Friday, May 22, 2009

Why the Taliban’s going to win in Pakistan

Reproducing Aakar Patel's commentary on Sharia and Islam being the cornerstone, which will lead Taliban's Societal onquest of Pakistan, even if it is beaten Militarilly.
http://www.livemint.com/2009/05/21211703/Why-the-Taliban8217s-going.html

The Taliban cannot defeat Pakistan militarily. The Taliban will win because what they want is already being implemented by Pakistan

The Taliban will win in Pakistan. They are on the right side of the law. They are also on the right side of history. Last month, a video of Talibs whipping a 17-year-old girl for adultery upset Pakistanis, who thought it barbaric. It might be, but it is the law. The punishment for married adulterers in Pakistan is to “be stoned to death at a public place” (Ordinance 7 of 1979). Unmarried adulterers are to be “punished, at a public place; with whipping numbering one hundred stripes”.

Later in April, the world worried over Pakistan’s decision to enforce Shariah law in the district of Swat, being held by the Taliban. But Shariah is already in force in the whole of Pakistan; it is only being implemented selectively. What the Taliban are demanding is enforcement. Pakistanis might fear the Taliban but nobody opposes Islamic law. Speaking against the “ideology of Pakistan” means 10 years in jail (Penal Code 123a).
In Pakistan, defiling the Quran means life in prison. Speaking against the Prophet is an automatic death sentence (Penal Code 295c).
Under laws that president Zia-ul-Haq introduced, the maximum punishment for theft is amputation of hands. Muslims caught drinking face 80 lashes.
Under prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, founder of the liberal Pakistan People’s Party, parliament apostatized the entire Ahmedi sect, a group of Punjabi Muslims.
An Ahmedi “is not a Muslim for the purposes of the constitution or law” (Second Amendment, 1974). If Ahmedis refer to themselves as “Muslim”, or their prayer house as “masjid”, or recite the azaan (call for prayer), they shall be imprisoned for three years (Pakistan Penal Code 298B, 298C).
What happens to Pakistan’s liberal politicians when these laws are passed?
They have to disappear.
Also Read Aakar’s previous Lounge columns
Bhutto’s finance minister was the socialist, Mubashir Hasan. Every year, he leads the candle vigil at Wagah. His book, The Mirage of Power, is a detailed account of his four years as minister but makes no mention of the apostatization of the Ahmedis. He skips over the episode. Why? He is afraid to communicate his opposition because he might be lynched.
It is difficult to be secular in Pakistan. The man whose party surrendered at Swat was Asfandyar Wali, grandson of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi.
The Taliban cannot defeat Pakistan militarily. The Pakistan army will rout it because the Talibs have neither armour, nor artillery nor aircraft.
The Taliban will win because what they want is already being implemented by Pakistan.

On 23 December 1999, Pakistan’s supreme court banned the charging of interest on loans, deciding it was not Islamic. Effectively, this would shut down the banking system and switch off the economy. Pervez Musharraf, then president, got the court to appoint a committee to decide how to implement this ban. This has delayed the destruction of Pakistan’s economy, but not avoided it. In 1998, prime minister Nawaz Sharif moved the 15th Amendment to enforce Shariah. This would designate him Amir-ul-Momineen, commander of the faithful, like Mullah Omar. The Bill was passed by the lower house before being blocked in the senate by the small party of Bihari-UP migrants from India, the Muhajirs.
Urdu-speaking Muhajirs form the only secular party in Pakistan. Their base is Karachi, where they are up against four million Pashtun immigrants. Who are the Talibs? Ethnically, they are Pashtun, 15% of Pakistan’s population.
Many were students of a curriculum designed at Deoband, a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district. It was set up after the war of 1857, seen as the end of Muslim rule in India. Its purpose was to revive Islam by ridding it of the corruption of Hindu influence. It recognizes the jurist Abu Hanifa (who died in 765). The Jaish-e-Mohammad follows the Deobandi ideology.
Pakistan was founded by a man who didn’t really understand Islam. Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a South Mumbai Gujarati who spoke no Urdu or Arabic. He was a constitutionalist who did not understand the nature of the state he had founded. He was a Shia of the Sevener Ismaili Khoja sect. They are talented businessmen and good citizens, but Sunnis regard them as heretics. To widen his appeal, Jinnah converted to “regular” Twelver Shiism.
But that wasn’t good enough.
When he died in 1948, a year after Partition, his deputy, Liaquat Ali Khan, had him buried as a Sunni with a Deobandi maulvi leading his funeral prayer. Six months after Jinnah’s death, on 12 March 1949, Khan introduced the Objectives Resolution in the Pakistan assembly, which was legislating the new constitution. Pakistanis, Khan declared, would enjoy democracy, freedom and equality “as enunciated by Islam”. These words alarmed the assembly’s Hindu members, all Bengalis from East Pakistan. They said this was not what Jinnah had promised them. But Jinnah had been vague. And the Muslims in the assembly were able to point to instances where Jinnah had spoken clearly of Shariah law. The committee voted 21:10. All Muslims voting for; all Hindus against.
Khan assured the Hindus that they would not be discriminated against. He was assassinated in 1951. The discrimination would be written in later, incrementally and over time.
By law, only a Muslim may now be Pakistan’s president (Article 41-2) or prime minister (Article 91-4). Not that there are many non-Muslims left.
Pakistan is today 96% Muslim and unable to think on secular lines. Why are Pakistanis doing this to themselves?
B.R. Ambedkar speculated about this in 1946. “The Muslims have no interest in politics as such. Their predominant interest is religion” (Pakistan: The Partition of India, pages 232-233). All that the Muslim voter cared about, he wrote, was that the candidate “replace the lamps... (and) provide a new carpet for the masjid”. He added: “None of the secular categories of life have any place in the politics of (the) Muslim community and if they do find a place—and they must because they are irrepressible—they are subordinated to one and only one governing principle of the Muslim political universe, namely, religion.” Months later, Ambedkar began work on India’s secular constitution, which took force on 26 January 1950.

Till last year, Nepal was the only Hindu state on earth. The Chhetri (Kshatriya) dynasty ended with the republic of 2008.
Why was it a Hindu state? Because executive power flowed from a warrior king, as prescribed in the Hindu code, Manusmriti. But Nepal was Hindu only to that extent. Nothing else from Hindu texts could be applied because most of it is against the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, just like Shariah is.
The religious state is utopian, and demands perfection. If we obey God fully, He will look after us. This is not the view of just the bearded Talib of Swat: the justices of the supreme court of Pakistan expect that blessings will be showered on their country after they skewer its economy.
Pakistan is in religious ecstasy. Like Iran, it will have to go through the process of full Islamization.
After this it will learn that there is no other way to run a modern state than as a secular democracy.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Jai Ho: The Indian voter comes of age

General Elections ’09: A mandate that proves the Indian electorate is maturing beyond the dimly defined lines of caste , region and vote bank politics. I never thought that the mandate would be this consistent in backing the efforts of any single national party blurring the divisive politics plaguing the country’s political firmament. It did not matter whether UPA won or NDA won, as long as they won decisively and comprehensively keeping the petty small regional interests at bay. That is exactly what the Indian voter opted for. In essence, the Indian voter, have given a clear message to the political parties: Stability, growth and consistency against personal ambition, greed, opportunism, divisionary tactics and regionalism.


A overwhelming positives according to me:

1. A clean “stability” mandate so that UPA can pursue its agenda of economic growth to the full instead of trying to get the diverse interests in the coalition to agree on what is to be agreed.

2. The emergence of younger leaders playing such a key role in shaping the political fortunes of the country. Prominent amongst this is the rise of Rahul Gandhi who looks to be a destined to lead India in the very near future.

3. The snubbing of BJP and NDA’s will cause it to re-access its Hindutva platform in favour of growth centric positioning. It was important for BJP to understand that its platform has outlived its use in favour of developmental agenda.

4. Keeping the Mulayams, Mayawatis, Karats, Yechurys, Amar Singhs, Jayalalithas, Laloos and Karunanidhis will increase the stability and consistency of the government. Somewhere the Indian voter is beginning to realize the importance of keeping parties with limited perspective away from the central podiums.

5. The left is “left” out effectively. Not only on a national level, but the “red” bastions such as West Bengal and Kerala give it a snub. Again the point of progressive economic development has been re-instated by these states which for long have been fettered by the Left myopic view of development and growth.


Overwhelmingly, it is a Jai Ho for the coming of age of the Indian Voter who now sees himself positioned against the best and biggest in the world and wants to break free of the petty squabbling of vote politics.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Man Slaughter:The Tamilians in Sri Lanka

The world watches as Sri Lanka burns and Tamilians and slaughtered. Refer to my earlier post on the same
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/04/sri-lankas-silent-horror.html




The seeming inability of international mediators, forums and organizations to control the civilian deaths, damages and genocides is frustrating and painful. For long Sri Lanka has been a battleground and the casualties keep rising. However, there is little and no effort to stem the bloodbath in the island nation. There have been sporadic statements issued by a few Indian Politicians on the war and there is nothingness beyond the empty rhetoric. The action of the armyu and the rebels reek of "Wanton disregard for Human Life", as put by aid agencies. 380 civilians died and more than 1,100 wounded on Sunday during intensive shelling of the combat zone on Sri Lanka’s northeastern coast, a boggy sliver of beachfront where Sri Lankan troops have surrounded Tamil separatist fighters.

“The U.N. has consistently warned against the bloodbath scenario as we’ve watched the steady increase in civilian deaths over the last few months,” Gordon Weiss, the U.N. spokesman in Sri Lanka, said Monday. “The large-scale killing of civilians over the weekend, including the deaths of more than 100 children, shows that that bloodbath has become a reality.”

Concern for civilians trapped in the zone has grown in recent weeks. The area of fighting, which at one time had been set aside by the government as a “no-fire zone,” has shrunk to about 7 square kilometers, or about 2.5 square miles. An estimated 50,000 civilians, mostly Tamils, are thought to be caught there, along with a holdout force of between 200 and 500 fighters.

Some relief groups and the government have assailed the rebels for holding the civilians as human shields. Many of the same agencies and some foreign governments have accused the government of shelling the area — along with the civilians inside — despite pledges to no longer use heavy weapons, artillery or air strikes.

Food, water and shelter are in short supply inside the battle zone, according to accounts from some of those who have escaped the fighting there. An official with a Catholic relief group said Monday that only one field hospital remains in operation, with doctors and medical staff fearful of leaving the bunkers where they live because of periodic shelling by the army. The rebels claim that the army has annihilated 3200 civilians while some relief groups and the government have assailed the rebels for holding the civilians as human shields. Many of the same agencies and some foreign governments have accused the government of shelling the area — along with the civilians inside — despite pledges to no longer use heavy weapons, artillery or air strikes.

Amnesty Internation, Human Rights watch,the International Crisis Group and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect have pleaded Japan to intervene and raise the Sri Lanka crisis at the Security Council.

The government, in a statement by the Defense Ministry, said Monday that the rebels were “bombarding their own civilians.”“Hopefully, in their calculation, this will attract the foreign countries to throw a lifeline to save their souls,” the statement said. “L.T.T.E. is desperate with the security forces closing on them. Lives of the L.T.T.E. leadership are hanging on a thread. They know they are running out of time.”Independent verification of various charges by the government and the rebels has been impossible because the military has banned journalists from the area around the war zone and from refugee camps.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Climatic Changes: A rude awakening (Part III)

Dissapearing mangroves and coastlines

The first mention of climate refugees have started circulating. This was given off by the foreign minister of Bangladesh, Dipu Moni at Tromsoe, North Norway at the Meltic Ice and Arctic Counsell conference. Because of its geographical location and the fact that it is mostly a low lying delta, Bangladesh risks devastating impacts from the rising sea levels caused by climate change. Already Bangaldesh accounts for 60% of the 250,000 deaths worldwide on account of cyclones. (as per 1980 - 2000 statistics). Moni urged rich nations to help the densely populated country of 150 million people, possibly by opening their borders to international environment/climate refugees! U.N. Climate Panel projected in 2007 world sea levels would rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-23 inches) this century and listed Bangladesh among the most vulnerable countries to climate changes. Millions of Bangladeshis reside less than a metre above sea level making them susceptible to rise sea water levels.Rising seas and storms would bring more salinity to farmland, affecting crops and changing the types of fish able to survive, thereby multiplying the crisis.

In another independent study, it has been found that the living along Maharashtra coastline are being threatened and fast disappearing due to various human activities including government activities. Jat Sangli (Botanist) and Current Science (Journal) are putting together a plan conserve some of the endangered and critically endangered species of mangroves along the Maharashtra coastline as they are the shoreline protectors and habitat for a variety of animals. Maharashtra is one of the important states of India with unique mangrove diversity along its 720 kilometers coastline, distributed in about 55 estuaries in five districts. There are about 24 typical mangroves along with ten halophytes, 12 borderline species and 15 associates in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts alone and the rest of the districts show more or less similar composition. Lack of awareness in locals about how to maintain the eco-system and the mangroves is seen as the first obstacle and for start, the beginning is in education of the locals on issues such as eco disasters associated with loss of mangroves on the coastal belts.

Read more about Mangrove conservation here