jungjoo:

The brilliant (and provocative) Pakistani short-story writer, Saadat Manto (right) seen with his family outside his residence in Lahore in 1953.

7:54 pm  •  18 May 2013  •  36 notes

Kabul: Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai will be on a two-day visit to India starting Monday. He will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on enhancing strategic ties, security and developmental work in the run-up to next year’s withdrawal of western troops. As Afghanistan braces for 2014, we travelled extensively in the AfPak region to find out whether the proposed end of war would impact India. 

Braving for 2014, whether the exit of western troops will end the war in Afghanistan or start a fresh round of violence is a million dollar question, an important one for India’s security concerns as well. 
 
After the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Pakistan pushed the trained jihadis to fight the insurgency in India. Kashmir saw its bloodiest decade. 9/11 made Pakistan, America’s ally on the war against terror and gave birth to Pakistan Taliban - a group attacking Pakistan itself. Pakistan’s attention shifted to the western border and some experts believe Pakistan’s internal worries led to relative peace on its eastern front, one it shares with India. 

Will Pakistan push the trained militants again in our direction? 
 
Over the last decade India has earned immense good will in Afghanistan. At a certain point, the timing of soap opera ‘sans bhi kabhi bahu thi’, popularly known as ‘Tulsi’ here, coincided with the time of the prayers. This was taken up in the parliament of Afghanistan, so the shows timing could be adjusted. India has made friends across the ethnic groups through cultural connections and developmental work. 

None of this pleases Pakistan. Rawalpindi has always thought of Afghanistan as a no go area for India, a strategic base for themselves in event of war against India. In the past Kashmir insurgents have received training in mountainous areas of Afghanistan. 

Retired Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul of Pakistan’s army once headed the ISI. Credited in Pakistan for pushing hard line policies against India, he played a pivotal role in the insurgency that began in Kashmir. 

He warns India of tomorrow’s reality. “Tomorrow’s reality is, if Afghan freedom fighters come out freely then they will give a fillip to the idea. It is going to kindle a new spirit, because yet another superpower has been defeated. They will think why we can’t do it, the Kashmiris will do it.” 

In Afghanistan, the governor of Nuristan tells us, “Many border areas are full of anti-India groups. LeT is here, they are more powerful than Al Qaeda. If Afghanistan is a trouble area, if there is a war here, I think India will never feel safe. The war is going to come to their borders.”

Sources in the United States government have told NDTV, for months now the US has been trying to convey to India of a change of heart in Pakistan’s deep establishment, though most Afghan leaders like Amarullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s former chief of intelligence do not buy into that. 

“They define Pakistan as a vulnerable country, which if truly put under pressure, may collapse. We don’t buy the argument. We see it as a calculative strategy. India should strengthen Afghanistan. Every spectacular attack in Afghanistan one way or another is linked to Rawal Pindi and every spectacular attack in India is linked to LeT. So why is the root of terrorism not drying up in our region? One primary reason is the ambiguity of the Western policy vis-a-vis Pakistan,” said Amarullah Saleh.

India’s decision-makers acknowledge that India’s own internal security would be at risk especially if the drawdown of international troops from Afghanistan leaves behind a security vacuum that is filled by militant groups backed by Pakistan. India is aware of Pakistan’s sensitivities but is not shying away for defining it as a long-term relationship with Afghanistan. India’s former ambassador to Afghanistan confirms “In terms of being able to contribute more to Afghanistan security, to regional security through co-operative activities, yes that is possible. But as always it is something that has to be decided and we have to take into account their requirements, we have to take into account our capacities, and we have to take into account regional stability. So whatever we try to do, we would do in a responsible way in a responsible direction.” 

The Afghans want India to play a bigger role, not only in developmental work and investments but also security cooperation. While president Karzai’s visit is unlikely to bring any major surprises, sources have told NDTV, India has not yet revealed its entire plan for Afghanistan. Policy they say is work in progress. 

Pakistan’s new Prime Minister says Afghanistan would be left to Afghans and has made all the right noises on relationship with India. The big question, will his words become reality? 
 

1:33 pm  •  18 May 2013  •  9 notes

6:05 am  •  17 May 2013  •  5 notes

Nawaz Sharif, the 1960s, red sportcoat, red belt, shades, and a Morris Minor

5:59 am  •  17 May 2013  •  12 notes

Bolo Bolo, Entity Paradigm - Coke Studio Pakistan, Season 3 (by cokestudio)

10:30 am  •  14 May 2013  •  13 notes

NEW DELHI: India is hoping Nawaz Sharif’s return to power in Pakistan will herald an upturn in ties between the nuclear rivals as long as he can keep the generals who ousted him last time at bay, analysts say.

Sharif’s last stint in power from 1997-99 saw India and Pakistan clash in a limited conflict known as the Kargil war as well as Islamabad declaring itself a nuclear power, weeks after New Delhi said it had carried out its own tests.

But observers say Indian policymakers are keen to engage with Sharif and are more inclined to blame the military for ratcheting up tensions during his time in office.

Sharif later claimed Kargil was launched without his consent by the then-head of the army, Pervez Musharraf, who ousted him in a coup months later.

In a sign of his eagerness for a fresh start, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was among the first to congratulate Sharif, saying he hoped they could chart “a new course” and inviting him to “visit India at a mutually convenient time”.

For his part, Sharif told India’s NDTV network in an eve of poll interview that “civilian supremacy over military is a must” for Pakistan — comments that analysts say bode well for future ties.

Former Indian foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh said Sharif had shown a willingness during his time in office to improve ties, citing the 1999 Lahore Declaration which set out steps to cool nuclear tensions.

“We have dealt with him in the past and he is easy to work with. No other Pakistani leader has been as emphatic as Nawaz Sharif has been to resume the dialogue and improve relations with India,” Mansingh told AFP.

Pakistani commentator Ahmed Rashid said the key to better relations would be whether the army kept its distance — something he says it refused to do when Sharif was in power in two spells in the 1990s.

“Both times he made genuine efforts to make peace with India but was thwarted at every step by an aggressive and uncompromising army,” Rashid wrote in a piece for the BBC.

“This time around, the army — faced with an apparent collapse of the state — is also more amenable to the idea of improving relations with India,” Rashid added, while warning that outgoing army chief Pervez Kayani was uneasy at the idea of greater Indian investment in Pakistan.

Brahma Chellaney, a foreign policy analyst in New Delhi, also said the army’s willingess to take a back seat would be crucial and it was in India’s interests to bolster rather than undermine Sharif.

“Unless Sharif’s government is able to change the civil-military equation, I don’t see the relationship between the two countries changing radically,” Chellaney told AFP.

“From Kargil to the Mumbai attacks, we can see the Pakistan military’s hand. So India must invest diplomatically in a strong civilian government in Islamabad, or nothing will change,” Chellaney said.

India and Pakistan have fought three full-scale wars, two of them over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Since the limited Kargil conflict, Kashmir has continued to be a running sore and the two sides engaged in deadly exchanges earlier this year across the unofficial border.

New Delhi broke off peace talks with Islamabad after the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed by Pakistani gunmen. But lower-level talks have resumed, focusing largely on trade and visas.

Given his background in business, analysts say Sharif is likely to place more emphasis on trade.

“His pro-business outlook means he will make cross-border trade a priority and ensure that barriers to exports between the two countries are removed soon,” Mansingh said.

But for all the optimism in New Delhi, some observers say there are fears that China will use its historically close relations with Islamabad to ensure any thaw between India and Pakistan only goes so far.

Sreeram Chaulia, head of the Jindal School of International Affairs near New Delhi, said it was in Beijing’s interests that India and Pakistan remained at odds over issues such as Kashmir.

“They would like India to play the role of a local South Asian power, so it can’t compete with China on the global stage and in the wider Asian region,” Chaulia told AFP.

11:15 am  •  13 May 2013  •  2 notes

2:58 pm  •  11 May 2013  •  1 note

Nawaz Sharif on the cusp of power

ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON IN EARLY MARCH, the two-time former prime minister and current leader of Pakistan’s opposition, Nawaz Sharif, inaugurated the refurbished Pak Tea House in Lahore—the old hangout of progressive Pakistani luminaries such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmad Faraz and Saadat Hassan Manto. (It was known as the India Tea House before Partition.) Sharif entered through the front door, surrounded by a contingent of security personnel in plain clothes who pushed through the crowd to sculpt a path for him. As Sharif was making his way up the cramped, winding staircase, a group of young men, presumably uninvited locals from the Mall Road outside, tried to force their way in; Sharif’s guards pushed the door on resisting hands and feet and shoulders and elbows until they were finally able to slam it shut.

“Pakistan’s writers and intellectuals are its assets,” Sharif said in a calm baritone, upstairs, where tea and fried sweets were neatly arrayed on a thick white tablecloth. “The reopening of the Pak Tea House is no less important than launching the [Lahore] Metro Bus Service project.” It was a canny little statement—the juxtaposition of two wholly dissimilar initiatives of the Punjab government, which is controlled by Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PMLN), and headed by his younger brother, Shahbaz—designed to please the small congregation of left-wing short-story writers and columnists present in the café.

Sharif spoke for about five minutes in sophisticated colloquial Urdu, shook hands with everyone present, and quickly exited the café to set off for Mardan, 500 kilometres away in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly known as the North West Frontier Province, where he was due to address a rally later in the afternoon. As soon as Sharif had departed, some prominent columnists flocked around the stooped, bright-eyed, 90-year-old Intizar Husain, Pakistan’s most venerated living fiction writer in Urdu. “Nice initiative,” the short-story writer Neelam Bashir said. She couldn’t help the sarcasm. “I’m going to vote for Imran Khan. At least he wants change.”

In March, for the first time in Pakistan’s history, a National Assembly completed its full five-year term. Campaigning is in full swing for the next elections, while the leading parties are negotiating the composition of a caretaker government that will rule until the polls, which are likely to take place in May. With its traditional rival, the Bhutto family’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), now headed by sitting president Asif Ali Zardari, plummeting in popularity, Sharif’s PMLN has emerged over the course of the last year as the front runner in the race to form the next government. Though the former cricketer Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has attracted a passionate following among urban Pakistanis—demonstrated by his massive October 2011 rally in Lahore—and mounted a new challenge to the more established parties, what Khan dubbed the PTI “tsunami” has not managed to sweep away the traditional bases of support for the country’s two large mainstream parties, the PPP and PMLN.

According to several recent public opinion surveys of voting intentions, the PMLN currently appears to be the country’s most popular political party. The most thorough poll to date, a survey of nearly 10,000 respondents in 300 villages and 200 urban localities, conducted by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) and Gallup Pakistan in February, found 41 percent support for the PMLN, against 17 percent for the ruling PPP and 14 percent for Khan’s PTI. In Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province and Sharif’s stronghold—which represents 148 of the 272 directly elected seats in the National Assembly—the survey found 59 percent support for the PMLN, with the PTI and PPP trailing at 14 and 10 percent.

At the rally later that day in Mardan, before a huge crowd from Pakistan’s rightist, religious, trading class—Sharif’s true constituency—his speech was a more traditional campaign stemwinder, assailing the failures of the PPP government and trumpeting the promises of the PMLN’s recently released poll manifesto, with its heavy emphasis on economic growth and development. “They have given the people nothing but suicide attacks, targeted killings, scandals of massive corruption, high inflation and excessive load-shedding,” Sharif said, adding that Zardari had “sold the sovereignty of the country to the United States.” The PMLN, Sharif declared, would “restore law and order to the country”, resolve the Kashmir issue, improve ties with Afghanistan, eliminate load-shedding in two years, and bring the development initiatives it had pursued in Punjab to the rest of the country. He focused on projects that are close to his heart: laptop schemes, the creation of industrial zones, loans on easy conditions, the expansion of the motorway system he began in 1998, during his second term as prime minister. Nawaz Sharif is a builder, and holding forth on bullet trains and motorways gets him going. He was so palpably stirred by his own words that at one point, he raised a hand—the fair, unused hand of a wealthy Kashmiri-Punjabi—to stop the chanting crowd from interrupting his speech: “No slogans right now, no slogans right now, no slogans right now.”

Sharif professes to draw inspiration from Sher Shah Suri, the Mughal-era builder of roads and works who is credited with constructing the Grand Trunk Road that links India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. (On one of the PMLN’s official Facebook pages, Sharif’s round face has been photoshopped inside Suri’s bronze helmet.) In Mardan, Sharif promised the crowd he would build a bullet train from Karachi to Peshawar: the train would leave Karachi after the fajr prayer, at dawn, and arrive in Peshawar just in time for the evening isha prayer. He pointedly mentioned that passengers would have to perform only the afternoon prayer inside their cabins. It was a classic Sharif image, blending the promise of economic development with the rhetoric of religion. “The way he frames modern requirements within the framework of religion, or social conservatism, is frankly impressive,” the television anchor and columnist Nasim Zehra told me. “He’s the only one who can do it.”

At the same time, among a certain segment of Pakistani liberals, there has been a wary reconciliation with the idea of Nawaz Sharif. In spite of his flaws—corruption, autocratic tendencies, a limited attention span—Sharif has recast himself as a defender of democracy and a critic of military interference in civilian affairs. In stark contrast to the intrigues of the 1990s, when Sharif and Benazir Bhutto took turns ejecting one another from office in collaboration with the army, Sharif has spent the past five years in opposition without attempting to bring down the PPP government, and in fact stood with it against such challenges, to the extent that he has been lampooned as “the friendly opposition”. Although Sharif remains a deeply conservative industrialist with ties to Pakistan’s religious right, many liberals cautiously admire his stance on three key issues: bringing the army to heel, pursuing peace with India and defending parliamentary democracy—areas in which Sharif’s views have clearly evolved in the wake of his own ouster, imprisonment and exile 14 years ago at the hands of General Pervez Musharraf.

MANY IN PAKISTAN BELIEVE THAT SHARIF, whose anti-military views have hardened since 1999, has come a long way since he first entered politics in 1981, when General Ghulam Jilani Khan, the governor of Punjab under the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq, recruited Sharif into his unelected cabinet. Sharif, then 31, was a conservative, obedient, pro-military businessman with a grievance against the deposed PPP government headed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, which had nationalised the Sharif family’s steel mills—all the ingredients the military was seeking in a new leader to offset the populist PPP.

Sharif remains an old master in the realm of Pakistan’s politics of patronage, and his strategy for the upcoming elections relies heavily on his traditional vote bank and the formidable PMLN party machine, with everything that entails: welcoming candidates with influence and existing alliances into the party, embracing a non-issue-based politics to attract anyone who can help the party win, and forging ties with powerful local figures rather than national alliances. The PMLN has had a populist tinge to it since Sharif declared autonomy from what Pakistanis call the “establishment”, a euphemism for the military. At the same time, Sharif retains a strong alliance with Pakistan’s informal establishment: the country’s conservative lobby of businessmen, traders and middle-class professionals. After throwing his weight behind the Lawyers’ Movement and its campaign to restore the Chief Justice, which began in 2007, Sharif has clearly aligned himself with two branches of the state—the judiciary and the bureaucracy—to check the power of a third, the military. In short, he is in understated opposition to the army, while nurturing the support of the country’s conservatives, many of whom are conventionally pro-military.

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5:45 pm  •  10 May 2013  •  1 note

The discreet charms of Pakistan’s middle classes

This month, with Pakistan’s general elections scheduled for May 11, he looks set to make a breakthrough. Khan’s message, defined by his contempt for a venal political class, hasn’t changed, but it has finally found a constituency. The vast crowds he attracts are principally drawn from an increasingly assertive urban middle class. He has a notable following among sections of the elite, and some of the opportunist politicians he has lured from rival parties have brought their rural supporters with them, but this is the first time that a party with national ambitions has put the middle classes’ concerns at the centre of its platform.

Many are coming out on to the streets to demonstrate their support for the first time; many will be making a rare appearance in queues outside polling booths this month. Until now, Pakistan’s middle classes have remained on the political margins. Their numbers were too few, and their influence too little, to have an electoral impact. When members of the middle class joined politics, it was often in service of parties whose major sources of support came from other sections of society. Various branches of the Muslim League, for example, courted the business communities, whose voters ranged from small traders to wealthy industrialists. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) that has just left office, began life as the political vehicle of the labour movement; it is now backed by the rural poor. Uniquely, the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has been a significant middle-class party since its founding in the 1980s, but it has been limited to that city and its large Urdu-speaking community.

For decades, the bulk of the country’s middle classes saw politics as the preserve of a rapacious elite, and the credulous poor that vote for them. They focused their aspirations on securing economic opportunities, sometimes abroad, and a better education for their children. They derived their influence through the state’s main institutions: the powerful military and the civil bureaucracy. But in recent years, the middle classes have grown larger and more assertive. As Pakistan settles on a more stable democratic course, they are shaking off their traditional indifference, thanks to a contest that is as much about class, religion and culture as it is about politics.

In the USA, most citizens are happy to describe themselves as middle class, whether they are plumbers or investment bankers with seven-figure bonuses. In Pakistan, the segment is much narrower, and located closer to the top. Estimates range from 25 to 40 million people out of a population of 180 million. The cut-off points are blurry. One casual definition is that the middle classes drive their own cars—if you’re poor in Pakistan, you can’t afford one, and if you’re rich, you have a driver. In between, there’s a broad range of self-driven Japanese cars, from tiny leased Suzukis to top-end, fully paid for Hondas.

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4:31 pm  •  10 May 2013  •  4 notes

10:40 am  •  10 May 2013  •  15 notes

What Pakistan sees in Imran Khan

4:50 am  •  10 May 2013  •  3 notes

At first glance, the sight of flags with black and white stripes fluttering atop several Christian homes in the run-down Joseph Colony neighbourhood of Lahore seems highly incongruous.

The flags are those of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan’s largest Islamic religious party, which is often described as being close to the Taliban. The JUI-F and the Christian community are definitely not natural bedfellows.

The flags seem all the more out of place when one considers that this neighbourhood was attacked by a Muslim mob in March on the pretext that one of its residents blasphemed against Islam. More than 50 houses were destroyed and hundreds were left homeless.

So why should the JUI-F be supported here of all places ahead of general elections on 11 May?

For Joseph Colony’s Christian residents, the answer is straightforward.

“JUI-F leaders were the only ones who approached us after the carnage and offered us both moral and material support,” says Daniel, 30, a local resident.

“The only other party to do the same was [another Islamist party] the Jamaat-e-Islami. None of the others came to ask how we were managing under the open sky during those hard days.”

4:39 am  •  10 May 2013  •  2 notes

thebakistani:

The Gilani family said they had complained to police that they had received death threats from the Taliban but were not given adequate security.

12:37 pm  •  9 May 2013  •  5 notes

India and Pakistan are two angry nations. Every now and then, there is an unfortunate incident, or two, that makes them mad at each other — really, really mad.

Currently a great deal of tension is mounting on either side of the border.

Although I find myself ineligible to be commenting on the current state of political affairs the two countries are embroiled in, there is this one message I want to send across the border.

On May 3, 1913, Dadasaheb Phalke, an Indian director, producer and screenwriter, released India’s first full-length feature film titled Raja Harishchandra. I did some quick math, failed, tried again and in due time figured that this happened 34 years before the partition. For over three decades after its first release, the Indian film industry produced numerous films many of which originated in Lahore, present-day Pakistan.

For a complete list of films and Pakistani film artists who started their careers before partition please direct yourself to the data graciously compiled by the Pakistan Film Magazine.

As the Indian film industry completes 100 years of cinema this year, quite certainly an achievement of mammoth proportions, I as a Pakistani who is also a direct descendent of a citizen of United India and a Bollywood fanatic, have every right to partake in the celebrations.

This is a rare and rather unique event where both nations have the opportunity to be jointly proud of achieving a milestone together, even if the team work to attain this goal comprised 34 per cent of the overall effort.

I have often seen Pakistani and Indian fans fantasising about a cricket team had there been no partition. The thought of a team which has Wasim Akram’s genius bowling attack and Sachin Tendulkar’s master class batting power makes us quiver.

Does this duet sung by Madam Noor Jehan and Mohammad Rafi have the same effect on you?

It does on me!

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9:42 am  •  7 May 2013  •  11 notes

waveofeuphoriaa:

I was browsing through tribune.com.pk and I stumbled upon the Blogs section of website, there I came across a post written on the Indian Cinema’s completion of 100 years and one of the comments mentioned the names of the Indian actors and other celebrities born in Pakistan (British India), I found it quite interesting and thought I should share it with you all:

Prithviraj Kapoor — born in Lyallpur
Raj Kapoor — born in Peshawar
Sunil Dutt — born in Jhelum
Dilip Kumar — born in Peshawar
Surinder Kapoor (Anil Kapoor’s father) — born in Peshawar
Yash Chopra — born in Lahore
Balraj Sahni — born in Rawalpindi
Manoj Kumar — born in Abbottabad
Sadhana — born in Karachi
Gulzar — born in Dina
Madan Puri (Late Amrish Puri’s elder brother) — born in Lahore
Dev Anand — born in Shakargarh
Suresh Oberoi — born in Quetta
Suraiya — born in Gujranwala
Roshan — born in Gujranwala
Kabir Bedi — born in Lahore
Bade Ghulam Ali — born in Kasur

9:38 am  •  7 May 2013  •  14 notes