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| India-Pakistan |
| You can't put on Pak blinkers |
| 2008-01-06 |
| By Swapan Dasgupta The tragedy of Benazir Bhutto's assassination should not blind us to the farce that was enacted in Larkana a day after her funeral. For the first time in the annals of dynastic democracy in the subcontinent, the succession issue in a political party was settled on the strength of a Last Will and Testament which, unfortunately, the world will never get to read. It is undeniable that the major political parties of the region, viz the Pakistan People's Party, Awami League, Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the Indian National Congress, have transformed themselves into proprietorial concerns. It is almost axiomatic that you have to be a Bhutto, a Nehru-Gandhi, a Bandaranaike or a descendant of Sheikh Mujib to secure the top job in these parties. Earlier there was always the pretence that grassroots pressure and the overriding need for a unifying symbol had catapulted the inheritors into the top job. With the coronation of Bilawal I — there is no better description for his anointment as PPP chairman — political inheritance has lost its democratic pretensions. In death, Benazir turned it into a bequest. The idea is not to mock the bewilderment of a 19-year-old who has had both his mother and the joys of youthful freedom cruelly snatched away from him. Nor does it behove anyone to wait expectantly for Chairman Bilawal I to come into his own, upstage the decrepit Regent and show that he is the true Bhutto. Bilawal's future has all the makings of a family melodrama, now that Mumtaz Bhutto and the daughter of the late Murtaza Bhutto have also staked their claim on the inheritance. Yet, life in Pakistan is too full of inglorious uncertainties to warrant speculative forward trading. Indeed, the turmoil in Pakistan over the past fortnight should force liberal India to discard the blinkers with which it views the other side of the Radcliffe Line. Pakistan has shown itself to be a bizarre place, not merely on account of the itinerant suicide bombers who hop from place to place. It is the complete non-existence or breakdown of institutions that should worry Indians who believe "they" are like "us". For a start, there are no elementary rules of forensic examination. There was no post-mortem examination carried out on Benazir's body because the husband piously declared he didn't want it. To say this is preposterous is a wild understatement; the wilful lapse has ensured that the cause of death will remain a matter of wild conjecture forever, unless the body is cruelly exhumed. Second, in proffering the incredible theory that Benazir died after an accidental bump in the head — a claim contested by the indignant car manufacturer — the authorities have shown that in the game of cover-ups, brazenness is the rule. Despite photographic evidence of a smartly dressed man in sunglasses pointing a gun at Benazir, sundry military administrators have persisted in following a script that doesn't correspond to reality. That the Government had to call in investigators from Scotland Yard — who are unlikely to find anything because most of the evidence has been destroyed or removed — shows how little credibility the Pakistani state enjoys in the eyes of its own people. The revelation that Benazir planned to release a dossier of the ISI's rigging plans on behalf of the King's Party confirms the extent of the rot. If these shenanigans were confined to the internal affairs of Pakistan, India could have looked the other way. Unfortunately, the state that presided over the murder of one of its foremost leaders and then tried to cover-up ineptly also happens to be the state that the world must deal with. For too long, many have tried to make an expedient distinction between the "responsible" and "rogue" arms of the Pakistan State — A Q Khan being the proverbial rogue and Musharraf the modernist. This distinction is notional. We are now dealing with a criminal entity called Pakistan that possesses nuclear weapons and where jihad has entered the bloodstream. The implications don't need to be spelt out explicitly. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #3 AQ Khan and Mushy aren't polar opposites. In fact, when Mushy was asked why Khan wasn't in jail, he replied that he was a "national hero." It was only a short time after the first Pak nuke was set off that Mushy commenced his infiltration of Kashmir, which he claimed was only a seasonal placement of troops in lands claimed by Pakistan. That war began 3 months after Mushy held a "peace" summit with the Indian PM. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-01-06 12:10 |
| #2 For too long, many have tried to make an expedient distinction between the "responsible" and "rogue" arms of the Pakistan State — A Q We are now dealing with a criminal entity called Pakistan that possesses nuclear weapons and where jihad has entered the bloodstream. yipes. Blunt truth that kinda makes the hairs stand up. |
| Posted by: Whomong Guelph4611 2008-01-06 10:52 |
| #1 tl:dr They're all nutz, all of 'em. |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2008-01-06 05:01 |