Archive for February, 2012

Dr. Manzer Durrani

Hit parade: Lt Hercharn Singh does a guard of honour

EXCLUSIVE: PAKISTAN ARMY – HINDUS & SIKHS

The First-Timers

The Pak army is a no-go zone. Outlook peeks into what it means to be outside the faith here.

In the picturesque region of Kakul, Abbotabad, in the North West Frontier Province, stands the quaint colonial building of the PMA, the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy. This is the land that shares, with the rest of Pakistan, the phenomenon of the Taliban striving to squash the remaining semblances of religious tolerance. So I’m consequently surprised to hear about a scene the PMA witnessed two years ago—as the sound of azaan echoed in the PMA, a cadet in his room rolled out the prayer mat facing west. Lt Hercharn Singh, the Pak army’s first Sikh officer, was even chosen for guard duty at Jinnah’s mausoleum. Aspires to become a brigadier. His mate, however, turned to his own sacred corner, where there were gathered symbols of the Sikh religion. Their prayers over, they returned to their chores, oblivious to the history they had created. It wasn’t that the PMA proscribed other forms of worship; there simply hadn’t been a Sikh cadet till then.

Narrating this story is Hercharn Singh, Pakistan’s first Sikh officer and a symbol of the changing face of its army. Now 23, dressed in a smart khaki uniform and sporting a solitary star on his shoulder, Lieutenant Singh and I are sitting in the posh Officers’ Mess of Malir cantonment, Karachi. Providing us company are Capt Danish in his Rangers uniform and Capt Aneel Kumar, both Hindu and doctors at the Combined Military Hospital. Capt Danish (who says he’s just Danish) is considered the first Hindu officer of the army.

MASH patrol: Capt Aneel Kumar (left) and Capt Danish

As we talk, they display some sense of occasion, listening in rapt attention to the experiences of each other in the army. Says Singh about his PMA days, “At times, I used to wonder where I had landed myself. I stood out like a sore thumb, many of the cadets had never seen a Sikh in the flesh. I had a tough time because of my appearance.

Capt Danish is a Hindu doctor from Tharparkar district who has served in the Wana tribal area. The others—Hindu and Christian—at least look like ‘ordinary’ cadets.”

For nearly two years now, Outlook has been seeking access to Singh and the two Hindu officers. It took months of persistent lobbying by the Inter Services Public Relations director-general, Gen Athar Abbas, before the army agreed to allow an Indian publication to interview the three officers. As Col Atif coordinated to fly me to Karachi last week, new obstacles kept surfacing. Lt Col Idrees Malik had to implore his superiors to grant permission for Singh to miss a day’s class of the course he’s taking, and bring Capt Danish from interior Sindh.

At the officers’ mess, amidst smiles and a display of palpable pride, Singh begins his story from the day his romance sparked with the Pakistan army. Like all such stories, it was ignited with a chance glimpse and an irrepressible tug at the heartstrings. It was nearly three years ago, and he and his friends had decided to apply to the prestigious National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore. On the way, they passed an army recruitment centre. Something about it spoke to him, perhaps. “But no one had any idea of a Sikh being allowed entry into Pakistan’s military institutions,” Singh recalls.

Singh got admission to the NCA but he decided to visit the recruitment centre to make inquiries. When told the law didn’t proscribe Sikhs from the army, he promptly submitted an application, apparently arousing curiosity at the centre even then about the “Sikh who wants to join the army”. Capt Aneel Kumar, a doctor at the Combined Military Hospital, says his Hindu family had no idea what the army was like.

He was selected, in the process grabbing headlines countrywide. But his family was opposed to him joining the army, the elders wanting him to head the business of his deceased father. And then there was Singh’s mother who believed a career in the army would shame the family. Shame? “All our lives our community had been ridiculed. Especially in the electronic media where Sikhs were portrayed as drunks, womanisers and villains. My mother said that I wouldn’t be respected and this would bring shame to the family.”

At the PMA, the callow, sensitive Sardarji was baffled by some insensitive souls asking him to convert to Islam. “I wondered what kind of people are these who are not happy with the way I am, who offered to convert me. I didn’t mind jokes about Sikhs because these are so common,” he says wryly. But at Kakul, with young cadets and their irritating inquisitiveness, it took some chutzpah to ensure his religion or culture was not compromised. But he had his sergeant on his side. As Singh puts it, “My sergeant told me I was free to follow my religion and that everything would be done to make me comfortable.”

Singh now did two things—he told his room-mate if they had to share a room they must show tolerance for each other’s religious codes of living; his second act was daring and sagacious. He approached the commandant to make a presentation about his faith. “With the help of a documentary from the Golden Temple and my own literature I gave a presentation about the Sikh religion and culture. I explained why I looked the way I did, the symbols of faith a Sikh is never found without. Then I asked for questions,” says Singh, bubbling with confidence. “In the next two years at the PMA, no questions were asked.”

But Singh’s glory days didn’t end at the PMA. His excellent drill at Kakul prompted the army to choose him for guard duty at the Quaid-e-Azam Mazar, or the mausoleum of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. “I couldn’t believe it, no Sikh here could even imagine such a thing.” In these days of jehadi intolerance, a new chapter had opened. Of course, it was also a huge PR win-win situation, his duty at the mausoleum invited international media attention, and his family was flooded with calls from Sikhs the world over.

The induction of Singh, Danish and Aneel marks a revolutionary change for the Pakistan army, but then it poses new challenges too. The sheer enormity of this change can be gleaned from a reading of Dr Aneela Zeb Babar’s Texts of War: The Religio-Military Nexus in Pakistan and India. She writes, “In Pakistan, the military officer is not just a professional. Placed on a pedestal, he is glorified as a hero. The public feels he is performing his religious duty…. All advertisements for recruitment in the Pakistan military and all publicity material start with Quranic verses.” Dr Babar quotes junior Muslim officers describing their motivational lectures, “We are taught that in the Quran one Muslim is equal to 10 kafirs and after every lecture, slogans praising God and caliph Ali are raised.” Will the trio’s induction prompt a change now in the army’s ethos, perhaps a dilution of its Islamic orientation or at least some understanding of those officers who belong to minority communities.

Perhaps this is already happening—the three non-Muslim officers, like most others here, wear their religion on their sleeves with a confidence quite remarkable for their age and ambience. Both Danish and Aneel testify to this. “We are very comfortable with our Hindu faith. We too had been assured by the sergeant (during their training) that we were free to worship as we wanted and if there was any way he could help, we shouldn’t hesitate to come to him.” Danish, incidentally, hails from the remote poverty-stricken Tharparkar, and graduated as a doctor before he saw an advertisement for a post in the army. He applied without taking his family into confidence and was selected. “Initially, there were constraints…about how a Hindu could fit in the army but today they are proud of me and I have even been sent to Wana (a tribal area) to deal with patients there. It was a very different experience. The place and people were so different from the desert of Sindh,” he says.

Aneel, who belongs to Hyderabad, says the army’s ignorance about religions other than Islam is matched by the Hindu community’s sketchy knowledge about cantonment life. “People from my community had earlier interacted only with the police…we had no idea what the army was like,” admits Aneel, even as he expresses hope that youth from his community would see Danish and him as role models and strive to join the officer cadre. Singh, however, doubts whether many Sikhs would join the army, largely because his community is engaged in business with their counterparts in India. Army officers who have relatives doing business with Indians would be a major problem, Singh declares.

For Sikhs at least, an army career marks a snapping of the umbilical cord tying them to religious places in India. Singh, for instance, has given up on his dream of visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar. “I am a Pakistani army officer now and I can’t even think of performing my religious duties in India. Even my mother will not be allowed to go, with a son in the army,” he laments.

So what do these three officers think of Pakistan going to war in the future? They reply in unison, “We are now a nuclear power. Besides, there are so many internal threats.” I ask them the question which most insular Pakistanis harbour in their hearts: would they be willing to kill others of their faith in a war? Danish replies, “Of course, we will or else we will be killed. Even our mothers will not ask us why we fired, they will just be glad that we survived.”

Both Danish and Anil don’t nurture lofty ambitions, hoping to negotiate one step at a time in the army. What about Singh? “Well, I have set my sight on wearing red pips, that is become a brigadier,” he says. When I tell him that army rules don’t debar him from the rank of Chief of Army Staff, his eyes glitter and a smile lights up his face.

Courtesy: OUTLOOK – INDIA

Reference

Dr. Manzer Durrani

PAKISTAN THINK TANK COMMENTARY BY KHURRAM SHAIKH

“Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure”– Abraham Lincoln

The septic regime of Zardari is utilizing corrupt journalists and media men to bash Pakistan Armed Forces. The Armed Forces Bashing “Dengue” has become highly contagious, because, it is being used as a means to attract wider audience in viewing and readership.

Journalists in Pakistan have a poor reputation. Although, leaving aside, Dr.Shahid Masood, Talat Hussian, Fahd Hussain, Kamran Khan, Dr.Moeed Pirzada, Kamran Shahid. and a handful of others, most are vulnerable to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. These days, a few countries have opened their deep pockets to feed the journalistic carrions in Pakistan. These journalistic prostitutes will sell their body and soul to the highest bidder. Recently, a ranting and raving so called rotund so called senior journalistic “hack,” let loose a barrage of filthy oral sewage loaded language against Ahmed Noorani, a Jang reporter. This was no surprise. Most of these journalistic hacks are in the “Amen,” corner of foreign agencies, who keep their wallets lined with dollars and pounds. For example, Nazir Naji, a corrupt to the core hack, acts as if he is the Yoda of Pakistan. Pakistan Army bashing has become a fashion and a mark of intellectual prowess.

Pakistan Armed Forces are acting impotent in front of such harsh and gratuitious journalistic treason. The inept silence of armed forces leadership can be blamed on the top. Gen.Kayani has shown lack of resolve to protect the reputation of Pakistan Army. Both, Gen.Kayani and Shuja Pasha are in awe of Uncle Sam and its minion. This has created tremendous resentment in the rank and file of soldiers, sailors, and airmen.

Pakistani people must wake up fom their somnolence, the nation’s defence establishment is being deliberately targeted from within by columnists, like Ayaz Amir, Nazir Naji, and Imtiaz Alam. These men have a vendetta towards Pak Armed Forces. It is well within the realm of possibility, that foriegn powers may be encroaching them to lose their sense of balance and fairplay, at the expense of the nations security. Nations are like children, if we keep abusing them, they disappear.

Spotlight article by Adnan Gill

Honour thy heroes

Adnan Gill
Monday, February 27, 2012

Prime Minister Gilani changes his statements more often than other politicians in Pakistan. The latest change is his criticism of the Pakistani military. From the politicians to the so-called liberals to the anchors of the umpteen TV shows, they all believe that criticism of the military makes them intellectuals.

The reality about the military belies the critics. Whenever duty called, the sons and daughters of the soil did not hesitate to lay down their lives for the defence and honour of the nation. Instead of demanding rewards or concession for the soldiers’ sacrifices, their families take pride in the ultimate sacrifice their loved ones offered for the nation.

But if the critics would have their way, they would give no credit at all to the military. TV anchors frequently cook up unsubstantiated threats from the military, never missing an opportunity to malign the armed forces of Pakistan. But they don’t mind the extremists blow countless innocent civilians into smithereens.

Every time Pakistan faced a natural calamity, who pulls out the dead from destroyed homes and rescues millions of people during the disaster? While Mr Zardari went on vacation and Mr Gilani visited fake camps, it was the military that was taking care of the injured during the floods. Similarly, politicians like Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who never lifted a finger to help people in calamities, is now shamelessly criticising the military, accusing it of consuming the largest chunk of the national budget. But he is the same person who destroyed the banks of a water channel to save his own properties, and in the process drowned his poor neighbours.

The critics of the military need to realise that members of the same military they all love to bash are tied down in fighting the monsters created by others. It was Naseerullah Babar of the PPP who created the Taliban, and it was the PML-N government of Nawaz Sharif which allowed fundraising for the terrorists by installing donation boxes at every street corner for the so-called Mujahideen.

The critics never talk of the glorious victories of the Pakistani military, like those in the Rann of Kutch and Chawinda. They never mention how the Pakistani air force dominated the skies in wartimes and kept at bay the Indian air force, which is four times the size of the PAF. How many times have they recalled the exploits of PAF aces like M M Alam, who in a single minute shot five Indian warplanes out of sky? If they took pride in their military and bothered to look for them, there are plenty of examples of the valour and courage of the members of the Pakistani armed forces.

Unfortunately, unlike Indians who count even their defeats as victories, we don’t even take credit for our victories. The defeatists tirelessly cite the loss of East Pakistan as an example of the military’s defeat at the hands of India. To begin with, it was a national tragedy and not a defeat of the military. By all accounts, antagonisation of the Bengalis was initiated by politicians like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. But it was the vastly outnumbered military that paid with their blood for the sins of the greedy politicians. Pakistani officers and soldiers were prisoners of war in India after the tragedy of 1971. Interestingly, not one politician became a PoW. Today, some politicians shamelessly boast about their own time spent in jail and want to be rewarded for that. On the other hand, not a single soldier ever demands the smallest compensation for having put his very life in danger for the protection of the country.

Without a doubt, there are a small number of senior military officers whose greed got the best of their values. But the overwhelming majority of officers are honourable and brave men and women, who are ready to sacrifice their lives at a moment’s notice. Shame on the critics for maligning the military, while they themselves, at the first sign of trouble, run away from the scene in their bullet-proof cars. If the critics believe the military is only a burden on Pakistani society, then they should have a parliamentary resolution passed to get the sole functional institution of Pakistan disbanded. Or else they should give it its due honour.

The writer is a freelancer.

Dr. Manzer Durrani

Why Iran is showing a nuclear brinkmanship in the background of severe sanctions and threat of an all-out attack from Israel or US or both?

Nobody in the West has the answer or at least they pretend they do not have the answer. Remember the seventies, when Pakistan was on the same path and never announced their milestones (with the exception of renegade AQK’s one interview with Kuldip Nayyar in early eighties ) but never showing or telling anything how many centrifuges they had installed each quarter or each year and how much enriched uranium they processed for military and non-military use. All there was speculations, some wild and sometimes educated guess work. Thanks to India they also helped in a way to belittle Pakistan capabilities even mocked their scientist capacity to develop nuclear weapons.

No country has ever volunteered nuclear information ever.

Iran, on the other hand, announces its progress and shows off its centrifuge facility production floor where Ahmadinejad under the glaring lights and television cameras opens the box of centrifuge rods to the utter amazement (or horror) of western viewers and discuss the details of Iran enrichment levels. He doesn’t conceal the fact that Iran has enriched uranium at levels of 5 % and 20 % (and who knows if they have already achieved 95%). Iran also discloses routinely (for western government consumption) how many new centrifuges it has in its possession and when they were assembled.

But more surprising is Ahmadinejad’s many declarations in last many years about precisely what Iran intends to develop, assemble and enrich, and when even where. This is a big propaganda blitz. One might ask why Iran is so public about its nuclear program. Why, for instance, it has not adopted Pakistan’s policy of nuclear ambiguity at least through its crucial stage of the enrichment development? The answer could be that Iran simply does not want to do so.

West (US) or Israel does not know for sure if Iran has decided whether to develop a nuclear weapon. But why hasn’t it decided? If it has no intention of producing such a weapon, then what’s all this brinkmanship about? And if Iran does really want to develop a nuclear weapon, why is it waiting? United States and Israel look at Iran through their own lenses and it is clear their “think tanks” write so much about Iran in excruciating details but still understand next to “nothing” about Iran.. Why is that?

But if sanctions are truly crippling Iran’s decision-making process, then there’s no reason to attack its nuclear facilities. Keeping the sanctions in place permanently would be enough to deny Iran such an endeavor. The sanctions might even be lifted at some point, so long as the US threatens to reinstate them should Iran risk a change in policy.

Yet the answers to all these questions is deeper than US or Israel thinks. It’s hard not to acknowledge Iran’s diplomatic successes over the past decade. Thanks to America’s occupation of Iraq, Iran managed to come across as Iraq’s patron. It also functions as Syria’s strategic backer and via Hezbollah, it controls Lebanon’s domestic affairs. It invested considerable funds in Afghanistan, and has worked with Pakistan to get help on a wide range of nuclear affairs in return for gas pipeline project. It recently offered to help Egypt bolster its economy, should the United States decide to freeze aid to Cairo; and in Egypt, there is very vocal support for such a relationship with Iran.

Iran also maintains close relations with Turkey, Qatar and several North African countries.

And Iran does care about about an ally’s Sunni or secular character, either and is not motivated by the creation of Shi’ite coalitions or by Islamic revolutions. This is purely US and Israeli propaganda. They are aware that Sunni states are wary of dealing with Shi’ites, and also that (Sunni) Islamic thinkers and leaders loathe the Shi’ite movement, which is regarded by many of them as outright apostasy. Iran’s calculations to project itself on the international scene are not spiritual; they are strategic and very rational in nature. Many observers, including the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey in his interview with CNN is testimony of this fact.

Iran also is content with strengthening its regional status. Its major success involves the way it manipulates Western powers’ foreign policy with respect to China and Russia. Iran stirs up disputes and diplomatic confusion between Israel and the United States, which opposes an attack on Iran. The irony is that no country or coalition from the West wants to put Iran to the test, particularly not at a time when the overriding goal (as it seems) is to engage in a nuclear dialogue with Iran.

In this way, Iran has shown (in the short term) that it has no need for a nuclear bomb in a hurry. It has been enough for Iran to simply demonstrate its capacity to develop unconventional weapon. Such a capacity has transformed Iran into a regional superpower able to manipulate the positions of countries around the world. Iran isn’t in a hurry to cross the line between having the potential to manufacture a bomb and actually producing such a weapon. It might never cross that line. Why should it furnish the West with a pretext to attack or impose more sanctions against it? Even possessing few nuclear weapon Iran is not stupid to attack Israel

As things stand, Iran so far has achieved its goals without needing to stockpile nuclear bombs in its arsenal.Which is ideal, as far as Tehran is concerned. Iran has attained optimal deterrent power against Israel through its tough diplomacy and brinkmanship. The bottom line is: Tell your enemies what you’re capable of doing to them, should you choose to do so, and wait for them to embrace you. That was US policy with China in sixties and seventies and look where China is and where is America.? India was Soviet’s lackey for fifty years and today America has embraced India and opened the floodgates of technology and weapons to destabilize the whole region, isn’t it?

Dr. Manzer Durrani

Satyam, PwC Agree to Pay USD 17.5 Million to Settle the Dispute with SEC

The unfortunate saga of India’s IT outsourcing giant Mahindra Satyam (Satyam Computer Services) has taken a new turn. After reporting a record loss of Rs 130 crore for the fiscal year ended the previous March since the biggest IT fraud was uncovered by the ex-chairman of Mahindra Satyam, a new deal has been struck between the newly formed Mahindra Satyam and its former auditor PricewaterCoopers (PwC) to settle the dispute by paying an amount of USD 17.5 million to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Out of the total settlement fee of USD 17.5 million, Mahindra Satyam will shell out USD 10 million while India-based affiliates of PwC will contribute USD 7.5 million.

Responding to the news, Cheryl Scarboro, Chief of the SEC’s foreign corrupt practices act unit, claimed, “The fact that Satyam’s former top officers were able to maintain a fraud of this scale represents a company-wide failure of extreme proportions”.

Though the SEC lambasted the PwC of allowing the manipulation of fake inflation of actual assets of the company, the latter has reportedly refused to admit the allegations levied by the SEC and further, stressed on upgrading the audit practices followed in the company.

Satyam Chief Admits Huge Fraud

Adeel Halim/Bloomberg News

Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, resigned Wednesday after disclosing he had systematically falsified accounts of the giant outsourcing company.

By HEATHER TIMMONS and BETTINA WASSENER

NEW DELHI — Satyam Computer Services, a leading Indian outsourcing company that serves more than a third of the Fortune 500 companies, significantly inflated its earnings and assets for years, the chairman and co-founder said Wednesday, roiling Indian stock markets and throwing the industry into turmoil.

Satyam Computer Services Limited

The chairman, Ramalinga Raju, resigned after revealing that he had systematically falsified accounts as the company expanded from a handful of employees into a back-office giant with a work force of 53,000 and operations in 66 countries.

Mr. Raju said Wednesday that 50.4 billion rupees, or $1.04 billion, of the 53.6 billion rupees in cash and bank loans the company listed as assets for its second quarter, which ended in September, were nonexistent.

Revenue for the quarter was 20 percent lower than the 27 billion rupees reported, and the company’s operating margin was a fraction of what it declared, he said Wednesday in a letter to directors that was distributed by the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Satyam serves as the back office for some of the largest banks, manufacturers, health care and media companies in the world, handling everything from computer systems to customer service. Clients have included General Electric, General Motors, Nestlé and the United States government. In some cases, Satyam is even responsible for clients’ finances and accounting.

The revelations could cause a major shake-up in India’s enormous outsourcing industry, analysts said, and may force many large companies to investigate and perhaps revamp their back offices.

“This development is going to have a major impact on Satyam’s business with its clients,” said analysts with Religare Hichens Harrison on Wednesday. In the short term “we will see lot of Satyam’s clients migrating to competition like Infosys, TCS and Wipro,” they said. Satyam is the fourth-largest outsourcing firm after the three named.

In the four-and-a-half page letter distributed by the Bombay stock exchange, Mr. Raju described a small discrepancy that grew beyond his control. “What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has attained unmanageable proportions as the size of company operations grew,” he wrote. “It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.”

Mr. Raju said he had tried and failed to bridge the gap, including an effort in December to buy two construction firms in which the company’s founders held stakes. Speaking of a “deep regret” and a “tremendous burden,” Mr. Raju said that neither he nor the co-founder and managing director, B. Rama Raju, had “taken one rupee/dollar from the company.” He said the board had no knowledge of the situation, nor did his or the managing director’s families.

The size and scope of the fraud raises questions about regulatory oversight in India and beyond. In addition to India, Satyam has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 2001, and on Euronext since January of 2008. The company has been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers since its listing on the New York Stock exchange.

Satyam has been under close scrutiny in recent months, after an October report that the company had been banned from World Bank contracts for installing spy software on some World Bank computers. Satyam denied the accusation but in December, the World Bank confirmed without elaboration on the cause that Satyam had been banned. Also in December, Satyam’s investors revolted after the company proposed buying two firms with ties to Mr. Raju’s sons.

On Dec. 30, analysts with Forrester Research warned that corporations that rely on Satyam might ultimately need to stop doing business with the company. “Firms should take the initial steps of reviewing the exit clauses in their current Satyam contracts,” in case management or direction of the company changed, Forrester said.

The scandal raised questions over accounting standards in India as a whole, as observers asked whether similar problems might lie buried elsewhere. The risk premium for Indian companies will rise in investors’ eyes, said Nilesh Jasani, India strategist at Credit Suisse.

R. K. Gupta, managing director at Taurus Asset Management in New Delhi, told Reuters: “If a company’s chairman himself says they built fictitious assets, who do you believe here?” The fraud has “put a question mark on the entire corporate governance system in India,” he said.

News of the scandal — quickly compared with the collapse of Enron — sent jitters through the Indian stock market, and the benchmark Sensex index fell more than 5 percent. Shares in Satyam fell more than 70 percent.

Just a few months ago, Mr. Raju was trying to persuade investors that the company was sound. In October, he surprised analysts with better-than-expected results, saying he was “pleased” that the company had “achieved this in a challenging global macroeconomic environment, and amidst the volatile currency scenario that became reality.”

But by late December, it seems he had little support from the board or investors, and four of the company’s directors resigned in recent weeks. Satyam recently retained Merrill Lynch for strategic advice, a move that is generally a precursor to a sale.

Mr. Raju said in his statement that he “sincerely apologized” to shareholders and employees and asked them to stand by the company. “I am now prepared to subject myself to the laws of the land and face consequences thereof,” he said.

Heather Timmons reported from New Delhi and Bettina Wassener fro

Dr. Manzer Durrani

Leslie Noyes Mass’s Back to Pakistan

Like yours truly, Leslie Noyes Mass was a Peace Corps Volunteer fifty years ago, recently returned to the country of her assignment: Pakistan. But unlike what I observed during my recent return to Africa, Mass discovered a significantly different country: more education for young children, an exploding population, and a country not nearly as friendly to the United States as it was when she was there years ago. I wouldn’t call any of these changes a great surprise, yet I found Back to Pakistan totally engaging for the contrasts I have already mentioned—plus the mirroring of some of the experiences I encountered as a volunteer in Nigeria.

Mass was dumped in Dhamke, twenty or so miles from Lahore, with few guidelines as to what she was expected to do. Ostensibly, community development, but it was expected that she would generate her own project(s) unlike some of the other volunteers who as teachers had clearly defined tasks. Her living facilities were basic, exacerbated by her gender as an unmarried
woman is a Muslim community. Initially, she was frustrated and angry: “Now what? I had no idea. And I was mad at the Peace Corps for botching up my assignment. But I was determined to figure out a way to work in this village.”

Drawing on her letters to friends back home, Mass is able to provide vivid details and feelings about her initial impressions of Pakistan (and her assignment) all those years ago. Here’s a paragraph from a letter to her boyfriend (later to be her husband), dated October 19, 1962: “The Volunteers here seem to be living pretty well and though some are equally disgusted with the lack of job definition, I am the orphan of the group. No other woman is alone in a village; everyone else has, at least, a place to live and a real job. The teachers have already started teaching and the men assigned to agricultural extension and engineering projects all have co-workers. But we Community Development workers are on our own. No one really knows what we are supposed to do.” She’s upset that her attempts to reach out to women in the community are largely unsuccessful. This is no huge surprise, given the restrictions on women’s lives (and their mobility) at the time and the country’s literacy rate of 12%. But when she is transferred to Sheikhupura months later, Mass realizes that she had made significant inroads into the lives of the Dhamke women.

Shift to 2009. Mass returns to Pakistan with several others, including people who were in the Peace Corps all those years ago. She’s been teaching for decades, earned a doctorate in early and middle school education, and retired from her job as director of an educational program at Ohio Wesleyan University. She’s a pro, accustomed to training teachers, which she and her friends will do in Pakistan for several months. They have been successful with making arrangements with The Citizens Foundation (TCF), a private organization that has set up several hundred schools across the country since the government-sponsored schools are sadly lacking. TCF has had major successes in the country, largely because of its curriculum and the dedication of its teachers who are women only.

Mass, thus, in 2009 is part volunteer, part educational expert, part tourist, keenly attuned to all the differences in the country from the first time she worked there. The activities with TCF are totally professional, and instantly rewarding. But it is an incident related to her by Ateed Riaz, one of the organization’s founding directors, that is most revealing to Mass (and to this reader), providing the context for the country’s education and development: “A friend of mine went to the city of Medina and went to a woman squatting on the floor selling something. He negotiated with her, but she would not sell to him. She said, ‘If you like it, buy it from that other tradeswoman. I will not sell it to you.’ So he got a local to come and talk to her in her own language. She talked to the local and explained that she had already sold enough that day and that other woman had not yet sold any, so I should buy from her. The message is clear: We need to help each other.”

The beauty of Back to Pakistan: A Fifty-Year Journey is Leslie Noyes Mass’s hindsight, combined with her insight. The book intermixes the two times instead of following a linear narrative and abounds in Mass’s first-hand reports from all those years earlier, sent as missives to her friends. Yes, I was predisposed to enjoy this book because of my own educational journey, and I confess that some of the passages describing her activities with TCF (administrators, teachers and pupils) may seem too pedantic to the average reader. But there are wonderful moments throughout the entire book, such as this one, just as Mass and her friends are going to depart from Lahore: “The schoolmaster said, in a mish-mash of English, Urdu, and Punjabi that he and all the village were happy that I had come back because it shows that not all Americans view Pakistan as a dangerous place where everyone is a terrorist.”

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Archive for February, 2012

EXCLUSIVE: PAKISTAN ARMY – HINDUS & SIKHS

“Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure”- Abraham Lincoln

IRANIAN CHUTZPAH

INDIAN IT OUTSOURCING GIANT FRAUD IN US

Satyam, PwC Agree to Pay USD 17.5 Million to Settle the Dispute with SEC

Satyam Chief Admits Huge Fraud

Pakistan: Fifty Years Later