujhias” which I was sure he would have in plenty on such an occasion. I trod the path to the bungalow of the SP. My presence was announced to him and I was ushered in promptly, in the lawns of the bungalow where I found him sitting with two visitors. The boss shook my hands warmly, introduced me to the other two persons and asked me to take a seat, which I did, wondering all the time why he had not said a word about the Holi greetings. Had I committed a mistake? Yes, I thought. Being junior to him, I should have extended the Holi greetings to the boss first. The thought kept troubling me as the conversation began and advanced on different subjects none of which, however, had anything to do with the festival of Holi which was uppermost in my mind. The tea arrived with snacks sans the “gujhias”. I gulped down the tea as fast as I could, for I thought I must make amends to the boss sooner than later, for not having greeted him on the occasion of Holi. I stood up; he stood up too, thinking that I was about to take leave of him. “Sir,” I mustered courage to speak up to him, “I have come to you for “Holi Milan”. Saying so, I caught him by the shoulders and pressed my chest against his, first to his right, then to the left, and then right again, as we do in the Hindi heartland for “Holi Milan”. I then released him; he said nothing; kept looking at me. I took leave of him, and started walking back to the
rest house. Something had gone wrong. There was no doubt about that. Was it that I had gone to meet him on a festival day without a packet of sweets? Or, was he annoyed with me because of my intrusion while he was having a meeting with the other two persons? Or, was it that I had gone to meet him without fixing a prior appointment? Different thoughts kept crossing my mind till I arrived at the
rest house where my orderly constable, of fairly advanced age with graying hair, was waiting for me. Finding me worried, he enquired of me what the matter was. I narrated to him my “encounter” with the SP and told him how cold he was in the “operation embrace.” The constable — orderly smiled at me and said: “Sir, had there been a custom of Holi Milan in the manner as you did with the SP, in this part of the land that is Bharat, the SP himself would have taken the initiative to embrace you.” That set my doubts at rest. |
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ON THE
SPOT THIS
is not a column in which I usually write about books but this week I am going to because of a fascinating book that came my way almost by accident. On a sunny, idle sort of day last week a friend and I decided to take in a few art exhibitions in Mumbai and our wanderings through museums and art galleries took us at some point to Gallery Chemould. This is one of Mumbai’s oldest art gallaries, started in the days when art galleries were almost unheard of, by Kekoo Gandhy, now a legendary figure in the art world. While puzzling over the merits of an exhibition that consisted of black and white TV screens scattered around what looked like a building site, I ran into Kekoo Gandhy’s daughter, Shirin. She was glad to meet me, she said, because her sister Rashna had sent me an invitation for the launch of her first book which she had been asked to deliver. I have known Rashna Imhasly-Gandhy for many years. She was a keen horsewoman and we met at the Polo Club in Delhi. I think we first got talking when she injured her knee in a riding accident and we sat together on the terrace of the club house drinking tea and watching others ride. I discovered, during the course of this first encounter, that she had unusual insights to offer on almost any subject and on asking what she did for a living was not surprised to find that she was a psychologist by training. After that, whenever we met, at social events and horse shows I made it a point to ask her views on the topic of the moment and was always surprised by the depth of her analysis of issues that most people looked at either superficially or with anger and passion. Her first book, ‘The Psychology of Love: Wisdom of Indian Mythology’ is very much in the best Rashna Imhasly-Gandhy insightful traditions and perhaps even surpasses them because there is so much more you can say in writing than in conversation. It started out, Rashna says, as a handbook for those of her clients (she is a practising psychologist) who had been victims of love and marriage and went on to become a book which weaves into modern psychology ancient Hindu myths of gods and love. In India we often treat our myths either as religious tales told ritually to remember the gods or as stories of valour told to children. Rashna goes deep into them to find hidden meanings and deep connections with the turmoil that us mortals go through on almost a daily basis as we struggle to understand the meaning of life. I recommend it particularly to those who have found it hard to deal with the confusions and pain that love and marriage inevitably bring with them. Rashna’s book brings to mind the plight of books and authors in general in India. As an author of two books myself I can tell you that there is almost no more thankless task in India than writing a book. My limited experience with publishers has taught me that they are demons who make the cruelest, most ruthless editors look angelic. In my case, once the books came out, my publisher disappeared from my life like a genie into some netherworld. So, it was left to me to ring newspapers and magazines and plead for reviews and to organise launches by getting friends to pool in their efforts, money and goodwill. The publishers did nothing. At one event to which I had called a few friends and politicians all I needed from the publisher was that he supply a few copies of the book so we could sell it to those who came to the launch. My guests who included the Home Minister L.K. Advani, started arriving before the books did. When I rang the publisher in panic and asked where the books were he said, in the disdainful tones that Indian bureaucrats affect, that he would check up on it. The books never came and I had to send someone down to the nearest bookshops to collect whatever copies were available. The publisher never bothered to either explain to apologise. The travails of Indian writers writing in English, though, are nothing compared to those who write in Indian languages. Last month, I interviewed Nirmal Verma, the celebrated Hindi writer, honoured with the Gyanpeeth Award and widely regarded as one of the best living Indian writers. I asked him why books in Indian languages were not even available in the bigger bookshops in our cities and he said it was a matter of great sadness for him. Publishers of books in our regional languages appear to have an even greater disdain for selling books than the ones us writers in English meet. So, there is an almost complete absence of marketing of any kind and whatever publicity the author might get is likely to be only in the language press. So, where could I find his books, I asked Nirmal Verma. “There is one small shop in Delhi at the Triveni Kala Sangam” he said ‘or you will have to get them from the publisher’s office in Daryaganj’. Could the limited availability of books in Indian languages be because we were not a book-loving country I asked? And, Mr Verma was emphatic that this was not the case. In the days of his childhood, he said, he remembered that not only was his own home filled with books but people talked about writers and writing and there was general appreciation of the latest books. Something, somewhere along the line, appears to have gone wrong and we now find ourselves in a country, overwhelmed by illiteracy and television, so even those who fancy themselves as educated, civilised people talk more about the latest episodes of some television soap opera than about a book they may have read. Even those who read English books seem to look out for only those that might have become fashionable or bestsellers. Literature, poetry, serious writing, especially in Indian languages, has almost no appeal at all and the fact that Indian publishers have no comprehension of modern marketing makes a dismal situation even more grim. Perhaps, the solution lies in using television shows to sell books. Oprah Winfrey’s recommendations on her show are known to boost sales from thousands into millions in the West. In India no author can dream of millions but if television can help sell even a few thousand copies it would be a beginning. Meanwhile, we need to think seriously about the plight of a country that could be producing a generation of young people who may never read, leave alone buy, a book and whose entire intellectual growth comes from television. It is a frightening prospect. |
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ANALYSIS AT the end of Israel’s six-day war in 1967, the editor of The Guardian newspaper in London (I was working for it at the time) asked me for my reaction. I replied: “Macbeth hath murdered sleep.” Over the last 30 -odd years, I have been proved right over and over again. There has never been a period of genuine peace since then. And now with the ruthless Ariel Sharon as its leader, Israel is back to square one. Moshe Ya’alon, the Deputy Chief of Staff, puts it starkly. He says Israel is now engaged in “the most critical campaign” against the Palestinians, including Israel’s Arab population, since the 1948 war; indeed it is “the second half of 1948.” The new Prime Minister’s supporters in the he Likud Party and his public relations staff are going to have a hard time portraying him as a kindly old man in search of peace. Such is his track record. His series of massacres which earned him notoriety and the admiration of the extreme right-wing in Israel began in October, 1953 when Unit 101 under his control raided the village of Kibya and blew up 45 houses, killing 69 Palestinian civilians, half of them women and children. In 1971, four years after the six-day war, he built broad roads to help rapid army movement by bulldozing some 2,000 houses and making 16,000 people homeless. He deported hundreds of Arab suspects without any legal proceedings; others were simply killed. It was the policy at that time not to arrest suspects but to kill them, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Thus, during the second half of 1971, 104 Palestinian young men suspected of being gurerrillas were shot in the streets or in their homes. It was Sharon who, as Minister of Agriculture under Menachem Begin’s Likud Government in 1977, launched the settlement policy that has now become the biggest obstacle to peace after Jerusalem. He lavished funds on building new Jewish settlements all over the conquered territories of the West Bank, with the specific purpose of making it politically impossible to return land for peace. After the six-day war there were repeated promises by Israeli leaders that the conquered Arab lands would be returned if peace was assured. The promise, of course, did not apply to Jerusalem. In the last few years, there was a general belief in the outside world that the new generation of Israelis was so intent on peace that any compromise with the Palestinians was worth it. It now seems they have betrayed their own cause, though a good many of these young people voted against Sharon. Does this mean that a reverse wind has started to blow across Israel that indicates a return to militarism and classical colonialism? With George Bush and the Republicans in power in the USA, the Israeli rightwing has reason to expect support for their newfound belligerence. It is possible that the bombing of Baghdad was meant more to reassure the Israelis than as a warning to Saddam Hussein. Once again Israel is faced with the contradictions that were inherent in the creation of the State. That is, it is not possible to work a modern state on the basis of religion. Thousands of Arab families were driven out of their homes and fields in 1948 and till a few years after that, yet still the Jews remain in a minority and the Arabs in Israel live as second-class citizens. For Jews everywhere (who while living abroad can claim Israeli citizenship at any time they want) religious fundamentalism comes naturally. The core of that belief is possession of Jerusalem. It is clear now, as it was in 1967, that the sole aim of the six-day war was the take-over of Jerusalem. Since then the Israelis have held on to the newly acquired territories with a mixture of economic blockade and physical brutality; the result is increased bitterness among the Arabs and the rise of Intifada. Sharon’s prescription is the same “mixture as before”, and the war of attrition may go on for years unless Israeli opinion changes in the meantime and he is forced to quit. Ways may be found to internationalise Jerusalem or for Israel and Palestine to share the holy city. But crucial to the present situation is whether the urge for peace and peaceful coexistence can overcome the current upsurge of militancy. Many years ago an Israeli writer, Nathan Chofshi, wrote from Tel Aviv: “Only an internal revolution can have the power to heal our people of their murderous sickness of baseless hatred (for the Arabs). It is bound to bring eventual ruin upon us. Only then will the old and the young in our land realise how great was our responsibility to those miserable wronged Arab refugees in whose towns we have settled Jews who were brought from afar; whose homes we have inherited, whose fields we now sow and harvest; the fruit of whose gardens, orchards and vineyards we gather, and in whose cities we have robbed, we put up houses of education, charity and prayers, while we babble and rave about our being the ‘People of the Book’ and the “Light of the Nations’.” |
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WINDOW ON
PAKISTAN WHAT is the biggest worry of the liberal thinking class in Pakistan today? It is not growing poverty. It is not the phenomenon of “honour killings” which is on the increase. Nor is it the unending political instability. It is the looming Talibanisation of the polity. There is widespread fear that the day is not far off when the so-called jehadis, a big black spot on the face of Islam, will take up the reins of government to turn Pakistan into another Afghanistan. That will mean death and destruction all around and more such troubles. In an article carried in The Nation on February 28, Brig A.R. Siddiqi (retd) says: “With the Taliban in occupation of Afghanistan except for a small squiggle in the north, and Kashmir jehad in full tide with the mujahideen riding the crest of the wave, Musharraf could do little to turn the tide. Trapped between a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and the Kashmiri mujahideen, the Musharraf government could either lend its voice to the Islamic chorus or antagonise the fundamentalists at a cost... “The mid-January face-off between the jehadi forces and the government at the first All-Pakistan Religious Parties Conference in Islamabad stands out as a candid example of the government’s increasing vulnerability to the fundamentalists. Even the proposed ban on the display of arms, as distinct from deweaponisation as originally planned, was rejected by the religious parties. The display and ‘use’ of arms, they contended, served as a ‘symbol of jehad’ against the USA, India, Russia and Israel. A timely warning to the countries concerned to worry about a security threat from the Pakistan Islamic warriors and to pre-empt it as best and as soon as they can. “The chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, in a recent Press statement stated that they were not ‘bound to obey’ the Pakistan government. ‘It is impossible for us to lay down our arms.’ In other words, the jehad would continue endlessly until the attainment of their strategic objectives — with the help and cooperation of Pakistan, if possible, without it, if necessary.” Continuing the discussion, well-known commentator Altaf Gauhar (February 25) explains: “Go back to the Afghan war when the CIA, along with Saudi Intelligence and the ISI, raised and massively funded and armed large groups of freedom-fighting mujahideen to oust the occupying Soviet Red Army from Afghanistan. For the Afghans it was, quite rightly, a jehad, to throw out those who had occupied their land... A undimensional and shortsighted thought process brought the Deobandi parties of Pakistan into the equation, to recruit and train volunteers to become mujahideen in Pakistan-based madarsas .?? All the while the jehadis were making hay while the sun shone, using America and Saudi largesse and Pakistan bases to create lasting organisations beyond the Afghan war. Unknown to these three geniuses, the jehadis were also infiltrating the mindset into the Pakistan army. Pakistani Generals and the Saudis just did not have enough knowledge of the dynamics of Islam and jehad, what fighters imbued with religious fervour were to know what powerful forces they were unleashing. It was actually the jehadis who were using the Americans and us, not the other way round. During the same period the Iranians were funding and arming Shia mullahs to spread their version of an Islamic revolution, as opposed to the Saudi version... “An abandoned and punished Pakistan (by the USA) pushed on the downward spiral led to other ramifications. The disenchanted from all walks of life started sympathising and joining the political mullahs and jehadis. The greatest impact, indeed ‘shock’, came when people from the bureaucracy and the armed forces and their sons started joining them. A significant number are in the army and many an officer, retired or serving, from General downward, has joined a mullah or jehadi group. The leading groups for them are the Tablighis (non-violent non-political propagators of Islam), the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen that threatened a march to Islamabad ... if Sharia is not imposed. The entire character of the ruling class has undergone a sea change.” Altaf Gauhar blames the Pakistani rulers themselves as well as the USA and Saudi Arabia for conceiving the Taliban idea and translating it into a dreaded reality. Can Pakistan save itself from today’s Frankenstein called Taliban? |
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75 YEARS AGO THE tussle is still going on between the two parties of the Akalis. It will be remembered that at a recent meeting the Executive Committee of the S.G.P.C. had appointed an Election Sub-Committee authorising it to make arrangements for a general election of the S.G.P.C. which was so vigorously demanded by a section of the Akalis. When the Sub-Committee decided to hold these elections on the 11 April, there was some objection to the proposal on account of the date being so early. A notification of the Shromani Akali Dal points out that the S.G.P.C. has withheld the amount of over Rs 2, 000 lying with it as a deposit on behalf on the Akali Dal. The Shiromani Akali Dal thus faced with an emergency for want of funds, has called a meeting of its Working Committee. |
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SPIRITUAL NUGGETS By hearkening to the Name The art of yoga and all he secrets Of body and mind as unveiled. By hearkening to the Name. Sorrow and sin are destroyed. —
Guru Nanak Dev, The Japji, 7-9 ***** You made a palace with the four elements, And then yourself entered to reside in it. You yourself are the bride, You yourself are the bridegroom, And you yourself are the parents. You yourself put yourself to death, You yourself come back to life, And you yourself begin to mourn. O Bullah, whatever is His creation, He is within it all as its mover. - Faqir Mohammad, Hulliyat-i-Bulleh Shah ***** The more your heart beats with the best is nature, the more you feel that throughout the whole of nature it is you who are the whole of nature it is you who are breathing. You breathe in the growth and decay of trees. The sun rises and sets, the same is inhaling and exhaling. - Swami Ramatirtha, In Woods of God Realisation, Vol. IV, Lecture XIII. ***** The moths resolved, And gathered round the flame. Fearing not the flame, They plunged into the fire. They cared not for their heads, And decided to lose. Nothing but burning helps, Must march in all seasons, There is no time for respite. - Shah Abdul Latif, a Sufi saint of Sindh |
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