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Day 19 in November was exactly twenty years since the death of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, yet it seems to have passed without being seen for the landmark it was. Anniversaries are important; not because they matter to those whose anniversaries they are, but because they remind us of the great people who once walked among us. But maybe that is no longer necessary; maybe Ahmed Mushtaq is right: Phool mehnge ho gaye, qabrain purani ho gaiyeen (flowers have become expensive and the graves have become old).

Where is the Faiz Foundation that was set up with such fanfare when the “Poet of the Land of Yellow Leaves” died? What happened to the Faiz Mela which had become a people’s festival and to which parties of peasants from all over Punjab had begun to come? Or is it that those whose first responsibility it was to keep Faiz’s memory green, have more important things to do, such as organise exhibitions to which charlatans like MF Hussain get invited and painters like Iqbal Geoffrey are left out of. Sir Geoff, of course, “the living legend” needs no props, but that is something to write about another day.

But Faiz lives. He lives in the hearts of those who believe that the “four days of godhood” that our rulers think will never end will end as surely as day follows night. He lives in the hearts of those who derive strength from his message of change when “the masses shall rule the earth”. And he lives in the hearts of young lovers who inscribe his verses on surreptitiously written and hand-delivered love letters to girls in sheltered houses.

One way of remembering Faiz is to have him talk about himself in his own voice. He told Mirza Zafarul Hasan, a friend of his, around 1972: “When I think of my childhood, what I remember especially about it is that there always was a crowd of women in our home. My two brothers, Enayat who was younger, and Tufail, who was older, had revolted against these ladies and decided to spend their time running around playing games. As for myself, I had fallen into the hands of these ladies which brought me both harm and benefit. The benefit was that these ladies made me always mind my language. No rough words came to my lips then, and none have come to my lips since. My loss lay in being deprived of a carefree, playful childhood. While others would fly kites out in the street or play marbles or spin the top, I remained a spectator of these delightful activities. I wouldn’t join because I was afraid it might be considered not quite the done thing.”

When Faiz was entering his teens, he began to experience strange mystical states. In his own words, “Something strange would come over me. Suddenly, the colour of the sky would change. Certain objects would appear to have receded into the distance. The colour of the sunshine would go orange, something I had never observed before. Familiar objects would appear to have changed form completely. I would feel as if everything around me was being projected on a screen. These experiences continued over the years but they do so no longer.”

Many have wondered about Faiz’s role in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case. Here is the story as he told it himself in 1985, to Tahir Masood in Karachi. “Well, this entire Rawalpindi Conspiracy case is what you might call making a mountain out of a molehill. Since I was once an army officer, I had a large number of friends among army officers. They were personal friends. There were some among them who had the same political views as I had. All that it really was that one day some of us sat down and talked about what needed to be done in this country and in what way could conditions be improved. Mind you, Pakistan was no more than four or five years old. There was no constitution so far nor had a proper political structure been put in place. Liaquat Ali Khan headed the land, sea and air forces. It was really this sort of thing, these problems that we often talked about. Since these were personal friends of mine, I was part of their conversations. It was they who set about preparing a plan and told me to listen to what they said, which I did. It was they who decided on their own in the end that the government should not be overthrown. The British had a conspiracy law, which was that if three people gather at one place and two of them are in oral agreement over a certain matter and the third person stands witness against them, for instance he says that the two had agreed to stage a conspiracy, that would be considered evidence enough. It would not be necessary to translate words into action.”

According to Faiz, “In our case, instead of this law, a new law was enacted, so that any loopholes that may have existed in favour of the defence should be eliminated. This new law did not have the approval of any national assembly or parliament: it was enacted by the legislative assembly and a law thus promulgated cannot be challenged in court. The meeting at which a coup was ruled out came to the notice of the government through some agent who reported that initially it was decided to stage a coup but the decision was later revoked. However, the case lodged against was that we had conspired to overthrow the government. The government prosecutor told us that while it was true that we had met, talked and decided not to stage a coup, all that had been added to that was that we had actually decided to overthrow the government. Those who had planned this – say, Major-General Akbar Khan – and then decided not to go ahead had failed to destroy their papers which were found and confiscated. Thus a molehill was turned into a mountain. The reason was that the government was not happy with some of our army officer friends, and then there was the impression that none of them was the fully obedient type and should, therefore, be got rid of. A great opportunity had now presented itself. I got caught in the middle for no fault of mine. I spent four years in jail, learnt a lot, read a lot, saw a lot, felt a lot and retained a clear conscience since I had done nothing. I was entirely innocent.”

That only shows that if the government wants to throw you into the clinker, you don’t have to be guilty. Looking back, very little has changed in Pakistan since the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case. What happened to Faiz and so many others in 1950 happened 54 years later to Javed Hashmi, to give just one example. The more things change….

One of the most inexplicable acts of the US government in recent months has been the denial of a visa to a scholar whose body of work places him among the most enlightened and moderate (that being the word in fashion) Islamic thinkers today.

Enough has been published in newspapers both here and in other countries about the case of Tariq Ramadan whom the US government considers “dangerous”. While it is true that some in Europe have accused him of being anti-Semitic (a convenient label with which to damn anyone), this view finds no support from his writings. It should, therefore, be seen as yet another instance of the old proverb: call a man a dog and hang him.

It is senseless acts just like this one that lend strength to the impression in the minds of so many Muslims that the basic thrust of US policy since George W Bush became president is to do down Islam. I should add that everyone agrees that never before has there been a more pro-Israeli administration in Washington than the present one. It is not its critics who say so: it is the Israelis themselves who voice this view.

Dr Ramadan was offered and accepted a teaching job at the Notre Dame, a well-known American university. He applied for a US work visa which was granted. He shipped his personal effects to what was to be home for the next few years. Then, suddenly, out of the blue and without an explanation, his visa was revoked. There was quite an uproar in Muslim circles in the United States about the arbitrary action but they command no influence and those who wield political power do not take them seriously. So nothing changed. Had Ramadan been an Israeli and not a man of Arab descent and a Muslim, it would have been a different story. But then in that instance such a situation would not have arisen in the first place.

Dr Ramadan, has visited the US more than twenty times in the last four years, lecturing on philosophy and Islam at universities and think tanks. He was even invited to a meeting arranged by former President Clinton. In his words, after the visa was revoked, “the media speculated endlessly; all my detractors’ old and baseless allegations were listed: ‘possible terrorist links’, ‘Islamist’ and the particularly inexplicable ‘gentle jihadist’. I was accused of being an anti-Semite and of engaging in ‘double talk’ by delivering a gentle, moderate message to non-Muslims but a ‘radical and extremist’ message to Muslims. To bolster their argument, my critics pointed to my pedigree — my grandfather — Hassan al-Banna — was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — as if one’s thoughts and morals descend from the vices and virtues of one’s lineage. Time and again I fought to disprove these malicious allegations. But it didn’t work. In twenty years of studying and teaching philosophy, I have learnt to appreciate the inherent difficulty in recognising ‘the truth’. But I have also learnt that in the world of mass media, ‘truth’ is not based on clarity but on repetition. An assumption repeated three times becomes a fact.”

Dr Ramadan, who was born in Switzerland, says it is not likely that any of those who attacked him had read even one of his twenty books or the seven hundred articles he has contributed to journals and newspapers; nor could they be familiar with his extensive study of the Islamic scriptural sources and to his efforts to help Muslims remain faithful to their principles and, at the same time, face the challenges of the contemporary world. He doubts if they were aware of his statement on September 12, 2001, calling on Muslims to condemn the attacks or that he had issued several condemnations of anti-Semitism. “Have they read my writing promoting women’s rights and Islamic feminism and rejecting mistreatment and discrimination?” he asks.

The American government, he fears, is “descending rapidly into a closed and worrisome unilateralism”. It is those who defended him, he adds, who “represent the dignity of America”.

To show what kind of a man Tariq Ramadan is, let me quote his answer to the question if a Muslim woman should wear the hijab. “No one should be forced to wear it and no one should be forced to take it off.”

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

What is with Pakistan that just when you think it has turned the corner, disaster strikes.

Actually, disaster does not strike; we go out looking for it, seek it out no matter in what corner of the earth it is hiding, drag it out and throw our arms around it.

Who would have thought, for example, that the Nawaz Sharif government would disappear one morning, making way once again for The Boys. Or that the Earl of Choti would send Benazir Bhutto packing. After Zia went, people used to take bets that Pakistan had seen its last military government. Well, they lived to regret their words. Take another case. There always existed a chasm between East and West Pakistan, but no one really thought that the country would actually break up. These memories have surfaced because of what happened at Perth on 19 December 2004. In the book of disasters that have hit Pakistan since 1947, the crushing defeat at the hands of Australia will have to be written in letters of the blackest black.

No one has chronicled Pakistan’s disgraceful showing at Perth better than Peter Roebuck, that fine observer of the game. Writing in Sydney Morning Herald on 18 December, a day before Pakistan chose to get skittled out for 72 runs in the second innings, he called the performance “spineless as it was embarrassing.” Pakistan is supposed to be a proud cricketing nation, he wrote, reminding his readers that ever since its creation as a sovereign state, Pakistan’s team has held its own around the world. “Indeed Pakistan has known days of glory and produced many players whose efforts have been admired wherever the game is played. Fast bowlers have emerged from the hills of the Punjab, batsmen have come from the famous schools of Lahore, warriors have been found in the fiery city of Karachi, all-rounders have appeared in forsaken villages. A team chosen from Pakistan’s cricketing history could compete with any side from anywhere. Courage has been detected in its greatest players.”

Decades ago, Roeback reminische, a “shrimp of a lad” called Hanif Mohammad defied the West Indians for days till the match was saved. There was a night in Melbourne when Imran Khan “coaxed and goaded” his side to a World Cup victory. Javed Miandad scored hundreds of runs and “irritated opponents in about equal measure.” Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis formed their region’s most potent new ball pairing since the days of Amar Singh and Mohammad Nissar. “Superb spinners have been found, and staunch batsmen. Naturally, defeats have been suffered. Now and then the team has lost its way as self-interest took men away from the path of service. But the bad days were swiftly forgotten. Pakistan have been blessed with exceptional ability and always seemed able to fight back from every discouragement,” he added

But, wrote Roebuck, “not even Pakistan’s most inglorious days, though, prepared spectators for the sights seen at the WACA Ground in Perth yesterday. Pakistan’s performance was as spineless as it was embarrassing. Any relation between their batting and Test match cricket was coincidental. Wickets were thrown away like confetti at a wedding as batsmen bereft of concentration and without application played shots - one can scarcely call them strokes - calculated to shame a schoolboy playing with his mates. If Bob Woolmer did not feel like sending his players home after this abject display then he counts among the most tolerant of men …

Seldom in the annals of the game has a respected team offered as little resistance as did these visitors from Pakistan. A club team turning out on a Saturday afternoon would expect better of itself. A school side could not have fared much worse. It was not so much the fact of the collapse as its manner that provoked dismay … At first the crowd was pleased to see Pakistan falling apart. After a time they fell silent. This was not Test match cricket. It was not even a fight. Playing for your country is supposed to bring out the best in a man.”

This brought back memories of Pakistan’s glory days, of Skipper Abdul Hafiz Kardar who put Pakistan on the cricketing map of the world exactly fifty years ago when the young team he led beat an English test side that included legends like Hutton, Compton, Edrich, Bedser, Bailey and Evans. Pakistan won by 24 runs Of that day in 1954, John Woodcock wrote, “By seizing their chance with both hands and winning this Test match on English soil on their first tour, they have achieved in less than four months what it took Australia two years, South Africa 28 years, and West Indies 22 years to achieve, and what to this day has eluded New Zealand.”

Those who watched the Pakistan batsmen at Perth throwing away their wickets, must have asked themselves: would Hanif Mohammad have done that? I thought of how the great West Indian cricket historian C.L.R. James had described the Little Master at the wicket. “He is short, like Bradman and Headley, with broad shoulders. His stance is not easy but concentrated, legs apart, left shoulder pointing directly at the bowler. He plays back strongly, but he moves his left foot well out to the pitched ball and slashes his bat at it late, beating the fieldsmen to the boundary on either side of the bowler. The stroke is perfectly controlled and beautifully timed, and this combination with his strong back-play is a sound foundation for many runs.”

And I thought of Trevor Bailey’s tribute to Skipper Kardar after he died, “The pride he felt in Pakistan as a country, and as a cricket nation, was reflected in the zeal he showed in conference. Among the contentious matters he tackled head on were a complete ban on playing against South Africa, the holding of ICC meetings away from Lord’s, with Lahore as a favoured venue, the abolition of founder membership of the ICC and the banning of bouncers.” Can Inzimam-ul-Haq be even imagined doing that?

One has to ask if Inzmam and the rag-tag band he led at Perth are conscious of the tradition they have inherited and the men who have played for Pakistan before them, and with such fierce pride and sense of responsibility? Not likely. Half the team now wears some kind a “tableeghi” beard, so wouldn’t all these gents do everyone a favour by devoting their years to bringing back the lost sheep to the fold than disgracing the game and the country they represent!

And need it be said that Shehryar Khan should also do the decent thing and go home because sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

One more thing: Come back Gen. Tauqir Zia: all is forgiven.

Christmas is just a week away and though there is no snow so far, at least in Washington, the weather has turned suddenly cold, the sort of cold where snow does not fall and early morning walks are abandoned for an extra hour in the comfort of a warm bed.

The big Christmas tree at the back of the White House has been up for the last several days and it is a magnificent sight, though the care and expense that go into keeping it shimmering through the night will light up many villages in Africa which still await the arrival of electric power. Meanwhile, the President’s new cabinet for the second term is hardly new in the sense that some of the key posts are to remain in the same old hands, the one difference being the dropping of Colin Powell who in any case was never viewed as one of the boys. He was always on the outside and he never got along with “Rummy” Rumsfeld, who stays on like a ghost that won’t go away despite industrial-strength exorcism, complete with green dye.

Had Powell left after his advice on not going into Iraq and giving the UN a chance to ferret out those weapons of mass destruction, about which he had serious doubts, he would have been ten feet tall and credible presidential material. But for some reason he did not put in his papers; instead he chose to stand at the United Nations to present “evidence” against Iraq that he did not really believe in. That has been a great pity because Powell is a man of much decency, his heart is in the right place and his head is screwed on right, qualities for which the Bush cabinet is not exactly famous. What is even odder is that he is still hanging in there, flying from capital to capital, but who is going to take him seriously. Any assurances he might extend can be — and probably will be — set aside by Cold War Queen Miss Condoleezza Rice (why the two Zs when one would have done?).

Other stuff has been happening at the UN as the year draws to a close. The graceless and ham-handed attempt to force Secretary General Kofi Annan to resign has fallen flat with a good deal of egg on the faces of those in this administration who wanted him to go just because he had had the temerity of urging Bush not to invade Falluja. There had been several earlier irritants too. What is wrong with right-wing America that it should consider any opinion contrary to the one it holds tantamount to treachery, if not high treason! On Thursday, a presenter on the O’Reilly Factor, the ultra conservative ‘No Spin’ show, said that his mail was running six to one that “we should sack Kofi Annan”. Sack Kofi Annan! Excuse me, is he a nanny without a work visa! Come on fellows! The world, you know by now, has a different opinion as was shown the day the entire General Assembly rose to its feet to give Annan a standing ovation, a rejoinder to those who were calling for his resignation.

The UN does a lot of good work but its good work is not news. The American press ignores it, unless there is a scandal to be highlighted, though the press in our countries remains largely sympathetic. Back at headquarters, there has been a bit of excitement in the public information division. Shashi Tharoor, the brilliant undersecretary general for communication and public information, when asked why one Dr Andrew Thompson, who had been in UN service for many years and who with two others had published a book on Rwanda called Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures, was let go, replied in refreshing non-diplomatese, “It didn’t seem right for people to work for the organisation and trash it the way these people did.” Doing so, while collecting a pay-check was “slightly contemptible”, he added. Asked if it was whistle blowing on the authors’ part, he replied, “I am not sure that in most people’s understanding, writing a book ten years later, when it’s too late to fix the problems you’re describing … qualifies as whistle blowing.”

UN business apart, word is out that Aishwarya Rai is going to be interviewed on CBS’s 60 Minutes on January 2. That should make everybody’s year.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Anwar Ali is gone, and with him Nanna, that memorable imp who used to appear on the front page of the Pakistan Times every day, thumbing his nose at everyone, from jacked up bureaucrats to rotund feudal lords to double-crossing politicians to city fathers who preferred to help themselves rather than the city. Were I to choose one political cartoonist out of the many who have drawn for our newspapers since independence, without hesitation, I would choose Anwar Ali, always Anwar Nanna to those of us who had the privilege of working under the same roof with him.

One by one, the old pros who used to produce one of the finest newspapers in Asia are going. The last few years have taken a more than heavy toll. Khawaja M Asaf, our editor – and there wasn’t a better one – went years ago, quietly, which was in keeping with his understated and dignified style. During the black years of Zia-ul-Haq, he didn’t have any work. But since one cannot subsist on air alone, even if it is the bracing air of Islamabad, for a time, he took employment as the chief copytaster at The Muslim , as dead now as PT . Several journalists, whose by-lines are now familiar to newspaper readers, owe much of what they know to him. There was no better sub in the business than Khawaja Asaf. He could turn a drab sentence or paragraph into gold while doing the minimum, just a tuck here, a nip there and a slight push elsewhere. Least editing is the best editing, was the principle he followed. However, I am told the only time he laid down his blue pencil in defeat was when dealing with Nusrat Javed’s colourful copy. But he thought well of him as a reporter. Reporters are the princes of the profession and as the late Mohammad Naseem, once of the Pakistan Times and in later years of PIA public relations, told Khawaja Asaf when summoned for more attention to his copy, “If you want English then get Professor Sirajuddin. I can only get you news.”

Maulvi Mohammad Saeed, another of PT ’s giants, died years ago. Starting out with Dawn when it was a fledgling publication, he eventually moved to the Pakistan Times where he remained a much loved figure, respected for his professionalism and knowledge of the art and mystery of what makes a few sheets of print into a newspaper. He too was a great sub and before the advent of computerised composing, he had the reputation of being one of the best make-up men in the profession. He also wrote a wonderful memoir of growing up in pre-independence Punjab and moving into journalism from his small village near the town of Pasrur. I recall reporting the ground-breaking ceremony of Tarbela Dam by Ayub Khan – his last public appearance – for Maulvi Saeed. “Keep it crisp and keep it short,” he said, better advice than which I have never received.

The great HK Burki died less than a year ago. Like Khawaja Asaf, he remained out of work all the years Zia-ul-Haq was in power. He survived because his wife worked. There were many offers he spurned: compromise with the unjust and the illegal was not in Burki’s blood. Few people know that Burki – a more astute and knowledgeable political and diplomatic correspondent there seldom has been in Pakistan – played hockey for Pakistan and was in the Olympic squad at the London Olympics in 1948. He led Pakistan to victory at the Barcelona Hockey World Cup in 1950. Let me then take leave of Burki’s memory by quoting from a column he wrote two months after the 9/11 attacks. “Since the demise of the Soviet Union, the Big Chief in the Oval Office has been free of all constraints. He has been playing God. Until the morning of September 11, that is. Now he wants to reclaim his title to divinity. It is going to be no doodle. The suicide bombers have exposed the Achilles heel.”

Ahmed Azeez Zia, my news editor when I worked as a reporter at the Pakistan Times , is no longer with us. He set up and got going the Rawalpindi edition of the Pakistan Times and years later played a pivotal role in establishing The Nation . He was also one of the key persons at Mazhar Ali Khan’s brave and principled weekly, Viewpoint . Not always popular with those whom he administered, there was no one more knowledgeable about newspaper management than Ahmed Azeez Zia. Jeff Player, one of our shift editors who worked till he dropped – he actually died putting together the next day’s paper that he had joined after the demise of PT – was a lifelong bachelor and his only vanity was the wig he wore. In all other respects, he was an angel and if there is a heaven, there is no doubt he headed straight for it and is producing an eveninger for its bored grape-eating residents.

The dashing Farooq Mazhar, one of the best sports reporters in the business which has seen such stars as Zawwar Hasan of APP – is dead, and sports reporting, which he used to say was the most difficult since it was descriptive and not the “he-said-she-said” variety, has lost its dash and colour. He had covered every Olympics since Tokyo and was internationally known and recognised, especially when in hockey circles. He was also philosophical about the outcome of hard-fought contests. While watching the cricket World Cup final in Melbourne in 1992, I asked him at a particularly difficult moment what would happen if Pakistan lost. He replied, “Never forget, it is only a game.”

I started with Anwar Ali and have wandered off, which is what the mosaic of memory is all about. I think I first met Anwar Ali in my short-lived stint as income tax officer of Lahore’s salaried people. The Pakistan Times was my baby and I think I gave everyone from the paper who came up to me a refund, whether it was due or not. Anwar Ali came to the small room I had on the fourth or fifth floor at the Nabah Road offices of the department. He had some sort of a problem. I said to him, “Consider it resolved but there is a condition: you have to draw me a Nanna.” He asked me if I had a blank sheet of paper. I had a nice light blue A-4 size sheet of imported paper which I passed across to him. He took no more than five minutes to draw me a Nanna. It showed the PT imp standing outside an income tax officer’s room, looking extremely concerned. Regrettably, I no longer have it, having lost it somewhere in my wanderings from country to country. Anwar Ali was one of the gentlest people I knew. Soft-voiced and kind, I don’t think he was ever angry or he ever said an unkind word to anybody. He was also a superb writer of Punjabi short stories.

But some of the old timers are still around and kicking and on top of that list, is our great Chacha FE Chaudhry, the doyen of press photographers, who is 95 years old and who lives by himself off Lahore’s Jail Road, refusing to move in with any of his sons, including the 1965 PAF hero, Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry. Chacha lives with his newspapers – every Lahore newspaper sends Chacha a complimentary copy – his clippings, his pictures, his visitors and his memories. The other day, this being Christmas, I had my brother deliver a bottle of the good stuff to Chacha which I am sure he will keep till I show up next. And there is Syed Amjad Hussain, my chief reporter, who is alive and well, though he ventures out little. And it is to these old campaigners that I propose a toast because they are a great band of brothers.

Gen Musharraf didn’t want to be that categorical in his assertion that President Bush had made a mistake by invading Iraq.” We should be told who this ‘Pakistani government spokesman’ was and on what authority he made this ‘clarification’

Gen Musharraf is come and gone. Tired he may have been when he arrived, but when he left, there was a new spring to his gait. Power, they say, is the ultimate aphrodisiac, the tonic that beats all tonics. By all accounts, his meeting at the White House has provided him with enough juice to last until the expiry of the terms of the two offices he holds. No one should be surprised if come January 1, 2005, he starts being referred to as the Supreme Holder of the Two Exalted Offices.

M/s Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld, plus Warrior Princess Condoleezza Rice, had all been summoned early on a Saturday morning by President Bush for the meeting with Gen Musharraf. Weekends are sacrosanct, which is why Bush made a game attempt at putting his four colleagues in a less crabby mood by saying that normally on a Saturday morning at this hour, all these people are sound asleep. Trust Bush to make life difficult for everyone.

Gen Musharraf is at ease with the media. As a rule, he is cool and laid back, though there have been occasions — one of which I witnessed in New York — when, as the Americans say, he blew his top because he was upset by a story filed by a distinguished Pakistani correspondent listing the high costs being incurred on carrying his activities live by satellite to viewers in Pakistan.

As on past visits to the country, Gen Musharraf received a lot of mileage in the media this time as well. The three biggies — New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times — ran long stories about him. To set things in perspective, there is hardly a day in Washington when there isn’t a head of state or two being chauffeured through its streets. They come and go without even a cat sneezing. The media takes no notice of them. Gen Musharraf, on the other hand, is much sought after, although his press and media people appear not to have so far learnt to decline some of the invitations received. They haven’t understood yet — but will one of these days and at some cost — that press availability, if rationed, delivers much greater impact.

Pakistan’s bureaucracy has always been known for being more loyal than the king. Two examples of that were on offer during the Musharraf visit: one major, one minor. The major one first. Wolf Blitzer of CNN asked Gen Musharraf in an interview, broadcast a day after he departed Washington, “Was the US justified to go to war and remove Saddam Hussein?” Gen Musharraf replied, “Well, we were against it initially. Pakistan was against going into Iraq and now with hindsight one can say that we have landed ourselves into additional problems; but having said that, I would like to say that Saddam Hussein was certainly not a person who was loved in Iraq. He was a very cruel … but when we are now inside as foreigners, people at the lower level don’t like the visibility of foreign troops roaming their country.”

Blitzer was ready with a follow-up question. “The bottom line is: Is the world safer today as a result of the removal … the invasion of Iraq? Or is the world less safe?” Gen Musharraf replied, “I think less safe, certainly.” Blitzer was not finished. “So it was a mistake for Bush to have ordered this invasion?” he asked. “He has landed ourselves (sic) in more problems here,” he answered. The interesting thing that only some have noticed is the President’s use of the first person plural. Does that mean that he considers Pakistan a member — though an absent member — of the Coalition forces in Iraq? If the answer is yes, he could be in a minority of one in his own country.

But more was to come. After the telecast of the interview proper, Blitzer made the following closing announcement, “Shortly after the interview, a Pakistani government spokesman told me Gen Musharraf didn’t want to be that categorical in his assertion that President Bush had made a mistake by invading Iraq.” We should be told who this “Pakistani government spokesman” was and on what authority he made this “clarification”. Can’t Gen Musharraf say what comes to him naturally or does he have to be “corrected” by unnamed officials? And who are these officials? Whosoever they are, they should please step out of the shadows so that we can see them.

Incident Two occurred during a press briefing by Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri. A gentleman looking extremely tense and fidgety kept trying to control the lively question-answer exchange we were having with the minister, an old friend to many of us. This dude kept making gestures suggesting displeasure, impatience and disapproval, all at the same time. None of us paid any attention to him, but he kept at it all through. At one point, he tried to silence us because more than one question was being thrown at the minister who was fielding them with his usual aplomb. After the briefing was over, I asked someone who this creature was. “He is an additional secretary at the Foreign Office,” came the reply. I would urge Mr Kasuri to leave such baggage behind next time he leaves home. So that he remembers, let me modify for him the famous American Express slogan: Don’t leave home without it to Please leave home without it.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

In 1960, the legendary literary magazine Naqoosh produced a special issue on Lahore. It is a pity that no longer do we see such effort go into publications today though their number is now large though two-thirds of them appear to be some kind of “Digests”. Muhammad Tufail, the publisher and presiding genius of Naqoosh is long dead and, as with all such men of exceptional talent and dedication, nobody has been quite able to take his place.

No true Lahoria should be without a copy of that issue, though it may be hard to come by, having been for long a collector’s item. One of the most evocative articles ever written about old Lahore, its history, its food, its people, its musicians, its writers, its streets, its wrestling pits, its theatres, its most memorable characters, in short, the unique culture that makes Lahore, well, Lahore was written by that wonderful writer and even more wonderful human being, the late Naseer Anwar, true friend and drinking buddy of Saadat Hasan Manto. He called it ‘Yakki se Mochi tak’. If anyone ever wondered how Yakki Gate came to be called Yakki gate, here is Naseer Anwar’s explanation. “Of the thirteen gates of Lahore, there was not one which could guarantee that he who enters first through it on a given morning will be crowned King. In fact, anyone who entered through one of these gates to establish his kingship was resolutely resisted. When the Mughals invaded from the north, a certain holy man of the city, Pir Zaki, died fighting against the invaders at this exact spot. He was decapitated and his severed head was buried separately from the rest of his body, which is why he lies to this day in two graves. To commemorate his sacrifice, the gate came to be known after him but as time passed Zaki Gate became Yakki Gate.”

Naseer Anwar wrote about one of the inner city’s most feared characters of the 1920s – a goonda in police parlance – whose seat of power was Mochi Gate. He was also the area’s protector. He would walk the streets with his head held high like a king. He presided over his own court which was made up of some of the city’s leading roughnecks, but in his presence, they sat like tame lambs. These “courtiers” of the Ustad, as he was called, were divided into three groups: pickpockets, gambling house enforcers and street fighters. The pickpockets would bring the day’s loot to the Ustad’s bhaitak or hangout and receive their share. Every gambling joint in the city had to present a certain percentage of its takings to the Ustad and the fighters were to carry out the Ustad’s orders, when required. He was a wise man and so he had the law on his right side through the simple but failsafe method of keeping key police officials on regular retainers. If an official was found to be honest – a most uncommon occurrence – he would have him transferred. His standing offer to all ex-cons to join him was his contribution to the social rehabilitation of these gentlemen. His special affection was reserved for widows, orphans and those in need. He took care of them, but unobtrusively.

The Lahore of the days of the Khilafat Movement was a city on the boil. The people of Lahore idolised Mustafa Kamal Pasha and Anwar Pasha and, ironically, they idolized the Khilafat, a contradiction if ever there was one. There were popular songs about these Turkish heroes. (Mustafa Pasha Kamal vay, terian dur balayian vay: Ronday Smyrna de baal vay kithay dairyaan laiyian vay). One mammoth procession in the streets of Lahore was led by Ferozuddin Ahmed. It was showered with money as it moved. Young brides were seen throwing their gold ornaments in a sheet held by volunteers from both ends. Feroz was arrested, tried and sentenced to twenty years. He later feigned madness, was transferred to the lunatic asylum and then released. Another character Naseer Anwar wrote about was a man named Babu of Sheranwala Gate, known all over India as the King of Cocaine. He was always two steps ahead of the police and was never caught with any incriminating evidence. Once when waylaid by a huge police posse at the Ravi Bridge, he threw down the cocaine he was carrying in his car into the flowing river to the police’s frustration.

Lahore was also the powerhouse of the uprising in Kashmir. When the Maharaja’s police gunned down 21 protesting Kashmiris in Srinagar on 13 July 1931, it was in Lahore that the All India Kashmir Committee was formed under the presidentship of Allama Muhammad Iqbal himself. Outside Delhi Gate, the Majlis-e-Ahrar placed huge caldrons of red water in which people would dip their clothes, form into groups and march towards Sialkot to cross the border into the Dogra-ruled State. The Shaheed Ganj Mosque agitation was centred in Lahore and it was outside Delhi Gate that a protest march was fired on as it arrived there from its starting point, the Badshahi Mosque. The anti-British Neeli Posh Tehrik led by Maulana Zafar Ali Khan also began in Lahore. But along with all this, Lahore’s great wrestling pits, its musicians’ bhaiktaks, its deras, its festivals, its legendary food places, its theatres, circuses and entertainment shows, they all kept the city and its people on a constant high. Chess was popular and matches would take place in Bagh Mohammad Ghaus in Bhatti Gate. The great players of the time were Akram the Watchmaker, Sharif Hussain Suhrawardy and Afzal Wali.

Naseer Anwar also recalled the great kite masters of those times, one of the most famous being Deena “Kafni,” the last name given to him when being taken for burial to the Miani Sahib graveyard, he suddenly rose, tore off his shroud and said, “Where are you taking me? My kite has not been slashed away yet.” Other maestros of this art were Ustad Mamoon, Ustad Jalal Din and Chaudhri Bassa who had turned kite-flying into an art. They would gather at Minto Park on Fridays and Sundays where great contests would take place. These matches were duly refereed. Ustad Jalal Din spent his entire fortune on kite-flying. It was said of Ustad Bassa, who made his own kites, that they could be flown twenty-four miles without a loop in the string or dor. Basant has always been celebrated in Lahore with great fanfare and it is by no means a recent phenomenon, as some spoilsports think, though it is now disgustingly commercialised.

One of the great melas of the city to which musicians from all over India thronged, Naseer Anwar wrote, used to take place in Mohalla Pir Gilanian. On one memorable evening, both Ustad Bare Ghulam Ali Khan and Roshan Ara Begum performed and received Pir Syed Asghar Ali Shah’s blessings. Then everyone noticed a tiny dimpled girl with a round face who picked up a jug, placed it on her shoulder and began to sing a film song in a highly mellifluous voice, ‘Shala jawanian maray, aakha na moreen pee lai’. When she had finished, Pir Sahib asked her to sing a song of “our own des Punjab’. For a moment, she stood there lost, then her face lit up and she sang, ‘Sada des Punjab pyara aye: Eh sub da raj dulara aye.’ Here voice was like the ringing of silver bells. The audience was entranced. When she came to the next line, which was the antra – ‘Ayedi guddi asmaan te churr javay’ - the Pir Sahib was overcome and exclaimed, “Ja teri guddi asmaan te churr gai aye.’ (Go forth, for your kite has touched the skies).

That little girl was Nur Jehan.

By the time this sees the black light of print, Gen Pervez Musharraf would have come to Washington and gone inside of twenty-four hours, which would make it the shortest visit ever made to the US by a head of state from Pakistan. We always like records — the biggest sugar mill in Asia, the tallest man in the subcontinent, the lowest total in test cricket, the largest number of prime ministers who were doing something else before — so the General’s visit can only enrich that collection.

Gen Musharraf obviously has a secret formula for licking jetlag because the amount of travel he has done in recent months will have flattened a lesser person. I suppose his years in the crack Special Services Group have stood him in good stead. Had he been notching miles travelled, which some of us do for years and years in the receding hope of earning one free ticket to London and back, he would by now have toted up enough miles to go around the world several times over. He will have come to Washington after breezing through Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, in other words after virtually circumnavigating most of the globe.

I have often wondered why heads of state and government travel. What state business does there exist that cannot be negotiated otherwise. The former president Suharto of Indonesia was once asked why he travelled so little and, in fact, not at all, outside his country. His answer was short. “If there is any good I can do, I can do it staying right where I am” or words to that effect. Since the advent of the Internet which has put the entire world at the fingertips of anyone with a keyboard and a computer (including Khaled Ahmed’s who types at hurricane speed with just one finger that the editor is planning to get insured). Any business, no matter what its nature, diplomatic, corporate, political, can conveniently be completed through cyberspace. There are also those video phones that allow you to see the mug of the lady or gent at the other end. The world has shrunk to the size of a walnut. But who am I to be going on and on about it?

I write this on Wednesday night and all that is so far known to us is the name of the hotel where the President and his party will be lodged — the snooty and rather pricey Mayflower on Connecticut Avenue and K Street — and that he would be at the White House Saturday morning. A press conference that he was to hold after meeting President Bush has just been called off. Why, one knows not. All the mysterious announcement through an e-mail from the embassy said was, “Reference our earlier e-mail regarding press briefing by the President of Pakistan. Due to some unavoidable circumstances the said press briefing has been cancelled. Inconvenience caused to you is regretted. Regards.” I liked that little touch “regards” at the end of a message which could perhaps have been a tad more informative.

There is to be, in Fauji parlance, a Bara Khana at the residence of the affable doctor who has been playing host to Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain since he arrived here several weeks ago with a fractured foot that all doctors and their X-ray machines back home said wasn’t a fracture. Since only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches, only a person with a fractured limb knows what he is talking about, X-raying doctors or no X-raying doctors. In Washington, they found a fracture. It always makes a patient feel good, even if he is a former prime minister of Pakistan, when the doctors are proved wrong and he is proved right. The host of the Bara Khana is of course he. So far reptiles — some people’s preferred name for journalists — have not been invited, but there have been half-dropped hints that invitations are on the way. Could prove to be the equivalent of that timeless piece of good news, “The cheque is in the mail.”

The new ambassador, Jehangir Karamat, is in command. I may add that before he and his wife could sleep off their jetlag, the visit descended on them; but Gen Karamat is an armour man and if he can move an armoured division into battle, there can be no doubt that he can take care of a one-day visit, even if it is the President of Pakistan’s.

And one more bit. In the entourage, I see the name of Umar Ahmad Ghumman aka UA Turner, who regaled an audience here recently with the declaration that he loved military rule.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

If at some point in time, there is going to be a settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute – though given the lack of flexibility on India’s part, it appears unlikely – Pakistan will have to decide where it stands on Gilgit, Baltistan and the former princely states in that region, which now goes under the collective name of Northern Areas.

While the Northern Areas are under the administrative control of Pakistan – and have been since 1947 – the people who live there enjoy no fundamental rights, nor do they have any representatives in the National or Provincial Assemblies. They are ruled by a Northern Areas Council which is headed by Pakistan’s minister for Kashmir Affairs, Northern Areas, State and Frontier Regions, but all he does is address the opening and closing sections of the Council. The de facto ruler of the territories is a deputy chief executive, who exercises “such powers as may be delegated to him by the Chief Executive.” In other words, the supreme ruler of the Northern Areas is actually an extension of the federal government in Islamabad.

The people of the Northern Areas see themselves as citizens of Pakistan, but citizens without rights, which makes the situation both grotesque and indefensible. The Government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, which has always remained a handmaiden of those on the other side of the Kohala Bridge, has never been allowed to exercise any administrative or political control over the Northern Areas. There are strong arguments in favour of the view that the Northern Areas are a part of Azad Kashmir, since on the eve of independence, the British transferred sovereignty to the Maharaja and the flag of the Jammu and Kashmir state was ceremoniously raised over the Gilgit Residency. Those who argue that the transfer of control by the British to the Maharaja was invalid, strengthen their position by recalling that the area was liberated by the local people who removed the Maharaja’s governor on 31 October 1947 and put him under arrest. They also brought down the Jammu and Kashmir state flag from the Residency and amid great public rejoicing raised the flag of Pakistan in its place on 2 November.

In 1947, nearly the entire population of what we know today as Northern Areas was Muslim. Chaudhri Muhammad Ali writes in Pathway to Pakistan , “In response to a request to take over the administration, the Pakistan government flew a representative to Gilgit on November 14. A little later, the rulers of Hunza and Nagar which are comprised in the Gilgit Agency, requested accession to Pakistan. Since then, the whole area has been administered by the Pakistan government and has remained outside the arena of conflict in Kashmir.” The accession instruments signed by the rulers of Nagar and Hunza in 1947, while transferring responsibility for defence, external affairs and communications to the Government of Pakistan, retained for the rulers “sovereignty in and over” their states and their internal administration. This clause was violated as soon as the documents were signed. Both instruments of accession bear the signatures of the Quaid-e-Azam. The “privy purses” granted to the rulers of princely states were abolished in later years, though to this day cars with number plates bearing different states’ names can be seen running around major Pakistani cities.

The contending claim that the Northern Areas are a part of Azad Kashmir was accepted by the Azad Jammu and Kashmir High Court in 1995 when it directed the Azad Kashmir government to “immediately assume the administrative control of the Northern Areas and to annex it with the administration of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.” The Pakistan government was asked to provide “adequate assistance” for this purpose and the residents of the Northern Areas were told that they would henceforth enjoy their full fundamental rights.

It is obvious that the Pakistan government could not permit this judgment to hold sway. It, therefore, had it set aside by the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Supreme Court through an appeal by the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs. The AJK Supreme Court held that “the Northern Areas are a part of Jammu and Kashmir State, but they are not a part of Azad Jammu and Kashmir as defined in the Interim Constitution Act 1974.” The judges said, “We have also reached the conclusion that the High Court of Azad Jammu and Kashmir did not possess the necessary jurisdiction to issue a writ against the Government of Pakistan for handing over the control of the Northern Areas to Azad Jammu and Kashmir.”

In 1999, the Supreme Court of Pakistan disposed of a writ petition filed by the Al-Jehad Trust and nine others five years earlier. The petition had asked that the fundamental rights of the people of Northern Areas be protected and their constitutional status determined and declared since they were citizens of Pakistan and, as such, had to be given full representation in the Federation of Pakistan. The petition had also demanded provincial status for Northern Areas. The Supreme Court bench presided over by Chief Justice Ajmal Mian observed that the people of the Northern Areas had been agitating for their rights and there seemed to be “no factual controversy” over the “admitted position” that the Areas had been administered by Pakistan since 1947. The Court also put its seal of approval on the accession of the area’s states to Pakistan in 1947 as well as the claim by the local people that when Pakistan took control of the Areas, they were being administered by them and not the Jammu and Kashmir government. The Attorney General’s contention that the Court could not determine the question whether the Northern Areas are a part of Pakistan, keeping in view that a UN plebiscite when held will also include the Northern Areas, was rejected by the Court with the observation that it would have “jurisdiction in a case in which the government unconstitutionally wants to cede a portion of the territory, which is admittedly a part of Pakistan to a foreign power.”

Such a part, however, has already been transferred to China but the boundary agreement includes a provision of renegotiation if there is a change in the status of the area acquired by China. India has always held that the transfer by Pakistan was illegal. There is also a view that this transfer has damaged Pakistan’s case on Kashmir. The Supreme Court holds that the people of the Northern Areas had been denied their fundamental right to have access to justice through an independent judiciary. It directed the Federation to “initiate administrative and legislative measures for complying with the mandate of the constitution,” and accord the people of the Northern Areas their constitutional rights.

To this day, that has not happened. In other words, the Federation of Pakistan has ignored the orders to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It is time the people of the Northern Areas were given their fundamental rights. They have waited patiently for 57 years and human patience, we must not forget, has its limits.

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