The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

The ‘memogate’ probe
There could be trouble ahead for Zardari

The Pakistan Supreme Court’s order setting up a three-member commission to conduct a time-bound investigation into what has come to be called the memogate scandal is a rebuff to the government which wanted the matter to be probed by a parliamentary panel. The commission’s report, expected in four weeks, could well lead to the ouster of President Asif Ali Zardari who was rumoured to have been behind the unsigned memo given to the American Pentagon by a Pakistani-American businessman with a plea to the US to help stave off a feared military coup in May last after the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The businessman, Mansoor Ijaz, had written in the Financial Times that Zardari feared that the military might overthrow his government. Ijaz had accused the then US envoy to the US, Husain Haqqani, of drafting the memo with Zardari’s support. That Haqqani was forced to quit as ambassador as a result of the revelations was a signal that Zardari would be the next in trouble. If the commission establishes the memo’s link to the government, it is inconceivable how Zardari could continue.

Indeed, right since the ‘memogate’ scandal surfaced, the army has been looking for a chance to get even with Zardari. While it is wary of taking over power directly, it would be happy if the civilian government is so thoroughly discredited that people start pining for the army to return. Considering that the letter handed over to Pentagon is purported to have stated that, in return for US help, Zardari's government would eliminate a wing of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency that maintains links with Afghan insurgent groups and give U.S. troops "a green light" to root out Afghan militants hiding out in Pakistan's tribal areas, if proved, Zardari would be seen in very poor light in the country.

To Pakistanis who are intrinsically suspicious of US’ role and deeply resentful of arm-twisting by the Americans, the ‘memogate’ investigation may well worsen old animosity towards the US establishment. The portents for Pak-US relations look bleak indeed.

Neglected museums
Old ones need fresh breath

The Punjab Government way of offering museums to its public is — when you ring in the new, you ring out the old. So, while the Virasat-e-Khalsa museum was inaugurated with all the glitz and fanfare last month, the existing museums are left in chronic neglect to die a slow death. Museums are as such custodians of our heritage, they keep our past alive for us to draw inspiration from their rich historical substance. They require regular monitoring to infuse life in their existence, which is constituted, as such by objects and narratives from the past.

In its flurry of opening new museums and mausoleums, the government would do better by ensuring that the exhibits in the existing museums are in place and are available to the visitors, who are, as such not very keen to visit them, for the condition they are kept in. One recalls the much publicized inauguration of the museum at Khatkar Kalan, in memory of the 50th martyrdom day of Shaheed Bhagat Singh in the 80s, when, after a few years the museum could not offer a simple brochure to the visitors. At the Quila Mubaraq museum of archery and chandeliers in Patiala, one will find inches of dust on exhibits, and the personnel clueless about an inventory of exhibits. No wonder pilferage is common. The enviable medal gallery is kept under lock and key, one has to get special permission from a senior bureaucrat to get to see what is supposed to be meant for public viewing. Despite crores having been spent on Heritage Festivals by the state, the heritage of the state is in an abysmal condition.

When a sensitive issue like culture is a victim of bureaucratic apathy, the rich heritage accumulated over generations for the benefit of future generations, runs the risk of being lost to sarkari callousness. Museums are testimonial of collective histories, they should be maintained in the same vein. Besides, museums should be managed by trained professionals who understand the delicate way of dealing with the past, and still keep the interest of the present alive in it.

Thought for the Day

In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, never in want — Irish toast

ARTICLE

The Kayani syndrome
Fear of military rule in Pakistan
by NK Pant

One wonders if Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s stern warning to his nation’s powerful army establishment against hatching a conspiracy to oust the civilian government in a military coup will have any impact on the uniformed top brass. Gilani was quoted as reminding the generals that they are answerable to Parliament and hence cannot act as ‘a state within a state’.

The Prime Minister also raised a timely alarm alerting the country and the international community about covert moves that were afoot by the army to bring down his elected government. Although the following day, the Army chief came out with a statement ruling out the possibility of a coup, an air of uncertainty still hangs over the nation, especially because of the standoff over the memo scandal.

It is quite possible that such a strong cautionary statement issued by Gilani may further antagonise the army Generals against the democratically elected government. It is well known that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on the one hand and the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the ISI boss, Lt Gen Shuja Pasha on the other, are pitted against each other on the issue dubbed “memogate”. There are growing concerns in political circles that Kayani, despite his ruling out the possibility of any military takeover, has been moving to further strengthen his role in the country’s governance. This has naturally led to the speculation that Zardari may be losing his grip on the presidency.

Although civilian-military tensions have existed ever since Mr. Zardari took office in September 2008, an unsigned memo reportedly drafted by Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington Hussain Haqqani and passed on to Pakistani- American businessman Mansoor Ijaz for sending to the then US chairman of THE joint chiefs of staff committee, Admiral Mike Mullen, have created havoc in the political, diplomatic and military circles. The memo conveying the message from Zardari in the wake of the US commando raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, requested top American military officials for help in preventing a military coup in Islamabad.

As expected, the first head to roll soon after the memo became public in October was that of ambassador Haqqani who was forced to quit after being recalled from his ambassadorial assignment. However, not satisfied with this, General Kayani not only demanded that the government go into the matter thoroughly but also approached the Supreme Court to investigate the controversial memo and its origins fully, reasoning that it unsuccessfully attempted to lower the morale of the Pakistan army.

But the civilian government denies having anything to do with the memo and has boldly declared that Parliament, the media, the civil society and the international community would not tolerate a military dictatorship in Pakistan.

General Kayani presides over the military establishment of a country that has often been cited as the world's most dangerous source of international terrorism. In order to justify its primacy in Pakistan’s national affairs, the nearly 700,000-strong army considers the Afghan Taliban as the necessary proxy force to create strategic space against India, especially in the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014.

General Kayani sought and was granted three years extension as the Chief of Army Staff along with Lt Gen Shuja Pasha in November 2010. He was given extra three years in office by the same civilian government with whom he is now at the loggerheads on the ground of successfully leading Pakistan in the war against terrorists as well as maintaining the element of continuity in the military leadership. However, the reality was that Kayani had decided to bat for another long innings and the pliable politicians, whose electoral mandate too was to last three more years, readily obliged in their own selfish interest.

The curious aspect in the wake of surfacing the memogate was the sudden departure of President Zardari for medical treatment to Dubai on the excuse of a heart ailment. Although after due treatment and convalescing in his Dubai residence for a fortnight he returned to the port city of Karachi, rumours are still rife that he will resign and leave the country for good. Much earlier, he had been quoted as expressing his fears that the Kayani-Pasha combine would eliminate him one day.

Incidentally, this fear was later corroborated by the Prime Minister Gilani in a statement made in the Senate that his government and the President's family convinced Mr Zardari to go to Dubai for the treatment because there was a risk he would be attacked if he had treatment in a hospital in Pakistan.

After he was back from Dubai, Zardari in a telecast called upon the nation to make a pledge that it will not allow any change through “force and intimidation and respect the power of ballot as an instrument of change”. The inference was to the army chief and his corps commanders. General Kayani had earlier gone on record by expressing his views that military interventions were sometimes necessary to maintain Pakistan’s stability.

Though this time the Generals may be a bit chary in moving into the politicians’ shoes, yet such a rhetorical statement may not prevent them from doing so. However, the memogate has definitely provided them an excuse to get a freer hand to expand their role in running Pakistan’s affairs beyond its India-specific foreign policy, national defence, internal security and control over nuclear weapons.

MIDDLE

Growing up with gizmos
by Maninder Sidhu

After a gap of four months our son, in his early teens, returned home from his boarding school. The whole household was abuzz with the excitement of his arrival. The cleaning was elaborate and the fuss over his favourite cuisine was clearly indulgent. The garden glistened, immaculately pruned, and the furniture had been imaginatively rearranged to evoke surprise. The house was agog with the debate on the dimensions of the basketball hoop to be set up on one of the walls. The canine family was bathed and brushed and waiting.

He arrived to an effusive welcome and basked in the warmth of the long-awaited homecoming. The bonhomie was replete with respectful graces and intimate inquiries. A recap of recent events at home was brought to life through a din of overlapping voices and enthusiastic animations. But I could sense it coming. So far the “real” had held its ground but the “virtual” was waiting in the wing to attack. As soon as the pitch of excitement settled to a normalcy, up popped the question, “Ma, can I have the i-pad please?”

The premonition was well founded; we would have to entertain the innumerable denizens of the virtual world to even get near our son for the rest of the holiday. So there we were hugging and tugging him from the sides while he sat bent over the smooth-faced “black monster”. Its seductive sleek screen was his gateway to the largest storehouse on earth – reality in its entirety and every imaginative thought possible to the human mind so far was at his finger tip.

Raised by a generation that brandished its techno-savviness by rotating a knob or pressing a button we had done well for ourselves by making friends with the key-board. Who could have thought that our self-esteem would be so quickly threatened by the little devils so dexterous with the “touch-screen”! They are born technology naturals. While we are forever struggling to keep pace with the mind-boggling innovations, they are eternally impatient for the quicker and the smarter gadget.

The Silicon Valley had been living up to the expectations of these little wizards. The plethora of gizmos – PSP, PS3, Xbox, Wii, iPod, iPhone – that floods the market is the new scoreboard of innovation. Technology has its fingers on the imaginative pulse of the new breed and the “little fingers” are, for sure, never out-of-touch with it.

It was a foregone conclusion that my rationing my son’s time with his preferred buddies wouldn’t work. The television in comparison was a much lesser evil – at least we could be comrades-in-sin together sometimes. But certainly I didn’t want to end up as a stranger to his world. Like a student who follows very little but pretends attention, I become an avid listener to his enthusiastic rattling on downloads, upgrades, jail-breaks, app-stores, recent scores and all else. My daughter, who had been observing the dumb charade, caught me napping in class when she smiled and said, “Are you actually interested or just getting pushed around by change?”

“Do I have a choice?” I asked.

OPED THE ARTS

In states where peace and prosperity abound, theatre is gasping for breath. However, in many strife-torn areas folk theatre is proving to be a successful tool for community mobilisation
Encounters of a different kind
Vandana Shukla

In Kashmir valley, where people had been afraid of assembling - because any assembly of more than four could invite action under prohibitory orders ( section 144) for a very long time, thousands assembled, not only at one place but in over forty different towns, stretched over a period of a month. Yet, it made no news. Because, what they did was what normal people do in normal times - sharing of laughter and ideas that tickle initially, but leave one with concerns to ponder over.

Folk traditions: Pushing themselves back to the fore in Kashmir where violence had become a norm

In November this year, the valley witnessed a new kind of resurgence - for the love of arts it had forgotten in the brutality of militancy for over two decades. Community theatre brought back community mobilisation, the kind that the valley had never witnessed before. In towns, that made headlines for all the wrong reasons for decades - Baramulla, Kupwara, Anantnag, Charsharief, Rajwarh, Kulgam, Bandipora, Tilgam, Budgam and others, people came in hordes, assembled in open spaces and saw how theatre mirrored their lives. Sometimes with a smile on their faces, and at times with a suppressed tear. They laughed, they cried and they listened and thought, without reacting and sloganeering, and turned a theatre initiative into a kind of a movement for normalcy. This became possible for two reasons. One, Bhand Pather, the form of theatre they witnessed is a folk tradition of Kashmir, it speaks to people in their own language, and two, people in the valley had hungered for 'normal' things like theatre for far too long.

Laughter carries amazing power of communication in Bhand

The valley is not alone witnessing this resurgence. As life comes to its normal course, if not after completing the cycle of violence, but certainly creating more space for pursuits of a normal life, the folk and cultural traditions find ways to push themselves back to the fore at many places where violence had become the norm. In parts of Bastar, in Naxal prone areas of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh too, such initiatives have worked wonders.

In the strife torn states, it required more than just courage on the part of some thespians, musicians and artists, who had waited all these long decades of turmoil in the disturbed areas to bring people back to their cultural moorings, to offer them a platform so that they could once again articulate their fears, concerns and aspirations.

Theatre of aspiration in Kashmir

It all began in the summer of 2011, when Jammu based theatre group Natrang staged an Urdu play 'Chhoona Hai Aasman' at eleven different towns in the valley, while some of the towns were still under the threat of militant attacks. It was a risk, but, a risk 'worth taking', says director of the play Balwant Thakur. The theme of the play was expected to touch a chord with the youth of the valley, who, Thakur felt, were tired of violence and strife. The play was based on a simple narrative, a tale of aspirations of a young boy, who, inspired by the outside world wants to excel and grow, but is pulled down again and again by the absence of conducive circumstances at his place. The overwhelming response of this play inspired Thakur to explore the ground further.

To take it ahead, Natrang, with the support of Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, started a residential workshop with twenty selected Bhand groups of Kashmir. Bhand Pather is one of the oldest living theatre traditions of the north. In Kashmiri language 'Bhand' is an actor and 'Pather' stands for theatre. The form is a musical, woven around a central theme which is usually a satire or laced with wit and dry humour.

The selected twenty Bhand groups were requested to nominate one person from the group to join the workshop, with an aptitude for writing Bhand scripts and direction. The Akademi invited Moti Lal Kemmu- one of the senior most thespians of the state, a Sahitya Akademi and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee, to conduct the workshop, along with other experts in acting and direction like Amin Bhatt, Nissar Naseem, Sajood Sailini, Dr. Farooq Fiyaz, Bhawani Bashir, Anil Tickoo, Mushtaq Ali, and Ravi Kemmu, who came as visiting faculty for the workshop. " In folk theatre there is no tradition of writing, but we had to do it to infuse new life in it. Old masters of Bhand Pather are dead, and militancy did not allow new ones to evolve in the art. I used to fear this art will die," Says veteran thespian Moti Lal Kemmu.

In ten days, the group was able to conceptualize twenty new scripts with designs and direction. The effort was to infuse new energy in Bhand Pather through new concepts and themes. Traditionally Bhand performers have been staging the same old 6 to 7 themes repeatedly. This was the first time when they were getting trained into new style of presentation, incorporating new themes which addressed the trauma of a common man, who suffered owing to the continued disturbances in the valley.

The directors knew, they were taking a risk, they had set out to tell people their own tales in the language of their own theatre. After the workshop was over, twenty participants representing twenty different groups of Kashmir went to their respective groups and towns and started producing the plays. Each town had its own quota of problems, which needed to be articulated, and a message had to be given, but, in an entertaining way.

Cultural activism

In the valley, where an entire generation has grown without ever tasting healthy entertainment, without the fear of gun in a public place, people came in thousands for each show. Perhaps, they were attracted by the novelty of the idea, but were caught on with the issues that the Bhand acts raised. The maskhara, (clown), who presents the most serious issues in a lighter vein with his emotive skills and gift of the gab entertained the young and the old alike. He also tickled their minds to think; questioned them about their ignorance of the ill-designs of their exploiters, telling them that education is the only weapon that can protect them from all kinds of invasions, or aiming satire at the youth of Kashmir who waste most part of their lives waiting for a government job. The maskhara prodded them to find their potential in a challenging private enterprise, to educate women so that they can make a positive difference to the society, take care of pollution related problems of the valley, keep away from the menace of drugs, and stop suffering the everyday bands and strikes, by using the power of vote. " The young directors have turned it into a cultural movement, I knew it when I saw five to ten thousand people turn up for each show," says Kemmu.

The masses create a stage

Post-independence, with a strong following of theatre groups like IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association) the theatre movement made unparalleled contributions across the country with its progressive ideology. It also became a tool for social mobilisation, if not activism. But, the objective of theatre changed over the years. While proscenium remained the form of an intellectual exploration centred around the urban auditoria, the folk traditions were marginalised in the absence of an organised effort to feed their contemporariness.

But, in areas affected by long stints of violence, a need was felt to go back to the idiom of the mass theatre to convey a message of peace and normalcy.

As such, theatre is primarily a medium of the masses, in India almost all states have a rich tradition of folk theatre, which is reclaimed by the masses whenever the need arises. After long stints of conflict, people often wish to get back to their own medium to articulate their suffering.

Anoop Ranjan Pandey did the same in Naxal affected areas of Bastar in Chhattisgarh. " Local folk traditions were dying in Bastar because of a prolonged period of violence. We oppose violence from both sides, may it be the Naxals or the state sponsored oppression of them, we are not theatre activists, we are cultural activists and our following is growing," says Pandey, who organised the youth of Bastar in creating Bastar Band. The effort was to keep the youth away from the culture of gun by giving them dhol and mandar, the traditional musical instruments of Bastar tribals. " I am also trying to save the language, I help them compose their songs, these songs are their tales, their message to the world, they too want to get heard," he insists. While the young men and women turn from the guns to composing and presenting music, dance and theatre shows, Pandey says, it is better to organise raw cultural festivals than organising violent attacks of perfection. Bastar Band has certainly grown in popularity, it has a great following even outside Bastar, because at the end of the day people want peace and normalcy. And, this is what their message is.