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become prime minister. At least that was how kings of old used to pick up their successors.

But to return to Bush, not only he, but the crowd he is surrounded by gives me the creeps. There is the vice president, Dick Cheney, a name Raymond Chandler would have been pleased to give to one of his underworld characters. Then we have Condoleezza Rice whose claim to eminence is her work on armies of the old Warsaw Pact countries. It is time somebody told her that there no longer is a Warsaw Pact, nor a Soviet Union, nor any reds under beds. The homeland security chief is another Bush discovery that we will be lucky to survive. Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld is a smoothie, but do not be misled by his gentle manner. He is hard as nails and a throwback to times long past.

The Bush people are raring to go at all the devils they imagine stalking the world. And I am not thinking of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar. Anyone they don’t like, they want taken out. Quite serious they, therefore, are about getting rid of Saddam Hussain and replacing him with whom? They have yet to decide. Hardly anyone here has asked Bush under what law or norm of international conduct, is one state justified in removing the head of another state. Evidence that Saddam is making weapons of mass destruction so that he can decimate the world has not been provided. But that in the Bush book is a minor and probably unnecessary detail. It is to be asked whether Saddam has entirely taken leave of his senses that he should want to destroy the world. However, hardly anyone in the American media asks that question.

Bush wants Yassir Arafat replaced because Israeli intelligence has told him — anything Israel says being the word of God — that Arafat authorised a $20,000 payment to a group tied to a recent bombing in Israel. What terrorist group would work for Arafat who pays no more than the price of a four-door Honda to men who go on suicide missions? However, not everyone wants Arafat replaced, including British prime minister Tony Blair, who, for the first time, fell out of line with the man he otherwise follows with such devotion. He said it was for the Palestinian people to choose their leaders. There is little doubt that in Fortress Bush, such talk is rank treachery.

The European Union is not for Arafat’s political decapitation either. It is thus obvious that this President does not consult his allies before he makes policy decisions that affect the entire world. The Bush administration does not have its act together on this as one official — always unnamed in Washington — said Tuesday, “Quite frankly, we will be feeling our way over the next days and weeks. We don’t have a step-by-step blueprint for now. It’s a fluid situation.” And so it indeed is. Could the President not have been informed as well?

Well, wouldn’t it be nice if Bush could go back to his ranch after his term is over so that the world can breathe a little easier?

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

            When Inzamam-ul-Haq was asked after his triple against New Zealand in Lahore why he had not stayed long enough to go past Hanif Mohammamd’s record, he gracefully replied that he could not even think of overtaking that great cricketer. In a country where hardly anything nice is said about those who have passed from the scene, Inzamam’s humility was refreshing. It is also time to remember the early days of Pakistan cricket and the forerunners of today’s stars.

            Waqar Hasan’s autobiography – ‘For Cricket and Country’ – just published, may thus have come at a good time. Written in collaboration with my old London friend and globe-trotting cricket correspondent Qamar Ahmed, the book carries you back to more innocent times when there was no money in playing for Pakistan. For Waqar and those who represented their country, the honour and pride of batting or bowling (don’t mention fielding because holding a catch was the exception rather than the rule) for Pakistan by itself was reward enough. During test matches, the players were paid Rs 50 a day, a sum later reduced without explanation to Rs 15. The test team travelled inter class till Skipper Abdul Hafeez Kardar fought the Board to change that. The operative word in the cricket Board’s name was “Control”.

            Waqar, like Nazar Mohammad, one of the game’s stylists, was a prolific run getter for Government College, Lahore. He once scored over 300 runs in the inter-university tournament against M.A.O. College, a performance Dr Dilawar Hussain is said to have taken as a personal insult since he was M.A.O. principal and the team’s godfather. D. Hussain was one of the great cricket characters of his time who played for India, keeping wicket and not averse to running those out who threatened to outscore him. He once did that to Vijay Merchant with a yes-no-yes call from the non-striker’s end.

            Hanif Mohammad says of Waqar, “He had all the shots in the book (and this coming from the Little Master). Basically a front-foot player … his quick eye allowed him to drive and cut and pull with relish and he would not hesitate to go down the pitch to hit a spinner.”

            Waqar was picked up for the first Pakistan team to tour India. How our two countries have degenerated into the despicable state of enmity that marks their present-day relations may be judged from Waqar recalling that when the Pakistan team crossed into India at Wagha by bus, “we were warmly greeted by the local officials and the Indian cricket board entourage who profusely garlanded us before taking us to Amritsar.”  And later, “The hospitality and care for the visiting team was such that it seemed to us that all the enmity that existed during the partition of India and in the creation of Pakistan had fizzled out … Cricket appeared to have bonded us together, such was the spirit all around.” That was fifty years ago. It is sad how we have regressed.

            Hanif scored his first century in first class cricket in the first match Pakistan played in India. He scored another in the second innings. Pakistan lost the first test at Delhi by an innings. The first test wicket for Pakistan was taken by Khan Mohammad who bowled the Indian opener Pankoj Roy who died recently. Nazar Mohammad scored the first test century for Pakistan and carried his bat through the innings in the second test at Lucknow which Pakistan won. He also became the first man in test cricket to remain at the crease for the entire duration of an innings. Kardar had predicted to the team that the name of the city actually read “luck- now”. Fazal Mahmood ran through India like a knife through butter by taking a total of 12 wickets for 94 runs.

            Waqar recalls that the crowd at Lucknow used the most “Lukhnawi” language when hooting him as he fielded on the boundary line. Shouted one man, “Aji qibla, aap agar rukh-e-zeba iss taraf nahin karenge, tau hum app ke abba hazoor ki shaan mein gustakhi kar dain-ge.” When because of injuries Khalid “Billy” Ibadullah was flown to Bombay against Kardar’s wishes (he wanted Asghar Ali), he said, “I have too many babies in the team and cannot afford to nurse another.” Pakistan lost the series but the final test at Calcutta saw Waqar score a memorable 97 runs, falling to Ramchand three short, not out of nervousness, he recalls, but overconfidence. The huge crowd rose to him and Kardar walked twenty yards into the ground to greet him.

            Waqar also brings back to memory the old Lahore clubs which were always in intense competition, clubs such as Universal, Crescent, Friends, Chauburji, Ravi, Delhi, the last three all carrying the suffix Gymkhana. For Delhi Gymkhana, there was Agha Turab Ali (called Trump Ali) who used to get a hundred in local matches out of sheer habit. Then there was the legendary Sharif Charcha of Friends who was said to have stood up to Mohammad Nisar when he was bowling faster than even Larwood. “Nisar may be fast for other keepers who stand back: he is not fast enough for me,” Charcha, who was also called Chacha, had said.

            We have to thank Waqar for reminding us that Pir of Pagaro it was who led Sindh in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy in 1953, scoring one and 15 in the two innings. He had learnt his cricket while a student in forced exile in England. He switched to horses much later in life.

            Waqar relives the Oval test of 1954 and recalls that when close to the end of England’s second innings, Peter Loader skied one from Mahmood Hussain at cover, everyone began to shout at him, “Don’t drop it, don’t drop it.” To the team’s delight, he held it. England lost the remaining wicket thanks to a run out by Hanif and Pakistan had beaten a legendary England side with men like Hutton, Compton, Simpson, May and Graveney.

            Waqar also remembers one of the great supporters of the game: the late Kafiluddin Ahmed from East Pakistan who gave Waqar a job as cinema inspector in Karachi at a salary of Rs 125 a month. He was chief engineer of Karachi PWD and he it was who built the National Stadium at Karachi which the Board should really name after him.

            And last, I thank Waqar for reminding us of Qamaruddin Butt (always called Q.D. Butt) who was a great lover of the game and who wrote most colourfully about it in a style all his own. For instance, here he is describing Waqar’s 189 against New Zealand at Lahore: “Waqar showed his bias for mid-wicket shots which dazzled across the inky sky. Imtiaz (he got 209) pounced on everything he received like a half-starved tiger that has scented fresh meat … The crowd cried themselves hoarse and clapped themselves bruised.”

            QDB was an original. Those were the days, my friend, those were the days.

Bernstein said very little had changed since Watergate, adding, “The amount of lying in Washington to this day is unbelievable” which is where reporters come in, he added, to separate truth from lies and to print it

Last week marked the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the “third-class burglary” that caused the fall of Richard Nixon, a man whom Pakistanis have reason to remember as the only American President who had a soft corner for their country, which at most other times has been viewed and treated with varying degrees of contempt by official Washington. The US-Pakistan alliance has actually been a misalliance with the two often working at cross purposes. The defence pacts that once bound them together were marked by misunderstandings over essentials.

While Pakistan expected US support in the event of a conflict with India, the US remained satisfied that it was obliged to come to the aid of Pakistan only against communist aggression. Why then did Pakistan sign those pacts in the first place is a question that is hard to answer, especially as all the principals are dead. When in 1965, the US abruptly terminated arms sales and supplies to Pakistan - and to India - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto asked the American ambassador, “How can you treat your friends and enemies in the same manner?” Salman Ali, the Foreign Office notetaker at the meeting, recorded that the ambassador grew red in the face, loosened his collar and began to sweat. Bhutto spoke of fighting till the bitter end which turned out to be just two weeks. The Pakistani measure of time obviously was not quite Chinese in duration. Zhou en-Lai was right.
We fight our wars like cricket matches, expecting a result in three days.

I was at the National Press Club on the morning of June 17 to hear the three men who were instrumental in the fall of Richard Nixon. There they all were: Ben Bradlee, editor of the ‘Washington Post’ and the two reporters who fished out the Watergate story, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. However, the one unanswered Watergate question remained unanswered. Who was Deep Throat, the source the two intrepid reporters relied on. Woodward, when asked if Deep Throat was still alive replied, “Last I checked, he was.” He said it was the job of a journalist to protect his sources and to keep his word.

Woodward, who still works for the ‘Washington Post’, unlike Bernstein who left some years ago, said anyone who listened to the Nixon tapes would be struck by how much rancour and hatred the man held for those whom he considered his enemies. He believed in revenge. “It’s chilling to listen to him,” Woodward said, recalling that in one conversation, Nixon says when told that Woodward wants to interview him, that he better watch his back. He also observes darkly that the ‘Post’ which is going after the President’s men better leave the President alone.

Woodward said it was the job of a reporter to go below the surface. Official statements always stated less than the truth and no reporter should assume otherwise. It occurred to me that a whole generation of Pakistani reporters had grown up merely reproducing official handouts because that was all they were permitted to do. Happily, things have changed, although when it comes to reporting crime, it is almost always the police version that is carried. Bradlee was asked if at any point he thought of firing his two reporters. He had not. Were there threats? “Well, we were told to watch our asses,” he replied. He did not agree that the Watergate story had encouraged reporters to adopt an “attack dog” approach to public figures.

Bernstein said very little had changed since Watergate, adding, “The amount of lying in Washington to this day is unbelievable” which is where reporters come in, he added, to separate truth from lies and to print it.

Bradlee was skeptical about “instant news” popularised by CNN. “The latest is often wrong and irrelevant,” he observed. Both Woodward and Bernstein said that unlike the movie, their assignment was far from glamorous. It was tough, smelly and back-breaking.

Just as well Robert Redford wasn’t there to hear them.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

            One can’t say about others, but the Referendum has been great news for lovers of the Punjabi cinema. The gap created by the sad and sudden departure of Sultan Rahi a few years ago, a gap that nobody thought could ever be filled, has been more than filled. The stirring performance by Lt. Gen. Khalid Maqbul, Governor of the loyal and gallant province of Punjab, at Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s dramatic one-day opener at Minar-e-Pakistan brought back memories of that great hero who vanquished every villain who ever crossed his path or cast a lascivious eye on the female lead, otherwise known as “pind di izzat” or the honour of the village.

            The Governor was ably assisted by the Great Auctioneer Tariq Aziz (not to be confused with the President’s secretary) who had earlier gone into history books as the man who smashed his way into the Supreme Court of Pakistan and made their exalted lordships flee for their lives. I was shocked when at the instance of this government, Tariq Aziz was tried and punished. Is that how an act of valour should be rewarded? Should the man who led the Goons of Gwalmandi in glorious  battle against Pakistan’s higher judiciary not have been given a campaign award? One very much hopes Tariq’s great feat will receive the state recognition it deserves. Can there be a reason for not declaring him the colonel general of the supply corps, for instance?

            There can be no two opinions that it was Tariq Aziz who put the ongoing Pervez Musharraf Show on the road. One deplores the attempt by some journalists to embarrass Tariq by making snide remarks the other day at the President’s press conference, attended by invitation of the Ministry of Information by every newspaper whose name we have never heard. It must have been heart-warming for the President to be congratulated more than questioned. That is the way not only journalists but all citizens should in future behave. There is no place for cynicism in this country. In fact, someone should urge Gen. Moinuddin Haider to issue an ordinance declaring cynicism an offence just short of treason, punishable by, among other things, a weeklong stint in the cabinet with that Eternal Bride of Deviant Rule, Dr Attiya Inayatullah, who was also wrecker-in-chief of the family planning programme during the Zia-ul-Haq years.

            Meanwhile, the fancy dress show featuring the President continues to draw crowds in city after city. It is entirely untrue that anyone has to be carried to these meetings. Newspapers ought to express regrets for printing wholly fictitious stories about police confiscating anything that moves on the road. Those who go to the President’s meetings do so entirely of their own accord and out of their profound love for their leader. Were these crowds rented, as some brutal allegations have it, would they be cheering the way they do? After all, it is well known that you can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. And those who go to the President’s meetings are not horses but men, or so they appear to be on Pakistan television which, we all know, is entirely objective when it comes to coverage of officially sponsored events.

            What we are witnessing these days is revolutionary in many respects. It is little realised that the General may have ushered in a new era of headdress fashion in Pakistan. The splendid turbans, not seen since the last of the Ottoman kings was in the throne, that the President has been seen wearing have been nothing short of a profound fashion statement. The couturiers of Paris, Milan, Tokyo, London and New York have surely taken note of this phenomenon and there is no question that their fall and winter collections for both men’s and women’ fashions will reflect what we have been watching night after night and day after day on our screens. What appears to have caught the people’s fancy is the head adornment chosen by the President while wearing his crack commando uniform. I am disappointed that his recent appearances at public meetings have featured civvies. Obviously, he has been misadvised. There is nothing more fetching than the uniform-turban combination. Could there be a better marriage between tradition and martial gallantry?

            I have also noticed that the President of late has been trying to express himself entirely in Urdu. Those who advised him to do so are no friends of his and, if they are officials, they should be fired, or if not fired, sent out as ambassadors, unless they are allotted a brief stay at the great fort of Attock where they would at least be able to play Chinese checkers with Asif Ali Zardari in the afternoons. I am assuming A to Z is at Attock. Who knows where he has been sent after the venerable Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan described him as a hostage.

            The President should also revert to the mixed language drink he offered us in his marathon television address. It was a tremendous experience. When you thought he was speaking English, he would throw in a string of Urdu phrases, and when you thought he was speaking Urdu, he would slip into English. Does anyone realise how much good that speech did to the young students trying to improve their English vocabulary! For instance, none of them knew until the President spoke from those dozens of paper slips, what the word ‘tertiary’ meant. Now they all do. The language in which the President spoke that day is the language of the future, neither English nor Urdu. That is the direction in which things are moving and that is where he is trying to take us. Those who say they are glad Maulvi Abdul Haq was not alive to hear that speech are old fuddy duddies who are utterly irrelevant.

            As for the Referendum, it is a foregone conclusion, so massively popular the President is. I was for several heart-warming days in Islamabad and was thrilled to find every standing pole and tree hung with soul-stirring messages from Dr Muhammad Amjad and Syed Kabir Ali Wasti asking the nation to vote for President Musharraf in the Referendum. Dr Amjad, of whom I had not heard before, I confess, is the president of the Pakistan Poultry Association. Is it realised that he can make every rooster all over Pakistan crow from the time the polls open on April 30 to the time they close. If that happens, no matter how much Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan screams, no one will be able to hear him.

            As for Syed Kabir Ali Wasti, he is my choice as Prime Minister because when he invites you to dinner, he passes out choice Havana cigars at the end of the evening. As for himself, he neither smokes nor drinks, which should make him acceptable to the bearded ones.

Considering that despite God’s known and declared distaste for the Devil, the Evil One has been carrying on his wicked work rather successfully since the first day of creation, one can only marvel at Bush’s resolve to rid the earth of all terrorists

What is surprising is why it did not come earlier, but the good news is that it is finally here. The Dirty Bomber has arrived and is in safe hands, namely in a maximum security clinker away from such intruders as lawyers and civil rights agitators. In addition thereof, he, an American citizen, is now an “enemy combatant.”

For once, it is not an Arab, but that shouldn’t matter because he is a Muslim all right, and that, these days, given the hysteria of the inhabitants of Fortress Bush, is good enough to eventually hang him, or at the very least, keep him locked up for the rest of his days on this God’s earth, currently under the administrative control of the Man from Texas.
The Dirty Bomber does not come of Faithful stock, having been born a Catholic. When or why he saw the light and donned a skull cap (though to his credit he did not grow a beard), is not clear. Why a good Catholic would turn his back on the most romantic version of Christianity, erring priests notwithstanding, is hard to understand. Reminds me of what “Lala” Afzal said to the late Air Vice Marshal Steve Joseph when he became a Muslim, taking the name Muhammad Yousuf. “Steve, you used to drink like a good Christian, now you drink like a bad Muslim.”

Jose Padilla, who became Abdullah al Muhajir, and walked out on his first wife and married an Egyptian, was born in Brooklyn, we are told. He was fingered by Abu Zubaidah who was arrested in Faisalabad and flown in a nice, airworthy US aircraft here. Thank you Gen. Musharraf. It is said that he has been singing like a canary since he arrived and he it is whom Padilla or Abdullah should thank for what has befallen him.

During the Cold War’s early days, many people in this country believed that there were “reds under beds”; today it is Islamic terrorists behind every bush and in the seat next to you on an aircraft. The President says he is going to clear the world of terrorists and not wait for them to strike but go and strike them first, no matter where they are hiding. This is a tall order and if someone doesn’t talk Bush out of it, American operatives would be running around everywhere in the world like headless chickens. Considering that despite God’s known and declared distaste for the Devil, the Evil One has been carrying on his wicked work rather successfully since the first day of creation, one can only marvel at Bush’s resolve to rid the earth of all terrorists.

The Dirty Bomber is said to have been scouting the country for the most appropriate places where to plant and detonate his bomb, believed to be full of the most unpleasant radioactive stuff. Washington, says Homeland Security supremo John Ashcroft (a very reborn Christian gent), was to be the target. If you take a deep breath, count up to three and consider the manner in which the Dirty Bomber story has been floated by the government, it would be hard to overcome the feeling that it sounds just too perfect. However, since the Bush administration has assured the nation that every word is true, one has to believe these honourable men because honourable men they all are, or Shakespeare had it all wrong.

The mood in the United States is illustrated by a story in the ‘Washington Post’ on 12 June that says Muhajir or Abdullah was an “extraordinary prize” for Al Qaeda because he had an American passport. So on the one hand, Al Qaeda had the ability to plan and execute the most sophisticated terrorist operation in history on September 11, while on the other it did not have the brains or the cash to buy or forge an American passport. Pass me the smelling salts, Mickey.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

            I suppose it is a sign of the times that one should be faulted for never having Kashmir out of one’s mind, as a correspondent complained the other day in this newspaper about me. Who knows how long it will take before a reference of any kind to Kashmir becomes enough of a misdemeanour to have an ISI jeep without number plates standing outside your home and watching your back wherever you go. After all, that sort of thing has happened often in this country. Whenever political fashions change or a new deal is made with outside players, things, that until then were considered legitimate, overnight become illegitimate.

And given this government’s “principled” alliance with the so-called “international coalition” against Afghanistan and its people, nothing should be ruled out, including the displeasure of “agencies” with those who are either foolish or old-fashioned enough to remain involved in Kashmir. If unconstitutional government can be declared constitutional under the doctrine of necessity, why can’t a continuing interest in Kashmir be treated as an undesirable activity? What is publicly known about the terms of our post-September 11 arrangement with the “crusaders’ against “international terrorism” may not exactly be the tip of the iceberg, but there should be no doubt that there is much more there than meets the eye or is being allowed to meet the eye.

The basic facts about Kashmir are known to everyone, though not always to those speaking for state agencies in or outside Pakistan. I recall one self-proclaimed “Daughter of Kashmir” currently ensconced in the cabinet, who has frequently been sent abroad to present the case for Kashmir. During a string of appointments in Washington at a number of congressional offices some years ago, every time she would open her mouth, which was almost all the time, she would come out with different facts and figures. She was equally fuzzy about what happened when at the time of independence and thereafter. However, those on the other side of the table were barely interested in details and so it did not matter.

It is popularly believed, and rightly so, that had the Quaid-i-Azam lived, events in Kashmir would not have taken the tragic turn that they did. There has also been speculation as to how much the Quaid knew or was told. One thing is beyond congtroversy. The Quaid was not told of the tribal intervention in Kashmir. To this day, it is not clear who ordered it, though the finger of suspicion points to Khan Qayoom Khan. Liaquat Ali Khan knew about it, though when asked by K.H. Khurshid in 1949 in Lahore if the Quaid also did, he kept quiet.

With the passing of time, more facts have come to light. Prof. Zawwar Hussain Zaidi who can be said to have put the entire nation in his debt by his work on the Quaid-i-Azam’s papers, has come upon a letter sent to the Quaid from Srinagar on 12 October 1947 by his private secretary, K.H. Khurshid who was there to visit his family and report on the situation in the State. While the Quaid must surely have read the letter, it is not known if he ordered any action on some of the recommendations made by Khurshid. Be that as it may, the Khurshid letter is an unvarnished account of the existing situation in Kashmir and may answer some of the questions that have been asked about the last days of the Mahraja’s rule and where Pakistan and the Kashmiri Muslim leaders may have gone wrong.

Khurshid informs the Quaid that events in Kashmir have been “moving very fast since the release of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah as an act of ‘royal clemency’” He adds that other members of the Sheikh’s party, jailed for their part in the Quit Kashmir movement, have also been set free, but the Muslim Conference leaders “continue to rot in jails”. He writes that the State is getting rid of Muslims who held positions of any significance in the State forces. European officers have also been let go and the positions falling vacant have been filled by Hindu Dogra Rajputs. According to Khurshid, “The Maharaja is dead set against Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. He is reported to have said that even though his body be cut into seven hundred pieces, he would not accede to Pakistan … The State today is a hotbed of dirty court intrigues … to disrupt the Musalmans and suppress the popular feeling in favour of Pakistan.”

The “popular feeling” that Khurshid reports nails the claim that Sheikh Abdullah had the people’s backing for securing Kashmir’s accession to India. His National Conference had no non-Muslims in its ranks. They only began to join him after independence to strengthen his claim to represent the people of the entire State. Khurshid informs the Quaid that as things stand, everything points towards “the road to Delhi”. The Maharaja has appointed his uncle the prime minister and a nominee of Sardar Patel has been inducted as his deputy. Work on the Jammu-Pathankot road, he adds, is in hand. Petrol supplies, suspended for reasons unknown by the Rawalpindi authorities, are being flown in from Delhi. Dogra troops have been deployed all over the State. They would soon be on the rampage against the Muslim population. But despite all this, Khurshid points out, there is no support for accession to India except by “some Punjabi Hindus of Jammu”. The Muslim Conference is “dead” and its leaders, he adds, are either in jail or in Pakistan, “but there is a very strong undercurrent of popular feeling in favour of Pakistan, to utilise or exploit which, there is nobody here. Spontaneous demonstrations (in Pakistan’s favour) are being held in different parts of the City and the State but there is nobody to mobilise these scattered elements.”

Khurshid writes that since Abdullah never had any non-Muslim following, now that Pakistan has been established and the League-Congress controversy is at an end, his followers want that Kashmir should accede to Pakistan. Khurshid tells the Quaid that “Pakistan must think in terms of fighting” for Kashmir as the other side is ready to take the State by force. He also recommends the supply of arms and food to tribes within the State because unless that is done, the local population will not be able to resist for more than a fortnight. It is, of course, on record that the Quaid’s orders to his British commander-in-chief to send troops into Kashmir were disobeyed. Pakistan’s claim over Kashmir went by default, both militarily and politically. In the latter case, there was not a single pro-Pakistan Kashmiri leader around in the State.

Khurshid also suggests to the Quaid to issue a statement (he provides him with a draft) that would “clarify the League position vis-à-vis the Indian States”. It has been said that the League’s position on this crucial question was ambivalent and provided the princely rulers with the legal authority to accede to any of the two Dominions. Khurshid, mindful of this, includes the following elaboration in his draft for the Quaid. “The Muslim League has always stood for the right of self-determination of the people all over the world and it was this principle which formed the basis of (the) Pakistan demand by the Muslim League. This is a question entirely different from the interpretation of the position of the States under the (June 3) Plan.”

In other words, while the Quaid-i-Azam, because of the League’s special relationship with Bhopal and Hyderabad, accepted the right of the rulers to accede to India and Pakistan, it was assumed that the will of the people of the acceding States would remain paramount. In the case of Kashmir, popular will was overwhelmingly in favour of accession to Pakistan. But that was not to be; however, it is wrong to blame the Quaid for this, as some now tend to do.

            Some years ago, a Pakistani doctor told me a story form his days in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where he was working in one of the state-run hospitals. One day, he stepped out of his apartment, wearing jeans and sneakers, walked across the road to buy a pack of cigarettes (yes, he was one of those doctors who smoke, so there is hope for the rest of Fraulein Nicotine’s suitors yet). He never got to the store because he was accosted by a plainclothesman who wanted to see his papers. All foreigners residing in the Kingdom need to carry their identification or work permit or whatever on their person all the time. He said he did not have any on him, but he only lived across the road and it would take him five minutes to come back with his papers. Wrong number. He was carted off to police lockup, kept there for several days and allowed neither to phone his wife nor his employers. Once freed, he resigned and left to find himself some easier place to live.

            A taxi driver, with whom I was having a nice chat in Karachi once, while his rickety contraption that only needed two things, an engine and a body, bounced along Nazimabad’s back roads, said to me, “I will go without a fare for hours but I won’t offer a ride to an Arab, even if he was a prince.” When I said that did not sound a nice or reasonable thing to do, he turned around – without slowing down of course – and asked, “Where do you work?” I told him I worked in Europe. “Well, if like me you had worked in one of those countries, you would have understood what I meant.” He then told me of the humiliation he, an honest, upright, hard-working and devout Muslim had suffered in more than one of the Gulf states. “I do not make much here,” he added, “but nobody looks down on me. Nobody calls me a ‘miskeen’. I walk as tall as the next man.” He also told me that the worst thing that you could do there was to get into an accident because no matter whose fault it was, it would be the foreigner who would be blamed, unless he was a ‘gora sahib’.

            Every other week, buried somewhere in the middle of column six or seven onan inside page of most of our newspapers is a brief news report that informs those who would notice it that three or four or more of their countrymen have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia. No one misses any sleep over it, nor do I recall ever having seen an editorial comment deploring the savagery of the punishment. Add this to what is already a long list of Pakistani dichotomy and double standards.

            The recently released report on human rights by the US State Department contains a 36-page section on the Kingdom that I would not advise anyone to read before lunch unless wishes no lunch that day. The ‘Mubahith’ or internal security force and the ‘Mutawwa’in’ or the religious police representing the Committee to Prevent Vice and Promote Virtue (now you know where the Taliban got theirs) are a law unto themselves. Although the Shar’ia strictly prohibits any judge from accepting a confession obtained under duress, the Interior ministry officials are said to be responsible for most incidents of abuse of prisoners, including beatings, whippings, sleep deprivation and even drugging. It is not uncommon to suspend prisoners from bars by their handcuffs or obtain confessions through torture and abuse. The Saudi government refuses to recognise the mandate of the UN Committee Against Torture.

            The much-feared religious police are known for intimidating, harassing, abusing and detaining citizens and foreigners, both men and women. The punishments meted out to wrongdoers include stoning, decapitation and death by firing squad. Repeated thievery can be, and often is, punished with the amputation of the right hand and the left foot. Flogging of those convicted of a political or religious crime is with a leather strap; but those caught drinking get off lightly, in comparison, as they are not flogged but caned. While the Saudi law prohibits arbitrary arrest, the religious police are generally free to intimidate and bring to police stations persons whom they accuse of committing “crimes of vice”, a charge framed entirely in accordance with the judgment of the security agent.

            Musarrat Nazir, who till last reports came was still looking under the trees for that famous nose ornament of hers, once told me that on a visit to the Kingdom, as she arrived with her ten-year old son, tired and jetlagged, at the Riyadh airport, and as they waited their turn at the immigration and passport control window, the boy being exhausted put her head on her shoulder. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. Two or three Mutawwa’in rushed upon her screaming, pulled the terrified boy away from her and made it clear by gestures that they had to stand apart. No physical contact in public between sexes should occur, even between mother and son. She said it was a terrifying and humiliating experience. A friend once said if you go to the Kingdom, be sure that your faith is strong because it will be tested on more than one occasion.

            I hope Nawaz Sharif, currently a guest of the Kingdom, remembers to criticise only his own government because were he to criticise the Saudi government, that being an offence, he could be picked up by the ‘Mubahith’, the ministry of interior’s internal security service which keeps those it picks up incommunicado in special prisons while investigations continue. The authorities also open mail and use informants and wiretaps. Security forces have been known to use wiretaps against foreigners suspected of alcohol-related offences. Informants and ward bosses report “seditious ideas” or anti-government activity in their neighbourhoods to the ministry of the interior.

            Women have a rough deal. They may not marry non-citizens without government permission (even men need permission if the intended is outside the six Gulf states). Women cannot marry non-Muslims, while men can choose a Jew or a Christian. Although the Shar’ia prohibits violence against women, it is said to be common. Hospitals admit women who have apparently been beaten up at home. They have since been instructed to report any suspicious case to the authorities. A woman may not travel abroad without the permission of her husband or parent. There are thousands of foreign women domestics in Saudi homes. Some countries maintain “safehouses” for those who have been mistreated so that they can find shelter. There are no active women’s rights groups. Women are not allowed to drive and they must occupy the back seat. They can enter city buses but through rear entrances. A woman found in a car not being driven by a relative can be arrested. Women can now obtain identity cards but only with the permission of a male relative. In public, women must wear an ‘abaya’, a head to toe black garment. The head and hair must also remain covered. Women have to show legally specified grounds for divorce, but men are under no such obligation. Women make up 58 percent of university students but are excluded from the study of such subjects as engineering, journalism and architecture. A woman can only go abroad to study if she is accompanied by her husband or a close male relative.

            After September 11 and given the nationality of the majority of the hijackers, pressure on Saudi Arabia has mounted to open up and introduce reform. How long it takes and what its political implications will be on the House of Saud is one of the great unanswered questions of our times.

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