Afghan Press Author: Rooh-ul-Amin

The Muslims and Hindus lived for at least 850-year together in India but without overt enmity, oppression and violence.

Indeed the Hindus looked towards the Muslims as aliens and invaders but preferred them to the British. Both the cow-eaters and the cow-worshippers fought combined against the British Raj. Consequently they succeeded in expelling the Britishers from this land of odd traditions. But the colonial power shattered the frayed unity of both the Muslims and Hindus by unjust distribution of assets, keeping Kashmir unsolved. And the issue still is a bone between the two dogs–here the word dog must not be taken for disgrace and contempt rather for instance. Both the countries chalked out their foreign policies on hostile lines. Since then the enmity has mounted many times. Today, Pakistan is more religiously intolerant than was achieved. Same is the case of India. The purported and self-styled religious clerics in both the countries have dripped the venom of hatred so much that the two–Muslims and Hindus stand poles apart. Here is the need to rewrite the foreign policies in the two countries. It is needed to expurgate the textbooks in both the countries that teach the language of hate and sentimentality.

Pick any book from Pakistani institutions and you will see what is wrong with. And pick any book from Indian state sponsored educational institutions and you will see how its nascent buds are taught and an anti-Pakistani secret message. As both the countries are developing where most of the people cannot go higher than graduation and they don’t know the hidden hands behind their curricula which try to mould their mind set in the way as the hidden hands want. What is that hidden hand? It is the elite class which has been using and exploiting the masses. It sends their children to Europe and American, who has the right to know, to mould and to rule. It is the same hidden hand, which has divided the Muslims and Hindus in South Asia.

There are more than 38 illegal FM channels in Pakistan wherefrom the religious clerics teaches its followers the language of abhorrence, hatred and sectarianism. And they don’t talk much about India but its own Muslims in Pakistan to be tortured and killed. Then who poses a serious threat to Pakistan. For me these stations, its runners and the self-styled Taliban have been posing a serious threat to the masses of Pakistan than India. In 1965 Pak-India war the death toll was nearly four thousand and causalities were less than unleashed in the current wave of terrorism. If we compare the loss of lives and causalities inflected on the masses from these terrorists is four times greater than that. Then why not to call them a threat?

If India attacks, let suppose, and most of the intellectuals believe it will never attack, but we would be united and will fight it with unity. And the enemy would be obvious and opposite. But in case of Taliban–or homegrown enemies, they are carrying out bomb explosions, killing the innocent and down to earth natured poor people, and persecuting but without declared war. It is an enemy in dark. Who carried out more than 17 suicide attacks only in Swat during the past year?

Who masterminded and carried out no less than 70 remote-control bomb explosions in Swat? Who razed 122 schools to earth and colleges including 84 girls’ institutions? More than 18 bridges have been damaged but who is behind it? More than 12 police stations have been assaulted and damaged but can any one explain who, by whom and why? Who kidnapped more than 68 security personal personnel during the past year? Who invoked to the military operation in Swat, which resulted at the destruction of hundreds of houses, and migration of more than 50,0000 people from the area? The terrorist or India? Only one masjid (Babri Masjid) was demolished in India and that shook not only Pakistanis but also the entire Islamic world but more than 40 masajid have been destroyed but went unsung. It is either because of the fear of the Taliban or because it is all done in the name of religion. But the fear of Taliban rules only in tribal belt and NWFP but why the rest of Pakistanis preferred for silence. As a journalist one cannot put life at stake for candid reporting from FATA and Swat. By now three journalists had to wash their hands of their lives in Swat. Who has banned the polio vaccination in the remote areas of NWFP and tribal agencies? And why to sharpen our teeth and show honed jaws to Indians. The word Indians must be taken in broader context contrary to BJP, VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal’s definition. Such Indianism comes under the definition of Hindutva-fascism. To all these questions the answer is not India. Then why to blame India? That is very easy to blame others for one’s own faults and lapses. Unfortunately the government officials and the politicians are already addicted to it instead seeking ways and means for solutions. And always they are at it to exonerate themselves, which indeed is not the solution. We have a proverb in Pushto, “che ghal de da kora we no mela ba de spora we”. It can be taken in English; “an in-home thief /enemy is sufficient for your destruction”. When we have an enemy in home there is no need to have from outside. And the statement of Tehreek-e-Taliban and other militant outfits is beyond understanding and is really ridiculous. According to these outfits they are as patriotic as the rest of Pakistanis and if India attacks they will fight them abreast with Pakistani forces. Is it not their insanity? If they are so patriotic then why they have set their home ablaze?

We must put our home aright than to blame others. India is not that much a threat as these miscreants who have unleashed a reign of terror specifically in FATA.

This all is carried out under the nose of the establishment. The government in NWFP has coined an attractive but lethal excuse that FATA is not a part of the province.

We have been hearing this excuse since long and the federal is also escapist on this issue. Escapism and allegationism are tools, which have been in use, but the terror and the military operation in Swat is enough to be an eye-opener fact. Ask any Swati about the Taliban and abruptly he will start cursing the government and abusing Taliban. Have you ever seen a human yoked for plowing fields instead ox or heard a story. If not, you can see and hear the story in FATA.you must have seen or heared about the stories about hurling acid at the faces of schoolgirls but must have not seen or heard about yoking and plowing by men.

This trangression against the mild and lenient laws of mild and true Islam. And such acts of bleak barbarism have defaced the true picture of religion.

It is also unripe and misleading to allege India for all the chaos in FATA. Even, if it is accepted then comes the question that who is behind the terror game in valley Swat. Because it has no direct frontiers with any neighbouring countries and it is not a part of FATA–an area that is being considered in Pakistan, as unruly but is an area, which comes under the control of provincial government. Then wherefrom Swat (once the Switzerland of Pakistan and one of the favourite tourists spot) is receiving aid in money and weapons? Why the state agencies have not traced out the hands behind it. Or they know it but deliberately look the other way. If that is so, then the masses have the right to know the expediency of the government in it. Since 2002 more than 700 terrorists have been handed over to foreigners and more than 3000 have been put behind the bars but none of them were dragged into the law courts. And none of them were proven guilty and punished. Had the governments in Pakistan done so, it would have discouraged the rest of terrorists and would have overcome the sagging confidence of the masses. No nabbed terrorist has been shown on media punished for his or her crimes but we hear news-statements just about figures. No journalist knows about the sequel of the detainees. In return the outcome is doubt from the masses.

A few days back I had a chance to hear Voice of America and heard the comments of different callers from across the Pakistan especially NWFP.

Ignorance, religious and anti-Hindu sentimentalities gushed out of their mouths. And same is the attitude of those Indians who can be kept under the catagory of haves not. They are the selfsame emblem of religious intolerance, ignorance, hatred and anti-Pakistan sentiments. Here ignorance does not mean the lack of education but the famine of well and timely thinking. Their sentimentalities don’t go with the trend of the times as of the Taliban in Pakistan. The political classes in both the countries know very well that there is no enmity between the two states at all and when they meet in foreign, they meet like friends. Even there is a rumour that some of the political elites from India and Pakistan have combined businesses in foreign countries. If the rumour is true then why this duplicity? Is it not a deadly and contemptuous game against the poor people of the two countries?

But this is all done under the cloak of jingoism, nationalism and patriotism. And it is all done from elite but for misleading the masses. The day when the masses will realise that it is all a game, will they allow their politicians and governments to allocate a huge portion of its fiscal budgets for defence. Will they allow a third world country like Pakistan, where the 40 percent people live under the poverty line to construct new general head quarter (GHQ) in Islamabad. It requires more than 70 billion rupees ( Pakistani currency). Is it fair and just to builed it at the cost of poverty, low literacy rate and militancy in a country where the poor are committing suicides because of searing poverty. A few years back 23 percent people in Pakistan were below poverty line while in India the ratio was 40 percent. Today the order is totally opposite.

The new GHQ in Islamabad would be constructed on the design of the five-sided building of Pentagon. For that purpose 1400 acres of land has been allotted which is phase-III of Defence Complex project. It is appreciable that General Ishfaq Pervaiz Kiani has ordered to stop its construction because of global recession. Here it must not be construe that we must not be strong in defence but at least those who chalked out the project must have taken the poor into consideration. India also has the same mentality and allocating huge defence budget for its military adventurism. It is doing it under the pretext of bolstering its defence but like Pakistan at the cost of poverty and religio-perversion of its masses.

It woul also be better to concentrate on the in-home enemy for it has demonised Pakistan among world communities as a plague spot. And it is necessary to change the militant psyche of general public into a moderate and tolerant one. It requires a long and steady efforts to mittigate it. India also has to do the same if it wants peace in the region. If the Muslims and Hindus could live in past as a nation for centuries with out violence and antagonism at least they can live as peaceful neighbours for millenia in future.

With that ther is growing need to re-write foreign policies in the two states with the ink of not only tolerance but sympathy on the paper of devotion, wherein there is no hint of hatred. And that is it.

The writer is FATA-based freelance journalist.