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The number of radio and television broadcasters in Pakistan who can speak Urdu without using any English word is now very small. Those hoping for fame and glory as television commentators are advised to just listen to Zia Mohyeddin make a presentation in Urdu. There would not be even a single English word there. But then Zia carries the cultural solidity of an earlier time

The October 10 elections like October 10 itself are come and gone, though “Kaun Banay ga Wazir-i-Azam” remains to be decided. But does it really matter?

If those who get chosen to rule or, to save time and cut formalities, grab power on their own, could only know how the average citizen sees them, they might perhaps come down a few
thousand feet closer to the ground.

I recall telling an old man in a Sargodha village where I had gone to see a friend a few days after Gen. Yahya Khan’s takeover, “We have a new ruler named Yahya Khan.” “I hope he sends a good “thanedar” to us,” he replied. The old man probably knew that as in Manto’s story “Naya Qanoon”, the “qanoon” never changes, nor does the “thanedar”, but I suppose everyone has a right to dream.

But that aside, many Pakistanis living in the United States, parted with the few hundred dollars it takes to buy a satellite dish to watch the election results. We could have saved our money because one thing the channel called PTV Prime did not bring its viewers was results. My one consolation was to have been able to watch Naeem Bokhari, though his appearances seem to have been rationed. Talking heads there were aplenty and it was apparent that every panel member was in competition with every other panel member to have his voice heard. Since we as a nation do not converse, preferring instead to declaim and hold forth, that is exactly what was happening.

The only memorable moment in the entire boring exercise was Mir Jamilur Rahman saying into a live microphone, “Chalo chal ke soota layye.”

My friend Aroosa Alam who was brought on the second day with most of the results still mystifyingly undeclared, could not make up her mind if she wanted to address us in English or Urdu, with the result that when you thought she was about to speak Urdu, she would slip into English and when you were sure it was going to be English, she would break into Urdu. The number of radio and television broadcasters in Pakistan who can speak Urdu without using any English word is now very small. Those hoping for fame and glory as television commentators are advised to just listen to Zia Mohyeddin make a presentation in Urdu. There would not be even a single English word there. But then Zia carries the cultural solidity of an earlier time.

Why is election coverage treated by PTV as some kind of a carnival where the viewers have to be “entertained”? Every country undertakes marathon coverage of its national elections but it is solely devoted to the event. The disgusting thing about PTV’s election coverage was the ridiculing of politicians and the political process itself through skits and so-called comedy sketches. That people like Kamal Ahmed Rizvi and Anwar Maqsood took part in that demeaning exercise is unforgivable. Who decided that the best way to present an election was to make fun of the very people and the very democratic concepts that elections are a manifestation of? I asked Mushahid Hussain, Nawaz Sharif’s information minister, who is in Washington these days, how this could have happened. “Not without specific directions from the top,” he replied.

What he said makes sense. The military that rules us has nothing but utter contempt for politicians and the political process itself which is why on a day for which the people of Pakistan had waited for three long years, they ridiculed the very exercise that they were conducting with such aplomb.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

            Ghulam Abbas, who with Saadat Hasan Manto stands in a class apart, foresaw in 1967 what came to pass more a decade later in Iran and what came true to the last detail in that infernal hole of bigotry and intolerance, the Taliban’s Afghanistan. With the prophetic eye of the artist, Abbas foresaw the rise of fundamentalist Islam.

            Hotel Moenjodaro, his masterpiece and one of the most disturbing allegories of our time, is a long short story that he first read at a literary gathering in Karachi but the reaction was so hostile that he withheld its publication until 1969 when he included it in an anthology. But he hose to leave it out in a later selection of his work.       

With the Muthida Majlis-i-Amal winning big, we have come close to the real life enactment of Abbas’s vision. It is important that those who are sensitive to the implications of the rise of reactionary religious forces in Pakistan should read Hotel Moenjodaro.

            In a brief autobiographical note, Abbas wrote, “I am a follower of Iqbal, the great Poet of the East, and, as such, I have never associated myself with any sect or religious faction. I have always thought of myself as a simple Muslim, one among millions, and the fears and apprehensions I have felt about the future, I have expressed in the form of a short story. Before the partition of India, Iqbal reacted to the insensitivity, disunity and sectarianism of his countrymen by warning them: Na samjho gai tau mit jao gai aye Hindustan walo: Tumhari daastan tuk bhi na ho gi dastaanoon mein (If you fail to come to your senses, O people of Hindustan, history will carry not even a reference to the fact that you once existed.) It is the same kind of despair about our condition that has prompted me to write this story.”

            The story begins on the 71^st floor of Hotel Moenjodaro, where an international assemblage of glitterati is waiting for the first broadcast from the surface of the moon (the first moon landing had yet to take place when the story was written) by Capt. Adam Khan, a Pakistani. The magic moment finally arrives and Adam Khan announces to the world that he, a Pakistani from Jhang, has landed on the moon. As the invited guests burst into applause, the strains of the Pakistani national anthem rise in the night air. It is a moving moment. Adam Khan announces that he has just planted Pakistan’s flag on the moon.

            The scene changes. In a small town in Sindh, a mullah tells his morning congregation, “I have just heard on my transistor radio that some Pakistani, may there be a curse on him, has landed on the moon. May God destroy him! My brothers in Islam, it is apostasy to expose to view in the name of science and so-called progress, things across whose face our Master and Sustainer has drawn a veil of mystery and secrecy. Brothers, because of this vile and disgusting act, we have been guilty of a grave sin in the eyes of God and my heart tells me that a most terrible punishment awaits us from the Great Avenger. And let me warn you, it won’t be long in coming.”

            The unrest that begins in that remote village, soon sweeps the entire country. In the beginning, the government pays no attention but the agitation grows in ferocity every day with mullahs big and small denouncing Pakistan’s “godless rulers” who have committed a grave sin in the name of progress. They are accused of violating the Shari’a for which they deserve to die. One Mullah declares, “O Muslims, you are surrounded by atheism, shamelessness, dishonour, pornography, lechery, apostasy and wickedness. God’s word has been disregarded and mocked and the True Faith stands rejected. Adultery, drinking and gambling are being promoted openly. Instruments of carnal pleasure abound, and singing and dancing have become a popular pastime. Modesty has disappeared from the female eye and the woman’s soul and body have been divested of the raiment of virtue and decency. Verily, these are signs that the Day of Judgment is at hand.”

            The mullahs summon a convention and call for the government’s overthrow and promise to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Declaring themselves the soldiers of God, they launch a countrywide movement that finally brings down the government. As long as the mullahs were agitating, they were united, but the moment they take power, they become divided into six parties which are known by the colours their followers wear. Elections take place and an Amir is chosen from the Green party who declares himself God’s deputy on earth. He invites the losing parties to join his Majlis-e-Shura. The Jamia Mosque becomes both the Amir’s home and his secretariat.

His first edict says that the body politic should be free of the poison of Westernisation. A new dress code is imposed and the English language is declared illegal. The old administrative structure is dismantled and all old records burnt. Universities and colleges are closed and madrassas with religious syllabi set up. Arabic is declared the national language. Women are banned from leaving their homes unless they are properly covered. Their education now consists of the ability to count, and read and write just enough to maintain household accounts. Courts are reformed and lawyers are declared illegal. Men are obligated to grow beards, pray five times a day and abide by other injunctions. Non-Muslims are declared ‘zimmis’ and made to pay ‘jazia.’ Cinemas and theatres are turned into madrassas and orphanages.

All sports are banned except riding, archery and lancing as they are “Islamic.” Wrestling is revived. Every Muslim adult is told to carry a sword, while women are allowed to be armed with a dagger. Love poetry is abolished, as are novels and stories. Newspapers are forbidden to print pictures. Medicine and surgery are also abolished since the medicines prescribed by doctors are suspected of containing alcohol. Barbers are now the only surgeons. Everyone is told to dress in Arab clothes. China, glassware and home appliances are banned and electric power is declared haram. Radios, TVs and cameras are confiscated and their use forbidden. Foreign embassies are told to pack up as they spread alien ideas and their women go barelegged. Banks are shut down and foreign trade forbidden.

            Doctrinal differences now begin to surface between the six parties and there are frequent arguments and fights. The real breakdown occurs when the government tries to write a history of Islam. No two mullahs are found in agreement on anything. One day the Amir is found murdered in his mosque. A fratricidal civil war breaks out. One night Pakistan is invaded by enemy armour and aircraft.

            The last scene shows us a party of tourists riding on camels through a vast desert. Their guide stops suddenly, points to some ruins and says,  “And that is the spot where, before the enemy struck, stood the Hotel Moenjodaro with its seventy-one storeys. It was there that the first Pakistani astronaut’s voice from the surface of the moon was heard.”

Could the man who has killed at random and without a pattern or an identifiable scheme be crazed? No one knows though there are scores of theories

The man who has come to be known as The Sniper has everyone on edge since he went on his mysterious, meticulously planned shooting spree. People in the greater Washington area, inside the Beltway and beyond, are afraid. They no longer feel what they had always taken for granted: a sense of security and well being.

Parents are nervous about sending children to school, though schools continue to remain open. However, they have cancelled their outdoor events, including sports. The average person has become more observant. Everyone watches everyone in case the man sitting next to you on the metro rail from Vienna in Northern Virginia to Foggy Bottom, the first stop in the District, may be the Sniper. Who knows?

In the summer of 1977, New York was terrorised by a serial killer who called himself the Son of Sam. He was finally caught because of a traffic violation. Now serving six life sentences, he was a deeply disturbed young man named David Berkowitz who lived in Yonkers and who “received” demonic messages from his neighbour Sam’s black Labrador to go out and kill.

Could the man who has killed at random and without a pattern or an identifiable scheme be similarly crazed? No one knows though there are scores of theories.

One theory is that the killings have something to do with a popular hobby store called Michaels, since at least four of the execution style single-shot murders have taken place in its vicinity. Michaels is a chain store. However, someone has pointed out that it could also be Radio Shack which sells all kind of gadgetry because there were as many Radio Shack stores where the murders took place as there were Michaels. Thousands of calls have been received by the police, some of them from nuts, clairvoyants, tarot card readers or amateur detectives. The killer has been associated with a white van with a rack at the top and a damaged taillight. There are about 6,000 of such vans in the Washington area. The police is said to be checking out each one of them and that takes some doing. A number of columnists have suggested that the Sniper is actually Al Qaeda. The theory is that while the entire police and security apparatus in Washington is preoccupied with the attacks, a bigger operation will be launched elsewhere.

One of the first people to be picked up by the Sniper was an Indian-American cabdriver who was getting gasoline at a filling station. One single shot felled him. He had come to America from Pune over twenty years ago looking for a better life. The latest victim was a 47-year old FBI analyst who had survived two breast cancer operations, was expecting her first grandchild and was about to move into a new home. She was struck down as she with her husband was loading some stuff they had bought at a home improvement store in Falls Church. I live no more than ten minutes’ distance from Falls Church.

Four of those who have been killed were filling their cars at gasoline outlets. Consequently, everyone is very careful now when doing that. In fact the police have come out with a list of “Dos” when out and about. They suggest that for protection against sniper-style shootings, while outside, you should try to keep moving because a moving target is more difficult to hit than one that is standing still. If you must remain in one place in an area where you feel vulnerable, select the darkest part of the area to sit or stand in, advise the police.

When moving outside, walk briskly in a zigzag pattern. If you must stand outside, try to keep some type of protective cover between yourself and any open areas where a sniper might be located. For example, if you are fuelling your car, stand between your vehicle and the gasoline pump and bend your knees to lower your profile. If you are fired on in an open area, drop to the ground and roll away from where you were standing. Look for the closest protective cover and run toward it in short, zigzag dashes.

You are advised to be constantly aware of your surroundings while outside and to make a note of any suspicious vehicles or activities, then move away from them and report them to the police. You are asked to remember that a sniper with the right equipment can shoot accurately from about 500 yards away, the equivalent of five football fields.

Well, that is what life is like here these days. The fortress mentality is no longer confined to the White House; it is all over the place.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

             All things good and bad come to an end, and so have the elections. What is to follow is of course another matter. There may be uncertainty in the air but of one thing we can be certain. This is bad news for barbers. The hirsute ones are coming. Gen. Pervez Musharraf who takes credit for everything, done and undone, true to form, has also taken credit for this phenomenon.

            No longer can Pakistani representatives in Western capitals begin their conversations with, “But you know the religious parties have never taken more than two or three slots in parliament.” This standard opening served our diplomats and visiting delegations splendidly for many, many years. Often, it was able to clinch an argument and even during the years of Zia-ul-Haq when this dragon’s harvest was being well and truly sown, this gambit served to deflect criticism that Pakistan was going fundo. Well, surprise surprise. Pakistan has gone fundo and Zia-ul-Haq sleeps in peace at last.

            How can we ever express our gratitude to the army? Whatever we are today, we are because of our Bahadur Mussalah Afwaj (stirring sounds of the national anthem whose words 99.9 percent of the population of Pakistan is unable to understand, rise in the air. Stand up everybody). I think this grateful nation should pin another medal on the General Musharraf’s chest though it appears to be running out of space. Perhaps he should be respectfully asked to put some of them in storage, as museums do with their art collections.

            The Americans who have maintained near silence over the election results are no less worried about the future, speaking privately, as, say, the All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Araish-e-Gaisoo, or in less ornate language, Pakistan’s barbers and haircutters. Between Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Sami-ul Haq “Sandwich”, Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani of the India-ink beard, Prof. Sajjad Mir who used to be perfectly normal once, believe it or not, should have at least a donkey load of hair, give or take a few kilos. It is hard to believe today that this country was created by that elegant, immaculately dressed gentleman Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Are they going to put a beard on his face as well? After all, a beginning has already been made by the federal secretary with his directive that all who draw their salary from the exchequer begin wearing “the national dress” whose only advantage is that the wearer will never know how much blubber he has put on.

            My friend Mir Jamilur Rahman has warned in a newspaper piece that the holy warriors of the MMA are all poised to have Friday redeclared the weekly holiday. I suggest they go a step further and have Sunday abolished altogether so that it no longer exists on the calendar to dilute the piety of the faithful. Women are to be required to wear that awful thing called the hijab. Since the world began, women have tried to find new ways of beautifying themselves, and that is their privilege. The hijab is one invention that immediately turns a woman into something unbearably drab. If you put a hijab on Marilyn Monroe, she would be indistinguishable from, say, the late Phoolan Devi.

            The MMA, writes my friend, is also determined to “end vulgarity and obscenity” on PTV. I would suggest, it go a step further and end PTV itself since, along with Radio Pakistan, PTV makes up the twin otters of dullness and disinformation. Like that poet in Julius Caesar, it should be killed for its bad verses. And what is it that the MMA find particularly sinful on PTV? It turns out that bareheaded women in sleeveless shirts and jeans do not let the Maulanas sleep at night. Perhaps they have stolen a leaf from Mian Nawaz Sharif’s book who once wrote out a memo in his own hand directing that “these jean-jacket boys with long hair” should be banned from TV and, further, that the satellites that brought down “shameless Western programmes” should be “jammed.” Had he succeeded, we would have seen Star Wars in our own time.

            The Pure Ones also want to abolish co-education once for all. Why don’t they go ahead and abolish women themselves because the female of the species it is that appears to bother them the most. The great contradiction of the Mullah is that while on the one hand he leches for women, he detests them at the same time. My first visit to Iran after the Khomenei takeover was instructive. Everywhere, there were signs that women should on no account be seen without the chador, nor should their hair be visible to the naked eye. It struck me that the edict had come not from women but men. Women had no problem at all with looking their best and wearing nice clothes. It was only the Mullah who felt in need of “protection.” So the sinfulness lay not in the appearance of the women but in the hearts and minds of those who issued such decrees. It was they who needed moral reform.

            At the height of the Taliban terror, Kishwar Naheed wrote a lovely poem that began: Wo jo bachhiyoon se dur gaye (They who felt threatened by girl children). Bu the Taliban were across the Durand Line in Afghanistan. This is happening right here and now under the rule of a man who is afraid to be seen in public with his dogs. Mir Jamilur Rahman wrote that the MMA was also of the view that women should not travel by the same public buses as men. He added that if this were to be carried further, it could well lead to the demand that there should be separate passenger aircraft for women.

            Bu more sinister is the determination of the MMA leaders to implement the hadood punishments. It is typical of the hypocrisy of those who have ruled us that none of them had the decency or the courage to strike off these primitive laws. While Nawaz Sharif because of his father or out of his own inhibited outlook was unlikely to have done so, Benazir Bhutto was afraid that if she acted, the Mullahs would come after her. What she did not realise was that they were going to come after her anyway. Gen. Musharraf began on a promising note but soon retreated into the reactionary cocoon that Pakistani leaders have fashioned for themselves. The Mullahs thrown up by the General’s shenanigans and the genius of Gen. Tanveer Naqvi will begin to chop hands, stone adulteresses and blind others on the “an eye for an eye” basis before long. Is there someone to stop them?

            Someone wrote to a newspaper the other day that he was going to leave Pakistan the day Maulana Fazlur Rehman became Prime Minister. Since no other country would give a Pakistani a visa, he was proceeding to Papua New Guinea where no such restrictions existed. My advice to him is to hurry before Papua New Guinea also slams the door shut.

            The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been above criticism in Pakistan for two reasons. Saudi Arabia is the land of Islam’s birth and seat of its holiest places. Two, the Kingdom has remained a good friend of Pakistan, helping it tide over its financial difficulties and generally being supportive on all major issues, including Kashmir. Saudi governments and the Saudi way of life has almost never been subjected to critical analysis, nor has the Saudi interpretation of what Islam is and what Islam is not been questioned for fear of causing offense.

However, after the events of September 11, the focus on the Kingdom and how it interprets Islam has come under sharp and sometimes hostile scrutiny in the West. This may also be the time for us to take an objective, dispassionate look at the austere version of our religion that the Kingdom promotes at home and what it has spent many years and hundreds of millions of dollars on promoting abroad. The Saudi view of Islam is based on what is known as Wahabism, an interpretation of Islam that al-Qaida and the Taliban have offered as spiritual justification for their actions. It is these strident, intolerant, violent voices that appear to have set the current Islamic agenda, an agenda whose costs are now being borne by the entire world of Islam, including Muslims living in other countries

Had all the enemies of Islam, past and present, got together to work out the most effective way to harm Islam, do injury to its followers and tarnish its image, they could not have come up with a more deadly, a more successful scheme than the World Trade Centre attacks of 11 September 2001. Nothing has been the same since and nothing will be same for the foreseeable future for Muslims. Those who reside in the West, and in such a normally tolerant country as the United States, have witnessed with growing dismay the erosion of what was once the American way of life. Being a Muslim is in itself reason enough to be suspect in a given situation. Sometimes the hostility is palpable, at other times subtle. At times, it may be only imagined, but that things have changed for Muslims since that fateful day in September is a fact of life and a very sad and unpleasant fact of life

A friend of mine in Virginia who was running a small business selling laptop computers has said that his sales fell in the wake of 9/11 and have never really recovered. Some said their bank credit facilities had been curtailed. Others said they had lost customers. Muslims have had problems when out looking for house rentals. School children have borne the brunt of this assault and have had to put up with taunts and insults. Many Muslims have lost their lives or suffered serious physical assault and injury. The recent increase in shockingly unseemly attacks on Islam’s most revered figure are something that was almost unheard of before 9/11. Muslims can only protest through their ineffective organisations, but these protests have little or no impact. Some of those making these attacks are President George Bush’s close political allies and supporters. The Washington Post newspaper asked the President recently to publicly distance himself from these men. He has done no such thing so far and is not likely to. The general attitude is summed up in the saying: Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.

And all these indignities have been brought upon Muslims and all this harm done to them because of the contorted thinking of those who claim to be waging ‘jihad’ for the greater glory of the religion by which they swear and in whose name they operate. While the Saudis may have always acted out of the goodness of their hearts and for their love of Islam and its timeless message, the fact is that they have funded organisations and patronised groups that have an extremely narrow and intolerant understanding of Islam. They are unaware of the contribution made by Islam to the flowering of world civilisation and culture, of science and medicine, of art and literature. Their concept of Islam is based on ignorance and a lack of understanding of the true nature of this great civilising and intellectually liberating force.

It may be instructive to take a look at how the Saudis view religion. Saudi Arabia is an Islamic monarchy – a contradiction in terms – which offers no legal protection for freedom of religion. All citizens are to be Muslims under the law. Public worship of other faiths is forbidden, though their followers may do so in private, but not always is this permitted. There are seven million foreigners in a population of 17 million, including 0.9 million Pakistanis, 1.5 million Indians, 1.0 million Bangladeshis, 0.8 million Filipinos, 130,000 Sri Lankans and about 1.1 million Egyptians, Palestinians and Lebanese.

Practices contrary to the teaching of the 18^th century reformer Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab are discouraged, such as the birthday of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him)and visits to the tombs of revered Islamic figures. Anyone spreading a contrary interpretation of Islam or Islamic practices is strictly dealt with, including a term in prison. All mosque imams are on state payroll and foreign imams are not allowed to lead Friday prayers, which the government describes as part of its “Saudization” plan to replace foreign workers with Saudi citizens. The Imam of Ka’aba who used to visit Pakistan with such frequency, few realised, was a civil servant. There were those in Pakistan who believed that if you were part of the congregation led by him, it was equal of “half Haj.”

There is discrimination against women and their testimony in the Kingdom’s courts does not carry the same weight as that of a man. Women many not marry non-citizens without government permission and men must obtain approval from the Ministry of Interior to marry women outside the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Women cannot marry non-Muslims while men can marry Christians and Jews. While women have to demonstrate legally specific grounds for divorce, men may pronounce divorce without cause. If divorced or widowed, a woman may not keep her children up the age of seven, if they are boys, and nine, if they are girls. Thereafter, the custody goes to the husband or his family.

            The majority of the world’s Muslims and Muslim states do not follow these practices. Is theirs then not the way which is truly representative and is that not the message which should be going out to the world?

Faiz was “engaged”, both in his poetry and in his non-poetic writings, with the “great subjects of his time”, whether it was Partition and its aftermath or whether it was other issues

There is more to Washington than Iraq. There is Salman Rushdie, for instance, who came from New York last week to speak at the National Press Club. His new book, just out, is a collection of essays. It also includes one very funny poem he wrote on the farcical Florida vote count to which we owe the presence in the White House today of Mr George W. Bush, gun at the ready, likely any moment to unleash destruction on Iraq because he doesn’t like the way Saddam Hussein grows his moustache.

The last time I saw Rushdie was in 1996, also at the National Press Club, but there was a difference between the two occasions. At the time he was still under the Iranian fatwa and was surrounded by security men. As he spoke, four or five of them stood behind him, carefully scrutinising the audience for any odd movement. A few of them sat in the front row. Access to Rushdie was barred. As soon as he finished, he was whisked away by his minders.

This time it was different. The fatwa has long been lifted. It always was an embarrassment for the Iranian government and had it not been the Ayatollah himself who pronounced it, without reading the book of course, it would have been lifted much earlier. The Iranians suffered a great deal because of that pronouncement, but allowed a decent interval of time to lapse before formally lifting it. Rushdie, meanwhile, remained a man under siege and it cost him, apart from his freedom, his marriage. Nobody can live with a man who is constantly being watched by armed guards.

Rushdie looked relaxed this time and while he was being introduced, he kept that certain amused look on his face, which those who don’t approve of him and what he has written have called satanic. He read passages from his new book and then offered to answer questions. He said he had always been stepping across frontiers. In fact, his whole life was defined by frontiers. He was born a few weeks before India was partitioned and more than half his family moved across to Pakistan. He left India in the sixties for England and soon thereafter the Berlin wall went up. And now he had crossed over to America where he lives. He said the Gujarat riots were one of the vilest things to have happened to India; and he called Iran and the Taliban Afghanistan “extremist tyrannies”, adding that the fall of the Taliban was justified and a “net gain for human rights”.

There were other questions about his books, about some of his characters and one about why the dust jacket of his new book’s Indian edition was different from that of the British edition. Then came the question whose answer made me sit up. He was asked if he read poetry and who his favourite poets were. Rushdie replied that he always read poetry when he was writing a novel.

He said in his early life he had been very much influenced by the “great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz” who was a close family friend whom he saw as “an extra uncle”. It was a “very close relationship”, he said, adding that Faiz had “officiated” at the wedding of one of his sisters. He called Faiz a great poet of his generation who wrote great love poetry, some of which was set to music and became popular with the masses who don’t read poetry. That was one side of Faiz. His other side was that he was “engaged”, both in his poetry and in his non-poetic writings, with the “great subjects of his time”, whether it was Partition and its aftermath or whether it was other issues. “Now that I think about him, I realise that what he did is the writer’s job in the way Faiz saw it.” Faiz, he added, was “no card-carrying communist” though he won the Lenin Prize and several other honours.

Rushdie said it was Faiz who taught him how to be a writer. “It became natural for me to fulfil that double function as Faiz saw it, which is being a private artist and to be publicly engaged” with the important issues of the time. Those in the audience, who had never heard of Faiz, would not have understood the tribute Rushdie was paying to him, but the few who did, felt thrilled. Speaking for myself, I forgive Rushdie the bulk of his sins for having acknowledged his debt to Faiz whom I remember once telling me in London, “Bhai, wo apna Rushdie jo hai, wo bohat bara writer bun gya hai.”

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

            One of my regrets is not having followed up on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s desire, that he expressed to me once in 1972 when I was working for him, of inviting Mushtaq Ali to Pakistan. All it would have taken at the time was a couple of phone calls, but such was the rush of events in those early days of ZAB taking office that what he so much wanted and what would have given him immense joy and satisfaction, never came to pass. ZAB was cricket crazy as a boy and he was also good, a natural. Skipper Abdul Hafiz Kardar once said that had he continued, ZAB would certainly have played first class cricket. It was also Skipper who told me that young Zulfi received coaching in Bombay from Mushtaq Ali.

            Cricketers come and go but there are some who leave their imprint on the game and who are remembered long after they have departed the scene. Mushtaq Ali was one such. A great stylist, an opener, he loved to go after the bowling right from the start. Sometimes, he would begin to step out of the crease as the bowler began his run-up. Vijay Merchant, his co-opener for India, is said to have often shaken his head in despair at seeing Mushtaq dance down the wicket while the ball was new and swinging. Keith Miller called him the Errol Flynn of cricket after the great swashbuckling Australian-born Hollywood star. Miller, who was in the same mould himself, said Mushtaq was “dashing, flamboyant, swashbuckling and immensely popular wherever he played.”

            The first century for India abroad was Mushtaq Ali’s classic 136 at Old Trafford on the second day of the test against England in 1936. That particular day has also gone into history as it saw a record 588 runs being scored in one day, the highest ever in a test match. England had notched up 398 and the two Indian openers, Mushtaq and Merchant remained unbeaten with 190 runs between them when it was time for stumps.

            Some months back, one of Mushtaq Ali’s fans, the late Meraj Siddiqi of Washington,  showed me a letter from him. He had written, “Yes, sir, I’ve played cricket for the cricket loving public. After all, they have purchased tickets, sitting in the sun all the time to see the cricket. After the game when they go home they say what they saw … Col. C.K. Nayudu batting, my hitting the ball from off to legside, Vijay Merchant off-driving Amar Singh.” The letter closes with a line in Urdu,  a snatch from a film song: “Khuda hafiz: Jab yaad meri aye, milnay ki du’a karna.” Charming.

            Ray Robinson, the Australian cricket journalist, writing about Mushtaq Ali in 1955 says, “The only thing that is still about him is the momentary pause to take guard from the umpire. Why he goes through this formality is one of the mysteries of the Orient because after making his mark, he takes no notice of it.” He wrote that Dennis Compton, compared to Mushtaq Ali “in full flow” made Compton look “comparatively a stay-at-home.”  He said Mushtaq Ali epitomised the couplet of the great poet Iqbal: “And behold yonder the mountain stream leaping: Rushing forth in spite of many a curb and twist.” (In Urdu: Aati hai naddi faraz-e-koh se gati huwi: Sang-e-rah se gah bachti, gah takrati huwi) He also called Mushtaq Ali “the least law-abiding” batsman, “always delighted to break the rules of batting.”  Mushtaq Ali could also be moody. After hitting a six over the minaret of the mosque overlooking the ground, wrote Robinson, he would pat back a few half-vollies. A half-volley is a well-pitched ball which is a batsman’s delight since one step out and it can be easily hit out of the ground.

            Muni Lal, a Lahore cricketer, said of Mushtaq Ali, “He was no stickler for the grammar of cricket. He coined his own strokes.”

            Mushtaq Ali who would be 88 in December this year lives in Indore. Some time ago, in an interview with Indian journalist Harish Pandya, when asked as to the difference he saw between cricket played during his time and today, he replied, “Not much. They still use three stumps, two bails and one ball. Everything is still there. But we used to wear white flannels. The shirts used to be invariably full sleeves. Many of them wear the hat instead of the traditional cricket cap. The helmet is also there along with so many other protective gears. They were unheard of in our times.”

            He said he could never imagine that there would  come something called one-day cricket. He called it a “big tamasha.”  He said it was not “real cricket” because test cricket alone was real cricket, the true test of a player’s skills, ability and concentration. He was confident that test cricket would not only survive but was already getting stronger and stronger. He said he did not grudge the money cricketers made today, considering the hard life they lived, playing day in, day out, staying away from their families for long periods. He wished they would earn even more money, but also do something for cricket, help those who could not afford to play this expensive game. When cricket had given them so much, it was their moral duty to give something back to cricket, he said.

Well, one man has followed Mushtaq Ali’s advice. The great Imran Khan. I hope he becomes prime minister because then at least he would straighten out cricket and get rid of all those “jarnail ni, karnail ni”, in Madam Nur Jehan’s words, who have scored their sole military victory by overrunning Pakistan’s cricket establishment.

Asked if he had any regrets at not having had many playing opportunities, sometimes because of selectors, Mushtaq Ali’s gracious reply was, “I’ve no regrets whatsoever. I’ve no complaints, no grudges, no ill feelings against anybody. I’m quite happy about whatever I played, whatever I achieved. I many not have played too many tests for a variety of reasons but I don’t think I failed to make a lasting impression on the minds of those who know and understand the game well. If it had not been so, you would not have come from a far place to meet me. I’ve many fond memories of my career which I cherish the most. I’ve rubbed shoulders with some of the finest cricketers ever. They all rated me very high which was heartening indeed. If it was in my destiny to play only 11 tests, nobody could have changed it.”

What a guy Syed Mushtaq Ali!

The visceral hatred belched out on television and in newspaper columns shows Saddam Hussein is more sickening than the weapons of mass destruction Bush says he has and Saddam says he hasn’t

George Bush is going to get his resolution from Congress so that he can invade Iraq with a clean conscience. He would do well to remember what Hemingway’s hero in A Farewell to Arms was advised after a night out with that winsome nurse, “Henry, you cannot clean your conscience with a toothbrush.” But who knows what’s what in the case of the Man from Crawford, a one-horse town which has flying insects as large as house sparrows elsewhere. One reason many Texan car plates warn you not to “mess with Texas” could be that if the sharpshooters in ten-gallon hats don’t get you, the flying insects will. Not for our George W those running waters, a loaf of bread under a tree and that damsel with a dulcimer.

How will the congressional resolution make the war right, it is not possible for most people in the world to understand. The American public has been brainwashed so thoroughly in the last few years, and with blitzkrieg intensity in the last few months, that for the most part it is behind Bush when it comes to Saddam Hussein. But that doesn’t make the war right either. My friend and intellectual guru Zafar Rathore is fond of saying that all decisions that shaped history were taken by men of foresight and wisdom, not by the rabble. He explains: if there was to be a referendum in Britain as to what should be done with legal and illegal immigrants from Asia and Africa, put them in a boat and push it in the general direction of the Indian Ocean or to accord them their full legal and human rights, 99 percent of the British public will vote for the one-way trip to the Indian Ocean. However, those who have been chosen to preside over the destiny of nations act with wisdom and compassion and in accordance with the Rule of Law. In other words, argues Zafar, popular backing for a certain position does not necessarily make it right.

The visceral hatred belched out on television and in newspaper columns shows Saddam Hussein is more sickening than the weapons of mass destruction Bush says he has and Saddam says he hasn’t. There are very few liberal or enlightened voices around here. Washington Post which considers itself a liberal newspaper has carried more venomous propaganda against the Iraqi regime than did Khomenei’s Iran during the Gulf War (in case everyone has forgotten, in that war Saddam was fully backed by Washington). With possibly one exception, all regular columnists of this self-important newspaper which is still proud of having brought down Nixon — the only friend our poor country has had in these parts for the last forty years — are gung-ho warmongers. The invective thrown at Al Gore and Ted Kennedy in the last week for their wise words on Iraq is no better than journalism of vile abuse. As for television, the less said the better. I don’t want to write about it on a nice autumn day with the trees outside my window changing colour.

A just-completed State University of New York at Buffalo study analyses Bush’s use of language since September 11. On March 8, he called Osama “that bin Laden fellow” and thereafter repeatedly took his name much as movie sheriffs do when referring to town baddies. That no longer is so because the last time old Osama got a mention from the President was on July 8. We are a long way off from that “wanted dead or alive” phase. The current Evil One is Saddam Hussein, whose name no one can quite pronounce in a country which is out to get him.

The Buffalo study analyses 74 of Bush’s speeches from before and after 9/11 and finds that over the past year, they have contained more active words signalling aggression or accomplishment and fewer words conveying passivity and ambivalence. He has also made fewer first person singular references, preferring collective nouns (Gen. Musharraf to please note). He has also been using more “spiritual” words such as “God-fearing” and “hope.” His use of patriotic words is also ample, “homeland,” “justice” and “liberty” being special favourites. Orwell wrote that when people wanted to avoid telling the truth, they spoke in vague terms and used abstract rather than concrete words. He was right. The study finds that Bush’s speech has become markedly less concrete and tangible.

So that is the scene here. It thus makes perfect sense for the White House press secretary Ari Fleischer to have a single bullet through Saddam Hussain. That’s the mood in Fortress Bush.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

            During the days of Ayub Khan, recalled with such nostalgia the other week by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, five serving officers of the Pakistan army were quietly inducted into the Civil Service of Pakistan which ruled the roost at the time. There was such an uproar about what was seen as an uncalled for crossover that the government hurriedly made it known that the transfers were a one-off thing. So, while it did not ask the officers to return to their units, it kept its word and as far as one recalls, so long as the Field Marshal remained in office, no more serving military officers were allowed to move to civvy street.

            That could have happened in another dimension of time. The Pakistan of those days and the Pakistan over which Gen. Pervez Musharraf  presides with such aplomb have little in common, although then as now, the Army League is in power. The phrase Army League, it should be added for the sake of historical accuracy, was coined by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. However, most of those in uniform, stayed in uniform and when they retired they went home, content with their pensions, and what they had managed to save. Some of them who still had responsibilities looked for other work or started a modest business. Ayub Khan believed that it was best for soldiers to remain soldiers. There were exceptions of course, one being his two sons.

            In the early years of his rule, Ayub Khan was popular and Pakistan was prosperous, not, as Gen. Musharraf mistakenly implies, because of army rule, but because of a host of external and internal factors. Pakistan would have done just as well, if not better, under a civilian government. One recalls that when some air force officers were absorbed in the PIA by one of the two Air Marshals, the joke in Karachi was that if you phoned Air Headquarters and asked to speak to an officer, your call would be redirected to PIA. That was, of course, only to make a point because the number of such officers remained small. The same was true of the National Shipping Corporation some of whose personnel was drawn from the Pakistan Navy. A few corporations, it is true, were headed by retired generals but they were few and they were good.

            What has happened in the last few years amounts to the near militarisation of Pakistan. The formation of the National Security Council is, thus, the natural and logical crowing act of this policy. Prof. Hassan Askari Rizvi has argued that so deeply entrenched are the army’s commercial, administrative and other interests in the civilian structure today that it simply cannot afford to go home. That being so, he has said, there can be no real transfer of power in Pakistan. At best, the army is prepared to share power, no more. It could even be induced to go into the background as long as there were caste-iron guarantees that none of its privileges will be touched, its financial and administrative structure interfered with or its conduct questioned in parliament or in public. The kind of political arrangement that Gen. Musharraf and his commanders wish to put in place after October is based on the same concept. More and more, as time passes, is one reminded of a remark attributed (though mistakenly) to Jawaharlal Nehru. “Every country has an army; in Pakistan, the army has a country.”

            The other day someone circulated a list of positions held by serving and retired uniformed ones on the Internet, that devilish invention which so upset Gen. Musharraf in New York a couple of weeks ago. The list was prefixed by a verse written by the great Ustad Daman. ‘Pakistan diyan maujaan-i-maujaan; Jithay takko faujaan-i-faujaan.’ It is only when you read the list from beginning to end that you realise how total the army takeover is. Maybe it is time to kiss all those dreams of a Pakistan run by civilians goodbye.

            There is, of course, the big General himself, forming the top of the pyramid, not only as President but Chief Executive and Chief of Army Staff. Before long, he will have a fourth cap, president of the National Security Council. In the early days, a writ petition filed by Khalid Anwar asked the court to kindly investigate who the holder of the position described as Chief Executive was since the Constitution of Pakistan made no mention of such a post. While I am not sure what happened to that petition, there is little doubt that when the present rulers are no longer around, our courts will produce a most heart-warming judgment.

            The Governors of Punjab and NWFP are generals, though retired, as is the President of the Azad Government of Jammu and Kashmir.The interior minister is a general whom nobody takes too seriously any longer and the minister of railways is a former spy chief who once presided over the enter-at-your-own-peril Shrine of Aabpara. The culture minister is a colonel and though he is the son of my much-revered teacher, Prof. C.W. Tressler, he has done for minorities exactly what he has done for culture and sports - nothing. The President’s chief of staff and his deputy are both generals and the president’s irrepressible spokesman is a general too. I wonder what he does when he is not holding forth on the great issues of our time. It will do him good to take long walks and munch carrots.

            The chief of NAB is a general as is the chief of NRB. The NAB chief has two deputies, both generals. The provincial units are also headed by generals. Two of the federal secretaries are uniformed ones, one blue, one khaki and between the two of them they take care of defence and defence production. The heads of WAPDA, Postal Services, National Highway Authority, Ports and Shipping, Karachi Port Trust, Port Qasim Authority, National Shipping Corporation, National Fertiliser Corporation, Pakistan Steel Mills, Export Processing Zone Authority, Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, National Telecommunications Authority, NADRA, SUPARCO, Survey of Pakistan, National Crisis Management Cell, Federal Public Service Commission, Civil Aviation Authority, Anti-Narcotics Force, National Logistics Cell, Auqaf, OGDC, Pakistan Mineral Development Authority, Pakistan Railways etc. are all uniformed ones, mostly khaki but for form’s sake with a sprinkling of white and blue.

            The vice chancellors of several universities including Punjab are generals, as is the head of NIPA. And, of course, cricket, hockey, squash, athletics and the Pakistan Sports Control Board are headed by our good friends. Last but not least, our (or their) embassies in North Korea, Tajikistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Ukraine, Brazil, Indonesia, Bahrain and who knows where else, are headed by you know who.

            Ustad Daman got that one right.

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