Jaswant Singh Yatra

Problems in Balochistan!!

Brig.Imtiaz Breaks Silence.

Nawab Bugti's grave

بگٹی قبیلے کے نواب اکبر خان بگٹی کی ہلاکت کے تین برس بعد ڈیرہ بگٹی شہر کے علاوہ سوئی اور دیگر علاقوں میں جہاں بے گھر بگٹیوں کی واپسی سے زندگی معمول کی طرف آنے لگی ہے وہاں بظاہر سیکورٹی فورسز کے رویہ میں بھی ماضی کی نسبت قدرے مثبت تبدیلی دیکھنے کو ملتی ہے۔

بگٹی قبیلے کے نئے بننے والے نواب میر عالی بگٹی کے سینکڑوں مسلح حامیوں نے ڈیرہ بگٹی شہر میں ’بگٹی قلعہ‘ کا انتظام سنبھال لیا ہے اور آس پاس پہاڑیوں پر مورچے قائم کر لیے ہیں۔ بگٹی قلعہ کے ویران اور اجڑے ہوئے مہمان خانے میں پلمبر، الیکٹریشن، کارپینٹر نیز ہر قسم کے مستری کام میں مصروف ہیں اور ایسا لگتا ہے کہ نواب میر عالی بگٹی جلد ہی اپنے قبیلے کی نوابی کی ایک بڑی علامت ’بگٹی قلعہ’ سنبھالنے والے ہیں۔

بگٹی قلعہ کے صحن کے سامنے اور قبرستان کے درمیان والی جگہ میں آج بھی فرنٹیئر کور کا بسیرا ہے۔ جب پولیس اور بگٹی محافظوں کے ہمراہ قبرستان پہنچے تو ایک ایف سی اہلکار نے کہا کہ نواب بگٹی کی قبر کے قریب مت جائیں کیونکہ خدشہ ہے کہ وہاں بارودی سرنگیں نہ ہوں لیکن بگٹی محافظوں نے بتایا کہ وہاں ایسا کچھ نہیں۔

نواب اکبر بگٹی کی قبر کی حالت ایک لاوارث قبر جیسی لگی۔ بارش کی وجہ سے قبر کے اوپر والی ریت بیٹھ اور بکھر چکی ہے اور قبر کے اوپر جھاڑیاں اْگ چکی ہیں۔ پہلے تو قبر پر ایف سی والے کسی کو آنے کی اجازت نہیں دیتے تھے لیکن اب کچھ نرمی ہے۔ ایک کلاشنکوف بردار دبلے پتلے بگٹی نے کہا کہ ’ آپ پہلے صحافی ہیں جو تین برسوں کے بعد دوبارہ آئے ہیں۔‘

دو فروری سنہ دو ہزار چھ کو جب نواب اکبر بگٹی کے انٹرویو کے سلسلے میں بگٹی قلعہ آنے کا موقع ملا تھا تو اس وقت جدید اسلحہ سے مسلح بگٹی قبیلے کے لوگ جس طرح وائر لیس سیٹ اٹھائے ایک منظم ملیشیا دکھائی دیتی تھی اور اب بھی بالکل اْسی طرح بگٹی فورس سرگرم ہے لیکن فرق یہ ہے کہ پہلے یہ فورس نواب اکبر بگٹی اور برہمداغ کے حکم پر عمل کرتے تھے لیکن آج کل ان پر نواب میر عالی بگٹی کا حکم چلتا ہے۔

فرنٹیئر کور ( ایف سی ) اور بگٹی قلعہ کے درمیان جہاں تین برس قبل ایف سی کا ایک بہت بڑا مورچہ قائم تھا اب وہ ختم ہوگیا ہے اور ٹریفک پولیس والوں کے بارش سے بچنے کے لیے جس طرح کوئی چبوترا ہوتا ہے، وہ تعمیر کر کے اس چوراہے کو پاکستان چوک کا نام دیا گیا ہے۔ بگٹی بازار کی دکانوں کے دروازوں اور دو رویہ سڑک کو تقسیم کرنے والے آہنی جنگلے کو نیلے رنگ سے رنگ دیا گیا ہے۔

دکانوں کے شٹر تو دور سے ایک نیا روپ پیش کرتے ہیں لیکن دکانوں کے سائن بورڈ یا تو اکھڑ چکے ہیں یا زنگ آلود ہوچکے ہیں۔ دکانوں کے اندر کچرے کی بدبو آتی ہے اور مکڑی کے جالے بھی نمایاں طور پر نظر آتے ہیں۔ بگٹی قلعہ کے سامنے تو بازار ویران ہے لیکن پاکستان چوک کے آس پاس چلتی پھرتی بے خوف سی زندگی کا ایک نیا روپ نظر آتا ہے۔

ڈیرہ بگٹی شہر میں پنجاب کے ضلع لیہ سے تعلق رکھنے والے خالد حسین نامی حجام نے اپنی دکان بھی دوبارہ کھول لی ہے اور وہ اس پر بہت خوش ہیں۔ ’میں چاہتا ہوں کہ عید آنے سے پہلے کچھ پیسے جمع کرلوں کیوں کہ عید پر لیہ جاوٴں گا۔‘

ڈیرہ بگٹی شہر میں روزمرہ کی تمام اشیاء تو دستیاب ہیں لیکن مقامی لوگوں کو اشیاء خوردو نوش کی قیمتیں مہنگی ہونے کی شکایت ہے۔ایک سبزی فروش نیاز علی نے بتایا کہ وہ ٹماٹر بیس روپے، بھنڈی اور پیاز تیس تیس روپے، آلو اور توری بیس بیس روپے، بینگن پندرہ روپے اور آم پچاس روپے کلو بیچ رہے ہیں۔ ان کے بقول چیزیں اتنی مہنگی نہیں ہیں۔

اس دوران اسکول کی چھٹی ہوئی تو نیلے رنگ کی قمیص اور ہلکے سیاہ رنگ کی پتلوں میں ملبوس کئی بچے بستے اٹھائے گھروں کو جاتے نظر آئے۔ بازار میں رمضان کے باوجود کئی مقامی لوگ کھاتے پیتے نظر آئے اور ایف سی اہلکار جو خود روزہ رکھے ہوئے تھے لیکن ضیاء الحق کے نافذ کردہ احترام رمضان آرڈیننس کے جرم میں کسی کے خلاف کارروائی سے گریزاں نظر آئے جس کی ایک بڑی وجہ بعض مقامی لوگوں کے مطابق یہ ہے کہ انہیں لگتا ہے کہ موجودہ حکومت نے سیکورٹی فورسز کو احتیاط برتنے اور مقامی لوگوں کو تنگ نہ کرنے کی ہدایات دے رکھی ہیں۔

لیکن ڈیرہ بگٹی کے ایک بڑے شہر سوئی کے رہائشی وڈیرہ شیر محمد سیکورٹی فورسز کے رویہ میں بڑی تبدیلی آنے کا کریڈٹ اپنے نواب میر عالی کو دیتے ہیں۔ ’دیکھیں جناب چند ماہ پہلے میرے گھر کے سامنے فراریوں (برہمداغ کے حامی) نے بجلی کے ٹاور کو ریموٹ کنٹرول بم سے اڑایا تو فوج اور ایف سی والوں نے ہمارے اہل خانہ کے تمام لوگوں کو سڑک پر کھڑا کردیا لیکن گزشتہ رات وہیں پر ایک اور کھمبے کو اڑایا گیا تو کسی نے ہمیں نہیں پکڑا۔

تاہم انٹیلی جنس والے بھی مجھ سے فون پر تفصیل پوچھتے رہے۔مشرف کے جانے کے بعد نئی حکومت کے قیام اور ہمارے نواب میر عالی بگٹی کے سوئی میں آنے سے یہ بہت بڑی تبدیلی آئی ہے۔اللہ کرے حالات مزید بہتر ہوں۔‘

ڈیرہ بگٹی اور سوئی کے شہروں میں بجلی کے کھمبوں میں قائد اعظم کی تصاویر نصب کی گئی ہیں۔ سوئی کے بازاروں میں نواب میر عالی بگٹی کی جماعت جمہوری وطن پارٹی کے دو رنگوں اور چار ستاروں والے پرچم جگہ جگہ نظر آئے لیکن ڈیرہ بگٹی شہر میں ان کے پرچموں سے زیادہ پاکستان کا سبز ہلالی پرچم لہراتا ہوا نظر آیا۔

اکثر عام لوگ کہتے ہیں کہ اب خدا کرے دوبارہ کوئی لڑائی نہ ہو اور وہ پرسکون زندگی گزار سکیں لیکن کچھ بگٹی قبیلے کے لوگوں کو خدشہ ہے کہ نوابی کے لیے برہمداغ اور میر عالی کے حامیوں میں ایک بار پھر جھڑپیں ہوسکتی ہیں۔

ڈیرہ بگٹی شہر کے علاوہ سوئی اور دیگر علاقوں میں جہاں بے گھر بگٹیوں کی واپسی سے زندگی معمول کی طرف آنے لگی ہے وہاں بظاہر سیکورٹی فورسز کے رویہ میں بھی ماضی کی نسبت قدرے مثبت تبدیلی دیکھنے کو ملتی ہے۔ ۔۔۔۔بشکریہ : بی بی سی

China and India

China's think tanks are different. Unlike US think tanks that are ostensibly independent of government, and a few really are, in China they are tied to the State Council or the Communist Party of China, which itself is the country's leading think tank in terms of effectiveness. They are different too because they are run by genuine intellectuals and scholars, unlike ours, which are packed with retired bureaucrats, generals and air marshals and journalists who couldn't really make it because most are government funded. Which is not to say that good papers do not sometimes come out of them or they are not used by governments for work that needs to seem non-governmental, like the Track II diplomacy with India. But they have little or no impact on government policy. Chinese think tanks have to be taken seriously, especially when they go public, for they definitely reflect government's thinking, and few more so than the China Institute of Strategic Studies. Thus the BBC News report earlier this month that the China Institute of Strategic Studies had come out with a study penned by someone with the pseudonym of 'Zhan Lue', which apparently means 'Strategy', that India should be broken into 30 independent states, made people sit up. We who had grown so used to the perennial claptrap that America would fragment Pakistan never thought that China would talk of fragmenting India. Obviously it put a cat of tiger proportions amongst India's pigeons. The Indian foreign ministry dismissed Zhan's report as "the work of an individual that did not reflect the official Chinese position." The question arises that if this is all that it was, why did the Indian government even have to take notice of it and thus bring it to world attention? The inevitable conclusion is that the report is serious and has to be taken seriously. Zhan suggests that a fragmented India would lead to prosperity in the region and would be in China's interest. The latter is stating the obvious; the former merits consideration because a country as large as India run on an alien political system cannot relieve the poverty of so many people, as China has done and continues to do with its homegrown system. (The same holds true of Pakistan, by the way). Despite 62 years of endless elections that pass for 'democracy', 76 percent or more of India's people remain desperately poor, earning $2 per day or less. (The figure is a couple of points lower in Pakistan, which is equally disgraceful).

The Book I Really cant,t put down

India's 1998 Nuclear Test Was A Failure

Jaswan Singh ki Book Aik Sach

Jaswant Singh

India’s first moon mission ‘over’

Well done, Jaswant!

Now that Jaswant Singh is all set to visit Pakistan with his book after Ramazan, let us await reactions there. Some will find Jaswant’s book heart-warming. But there are also those in the post-Zia-ul Haq establishment who will find Jinnah’s lukewarm approach to Islamism an affront

Lord Denis Healey, the best prime
minister Britain never had, told me a story some years ago which might be of interest now that India is in a scrum re-evaluating Jinnah.

During a general election in the first quarter of the 20th century (Healey’s memory is hazy on the exact date), a short list of three Labour Party candidates from South Leeds contained a surprising name: Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

Healey peered through his bushy eyebrows and asked, “Don’t you think Indian history would have been different if Jinnah got the Labour ticket and won?”

Healey’s question is another one of those “what-might-have-been” quantities in the history of the subcontinent.

The hullabaloo that has followed publication of Jaswant Singh’s book is, quite honestly, because Jaswant happens to be a senior BJP leader who praised Jinnah.

As far as the Sangh Parivar is concerned, any appraisal of Jinnah was a settled issue: our (Sangh) appraisal versus their (secularists) appraisal. What Jaswant’s book has done is to upset this “Us vs Them” status quo.

This kind of deviation was first attempted by LK Advani himself when, during a visit to Pakistan, he praised Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 address to the Constituent Assembly in Karachi in which Jinnah spoke with clarity of his vision of a secular Pakistan. The entire Sangh Parivar, led by the RSS, pounced on Advani. Even Congress leaders did not spare him. This despite the fact that Advani returned with a huge sweetener to soften Hindu sentiment: a commitment by President Musharraf to restore the ancient Katasraj temple site. Temple or no temple, Advani must recant. Advani lost nerve and backed off.

Jaswant has not been asked to recant as Advani was. He has been summarily sacked. What were the reasons for Jaswant having been treated in this fashion?

The book was released on the eve of the BJP’s Chintan Baithak (brainstorming session) in Shimla. The session itself took place when the party was in terminal decline after the Lok Sabha debacle.

In any event, the party was in no mood to allow Jaswant to cock-a-snook at the galaxy gathered in Shimla. Instead, someone had a brainwave: turn the tables on Jaswant and extract political mileage. Precipitate action against Jaswant (what Arun Shourie in another context calls “jhatka”), would deflect attention from all the guilty men responsible for the party’s downhill acceleration. It would delay the ignominious departure of leaders who are so mesmerised by their own presence on the wobbly political stage that they have forgotten their exits.

Take precipitate action on what count? After all, even assuming that all those sunk in deep thought in Shimla do read books, how on earth do they claim to have read a 700-page tome overnight?

Was it media initiative or the publishers’ imaginative marketing strategy, that bits from Jaswant’s pre-launch interview to a channel were splashed across the front pages of newspapers the next morning? There was enough material here for the Chintan Baithak to go into convulsions: the Sangh Parivar’s villain, Jinnah, had been cast as a hero; their hero, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, had been shown as being complicit in partition. But what really drove them to distraction was something else:

Woh baat saare fasaney

mein jiska zikr na thaw

Woh baat unko bahut

Nagawar guzri hai!

(The fact which was not even there in the narrative is precisely the one that has hurt them the most.)

For a full fifty years, the Sangh Parivar has persisted with its chant of “Muslim appeasement”. And here, one of their top leaders talks of Muslim pain, the Sachar Committee, the fact that the guilt of partition was heaped on Muslims when Hindus took a lead in the tragedy.

This reversal of fifty years of assiduously sustained propaganda is what jolted those assembled in Shimla. When BJP leaders charged Jaswant of “denigrating” the party’s “core” ideology, this is the pain they were giving vent to. Jaswant is simply teasing the Parivar spokesmen when he asks with feigned innocence: “What is so core about Sardar Patel?”

“Patel united the country,” they scream in chorus.

“But Patel seconded the resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru for the country’s partition at the crucial Congress Working Committee meeting,” retorts Jaswant.

It is conceivable that the Parivar has made an admission here: that Sardar Patel integrated the 600 odd princely states, including Hyderabad, into the Indian Union, and it is on this count that they consider him the nation’s unifier. Ostrich like, they have simply buried their heads in the sand on Patel’s established complicity in partition.

Of course, there were petty reasons too for the party to expel Jaswant. Narendra Modi was quaking because the alleged criticism of Sardar Patel would affect his Patel votes in the coming by-elections in Gujarat. By way of bonus, some juice may well be extracted from the controversy in the Maharashtra elections.

By one courageous act of having written a straightforward book on Partition in which Jinnah is cast as a man of honour, Jaswant has thrown a huge boulder in the pond. The waves are affecting Congress too.

The Parivar has rushed to protect Sardar Patel. Does the Congress watch this appropriation of one of their icons by the RSS-BJP combine in silence? Or do they go out beating their breasts (as they appear to be doing in Gujarat) to the accompaniment of a chant: “Sardar Patel is ours! Sardar Patel is ours!”

In this public reacquisition of Sardar Patel, do they completely ignore Nehru? But if they bring Nehru into the discourse, what do they say?

That it was he who moved the partition resolution at the crucial CWC?

In his book, India Wins Freedom, Maulana Azad, Congress President from 1939 to 1946, blames Nehru and Patel squarely for partition. Jaswant quotes him.

In brief, Maulana Azad and Badshah Khan, two Muslim members of the CWC, are fiercely opposed to partition. Now Jaswant reinforces the uncomfortable reality that Jinnah, another Muslim, was pushed into a corner only by the Congress leaders.

Why is this reality so disturbing for most of us? It is disturbing because the basic perception that has sunk into the Hindu psyche over the past 62 years is that Muslims divided the country and also stayed on. It is just the sort of turf on which communalists pitch their tent.

Jaswant’s is a laudable effort. A pity he has not had access to Mushtaq Naqvi’s remarkable and much neglected book Partition: The Real Story. The following data from Mushtaq’s book would have strengthened his argument:

During the 1945-46 elections in UP, the total electorate was only 10.2% of the province’s Muslims. Of these only 52% of the electorate voted; in other words, nearly 5% of the total electorate. The Muslim League won only 37.3% of the total electorate.

UP was the epicentre of Muslim League activity. If the returns of UP are superimposed on the rest of the country, we end up with the startling truth that only three out of a hundred Muslims wanted Pakistan.

How then did Partition happen?

Well done, Jaswant, for having opened up this debate. But who has the stamina or even the minimal interest to sustain it?

And now that Jaswant is all set to visit Pakistan with his book after Ramazan, let us await reactions there. Some will find Jaswant’s book heart-warming. But there are also those in the post-Zia-ul Haq establishment who will find Jinnah’s lukewarm approach to Islamism an affront.

Pakistan slams US media report on upgrading missile

Pakistan's Ambassador in the United States Hussain Haqqani on Sunday termed a U.S. newspaper report, alleging Pakistani engineers have upgraded the range of U.S.-made Harpoon missile and test fired, baseless and incorrect.

The Pakistani private TV channel GEO News quoted Hussain Haqqani as saying that such news reports were designed to target and scuttle the U.S. Congress lawmaking process underway for sanctioning aid to Pakistan.

He urged upon the U.S. media to halt hurling blames on Pakistan and help it in war against terror, and said Pakistan would continue aligning with the U.S. in war against terrorism.

The Obama administration has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying U.S.-made missiles earlier given to Pakistan to expand its ability to hit land-based targets, which would constitute a threat to India, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Citing senior administration and Congressional officials, the newspaper said the charge came in late June through an unpublicized diplomatic protest to Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.

The accusation which comes at a particularly delicate time, when the administration is asking Congress to approve 7.5 billion U.S. dollars in aid to Pakistan over the next five years, triggered a new round of U.S.-Pakistan

Pakistan illegally modified US-made missiles: White House

The US government has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying US-made anti-ship missiles to make them capable of striking land targets and thus creating a new threat for India, The New York Times reported late on Saturday.

Citing unnamed senior administration and congressional officials, the newspaper said the accusation was made in an unpublicized diplomatic protest delivered in late June to Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

At the center of the row were Harpoon anti-ship missiles that were sold to Pakistan by the administration of former US president Ronald Reagan as a defensive weapon during the Cold War in the 1980s, the report said.

US military and intelligence officials say they suspect that Pakistan has modified the missiles in a manner that would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act, the paper said.

Pakistan has denied the charge, saying it developed the missile itself. But according to the report, US intelligence agencies detected on April 23 a suspicious missile test that appeared to indicate that Pakistan had a new offensive weapon.

The missile would be a significant new entry into Pakistan's arsenal against India, The Times said. It would enable Pakistan's navy to strike targets on land, complementing the sizable land-based missile arsenal that Pakistan has developed.

That, in turn, would be likely to spur another round of an arms race between the nuclear-armed rivals that the United States has been trying to halt, the paper noted.

‘The potential for proliferation and end-use violations are things we watch very closely,’ The Times quotes an administration official as saying.

‘When we have concerns, we act aggressively.’

The United States has also accused Pakistan of modifying US-made P-3C aircraft for land-attack missions, another violation of US law that the administration of President Barack Obama has protested, the report said.