RAW’s Clandestine Operations in Pakistan: Kao Plan Unleashed
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Grace commented:
People who don’t know much about the history about the lands and people of Pakistan are quick to dismiss the nation. Regardless of what Nawaz Sharif may or may not have said, Pakistan is a separate and soverign nation and the 2 nation theory is an established fact that cannot be changed. As for India, it should be made into 20 or so odd nations since the British are the ones who made it as one. Grace
October 18, 2012
By Makhdoom Babar
Mr. Makhdoom Babar, Editor-in-Chief and President of the Daily Mail.
When Indira Gandhi took over as Prime Minister of India in the late 60s, among her basic priorities was to undo the division of India that created a new State, Pakistan which was highly irritating the Indian leaders since its birth.
In that particular era, India’s all intelligence related matters, both internally and externally were managed by only one intelligence agency of the country that was the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
The Daily Mail’s research indicates that when Mrs. Gandhi assumed the charge of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) at New Delhi, she ordered the IB to prepare comprehensive plans to destabilize Pakistan and to transform into a failed State and to negate the 2-Nation Theory which was the foundation of the creation of Pakistan.
The Daily Mail’s research indicates that in 1968, the then head of IB’s External Division Wing and the founder of Directorate General of Security, commonly known as DG(S) in India, Rameshwar Nath Kao, a confidante of Indira Gandhi and her late father as he was cleared of falling to any honey trap because of being a gay, presented a very comprehensive plan to fulfill Indira Gandhi’s wishes regarding Pakistan.
This, around 240-page plan, which is still known as The Kao Plan in India’s clandestine community had three different operations to destabilize Pakistan. The Kao Plan, which is described as a three-pronged strategy by the Indian officials, had three different operations to eliminate Pakistan. The first, known as Kao’s Bangla Plan(KBP) was chalked out to start an insurgency movement in East Pakistan and transform the Eastern part of Pakistan into a new State. The 2 nd plan, known as Kao’s Balochistan Plan (KBP-II) was architected to create a similar scenario in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, while the 3 rd one was relating to organize a separation movement in the then North Western Frontier Province(NWFP) and now Khyber Pakhtun Khowah to establish an independent State there and this one is known as the Kao’s Pakhtoonistan Plan (KPP).
Indira Gandhi, the research indicates, went through Rameshwar Nath Kao’s plans with all the comprehensions .she, however, held a detailed meeting with Kao and discussed his plans in deep details. After the meeting, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi reached to the conclusion that Kao plans were very comprehensive and were having all the potential of earning far reaching results but she was very much aware of the limited capacities and abilities of country top intelligence agency the IB. after detailed deliberations with Kao and her other, very close associates, Mrs. Discovered the IB was not at all capable of executing the Kao plans. According to some Indian media persons, who were close to the developments at the PMO in late 60s, Indira Gandhi finally decided that since IB had not enough capabilities to run the foreign missions, prominently the Kao plans, there was an immense need for India to have a separate, more powerful and more resourceful intelligence operates to execute extremely high profile projects like the Kao Plans. According to these journalists, Indira, while contemplating upon forming a brand new intelligence mechanism, apart from Kao plans regarding Pakistan, was also eyeing on China.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that after all the discussions and deliberations, it was decided to a new secret agency but to keep its profile as a research body and not as spy agency for the outer world, an agency, with the title of Research and Analysis Wing, commonly know as RAW these days, was finally formed on 21 st September, 1968 under the Cabinet Division and no one else was made the first Chief of Raw but Mr. Rameshwar Nath Kao. The Prime minister approved all the Kao plans regarding Pakistan but directed Kao to go step by step instead of executing all at once as it would add more creditability to the operations and advised him start with East Pakistan plan (KBP) and to execute the remaining ones in the light of the outcomes of the 1 st plan in this direction.
The research reveals that soon after the formation of RAW, Rameshwar Nath Kao’s first priority was to form a team of professionals at the top level of agency. For this purpose, he brought in many ‘like-minded officers from the Intelligence Bureau and from the Indian Police Service (IPS) cadre. According to certain media reports, the top wing of RAW in it its early days was comprising all the well trusted guys of Koa as majority of them was known as gays and thus were very commonly called the Kaoboys of RAW, not within the agency but also in the media across India and those officials who were not inducted in RAW by Kao, despite being falling on merit were the main sources of such leaks to the media and also to the young RAW officers.
These Kaoboys were initially given the task of enhancing the capabilities of the agency to the maximum for running the covert operations while a special wing was formed to launch the KBP in East Pakistan. The details of Kao’s Bengla Plan would be discussed at another stage though; the research reveals that RAW launched the Bengla plan soon after its inception. It is worth mentioning here that soon after the inception of RAW, Kao also formed a high profile Monitoring Division, comprising the retired and serving officers from the Indian army’s corps of Signals.
The basic features of Kao plan were to launch a Psychological Warfare operation in East Pakistan; to communicate with East Pakistani politicians, mainly those belonging to Awami League; to get on board all the East Pakistani civil servants working in East and West Pakistan and also in Pakistani embassies across the worl; to launch extensive media campaign against Pakistan army’s actions in East Pakistan and to project a highly exaggerated plight of the people of East Pakistan in the world media and to organize moots and conferences across the world to highlight the sham miseries of the people of Pakistan; to establish a sense of deprivation amongst the general public in East Pakistan; to create a feeling of hatred amongst the people of East Pakistan and West Pakistan through social circles etc. While the training of militants of Mukti Bahni goons at training camps inside Indian territory, at West Bengal, Assam and Tripura and to arm them for an ultimate civil war was decided to be organized with the help and assistance of Indian army, headed by General Manekshaw and Indian Border Security Force(BSF), headed by K.F. Rustomji while the IB was also kept engaged for other covert operations. According to a veteran journalist Qutubuddine Aziz , who was stationed in former East Pakistan during the execution of India Kao plan for creating Bengladesh and the gentlemen who wrote the famous book Blood and Tears, India trained Mukti Bahini militants massacred at least one million non-Bengalis in former East Pakistan. He says “The sheaves of eye-witness accounts, prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the massacre of West Pakistanis, Biharis and other non-Bengalis in East Pakistan had begun long before the Pakistan Army took punitive action against the rebels late in the night of March 25, 1971. It is also crystal clear that the Awami League’s terror machine was the initiator and executor of the genocide against the non-Bengalis which exterminated at least a million of them in less than two months of horror and trauma. Many witnesses have opined that the federal Government acted a bit too late against the insurgents. The initial success of the federal military action is proved by the fact that in barely 30 days, the Pakistan Army, with a combat strength of 38,717 officers and men in East Pakistan, had squelched the Awami League’s March-April, 1971, rebellion all over the province. They were all trained and armed by Indian army and were given details of non-Bengalis by a new spy agency of India, the Research and analysis Wing.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that before launching the 1 st phase of the Kao plan, the RAW leadership decided to dominate the Indian diplomatic Missions across the world to ensure the availability of strongest possible platforms to run RAW operations, specially the operations relating to the Psychological Warfare. Though the PMO had approved the placement of RAW officials in Indian diplomatic Missions under diplomatic covers, yet RAW decided to dig out and secure personal or official scandals of the as many as possible Indian diplomats across the world after it was found at the agency’s Headquarters that in many cases, the diplomatic staff at different stations did not cooperate with RAW under cover officials in commissioning of certain undiplomatic practices in different parts of the world. It was this exercise of RAW that helped it immensely in launching aggressive media campaigns against Pakistan army and in mobilizing the world opinion in favor of east Pakistanis to have a separate State and to justify India’s open interference in the East Pakistan’s affairs, from the platforms of Indian diplomatic Missions across the world and it was started with blackmailing the Indian ambassador in Burma (Mayanmar) in the late 60s while the practice is still going on very effectively for RAW. In the beginning of the launching the Kao plan in East Pakistan, RAW also attempted to use certain British parliamentarians and journalists for organizing moots and conferences in favor of separation of East Pakistan from the rest of Pakistan.
After the RAW got immense success in East Pakistan and due to the lack of abilities on part of Pakistani leadership to handle the crises in Eastern part of the country, a new country was created with name of Bangladesh in 1971, just within some 30 months of the inception of RAW, Rameshwar Nath Kao sought Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s permission to launch KBP-II for the separation of Balochistan from Pakistan.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that though Kao and the ‘Kaoboys’ of RAW were feeling over excited with their success in breaking Pakistan into two and wanted an immediate go-ahead from the PMO for the implementation of the 2 nd phase of the Kao plan (KBP-II), the Indian Prime Minister was being extraordinary cautious in taking any further step in this direction as she got the information that the American CIA and the Chinese intelligence, both were monitoring the RAW moves very closely and both the Chinese and the US government had in a way conveyed to the government of India that any repeat of East Pakistan like mischief by India in West Pakistan would not be allowed and tolerated at all.
These finding further indicate that at that particular stage, Indian government was very eagerly looking forward to the Shah of Iran for 2 soft loans amounting to the tune of not less than $ 25 millions. Indira Gandhi also knew that any Indian move in Balochistan, at that particular stage, could have easily annoyed the Shah of Iran as he was a very close friend of Pakistan, resulting into the refusal of the 25 million dollars loan from Shah. India was already persuading the sister of Shah of Iran, Madame Ashraf Pehlawi for pursuing Shah to approve loan. According to the records, Shah’s sister was given a kickback of $ 6 million for the sanctioning of the loan.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that keeping all these reservations, Indira Gandhi asked the RAW Chief Kao to hold his horses and shelve the Balochistan plan until the circumstances get changed and especially until the loan from Iran was transferred into Indian government’s accounts. These findings further indicate that this reply from Prime Minister came as a great dejection for both Kao and his ‘Boys’ at the RAW headquarters, though Indira Gandhi allocated huge funds to RAW for its expansion worldwide after getting the Iranian loans, yet many officials of RAW still belief that it was just a bid to appease RAW after ordering it to keep the Balochistan operation on hold while the RAW officials were very much excited about launching it as soon as possible, without letting the Pakistani counterparts to get out of the shock of Kao’s Bengla plan.
According to some senior International journalists as well as certain security experts and former intelligence official, the RAW and specially its Kaoboys were never actually waiting for a formal nod from PMO and they in fact had already starting working on Kao Balochistan Plan (KBP-II). RAW had already started contacting Baloch leaders through social activities in foreign countries and a PSYWAR was launched amongst the Baluchistani people with a crystal clear reference to what happened in East Pakistan and how India helped East Pakistanis to have a spate, independent country. In the meantime RAW also sought agency-to-agency help from its counterpart in former Soviet Union and KGB replied in a positive manner to help RAW implement its Kao plan for Balochistan.
Soon after entering into the Balochistan game, Kao and his team realized that the things in Balochistan were never as easy as those were in East Pakistan. They discovered that they had no advantage of having a road link in Balochistan that they had in East Pakistan and secondly the disadvantage was that Pakistani army had total control and very strong road link to any part of Balochistan, something that it lacked in case of East Pakistan. The only encouraging point for RAW while starting the Balochistan game was that here they did not had to launch and fund the movement at the grassroots level like in case of the East Pakistan but in fact in Balochistan, they just needed to lure a handful of Baloch tribal leaders, specially young ones who were very much attracted towards fun life of West, and rest was to be done by these tribal leaders. After making this assessment, RAW decided to go-ahead with the KPB-II. However it got a shocker from KGB when KGB expressed its inability to provide any strategic or tactical help for Balochistan plan due to KGB’s lack of resources to carry out any deep sea covert operation in the hot waters of Indian Ocean and the Arabian sea however it promised every help and support for the cause in any other shape, at a later stage. Some experts say that KGB’s abrupt nod for joining RAW in Balochistan game could also be seen in the backdrop of cold war era rivalry between CIA and KGB as KGB was constantly looking to hit CIA hard anywhere in the world at first available opportunity during that era and since KGB knew that CIA would feel deeply hurt by its any joint operation with RAW in Balochistan and thus it straight away offered all its help and support, even without approval from the highest level of the Soviet government. It remains another fact that over the years, things got drastically changed and today CIA itself is fully embedded with RAW in the Balochistan game.
The Daily Mail’s findings indicate that the top boy amongst Kao’s ‘like-minded’ Kaoboys was an IPS officer B. Raman and was known as ‘Kao’s Special Boy.’ Raman served in RAW and earlier in the IB for about 27 years and got retired from RAW in August 1994. When RAW was making an assessment to enter into Balochistan game, the agency’s head Rameshwar Nath Kao decided to explore a new avenue to begin the game, without waiting for PMO’s word in this direction. After the careful assessment of all the options, Kao decided approach the French Intelligence. The French external Intelligence, then known as SDECE and is these days know as DGSE. In French language SDECE means Service for External Documentation and Counter-Espionage while DGSE stands for Directorate general of External Security.
Research indicates that the then SDECE was headed by Le Comte Alexandre de Marenches, an ex army officer of France. As mentioned above as how RAW manipulates Indian diplomats across the world, RAW opted in this case to use the services of the then Ambassador of India to France who himself was an ex-army officer of India and was married to a French speaking lady from Luxemburg that had enabled him to become a close friend of the then French Interior Minister Michel Poniatowski. Kao used the Indian ambassador to have a meeting of top RAW officials with their French counterparts through Michel. The ambassador ‘obliged’ the RAW chief and a meeting was fixed between French and Indian spy masters at Paris. During the meeting, the RAW side, headed by Kao, proposed for a liaison between French and Indian intelligence agencies for the collection and sharing of intelligence with regards to the movement of US and Soviet as well as the Chinese Navies in the water regions of Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. An agreement in this regard was finalized straight away and France agreed to establish a liaison office at Paris in this regard and showed its complete willingness to the project, without knowing that RAW had some Balochistan related motives behind this move as it no interest at all in the movement of the Naval fleets of soviets or Americans or even the Chinese. The research indicates that RAW wanted to use the project for transporting arms and heavy weapons to Balochistan through this project as it had already been able to lure certain Baloch leaders to launch an insurgency movement. The French and Indian intelligence agencies agreed to establish at least four Technical Intelligence (TECHINT) stations in India’s spotted water regions in Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. Though the Indians claim that the project was soon abandoned, yet it remains a fact that these stations still exist and are operational under Indian control. However France pulled out of the project after quite some time. Some intelligence experts believe that France developed some serious doubts about RAW’s movement under the garb of the said Technical Intelligence Stations after the French intelligence managed to retrieve volumes and volumes of highly classified documents relating to the covert operations of RAW from the Indian Prime Minister’s Office. There are some stories in this direction out which one says that it was the job of some French under cover secret agents who developed some special relations under the disguise of gays with RAW’s liaison officer in France for the said project B. Raman and they managed to get some way to access to the classified document in Indira Gandhi’s office.
Research indicates that after French and Indian intelligence agencies agreed upon establishing a liaison office at Paris, B Raman maneuvered a lot to motivate the RAW Chief Kao to post him to Paris as the liaison officer as at that time, France was known as the Paradise of the gays. Kao who did not want to send Raman out of sight for a longer period due to his ‘special feelings’ for Raman, finally agreed upon sending Raman to France on deputation. In this direction first RAW tried to send him Raman to France in the disguise of media representative from India, a practice that RAW is still exercising across the world with a great success, and all arrangements were made with the collaboration of an Indian newspaper The Hindu, yet at the eleventh hour the plan was changed and Raman was sent to Paris under the diplomatic cover, the other major practice of RAW that is still very much in fashion.
At Paris, Raman’s duties to the knowledge of the French intelligence were to perform liaison officer for the TECHINT project while the host government knew him as diplomat t he Indian embassy. However, RAW had assigned him some other responsibilities. He was sent to Paris to communicate with Baloch tribal youngsters living and studying in England and France and to lure them to join the Kao plan for Balochistan. In the process, Raman met with a young Iranian gay at Paris. In one of his latest books, Raman admits that he met the Iranian boy in Paris and he lured him and developed special relations with him. Raman writes, one night his Iranian friend, suddenly developed some serious medical problems and he, despite being an Indian diplomat, rushed the Iranian boy to the hospital in the emergency and got him treated there and also paid all the bills at the Paris hospital. Though Raman refrains from explaining his relations with the Iranian gay guy in details, he however writes that the same Iranian guy, proved very helpful to him for his covert operations during his stay in Paris. According to certain media and intelligence reports, during his stay in Paris, Raman used the Iranian boy to the maximum to establish special ties with certain Balochistani youngsters, mostly the sons of Baloch tribal leaders and he remained successful in luring them to get embedded with RAW for the successful implementation of the Kao Plan for Balochistan.
Back home at New Delhi, when RAW had finalized the aggressive implementation of the Kao plan in Baluchistan, Prime Minister Indira Gnadhi got into some internal political turmoil and she finally declared the state of emergency in the country, a move that prevented RAW from pursuing the Kao plan at that very moment.
Research indicates that during the state of emergency, Indira Gandhi misused RAW to the maximum to fix her political opponents. However, she finally went to the polls and met with the defeat in the General Elections. This resulted into the bringing of Moraji Desai as the new Prime minister of India. Desia did not have any respect for RAW has he knew that Indira Gandhi had used RAW against him as well. However he did not touch the affairs of RAW much. In the meantime, when RAW moved the file of Kao Plan for Balochistan, he got furious and asked RAW to focus on country’s security instead of remaining busy in hatching conspiracies against other countries. He however kept the Kao plan file in his office. Some close associates of Desai attribute this development to Desai’s hateful feelings towards RAW and he thought that Kao plan was a baby of his first degree opponent and thus he should stay away from it. Some others think that Desai snubbed RAW over the Kao plan owing to his peace initiatives with Pakistan and because of his very cordial relations with then military ruler of Pakistan, late General Zia-Ul-Haque. It is said that during his visits to England and France, Desai asked the RAW officers posted those countries to give him details of their responsibilities in those countries in writing. Both the officers refused to give any explanation to Desai in back and white.
RAW did not succeed in getting a formal green light for the Kao plan for Balochistan during Desai’s era and the agency decided to suffice on wait and see policy. In the process, new elections were held in India and as result of these polls; Indira Gandhi again came into power as the Prime Minister of India. Once again, at a suitable stage, RAW moved the Kao plan file to the PMO. People associated to the Indian Prime Minister’s office say that upon receiving the file, Mrs. Gandhi summoned the RAW Chief and directed him that the agency should first address the new menace that had hit the country. This was the growing Sikh separatist movement in Indian Punjab. Indira asked to deal with the issue as top priority of the agency and to use all resources for the purpose. RAW got engaged in the new top priority assignment and the Kao operation was again put on the back burner. However, reports suggest that RAW, on the parallel, continued its unauthorized interference in Balochistan and kept the Kao plan alive and in the meantime, it managed to shift maximum weaponry into Balochistan through the France-blessed TECHINT sea stations. It also got the immense support from KGB and its extension in Afghanistan after the former USSR invaded Afghans. The reports suggest that KGB played the major role in training the Baloch militants, given to RAW by certain Baloch tribal leaders, to use the arms and weapons shipped by RAW through sea routes to Balochistan over the years.
The reports also indicate that it was not possible for RAW to successfully form the militant outfits in Balochistan without the strong help and assistance of KGB as both RAW and KGB managed to install militant forces like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) etc. there were comprehensive training facilities for these militants by KGB in adjoining Afghanistan and loads of money for their mentors by RAW.
Back in India, RAW remained busy in tackling the Sikh movement. The details of the Sikhs’ movement in India would be discussed at a later stage but it is to be worth mentioning that RAW’s inability to handle the genuine movements like the Khalistan movement by Indian Sikhs was exposed to everyone across the world and particularly amongst the global clandestine community. RAW made many goof-ups in implicating Pakistan and its top security agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) into the Khalistan movement. It remains a fact that the ISI did get some security benefits out of the Khalistan movement but the volume of the ISI role in the movement, portrayed by RAW was no where near the ground realities.
Just one incident out of dozens, is enough to prove that how panicked and furious the RAW got to implicate ISI and Pakistan into the Khalistan freedom movement and that how unable the RAW was to create even fake cases against ISI to convince the global community. In one incident, some alleged members of the Sikh freedom movement, hijacked an Indian passenger aircraft and took to Lahore. Pakistan refused to hold talks with the hijackers and the plane was then taken to the UAE. From UAE, somehow RAW managed to take the custody of the hijackers and took them to India. After a few days, Indian government came out with the claims that hijackers had confessed that they hijacked the said aircraft from India with a toy pistol but later, during their brief stay at Lahore airport, some ISI officers gave them the real pistol which was retrieved from the UAE authorities later and after contacting a French arms company in the backdrop of the make and serial number of the said pistol, it was revealed that the said pistol was officially imported by Pakistan army and the episode proves that ISI was behind the hijacking and the entire movement of Khalistan. This outrageous episode earned India merely a big, loud laughter across the world and very badly damaged the credibility of RAW and Indian government’s allegations against Pakistan which is still haunting New Delhi as well as RAW.
The research reveals that as RAW completely failed in countering the Khalistan movement, it finally advised Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to go all out for a comprehensive military operations against the Sikhs and presented a high profile report that the only way out to tackle the Khalistan movement was to storm the most prestigious and religiously motivated Sikh Temple, the Golden Tample in Indian Punjab as all the top Sikh separatists were hiding and operating from there. This prompted Indira Gandhi to ordered the most infamous military operation by Indian army, code-named Operation Blue Star in which thousands of innocent Sikhs were butchered by Indian army troops.
Just when Indira Gandhi was about to order full-fledged launching of the Kao plan for Balochistan to divert the national and international criticism from operation Blue Star, she was assassinated by some religiously motivate Sikh Guards of her own security detail.
Indira Gandhi’s assassination brought in her elder son Rajiv Gandhi to the scene and he took over as Indian Prime Minister. Rajiv always had serious doubts that her mother lost her life due to completely misleading reports and advices of RAW and thus had special anger and hatred for RAW and its top policy makers.
In the process, when his attention was drawn towards the Kao plan for Balochistan, he really lashed out at top RAW officials and snubbed them for misguiding his mother and thus getting her killed. Poor Rajiv, who remained away from country’s political and intelligence affairs as Indira was training her younger son Sanjay Gandhi to replace her in politics but he was unfortunately killed in an air crash, forgot that by that time, RAW had already become an uncontrollable monster and had emerged as a government within the government.
Rajiv decided to revamp RAW and curtail its powers and funds to a considerable volume and to make its every action known to the government and to make the agency accountable to the government. In the process, he kept changing the heads of RAW and kicked out many of agency official and ordered drastic reforms in RAW. The RAW moles at the PMO, informed RAW as to what was cooking for them in the minds of Rajiv Gandhi. It is said that it was this decision of Rajiv Gandhi that costed him his life and RAW finally managed to get rid of him through a suicide attack by a Tamil woman as RAW was drastically training Tamil people for suicide bombing and other militancy tactics for fighting in Sri Lanka in the ranks of LTTE.
Research indicates that two things happened after Rajiv’s assassination; one, no Indian PM ever dared to introduce any sort of reforms in RAW and 2 nd was that no one from RAW ever moved the Kao plan file to any successive Prime Minister, though it continued with keeping the Kao plan alive in Balochistan.
The research indicates that it was only after the 9/11 tragedy that RAW started getting very positive response from America’s CIA to make life miserable for Pakistan and its ISI. The research shows clearly that as the CIA, RAW ties started deepening owing to common interest of both the agencies; the things in Balochistan started getting worst, day by day. The RAW-CIA honeymoon prompted RAW once again to get a formal approval of launching the Kao plan in Balochistan after the Congress government came into power in 2004. This time, the case was not discussed by RAW Chief with the Prime Minister but it was found more appropriate to get a final nod from the party chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Given the circumstance and assurances from CIA, RAW succeeded in getting Sonia nod for the Kao plan in 2004-2005 as it was found out to be the best time to launch the Kao plan as Pakistan was already surrounded with multiple dangers and conspiracies and for the first time it did not have a friendly government in adjoining Afghanistan. Sonia gave the final approval for formal launching of the Kao plan in Balochistan.
The Kao plan was initiated in Balochistan formally in 2004-2005 and within one year of its formal launching things got drastically changed across the province. The Kao plan made veteran Baloch leader Akbar Bugti and his like minded tribal leaders of the province defiant towards the federal government and they bent upon initiating an insurgency movement in the province and even brought a name for the new Independent country as Islamic Emirates of Balochistan.
Kao plan for Balochistan had just a few amendments if compared with the Kao plan for East Pakistan. The basics remained the same. What was that? Launch a psychological war amongst the general public of the area; generate a feeling of deprivation and hatred amongst the local against the rest of the people of the country; fund and arm the tribal leaders; launch motivated media campaigns and seminars across the world to highlight a sham plight of the locals; generate feeling of hatred against the country’s army and Armed Forces; motivate locals to assault the Armed forces and portray security forces as some occupying troops amongst the locals as well to the global audience; create fake as well real clashes between country’s security Forces and the paid militants; train and arm the militants; organize seminars and conferences at major Capitals of the world and motivate a global opinion in favor of the militants by portraying them as freedom fighters and oppressed nation; do the media buying in the local country as well in the international market; create caucuses at different parliamentary forums across the world to plead and support the view point of the fighting militants etc; equate Baluchistan issue with the freedom movement in Indian Occupied Kashmir etc.
This plan is very clearly unleashed in Balochistan at the moment and this plan is titled “RAW’s Kao Plan for Balochistan” in the clandestine community of India and the West. The study indicates that the game is just the same that it was in 1971 in East Pakistan, just the players and the rules of the game have changed a bit.
The Daily Mail’s findings indicate that the latest move in the US Congress to support the cause of Baluchistan’s militants and to call for right of self determination for the people of Balochistan is nothing new. RAW has been organizing similar move at many occasions in the past as well by getting the paid services of certain politicians and so called intellectuals as well as NGOs across the world. They have done it in England, in India and at many other places across the world while the Capitol Hill is the latest venue for the purpose.
When you’re an entrepreneur, who inevitably wears many hats, managing your time can get tricky—especially when it’s tempting to work all day to grow your business. But being successful doesn’t mean being a slave to your work. Below, four accomplished entrepreneurs share their productivity strategies and how they overcome potential obstacles.
Productivity Strategies for Success
1. They’re clear about their priorities.
“I think the most important element is that I have a very clear sense of what is most important for me to accomplish at any given time,” said Peter Bregman, a consultant and Harvard Business Review’s most popular online columnist. He begins each year by identifying five priorities. He then uses these top goals to create a nontraditional to-do list, which he calls a “six-box to-do list.”
He explained: “Each one of my five areas of focus gets a box in my to-do list. The sixth box is labeled ‘the other five percent’—that’s where I put everything I think I need to do that doesn’t fit into my top five—and I keep that box very small.”
2. They’re strategic.
Bregman, who’s also author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done, knows how to use his time. He recommended readers be strategic “about the highest and best use of their time and make discreet, specific decisions about how you are going to spend each hour.” If you don’t make deliberate decisions about your day, “it’s almost impossible not to let distractions carry you away,” he said.
3. They begin the day with enjoyable activities.
Professional life and career coach Kristin Taliaferro believes that starting the day off on your own terms is key to productivity. “If you begin your day checking email, for example, you’re at the mercy of everyone else’s agenda and that can absolutely shape your day and cause you to be unproductive with your goals,” she said.
Instead, she recommended readers engage in enjoyable activities (like walking or reading spiritual texts) and “wait until you feel grounded and clear about your agenda for the day.”
Multitasking creates the illusion of productivity. “It’s very easy to multitask and jump from one thing to another without completing anything—that leaves us busy all day but unaccomplished,” Bregman said. He makes it a rule to “finish one thing before going to the next.”
Bregman and other entrepreneurs prefer to work in blocks. He typically begins his workday by writing for several hours. Then, he gives himself 30 minutes to respond to email. (He takes these email breaks throughout the day, which he said works better than responding to email as it comes in.)
Taliaferro, who also believes multitasking is rarely effective, tries to schedule back-to-back phone appointments in the mornings and later focuses on writing projects or responding to email.
Brittni Melhoff, founder of papernstitch.com, a curated exhibition site for artists and makers to showcase their work, and editor of thepapernstitch blog, suggested readers try the pomodoro technique. “It will help you manage your time by breaking your day down into 25-minute intervals, so you can focus on just one task at a time,” she said.
5. They batch tasks weekly.
Melhoff schedules “different reoccurring tasks for different parts of the week,” such as writing blog posts on Mondays and marketing and client work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. “I find it really helps to keep my mind focused on one topic for the day, whenever I can, so that I don’t drive myself crazy with every tiny little thing each day,” she said.
Similarly, Taliaferro sometimes “set[s] aside an entire day [to wrap up] ‘loose ends’” for her business.
6. They keep their energy up.
Taliaferro always takes at least one break “in the middle of the day to refresh my mind.” As she explained, “Productivity has a lot to do with how you feel. If you remain energized, you can work smarter and get more done.”
She also makes sure to eat healthfully, exercise, get enough sleepand engage in other self-care activities. “This helps me feel strong and centered when I’m actually working,” she said.
7. They work mindfully.
“I try to be totally focused on whatever I’m doing, whether it’s listening to a client or returning an email,” Taliaferro said. To facilitate this, she tries to eliminate potential distractions. For instance, when she’s writing, she turns off the phone ringer. “When you’re very present, it’s actually pretty relaxing. When you’re relaxed, you can get more accomplished,” she said.
8. They take full days off.
Entrepreneurs can easily get burned out. According to Carol Tice, a fulltime freelance writer who writes the award-winning blog Make A Living Writing, taking at least one day off a week “is probably my biggest productivity tip.” She always takes Saturdays off and stays completely offline. On Sundays, she works for several hours so Mondays aren’t so hectic.
9. They’re well organized.
Tice, who used to be an executive secretary, believes that her ability to track “information, deadlines and projects” also is important for her productivity. For instance, she’s recently started using a program called Freshbooks to keep records and bill clients, which has saved a lot of time.
10. They tackle tasks they’re passionate about.
Naturally, it’s easier to be productive when you’re passionate about your projects. So, Tice, for instance, works on what she’s “hot to do [that] morning. “I’ll often do that, even if it doesn’t appear the most pressing priority. What you’re in the zone to do goes fast, as opposed to forcing yourself to do something you’re not in the mood for,” she said.
Taliaferro also finds that when she’s working on enjoyable tasks, “time flies by so I’m more productive and happier.” She’s able to do this because she tries “to outsource tasks as much as possible” and has a virtual assistant.
11. They don’t waste time.
“I don’t have a lot of time-wasting stuff in my life like watching TV or playing on Facebook,” Tice said, who spends just several hours a week on these kinds of activities.
Tice added: “Remember, like the Kabbalists say — we are never ‘just killing time.’ Time kills us. Spend your precious moments doing stuff you love, and stuff that makes the world a better place.”
12. They take it easy.
Entrepreneurs tend to set high standards for themselves, which is one of the reasons they’re so successful. But there’s a flip side: If you don’t accomplish your goals, you feel like a failure.
“Productivity comes from positive self-esteem,” Tice said. She emphasized the importance of forgiving “yourself for what you didn’t get done.” It’s common not to accomplish goals “in the timeframe [you] originally envisioned,” she said. “Look at all the movie release dates that get pushed back.”
(And as a bonus tip, Tice said: “Do what my dad taught me: Look in the mirror every morning and say, ‘Damn, I’m good!’”)
Productivity Pitfalls that Limit Success
These entrepreneurs also deal with a variety of obstacles. Here are several pitfalls along with their pointers for overcoming them.
Having a lot of work.
For Bregman, like so many others, the sheer amount of work is a big challenge. “My best tactic for overcoming it is cordoning off time for each task. I designate two hours to do nothing but write—and I know that I don’t need to do anything else in that time.” He does the same for email and phone calls. “As long as I’ve designated time to do each piece of work, then I don’t worry about getting it done—I know I’ll get it done in the designated time—and that frees me to focus on the one thing that’s most important in the present.”
Being overbooked.
Tice’s biggest obstacle, she said, is her “tendency… to skate at the dangerous edge of being overbooked.” Because she enjoys cultivating her skills, Tice often picks projects “a little outside my comfort zone.” This creates a time crunch and can lead to missing deadlines.
To prevent this, Tice tries to get a good sense of which deadlines are flexible and usually avoids “scary drop-dead deadlines.” If she does accept bigger projects, she breaks down her “goals into one-month chunks to make them less overwhelming and more doable.” She also mentors writers and helps them consider: “What little piece of it could you do today? This week? Focus just on that. Keep repeating this, and soon you’re at the top of the mountain.”
Procrastinating on dull tasks.
Everyone can relate to procrastinating on certain tasks, but the more we push back something, the more worried (and paralyzed) we get. Many times, a task doesn’t take long at all, but our worry only magnifies it. As Taliaferro said, “It really only took 30 minutes to do [a task she dreaded] but it felt much longer since I spent time worrying about it!”
So she takes a different approach: “Now, I accept the fact that I don’t love this particular task, and set a timer for 30 minutes whenever I have to do it. It’s a reminder to power through and get it done.”
Reducing how much you worry about and procrastinate over a task also “free[s] up a lot of time and energy,” she added.
Dealing with distractions.
Many entrepreneurs work from home, which creates a host of distractions: dirty dishes, dust-filled surfaces, laundry. What helps Melhoff is to “shut the door to my office to signify my work zone and avoid working in the common areas like the living room, dining room, or kitchen.”
If Melhoff still feels distracted, she takes a break: “[I] step outside to get some fresh air, take my dog out, anything that gets me away from the computer and out of the house. When I come back to my desk, I feel more alert and ready to tackle the world.”
“Pakistan was attracting interest of more and more companies in the Asia-Pacific region which planned to relocate to Pakistan for business,” says Javed. PHOTO: FILE
SINGAPORE: High Commissioner of Pakistan to Singapore Syed Hasan Javed said that Pakistan was the next economic success story of Asia due to development in various sectors.
He said a number of indicators, such as rising female education, growing empowerment of women in society, boom in the rural economy, rise in worker’s remittances and increase in exports showed that Pakistan will be Asia’ success story in the near future.
Javed said that Pakistan just required economic reforms and a better governance system. He said Pakistan had a reasonable infrastructure, legal system, English language education already in place and enjoyed advantages of young population and rich resource endowments including holding countless mineral reserves, tourist potential landscape, enviable location advantage and vibrant agriculture sector.
He said that Pakistan was the world’s major untapped market, which enjoyed excellent relations with all the world’s major powers and countries. Pakistan was attracting interest of more and more companies in the Asia-Pacific region which planned to relocate to Pakistan for business, he added. Javed said interaction with foreign correspondents was part of the interactive initiative by the high commission to project the soft image of Pakistan and its growing importance as an investment destination for the companies of the Asia-Pacific region.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 17th, 2012.
PRESS CENTER
PNB Hosts Pakistan Entrepreneurship and Investment Roundtable
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Gabe Ross Associate Director, Middle East Programs The Aspen Institute +1-202-736-2535 | [email protected]
PNB HOSTS PAKISTAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INVESTMENT ROUNDTABLE Partners for a New Beginning partners with Morgan Stanley and Abraaj Capital to host the event
New York, December 7, 2012 –– The Partners for a New Beginning (PNB) Secretariat at the Aspen Institute organized a roundtable discussion on Entrepreneurship and Investment in Pakistan with Morgan Stanley and Abraaj Capital. Over 75 representatives from the US Government, the Government of Pakistan, the private sector and the NGO community convened on 3 December 2012 at Morgan Stanley’s New York City offices to discuss opportunities for entrepreneurship and investment in Pakistan.
While news reports from Pakistan often focus on violence and corruption, Pakistan has quietly become a potential investment location due to its strong middle class – the fourth largest in Asia – and its energetic entrepreneurial climate. Throughout the evening, the conversation highlighted leaders from the private sector, the US and Pakistani governments, and the impact investment community to share success stories and lessons learned for investing in this growing market.
PNB Steering Committee member, Morgan Stanley, who hosted the event, spoke of the company’s commitment to PNB and its model of engagement. They gave special emphasis to their Global Sustainable Finance unit, which includes Investing with Impact, an initiative that was launched earlier this year at a US State Department event.
“This event exemplifies how PNB is bringing together the public and private sector to implement the vision of supporting economic development in countries with Muslim-majorities, and creating new connections between these countries and the United States,” said Mahmoud Mamdani, Vice Chairman for the Middle East and North Africa and Managing Director at Morgan Stanley.
“Capital markets can and should play a critical role in helping strengthen communities and providing sustainable economic opportunity,” said Morgan Stanley’s Head of Global Sustainable Finance Audrey Choi.
Focusing on opportunities in the small and medium enterprise sector, Abraaj Capital’s Tom Speechley spoke of why his firm is so bullish on the market in Pakistan. Mr. Speechley, who is the CEO of Abraaj’s small and midcap investment arm – Aureos Capital, highlighted Pakistan’s competitive ICT labor market, its encouraging investor protection track record, and its favorable comparability with other BRIC countries. He also discussed successful projects undertaken so far by Abraaj in Pakistan such as KESC, MSF, and Biogas.
Representing the views of the private sector, CEO of NTELX the Hon. Rob Quartel, MIT Sloan professor and founder of the MIT Enterprise Forum Imran Sayeed, and CEO of ConstellationCK/Sofizar Carlos Cashmanshared their experiences in Pakistan.
“A business like mine would have been very difficult in the US, but we can do it in Pakistan because the cost is so much lower,” said Mr. Cashman. The people of Pakistan are “natural capitalists,” added Mr. Quartel.
Deputy Chief of Mission Asad Majeed Khan from the Embassy of Pakistan remarked at the outset of the event that “the government of Pakistan realizes that the way to our economic growth lies in capitalizing [on] the entrepreneurial ability and the unflinching resolve of our strong middle class.”
From the US government, the State Department’s Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan/Pakistan Dan Feldman discussed trade-focused collaboration between the US and Pakistan. Alex Thier, Assistant to the Administrator for the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs at USAID, spoke about the Pakistan Private Investment Initiative, a public-private partnership aimed at generating investments in Pakistani companies in partnership with the private sector.
“The Department sees business leaders as change agents,” Mr. Feldman remarked.
Other speakers included Harris Mehos, a Director in the Structured Finance group at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), discussed some of their operations in Pakistan, and former International Finance Corporation Javed Khan shared his observations on some of the steps the Government of Pakistan can take to better encourage investment.
Shuaib Siddiqui from Acumen Fund discussed his organization’s approach to poverty alleviation, while Invest2Innovate’s Kalsoom Lakhani spoke enthusiastically about why her group is piloting its business accelerator site in Pakistan.
“A lot of entrepreneurs in Pakistan face similar problems in launching their businesses, and I2I realized the need to establish a curriculum to help them face those common challenges,” said Ms. Lakhani. “[We want to] foster a community of entrepreneurs – where we help them grow their businesses but also learn from each other.”
About The Aspen Institute
Partners for a New Beginning (PNB) is a network working in ten countries where local projects and priorities are identified by local chapters. PNB strategically matches them with US and international partners. The Aspen Institute serves as the PNB Secretariat and is responsible for driving, expanding and sustaining the PNB network. The Secretariat maintains communication between stakeholders, identifies strategic partners and brokers partnerships that support project development and expansion. For more information, visitpartnersforanewbeginning.org.
The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It also has offices in New York City and an international network of partners. For more information, visitwww.aspeninstitute.org.
U.S. Workshops Help Pakistani Entrepreneurs Develop their Business Skills
Contact: U.S. Embassy, Public Affairs Section (051-208-2911, 051-208-1136)
143/2012
Islamabad November 15, 2012 –
“The U.S. Embassy acknowledged the hard work of Pakistan’s entrepreneurs,” said Murtaza Zaidi Hon, a Pakistani entrepreneur. “These workshops encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, and job creation. They are helping many graduates, who would otherwise be unemployed, to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and to discover financial independence.”
The Embassy partnered with the U.S.-based Kauffman Foundation, the largest foundation dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship in the world, to carry out these workshops in celebration of “Global Entrepreneurship Week” ─ the State Department’s global celebration of the innovators who bring new products and services to the marketplace.
“Entrepreneurship is the economic engine of this country,” said U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission, Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland, at a workshop on how entrepreneurs can access financing to grow their businesses. “In fact, most new jobs are created in start-ups and small businesses so workshops like this are vital venues for entrepreneurs from both our countries to connect, build skills, and learn about how to succeed in business.”
The United States works with Pakistani universities and partners in the private sector to promote the growth and development of entrepreneurship. In addition to workshops with Abasyn University, the U.S. has worked with the National University of Sciences and Technology to establish business incubators, helping telecommunications and alternative fuels entrepreneurs launch their companies in Pakistan.
This initiative is just one part of a comprehensive U.S. economic assistance program which creates jobs and boosts incomes with projects that expand Pakistan’s agricultural output, build roads to facilitate trade, and offer a private equity fund to help small- and medium-size businesses grow.
During a weeklong series of workshops sponsored by the U.S. Embassy and held at Abasyn University, the United States is helping talented Pakistani entrepreneurs sharpen their business skills, bring new products and services to market, and achieve profitable growth. This week, more than 720 aspiring Pakistani entrepreneurs attended the workshops to learn the nuts and bolts of running a successful business and to pitch their business ideas to potential investors from the United States.
Other Reference Organization for Pakistani Entrepreneurs:
Dr. Farzana Shaikh Associate Fellow, Asia Programme, Chatham House
Qatrina Hussain Director, Current Affairs, Express News
Mustafa Qadri Journalist, The Guardian, Radio Australia, The Diplomat
Beena Sarwar Special Projects (Aman Ki Asha), The News International; India-Pakistan peace activist
Rahimullah Yusufzai Executive Editor, Peshawar, The News
Monday 11 October 2010
Introduction: Dr. Farzana Shaikh
Good evening and welcome all of you. My name is Farzana Shaikh and I’m an associate fellow here at Chatham House. So ladies and gentlemen it gives me very great pleasure today to have in our midst a team of Pakistan’s finest journalists who have all made their mark as some of the most astute, perceptive and independent-minded commentators of this complex country. Our guests – television anchor Qatrina Hussain, freelance columnist Mustafa Qadri, newspaper editor Rahimullah Yusufzai and documentary filmmaker Beena Sarwar – have set themselves a formidable challenge for they aim to wrestle with and hopefully resolve for us today that most phony question that plagues us all: Does Pakistan have an image problem and, if so, why? Does the country’s unenviable reputation as the most dangerous place in the world stem from ill-found perceptions encouraged by a hostile media abroad or is it, in fact, rooted in the realities of present day Pakistan? It is precisely this gap between perceptions and realities with regard to Pakistan that will set the agenda for today’s meeting and that will be addressed by each of our speakers before, of course, we broaden this discussion to encourage questions from the floor. So without any further ado, let me hand over to Mustafa Qadri on my left.
Mustafa Qadri:
I suppose, Farzana, you have thrown down the gauntlet to us. Everyone wants to know what’s happening in Pakistan, I suppose. We will try our best to demystify Pakistan. I’m an independent journalist based in Pakistan and I write for a number of agencies including The Guardian, The Australian and Radio National Australia. I’ve also organized this event and two other events later in the week. The thought behind that was in a way simple, in a way not so obvious. At the moment, there is so much interest in Pakistan and its very common to have events discussing Pakistan with experts on the country in London and other international capitals, but one thing I find that is quite sparse is an event where thoughtful Pakistanis and only thoughtful Pakistanis talk about their country. That’s basically why I organized this event today. When I set about to do this task, I thought we needed to have really professional – the best journalists available in Pakistan, people who are the best in their field, veteran journalists and people who really report from the front line. That’s why we have Qatrina, Beena and Rahimullah with us today. So I hope I can get all of this right. I’ll just give you a very brief introduction to who they are.
Qatrina Hussain is one of the most eloquent voices on Pakistan in television. Her Sayasi Log current affairs program is required viewing for anyone interested in Pakistan’s domestic or international happenings. She has interviewed British Foreign Secretary William Hague, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Of course, she’s interviewed most of Pakistan’s senior politicians and analysts. Tonight, she will be briefly talking to you about avoiding the narrative that plagues on militants’ strengths. She’ll basically unpack the idea that the current discourse actually promotes what the militants’ agenda is and, in a way, stops us and Pakistan from finding a solution.
We also have with us Beena Sarwar. She’s an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker who has recorded extensively on human rights, gender and the democracy movement in Pakistan. She’s currently involved in a peace initiative between two of the largest media companies in India and Pakistan. Beena is also renowned for having some of the freshest insights into the subcontinents oldest problems. She’ll be talking briefly about prospects for peace between India and Pakistan, particularly with respect to the work between the two media companies in India and Pakistan.
And lastly, but not least, we have Rahimullah Yusufzai. For thirty years, he has been on the pulse of what’s been happening between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was the first to report on the Taliban movement in Kandahar and interviewed Taliban Chief Mullah Omar and Al Qaeda head Osama Bin Laden on several occasions. He is basically the go-to man of international media, trying to understand and to report on one of the most mysterious insurgencies in modern history.
I think it’s fair to say that journalists both from abroad and also in Pakistan are in the forefront of trying to understand the country. I think it’s also fair to say that Pakistan’s media is the most powerful institution in the country. At its best, it keeps the powerful accountable and gives a voice to the voiceless. At its worst, it has been accused of fear mongering and rebel rousing. I hope tonight we can unpack these contradictions and avoid the easy and usual stereotypes. Again, I thank you all and I thank Chatham House for having us.
Dr Farzana Shaikh:
I think we will all now to turn to Qatrina to set the ball rolling.
Qatrina Hussain:
Good evening and thank you so much for taking the time out to come and hear our views and share and exchange some ideas. My biggest concern these days as I continue to live and work in Pakistan is that whenever I talk to people who have never visited Pakistan or know very little about it, is the fact that everything they really know about that country is shaped by militancy, my terrorism and violence. If you ask anyone to free associate and you say the word ‘Pakistan’, they are going to say terrorist. It’s jihad central. It’s all those other words that are put out there. The problem with that is that there are 118 million people living in that country and you could put any number you want on the number of terrorists – you want half a million, one million – that’s still a fraction of the number of people who live in that country. Yet, that fraction, that minority has become the voice of the entire country. I’m not saying at this point that there is no terrorism attacks in Pakistan. You see it in your newspapers every day. We live with it. We go through it every day. We deal with it. Our lives are shaped by it in many ways. But what is concerning me increasingly is that as I talk to younger Pakistanis, teenagers, people are in their early twenties, I begin to see a very conservative, reactionary attitude developing in the educated, younger – I hate the word – elite of Pakistan which didn’t exist when I was a teenager. That was a long time ago. I realize that. But its changing and Pakistan is changing in ways that are scary and difficult to understand even for those of us who live there.
Part of the problem that I’m seeing is that this concept of Pakistan being the world’s terror capital, the perception that Pakistan is the terrorism-exporting capital of the world – All of which has some validity. We all know that [inaudible] Shahzad came to Pakistan and got training there. We know the 7/7 bombers came to Pakistan and there are links, yes, but that is not the entire country. By painting the entire country with the same brush, you are in effect pushing people into coming very defiant and defensive about who they are and what they stand for. I have young teenagers coming to me and talking to me about their Muslim identity and I’m going, “Huh?” It was something we took for granted when we were growing up. It was, you know, we believe we are Muslims, so big deal. Today, this extreme increase where my friend’s teenage daughters are now wearing hijab and their mother’s don’t and never did. So it’s a sort of reaction to what they are seeing as a challenge perhaps to them. Now these are ideas, these are thoughts. I’m exploring this. I’m not saying that this is definitive and this is fact. But that is something that I think we need to be concerned about. We need to think about how we perceive a country and how we portray it so the perception shouldn’t become the reality and that’s what, in many ways, I think is happening.
After that, the frustrations of living in a country where the economic crisis is extreme. With the floods that have ripped through the country this year – and I cannot begin to describe to you in a minute or two what absolute devastation and destruction we have witnessed. Entire villages wiped out. Miles and miles and miles of crop land of standing water. Beautiful lush green and burnt [inaudible] at the base because they are rotting in the water. Two growing seasons [inaudible], rehabilitation and relocation of 20 million people in a country that had 48 percent food insecurity before the floods. So you can imagine the challenge that we are facing and when I say we, this is each and every one of us who lives there because everybody got together and worked as hard as they could and everything and the world has helped. I mean, I would thank every single person who has helped and we still need all the help we can get. Now, compound that with the fact that we’ve had a power shortage in the country for two to three years that has been so extreme that it has absolutely devastated Pakistan’
biggest revenue earner which is textiles and cotton fabrics. In fact, factories have shut down so unemployment is on the rise. Inflation is spiralling — basic food, potatoes and onions and everything has doubled in price over a period of two months.
So we are talking about a country that is going through paroxysms of desperation, of frustration, of anger and that anger I fear could result in a backlash. Not just against the state and the representatives of the state but everybody who has and those who do not have. I for one will not blame in the least because we have pushed them and we continue to push them into places where they simply cannot recover. I’d be happy to go into more detail. I’m just trying to give you a broad strokes opinion over here and I’m assuming all of you here are reasonably aware of what Pakistan is but Pakistan’s media, as Farzana mentioned, one of the things that you hear about – you see bearded men, you see veiled women. You don’t see Pakistan’s amazing music scene. You don’t see Pakistan’s amazing dance and fashion. Pakistan’s Fashion Week has started and it is pretty riveting stuff for those of us. Ok, I’m not saying that fashion, for example, represents all of us. I just think that London Fashion Week doesn’t represent everybody who lives in Britain. It is the other extreme that just simply doesn’t get seen and the huge bulk in between – the kid who goes to work in the bank, the girl who works as a receptionist, a farmer who is worried about the crop. Who is listening to them? Do they matter? The more we ignore them, the more we create a vacuum which is being filled by militancy. Compounded with failure with governance, we are looking at a Pakistan that could conceivably be more dangerous two to five years from now than it currently is. I’ll leave it there and I’ll take questions in a minute.
Dr Farzana Shaikh:
Thank you, Qatrina. Beena, your turn.
Beena Sarwar:
All that Qatrina said, all that tonight’s guests will be saying, there is just so much about Pakistan – it’s just a very limited time. I’ve been asked to speak about the India, Pakistan situation which is something that I’m working on.
So I’ll just tell you a very little bit about that, just a little bit about the initiative that I’m working on so that you have an idea of what it is. It’s called Aman ki Asha which means the Book for Peace and it is a campaign for peace between the two largest media groups of India and Pakistan – the Jang Group of Pakistan and The Times of India. This is the first time that two media groups in both countries have joined hands for any campaign. On January 1, when the campaign was launched, there was an editorial on the front page of the Jung publications as well as the News, as well as the Times of India, that was written jointly. This was the first time ever in the history of India and Pakistan that they had a joint editorial on the front page. The Times of India carried a front page editorial that said ‘Love Pakistan’ and they carried a series of articles and so on. So it started with this bang and it was preceded with a poll that was conducted in December asking difficult questions about India and Pakistan — about what people said about things like the Kashmir issue and the relations between the two countries and all that.
There were surprising findings. For example, many of the people in India, the people polled – I forget the exact figure, but it was about 60 percent perhaps who said that the Indian government should engage with Pakistan on Kashmir to discuss the issue. Everybody was surprised because the feeling that you get or the perception you get in the media and everywhere else is that nobody in India wants to discuss Kashmir and they certainly don’t want to involve Pakistan. So there were many surprising findings in that survey.
About India and Pakistan, I think most of you would probably know what the problems are between the two countries. Just very briefly to recap, is that we fought three full-fledged wars. We fought one war-like situation that was called the Kargil which was right after the nuclear testing, but we have continued to stay in a state of hostilities. We have continued to stay in a warlike situation because of which we have war economies. We have economies that are geared towards militarism, [inaudible] and basically shoring up the army. The food and securitythat Qatrina mentioned is put by the wayside and security is seen only as what is security vis-a-vis India. That is now changing slowly.
There is a discourse within both countries — and I think Aman ki Asha has got something to do with that — where we are saying security is not just about border security. It’s not just about securing your borders. You have to have things like employment and food security and education and all of that. The hostile relations that India and Pakistan have mean that as the country next door to Pakistan, as Pakistan’s big neighbourhood, with these floods that have devastated the country, one-fifth of the country is still underwater even as the floodwaters are receding. But one-fifth of the country from the north to the south, this huge area of land, is under water still.
We have received so many queries from India. People wanting to know, “How can we help? What can we do?” They want to send food. They want to send medicine. They want to send doctors. People want to come and help. But because of the relationship that we have, the Pakistan government is not allowing that, is not tapping into that resource and the aid that India offered was accepted after some bickering. It was finally accepted but they said it would go through the UN and all of that. So the relationship between India and Pakistan colours even a humanitarian crisis as big as the flood which is the biggest catastrophe ever to hit Pakistan and probably any other countries in the world. The situation between India and Pakistan is such that we don’t have tourist visas between the two countries. I cannot visit India as a tourist. Nobody can come from India to visit as a tourist in Pakistan so that we don’t know about each other.
So the misconceptions, the perception that Qatrina talked about, the image of Pakistan – you think terrorism. But next door to Pakistan, right there in India, people turn around – When we went in May for an economic conference and we went to the Women’s Press Club and we were sitting there, there were several of us and many of us were women. A journalist in the human rights press said, “I’m surprised to see so many women in your delegation. I thought that you guys were all in purdah.” And you know we just burst out laughing. These are people, they are like our alter egos. India and Pakistan – it’s like two sides of the same coin. We have our militants, yes, but there is what they call the [inaudible] in India. Terrorism is terrorism. It doesn’t have a colour, you know, green, red, yellow, whatever. It is criminalized. It’s criminal behaviour and it’s been blamed on religion or whatever but it really basically just that – it’s criminal behaviour which needs to be dealt with through a law and order situation. India and Pakistan could cooperate and really make a lot of headway on the issue of terrorism because that is the one major sticking points that we have during talks with India and Pakistan. They always talk about terrorism, but they aren’t willing to concede that we have suffered more under quote, unquote terrorism than any other country in the world. We have lost thousands of lives, not just military but also civilian. As long as India keeps us at arm’s length and does exactly what the West is doing which is, you know, “You are not doing enough. Do more,” instead of cooperating with us, helping to strengthen our democratic political processes, then unless that happens, we are not going to make any real headway in that situation.
So in a nutshell, the real threat to Pakistan comes not from India which is where our entire, our conditioning all these years has been – That India is the enemy, textbooks, media, everything has been geared towards portraying India as an enemy. The economy, the military, everything. We have to face the real threat within which is not just the militancy and the jihadis, but also all the things that are allowing that to flourish which include food and security and unemployment and lack of education and all of that. IN a way, I think that if Pakistan and India were to behave as normal neighbours and live in peace, we could really make a lot of headway in really taking care of all of these issues. So I’ll end there. There’s so much more to say, but hopefully a lot of it will come out in the discussion afterwards.
Dr Farzana Shaikh:
Thank you, Beena. Rahimullah, now you will tell us about that real threat within.
Rahimullah Yusufzai:
Yes, I think I will talk about the identity of Pakistan because, as a reporter, I have been covering this area for so many years. My space is becoming limited. I could go to every place. I could interview Osama Bin Laden twice. I could meet Mullah Omar. I could travel in all the tribal areas in Afghanistan, but now I can’t do that. If I leave Peshawar where I am based and I go to Khyber Tribal area which is the link with Afghanistan, I would think twice just because it is so dangerous to do actual reporting. You are depending on secondary resources. You can’t do primary, honest work reporting any more — it’s so difficult — which means you won’t know the real situation.
The reality is so terrible and insane, but I tell you that the people who live in the tribal areas, in Khyber and [inaudible], you have heard about Waziristan — it is always in the news. But if you go to Waziristan – and I have been there very often, not to Waziristan proper – the people are just normal people, just like us. And myself, a Pashtun, I belong to Mardan, near Peshawar. In Waziristan and all the tribal areas, there have been polls and people have been asked about their biggest concerns and they say, we want to educate our children. We want to have better roads. We want to have electricity. I tell you, they don’t like militants, they don’t like Taliban. If some people are still supporting them, it is out of fear because the government has let them down. The government is not there to try to help the people, just because maybe people are being held hostage in these places. If they get a choice, I’m sure they would not support Taliban. They would support the government. The government has to actually do something more.
It has been a story of neglect. For 63 years, these tribal areas have been neglected and I tell you, this is the most underdeveloped area of Pakistan in every respect. You ask the people in the tribal areas, the tribal elders, the common people, they will tell you, the few all-girls schools – in the past, they would oppose girls’ schools. Now, if the governor, if the [inaudible] and if the builder goes to tribal areas, one of the main demands is that we want girls schools. We want roads – in the past, they would say that if the government builds roads, then the roads will bring the government. The government will come and we will lose our independence. Now, people want roads. They want development, but the government has failed them. That’s why there are problems.
I think we need to have help the tribal people to come out of the situation. That is very important and it cannot be done in isolation. There has to be a lot of inputs for everybody. It’s not only the Pakistan government. The whole world needs to help the tribal people – about 6 million people, 6 million people who are being held hostage. This area as you know has become the centre of militants, of terrorists. They operate across the border from us in Afghanistan and it is a sanctuary now for many people who could easily cross the border. So that’s the real problem there, but I tell you that in the whole province you have a people formally not a frontier province. People are fed up of violence. People are fed up of militants, but people are also angry with the government. We already had 1.6 million misplaced people in my province, but it was before the floods. Now we have more people displaced and all of these people need help to go back to their villages and their homes. Even those people who were displaced earlier, last year in March and April during the military operation in Swat and [inaudible], those people have gone back, most of them, but they are not being helped yet with the damages to their houses and properties. We are only paid one instalment of 35,000 rupees as an emergency help but they haven’t been supported to rebuild their houses or rebuild their lives or rebuild their livelihoods. That is to be done, but that needs resources which Pakistan does not have and then we have these other people who bring displaced by floods in Peshawar and in Swat and in other parts of the province.
So we have these acute problems. I don’t see that the Pakistan government has even the capacity or even the will to try and help these people. The world community has been of some help, but it is not enough. We have many issues of credibility of the government of that is one reason why there is not enough help but I think that if the people are left alone and they are not helped, then they will be many problems with which Pakistan will not be able to cope. We have an insurgency in Baluchistan, we have five military operations and even now, the Balouch people are the people who are fighting the state. They are not willing now to negotiate with the government of Pakistan.
The Pakistan government has been involved in talks, there have been reforms, there have been incentives but the Balouch people are not buying that. So we have problems in Baluchistan, insurgency in the north of the Balouchi borders and the tribal areas and we have now this flood which has misplaced so many people.
I think that Pakistan is in a very bad situation and we have not been able to resolve our problems with India. We have problems, issues, we have political instability. We have lack of trust in Pakistan, also, in the government that is an opportunity for the military to fill the vacuum. The military’s image was really, really bad because of Musharraf but now the military’s image has improved a lot because of the military operations against militants and also because of the military’s relief work in the floods. So I am afraid that if the government falters, the government is not able to do enough, then I think that there will be an opportunity for the military to take over any time. But I think the military at this stage is not in any mood to take over because there are so many problems which even the military will not be able to cope with. So we expect the civilian government – the government must improve its performance, but in the end, I’ll just say people in Pakistan, I must say, 70 million or even more, they are just normal people. We have militancy. We have all these issues with terrorism. But in fact the huge majority, they want peace. They want security. They want good governance.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication or details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions, but the ultimate responsibility for accuracy lies with this document’s author(s). The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery.Transcript: Pakistan and its Crises: A Journalist’s View
Maryam Jameelah (May Allah swt rest her soul in peace and blessings!)
Maryam Jameelah (May 23, 1934 – October 31, 2012)
Biography
Jameelah was born Margaret Marcus in New Rochelle, New York, to parents of German Jewish descent, and spent her early years in Westchester. As a child, Marcus was psychologically and socially ill at ease with her surroundings, and her mother described her as bright, exceptionally bright, but also “very nervous, sensitive, high-strung, and demanding”. Even while in school she was attracted to Asian and particularly Arab culture and history, and counter to the support for Israel among people around her, she generally sympathised with the plight of Arabs and Palestinians. Another source describes her interests as moving from Holocaust photographs, to “Palestinian suffering, then a Zionist youth group and, ultimately, fundamentalist Islam.”
She entered the University of Rochester after high-school, but had to withdraw before classes began because of psychiatric problemsIn Spring, 1953, she entered New York University. There she explored Reform Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, Ethical Cultureand theBahai Faith, but found them unsatisfactory, especially in their support for Zionism. In the summer of 1953, she suffered another nervous breakdown and fell into despair and exhaustion. It was during this period that she returned to her study of Islam and read the Quran. She was also inspired by Muhammad Asad’s “The Road to Makkah” which recounted his journey and eventual conversion from Judaism to Islam. At NYU she took a course on Judaism’s influence on Islam which was taught by Rabbi and scholar Abraham katch, which ironically strengthened her attraction to Islam. However Marcus’s health grew worse and she dropped out of the university in 1956 before graduation; from 1957-59 she was hospitalized for schizophrenia.
Returning home to White Plains in 1959, Marcus involved herself with various Islamic organizations, and began corresponding with Muslim leaders outside America, particularly Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan. Finally, on May 24, 1961, she converted to Islam and adopted the name Maryam Jameelah. After accepting Maulana Maududi’s invitation she emigrated to Pakistan in 1962, where she initially resided with him and his family. In 1963, she got married to Muhammad Yusuf Khan on Maulana’s instructions, a member of the Jamaat-e-Islami, becoming his second wife. She had five children: two boys and three girls (the first of whom died in infancy). Jameelah regards these years (1962-64) to be the formative period of her life during which she matured and began her life’s work as a Muslim defender of conservative Islam. She never returned to USA and lived a pure Muslimah life in Pakistan. Two of her sons now live in US and on her last night she talked to them about hurricane Sandy. On the morning of 31st October she had a severe heart attack was taken to hospital but could not survive.
Her marriage to Muhammad yousaf khan was quite unique. Later on he quoted that he was standing with other two companions outside Maulana’s house when he came out and showed his anxiety about Maryam’s wedding . The two other told him that Maulana wanted him to marry the lady. He went home and talked to his wife Shafiqa. Shafiqa was quite concerned about her and she gladly accepted it. She came and proposed her as a second wife for her husband. After consulting Maulana Maudoodi she accepted this proposal and nikah was done. The family lived a happy life. Both the wives were quite coordinated with each other. Shafiqa was called Ammi by their kids while Maryam was called Aapa. She wanted to be buried close to Maulana but in her final days she decided to be buried near Shafiqa’s grave.
The other day I read in Newspaper Jasarat that Amir Jamaat Islami Pakistan Syed Munawar Hassan went for condolence to her her husband Yusaf Khan Sahib. It seems that he is alive.Her biography is called “The Convert” written by Deborah Baker is worth reading. Author of some 25 books and still a resident of Lahore, Maryam Jameelah wrote extremely powerful diatribes against the West & her home country America and how she had experienced in her life in there.Here is a brief review of the book in Dec, 2011″The Convert- A Tale of Exile and Extremism” written by Deborah Baker ( wife of Amitav ghosh ) is an expertly written book that chronicles the life of Margaret (Peggy) Marcus born to a liberal Jewish couple – Herbert & Myra of New York. She was an unusual child– a loner, socially maladjusted and initially shy but later a voluble inquisitive and annoyingly talkative girl. At school she was ceaselessly teased by bullying classmates in the 1940s and was reportedly molested. She was a college dropout and became an autodidact– reading all the time at the fabled New York Public Library. After several trips to the Psychiatrist’s couch and two mental institutions (where she was committed by her parents), she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She read voraciously about Islam, became enamored with Pakistani Islamic Thinker and author Abul Ala Mawdudi’s whose books and philosophy she adored and ended up corresponding with him. She uprooted herself in the early 1960s from America to permanently move to Lahore under the initial guardianship of Maulana Maududi, living at his house in Icchra, Lahore. She stayed a worker of the Jamaat Islami and till her last breath, lived in Sant Nagar in Lahore. She wrote over 25 books—- essentially very forceful diatribes against the West in general and her home country America in particular pitting Islam against the Western civilization. She has not swerved from the path of pure unadulterated disdain for the West in the past 50 years although her literary output went into decline in the 1980s. Deborah Baker has written a riveting account of her life and has travelled to Lahore staying at Najam Sethi’s house, received moral support and help from Asma Jahangir and interviewed Haider Farooq Maududi and eventually interviewed Maryam Jameela herself .
Jameelah ‘s books:
Jameelah started writing her first novel, Ahmad Khalil: The Story of a Palestinian Refugee and His Family at the age of twelve; she illustrated her book with pencil sketches and color drawings. She also studied drawing in Fall 1952 at Art Students League of New York, and exhibited her work at Baha’i Center’s Caravan of East and West art gallery. On her emigration to Pakistan she was told that drawing pictures was un-Islamic by Maulana Maududi, and abandoned it in favor of writing. Her writings are supplemented by a number of audio and video tapes
Jameelah was a prolific author, believing in basic , fundamental, traditional Islamic values and culture. She was deeply critical of secularism, materialism and modernization, both in Western society, as well as in Islam. She regards traditions such as veiling,polygamy, and gender segregation (purdah) to be ordained by the Quran and by the words of Prophet Muhammad, and considers movements to change these customs to be a betrayal of Islamic teachings.Jameelah’s books and articles have been translated into several languages including Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Bengali and Bahasa Indonesia. Her correspondence, manuscripts, bibliographies, chronologies, speeches, questionnaires, published articles, photographs, videocassettes, and artwork are included in the Humanities and Social Sciences Library collection of the New York Public Library.
Maryam Jameelah passes away
By Reader Correspondent
Published: Fri, 02 November 2012 10:15 PM
Srinagar: Renowned Islamic scholar and writer Maryam Jameelah died in Lahore, reports said Thursday. She was 78 and died after prolonged illness on Wednesday night. Jameelah was born Margaret Marcus to a Jewish family in New York on May 23, 1934. She grew up in a secular environment, but at the age of 19, while a student at New York University, she developed a keen interest in religion. Her search brought her into contact with an array of spiritual orders, religious cults, and world religions; she became acquainted with Islam around 1954. She was then greatly impressed by Marmaduke Pickthall’s ‘The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an’ and by the works of Muhammad Asad, himself a convert from Judaism to Islam. Jameelah cites Asad’s ‘The Road to Mecca’ and ‘Islam at Crossroads’ as critical influences on her decision to become a Muslim. She converted to Islam after meeting with Abul Ala Maududi, a Pakistani Islamic scholar and the founder of Jama’at-e-Islami. Through her readings in Islam she developed a bond with the religion and became a vocal spokesperson for the faith, defending Muslim beliefs against Western criticism and championing such Muslim causes as that of the Palestinians. Her views created much tension in her personal life, but she continued to pursue her cause. Jameelah wrote over 70 booklets. Jameelah was impressed by Maududi’s views and began to correspond with him. Their letters between 1960 and 1962, later published in a volume entitled ‘Correspondences between Maulana Maududi and Maryam Jameelah’, discussed a variety of issues from the discourse between Islam and the West, to Jameelah’s personal spiritual concerns. Jameelah travelled to Pakistan in 1962 on Maududi’s advice and joined his household in Lahore. She soon married Muhammad Yusuf Khan, as his second wife. She wrote about 70 books.
Articles and Books Of Maryam Jameelah
1. ISLAM VERSUS THE WEST
2. ISLAM AND MODERNISM
3. ISLAM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
4. ISLAM VERSUS AHL AL KITAB PAST AND PRESENT
5. AHMAD KHALIL
6. ISLAM AND ORIENTALISM
7. WESTERN CIVILIZATION CONDEMNED BY ITSELF
8. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MAULANA MAUDOODI AND MARYUM JAMEELAH
9. ISLAM AND WESTERN SOCIETY
10. A MANIFESTO OF THE ISLAMIC MOVEMENT
11. IS WESTERN CIVILIZATION UNIVERSAL
12 WHO IS MAUDOODI ?
13 WHY I EMBRACED ISLAM
14 ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM WOMAN TODAY
15 ISLAM AND SOCIAL HABITS
16 ISLAMIC CULTURE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
17 THREE GREAT ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS IN THE ARAB WORLD OF THE RECENT PAST
18 SHAIKH HASAN AL BANNA AND IKHWAN AL MUSLIMUN
19 A GREAT ISLAMIC MOVEMENT IN TURKEY
20 TWO MUJAHIDIN OF THE RECENT PAST AND THEIR STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AGAINST FOREIGN RULE
21 THE GENERATION GAP ITS CA– — USES AND CONSEQUENCES
22 WESTERNIZATION VERSUS MUSLIMS
23 WESTERNIZATION AND HUMAN WELFARE
24 MODERN TECHNOLOGY AND THE DEHUMANIZATION OF MAN
25 ISLAM AND MODERN MAN
Additional Reading
Deborah Baker is an acclaimed biographer whose second book, In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography in 1994.
In 2008-09 she was a Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis C. Cullman Center forWriters and Scholars at the New York Public Library where she wrote The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, which was one of the finalists for the 2011 National Book AwardN an isolated section of the library, one day Baker found a casebook while looking for something interesting. `Inside this casebook, like a small pulsating heart,lay a warmknot of baby mice nesting in a hollow of shredded legal citations.` Another day, in the Manuscripts and Archives Division she found something similar, crying for her attention: Maryam Jameelah Papers, 2.5 linear feet (9 boxes). Baker happily responded.
Maryam Jameelah was Margaret Marcus, a Jewish-American woman who embraced Islam and exiled herself to begin a new life in Lahore in 1962. She was invited to Lahore by Maulana Maududi, the founder of Jamat-iIslami. The Convert is the story of her life from being Margaret to becoming Maryam, between Islam and the West a story that tries to untangle the warm knot of a small pulsating heart.
Margaret converted at the age of 27 in suburban New York. But for her, it was not about forsaking Judaism. Rather,it was about finding a place for herself in a society where she was a misfit. Maududi`s invitation to Pakistan provided an exit for her stagnant and isolated life. She could finally belong somewhere.
Before being invited to Lahore, Margaret had exchanged letters with both Maududi and Sayyid Qutb, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Both of them had talked about the moral decadence of the West and its imperial ambitions based on its Capitalist agenda and its general disdain toward Islam. While views of Maududi and Qutb were shaped by limited encounters with the West, Margaret`s beliefs arose out of her intimate experience of the worst of what her society had to offer: a world rooted in individual materialism unchecked by a moral and religious code.
She used her experience to write scathing condemnations of her society. Now, here was an insider who could criticise the West in a more convincing manner to supplement the Jamat`s own narrative. From being an outcast to becoming a celebrity, Maryam began to find her ground. She even thought she was finally happy.
But life in Pakistan brought its own sets of challenges and setbacks. In one of her own books, At Home in Pakistan, Maryam acknowledged that her impression of Maududi from his letters turned out to be `very dif ferent` from the Maududi she met after her arrival in Lahore. He was `equally surprised and dismayed` upon meeting her. Maryam had imagined living in Lahore would be living in a traditional and orthodox Muslim society. But to her, it seemed to be far off from the goals and ideals of Maududi and his Jamat. What had begun as a quest for the truth had turned into a place of disillusionment.
There are several surprises in the book which come at precise moments when one is just getting comfortable with the predictability of the story. The tale works more like a detective novel. One of the most fascinating parts is where Maududi distances himself from Maryam and she is ultimately sent to a mental institution -in an ironic replay of her past. Maryam`s release and her marriage to an already married Jamat worker are further dramas that keep the reader engaged in Maryam`s fascinating journey as a convert.
The structure of the book reflects Baker`s own progression of learning about Maryam and her own quest of finding answers to difficult questions about Maryam`s life.
Baker appears as vulnerable to sudden shifts as she discovers the story along with the reader.
H ER reconstruction of Maryam`s life is primarily based on Maryam`s letters.
She has also reviewed some of her books to gain a better understanding of Maryam`s personality and worldview. But working with letters posed some problems.
Baker edited some of these letters for voice and brevity. She also took some liberty in mixing the contents of different letters into one to highlight some of Maryam`s experiences. In all honesty she discloses this in `A Note on Methodology` aftertelling the story. This raises an important question: Did she mislead her readers through the book? No. She has been extremely careful in presenting Maryam`s thoughts and feelings to her readers. I looked at some of the letters published many years ago in two separate books in Lahore, and found something interesting.
There were variations between letters which appeared in Lahore publications and those in The Convert. But these were insignificant variations. Baker took great care in keeping the original voice and message as far as I could find.
Interestingly, this exercise led me to another discovery. In a letter dated early August 1963, Baker quotes Maryam:`Well, from that moment on I realised that Maududi family unity and solidarity were valued above the teachings of the Prophet and that no criticism from an outsider would be tolerated.
This line is missing from the letter dated August 3, 1963, published in Lahore by her husband. Clearly, the Jamat could not allow this to go public. Maryam`s letters were edited for publication in Lahore and some material which seemed damaging was removed.
There was one more problem with the letters. Maryam revealed at a later time that she had not been entirely truthful in some of her earlier letters to her parents about life in Pakistan. On closer examination Baker found that many of the letters seemed to have been re-typed. This raised a serious question: How much could she rely on these letters to re-construct Maryam`s life as it happened? After telling the story from these letters she tries to find explanations to understand some parts of Maryam`s life which do not make sense to her.
This takes her and the reader to an exciting conclusion of the book.
I N the book, Maryam`s letters are followed by Baker`s reflections, which are often critical of Maryam`s views and those of her mentors. Baker raises pertinent questions to get rid of the simplistic view of the relationship between the so-called Islam and the West: `Was the enmity between Islam and the West metaphysical or historical?`; `By what mechanism did America and the world`s Muslims suddenly become each other`s evil caricatures? Metaphor? Narrative? Racist propaganda?` She is both empathetic to aswell as critical of Maryam`s positions, and her empathy is always lined with a certain hint of wariness. While she wants us to like her she also wants us to be cautious. It is a hard balance to maintain. And she does it well.
Baker treats other characters with similar balance, including Maududi and his opposites, the secular and Westernised elite of Lahore. When she questions Maududi`s ideology she seems to side with his opposition. But she also seems to understand and almost agree with him when she critically observes a section of these elite:`Cigarettes, illicit alcohol, and dancing girls? No wonder the ranks of civil society were so thin and in need of hired guns. Such a limited notion of individual freedom would mean little to those who had difficulty putting food on the table. I recalled Maududi`s warning to the students at Lahore Law School almost exactly 60 years before: Pakistan`s secular and Westernised elite would hijack Pakistan for their own ends.
This is simply brilliant. She forces the reader to consider each side of the arguments in its own perspective. Her empathy with each side makes one re-think the whole secular-religious divide and the role of this dichotomous relationship in the development of Pakistan, its identity and its future.
Baker has been fairly thoughtful and balanced in her treatment of characters and their views. And she has constructed a fascinating story. But I must also share my observation about her treatment or lack thereof of two concepts: extremism and radicalisation. She does not explain either of these very loaded terms and ends up using them loosely. Is Maududi an extremist in her view? What does it mean to be radical· ised? Is writing against Western capitalism an act of extremism and radicalism? How, why, and in what context may these writings incite violence? In an almost desperate attempt to find answers to some questions in the end, it seems that she oversimplifies the realities of post-colonial Muslim experience. As a consequence, in a simplistic manner she attempts to draw a causal relationship between `radi· calisation` and the events of September 11: `How could Maryam be sure her writings hadn`t played a role in the radicalisation of Muslim youth?` She asks Maryam again: `And 9/11? Was it justified?` In an earlierreflective moment Baker teases the thought that perhaps these attacks were a response to American intervention in the Muslim world: `Did we take after them or did they take after us?` Somehow she misses to connect this thought in her final analysis.
It is indeed true that a certain hateful caricature of the West has made inroads into the modern Jihadi literature adding fuel to the fire. But for actual violence to take place against the West, the Jihadis have always needed a justification based on Western acts of direct interference, aggression and oppression in Muslim societies. This bit is quite clear from their literature.
I agree with Baker that ideas of Maududi, Qutb, and Maryam have certainly played a role. But these cannot be understood to be the sole influence. There is more to the whole picture of Jihad than she has been able to present in the concluding parts of the book.
I AM baffled but also amused with Baker`s treatment of the book in the final sections. Maryam`s last location and its role in the overall story leap again as a surprise which threatens to shatter the carefully constructed narrative. Baker says: `Only then did it occur to me that I had made the same mistake [Maududi] had made. From a series of letters, I had conjured an entire being. I imagined I knew Maryam Jameelah.` And following Baker, so had I, until I started reading the last sections of the book. But, unlike a detective novel, not everything comes together in the end. Baker`s frustration and anger are almost palpable when she fails to get answers from Maryam for some of the questions which are crucial to completing the story. Perhaps they remain a mystery to Maryam as well.
The only way it can make sense is that Margaret`s journey to find meaning, truth, and belonging in a foreign land took unexpected turns marked with challenges, disappointments, and delusions for Maryam. And the end was a reflection of this unfinished, yet fascinating quest, which was told wonderfully by Deborah Baker.
Perhaps, one day it will all be clear. Or, perhaps, I will go and see Maryam Jameelah myself. E The reviewer is a facult p member at LUMS
This article has been written by people, who cannot believe that China could accomplish such a great feat. So Dear Reader, take their acerbic comments with a grain of salt.
China’s second stealth fighter jet, the J-31 Falcon Eagle, looks remarkably like earlier models of a twin-engine variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
Last week’s maiden flight of the JSF’s Chinese doppelgänger comes less than two years after the inaugural flight of China’s first twin-engine J-20 Black Eagle stealth fighter, built by Chengdu Aircraft.
“The general design is reminiscent of the F-35, with edge alignment and Chinese associated with this generation of low-observable aircraft,” said Doug Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace, at the U.K.-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Reports of Chinese industrial espionage related to the JSF give this aircraft added interest, he said.
Built by Shenyang Aircraft, little is known of the Falcon Eagle’s true capabilities beyond analysis of the photos.
“The rear section of the Chinese aircraft, however, shows little LO [low observable] design, though this may reflect its developmental nature,” Barrie said. “Signature management is also about a great deal more than basic shaping, with materials technology and emission control in terms of radio frequency and infrared also significant. The extent or limit to which China has developed already the requisite technologies to address these areas remains an area of conjecture.”
Chinese-language media outlets indicate the fighter might serve on China’s future aircraft carrier fleet. China has one carrier-borne fighter in development, the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark.
“I think it is plausible that the J-31 has been designed on the assumption that there will eventually be a carrier-based version, but I doubt if that is its raison d’etre,” said Roger Cliff, a China military specialist at the Project 2049 Institute in Washington.
“The double-wheel landing gear is suggestive, as are the large tail wings, but it has been pointed out that the J-31 might need a bigger main wing and other modifications before it can be considered optimized for a carrier role,” he said. The most important design factor is one analysts cannot yet see: the strength of the airframe.
“Carrier landings put tremendous stresses on the airframe that would tear apart an aircraft that was not designed for it,” Cliff said. “If the initial version of the J-31 has not been designed that way, then a new airframe design would be needed before it would be carrier-capable, double-wheel nose gear notwithstanding.”
This is one reason the J-15 Flying Shark has taken so long to develop, Cliff said. “It’s not just a matter of adding a tailhook and folding wings to a land-based aircraft.”
F-60/J31 Fifth Generation Stealth Fighter Jet seems to be using Klimov RD-93 engines which were imported by the China for Sino-Pak JF-17 Thunder Fighter Jets as a stop gap solution until WS-13 is flight worthy.
When you’re an entrepreneur, who inevitably wears many hats, managing your time can get tricky—especially when it’s tempting to work all day to grow your business. But being successful doesn’t mean being a slave to your work. Below, four accomplished entrepreneurs share their productivity strategies and how they overcome potential obstacles.
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