Strange Coincidence By RK Kaushik

In history, sometimes along with human beings institutions also migrate. In the year 1947, one such institution, which migrated from Amritsar to Lahore was Muslim Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College. This college had a very famous Principal, who was also the first person from Punjab to get a PhD in English from Cambridge University of England.

It was one day in the summer of 1937 that he, a bachelor, went for shopping in Hall Bazaar of Amritsar. As ill luck would have it, he forgot his purse in the shop and came back. A British lady by the name of Ms. Christable picked up the purse and went next day to return it to Prof. Mohammed Din in his college.

Since the British lady had also been a Cambridge student, an instant friendship started. May be, that was love at first sight. Later, they decided to get married and their Nikah ceremony was performed by Sir Allama Iqbal.

Prof. Mohammed Din had three children — two daughters followed by a son, who was born in 1946. Christable’s younger sister Alys also started visiting Amritsar and developed a liking for a lecturer of English at MAO College named Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The younger sister followed the elder one and married Faiz.

At the time of Partition, most of the Muslim students and teachers of MAO College of Amritsar moved to Pakistan along with the college. The college itself got shifted to the premises of DAV College of Lahore located in the lower Mall. It still runs there.

Prof Mohammed Din was handsome and a voracious reader, besides being a famous Urdu poet, with the surname of Taseer. He took over the Principalship of Islamia College, Lahore. Prof. Mohammed Din Taseer had an early death in the late 50s. His son and two daughters were brought up by his wife Christable — now converted to Islam with the new name Bilquees. The daughters settled in England after marriage in Muslim families and the son, Salman Taseer, became a chartered accountant. He later joined politics and became a famous leader of the Pakistan People’s Party. He became the Governor of Punjab province of Pakistan in May 2008 and was murdered a few days ago by a fanatic.

Sometimes I think that had Prof Mohammed Din not lost his purse in the shop in Hall Bazaar, Amritsar, and had that not been found by the British damsel, many such events would not have happened.

Salman Taseer was murdered because of his stand on the blasphemy law regarding Holy Prophet. There is a strange coincidence. His father too had praised, defended and arranged for the funeral of Illamddin in 1929 because Illamddin, who had killed Rajpal Malhotra, the owner of Hind Pocket Books and father of former Punjab Governor Surender Nath because of his comments on Holy Prophet.

Raymond Davis, Diplomatic Immunity and Hypocrisy of USA

Article 31(1) of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 states

A diplomatic agent shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State. He shall also enjoy immunity from its civil and administrative jurisdiction, except in the case of: …….

Article 41(1) of the convention states

Without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.

Raymond Davis, an employee of the American Consulate in Lahore, shot dead two Pakistanis on Jan. 27, claiming that he had acted in self-defense. Davis, driving a white-color car, was later arrested as his car was stuck up in the traffic after his brazen attack. Another Pakistani was crushed to death by the U.S. consulate car, when it arrived at the scene for Davis help. The police registered a double-murder case against the U.S. national on the requests by families of the slain men. The police said the accused had also been charged for carrying illegal arms as he failed to show license for his pistol.
Davis had introduced himself to the police as Technical Advisor in the American Consulate in Lahore.

The Davis incident brings up many questions. Firstly, who IS Raymond Davis? Reports are still mixed. According to ABC News, Davis is a private security officer. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad calls Davis a "diplomat". The truth is anyone's guess. The U.S Embassy says Davis was "assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, has a U.S. diplomatic passport and Pakistani visa valid until June 2012." They have called for his release, saying that as a diplomat, Davis has immunity under the Vienna Convention. But on Sunday night, Dawn News, a local Urdu channel, broadcast what it says are images of Davis' passport -- which did not have a diplomatic visa.

Though the United States on Saturday formally requested diplomatic immunity for an American who killed two people before a large number of people, the US itself has not granted similar immunity to even senior diplomats of other countries involved in such cases in the US. In the 1997 case, Gueorgui Makharadze, the Georgian ambassador in Washington, had killed an American teenager in a road accident. The then US president Bill Clinton had flatly refused to grant diplomatic immunity to the Georgian diplomat and consequently Makharadze was sentenced to 21 years by a US court. Pakistan’s New York-based permanent representative to the UN, Munir Akram, got involved in a case involving his live-in girlfriend, he was not given diplomatic immunity. In a minor case of very little significance in 1982, a North Korean diplomat grabbed a woman’s breasts in a park in Eastchester, outside New York City and then took shelter in his country’s UN mission for 10 months before he finally pleaded guilty of a minor charge and then left the country. Minister Kamal Nath, a Congress Leader and a Indian Union Minister in the Government led by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, had sought diplomatic immunity who is an accused in the infamous Sikh Genocide of 1984. After being summoned by the US Court in 2010, he has been denied diplomatic immunity by US Department of State.

United States is equally hypocrite when its diplomats are involved in abuse of diplomatic immunity. An American Marine serving his embassy in Bucharest, Romania, collided with a taxi and killed the popular Romanian musician Teo Peter on December 3, 2004. Christopher Van Goethem, allegedly drunk, did not obey a traffic signal to stop, which resulted in the collision of his Ford Expedition with the taxi the rock star was travelling in. Van Goethem's blood alcohol content was estimated at 0.09% from a breathalyser test, but he refused to give a blood sample for further testing and left for Germany before charges could be filed in Romania. The Romanian government requested the American government lift his immunity, which it has refused to do. An American diplomat, Consul General Douglas Kent, stationed in Vladivostok, Russia, was involved in a car accident on October 27, 1998, that left a young man, Alexander Kashin, crippled. Kent was not prosecuted in a U.S. court. Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, diplomatic immunity does not apply to civil actions relating to vehicular accidents. However, on 10 August 2006, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that since he was using his own vehicle for consular purposes, Kent may not be sued civilly.

The hypocrisy of United States does not end with diplomats only, it extends to other diplomatic immunity areas as well. The biggest headache for the British authorities remains the collection of fines from diplomatic missions resulting from their refusal to pay the congestion charge for driving into the center of London. Embassies have clocked up fines totaling 36 million pounds (US$54 million), with the U.S. embassy alone owing 3.8 million pounds, the figures showed. UNITED NATIONS – Diplomatic immunity might allow foreign embassies to avoid paying parking fines. It’s nearly $18 million dollars, with the Top Ten worst offenders accounting for approximately $8 million of this staggering figure. Congressman Weiner said ““It’s insulting to all New Yorkers that countries like Yemen, Zimbabwe and Iran owe the City millions in unpaid parking tickets”.

The United States has had a history of being reluctant to pay its U.N. dues, with critics of the world body charging it has a bloated and sometimes corrupt bureaucracy. U.N. supporters say the dues are cheap at the price. The announcement about the reduction in U.S. arrears at the United Nations comes as U.S. Republicans threatened on Tuesday to use their new power as the majority in the House of Representatives to withhold funding for the world body, which they accused of waste and bias. The United States has paid off more than a third of the nearly $1.2 billion in payments it owed the United Nations at the end of last year.

Raymond Davis Incident - Same Happened Once in 1964

I am pasting below an excerpt from the Imam Khomeini's Speech that he delivered after a similar incident (referring to Raymond Davis Incident) took place in Iran - 1964. After the speech, which incited a lot of people, he was sent in exile in November the same year. I am sure you will be able to relate it with what has happened in Lahore.....

Khomeini's Speech Excerpts “The Granting of Capitaluatory Rights to the USA“ 27 October, 1964

.I cannot express the sorrow I feel in my heart Iran no longer has any festival to celebrate; they have turned our festival into mourning…They have sold us, they have sold our independence; but still they light up the city and dance The dignity of the Iranian Army has been trampled underfoot! A law has been put before the Majlis according to which we are to accede to the Vienna Convention, and a provision has been added to it that all American military advisers, together with their families, technical, and administrative officials, and servants   “ in short, anyone in any way connected to them " are to enjoy legal immunity with respect to any crime they may commit in Iran. If some American's servant, some American cook, assassinates your marja in the middle of the bazaar, or runs over him, the Iranian police do not have the right to apprehend him! Iranian courts do not have the right to judge him! The dossier must be sent to America, so that our master there can decide what is to be done They have reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of the American dog. If someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he will be persecuted. But if an American cook runs over the Shah, the head of the state, no one will have the right to interfere with him. Why? Because they wanted a loan and Americans demanded this in return.

Source: Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, p 181-188. 

A visiting delegation of the powerful US House Armed Services Committee conveyed a veiled threat on Friday that Pakistan-US defense cooperation could be under cloud if the standoff persisted on the issue of immunity for Raymond Davis, an American national accused of killing two men in Lahore.

Shumaila, the widow of Muhammad Faheem, one of the two civilians shot dead in Lahore by a US citizen Raymond Davis committed suicide after taking poisonous pills on Sunday. The United States on Monday called the suicide of the wife of a Pakistani shot by a US official "a tragedy" but renewed calls on the country to free the American. The United States has put all bilateral contacts with Pakistan on hold until Islamabad releases an employee of the its consulate in Lahore, arrested for shooting down two men, diplomatic sources told Dawn.

The government on Saturday appeared to be all set to grant `immunity` to Raymond Davis, accused of double murder in Lahore, after Washington limited its bilateral interaction with Islamabad till the resolution of the matter. Apart from the pressure from Washington, what may have led the government to this decision was a message from Pakistan`s Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani. He urged the government to grant immunity to Davis at the earliest. His message was sent after the State Department virtually snapped all communication with the embassy in Washington. According to a top diplomatic source, a cable from the Washington embassy clearly warned that the diplomatic stand-off with the US was likely to grow more intense with each passing day. The cable is said to have also conveyed the strong sentiments in Washington on the issue and said that the US could go all out to get Davis released.

Below is a last paragraph of a column from Mr. Irfan Siddiqi on the subject of this blog:

Suicide Bombings

A suicide attack (also known as suicide bombing or "kamikaze") is an attack intended to kill others and inflict widespread damage, in which the attacker expects or intends to die in the process.

In the Bible, Samson sacrificed himself in bringing down the temple on the Philistine leadership, killing more through his death than he did during his life. The Spartans, at Thermopylae, faced down the Persians, knowing that the doomed effort would nevertheless delay the invading army long enough to give the Athenians time to prepare Greek defenses. In the first century AD in the Roman province of Judea, Jewish Zealots and Sicarians (”dagger men”) launched suicide missions, mostly against Jewish moderates, to provoke an uprising against Roman rule.

Modern suicide bombing as a political tool can be traced back to the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1881. Alexander fell victim to a Nihilist plot. While driving on one of the central streets of Saint Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of hand-made grenades and died a few hours afterwards. The Tsar was killed by a member of Narodnaya Volya, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, who died while intentionally exploding the bomb during the attack. Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff intended to assassinate Adolf Hitler by suicide bomb in 1943, but was unable to complete the attack.During the Battle for Berlin the Luftwaffe flew Selbstopfereinsatz against Soviet bridges over the Oder river. These missions were flown by pilots of the Leonidas Squadron under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Heiner Lange. From 17 April until 20 April 1945, using any aircraft that were available, the Luftwaffe claimed that the squadron destroyed 17 bridges, however the military historian Antony Beevor when writing about the incident thinks that this was exaggerated and that only the railway bridge at Küstrin was definitely destroyed. He comments that "thirty-five pilots and aircraft was a high price to pay for such a limited and temporary success". The missions were called off when the Soviet ground forces reached the vicinity of the squadron's airbase at Jüterbog.Following World War II, Viet Minh "death volunteers" fought against the French Colonial Forces by using a long stick-like explosive to destroy French tanks.

In America’s first war against Islam, Americans were the ones who introduced the use of suicide bombers. Indeed, the American seamen who perished in the incident were among the U.S. military’s first missing in action. It was September 4, 1804. The United States was at war with the Barbary pirates along the North African coast. The U.S. Navy was desperate to penetrate the enemy defenses. Commodore Edward Preble, who headed up the Third Mediterranean Squadron, chose an unusual stratagem: sending a booby-trapped U.S.S. Intrepid into the bay at Tripoli, one of the Barbary states of the Ottoman empire, to blow up as many of the enemy’s ships as possible. U.S. sailors packed 10,000 pounds of gunpowder into the boat along with 150 shells. The crew of the boat then guided the Intrepid into the bay at night. So as not to be captured and lose so much valuable gunpowder to the enemy, they chose to blow themselves up with the boat. The explosion didn’t do much damage — at most, one Tripolitan ship went down — but the crew was killed just as surely as the two men who plowed a ship piled high with explosives into the U.S.S. Cole in the Gulf of Aden nearly 200 years later.Despite the failure of the mission, Preble received much praise for his strategies. “A few brave men have been sacrificed, but they could not have fallen in a better cause,” opined a British navy commander. The Pope went further: “The American commander, with a small force and in a short space of time, has done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christiandom have done for ages!” Preble chose his tactic because his American forces were outgunned. It was a Hail Mary attempt to level the playing field. The bravery of his men and the reaction of his supporters could be easily transposed to the present day, when “fanatics” fighting against similar odds beg to sacrifice themselves for the cause of Islam and garner the praise of at least some of their religious leaders. The blowing up of the Intrepid was not the only act of suicidal heroism in U.S. military history. We routinely celebrate the brave sacrifices of soldiers who knowingly give up their lives in order to save their unit or achieve a larger military mission. We commemorate the sacrifice of the defenders of the Alamo, who could have, after all, slunk away to save themselves and fight another day. The poetry of the Civil War is rich in the language of sacrifice. In Phoebe Cary’s poem “Ready” from 1861, a black sailor, “no slavish soul had he,” volunteers for certain death to push a boat to safety.

The doctrine of asymmetric warfare views suicide attacks as a result of an imbalance of power, in which groups with little significant power resort to suicide bombing as a convenient tactic (see advantages noted above) to demoralize the targeted civilians or government leadership of their enemies. Suicide bombing may also take place as a perceived response to actions or policies of a group with greater power. Groups which have significant power have no need to resort to suicide bombing to achieve their aims; consequently, suicide bombing is overwhelmingly used by guerrillas, and other irregular fighting forces.

Suicide missions played a key role in European history. “Books written in the post-9/11 period tend to place suicide bombings only in the context of Eastern history and limit them to the exotic rebels against modernism,” writes Niccolo Caldararo in an essay on suicide bombers. “A study of the late 19th century and early 20th would provide a spate of examples of suicide bombers and assassins in the heart of Europe.” These included various European nationalists, Russian anarchists, and other early practitioners of terrorism. Given the plethora of suicide missions in the Western tradition, it should be difficult to argue that the tactic is unique to Islam or to fundamentalists. Yet some scholars enjoy constructing a restrictive genealogy for such missions that connects the Assassin sect (which went after the great sultan Saladin in the Levant in the twelfth century) to Muslim suicide guerrillas of the Philippines (first against the Spanish and then, in the early twentieth century, against Americans). They take this genealogy all the way up to more recent suicide campaigns by Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Islamic rebels in the Russian province of Chechnya. The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, who used suicide bombers in a profligate fashion, are ordinarily the only major non-Muslim outlier included in this series. Uniting suicide attackers have reasons behind the missions. Three salient common factors stand out. First, suicidal attacks, including suicide bombings, are a “weapon of the weak,” designed to level the playing field. Second, they are usually used against an occupying force. And third, they are cheap and often brutally effective.

Remove the occupying force, as Robert Pape argues in his groundbreaking book on suicide bombers, Dying to Win, and the suicide missions disappear. It is not a stretch, then, to conclude that we, the occupiers (the United States, Russia, Israel), through our actions, have played a significant part in fomenting the very suicide missions that we now find so alien and incomprehensible in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Lebanon, and elsewhere. The archetypal modern suicide bomber first emerged in Lebanon in the early 1980s, a response to Israel’s invasion and occupation of the country. “The Shiite suicide bomber,” writes Mike Davis in his book on the history of the car bomb, Buda’s Wagon, “was largely a Frankenstein monster of [Israeli Defense Minister] Ariel Sharon’s deliberate creation.” Not only did U.S. and Israeli occupation policies create the conditions that gave birth to these missions, but the United States even trained some of the perpetrators. The U.S. funded Pakistan’s intelligence service to run a veritable insurgency training school that processed 35,000 foreign Muslims to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Charlie Wilson’s War, the book and movie that celebrated U.S. assistance to the mujihadeen, could be subtitled: Suicide Bombers We Have Known and Funded.

We have been conditioned into thinking of suicide bombers as targeting civilians and so putting themselves beyond the established conventions of war. As it happens, however, the nature of war has changed in our time. In the twentieth century, armies began to target civilians as a way of destroying the will of the population, and so bringing down the leadership of the enemy country. Japanese atrocities in China in the 1930s, the Nazi air war against Britain in World War II, Allied fire bombings of German and Japanese cities, the nuclear attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. carpet bombing in Cambodia and Laos, and the targeted assassinations of the Phoenix program during the Vietnam War, Russian depredations in Afghanistan and Chechnya, the tremendous civilian casualties during the Iraq War: all this has made the idea of conventional armies clashing in an area far from civilian life a quaint legacy of the past. Terrorist attacks against civilians, particularly September 11th, prompted military historian Caleb Carr to back the Bush administration’s declaration of a war against terror. “War can only be answered with war,” he wrote in his best-selling The Lessons of Terror. “And it is incumbent on us to devise a style of war more imaginative, more decisive, and yet more humane than anything terrorists can contrive.” This more imaginative, decisive, and humane style of war has, in fact, consisted of stepped-up aerial bombing, beefed-up Special Forces (to, in part, carry out targeted assassinations globally), and recently, the widespread use of unmanned aerial drones like the Predator and the Reaper, both in the American arsenal and in 24/7 use today over the Pakistani tribal borderlands. “Predators can become a modern army’s answer to the suicide bomber,” Carr wrote. Carr’s argument is revealing. As the U.S. military and Washington see it, the ideal use of Predator or Reaper drones, armed as they are with Hellfire missiles, is to pick off terrorist leaders; in other words, a mirror image of what that Tamil Tiger suicide bomber (who picked off the Indian prime minister) did somewhat more cost effectively. According to Carr, such a strategy with our robot planes is an effective and legitimate military tactic. In reality, though, such drone attacks regularly result in significant civilian casualties, usually referred to as “collateral damage.” According to researcher Daniel Byman, the drones kill 10 civilians for every suspected militant. As Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch.com writes, “In Pakistan, a war of machine assassins is visibly provoking terror (and terrorism), as well as anger and hatred among people who are by no means fundamentalists. It is part of a larger destabilization of the country.”

So, the dichotomy between a “just war,” or even simply a war of any sort, and the unjust, brutal targeting of civilians by terrorists has long been blurring, thanks to the constant civilian casualties that now result from conventional war-fighting and the narrow military targets of many terrorist organizations. West has their suicide bombers — they call them heroes. They have their culture of indoctrination — they call it basic training. They kill civilians — they call it collateral damage. Is this, then, the moral relativism that so outrages conservatives? Of course not. These comparisons are not to excuse the actions of suicide bombers, but to point out the hypocrisy of their black-and-white depictions of noble efforts and their barbarous acts, of their worthy goals and despicable ends. Enlightened Activists — the inhabitants of an archipelago of supposedly enlightened warfare — have been indoctrinated to view the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as a legitimate military target and September 11th as a heinous crime against humanity. We have been trained to see acts like the attack in Tripoli as American heroism and the U.S.S. Cole attack as rank barbarism. Explosive vests are a sign of extremism; Predator missiles, of advanced sensibility.

Salman Taseer, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, Aasia Bibi Vs. State

The objective analysis of all events that culminated in murder is the need of the hour but unfortunately, the analysis so far is a lopsided one either to the one end of the scale or the other end, hence both are extreme views and nothing but is an effort to join the either of the bandwagon.

First, what is the matter of one Aasia Bibi? Asia Bibi, 45, was handed down the death sentence by a court in Nankana district in central Punjab on Monday. Ms Asia’s case dates back to June 2009 when she was asked to fetch water while out working in the fields. But a group of Muslim women labourers objected, saying that as a non-Muslim she should not touch the water bowl. A few days later the women went to a local cleric and alleged that Ms Asia made derogatory remarks about the Prophet (peace be upon him). The cleric went to police, who opened an investigation.

Second, What should be the response of the state as an Islamic Republic?  The response of the Govt. should be probe the allegations in a transparent manner and make public all its inquiries in this matter. Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti has also urged the provincial government to provide all possible chances to Aasia Bibi to plea her case on merit. Talking to reporters outside parliament house after attending a meeting of National Assembly standing committee on Monday, Mr Bhatti said the government would not allow anyone to misuse the blasphemy law. President Zardari has also sought a report from the minorities` affairs ministry on the sentencing to death on blasphemy charges of a Christian woman of Nankana Sahib. Aasia Bibi was sentenced to death under Sections 295 B and C of the Pakistan Penal Code after an altercation between her and her co-workers over fetching water from fields. According to media reports, police took her into protective custody to shield her from a mob and later registered a case against her. The spokesman said the president had asked Minorities Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti to submit a report on the issue within three days.

The response of the Govt. should be in line with the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Law and Justice, which is being reproduced below.

The Standing Committee on Law and Justice after detailed deliberations decided to recommend the proposed deletion of ‘or imprisonment of life’ from Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. The members, however, observed that there was a need for a more specific definition of the offence under Section 295 PPC which the members were of the considered opinion was in the present form very generalised. The committee suggests that the matter may be referred to the Council of Islamic Ideology for suggesting a more specific definition of the offence falling under Section 295 PPC As well as for its opinion as to whether during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) or during the period of Khulafa-i-Rashideen or afterwards in any of the Muslim countries, what was the punishment awarded to the offenders for committing offence falling under Section 295 PPC” (Gazette Extraordinary, Feb 22, 1992).

Third, What Salman Taseer did as a representative of the state? After Bibi’s conviction last November, the case seized the attention of Taseer, the outspoken governor of Punjab. Outraging conservatives, he visited Bibi in jail along with his wife, Aamna, and his daughter. He posed for photos, offered warm support, and promised a presidential pardon. He spoke on high authority – President Asif Ali Zardari told Taseer he was “completely behind him”, a reliable source said. He was playing with fire. Religious leaders were outraged at Taseer’s description of the blasphemy statute as a “black law”. Protesters torched the governor’s effigy outside his sweeping residence in central Lahore.

Fourth, What was the aspiration of the public at large? The public reaction to this case has been divided. Protestors in Lahore rallied on 21 November demanding Aasia’s release. Yet only a few days later during another protest in the same city, an Aalmi Tanzim Ahle Sunnat (ATAS) leader Pir Muhammad Afzal Qadri requested Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to take suo moto action against Governor Salmaan Taseer for supporting Aasia Bibi.

Fifth, What was the role of our so called learned and moderate civil society in all this incident? Recently a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, was sentenced to death for allegedly committing blasphemy. Mr Taseer emerged as one of her most high-profile supporters. He not only visited her in jail and held a press conference with her, but also promised to get a presidential pardon for her. Although the pardon was prevented by a court order and the PPP distanced itself from any attempt to amend the blasphemy law, Mr Taseer kept criticising it publicly. Human rights groups say the law is often exploited by religious conservatives as well as ordinary people to settle personal scores. But the law has widespread support in a country that is more than 95 per cent Muslim, and most politicians are loath to be seen as soft on the defence of Islam. Taseer, however, was an outspoken critic. Ms Jahangir criticised the blasphemy law in its present form and observed that laws should be made to protect religious minorities and not to provide a tool to some people to exploit it in the name of religion. Sherry Rehman, Tahira Abdullah and Ali Hassan, rejected the blasphemy law as discriminatory and called for either repealing or suitably amending it.

The big question is what other laws or powers by state in this country are not misused. Here are few examples, where laws are flouted and yet all so called moderates, human rights activists have not uttered any voice but only Blasphemy case.

Pursuant to Art. 265 the Constitution came into force on August 14, 1973, referred to in the said Article as the ‘Commencing day’. The Constitution was held in abeyance by the Proclamation of Martial Law issued by General M. Zia-ul-Haq on July 5, 1977 and published in the Gazette of Pakistan, Extraordinary Part I, at page 411, on the said date. The whole of Pakistan once again came under the control of the Armed Forces of Pakistan on October 12, 1999, by virtue of the Proclamation of Emergency issued by General Pervez Musharraf, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and Chief of Army Staff, on October 14, 1999 and published in the Gazette of Pakistan, Extraordinary Part I, at page 1265, on the said date. The Pakistani daily Dawn — a pro-US paper not known for its anti-war stance — reports that US drones killed over 700 civilians in 44 bombings since Obama took office in January 2009. Of the 44 attacks, only five succeeded in hitting their target. In other words, Obama has surpassed his predecessor’s murderous record in Pakistan. (Of course these attacks are carried out with the complicity of Pakistan’s ruling elites — as Jane Mayer reported, and as Pervez Musharraf confessed — and are cheered on by native informers such as Ahmed Rashid). For more than half a century Kashmir, or Paradise on Earth as it is called, has suffered due to the extremely brutal Indian occupation. Since 1988 over 80 000 civilians including women and children have died at the hands of the Indian army and paramilitary forces. Their crime? They want India to end the brutal occupation of Kashmir, their homeland. The saga of missing persons seems to be getting more and more complicated with every passing day as the governments, whether federal or provincial, political parties and parliament are simply incapable or indifferent to providing the needed support to the Supreme Court to keep intelligence agencies under check and to make them behave as per the law of the land. The latest report from a Sindh village near Moro in which two couples were shot dead, and a woman was allegedly abducted, reinforces the need for taking practical measures that go beyond expressing outrage. Part of the reason why violence against women continues, and is tolerated as a fact of life, is that many sitting in our legislatures espouse the same tribal values that prescribe the death penalty, particularly for women who dare to make a decision to marry out of their own free will. According to the report, a total of 1,981 people — 1,726 men, 177 women and 78 children — were killed last year. The data does not include those killed in road accidents. Of the 447 victims of targeted killings, 215 were killed apparently for their association with major political, religious and nationalist parties, 187 for their ethnic background and 23 on sectarian grounds. In the recent past, a number of sitting and former representatives of the government has been accused of serious corruption. It is general perception that the corruption culture more flourish in PPP regimes. The glaring proof of absence of the rule of law in this regime is clear from the last-one year mega corruption cases of National Insurance Corporation, Pakistan Steel Mills and Rental Power Plants which have been taken up by the Supreme court. The fake degrees issue has most politicians and their party bigwigs scampering around to avoid potential political fallout. But Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani is not one of them. “A degree is a degree, whether fake or genuine,” said the swashbuckling chief minister of Balochistan. Siddiqui's supporters, including international human rights organizations, have claimed that Siddiqui was not an extremist and that she and her young children were illegally detained, interrogated and tortured by Pakistani intelligence or U.S. authorities or both during her five-year disappearance. The U.S. and Pakistan governments have denied all such claims. The CCP’s investigation proves the presence of a strong sugar mafia in the country. Despite ample availability of sugar, it is being sold at Rs125 to 135 per kilogramme against a production cost of less than Rs55 per kg.

Sixth, Why Salman Taseer was so outraged and Why Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri was compelled to do what he did? Why both took the matter of Aaasia Bibi in their own hands when the matter was being probed into and was in the court to decide?

We claim to be Muslims and that means we have accepted the authority of Allah (SWT) and we have submitted all our wishes to the wish of Allah (SWT) so it is pertinent to know What Allah (SWT) says about Islam, Love of Prophet (PBUH) and our behavior towards that.

O ye who believe! enter into Islam whole-heartedly; and follow not the footsteps of the Evil One; for he is to you an avowed enemy. (Aya 208 of Sura Al-Baqara)

Those to whom We have given the Book rejoice at what hath been revealed unto thee: but there are among the clans those who reject a part thereof. Say: "I am commanded to worship Allah and not to join partners with Him. Unto Him do I call and unto Him is my return." (Aya 36 of Sura Ar-Ra’d)

Once you are in Islam then accept all opf it rather than the part you like and reject the part you dislike.

Allah and His angels send blessings on the Prophet: O ye that believe! send ye blessings on him and salute him with all respect. Those who annoy Allah and his Apostle Allah has cursed them in this world and in the Hereafter and has prepared for them a humiliating Punishment. (Ayat 56-57 of Sura Al-Ahzab)

Love for the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is a measure of one's iman (faith and inner conviction) and our iman is completed and perfected only when our love for the Prophet exceeds our love for everything else in this world, including our own lives. The Holy Qur'an says: "The Prophet is preferable for the believers even to their own selves..." (Aya 6 of Sura Al-Ahzab)

Narrated 'Abd Allah bin Hisham: 'We were with the Prophet (SAAW) and he was holding the hand of 'Umar ibnu Al-Khattab (RAA). 'Umar said to him, "O Allah's Messenger (SAAW)! You are dearer to me than everything except my ownself." Allah's Messenger (SAAW) said: "No, by Him in Whose Hand my soul is, (you will not have complete Faith) untill I am dearer to you than your ownself." Then 'Umar (RAA) said: "However, now, by Allah, you are dearer to me than my ownself." He (SAAW) then said: "Now, O 'Umar, (now you are a believer)."

The (Prophet) frowned and turned away. Because there came to him the blind man (interrupting). (Ayat 1-2 of Sura Abasa)

There is no anger against beloved Prophet. Those who take these verses as a disgrace to the Prophet and desires to lower his prestige are on wrong thinking and misguided. Farooque-Azam Hazrat Umar (RAA) came to know that an Imam (Person leading in prayer) recites always this chapter, he sent a man to behead such person as he used to recite the chapter for defaming the prophet. Such a man goes out of Islam and becomes apostate.

The matter of Aasia Bibi was then sub-judice and as a representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as the official name of the country is, then Salman Taseer was not supposed to comment on it let alone going to the extent of calling the law as “Black Law”. He was not functioning as he should be as head of a province in whose territory such incident happened. He should have referred the matter for suitable amendment in the law to competent authority rather than calling names and showing his anger. He took the matter in his own hands because he thought he is correct and all others are wrong or he had no confidence in the legal course of action.

Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri also took the matter in his own hand because he thought that Govt. is not up to the mark and Salman Taseer, the Governor, has no respect for the prophet because he was only vocal on this issue at the expense of many other pressing issues. He also had no confidence in the legal course of action. Because Govt. was fully tilted towards one end.

So why people took matters in their own hands than seeking legal remedy?

There is a sense in which conduct regarded as criminal is often quite the opposite. Far from being an intentional violation of a prohibition, much crime is moralistic and involves the pursuit of justice. It is a mode of conflict management, possibly a form of punishment, even capital punishment. Viewed in relation to law, it is self-help. To the degree that it defines or responds to the conduct of some one else-the victim-as deviant, crime is social control. It should be clear, however, that the victims of moralistic crime may be entirely unaware of why they have been selected, especially when the offender is unknown. Such crimes may therefore be understood as secret social control . In modern society the state has only theoretically achieved a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. In reality, violence flourishes (particularly in modern America), and most of it involves ordinary citizens who seemingly view their conduct as a perfectly legitimate exercise of social control. It might therefore be observed that the struggle between law and self-help in the West did not end in the Middle Ages, as legal historians claim.It continues. Many people still "take the law into their own hands."

The idea that violence is associated with statelessness still enjoys considerable support. With various refinements and qualifications, an absence of state authority has been used to explain high levels of violence in settings as diverse as the highlands of New Guinea, Lake Titicaca in the Andes, and western Sicily. It has also been used to explain war and, other violent self-help in international relations. A version of the same approach may be relevant to an understanding of self-help in modern society.

In the end, the conclusion that emerges from above discussion is that state failed to perform its functions. Had the state taken serious notice of the case, conduct of Salman Taseer the following events would not have happened.

میں باغی ھوں

اس دور کے رسم رواجوں سے
ان تختوں سے ان تاجوں سے
جو ظلم کی کوکھ سے جنتے ہیں
انسانی خون سے پلتے ہیں
جو نفرت کی بنیادیں ہیں
اور خونی کھیت کی کھادیں ہیں

میں باغی ہوں ، میں باغی ہوں

جو چاہے مجھ پر ظلم کرو
وہ جن کے ہونٹ کی جنبش سے
وہ جن کی آنکھ کی لرزش سے
قانون بدلتے رہتے ہیں
اور مجرم پلتے رہتے ہیں
ان چوروں کے سرداروں سے
انصاف کے پہرے داروں سے

میں باغی ہوں ، میں باغی ہوں

جو چاہے مجھ پر ظلم کرو
جو عورت کو نچواتے ہیں
بازار کی جنس بناتے ہیں
پھر اس کی عصمت کے غم میں
تحریکیں بھی چلواتے ہیں
ان ظالم اور بدکاروں سے
بازار کے ان معماروں سے

میں باغی ہوں ، میں باغی ہوں

جو چاہے مجھ پر ظلم کرو
جو قوم کے غم میں روتے ہیں
اور قوم کی دولت ڈھوتے ہیں
وہ محلوں میں جو رہتے ہیں
اور بات غریب کی کہتے ہیں
ان دھوکے باز لٹیروں سے
سرداروں سے وڈیروں سے

میں باغی ہوں ، میں باغی ہوں

جو چاہے مجھ پر ظلم کرو

مذہب کے جو بیوپاری ہیں
وہ سب سے بڑی بیماری ہیں
وہ جن کے سوا سب کافر ہیں

جو دین کا حرفِ آخر ہیں
ان جھوٹے اور مکاروں سے

مذہب کے ٹھیکیداروں سے

میں باغی ہوں ، میں باغی ہوں

جو چاہے مجھ پر ظلم کرو
جہاں سانسوں پر تعزیریں ہیں
جہاں بگڑی ہوئی تقدیریں ہیں
ذاتوں کے گورکھ دھندے ہیں
جہاں نفرت کے یہ پھندے ہیں
سوچوں کی ایسی پستی سے
اس ظلم کی گندی بستی سے

میں باغی ہوں ، میں باغی ہوں

جو چاہے مجھ پر ظلم کرو
میرے ہاتھ میں حق کا جھنڈا ہے
میرے سر پر ظلم کا پھندا ہے
میں مرنے سے کب ڈرتا ہوں
میں موت کی خاطر زندہ ہوں
میرے خون کا سورج چمکے گا
تو بچہ بچہ بولے گا

میں باغی ہوں ، میں باغی ہوں

جو چاہے مجھ پر ظلم کرو

ڈاکٹر خالد جاوید جان

DAWN.COM | Columnists | The patronage networks

The central piece of the column is here:

" ‘Changing the system from within’ is quite a popular argument. Those distressed by the ‘system’ are told to take it easy and watch the incremental changes which will be brought about by qualified bureaucrats or others. You are told to ‘look at the glass as being half-full rather than half-empty’. It’s your fault not to notice the small changes which have taken place or those that are in the pipeline. 

Many of us must have met retired bureaucrats (both civil and military) and heard them talk endlessly about how well they ran the system. They will tell you about their adventures, their vision, brilliance and originality. Interestingly, all retired bureaucrats sound the same: lots of endless storytelling but no clue as to why their individual brilliance and that of their colleagues hasn’t made the state more efficient. They almost never confess to the sin of working the system just to enhance their own power. 

Deep down I think the young men I talked to were lured by the power of ‘power’ and would eventually settle for greater nuisance value for themselves rather than change the system. In both cases I tried to tell them that they probably wanted to have more power just to serve themselves and would adapt to the ‘system’ rather than the other way round. 

The civil and military bureaucracies in the country are two patronage groups which can assure entry into power circles. This does not mean that everyone aims to gain influence, but becoming part of a patronage network ensures you can survive in this environment. A common citizen has no value."




DAWN.COM | Columnists | The patronage networks

Free Market is an Illusion

"There is much to be said for markets. When working efficiently they engender competition thus forcing producers to pass on value to consumers. A good illustration is the Pakistani mobile phone market, perhaps one of the most competitive in the world. Despite the many virtues of markets, however, it is not necessary that they serve everyone all the time.

The reasoning is simple. Markets are blind and allocate on the basis of effective demand, i.e. demand backed up by purchasing power. Thus, if Demi Moore, say, wishes to take a milk bath every day, the market will ensure delivery of sufficient milk to her, even if it means that 100 African children, who cannot afford the price, go without a drop.

Amartya Sen who won a Nobel Prize in economics pointed out how many of the world’s worst famines were actually caused by unfettered market forces."

DAWN.COM | Business | Sugar crisis and free markets

The Story of Sugar Crisis in Pakistan

It is the free market system that has created all the confusion or rather provided an opportunity to some to make huge money. Here is the excerpt from an article on the subject.

"In the 1980s, the ministry of industries used to calculate sugar prices on the basis of cane support price. Dr Mahboob-ul-Haq, the then minister for commerce and industries, passed on this responsibility to the APCom. Until recently, sugar prices were determined by it.

While sugarcane prices were approved by the cabinet, these were fixed by the ECC presided over by the finance minister. The system was working satisfactorily till such time the so-called ‘free market’ system was adopted under the influence of international financial institutions.

This system has created confusion in marketing of sugar/sugarcane, wheat, rice/paddy, cotton, etc. Such decisions should be left to local experts who are equally, if not better, than their foreign counterparts."

Pakissan.com; Pakistan's Largest Agri web portal, Connecting Agri
Community for Better Farming

Detailed NRO Judgement by Supreme Court

A land mark judgement in the history of Pakistan. May Allah (SWT) accepts this effort and change the destiny of people of Pakistan to a better future. Here is a link to download the detailed judgement.

Detailed NRO Judgement by Supreme Court

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DAWN.COM | Columnists | Burnt dreams

I like to read Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa. Whenever, she writes, I find time to read her. She is eloquent, comprehensible and does not hide behind thin veil of something else. She says what she has to say or what she feels. I came to know her when she published her controversial book "Military Inc." Since then I have been following her writings. I wish that she may publish her columns someday so that her fans can enjoy reading without waiting. I also wish that she may sometime in future decide to write blog. Here is her latest column:

"the path for normative feudalism was prepared intellectually as well. A large portion of literature, especially in Urdu, which was read in the largest province, did not challenge the feudal authoritarianism particularly exercised by the new feudals, such as the military in power. In fact, numerous intellectuals became conduits for military regimes trading their souls for land, money or cushy positions.
Some of them even manipulated religion and converted the discourse to the advantage of authoritarian military rulers. So, most tragically youngsters at that time like me saw the edifice of neo-feudalism being built through encouraging intellectual dishonesty. The Zia years were among the darkest in our national history. Personally I saw Lahore, a city I was born and grew up in, and which was known for its intellectual shine, capitulate to dictatorial rule. Things would never be the same again."

DAWN.COM | Columnists | Burnt dreams

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