Taal Matol 
Mela, inside out
By Shoaib Hashmi
We Lahoris have been celebrating the four hundred and twenty-first year of the Mela Chiraghan, the 'festival of lights' in memory of Shah Hussain the great Sufi saint and poet of Lahore. He would have been the patron saint of the town except that Data Gunj Bakhsh preceded him by about six hundred years and was already established as the Patron by the time of Shah Hussain.

Dare the underdog
The struggles of tenants and peasants has a long history in Pakistan that is yet to be written
By Ammar Ali Jan
In the past sixty years, Pakistan has witnessed many struggles in which the downtrodden sections of society have challenged those sitting in the corridors of power.

RIPPLE EFFECT
Dancing in Dhaka
By Omar R. Quraishi
Before going I spoke to someone -- a Briton -- who had been to Dhaka several times. He asked me if I had ever been to Bangladesh and I said no. He said I would find it quite nice and interesting, apparently not least because, as he put it, it was "nothing like Pakistan".

After twelve working days of briefings, questions, deliberations, and more deliberations, a joint in-camera sitting of the two houses of our parliament arrived at a unanimous resolution.

Adopted on Oct 22, 2008, Resolution No. 12 recorded the Parliament's great concern that "extremism, militancy and terrorism in all forms and manifestations pose a grave danger to the stability and integrity of the nation-state", and called for "an urgent review of the national security strategy and revisiting the methodology of combating terrorism."

The session began on Oct 8, with detailed briefings given by top civil and military intelligence officials. Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shujaa Pasha, the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had briefed the parliament on behalf of the military -- with General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the army chief, in attendance.

That the resolution was signed by stalwarts from across the parliamentary spectrum helped; everybody was on board from Ch. Nisar Ali Khan to Abdul Rahim Khan Mandokhel, from Sherry Rehman to Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, from Prof. Khursheed Ahmed to Iqbal Zafar Jhagra.

The 626-word resolution covered all facets of the subject matter, and pointedly remarked how, in the past, "dictatorial regimes pursued policies aimed at perpetuating their own power at the cost of national interest."

This was the highest high of Pakistan's 13th Parliament, then about all of eight months old. But then had it not been an awesome parliament from the word go, assertive of its constitutional authority?

The leader of the house had ordered release of the superior judiciary members first thing after being elected, even before taking his oath of office. That was the beginning of a dream run -- on the course of which the parliament looked every bit the sovereign institution it was meant to be.

Not the least of the implications of this dream run was the fact that being a Pakistani was starting to feel okay, even good. Fuel prices remained unjustifiably high, power shortages continued to plague domestic life and industrial activity alike, food shortages and inflation were nowhere near under control -- and yet, the common citizen was breathing easier.

The very election of Yousaf Raza Gilani as the prime minister symbolised increasing unanimity; while Speaker Fehmida Mirza had secured 249 out of 342 votes -- already better than two-third majority, Gilani had bagged 264 when elected, and all 342 when seeking vote of confidence.

The new parliament had also given a fragmented Pakistan a truly broad-based government -- led by Pakistan People's Party and incorporating traditional archrival Pakistan Muslim League (N); Awami National Party (ANP) and Jaumiat Ulema Islam (JUI) (F)--bitter rivals for ascendancy in the NWFP; and wonder of wonders, Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM), a former ally of military strongman Pervez Musharraf.

And how masterfully had this Parliament orchestrated the ouster of Pervez Musharraf from presidency. By and large, Pakistanis had been starry-eyed ever since Feb 18, 2008 -- when the electorate had dealt a fatal blow to the ascendancy of military ruler Pervez Musharraf by wrecking his political allies; but it kept getting better all the time.

As the first year of democratic government came to a close in the last week of March, the inevitable reality-check caught up with all stakeholders. What exactly have we achieved during this year? The parliament also came in for scrutiny -- and some were appalled to see all of four bills getting through the two houses.

Three bills that passed both the houses were The Industrial Relations Bill, 2008; The Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services Act, 2008; and Pakistan International Airline Corporation (Suspension of Trade Unions and Existing Agreements) Order (Repeal) Act, 2008. The fourth bill to pass the National Assembly was Finance Bill 2008 -- not required to pass the Senate.

Perhaps it is fair to say a parliament should not be judged by the bills it has pushed through; there are dozens of drafts in the pipeline -- being considered by various committees appointed by the houses.

Also, there is indeed much more to parliamentary activity than legislation in our version of the Westminster model. The presidency is as integral to the parliament as its two houses are -- just as there are three elements to parliament: the Crown, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The cabinet is but an extension of the parliament in which the executive function of government is vested.

The parliament, therefore, should be given credit for the achievements of the Presidency and the Cabinet, in addition to the business transacted by its two houses.

Nevertheless, all things considered, there is a lot to be desired -- especially as far as the perceptions are concerned. "So far the Parliament had failed to assert itself and remained a rubber stamp", for instance, says James Traub in the March 31 edition of The New York Times Magazine.

Whose rubber-stamp exactly? Is it that the writer does not approve of the two houses following the lead of President Zardari? But he says more: "The civilian government does at least exercise control over the economy, but national security and defense remain the domain of the military."

Is this indeed the case? Let us start with Resolution No. 12.

"Having considered the issue thoroughly and at great length is of the view that in terms of framing laws, building institutions; protecting our citizens from violence, eradication of terror at its roots, re-building our economy and developing opportunities for the disadvantaged", the parliament is committed to a fourteen point agenda.

Point No. 14 of the resolution authorised the speaker to constitute, in consultation with the parliamentary leaders of both Houses, a Special Committee of Parliament "to periodically review, provide guidelines and monitor the implementation of the principles framed and roadmap given in this Resolution."

It is a sad fact that anyone has scarcely heard anything of or from this committee since. Or, on a different note, what role has the parliament played in the return of the judges unlawfully evicted by Musharraf?

We have heard a lot of talk about strengthening the parliament -- a chorus of assertions coming from the president, reiterations from the prime minister, and affirmations from the speaker. But what progress has the parliament made towards purifying the Constitution of the distortions introduced by Musharraf?

The issues itemised above are not to be lightly dismissed. For one thing, abdication of responsibility is nothing but abdication of power; for another, our parliament is the core of our republic -- the latter cannot possibly function well if the former does not.

On top of everything else, the parliament is conspicuously absent from another dream run; it is a history now, that the parliament has little if any role in Pakistan's rebellion against arbitrary rule; everybody else chipped in -- political parties, judges, lawyers, civil society, students, even the military -- but not the parliament.

And this is not small matter either -- especially in view of the history we have of parliaments after parliament falling at the first charge from an incoming dictator -- and indemnifying every outgoing dictator.

Pakistan has worked hard to redeem itself as a republic; everything has finally fallen into place at long last. Now is the time for the parliament to crown this success -- by sanctifying the constitution, redeeming itself as the sovereign. But is the parliament ready to assume its destined role? It better be, for the otherwise is too grim even to consider in this spring of optimism.

Why is Obama's newly stated Pakistan-Afghanistan policy being analysed so widely by the political commentators everywhere? It is because the US administration has shared with the media a cogent plan to tackle the Taliban and al-Qaeda for the first time. Following the events of 9/11, as soon as the western media put the blame on Osama Bin Laden and his associates for the deadly attacks, the US focused its attention on Afghanistan and decided to overthrow the Taliban government with the aim to pull the rug from under al-Qaeda's feet.

Two years after overthrowing the Taliban, the US, at the behest of certain hawkish elements, got involved in Iraq -- the focus on fighting the perceived source of terrorism weakened. Between 2003 and 2008 the US fought two wars, both half-heartedly.

Running for the president, Obama the candidate promised to make a change, to close the Iraq war front and focus solely on Afghanistan and chasing Taliban and al Qaeda elements taking refuge in Pakistan areas bordering Afghanistan. Obama's speech of March 27 is a blueprint of the changed strategy.

The spelled-out strategy has four main elements -- increased economic aid to Pakistan, increased military presence in Afghanistan, rewarding Pakistanis when they act on American intelligence, attacking Taliban and al-Qaeda targets and buying loyalties of leaders who lie on the fringes of the Taliban sphere.

The Obama administration's game plan is based on a super-sized assumption -- that the common people of Pakistan and Afghanistan are so fed-up with the Taliban that they are ready to side with the Americans to eradicate the Islamic group.

When Barack Obama ran for the president, an important part of his campaign was an articulated stand about how he, if successful in the presidential bid, would save the Americans from the external threats -- the main threat to the US invariably understood to be the 'Islamists.' One can argue that since Obama got the majority votes in the elections, most of the Americans are on board with Obama on how to fight the War on Terror. In the campaigns preceding the February 2008 elections in Pakistan, neither was there any mention of the candidates' strategy to deal with 'extremism' nor their views on involving the US in sorting out the internal mess. This is where the new Obama strategy to deal with the Taliban in Pakistan has a good chance to flounder.

Pakistan became an ally in the War on Terror when the country was ruled by a general and one man made the decision about the direction the nation of 170 million people should take in fighting a war against elements deemed dangerous for the West. Even though things have changed after the 2008 elections in Pakistan, the US believes the decision made by Pervez Musharraf is approved by the present democratic government as well.

The new democratic government of Pakistan might eventually approve the way things are being handled vis-a-vis the War on Terror but such a decision has not been transparently made yet. One would like to see an active debate in the legislative assemblies of Pakistan, at the end of which the Obama plan would either be approved or rejected by the democratic bodies. In that debate the Pakistanis would like to hear answers to important questions like, who is our enemy? What is the end goal of the War on Terror? And what would determine victory in the war? The gravity of the situation even warrants settling the issue in a national referendum. Only when the majority of the Pakistanis share the vision of the majority of the Americans about how the War on Terror should be fought, there would be any chance of success of this fight in Pakistan.

It could very well be that the US does not see a need to obtain common Pakistani's approval for the support of the American plans that the US wishes to independently deal with two parallel setups of Pakistan -- that is the army and the civilian government. Common man on Pakistan's street must understand that such a shady arrangement would not bode well for the country, that in order to avoid the spread of chaos resulting from such a deal the Pakistani democratic setup must be strengthened to ultimately take the army in its control. Pakistanis must demand transparency from their government so that the conditions of the economic aid from the US are known to all and the military aid being offered to Pakistan has a civilian oversight.

We Lahoris have been celebrating the four hundred and twenty-first year of the Mela Chiraghan, the 'festival of lights' in memory of Shah Hussain the great Sufi saint and poet of Lahore. He would have been the patron saint of the town except that Data Gunj Bakhsh preceded him by about six hundred years and was already established as the Patron by the time of Shah Hussain.

His tomb is near the Shalamar Gardens where he is buried next to young Madho Lal, a young Hindu disciple and beloved of the saint who was so dear that over time their names have been put together as Madho Laal Hussain. Some time later, the Emperor Shah Jahan built his garden near the place and some time later it became the custom to hold his celebration inside the Garden. During my childhood I can remember the celebration spreading from the garden all the way to the tomb which was the place for much singing and dancing.

Some time later it became the custom to say that the celebration mucked up the garden and to move the Mela outside it; although I have fond memories of the vendors setting up their stalls inside the garden and the tall trees being the site of huge swings. Along the endless fountains, there were dozens of stalls set up for eatables and toys.

There were special toys, long tubes made of glass and filled with coloured water which you turned upside down to let all the bubbles go from the bottom to the top; they lasted about two days before the glass cracked but they are a beautiful memory. Along the street outside there were countless stalls offering 'dance dramas' and folk plays which were guaranteed to turn bawdy, and the grown-ups shunted us all out of there just as things began getting interesting, the pretence being that it would get too crowded if we waited for the end.

The whole thing lost colour once it was moved out of the garden, but then people discovered they could light up the whole tomb with different coloured lights and it took on a new life. And the edibles have proliferated from the usual sweet 'pakoras' and 'katlammas' to chips and fried chicken cutlets.

This time round there were other competitors. During the ten years of the presidentship of Pervez Musharraf, all the opposition parties had sworn that they would disrupt his speech if he tried to address Parliament, so for all those years he refused to come to Parliament. Now with Mr Zardari safely ensconced in the presidency, and the opposition having sworn to behave, Mr. Zardari addressed a joint session of parliament, and made a good job of it. Ever since the restoration of the Chief Justice he has been on a flight of reconciliation, and he decided to make more gestures to all the opposition. And succeeded!

Two shops of Pakhtoons that sold silk cloth were turned to ashes in Latifabad area of Hyderabad district in Sindh on Feb 22, 2009. This is not an isolated attack on the Pakhtoons residing in the area. Recently, the miscreants riding on motor bikes arrived at Latifabad's Bara market and threw a petrol bomb on some shops and fled from the scene in broad day light.

Later, a similar incident took place on Hyderabad's Makki Shah Road the very next day. Two shops owned by Pakhtoons were destroyed, inflicting loss of millions of rupees. The shops sold wood and bamboos.

These two acts of violence created tension in the area which later forced the district nazim of Hyderabad to impose ban on pillion riding.

Another incident of attacking and damaging the business of Pakhtoons in a similar fashion took place on March 20 at Bacha Khan Chowk in Hyderabad. The culprits were not nabbed.

The violence that started from Hyderabad has spread to districts Jamshoro, Mirpurkhas, Ghotki, Larkana and other areas. No significant arrests have been made so far for reasons best known to the police and law enforcement agencies.

Incidents such as these have sent a wave of tension and resentment among Pakhtoons in Sindh. For protection, the Pakhtoons living in Karachi have already organised a 'Loya Jirga'.

These attacks were followed by peaceful protests of Pakhtoon-speaking people belonging to Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakhtoonkhawa Milli Awami Party (PMAP). "Despite these attacks on properties and businesses of Pakhtoons in Sindh, we didn't react because we don't want to play a negative role and want a peaceful solution," tells senior vice president of ANP Sindh Haji Asmatullah Mehsud, while talking to TNS.

The recent wave of attacks on the businesses of Pakhtoons started in the wake of an ultimatum of a nationalist party, Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) that follows the philosophy of GM Syed. They had, reportedly, issued an ultimatum to the Pakhtoon migrants to leave the province and return to their homelands.

JSMM as well as Jeay Sindh Mahaz and Jeay Sindh Quami Mahaz Arisar group all demand expulsion of illegal migrants from Sindh. A public gathering of Sindh Tarraqi Pasand Party (STPP) also adopted a resolution demanding that migrants of other provinces be provided with work permits or their right to vote would be cancelled in Sindh.

A seminar was held in February 2009 in which Shafi Burfat of JSMM and Abdul Wahid Arisar announced that Pakhtoons should be evacuated from Sindh by force. They said cooperation should be sought from other nationalist forces of Sindh.

Pakhtoons have been attacked in a number of cities in Sindh but the administration and the government made arrests only after the ANP brought out a 'peace rally'. The party also thwarted a move to form Loya Jirga in Sindh to avoid divisions within the province, says senior vice president ANP Asmatullah Mehsud.

The role of law enforcement agencies and the government was only aimed at pacifying the protesting Pakhtoons. Few arrests were made. But they never came to the fore to tell the people who is behind the recent wave of ethnic riots in Sindh.

The Muttahida Quami Movement and its elected representatives in Hyderabad not only visited the office bearers of ANP but also gave assurance that culprits would be arrested and no one would be allowed to take advantage of the situation.

This move of MQM was necessary to avoid a possible clash between Urdu and Pashto speaking people in Sindh, keeping in view that MQM has been claiming the spread of Talibanisation. A police source revealed that there is a chance that MQM is using these nationalist groups to achieve their goals.

An activist of JSQM-A, on condition of anonymity, said that their party is not associated with these attacks on Pakhtoons in Sindh but they do want all these 'outsiders' to return to their native areas.

Some activists of parties, whose members were arrested for attacks on Pakhtoons, also staged protest demonstrations in cities of interior Sindh including Hyderabad.

Talking to TNS, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Police Hyderabad region Bashir Memon said that district police officers of various districts have been directed to take preventive measures in coordination with Pakhtoons to provide security to them. Besides this, he says that joint interrogation teams have also been formed to find the root cause of the attacks on Pakhtoons. Some activists of JSQM- Arisar and Shafi Burfat groups have also been arrested and booked. Interrogation is still underway.

Given the gravity of the situation, federal as well as provincial government should take immediate notice of these incidents. A process of dialogue or seminars should be initiated among all the communities and ethnic groups living in Sindh for the betterment of the province.

It is interesting to note that none of the senior government functionaries at provincial or federal level issued any statement condemning the act. Even some of the suspects who were arrested over their alleged involvement in these incidents, have been released without proper interrogation.

(e-mail:adeel.pathan@thenews.com.pk

In the past sixty years, Pakistan has witnessed many struggles in which the downtrodden sections of society have challenged those sitting in the corridors of power.

However, when reading Pakistan's history, all we hear about are the 'Palace conspiracies' that have determined the fate of this unfortunate nation. It is time that we move towards a 'People's' history of Pakistan and unearth those struggles that have challenged the status quo and which can prove to be a source of great inspiration for those wanting to bring change.

One such struggle was led by the tenants of Dera Saigol in Kala Shah Kaku. This is one of the poorest rural areas in Kala Shah Kaku and these villages have no gas, sanitation, hospital or school. There is not even a single road linking these villages to the city. Yet, in this community, one finds many politically conscious activists who have not only defied the State in their own area, but have also linked their struggle with other progressive movements around the country.

In order to understand this momentous struggle, it is important to grasp its history. The tenants arrived on this land in 1969 and started cultivating. It belonged to the powerful Saigol family which had become part of the notorious "22 families" that owned Pakistan. This was a period of intense politicisation of the working class as it had just defeated the once invincible General Ayub Khan.

After the fall of Dhaka, Bhutto took over and the common perception prevailed that soon Pakistan would turn into a worker's paradise. However, despite some concessions, the Bhutto regime made it bluntly clear that it will not alter the State structure of the country and won't hesitate to use force to quell dissent. This was demonstrated when police fired upon workers in Karachi who, thinking they had a friendly government sitting in Islamabad, had started taking over factories.

It is during this time that the owners of the land decided to throw out these tenants from the land they had cultivated. In 1972, the police squads came to forcibly evict these tenants. The tenants resisted and forced the police to retreat. However, this pressure from the authorities continued and in 1974, the police decided to arrest all male members from Dera Saigol. By taking such a harsh step, the authorities thought that the movement would completely fizzle out as it would be easier to evict women from this land. However, they were in for a big surprise.

The women in the area organised themselves and proved to be more aggressive than their male counter-parts. For the next month, they were out on the streets everyday with their children demanding the release of Dera Saigol's men. At times, they had to physically fight the police but would not allow anyone to snatch any of their land. Eventually, the police had to give in and release all the men while Bhutto's government gave these tenants permission to permanently settle on this land (although without transferring property rights).

The immediate task of the tenant's movement had been fulfilled. However, this movement had given rise to a new consciousness in this area and the people of Dera Saigol now gave the slogan of "changing the system." For this purpose, they established contacts with workers of Kohinoor and Ittehad Chemical factories, both owned by the Saigols, and decided to launch a joint struggle against the system.

This phase of the movement saw residents of Dera Saigol turning to the left. Asghar Ali Inqalabi, President Anjuman Ittehad Gharibaan-Shamsia (Alliance of the Downtrodden) has been at the forefront of the struggle for the past forty-years. He told TNS that after their victorious struggle in 1974, they had decided to fight for the emancipation of all the downtrodden people in their area.

"Through our political experience, we had learnt that all the workers are equally oppressed by this system. We though that if we want our children to live a life of dignity and respect, we will have to unite all the tenants, peasants, workers, and students and change the system in this country."

Asghar's organisation formed an alliance with Major Ishaq's Mazdoor Kissan Party that aimed at uniting workers and peasants to bring a socialist revolution. Tenants of Dera Saigol were given regular study circles by the likes of Rasul Bakhsh Palejo, Imtiaz Alam, Jam Saqi, Latif Afridi and others. During the 1980s, tenants from the area used to travel to Lahore in order to distribute pamphlets against the arrests of communists like Jam Saqi and Nazeer Abbasi.

One of the most interesting revelations was that women from Dera Saigol were part of WAF's historic protest in 1984 in front of the High Court, demanding the repeal of Hudood Ordinance.

"We left for Lahore to protest against the discriminatory policies of Zia's regime," claimed Jamila Bibi, a veteran of the movement and an elected member of the union council. "Women in Dera Saigol had proven that when it came to a political struggle, they were second to none. Zia was trying to take away those rights we had won and that was totally unacceptable."

Such a level of consciousness amongst women in such a remote rural area came as a pleasant surprise. What was even more refreshing was the fact that women in the area celebrate International Women's Day on the 8th of March every year. Their events have been attended by the likes of Asma Jehangir, Nighat Saeed Khan, Farooq Tariq and many other prominent personalities from Lahore.

In 2007, when the lawyer's movement had gripped the attention of the mainstream media, there was another attempt to evict the tenants from their lands. Since then, they have increased their political activity and have refused to give any share to the land owners. However, this two-year long defiant civil disobedience has been totally ignored by the mainstream media, much like the heroic struggle of the tenants in Okara.

Despite a forty years struggle, the fate of the residents of Dera Saigol has not changed but they remain defiant and take immense pride in their past. Narratives of such grassroots struggles and the sacrifices made, remain missing from our history books. However, just because mainstream historians have ignored these accounts, it does not mean that struggles for a just world have not been carried out. The greatest challenge for those recording Pakistan's history is to unearth such movements which have given hope to many people. As they say, without knowing history, there can be no possibility of a better future.

Before going I spoke to someone -- a Briton -- who had been to Dhaka several times. He asked me if I had ever been to Bangladesh and I said no. He said I would find it quite nice and interesting, apparently not least because, as he put it, it was "nothing like Pakistan".

And he was right. First of all, the most obvious difference compared to Pakistan (given that Bangladesh is also predominantly Muslim) was that there were as many women walking the streets of business and commercial Dhaka as men. Yes, some had taken to covering their heads -- not a new phenomenon -- and some were also wearing a full-face covering naqab -- a new phenomenon -- but there were scores of women on the streets walking and going about their daily routines.

My small-ish hotel is in a street in one of Dhaka's more affluent neighbourhoods but I cannot hear any sound of an azan. Last evening I walked around for over three hours -- walking all the way to downtown Dhaka along busy bazaars and commercial districts as well as leafy residential areas but all along the way, I couldn't hear the azan at all. Compare this to Karachi, where in my apartment building alone -- and in Bath Island -- one can hear the azan from dozens of mosques; and these days naats and other devotional elegies as well.

English language learning and an 'American' education, like in Pakistan, are in hot demand in Dhaka as well. Close to my hotel I went past three 'universities' -- yes like their Pakistani counterparts they were also situated in basically houses -- all offering these and they were packed with students. I could tell because scores of students were waiting outside after their classes were over, waiting for a rickshaw to take them home or to a coffee shop.

Coming to rickshaws, Dhaka has apparently the world's highest concentration of human-driven rickshaws and apart from being cheap they are very environment-friendly as well. There are the conventional machine-driven rickshaws as well but they all run on CNG -- all of them, not like Karachi, where a small minority run on CNG.

The first conversation I had in Dhaka as I landed was with the sales rep of Banglalink (yes, apparently the company that owns Mobilink owns this Bangladeshi mobile operator as well) who upon finding out that I was from Pakistan asked me -- almost gleefully I thought -- about the Lahore incident. This was on the afternoon of March 30, the day when the police training institute in Manawan was attacked, and I had no idea what he was talking about -- but I asked him 'bomb?', 'attack' and he nodded and I got the drift. Forget our image in the west, even our eastern friends think only of bombs and attacks when Pakistan comes to their mind. Perhaps our passports should have a cover motif -- a bomb blast or a suicide vest? Something for the interior ministry -- which issues our passports -- to look into?

The first day of the conference was boring: the minister of finance came and as expected he almost put most of the people in the audience to sleep; of course before he did that, he took a nap himself, while a presentation was being made.

The day was, however, salvaged after a chance meeting with four medical students who were studying medicine in Dhaka and came from Kashmir. Azka, the most vocal among them said she was from Srinagar while one said she was from Kupwara and a third said she was from Batgam. For a Pakistani, these names are associated with what the 'Kashmir Media Service' in the PTV Khabarnama says encounters with 'mujahideen' and Indian security forces happen. The media was the focus of what she saying; that Indian television channels were saying that the Indian security forces do nothing while the Pakistani TV channels say that they do too much, with the truth or reality, according to her, somewhere in between. Asked what people in Kashmir wanted, she said people in "Occupied Kashmir" wanted independence and then either join Pakistan. Asked how many wanted the second option she said as many as 70 per cent (although it wasn't clear how she came up with this estimate).

As for herself, she said she considered herself a Kashmiri -- I had asked her whether she considered herself Indian or something else -- but also said that she wouldn't want to live in a country that was part of Pakistan because that kind of life would inevitably be worse than life in Kashmir under Indian control. She also said that Azad Kashmir as shown in the Indian media was a hell-hole. So it seems Doordarshan is busy doing with AJK what PTV does with Indian-administered Kashmir. Azka also said that there were television channels in Kashmir which wanted to show the reality but that they were closed down when they did that.

I then asked the students from Kashmir what was the sentiment in the Valley about Pakistan and what proportion of people there supported Pakistan and wanted Kashmir to become part of Pakistan. The answer sort of surprised me; they said that the old generation was mostly in favour but then also said that in their view around two-thirds of people wanted Kashmir to become part of Pakistan.

They said they have several relatives studying in Pakistan as well but they couldn't call them from Kashmir. They said the bus service from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad had caught on and they knew several people who had used it. I also wanted to check what was the status of people like Yasin Malik, who was lionised by PTV, and they said that he, like Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, had legendary status in Kashmir.

As for the militants -- or the mujahideen, if you will -- they said that they too were not all that welcomed by locals and that in most cases the latter had no choice but to give them shelter and other assistance.

Since the students were all girls, I also asked them whether there was any restriction on them in the way they dressed in public -- and while there wasn't any as such, they did say that the mode and manner in which women were dressing in Srinagar in public had become decidedly more orthodox with many more donning the hijab and/or naqab.

The writer is Editorial Pages Editor of The News.

Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk