Mahmoud Darwish, 67, died in Texas on Saturday August 9, 2008 and buried in Ramallah on 13, gave lyrical expression to the aspiration as well as desperation of his fellow Palestinians. Many have always wept in forced exile as well as expulsions, targeted assassination, collateral damage, retaliatory strikes, wars, open and civil, slow and poignant degradation of life in overcrowded refugee camps.
The only thing that any refugee carries as a badge of his status is his bag, whatever he could save of his past till the tragedy struck and he became homeless within his homeland or banished. But the memory in his mind is much deeper a bag than the physical entity. Mahmoud Darwish caught it so well when he said with tongue in cheek, "my homeland is not a suitcase". The journey of his life ended when his mortal remains were interred in a hill side grave of Ramallah—but till then it was wandering of an exile from birth place Birweh which was razed in the 1948 by Israelis to Jdeideh to Cairo, Beirut, Paris, US cities, USSR, occupied west bank, and Gaza.
As a mourner from Israeli city of Haifa said that the poetry of Darwish had helped the Palestinians of Israel keep their identity. What better tribute to a poet who kept spirit alive in otherwise stuffy and snuffing atmosphere in conditions of degrading slavish existence! So did he keep the conscience of his people as Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi called him “a poet of conscience."
In 1960s when he published his first collection “Bird with Wings” there was a poem called “Identity Card”. It captured so early what became a standard practice of occupation and subjugation, reduction of humans to just a photo card signed by authorities with just name and number.
World Zionism planted a fierce and ferocious entity in what were halcyon orchards of olive and dates, peace and harmony. Only regrets would be there in the face of awesome reality of near impossibility of undoing what has changed and destroyed what was theirs. This is how his words translate this reality:
leave our land
our shore, our sea
our wheat, our salt, our wound
take with you your dead.
The lines are from “Passing in Passing Words” (1988). Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir read the poem in the parliament to show that the Palestinians and Israelis could not live together. Once the Israeli education minister wanted to include some of his poems in the syllabus but Prime Minister Ehud Barak said that the time was not ripe.
The last collection of his poems appeared in 2008 called “The Impression of Butterflies.” Last year the Palestinians fought among themselves and this must have pained Darwish who called it "a public attempt at suicide in the streets."
As has truly been felt that he was the poet of dispossession and exile of the Palestinians, he spent a part of his life in Israeli jail like most of his people. In one celebrated poem he gives a contrast of life in and out of jail. Coming from the bottom of his heart he says:
I long for my mother's bread,
And my mother's coffee,
And her touch.
As the Jefferson of his people he wrote the Declaration of Freedom for the proposed state of Palestine but could not live to see establishment of it.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Kashmir: return of 1989
Professor Amartya Sen’s idea of multiple identities that individuals possess and use them according to their situation in life is convincingly unraveling in the Jammu and Kashmir. When Umar Farooq Abdullah wanted a voice in the government many found his speech eloquent and even the best. But others smelt rat here and dubbed it as a provocation for insurgency. There are thus two levels at which the identity works in the region. Thus individuals play whichever identity suits them in a context but when parties play politics with identities it can backfire.
L.K Advani also jumped in the fray and dubbed the agitation in Jammu to be a matter of identity. His party construed the agitation as ‘nationalist’ after it failed to ignite the protest in the rest of the country. The smoldering fires in Indore have turned into cold ashes. The tricolour was in full display in the agitation in Jammu. What identity did the protesters use or see in lynching the two constables is of the same piece. Lynching constables in Bhiwandi and in Jammu inspires different emotions.
How could you foist on the nation what is essentially regional? The Hurriyat leaders disowned the Muslims of Jammu region in the present times. The Muslims of Jammu also joined fellow people from their province in their agitation against what the people believe to be the hegemonic insolence of the people in the valley because of which their progress is hindered. Behind the smokescreen of hegemony of course lies the religious identity of the ‘other’.
Even the casualty figures from the valley and the plains indicate this split personality. Veteran Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz and five others who died at the hands of the army while trying to breach the barricade on the road to Muzaffarabad wanted markets across the line of control. They viewed it necessary save the apples and earn some money badly needed for life. The blockade in Jammu was meant to starve the people in the valley because they were the ‘others’. Their identity was different from theirs and so they wanted to rot the apples in the trucks. The government with all the might of the army in hand did precious little to lift the blockade. On the other hand the blockade at the Muzafferabad was a matter of different kind. Even the Gaza crossing at the Egyptian border was humanistic.
In the meantime a letter appealing to the UNO High Commissioner for Human Rights for humanitarian intervention depicts the grim scenario that highlights the plight of identities caught in Jammu and Kashmir. It says what cannot be gainsaid that the blockade is “by religious nationalist groups from India”. After naming the identity of the group it goes on to point out “The situation in Jammu, where the Muslim minority is facing violence on a scale that can be described as ethnic cleansing, is alarming.” Turning to the valley the signatories write that the situation is so disastrous that in the next few days nothing would be left to eat in the valley. The most disturbing part of the letter focuses on the army and the extremists." Army is supporting the mobs who have allegedly beaten up the drivers stranded on the national highway. The drivers who were beaten up reported that they asked Army to help them but all went in despair and the Army people in return handed them over to the mobs. The target is only the Kashmiri Muslims and some sources from Jammu say that it is the outsiders who have come to Jammu and are doing such attacks on the Muslims and it is quite evident that the Hindu fundamentalist groups viz. BJP, RSS VHP, etc., are all sponsoring the planned attacks onto the Kashmiris like it was done in Gujarat.” This appeal for humanitarian help is signed by some of the most distinguished academicians, rabbis, social workers, human rights workers, etc.
As if those fifty luminaries mostly from the US were not enough, intelligentsia within India is also concerned. As Professor Noor Ahmed Baba of political science in Indian Kashmir’s main university remarks that: "The protests [in the valley] are the manifestation of an anger that the peace process doesn't seem to have achieved anything,..The peace process has not addressed the concerns of Kashmiris. They want to see an end to uncertainty. They want a resolution of the Kashmir dispute. The protests are serious and should serve as a wake-up call."
If Pandit Nehru took Kashmir to the UNO for which he has been always criticized by the BJP and the sangh privar, this time round it is the latter configuration which has done the same in its impetuosity as it is ‘angry, jilted, slighted, and frustrated’ after losing face in the no confidence vote. Why should India find it difficult to deal Kashmir at international forum? It is precisely for the record. The instrument of accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India and the assurance to the princely state by the Constituent Assembly then are matters of recent history. Among them is also what Lieutenant General Viney Sharma, General Commanding Officer of the Rising Star Corps warned on August 8, 2008 that if violent protestors of Jammu break or disrupt communication channels or the working of the civilian government the soldiers would resort to firing. Given this fire power the blockade still holds driving the people in the valley to the wall. The world would wonder to know if the general is sent there to maintain or lift the barricade.
L.K Advani also jumped in the fray and dubbed the agitation in Jammu to be a matter of identity. His party construed the agitation as ‘nationalist’ after it failed to ignite the protest in the rest of the country. The smoldering fires in Indore have turned into cold ashes. The tricolour was in full display in the agitation in Jammu. What identity did the protesters use or see in lynching the two constables is of the same piece. Lynching constables in Bhiwandi and in Jammu inspires different emotions.
How could you foist on the nation what is essentially regional? The Hurriyat leaders disowned the Muslims of Jammu region in the present times. The Muslims of Jammu also joined fellow people from their province in their agitation against what the people believe to be the hegemonic insolence of the people in the valley because of which their progress is hindered. Behind the smokescreen of hegemony of course lies the religious identity of the ‘other’.
Even the casualty figures from the valley and the plains indicate this split personality. Veteran Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz and five others who died at the hands of the army while trying to breach the barricade on the road to Muzaffarabad wanted markets across the line of control. They viewed it necessary save the apples and earn some money badly needed for life. The blockade in Jammu was meant to starve the people in the valley because they were the ‘others’. Their identity was different from theirs and so they wanted to rot the apples in the trucks. The government with all the might of the army in hand did precious little to lift the blockade. On the other hand the blockade at the Muzafferabad was a matter of different kind. Even the Gaza crossing at the Egyptian border was humanistic.
In the meantime a letter appealing to the UNO High Commissioner for Human Rights for humanitarian intervention depicts the grim scenario that highlights the plight of identities caught in Jammu and Kashmir. It says what cannot be gainsaid that the blockade is “by religious nationalist groups from India”. After naming the identity of the group it goes on to point out “The situation in Jammu, where the Muslim minority is facing violence on a scale that can be described as ethnic cleansing, is alarming.” Turning to the valley the signatories write that the situation is so disastrous that in the next few days nothing would be left to eat in the valley. The most disturbing part of the letter focuses on the army and the extremists." Army is supporting the mobs who have allegedly beaten up the drivers stranded on the national highway. The drivers who were beaten up reported that they asked Army to help them but all went in despair and the Army people in return handed them over to the mobs. The target is only the Kashmiri Muslims and some sources from Jammu say that it is the outsiders who have come to Jammu and are doing such attacks on the Muslims and it is quite evident that the Hindu fundamentalist groups viz. BJP, RSS VHP, etc., are all sponsoring the planned attacks onto the Kashmiris like it was done in Gujarat.” This appeal for humanitarian help is signed by some of the most distinguished academicians, rabbis, social workers, human rights workers, etc.
As if those fifty luminaries mostly from the US were not enough, intelligentsia within India is also concerned. As Professor Noor Ahmed Baba of political science in Indian Kashmir’s main university remarks that: "The protests [in the valley] are the manifestation of an anger that the peace process doesn't seem to have achieved anything,..The peace process has not addressed the concerns of Kashmiris. They want to see an end to uncertainty. They want a resolution of the Kashmir dispute. The protests are serious and should serve as a wake-up call."
If Pandit Nehru took Kashmir to the UNO for which he has been always criticized by the BJP and the sangh privar, this time round it is the latter configuration which has done the same in its impetuosity as it is ‘angry, jilted, slighted, and frustrated’ after losing face in the no confidence vote. Why should India find it difficult to deal Kashmir at international forum? It is precisely for the record. The instrument of accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India and the assurance to the princely state by the Constituent Assembly then are matters of recent history. Among them is also what Lieutenant General Viney Sharma, General Commanding Officer of the Rising Star Corps warned on August 8, 2008 that if violent protestors of Jammu break or disrupt communication channels or the working of the civilian government the soldiers would resort to firing. Given this fire power the blockade still holds driving the people in the valley to the wall. The world would wonder to know if the general is sent there to maintain or lift the barricade.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
SIMI:Presumption of guilt and its havoc
Justice Geeta Mittal has ordered the ban on SIMI to be lifted for lack of enough evidence against it. The judge told the centre “You say that SIMI is connected to bomb blasts, riots, destructive activities. Place specific material before me, you cannot presume their involvement.”
This is a historic judgment. There is more to it than meets the eye. It is the identity that the authorities, like the investigating agencies and the police, choose to give a group irrespective of its bona fide otherwise. It has to live down that identity. When you are presumed to be what the authorities stereotype you to be you are doomed.
As the court was hearing the case and drawing its conclusion the reporters of a leading newspaper carried out a survey of Malegaon which was rocked by bomb blasts on September 8, 2006. They came out with finding that is an eye opener.
Remember that SIMI was blamed for the blasts in a mosque of the main cemetery and another place called Mushawarat chowk. Nearly 50 people. mostly children and beggars, had perished. Most of the accused were not connected to SIMI at all. They were ordinary workshop employees with no criminal records. But the man who turned approver and accused others in the complicity was an inveterate police informer and their confidant. Abrar was parasitic dependant on the police. Even his father had disowned him. He was ‘lost’ to the world until his lawyer brother filed habeas corpus in the high court and the police had to produce him in the court. He had also expressed fear for his life. There was another man who had seen the crime but was alleged to have ‘committed’ suicide. Another accused, Makhdoomi, wrote from the jail that the accused were all innocent and they were framed. Can this case stand in any court with the kind of people who are material to the case in the eye of the police?
Strangely enough someone close to the CBI has told DNA : “The local police had messed up, and now CBI is stuck.”
This would only mean that the investigating agencies have ‘evolved’ the case only on confession under duress. If the cops have evidence, perhaps that is classified. As the local people know the accused well they do not buy the police version. But the predilection of the officials is self evident. To the surveying reporters a senior police officer said: “This is the worst possible place that a policeman can be transferred to. It feels like you have stepped into a different country altogether." What that different country is, is an open secret. Why does the officer not feel at home in Malegaon. It is not the people who are alienated from the police but the police themselves. Or else why they grope in dark in a place where every fifth person seems to be an informer.
In this fantasy town the horses control the men. "In many states, there seems to be an unwritten law not to keep Muslims in the intelligence. It hampers investigations. And we have also not been able to reach out to the Muslim community which could help us prevent and probe attacks." If the officers believe that SIMI is behind the Malegaon blasts then how come they have discovered it without being able to penetrate the Muslims community? There are two inspectors of police who speak Urdu well. Malegaon is plum posting place. Where would the cops get time from their beats of ‘duty’ of material interest that matters more than intelligence? Their ‘duty’ consumes all their time and energy. There is nothing left for much. Confessions come easier. In fact a senior ATS officer had allegedly told a unani doctor to confess for the sake of the police, at least once.
Like the cops even the reporters are sucked into the common belief that SIMI thrives here, what with the overflowing gutters and road strewn over with muck in the dingy impassable sheltered interior shut off from the sunny world that is outside. If terrorism was the harvest of ghettos Mohammad Atta et al should not be living in Heidelberg or other western pockets of affluence. They should be wallowing in the garbage and sewer.
The home department at the centre like the home department in Maharashtra has been presumptuously blaming SIMI. Former home minister Chaggan Bhujbal and the current home minister RR Patil have never lost any time in blaming SIMI. What proof except presumption is the base? This is more convincing when we know that one of the nine accused was in police custody at the time of the blast and another was leading Friday prayer more than 500 miles from Malegaon. But the agencies assume that the one in jail had preplanned everything behind the bars or even before that and the other was in Malegaon and his ghost hundreds of miles away.
Lifting the ban does not mean exoneration of all blames. The first home minister of India, Sardar Patel, and since then others have also lifted bans on RSS. But the blame sticks, an American centre of research in North Carolina has curiously dubbed RSS as a terrorist organization. Home minister Shivraj Patil would appeal against the lifting of the ban. But the same did not happen in the other case.
Apart from torture of the innocent, humiliation because of their religious identity the most horrific havoc that presumption plays is disaffection it sows among the people. This should attract stringent action against the investigation agencies in the context of the Article 153 of the Indian Penal Code. Some of the accused in the twin blasts of Hyderabad August 25, 2007 had horrifying experience which pales into insignificance the extraordinary rendition even. Abdul Rahim had his beard pulled with tufts of hair coming off, his religious faith abused on the top of physical torture. Mohammad Shakeel was hung from the ceiling and ala Abu Gharib he was given electric shock in the penis. Like the others, Arshal Ali Khan was also taken blind folded to a farm house where he heard others screaming in pain and the interrogators asking him to name others. His burn marks prove his own suffering. In spite of two narco test he has not been booked because there is no proof. Maulana Aleem Islahi’s son Mujaid was shot dead by the police when he protested the arrest of one Maulana Nasiruddin. The neighbours deny that he did anything to prevent the police from arresting Nasiruddin. Maulana Islahi’s youngest surviving son Mohtasim was also picked up and tortured and told to confess. Some thirty women protested against the arrest. They were canned and detained for a night along with two babies they had with them. Two men carried away Ibrahim Ali Junaid like the others. They pulled apart his legs and placed heavy stones on them and tortured to make his confess to have caused the blasts. They could not book him for lack of any evidence. There was no offence that Naseeruddin Khan had committed except being a witness o the shooting of Mujahid Islahi.
Behind this blame and torture exercise is a plan to force the innocent young men from poor neighborhoods of Hyderabad to give confessions to implicate themselves.
This is a historic judgment. There is more to it than meets the eye. It is the identity that the authorities, like the investigating agencies and the police, choose to give a group irrespective of its bona fide otherwise. It has to live down that identity. When you are presumed to be what the authorities stereotype you to be you are doomed.
As the court was hearing the case and drawing its conclusion the reporters of a leading newspaper carried out a survey of Malegaon which was rocked by bomb blasts on September 8, 2006. They came out with finding that is an eye opener.
Remember that SIMI was blamed for the blasts in a mosque of the main cemetery and another place called Mushawarat chowk. Nearly 50 people. mostly children and beggars, had perished. Most of the accused were not connected to SIMI at all. They were ordinary workshop employees with no criminal records. But the man who turned approver and accused others in the complicity was an inveterate police informer and their confidant. Abrar was parasitic dependant on the police. Even his father had disowned him. He was ‘lost’ to the world until his lawyer brother filed habeas corpus in the high court and the police had to produce him in the court. He had also expressed fear for his life. There was another man who had seen the crime but was alleged to have ‘committed’ suicide. Another accused, Makhdoomi, wrote from the jail that the accused were all innocent and they were framed. Can this case stand in any court with the kind of people who are material to the case in the eye of the police?
Strangely enough someone close to the CBI has told DNA : “The local police had messed up, and now CBI is stuck.”
This would only mean that the investigating agencies have ‘evolved’ the case only on confession under duress. If the cops have evidence, perhaps that is classified. As the local people know the accused well they do not buy the police version. But the predilection of the officials is self evident. To the surveying reporters a senior police officer said: “This is the worst possible place that a policeman can be transferred to. It feels like you have stepped into a different country altogether." What that different country is, is an open secret. Why does the officer not feel at home in Malegaon. It is not the people who are alienated from the police but the police themselves. Or else why they grope in dark in a place where every fifth person seems to be an informer.
In this fantasy town the horses control the men. "In many states, there seems to be an unwritten law not to keep Muslims in the intelligence. It hampers investigations. And we have also not been able to reach out to the Muslim community which could help us prevent and probe attacks." If the officers believe that SIMI is behind the Malegaon blasts then how come they have discovered it without being able to penetrate the Muslims community? There are two inspectors of police who speak Urdu well. Malegaon is plum posting place. Where would the cops get time from their beats of ‘duty’ of material interest that matters more than intelligence? Their ‘duty’ consumes all their time and energy. There is nothing left for much. Confessions come easier. In fact a senior ATS officer had allegedly told a unani doctor to confess for the sake of the police, at least once.
Like the cops even the reporters are sucked into the common belief that SIMI thrives here, what with the overflowing gutters and road strewn over with muck in the dingy impassable sheltered interior shut off from the sunny world that is outside. If terrorism was the harvest of ghettos Mohammad Atta et al should not be living in Heidelberg or other western pockets of affluence. They should be wallowing in the garbage and sewer.
The home department at the centre like the home department in Maharashtra has been presumptuously blaming SIMI. Former home minister Chaggan Bhujbal and the current home minister RR Patil have never lost any time in blaming SIMI. What proof except presumption is the base? This is more convincing when we know that one of the nine accused was in police custody at the time of the blast and another was leading Friday prayer more than 500 miles from Malegaon. But the agencies assume that the one in jail had preplanned everything behind the bars or even before that and the other was in Malegaon and his ghost hundreds of miles away.
Lifting the ban does not mean exoneration of all blames. The first home minister of India, Sardar Patel, and since then others have also lifted bans on RSS. But the blame sticks, an American centre of research in North Carolina has curiously dubbed RSS as a terrorist organization. Home minister Shivraj Patil would appeal against the lifting of the ban. But the same did not happen in the other case.
Apart from torture of the innocent, humiliation because of their religious identity the most horrific havoc that presumption plays is disaffection it sows among the people. This should attract stringent action against the investigation agencies in the context of the Article 153 of the Indian Penal Code. Some of the accused in the twin blasts of Hyderabad August 25, 2007 had horrifying experience which pales into insignificance the extraordinary rendition even. Abdul Rahim had his beard pulled with tufts of hair coming off, his religious faith abused on the top of physical torture. Mohammad Shakeel was hung from the ceiling and ala Abu Gharib he was given electric shock in the penis. Like the others, Arshal Ali Khan was also taken blind folded to a farm house where he heard others screaming in pain and the interrogators asking him to name others. His burn marks prove his own suffering. In spite of two narco test he has not been booked because there is no proof. Maulana Aleem Islahi’s son Mujaid was shot dead by the police when he protested the arrest of one Maulana Nasiruddin. The neighbours deny that he did anything to prevent the police from arresting Nasiruddin. Maulana Islahi’s youngest surviving son Mohtasim was also picked up and tortured and told to confess. Some thirty women protested against the arrest. They were canned and detained for a night along with two babies they had with them. Two men carried away Ibrahim Ali Junaid like the others. They pulled apart his legs and placed heavy stones on them and tortured to make his confess to have caused the blasts. They could not book him for lack of any evidence. There was no offence that Naseeruddin Khan had committed except being a witness o the shooting of Mujahid Islahi.
Behind this blame and torture exercise is a plan to force the innocent young men from poor neighborhoods of Hyderabad to give confessions to implicate themselves.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Muslim youths' search for a new India
If there is any one couplet of Urdu that is often flaunted with blissful indifference it is about god not changing the station of life of a people who are themselves not aware of making any change. Similarly if there was any veritable occasion of denying that typical minority complex of complacency it was the felicitation of past students of the Akra Society’s schools of Jalgaon district on Sunday August 3, 2008..
A young Muslim girl having just passed matriculation from a rural place dreams of getting through IAS exams. A coveted thing for many aspiring youths. But what is so remarkable about it? She narrated what she would do if she passed IAS. She said she would strive to get better infrastructure in terms of government services including hospitals, roads, better transportation, and prompt implementation of government schemes whose benefits would reach even to the last target recipient. Her father is an ordinary humble government servant and from his experience and her observation, she conferred it was difficult to enforce into practice the various projects that are meant for the welfare of the people. Only someone in the higher echelon of the administration has the power to make things happen and plans to take shape practically. Even this was not so remarkable about Saba of a hamlet in Khandesh region of Maharashtra. What was so subtle in her concern was not lost on her audience. It was the common concern for the people as a whole. This Lucy Gray was from a remote village where members of her own community were in miniscule minority. There was no trace of what the grown up world often refers ‘us and them’ distinction. She was filled with an urge to create a different India to live in. A commonalty, an India where all matter.
As she spoke she did not give any sign of a need for crutches like Sachar recommendations on which she wanted to hobble to a post of a collector.
Bilal was the next alumnus of Akra who was currently working in a computer centre in Pune. He assured his listeners that they must overcome diffidence and they would find that they could achieve with hard work what they wanted in life to be. He also asserted that there were many other Urdu speakers at his work place. He told his younger fellow students that they would feel no stranger there provided they take education in right earnest.
Nazneen was an alumna of humbler birth and had difficulty in spelling even such simple word as ‘bat’. Her devoted teachers made her work the hard way and learn not only spelling but also her course. Now she is doing a Ph.D. Being a farmer’s daughter she had to work in the house and also help her family in farming. Her alma mater provided the chemistry of change in her life.
The younger ones in the audience lustily cheered as the achievers came to take their awards and certificates. The moving spirit behind the programme was chairman of the institute, Karim Salar. He admonished them to make their country a better place for everyone to live in. This could only come through what he reminded his audience of the formula of former President Dr Zakir Hussein who had said mushakat or hard work combined with muddat or time spent in work would create success. The chief guest of the occasion was Shahid Latif, editor of Inquilab which had taken the initiative to trace out and bring the past achievers face to face with the present day schoolmates. The purpose was to acquaint the younger ones with the changing requirements of the highly competitive age. He remarked that the Muslim minority had definitely come out of hell thanks to education but they had still to work much harder to enter heaven. Their being Muslim would help them change and imp rove the life of the people. He illustrated with the example Sayed Ashraff the commissioner of Income Tax Department at the Grand road in Mumbai. The new commissioner told his staff on assuming office that he did not take bribe but would not force anything on his staff against their will. He lived by what he believed. The result was that there was substantial change. Taking bribe plummeted. The ovation that reverberated left no doubt that audience was organic whole in their unity of purpose to have a change for the better.
After all wearing amulets and visiting shrines on Thursday would not make them achieve anything. But burning the candle at both ends while studying would. The governing thought of the fete was that zehanat or intelligence is the not the prerogative of any one group. It is given to all mankind with a difference of how much you can use it to develop yourself and your society through it.
A young Muslim girl having just passed matriculation from a rural place dreams of getting through IAS exams. A coveted thing for many aspiring youths. But what is so remarkable about it? She narrated what she would do if she passed IAS. She said she would strive to get better infrastructure in terms of government services including hospitals, roads, better transportation, and prompt implementation of government schemes whose benefits would reach even to the last target recipient. Her father is an ordinary humble government servant and from his experience and her observation, she conferred it was difficult to enforce into practice the various projects that are meant for the welfare of the people. Only someone in the higher echelon of the administration has the power to make things happen and plans to take shape practically. Even this was not so remarkable about Saba of a hamlet in Khandesh region of Maharashtra. What was so subtle in her concern was not lost on her audience. It was the common concern for the people as a whole. This Lucy Gray was from a remote village where members of her own community were in miniscule minority. There was no trace of what the grown up world often refers ‘us and them’ distinction. She was filled with an urge to create a different India to live in. A commonalty, an India where all matter.
As she spoke she did not give any sign of a need for crutches like Sachar recommendations on which she wanted to hobble to a post of a collector.
Bilal was the next alumnus of Akra who was currently working in a computer centre in Pune. He assured his listeners that they must overcome diffidence and they would find that they could achieve with hard work what they wanted in life to be. He also asserted that there were many other Urdu speakers at his work place. He told his younger fellow students that they would feel no stranger there provided they take education in right earnest.
Nazneen was an alumna of humbler birth and had difficulty in spelling even such simple word as ‘bat’. Her devoted teachers made her work the hard way and learn not only spelling but also her course. Now she is doing a Ph.D. Being a farmer’s daughter she had to work in the house and also help her family in farming. Her alma mater provided the chemistry of change in her life.
The younger ones in the audience lustily cheered as the achievers came to take their awards and certificates. The moving spirit behind the programme was chairman of the institute, Karim Salar. He admonished them to make their country a better place for everyone to live in. This could only come through what he reminded his audience of the formula of former President Dr Zakir Hussein who had said mushakat or hard work combined with muddat or time spent in work would create success. The chief guest of the occasion was Shahid Latif, editor of Inquilab which had taken the initiative to trace out and bring the past achievers face to face with the present day schoolmates. The purpose was to acquaint the younger ones with the changing requirements of the highly competitive age. He remarked that the Muslim minority had definitely come out of hell thanks to education but they had still to work much harder to enter heaven. Their being Muslim would help them change and imp rove the life of the people. He illustrated with the example Sayed Ashraff the commissioner of Income Tax Department at the Grand road in Mumbai. The new commissioner told his staff on assuming office that he did not take bribe but would not force anything on his staff against their will. He lived by what he believed. The result was that there was substantial change. Taking bribe plummeted. The ovation that reverberated left no doubt that audience was organic whole in their unity of purpose to have a change for the better.
After all wearing amulets and visiting shrines on Thursday would not make them achieve anything. But burning the candle at both ends while studying would. The governing thought of the fete was that zehanat or intelligence is the not the prerogative of any one group. It is given to all mankind with a difference of how much you can use it to develop yourself and your society through it.
Friday, August 1, 2008
The Indigenizing of Terror
Far too long did the government and investigative agencies blame Pakistan for the cauldron of terrorism lighted by that neighbour. Then came the nuance that Bangladeshis were stoking that fire. There was hardy any breakthrough in terms of foreigners caught. Even when the foreign hand was discernible as in the 7/11 Mumbai local train blasts of 2006, no credible foreigner was arrested.
Therefore, the convenient theory of blaming terror from across border did not cut much ice. It only helped the intelligence agencies cover up their ineptitude. Even the highest ranking officers of CBI wearing the cloak of anonymity accepted that they had bungled in arrested the wrong people in Malegaon bomb blasts of September 2006. However, the developing story in the news indicates that home grown terror is striving hard to put down its feet on the ground and stand on its own. This infant terror has been conceived and has enjoyed full growth and a normal birth. SIMI, Hindu Janjagran Samiti, Sanatan Sansthan and the Indian Mujahideen as well as Bajrang Dal are quite indigenous. Now that Pakistan is saddled with its own nemesis of terror, time is we focus on what portents are there pointing fingers at the groups within the land.
Prior to the serial bomb blasts in Bangalore July 25, 2008, Ahemdabad July 26 there has been simmering communal tension marked by awful aggressive communal stance of some leaders and groups. Much of the trouble in Gujarat is on account of chief minister Narender Modi. He started fighting his first election by invoking Mian Musharraf to taunt the Muslims who would not vote his communalist party, the pogroms of Muslims in 2002 followed in tandem. President General Musharraf took post Godhra massacre to the UNO general assembly thanks to Modi. When it rained heavily in Ahemdabad Modi performed pooja on the banks of the Narmada to thank the Hindu gods. There was rather nothing wrong in this. But cozily wallowing in the pomp of state power and in grandiose fanfare he challenged the Muslims to perform such a feat of ‘calling’ rains through their religious practices.
He described Muslims as child producing factories and when the National Minorities Commission asked for the copy of the speech in which he purportedly made the remark, his administration played truant. He visited one of the deadliest places of the massacre of Muslims—Naroda Patia-- in the evening of February 28, 2002 and blessed the Charra community whose members had killed so many Muslims that Police Commissioner of Ahemdabad PC Pande had ordered that the dead bodies should be scattered all over the city. Modi also harboured the most notorious killers of Muslims, Babu Bajrangi! He provided him the Gujarat government guest house at Mount Abu health resort while the victims of the pogroms languished in wretched refugee camps. Thus Bajrangi absconded from Modi’s police. He surrendered to the police at the behest of the chief minister who frequently changed judges until Justice Mehta freed him at last.
Everything was done in the name of deshbhakti, patriotism. Modi’s top anti terrorist police officer was DG Vanzara who had killed Sohrabbudin and his wife and also four from Maharashtra which included Ishrat Jehan of Mumbai. Their diaries and I cards were also made available on their persons for fait accomplice. In the last election Modi put on banners boasting that terror would be at bay from Gujarat if the people voted him, making people gullible enough to believe that what had happened till then was not terror. He also taunted the centre with flaccidity and went on to enhance his image of ‘hard’ chote sardar by even daring the centre not to collect income tax from his state.
Let alone Muslims, sober headed people like Vijay Tendulkar wanted school children to know that if he had a gun he would shoot Modi. Did we grown up citizens of this great country pause to think whether we also needed to know anything? Why did the Marathi dramatist par excellent entrust the school children with the knowledge of today to preserve for the future that was so glaringly lost on the 70 plus Bal Thackeray, LK Advani and the octogenarian prime minister AB Vajpayee?
As the shame of Gujarat was the shame of India so is the bomb attacks there an attack on the whole of the country, on each one of us to the last person. It is not enough to mouth platitude of togetherness without establishing truth of past violence and present terror and striving for reconciliation.
Terror is a tactic, a maneuvering to gain an objective. To forestall further terrorist attacks, merely passing of stringent laws will not do. Even the victims of terror have attacked hospitals. What could prevent it? A hospital should be a haven of refuge and cure for the inured and sick. Recently the Israelis released a would be suicide bomber who had failed to blow up. She was badly burnt. She even wanted to kill the doctor. The Israelis treated and healed her injury and made her live through a period in jail. She returned home as a pacifist. Muslims injured in Coimbatore riot were hacked to death in a hospital where they were admitted. In February 1998 bomb blasts took the hospital also as one of their targets. In 1986 wounded Muslim victims of the anti reservation riots in Ahemdabad were thrown to death from the top floor of a hospital. Twenty two years later a doctor attending trauma cases of July 26 blasts lost his life in the same hospital.
Where will this madness end? Who is the statesman that would end the vicious cycle of hate and violence. In the land of the Mahatma we badly need another.
Therefore, the convenient theory of blaming terror from across border did not cut much ice. It only helped the intelligence agencies cover up their ineptitude. Even the highest ranking officers of CBI wearing the cloak of anonymity accepted that they had bungled in arrested the wrong people in Malegaon bomb blasts of September 2006. However, the developing story in the news indicates that home grown terror is striving hard to put down its feet on the ground and stand on its own. This infant terror has been conceived and has enjoyed full growth and a normal birth. SIMI, Hindu Janjagran Samiti, Sanatan Sansthan and the Indian Mujahideen as well as Bajrang Dal are quite indigenous. Now that Pakistan is saddled with its own nemesis of terror, time is we focus on what portents are there pointing fingers at the groups within the land.
Prior to the serial bomb blasts in Bangalore July 25, 2008, Ahemdabad July 26 there has been simmering communal tension marked by awful aggressive communal stance of some leaders and groups. Much of the trouble in Gujarat is on account of chief minister Narender Modi. He started fighting his first election by invoking Mian Musharraf to taunt the Muslims who would not vote his communalist party, the pogroms of Muslims in 2002 followed in tandem. President General Musharraf took post Godhra massacre to the UNO general assembly thanks to Modi. When it rained heavily in Ahemdabad Modi performed pooja on the banks of the Narmada to thank the Hindu gods. There was rather nothing wrong in this. But cozily wallowing in the pomp of state power and in grandiose fanfare he challenged the Muslims to perform such a feat of ‘calling’ rains through their religious practices.
He described Muslims as child producing factories and when the National Minorities Commission asked for the copy of the speech in which he purportedly made the remark, his administration played truant. He visited one of the deadliest places of the massacre of Muslims—Naroda Patia-- in the evening of February 28, 2002 and blessed the Charra community whose members had killed so many Muslims that Police Commissioner of Ahemdabad PC Pande had ordered that the dead bodies should be scattered all over the city. Modi also harboured the most notorious killers of Muslims, Babu Bajrangi! He provided him the Gujarat government guest house at Mount Abu health resort while the victims of the pogroms languished in wretched refugee camps. Thus Bajrangi absconded from Modi’s police. He surrendered to the police at the behest of the chief minister who frequently changed judges until Justice Mehta freed him at last.
Everything was done in the name of deshbhakti, patriotism. Modi’s top anti terrorist police officer was DG Vanzara who had killed Sohrabbudin and his wife and also four from Maharashtra which included Ishrat Jehan of Mumbai. Their diaries and I cards were also made available on their persons for fait accomplice. In the last election Modi put on banners boasting that terror would be at bay from Gujarat if the people voted him, making people gullible enough to believe that what had happened till then was not terror. He also taunted the centre with flaccidity and went on to enhance his image of ‘hard’ chote sardar by even daring the centre not to collect income tax from his state.
Let alone Muslims, sober headed people like Vijay Tendulkar wanted school children to know that if he had a gun he would shoot Modi. Did we grown up citizens of this great country pause to think whether we also needed to know anything? Why did the Marathi dramatist par excellent entrust the school children with the knowledge of today to preserve for the future that was so glaringly lost on the 70 plus Bal Thackeray, LK Advani and the octogenarian prime minister AB Vajpayee?
As the shame of Gujarat was the shame of India so is the bomb attacks there an attack on the whole of the country, on each one of us to the last person. It is not enough to mouth platitude of togetherness without establishing truth of past violence and present terror and striving for reconciliation.
Terror is a tactic, a maneuvering to gain an objective. To forestall further terrorist attacks, merely passing of stringent laws will not do. Even the victims of terror have attacked hospitals. What could prevent it? A hospital should be a haven of refuge and cure for the inured and sick. Recently the Israelis released a would be suicide bomber who had failed to blow up. She was badly burnt. She even wanted to kill the doctor. The Israelis treated and healed her injury and made her live through a period in jail. She returned home as a pacifist. Muslims injured in Coimbatore riot were hacked to death in a hospital where they were admitted. In February 1998 bomb blasts took the hospital also as one of their targets. In 1986 wounded Muslim victims of the anti reservation riots in Ahemdabad were thrown to death from the top floor of a hospital. Twenty two years later a doctor attending trauma cases of July 26 blasts lost his life in the same hospital.
Where will this madness end? Who is the statesman that would end the vicious cycle of hate and violence. In the land of the Mahatma we badly need another.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
A girl musing in the backdrop of the communal riot in Chopra
I learnt the virtue of living in public when I traveled in a train recently. There was a huge crowd. A boy of 15 with his sister of 10 boarded a crowded train. At Nashik many more passengers flooded our compartment. The sister was now squeezed between two walls of people and so she leant upon her brother for support. My heart went out for her but I was also in a very uncomfortable position. After some stations passed and the crowd lessened some passengers began to give space to passengers whom they gauged to be from their own caste and religion. I felt very bad when I saw that because she was from the backward community she was not allowed to sit in seat. She had come earlier than those who were accommodated but had entered the compartment later. But my face brightened when a military man ordered people in his front seat to make space for her and let her sit. She was still very scared to move. Then the military man encouraged her to take seat. Her brother then gave his hand and made her sit.
This taught me how we should live in the public. Justice, pity and lawfulness should be our guide and not the religion we are born in or the caste we are doomed to live in. I wish the leaders who trouble our streets in towns and cities with their bandhs should learn this simple truth.
As I sat and thought of my experience I remembered my English teacher of the junior class. He was teaching the new novel of Kiran Desai where Biju slips over a piece of cabbage in the Gandhi café of New York and injures his ankle. He wants the owner of the café to take him to a doctor. When the owner returned from temple and heard his request, he laughed at Biju but told him to rub so oil. He gave him the prasad from the temple. This is how he used religion to ease his conscience and an excuse not to fulfill his legal obligation. Biju’s colleagues told him that the owner economizing in paying on their expenses because they were from his own religion. They were unhappy with him, but were helpless.
There was a quarrel between the owner and his daughter once. She shouted at her father that he should know that they lived in America where no body would clean his ass free of charge. Biju also remembered a Muslim youth from Zanzibar who was also troubled by people from back home. They would pester you to take undue advantage of you because you are from the same caste and religion. But life demands fellowship of people of better civic sense which does not allow you to compromise your civic sense just because you belong to the same religion
I often see very devoted religious people feeding ants with sugar and wonder why do not we treat others in public life like that. Our relations with other people should be like that. Whether the ants have any religion is something they alone know. We humans must not either kill or harm them. At the most we can remove their hunger. Ours is a duty to treat others with sympathy and love like the men feeding ants. This is secularism that we need so much in our country today.
This taught me how we should live in the public. Justice, pity and lawfulness should be our guide and not the religion we are born in or the caste we are doomed to live in. I wish the leaders who trouble our streets in towns and cities with their bandhs should learn this simple truth.
As I sat and thought of my experience I remembered my English teacher of the junior class. He was teaching the new novel of Kiran Desai where Biju slips over a piece of cabbage in the Gandhi café of New York and injures his ankle. He wants the owner of the café to take him to a doctor. When the owner returned from temple and heard his request, he laughed at Biju but told him to rub so oil. He gave him the prasad from the temple. This is how he used religion to ease his conscience and an excuse not to fulfill his legal obligation. Biju’s colleagues told him that the owner economizing in paying on their expenses because they were from his own religion. They were unhappy with him, but were helpless.
There was a quarrel between the owner and his daughter once. She shouted at her father that he should know that they lived in America where no body would clean his ass free of charge. Biju also remembered a Muslim youth from Zanzibar who was also troubled by people from back home. They would pester you to take undue advantage of you because you are from the same caste and religion. But life demands fellowship of people of better civic sense which does not allow you to compromise your civic sense just because you belong to the same religion
I often see very devoted religious people feeding ants with sugar and wonder why do not we treat others in public life like that. Our relations with other people should be like that. Whether the ants have any religion is something they alone know. We humans must not either kill or harm them. At the most we can remove their hunger. Ours is a duty to treat others with sympathy and love like the men feeding ants. This is secularism that we need so much in our country today.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Difficulties in fighting terrorism: equivocation, innuendoes and proxy war
Portentous events like the brutal murder of Mirwas Moulvi Farooq on May 21, 1990 when President George Bush’s special envoy Robert Gates was to visit New Delhi to discuss the Kashmir issue and the equally brutal murder of 36 Sikhs on March 20, 2000 in Chittisingpora when President Bill Clinton was beginning his tour of India are terrorist acts shrouded in mystery. The first resulted in Governor Jagmohan being forced to put in his papers and the second in the cold blooded murder of five innocent Kashmiri Muslims by the security forces, the exhuming of their bodies and the furor over their DNA report. The murder of the five was passed off as proof of cross border terror and the event was hastened to coincide with the closing day of the Clinton visit. Coalesces into these two events are all the three difficulties of equivocation, innuendoes and proxy war.
Equivocation is making statements in such a way to mislead people.
There is greater need to be unequivocal on matters of terrorism now than ever before. The International Criminal Court has issued notice to President Omar al Basher of Sudan to face charges of genocide in Dahfur. This is crystal clear case of using terrorism against a people by no other than the ruler of the country with active connivance of the Sudanese of Arab origin (the Janjiwad) and help from China. Among the charges are mass rape and massacre. It is highly objectionable that the attitude of the two leading Muslim organizations is ambiguous. The Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference should have been loud and clear in condemnation of the terror of Janjiwad.. The government arms and supports this group against the Muslims of Dahfur region who are of African origin. There is no insurgency there as there is in the south of Sudan where the Christians are up in arms fighting the government forces. The disaster in Dahfur is truly humanitarian. However, the accusation against the Dahfur people that they could be potential for subversion is a ruse. It is ambivalent.
Just how difficult has it become to fight terrorism is evident from the prosecution in London of the eight suspects in the plot to blow up aircraft with liquid bomb in 2006. The accused claim that it was a publicity stunt to draw attempt to the mistreatment of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. The eight accused are Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Tanvir Hussain, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, Mohammed Gulzar, 26, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, and Waheed Zaman, 24. The scientist whose opinion the court sought called the ingenious liquid device to blow up planes as prosecution fantasy and the judge remarked that there was no evidence that the accused had fabricated a bomb and that they were dealing with a conspiracy rather than an actual blowing up of planes.(NYT 15-7-8). The role of Pakistan is quite definite. Six of the accused are of Pakistani origin Gulzar had Toshiba batteries manufactured in Pakistan and was waiting for instructions from Pakistan. This would mean that it was an outfit that was controlled from Pakistan. Moreover Sarwar visited Pakistan in 2006 where a Kashmiri fighting for azadi had shown him how to make liquid bomb. Till now the court has found out their intention to blow up planes albeit they had not yet bought even the tickets to fly.
The equivocal nature of this case is: when does latent terror become manifest terror. These are English born would be bombers, at least Ali, Sarwar and Hussain, admit to plot to draw attention to the plight of fellow Muslims elsewhere including Palestine.
Innuendoes are indirect references to people which can damage the character of them. The US is engaged in what it calls a war on terror. The Democratic candidate in the next presidential election is Barack Obama of Muslim origin. Currently there is a good deal of innuendoes in the news discussion as to whether he can really fight terrorism. Obama says that the war in Iraq is a distraction of American foreign policy from its war on terror. Real terrorism is in Afghanistan. His rival the Republican candidate John McCain opposes him on Iraq war. The New Yorker Magazine carried a cartoon this week that may remind you of the odious Danish cartoons. These cartoons stereotype Muslims as terrorists even when they are not.
Equivocation is making statements in such a way to mislead people.
There is greater need to be unequivocal on matters of terrorism now than ever before. The International Criminal Court has issued notice to President Omar al Basher of Sudan to face charges of genocide in Dahfur. This is crystal clear case of using terrorism against a people by no other than the ruler of the country with active connivance of the Sudanese of Arab origin (the Janjiwad) and help from China. Among the charges are mass rape and massacre. It is highly objectionable that the attitude of the two leading Muslim organizations is ambiguous. The Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference should have been loud and clear in condemnation of the terror of Janjiwad.. The government arms and supports this group against the Muslims of Dahfur region who are of African origin. There is no insurgency there as there is in the south of Sudan where the Christians are up in arms fighting the government forces. The disaster in Dahfur is truly humanitarian. However, the accusation against the Dahfur people that they could be potential for subversion is a ruse. It is ambivalent.
Just how difficult has it become to fight terrorism is evident from the prosecution in London of the eight suspects in the plot to blow up aircraft with liquid bomb in 2006. The accused claim that it was a publicity stunt to draw attempt to the mistreatment of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. The eight accused are Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Tanvir Hussain, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, Mohammed Gulzar, 26, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, and Waheed Zaman, 24. The scientist whose opinion the court sought called the ingenious liquid device to blow up planes as prosecution fantasy and the judge remarked that there was no evidence that the accused had fabricated a bomb and that they were dealing with a conspiracy rather than an actual blowing up of planes.(NYT 15-7-8). The role of Pakistan is quite definite. Six of the accused are of Pakistani origin Gulzar had Toshiba batteries manufactured in Pakistan and was waiting for instructions from Pakistan. This would mean that it was an outfit that was controlled from Pakistan. Moreover Sarwar visited Pakistan in 2006 where a Kashmiri fighting for azadi had shown him how to make liquid bomb. Till now the court has found out their intention to blow up planes albeit they had not yet bought even the tickets to fly.
The equivocal nature of this case is: when does latent terror become manifest terror. These are English born would be bombers, at least Ali, Sarwar and Hussain, admit to plot to draw attention to the plight of fellow Muslims elsewhere including Palestine.
Innuendoes are indirect references to people which can damage the character of them. The US is engaged in what it calls a war on terror. The Democratic candidate in the next presidential election is Barack Obama of Muslim origin. Currently there is a good deal of innuendoes in the news discussion as to whether he can really fight terrorism. Obama says that the war in Iraq is a distraction of American foreign policy from its war on terror. Real terrorism is in Afghanistan. His rival the Republican candidate John McCain opposes him on Iraq war. The New Yorker Magazine carried a cartoon this week that may remind you of the odious Danish cartoons. These cartoons stereotype Muslims as terrorists even when they are not.
The subcontinent of India has a tripartite angle of terror. Pakistan is responsible for terror in India and Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has directly named it for the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. The explosion has the hallmark of al Qaeda which is at loggerheads with India and Pakistan as well as the Afghan government. One source of equivocation is of course the blame that it is proxy war between India and Pakistan. If it were just that it would not have international ramification on the scale of al Qaeda leashed terror.
An element of ambiguity is in the assertion of MK Narayanan who blames Pakistan for the blasts but wants to confront the terrorists responsible for the event. The National Security Advisor told Times Now news channel about the bombing of Indian embassy in Kabul: “We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence (on the involvement of Pakistan)," While denying this as insinuation, he went on to say: "I think we need to pay back in the same coin. We are quite clear in our mind.” But when newsmen pressed him to name culprits, he nuanced: “Those who are responsible." This would mean that the terrorists and Pakistan are two different entities. However this is wiser than rushing our troops to the border as we did in the huge mobilization in the aftermath of the attack on our Parliament on December 13, 2001. What the National Security Advisor denies as insinuation is nothing else but equivocation.
Proxy means acting on behalf of others. When government forces cannot do because the government does not want its name sullied they use proxy.
When there was attack on his life in April, President Karzai hinted at retaliation. How else is this going to happen except by proxy war? All the three countries have resorted to proxy war because they think that their strategic interest is better served through this means than open warfare. But the suffering of the people is veritable human disaster. Ahmed Shah Warlaj was in the queue outside Indian embassy. In the bomb blast his two sons, two daughters and sister in law died. Two tender aged daughters of his were injured seriously.
An element of ambiguity is in the assertion of MK Narayanan who blames Pakistan for the blasts but wants to confront the terrorists responsible for the event. The National Security Advisor told Times Now news channel about the bombing of Indian embassy in Kabul: “We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence (on the involvement of Pakistan)," While denying this as insinuation, he went on to say: "I think we need to pay back in the same coin. We are quite clear in our mind.” But when newsmen pressed him to name culprits, he nuanced: “Those who are responsible." This would mean that the terrorists and Pakistan are two different entities. However this is wiser than rushing our troops to the border as we did in the huge mobilization in the aftermath of the attack on our Parliament on December 13, 2001. What the National Security Advisor denies as insinuation is nothing else but equivocation.
Proxy means acting on behalf of others. When government forces cannot do because the government does not want its name sullied they use proxy.
When there was attack on his life in April, President Karzai hinted at retaliation. How else is this going to happen except by proxy war? All the three countries have resorted to proxy war because they think that their strategic interest is better served through this means than open warfare. But the suffering of the people is veritable human disaster. Ahmed Shah Warlaj was in the queue outside Indian embassy. In the bomb blast his two sons, two daughters and sister in law died. Two tender aged daughters of his were injured seriously.
There have been almost relentless terrorist attacks in Pakistan, even more so after the show down at the red mosque of Islamabad. On Sunday July 6, 2008 there was a deadly attack in which eleven police officers were killed and twenty two injured near the red mosque where the militants were observing the first anniversary of the attack on the red mosque. Within twenty four hours there was the horrendous blast at the Indian embassy in Kabul.
As if India and Afghanistan were not enough, Pakistan seems to have taken on the US in this proxy war. An aerial attack on the al Qaeda hideout by the US killed eleven Pakistani soldiers in the North Western province. In retaliation militants killed nine American soldiers on Sunday July 13, 2008 in an assault in the region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. (WP)
As if India and Afghanistan were not enough, Pakistan seems to have taken on the US in this proxy war. An aerial attack on the al Qaeda hideout by the US killed eleven Pakistani soldiers in the North Western province. In retaliation militants killed nine American soldiers on Sunday July 13, 2008 in an assault in the region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. (WP)
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