Taal Matol
Obama Obama
By Shoaib Hashmi
From the general level of interest and enthusiasm, you would have thought it was a new president of our own taking the oath of office. But it wasn't. It was merely the new President of the United States, Barak Obama. The American Consul in Lahore had arranged a viewing session at his place, and he is a gregarious sort and has been around for some time, so half the town turned up.

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One without the other
Civil society in Pakistan receives military coups and martial laws with approval. Here's why
By Ameem Lutfi
Even before the newly elected democratic government had completed one year in power, the drawing rooms discussants started calling for a reversion to authoritarian rule. It was not that they called for a radical re-imagination of governing technologies; the idea of democracy has not been abandoned. The argument was that as the situation stands in Pakistan, democracy cannot work. With corruption ingrained in every level of the state bureaucracy, nationalist insurgencies in several parts of the country, full-fledged war being fought on one front and threat of another war on the other front and a drowning economy -- strong man rule must be called upon. Only a man with absolute command and unquestioned authority can bring the needed stability.

Whose land is it anyway?
Refusal of the NWFP and Balochistan governments to allot land to the military may well be the first step towards provincial autonomy
By Waqar Gillani
Pakistan Army came under fire for allotting land to civilians, especially politicians and bureaucrats in Punjab and NWFP in the year 2008. The new year dawned with a surprise move when the Balochistan and NWFP governments cancelled huge land allotments to the country's armed forces. The revenue ministers of the respective provinces told TNS that "this democratic step" was taken as a result of exercising provincial autonomy without worrying about the reaction from Islamabad.

RIPPLE EFFECT
The Taliban among us
By Omar R. Quraishi
Much is being said and written about the tyrannical Taliban rule in Swat. This newspaper has been inundated with letters from people who live there, who have lived there, who know people who live there and from people who know people who used to live there, on the terrible situation in the region.

Dr Abdus Salam is mainly known for three things – his nationality, his religion and that he won the prestigious Nobel Prize, albeit in the reverse order. What is generally not known about him is that he refused to surrender the nationality of a country that disowned him (Pakistan) and become an Italian citizen even after being requested by Rome (or refused to be buried outside the country that gave him birth), that for someone who is considered a non-Muslim it was the Quran and his faith in Allah (remember he was legally recognised as a Muslim until 1972 when he and his community woke up one fine morning to find that the parliament and the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government had legally changed their religion without asking them) that inspired him on a trail-blazing career in science, and that the Nobel Prize was just one of at least 16 globally prestigious science awards he won (see list in box) and for which he was feted far and wide except in his motherland.

Salam -- who should have been celebrated in Pakistan for his achievements for the country he remained loyal to until his last breath, rather than who his God was (who is the God of all) -- is that rare man of science who is judged primarily for his faith. And ironically while he had faith in both science and religion, his sadly numerous fellow-country detractors in Pakistan (he is pretty much universally acclaimed abroad) apparently have little faith in science or in the universal values of religion that assert countenance on the nature of goodness of man.

Salam was clear in his approach to science and how the Muslim world had an equal right, and responsibility, to pursue the discovery and understanding of the universe that God created. "Scientific thought is the common heritage of mankind," he declared, asserting that rationality is not the prerogative of any one single religion. He was also clear about how the generally scientifically-backward Muslim world should develop their strategies. "It is just impossible to talk only of technology transfer. One should talk of science transfer first and technology transfer later; unless you are very good at science you will never be good at technology." How smart! He was not your stereotype-steeped scientist either -- he appreciated the beauty of the nature of beauty. He had this to say about this: "Whenever faced with two competing theories for the same set of observations, I have always found that the theory, which was more aesthetically satisfying is also the correct one." Talk about finding faith in science!

While he did not wear his faith on his sleeve or make public pronouncements on religion despite the continuous negative references to his beliefs in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Ziaul Haq's Pakistan, Salam was clearly firm in his beliefs and managed to see the God of one and all, in science: "As a scientist, the Quran speaks to me in that it emphasizes reflection on the Laws of Nature, with examples drawn from cosmology, physics, biology and medicine, as signs for all men." The nearest a direct response on record to the questioning of his defence that he believed he was a Muslim, is this: "If you consider me to be a non-Muslim, so be it but permit me to lay a brick in the mosque you want to build."

Salam saw religion as integral to his scientific work. He wrote: "The Holy Quran enjoins us to reflect on the verities of Allah's created laws of nature; however, that our generation has been privileged to glimpse a part of His design is a bounty and a grace for which I render thanks with a humble heart." During his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Salam quoted the following verses from the Quran: "Thou see-est not, in creation of the all-merciful any imperfection. Return thy gaze, see-est thou any fissure? Then return thy gaze, again and again. Thy gaze comes back to thee dazzled, aweary." He then added: "This, in effect, is the faith of all physicists; the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement of our gaze."

To study in schools that did not even have tables and chairs, it is remarkable how Salam remained studious in boyhood and shone very quickly as a young man. He was phenomenally brilliant as a student. Says his biography: "When he cycled home from Lahore , at the age of 14, after gaining the highest marks ever recorded for the Matriculation Examination at the University of the Punjab, the whole [home]town Jhang  turned out to welcome him. His first paper was written as a student in this dusty but peaceful town [now, sadly, known for a less tolerant disposition] there in 1943 and concerned Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan – that brilliant sub-continental mathematician."

Pakistan's equally well-known, if not more – albeit much more loved – physicist is Dr Abdul Qadeer, who is considered the "Father of the [Pakistani nuclear] Bomb" and who is given credit for kickstarting the entire process of the country's nuclear programme. However, few know that during the early 1970s, much before he won his biggest prize that made him world famous, Salam played a key role in starting Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). In 1972 two theoretical physicists working at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Italy that he set up, were asked by Salam to report to the PAEC chairman and set up the Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) that went on to design Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The TPG, led by Dr Raziuddin Siddiqui, who was a student of Salam, completed work on the theoretical design of the bomb within five years. So how ironic that the "Islamic bomb" has a hand that was declared non-Muslim!

Salam was man of development and helped found and flourish major research and science development institutions. He helped set up Pakistan's Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco), of which he was the founding director. He was also behind setting up five Superior Science colleges throughout Pakistan. But his best known and widely acknowledged contribution is that he founded and served as director (1964-93) of the prestigious ICTP in Trieste, Italy. Salam also founded the Third World Academy of Sciences. In 1959, he became the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society (at that time) at the age of 33. The Italian government after his death renamed ICTP as the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Pakistan, of course, 'honoured' him by ignoring him altogether. In a country where roads, stadiums, centers and even cities are named after foreigners, the only instance of the state acknowledging its illustrious son was including him in a series of postage stamps bearing portraits of Pakistani scientists.

Salam was born on January 29, 1926 (he would have celebrated his 83rd birthday this week) and passed away at the age of 70 on November 21, 1996 in Oxford after a prolonged bout of illness. As per his will, his body was flown to Pakistan for burial. He was laid to rest in Rabwah. While 30,000 attended his funeral, there was no one representing either the state that he loved so much, the government or the scientific community that he helped so much, at his funeral. This man of science was buried without official protocol from the state, next to his parents' graves. The epitaph on his tomb initially read "First Muslim Nobel Laureate" but, because this state discriminates between its subjects on the basis of religion, as enshrined in the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a local magistrate ordered removed the word "Muslim" leaving the farcical citation "First Nobel Laureate". A state that puts no faith in science cannot advance – name one Muslim country known for its knowledge prowess or technological edge. The state of Pakistan may have refused to own this illustrious son of the soil as the world's first Muslim to win a Nobel prize in science but it is sad that it also refuses to honour him as the Muslim world's first Nobel prize winner.

- Hopkins Prize (Cambridge University) for "the most outstanding contribution to Physics during

1957-1958"

- Adams Prize (Cambridge University) (1958)

- First recipient of Maxwell Medal and Award (Physical Society, London) (1961)

- Hughes Medal (Royal Society, London) (1964)

- Atoms for Peace Medal and Award (Atoms for Peace Foundation) (1968)

- J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Medal and Prize (University of Miami) (1971)

- Guthrie Medal and Prize (1976)

- Matteuci Medal (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome) (1978)

- John Torrence Tate Medal (American Institute of Physics) (1978)

- Royal Medal (Royal Society, London) (1978)

- Nobel Prize for Physics (The Nobel Foundation) (1979)

- Einstein Medal (UNESCO, Paris) (1979)

- Shri R.D. Birla Award (India Physics Association) (1979)

- Josef Stefan Medal (Josef Stefan Institute, Ljublijana) (1980)

- Gold Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Physics (Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague)

(1981)

- Lomonosov Gold Medal (USSR Academy of Sciences) (1983)

- Copley Medal (Royal Society, London) (1990)

Eminent scholar and renowned archeologist Dr Ahmed Hassan Dani is not with us anymore. It only seems like yesterday when he blessed us with his company on a number of cultural caravans I organised for children in Islamabad to open their eyes to the cultural heritage of their city.

Dr Dani loved children, he had an innate ability to reach out to them and they too seemed to be absorbing everything the scholar had to tell them. He was always so full of life; when in a light mood, Dr Dani made them laugh yet enrich their knowledge about the history of heritage sites of Islamabad.

In 2006, during a cultural caravan to the the shrine of prominant sufi saint of Potohar, Barri Imam, he asked schoolchildren, "Do you know what 'Barri' means?" He informed them that it means 'forest,' since Barri Imam, who was born in 1617, lived for many years in the forests of Hazara and Margalla Hills, meditating. The word 'barri' is derived from the word, 'Barh' which in the local language means tree.

The children inquired about the main banyan tree and its importance. He told them that all Sufi shrines had an old banyan tree and the one at the shrine was perhaps over 800 years old. It was probably at the same time that a new design of the shrine was approved by the Capital Development Authority. The new design, being implemented now, was a colossal marble structure, a replica of Masjid-i-Nabvi without a sign of the old banyan when it was approved. It was this campaign through our cultural caravan blessed with Dr Dani's presence and letters that the CDA corrected this oversight, and now children will be able to see the old banyan. Sadly they are caged in the marble monstrosity that is coming up. Hardly a fitting tribute to a humble sufi saint who loved nature and as Dr Dani suggested any renovation that will remove this natural beauty from the shrine and replaces it with lifeless concrete will negate the philosophy of Sufism.

In 2007, Dr Dani accompanied us to the Buddhists caves also known as Shah Allah Ditta caves in Islamabad. One hour with him was enough to enrich children's minds about different cultures and religions. He would talk about Islamabad's Hindu past as well as Buddhist. He had a progressive and enlightened mind, his love of his subject especially Gandhara civilistation, of which he was a world renowned authority, came from a deep respect.

Although his short term memory had suffered with age it was amazing how accurate his long term memory was. Whatever information he would give to children would be exactly what he had written in the 1960's or 70's. He was our chief guest several times, whether it was for the opening of our special gallery for children or for the launch of my book, Glimpses into Islamabad's Soul'. He had a personality that one wanted to respect. It was his paper 'Islamabad and the Soan, The Golden River, story of the oldest living place in the world', which inspired me to photograph all the heritage sites of Islamabad he had mentioned and ultimately ended up producing the coffee table book.

But his work on the ancient Islamabad was only a small drop in the vast ocean of his work. From Taxila, to Swat, from Peshawar to the Northern areas, from Mohenjo daro to Rehman deri, his work will always be a guiding light for anyone interested in the rich heritage of Pakistan.

This precious heritage of Pakistan is slowly crumbling away, and while the militants are smashing the ancient sites in the area of the magnificent Gandhara region from Swat to Bajuar, the modern vandals of Islamabad are changing old heritage sites according to their tastes without even respecting a document called 'Antiquities Act of 1975'. Although the recent transformation of historical Saidpur village into a Tourist village, has been welcomed by many, even the most sopisticated and educated, the fact remains that the work on the over ninety year old Hindu temple and the adjoining buildings by the Capital Development Authority has resulted in violations of Article 20(1) of Antiquities Act :

The owner of a protected immovable antiquity shall not make any alteration or renovation in or addition to the antiquity.

Since the Federal Archaeology Department never declared the old buildings of Saidpur as protected and the CDA never bothered to get a No Objection Certificate, the CDA got away with destroying the history of this old village. In a letter written to the CDA Dr. Dani had recommended 'Preservaion' of the antiquities at Saidpur, but instead the CDA prefered changing its 'look' according to some photographs of villages in South of France. Here the cardinal rules of 'Preservation,' Conservation' and 'Restoration' have not been respected and respect for the 'heritage' of this village is missing. For those tourists coming for another food street in Islamabad, all the paint job & illuminations have 'glamourised' Saidpur and made it presentable for those who do not know better. However, for those who valued the 'Heritage' of Saidpur, and for future generations authentic cultural assets of Saidpur are lost forever under layers of concrete and paint job.

The preservation of cultural heritage reflects our identity, it establishes a link of our past with our present and future. Whether it is the hate-mongering militants or the modern protectors of heritage driven by commercialism, we as a nation stand like a million years old tree, cutting and severing its own roots. We look down upon our own history and heritage we have severed our link with our past. Who says only the religious fanatics are bigots, I have come across many Pakistanis for whom the 'multicultural' past is not important.

The religious hatred and modernity are imperilling our cultural legacy that goes back to 2.2 million years ago Palaeolithic age. We have witnessed the destruction of seventh-century Buddhist rock carvings in Swat, which the Islamists blew up in an attack? It now appears inevitable that in the process of the construction of the Basha-Diamer Dam, we will lose Diamer's natural galleries of rock carvings, a rich repertoire of petroglyphs celebrating the creativity of artists almost 10,000 years ago. Almost all the art works of these ancient artists of valleys of Hunza and Chilas will be flooded by the reservoir, and lost forever

As this vandalism goes on, how much do I wish to follow Dr Dani's footstep and photograph the ancient Gandhara sites in Swat and Dir he had documented. How much I want to preserve the petroglyphs in my camera he had written about in his publication 'Sacred Rock of Hunza'. Dr Dani was so fortunate he had seen better times. While Swat is bleeding, I can only dream of photographing the beauty that was Jehanabad Buddha.

Dr Dani's internationally acclaimed research will always remind us of who we are and where we came from.

I hope those children who were blessed with his company understand the value of people like him and his precious research. I hope they will not look down upon their own history and heritage and grow up respecting their past.

From the general level of interest and enthusiasm, you would have thought it was a new president of our own taking the oath of office. But it wasn't. It was merely the new President of the United States, Barak Obama. The American Consul in Lahore had arranged a viewing session at his place, and he is a gregarious sort and has been around for some time, so half the town turned up.

He had arranged TV sets in half a dozen rooms with nachos and other Mexican snacks, and everyone noticed that all the rooms had the same two pictures, of President Zardari and President George W. Bush on the walls. Of course with the brand new President still stumbling over the oath -- or was it the chief justice who was stumbling -- it was not yet time to change one of the pictures.

I bet the other half was sitting at home watching the same proceedings on the tube. There are about a hundred channels, some eighty of them news channels, and all of them had the same pictures, all a few seconds out of sync depending on how much time-delay they had. It was fun to surf the whole gamut seeing the same scene on all, except the occasional music channel who didn't give a darn about who was taking an oath and went on playing their dance sequences.

The truth is we really think the American people are only vaguely relevant, whose only importance is they are required to vote every four years. Actually the whole exercise is for our benefit. That's why for a year we have been hanging on to every word spoken by the candidates, speculating on its meaning, and ignoring everything except what they had to say about us.

We mostly ignored Mr Mcain, as we never thought he had a chance, but mostly as we thought he wasn't interested in us. Hillary Clinton we had known about for some years, she'd been here a couple of times, but mostly we were for Mr Obama. He was an outsider, he was black and his name contained the magic word Hussain even though he quickly dropped it. And we have always secretly felt his victory was our victory.

And that is why we have been following his prowess with a deep interest. And we scoured every word spoken at his inauguration, to find out what it boded for us. First we floated a rumour that President Zardari had been invited to the inaugural, until the State Department had to come up with the contention that no head of state had been invited. Then two things happened. First in his inaugural address he did mention he addressed the Muslim nations, and promised to look for new ways to deal with us!

And secondly he appointed Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of state, and one of her first acts was to call President Zardari. Of course she also called a dozen or so others, but we are free to assume the only call that mattered was to us! The next few weeks will show if the American President is elected solely for the benefit of us Lahoris!

Even before the newly elected democratic government had completed one year in power, the drawing rooms discussants started calling for a reversion to authoritarian rule. It was not that they called for a radical re-imagination of governing technologies; the idea of democracy has not been abandoned. The argument was that as the situation stands in Pakistan, democracy cannot work. With corruption ingrained in every level of the state bureaucracy, nationalist insurgencies in several parts of the country, full-fledged war being fought on one front and threat of another war on the other front and a drowning economy -- strong man rule must be called upon. Only a man with absolute command and unquestioned authority can bring the needed stability.

For any sensitive observer of Pakistani history, the civil citizenry's support of authoritarian rule would not be surprising. For the civil society in Pakistan to receive military coups and declarations of Martial Law with acceptance has become a norm. From Ayub Khan in 1958 to Yahya Khan to Zia to Pervez Musharraf, the civil society has welcomed all military rulers with mild approval at the least.

Observing this relationship between the civil society and authoritarian rule is easy but this observation alone does not reveal much. What is needed, and I would try to at least initiate in this article, is a discussion on the theorisation of this relationship; to understand the roots and reasons behind this relation.

For a traditional Marxist critic still working with class-based binaries, the explanation is somewhat straightforward: The civil society's (aka bourgeois society) interests are best protected by a military dictator or someone who does not represent the impoverished majority. This claim does have some truth to it; in the elongated periods of military rule the bourgeois society has flourished. During Ayub Khan's rule, the exemplary industrial growth went alongside the concentration of wealth in the top one percent of the population (remember the notorious 22 families?) During Musharraf's nine years in command the corporate and industrial sector flourished as a result of the growth in investor confidence.

What traditional theory does not explain is the reason behind this growth in investor confidence. Democratic governments in Pakistan have never really presented an anti-capitalist revolutionary model. With the exception of Bhutto during his nationalisation phase, democratic heads have never really deliberately sought to work against the bourgeoisie class interests. Why then does the civil society ever so often turn towards this state of suspended law? If anything, according to conventional wisdom, the civil society with its belief in the supremacy of the law and state systems should be strongly opposed to a state that poses itself as above the law. How can we then rationalise the civil society's love of state of suspended law or state of exception?

Before embarking on this project, let me clarify what makes this state of martial law 'exceptional'. Famous historian Hamza Alavi in his essay "Authoritarianism and legitimating of the state power in Pakistan" talks about the relationship between the state of Martial Law in Pakistan and Law: "The point about martial law is that it is arbitrary 'law', indeed a negation of the rule of law that enables those in authority to act without constitutional or legal constraints." This does not mean that martial law, a state without 'legal constraint', represents a state of anomie or lawlessness. For the people of Pakistan, who have experienced such a state for year after year, they would know that at an experiential level martial law represent a state of hyper-law. Yet this kind of state system comes into power, as Alavi points out, by a suspension of 'normal' laws. But, even though it suspends the law, it does look to align itself with 'law' by anomalies such as the PCO. So, this state of martial law is tied in an uneasy relationship with law by virtue of being both within it and outside of it, or as the social theorist Giorgio Agamben argues "legal form that cannot have a legal form with juridical measures that cannot be understood in legal terms."

Agamben in his work offers us a very interesting reading of this paradoxical state. He traces the relationship between civil society and this state of suspended law back to the point of inception of modern rational state, the French declaration of human right. He argues that since that point in time the raison d'être of the modern state came to be to protect the natural life of the population. As a result, all other requirements (such as democracy) of a modern rational state could be jumped over in case of threat to bare life. Hence, when a situation arises in which it is felt that the democratic system and the charter of human rights themselves provide hindrance to the ultimate goal of the state; the sovereign (who in the case of Pakistan happens to be the military heads) decides to suspend law and create a State of Exception.

If Agamben's argument is accepted, then it seems that "the state of exception" is neither an aberration in the liberal state model nor is it contingently related to it; rather this form of "in-between state" roots from the heart of modern enlightenment thought. The civil society and the state of exception can then be said to be connected at their very roots. Agamben's argument is contingent on the idea that the threat to life triggers the civil society's support for suspended law state. This analysis cannot by itself explain Pakistan's civil society's advocacy of military rule or special rule. Life itself was not at risk at the four instances military rulers took the 'throne'. Perhaps, the answer to the question should be looked in the particular historical 'anti-political' development in Pakistan rather than in high theory. Due to lack of space, a detailed analysis of this development will have to be left for a latter effort.

It's been almost a week since Muhammad Najeeb, a dear friend, a thorough journalist and a civil society activist left us. Najeeb's untimely death has been an irreparable loss for his friends in the media and development sector. "It is hard to believe for his friends in Karachi and other parts of the country that Najeeb is no more. He has left all of us shattered," says Abbas Rizvi, the New Editor of The News, Karachi.

During the past 20 years since I knew him, Najeeb outshone many of his contemporaries as a mainstream journalist, writer, editor and then as head of a media development organisation. He joined The News in its initial days where in the words of Shaheena Maqbool it was "his ready wit, encyclopaedic knowledge, grace of expression and gentle demeanour", that endeared him in the newsroom. He left the publication as its News Editor and later he served at NNI as Editor till 2000.

After joining Intermedia in 2005 as its founding Executive Director, he lived upto his ambition to strengthen journalists' faith in their craft. After quitting the profession, which he would smilingly term as "betraying", he never lost hopes for making things better. A self-taught person in the field, Najeeb was fully alive to the need of institutionalised training facilities for journalists in Pakistan. As Adnan Rehmat, country director Internews Network, says: "Najeeb, a friend, colleague and crusader for professionalism in the media in Pakistan, was many things: professional, honest, upright, friendly, facilitator, mentor, and much more. He worked long hours, trying to introduce reforms at the entry, policy and institutional levels. He would individually mobilize media persons and try to coax seniors to train the younger lot. The one thing in his company you couldn't do was being depressed. His robust sense of humour, his ready wit, his rip-roaring laughter and his pre-disposition for ready, jolly company endeared him to all."

His intelligent approach and firm conviction would leave no option for the donors but to work on his plans for media development in Pakistan. His announcement of the first ever Safe Motherhood Award for the print and electronic media journalists shows his commitment to acknowledge the work of the journalists. His concerns about the safety of journalists at work led him to train Afghan and Pakistani journalists for a first ever training on "Conflict Reporting" and a study tour to Britain and Sri Lanka.

Fully aware of the sensitive nature of journalists, he was too meticulous in attending to the details about the needs of participants of workshops. Last year, we were together in London for work. While we had to return to Pakistan, Najeeb had to go to the US to see his brother. Because he had to leave early morning, he went from room to room just to say good-bye to each participant.

It was the charisma of his personality that everybody, with whom he worked or interacted once, considered him his best friend. His e-condolence book is just a little testimony to the love and affection people showered on him.

While visiting any city here or abroad, he would always take out time to buy nice gifts for his wife or the kids. It was in London that one day at the breakfast table, he came holding his laptop. He told me that he was showing his son Saad the whole institute where the training was conducted, through the webcam. No matter where he was, he kept a close liaison with his office colleagues like the head of a well-knit extended family. He also expressed the desire to establish a media training institute and later converting it into a media university for budding journalists.

While glancing through the 21 years of his career, it seems as if he always treaded new paths and conquered new horizons. A heart-broken Adnan Rehmat said after his funeral: "The government has recently established this new graveyard in Islamabad. How could our friend be one of the first ones here?"

Najeeb once said: "A journalist should not bring emotion if he wants to write a good story." But Najeeb you never trained us how to write an obituary and that is of a dear friend, without being emotional.

sheheronline@hotmail.com

Whose land is it anyway?

Pakistan Army came under fire for allotting land to civilians, especially politicians and bureaucrats in Punjab and NWFP in the year 2008. The new year dawned with a surprise move when the Balochistan and NWFP governments cancelled huge land allotments to the country's armed forces. The revenue ministers of the respective provinces told TNS that "this democratic step" was taken as a result of exercising provincial autonomy without worrying about the reaction from Islamabad.

On Jan 12, 2009, the Balochistan cabinet approved the cancellation of 63,000 acres of land in District Lasbela. The following day, NWFP Assembly resolved to cancel the already allotted 3,759 acres in District Nowshehra. The forces required both pieces of land for setting up firing ranges. The Balochistan cabinet also cancelled the agreement to allot 63,000 acres in Hingol Park area to Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and instead decided to construct a dam there. The area lies in the constituency of Balochistan Assembly Speaker Muhammad Aslam Bhootani, who welcomed the decision.

"The decision is a precedent, a step towards exercising provincial autonomy in the interest of the people of the province," engineer Zamarak Khan, Balochistan minister for Board of Revenue, told TNS. "PAF offered the previous government a rate of Rs600 per acre for the land. When the government demanded Rs10,000 per acre, PAF did not accept it," he added. "PAF was temporarily allowed to use the land as firing range." The Hingol Park area, he added, was being used to protect wildlife and other different purposes including agriculture. "The new cabinet unanimously opposed this allotment and Chief Minister Nawab Muhammad Aslam Khan Raisani also supported the cabinet's decision. People of Balochistan have also objected to this allotment." He claimed that armed forces were already using huge area in the same district for other purposes including a firing range. "We want full provincial autonomy without bothering about what centre thinks about it," he expressed.

Habib ur Rehman Tanoli, NWFP minister for revenue, told TNS that the plan was to allot some 3,375 to 3,750 acres to Pakistan Army in Nowshehra where they already have a firing range. The revenue department issued a notification allotting the land to army under Section 4 of Land Requisition Act. "But now we have de-notified this allotment. We and the people of the area have remonstrated against this deal." He clarified that the said land was fertile and being used for agricultural purposes.

"Both opposition and treasury benches opposed this allotment and on Jan 13 lawmakers unanimously opposed the army's plan to acquire this land," he said. Tanoli revealed that the army already possesses as much as 25,000 acres in NWFP, mostly in district Nowshehra. He added that the people of Manki Sharif, Marajay Bahadar Khel, Shailkey etc did not approve of this plan either. MPA from Noshera, Baseer Ahmed, also took a stand on the floor objecting that the land is fertile with a number of products like orange, plum, lemon and apricot besides wheat, maize and other crops. The irrigation ministry opposed setting up firing range on cultivated land at the cost of people's livelihood.

Tanoli termed these two examples of refusing land to the army "healthy and legal." But he also admitted that the army is not being totally refused. "We will offer and arrange barren land as substitute for the army firing range soon," he concluded.

When TNS sought the comment of the spokesperson of the president, Farhatullah Babar, he expressed his ignorance over the matter. He said that he could not comment on the situation unless and until he confirms it himself. "As far as I know, the dispute was not the refusal of land to the army but the allotment of army land to civilians." He further said that Pakistan Army now has denotified that allotment to civilians in Dera Ismail Khan. Commenting on the execution of provincial autonomy he said that it is the provinces' right to take decisions in matter falling in their jurisdiction. "We are for greater provincial autonomy and that is why PPP has proposed a bill on provincial autonomy." He informed that the copy of the proposed bill has also been circulated among other political parties with the purpose that provinces get more autonomy with the abolishment of the concurrent list.

Director General Inter Services Public Relations (DG-ISPR) Major General Athar Abbas refused to comment on the issues in detail: "PAF has taken up the Balochistan issue already. Your further questions will be forwarded to the concerned department of the army."

IA Rehman, director Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said that there is no need to pretend that this issue was "sensitive" because this was just a business deal and nothing else. It is the provinces' right to cancel a deal if they are not offered the demanded price or believe the land can be put to better use.

In 2008, NWFP expressed reservation over the allotment of army land to civilians and politicians in Dera Ismail Khan. The land was reportedly allotted to Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam, his aides and relatives. The new Punjab government, headed by Shahbaz Sharif, has also raised objection on the allotment of land by the military to bureaucrats and certain government officials. The Punjab government, after a detailed inquiry, has questioned Pakistan military on the issue and written to the federal government to take strict disciplinary action against the 'rewarded' officials.

Much is being said and written about the tyrannical Taliban rule in Swat. This newspaper has been inundated with letters from people who live there, who have lived there, who know people who live there and from people who know people who used to live there, on the terrible situation in the region.

Understandably, many of the letter-writers are angry and frustrated. Frustrated at the promises of the government and angered at what many say is clear complicity by some institutions of the state in the violence wreaked by the Taliban. They quote information minister Sherry Rehman's recent remarks to the press including a statement to the effect that the government will not allow the Taliban to stop girls from going to school. Also just today (this column was written on Jan 28) we received a furious letter from a resident of Peshawar who had written in response to a statement by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani that his government would not allow Taliban courts in Swat. In all such letters the writers point out that the ministers and the prime minister better start doing something concrete and refrain from statements which don't make sense. After all, they rightly argue, it's not like the Taliban are asking for the government's permission to set up 'Taliban courts.'

We have also received a number of letters from people who question the strategy, or the lack of it, adopted by the military in its operations in Swat. One correspondent said that the case of Pir Samiullah aptly illustrated what many people thought: the Taliban and the ISI are two sides of the same coin. After all, it was not too long ago that the Taliban were used as proxies by the military establishment as part of the controversial and often-discredited doctrine of strategic depth, vis-à-vis Afghanistan. The correspondent – and one cannot but agree with his assessment – saw similarities between what the Taliban did in Afghanistan in the 1990s and what the Swat Taliban are doing now: banning female education, stopping them from leaving the home without a burqa and a male family member, killing and/or maiming nationalist and secular elements, attacking the state's physical infrastructure and so on. The correspondent argued that there must be some level of tacit complicity between the Taliban and their former(?) handlers.

Obviously, no proof can be given for this by a laypersons other than circumstantial evidence like how come the Taliban kidnap, kill, behead and then hang dead bodies in Swat overnight during a night curfew? Or that how can a few thousand Taliban control a region with such impunity despite the presence of four brigades of the powerful Pakistan Army? In this context, one correspondent letter-writer wrote that he asked a serving army major why the military did not come to the aid of civilians being targeted by the militants. He was informed that the military's strategy was to target terrorist/militant hideouts only on explicit orders.

Then there are those who criticise the general public and particularly the religious leaders for not speaking against Taliban atrocities. In this regard, I would like to quote Waleed Khan, resident of Peshawar, whose letter was published in this newspaper on Jan 28. He wrote: "There are many people who expect our religious leaders to condemn the Taliban and their brutalities. But they ignore the fact that this will be difficult for the ulema because the Taliban are their own people. And lest I be accused of giving a bad name to our religious leaders, please read the following facts. Sufi Mohammad of the TNSM was initially a member of the JI, which he left to start the TNSM. Similarly Haroon Rasheed (a JI MNA from Bajaur Agency) resigned after a seminary of his friend Maulana Faqir Muhammad of the TTP was bombed. The madrassah was allegedly training teenagers to become suicide bombers.

"Previously whenever a rift would happen in the Taliban ranks in South or North Waziristan, JUI leaders would play a role in bringing about reconciliation – this is a matter of public record. Also, it is known that Hafiz Saeed of the now-banned JuD played a role in settling an intra-Taliban dispute in Mohmand Agency. Our religious parties do not want the Taliban to be weakened, for in them they find their best allies. To expect them to condemn them is to expect too much."

The examples drive home the point that as far as ideology is concerned there isn't much that separates most of our mainstream religious parties from the Taliban. Both want the imposition of Sharia, or at least their version of it, and both do not hesitate from using force to shove their rigid interpretation of faith on the rest of the population. The extent to which their tactics are successful depends where they operate – and hence in a place like Lahore or Karachi, they don't meet with much success, i.e. the religious parties. In Lahore and in Karachi, nonetheless, there are many people – not even members of religious parties – who agree in principle and ideologically with what the Taliban want. They may disagree with the tactics being used but how many ordinary Pakistanis have spoken out unequivocally against suicide bombings or even against the atrocities being committed in Swat or parts of FATA on a daily basis by the extremists?

Does that mean that the bulk of ordinary Pakistanis are just plain lazy and don't care what happens in the rest of the country. Or perhaps that they are too busy trying to make ends meet and feed their families. Or is it that they secretly sympathise with the Taliban, given the way the latter couch their so-called 'struggle' i.e. to impose Islamic rule. If there are indeed many among us who agree and sympathise with the Taliban and their desire to impose Islamic rule then the Taliban may be far stronger than we think.