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Archive for January, 2013

MEDIA WHORES GEO,ARY,DUNYA: ‘The Joker in the Pack: Tahir- ul -Qadri ‘s Structural Reform Crusade: Status Quo Politicians and Pak media are “Londees” Priced at $50 -100 Million

Western Diplomats in Islamabad are agitated.  West loves Pakistani politicians, because they are absolutely corrupt and can be bought off with a penny.  These status quo agents in Pakistani politics keep the political pot boiling.  This situation also keeps, the minds of common people distracted from constant hunger, disease, and economic deprivation.  Like Pakistan bureaucracy, Pakistani politicians are “Londees,” or kept Whores of Western Powers. In dictatorial regimes, the same politicians were whores of Pakistan Agencies. Generals Aslam Baig. Asad Durrani, and Brig.Imtiaz are living witnesses to political bribery and nepotism.  Islamabad is ruled by manipulative, evergreen bureaucrats, who worship, the Mammon.  Most of the noveau bureaucrats are intermediate fail, Sindhi or Punjabi PPP Jiyalas. Pakistani media and press are also agitated, because their owners, who  are bribed annually with $50 MM largess from countries like the US are worried about losing that manna from their foreign masters. Most of them are anyway, “londees of Western Intelligence Agencies or  Paid Keeps /Mistress of  Western Intelligence Agencies.

 GEO, ARY,and Duniya TV (Malik Riaz Fame) are the Media Whores of Pakistan, who sell their Mother, Pakistan,  for 50 Million Dollars.

So as we present excerpts from The Financial Times Article, the West is Worried that Qadri-Padri might turn out to be a double edged sword.

THE MEDIA WHORES LOGO OPT 4 ARTICLEIslamic scholar urges Pakistan reforms.  

A respected Islamic scholar has burst on to Pakistan’s political scene, threatening to storm the capital with a mass public protest unless his demands for sweeping electoral reforms are met this week. “I will lead an ocean of people to change Islamabad,” vowed Tahirul Qadri, who last month returned to Pakistan after four years abroad.  A fragile transition Zardari cancels Iran gas pipeline talks Charles Leadbeater Look at Pakistani society Pakistan’s security business booms. To the consternation of many established politicians, including the coalition government of President Asif Ali Zardari and its main opponents, he is calling for comprehensive political reforms before a general election set to be held between March and May. Mr Qadri, until now considered a minor force in politics as leader of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) or Pakistan People’s Movement, attracted tens of thousands of people to a political rally in the central city of Lahore on December 23, one of the largest such gatherings in recent memory. “People who came were not just my supporters,” he told the Financial Times in an interview at his home in Lahore. “Pakistanis are anxious to see major changes in the way their country is being run.” Mr Qadri draws his support from Pakistanis who are frustrated at the domination of politics by a handful of elite leaders from well-known families and who are embittered by the parlous state of the economy. Some commentators have compared him to Anna Hazare, the anti-corruption campaigner in neighbouring India, who emerged last year as a voice for middle-class resentment over entrenched corruption and patronage. Since Mr Qadri’s December gathering, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement – the main political party from the southern city of Karachi, allied to Mr Zardari’s Pakistan People’s party – has decided to join Mr Qadri’s Nizam Badlo, or change the system movement. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf led by Imran Khan, the former cricket star turned politician, is widely expected to join future protests too. By contrast, leaders from Mr Zardari’s PPP and the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the two biggest political parties, have united in accusing Mr Qadri of disrupting the build-up to parliamentary elections this year. The polls are being hailed as the first chance for Pakistan to see a smooth transfer of power from one elected government to another since the country was created. In the interview, Mr Qadri warned of Pakistan’s “break up” unless ruling politicians are forced to abide by laws that have been openly flouted by them for years. He said he wanted tax evaders, loan defaulters and those with criminal records to be banned from standing for elections, because the existing system led to illegitimate results and “immoral and unethical” governments. “The whole process is a total negation of the principles of democracy,” he said. “I only want the constitution to be enforced. Law breakers are the lawmakers in Pakistan,” he said, noting that in some past cabinets no minister had paid income tax. “Seventy per cent of parliamentarians are tax evaders.” Pakistan’s domination by tainted politicians and the rise of domestic terrorism, he said, had damaged the country’s reputation. “There are parts of Pakistan where the government has no control. Internationally, we are seen as a threat. In the past five years, the government has not formulated laws on terrorism.” Mr Qadri, a moderate Muslim, is not alone in complaining about tax evasion by Pakistan’s corrupt elite and its inability to tackle terrorism. According to by Ehtisham Ahmad and Michael Best of the London School of Economics, only 0.9 per cent of Pakistanis pay tax, compared with 4.7 per cent in India and 80 per cent in Canada. Violence by Islamist extremists and criminals is rampant in various parts of Pakistan. The US and other western nations are ambivalent about Mr Qadri’s sudden reappearance in Pakistani politics as they seek to restore stability in the region amid a withdrawal of Nato forces from neighbouring Afghanistan. “He brings in an element of unpredictability to future politics, said one western diplomat in Islamabad. “ With others [from mainstream parties] you can predict intentions, but not with Qadri.” 

Additional reporting by Victor Mallet in New Delhi Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013. Details 

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COL RIAZ JAFRI’S BYLINE: Altaf’s Apology,”“Thook kar chatna”.

20070513_53

LETTER TO EDITOR

 

 

January 7th, 2013

Altaf’s Apology

 The apex court has accepted the apology of the contemnor Altaf Hussain. The apology was unconditional and the MQM Chief had placed himself entirely at the mercy of the court. He has also taken his contemptuous words back, synonymous for which in Urdu is “Thook kar chatna”.

Though it was extremely magnanimous and gracious of the SCP to let him off but would it not have been appropriate to make him tender the apology publicly and recite orally all that he has submitted in writing to the court in front of a mammoth rally in Karachi similar to one in which he had committed the offence in the first place.  His contemptuous and seething rants and utterings were heard by the millions in the arena and on almost all TV channels in the country, but how many would now know of the exact tenor and tone of his apology?!

 

It has become a sort of customary to insult the judiciary and get away with a simple apology.  The court can always demonstrate its large heartedness and forgive, but rendering of a public apology in front of the same crowd and under the similar circumstances in which the contempt was committed will act as an exemplary deterrent for all would be delinquent contemnors.  

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)

Pakistan

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PROFESSOR AFSAR MIAN ON: Ecological Impact of Arab Falconry on Houbara Bustard in Baluchistan

 

The Holy Koran and Compassion towards Birds,Animals, environment. Numerous  He it is that has made you viceregent (inheritors) in the earth.” (Sura 35:39)

Professor Afsar Mian’s Article follows below:

The UAE rulers are spreading propaganda that they are protecting the Houbara Bustard, this is absolutely false. Their sanctuaries are a propaganda ploy to combat bad press they are receiving from around the globe These practices are cruel and in humane. Islam also forbids them. Allah Almighty has made Man as His  Vice-Regents over all creatures great and small, and the environment. The love for ancient desert sport, dwindling of the population of Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata) in the traditional hunting grounds of the Gulf States, Middle East, and North Africa, and also in some accessible parts of Pakistan through hectic mechanized hunting, has attracted the now-rich Arab falconers to strike at the populations wintering in relatively inaccessible areas of Baluchistan during the last 5–10 years. The present paper is the first known attempt at analysing the multidirectional effects of falconry in that last area, and depends upon the information collected during the Author’s tours of different areas of Baluchistan and through information collected from various agencies.

The falconry that is now being done in the wintering grounds of the Houbara Bustard in Baluchistan is liable to have a very severe impact on the birds’ population as the summering population is packed in some 1/8th of its summering grounds, thus yielding a very high density of birds. The falconry activities not only constitute a direct assault on the population of the Asian Race of Houbara, with a hunting toll of 4,955 during 1984–85 (a progressive increase from 418 during 1981–82 as reported but in reality expected to be much higher). There is also a significant effect on the population of falcons, some 300–400 being used every year, though the actual toll is probably much higher, as many are lost during trapping, training, transportation, and selling. The hunting parties are also responsible for direct and/or indirect killing of associated wildlife including hares, various deer, See-see Partridges, sandgrouses, Stone Curlew, and Cream-coloured Courser, while some 200 head of antelope were taken out of their ecosystems and sold to, or wasted in the hands of, falconry parties during the 1983–84 season.

The hectic activity of the falconers in the area, and their associated men and materials, are responsible for disturbing the biological phenomena of the animal wildlife, including hormonal balance and feeding activities. The period of mating and reproduction of most of the desert animals coincides with the falconry in the area, and hence these activities result in the production of malnourished, biologically unbalanced individuals.

The indiscriminate killing of Houbara and falcons may result in unbalanced ecosystem, with the massive elimination of Houbara resulting in increases in the populations of harmful organisms lying at lower trophic levels, and decreases in the populations of organisms lying at higher trophic levels. The elimination of raptorial falcons has probably resulted in increases in the populations of rodents in the northeastern part of Baluchistan and hence increased damage to agricultural crops or water channels. The falconry also has the potential of physically destroying the habitat through crushing of the slow-growing plants, denuding the camping sites through movement of men and materials, dumping of nondegradable wastes, and woodcutting for camp fires. The movement of heavy hunting vehicles sometimes causes severe damage to small earthfilled dams that are used for storing irrigation water, slowing rapid runoff, and recharging ground-water resources.

Also Visit: http://www.causes.com/causes/645239-stop-killing-houbara-bustard-named-taloor-in-sindhi-by-arab-hunters-in-sindh

Ecological Impact of Arab Falconry on Houbara Bustard in Baluchistan

Afsar Miana1

a1 Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, University of Baluchistan, Quetta, Pakistan.

The love for ancient desert sport, dwindling of the population of Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata) in the traditional hunting grounds of the Gulf States, Middle East, and North Africa, and also in some accessible parts of Pakistan through hectic mechanized hunting, has attracted the now-rich Arab falconers to strike at the populations wintering in relatively inaccessible areas of Baluchistan during the last 5–10 years. The present paper is the first known attempt at analysing the multidirectional effects of falconry in that last area, and depends upon the information collected during the Author’s tours of different areas of Baluchistan and through information collected from various agencies.

The falconry that is now being done in the wintering grounds of the Houbara Bustard in Baluchistan is liable to have a very severe impact on the birds’ population as the summering population is packed in some 1/8th of its summering grounds, thus yielding a very high density of birds. The falconry activities not only constitute a direct assault on the population of the Asian Race of Houbara, with a hunting toll of 4,955 during 1984–85 (a progressive increase from 418 during 1981–82 as reported but in reality expected to be much higher). There is also a significant effect on the population of falcons, some 300–400 being used every year, though the actual toll is probably much higher, as many are lost during trapping, training, transportation, and selling. The hunting parties are also responsible for direct and/or indirect killing of associated wildlife including hares, various deer, See-see Partridges, sandgrouses, Stone Curlew, and Cream-coloured Courser, while some 200 head of antelope were taken out of their ecosystems and sold to, or wasted in the hands of, falconry parties during the 1983–84 season.

The hectic activity of the falconers in the area, and their associated men and materials, are responsible for disturbing the biological phenomena of the animal wildlife, including hormonal balance and feeding activities. The period of mating and reproduction of most of the desert animals coincides with the falconry in the area, and hence these activities result in the production of malnourished, biologically unbalanced individuals.

The indiscriminate killing of Houbara and falcons may result in unbalanced ecosystem, with the massive elimination of Houbara resulting in increases in the populations of harmful organisms lying at lower trophic levels, and decreases in the populations of organisms lying at higher trophic levels. The elimination of raptorial falcons has probably resulted in increases in the populations of rodents in the northeastern part of Baluchistan and hence increased damage to agricultural crops or water channels. The falconry also has the potential of physically destroying the habitat through crushing of the slow-growing plants, denuding the camping sites through movement of men and materials, dumping of nondegradable wastes, and woodcutting for camp fires. The movement of heavy hunting vehicles sometimes causes severe damage to small earthfilled dams that are used for storing irrigation water, slowing rapid runoff, and recharging ground-water resources.

 

Reference

 

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PAKISTANIS SPEAK-OUT: SILAJEET OF TINY HOUBARA BUSTARD MEAT TO TREAT THE IMPOTENCY & VORACIOUS SEXUAL APPETITES OF EMIRS & SHEIKHS FROM GULF

 
Political consensus building in Pakistan by UAE Emir is an  excuse to massacre of the remnants of near extinct tiny Houbara Bustard, whose sanctuary is Pakistan. In the Holy Qu’ran, Allah has given vice-regency to man over all creatures, great and small. Please speak out. Otherwise, this tiny,helpless bird will disappear forever. These Arab sheikhs due to their voracious sexual appetites, consider the few grams of this birds meat as an Aphrodisiac 
 
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The Houbara Bustard ( Named Taloorâ in Sindhi language) is 60 cm long with an 140 cm wingspan. It is brown above and white below, with a black stripe down the sides of its neck.

Every year at the onset of winter, millions of wild birds from cold northern regions i.e. Siberia migrate towards the warmer regions of the world.

The Houbara Bustard is also listed in the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals, which is known as the Bonn Convention.

 

 

 

assad-uae_all_s.jpgPakistan is regarded as an important wintering ground for migratory birds.

The reason is Indus Flyway that provides a significant series of waterways and wetlands all the way long from northern mountains to the Indus Delta. Almost 70% of migratory birds that enter Pakistan finally roost on various wetlands of Sindh province, while the rest stay behind in other provinces.

Until late 1970s, the Arab royals used to go to Iran and Afghanistan as well for hunting this bird. But since the fall of Shah of Iran and Afghanistan war, Pakistan became the sole destination for the bird hunters. In 1912, the British government banned the hunting of houbara on the subcontinent. Pakistan also imposed a permanent ban on hunting of the bird in 1972. But nothing worked in front of our royal guests from Arab states because they believe the meat of this bird has mythical aphrodisiac qualities. 

Hunting of Houbara bustard by Pakistanis is banned under wildlife laws

Despite strong opposition by the Environment Ministry, The federal government has issued 28 special permits to the rulers, members of ruling families and other dignitaries of four Gulf States to hunt the internationally protected Houbara bustard during the 2010-2011 winter seasons.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, has been allotted hunting areas in Sindh Sukkur, Ghotki, Nawabshah and Sanghar districts

Because of the increased hunting of the bird, especially in its winter habitats, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has classified it as an endangered migratory bird.

 
UAE President Nahyan trying to develop consensus between Pakistan’s two main political parties PPP & PML-N on caretaker set-up while on tour.
 
LAHORE – January 6, 2013
 
The president of the UAE and emir of Abu Dhabi has set foot into developing consensus between the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and issues including selection of a caretaker prime minister — while he is on a hunting mission.Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is currently stationed in the desert areas of Koh-e-Suleman in Pakistan for bird hunting, is also engaged in “crucial talks” with Pakistani political leaders in wake of the upcoming elections, sources told The Express Tribune.
 
Nahyan arrived in Rahim Yar Khan on December 29 and is currently camped at Koh-e-Suleman Tehsil, Rojhan district, Rajanpur where Rangers personnel have been deployed around nine entry points of the belt amid heightened security arrangements. Reportedly, the emir of Abu Dhabi, along with political engagements, is also hunting birds which have migrated from Russia to the Pakistani territory.
 

30 houbara hunting permits issued to Gulf “dignitaries”

From the Newspaper |  | 27th October, 2012
KARACHI, Oct 26: The federal government has issued at least 30 special permits to royal family members and government officials of Arab states to hunt the highly rare and internationally protected bird species houbara bustard, it emerged on Friday.

Hunting of the internationally protected migratory bird is banned under various local and international conservation laws and Pakistanis are not allowed to hunt the precious bird, sources said.

During the hunting season 2012-13, the sources said, the favour had been extended to the royal families of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, State of Qatar and Kingdom of Bahrain, including three rulers (kings), four crown prices, an uncle of a ruler, brothers and other close family members of the rulers.

The sources said that the maximum number of districts/ areas, 14 to be exact, had been allocated to UAE ruler Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. They added that he was also the single hunter who had been allocated areas in the three provinces — Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan — where the houbara bustard stays after flying from the much colder central Asian habitat to spend its winters.

While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest and wealthiest country in the Arabian peninsula, it has been allocated just two hunting permits unlike the UAE that has been given 12 permits, Qatar 11 permits and Bahrain five permits, according to the sources.

Almost the entire arid region, which provided temporary abode to the migratory birds and spread in all the four provinces of Pakistan, had been allocated to these 30 foreign hunters, the sources said.

The names of the hunters and areas allocated to them, according to the list prepared by the foreign ministry are:

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, the first deputy prime minister and defence minister, has been given a permit for hunting in districts of Dera Bugti, Dera Murad Jamali, Nasirabad and Jaffarbad and Duki in Loralai district in Balochistan and Vehari, Multan (Tehsil Shujabad), Mianwali and Sargodha in Punjab.

Tabuk Governor Prince Fahd bin Abdul Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been allocated districts of Chagai, Awaran and Noshki (excluding the Noshki city) in Balochistan.

Kingdom of Bahrain

An uncle of the King of Bahrain, Sheikh Ebrahim bin Hamad bin Abdullah al Khalifa, has been issued a permit for hunting in Mastung district of Balochistan.

A member of the ruling family, Sheikh Ahmed bin Ali Al Khalifa, has been allowed hunting in Malir district (excluding the Malir cantonment and Dhabeji areas) in Sindh.

Another member of the ruling family, Sheikh Mohammad bin Hamad Al Khalifa, has been allotted the Malir district (excluding Malir Cantonment and Dhabeji areas).

Defence affairs adviser to the king Sheikh Abdullah bin Salman Al Khalifa has been allowed hunting in Jati tehsil of Thatta district, Sindh.

Bahrain defence forces commander in chief Sheikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa has been given permit for hunting in Toisar tehsil of Musakhel district in Balochistan.

Abu Dhabi, UAE

UAE President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan has been allowed to hunt in districts of Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab, and Sukkur, Ghotki, Nawabshah and Sanghar in Sindh and Zhob, Ormara, Gwadar, Pasni, Kharan, excluding Naag Dara (Naag valley is a breeding area), Panjgur and Washuk in Balochistan.

Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of UAE armed forces Lieutenant General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan has been allowed to hunt in Lehri tehsil of Sibi district (Domki area only).

UAE Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan has been allowed to hunt in Khairpur district, including Kot Diji (not across Nara Canal) in Sindh.

UAE Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who is ruler’s representative in the western region, has been allotted Lehri tehsil of Sibi district (excluding Domki), old Kutchi and Sani Shoran of Bolan district in Balochistan and Khairpur Nathan Shah, Ghaibi Dero, Shahdadkot, Khairpur (area across Nara canal), Tehsil Johi and Fareedabad union council in Dadu district of Sindh.

Another member of the royal family, Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, has been given Qila Saifullah district, including Kar Khurassan (less subdivision Muslim Bagh) in Balochistan.

Dubai, UAE

Ruler of Dubai and vice president of the UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has been allowed to hunt in Khuzdar and Lasbela districts of Balochistan and in Muzaffargarh district of Punjab.

Crown prince of Dubai Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has been allotted Bhakkar and Khushab districts of Punjab and Jamshoro district of Sindh.

Deputy ruler of Dubai and Finance Minister Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum has been given Bahawalpur district and Fort Abbas tehsil of Bahawalnagar district.

Deputy chief of Dubai police and general security Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, also a member of the ruling family, has been allowed to hunt in Umerkot and Tharparkar, including Mithi and Nagarparkar, (excluding the protected area).

Sheikh Rashid bin Khalifa Al-Maktoum, another member of the ruling family of Dubai, has been allocated Badin district, the Jangshahi area in Thatta and Dhabeji in Malir district in Sindh.

Major General Sheikh Al Mur bin Maktoum Al Maktoum has been given Jhang district of Punjab.

Nasir Abdullah Lootah, a government official of Dubai, has been issued a permit for hunting in Thatta district (excluding tehsils of Shah Bander and Jung Shahi) in Sindh.

State of Qatar

Emir of State of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani has been allotted the Bahawalnagar (excluding Fort Abbas tehsil) district in Punjab for hunting.

Heir Apparent of the State of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has been permitted to hunt in Jacobabad district, Sindh. Ex-heir apparent to the State of Qatar Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani has been allowed hunting in Musakhel and Drug tehsils of Musakhel district in Balochistan.

Qatar prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabbar Al Thani has been allocated the Muslimbagh subdivision in Qila Saifullah district, Balochistan.

A brother of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammad bin Khalifa Al Thani, has been allotted Loralai district (excluding the Duki area) in Balochistan.

Another royal family member, Sheikh Khalid bin Thani Al Thani, has been issued permit for hunting in district Layyah in Punjab and Dadu City in Sindh.

Qatar royal family’s supreme council member Sheikh Ali bin Abdullah Thani Al Thani has been allotted Turbat district in Balochistan for hunting.

Another member of the royal family, Sheikh Abdullah bin Ali Al Thani, has been issued a permit for hunting in Dera Ismail Khan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Yet another member of the royal family, Sheikh Thani bin Abdul Aziz Al Thani, has been allowed to hunt in Surab tehsil in Kalat district, Balochistan.

Similarly, another member of the ruling family, Sheikh Mohammad bin Ali bin Abdullah bin Thani Al Thani, has been allowed hunting in Barkhan district and Kingri tehsil in Musakhel district of Balochistan.

Qatar prime minister’s brother Sheikh Falah bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani has been issued a permit for hunting in Jhal Magsi district of Balochistan.

Code of conduct

A code of conduct issued by the ministry to the hunters prescribes a bag limit of 100 birds and they have been advised neither to poach on chicks or eggs nor to take live birds and not to use firearms for hunting which is to be carried out only through falcons.

Representatives of the wildlife department and liaison officials will accompany the hunters for monitoring and ensuring that the code is being followed.

 
According to sources, President Asif Ali Zardari met Nahyan last week and discussed some of important issues with him, including finances of the country in next three months, transition of democracy, caretaker set up and among other issues such as the Iran-Pakistan Gas pipeline and the Taliban insurgency.
Sources revealed that the two leaders discussed the West’s reservations over the contentious Pak-Iran Gas pipeline, the threat of increasing militant attacks by the Taliban and the upcoming transition period the country following the general elections.
 
It was revealed that President has “cleared matters with the emir” on the caretaker set-up. The president of the UAE also urged Zardari to hold a meeting with PML-N’s leadership for negotiations. However, according to an official handout from the media cell of the President House, Zardari and Nahyan discussed “matters of mutual interests and issues of the country”. According to the official handout of the PML-N, party president Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif met with Nahyan Saturday evening at his camp office in Rojhan and discussed matters of “mutual interest”.
 
Sources said that Sharifs discussed with the UAE leader issues regarding the caretaker setup and some names for the interim set up from both sides were also exchanged. The PML-N is trying to develop consensus on the name of the chairman of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, for the caretaker setup and, sources said, that the party was expecting Nahyan to perform his role in promoting this.
Sources added that Nahyan himself also put forward a few names to the Sharifs for the interim setup.

 

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The Two Castes of Pakistan: JINS & JUNKIES

Pakistan has a Caste System Based on History and Economics. There are only two Castes in Pakistan, the Jagirdars/Industrialists (the JINS)

and the 99 percent who make up rest of the people (Junkies).

 

Junkies are named so, because 99 percent Pakistanis are addicted to poverty. They are fed an opiate of poverty as being “ordained” by Allah Almighty. It is a part of their Kismet. A concept light years removed from the social dynamics; and the emphasis on effort to enhance ones economic condition, as described by Islam. Pakistan’s wealth, economy, political power, and opportunities are controlled by the Jagirdars/Industrialist Axis (the JIN Axis).The JINS preach the gospel of Status Quo.  Don’t rock the boat, the big bad wolf from India will come and get you, if you did.  So in 65 years, the JIN are the rulers and the Junkies are the ruled.  The JINS use their wealth to gain an unfair advantage over the Junkies.  Any one person or entity, including a religious scholar turned activist like Tahirul Qadri or a political party like Tehreek-i-Insaf or MQM, tries to act as proponent of parity or equal distribution of wealth are labeled as foreign agents or corrupt. Pakistani media is owned by the JINS, because without it, they could not maintain their hold on wealth and power. But,  who laid the foundation of this institution of  JINS and Junkies.

Here is the history of how it all began:

This is an in-depth article on the genesis of the curse of Jagirdari in Punjab and Waderas in Sindh. How the likes of  the Jatois of Sindh, the Noons, the Tareens, the Mazaris, the Legharis, the Qureshis, the Syeds of Sindh, the Hayats, the Tiwanas, the Daultanas, of Punjab became powerful in Pakistani politics.  Their roots date back to a more than a hundred years. These families were collaborators with the British and fought the Freedom Fighters during the 1857 Struggle for Independence.

Rewards for Ghadaars-Noons, Syeds, Sheikhs, Qureshis, Hayats, and Tiwanas: Collaborators of British during 1857 Struggle for Independence 

 Landowners accounted for over 60 per cent of the Punjab’s restricted electorate. This stood at just over of two and a quarter million voters, just 1 in ten Punjabis. Moreover, non-agriculturalists were still disallowed from contesting rural constituencies. This resulted in men committed to the imperial connection dominating every government which was elected in the new era of provincial autonomy...

Ian Talbot quoted from Khizr Tiwana, The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India, Routledge, 1996. 

David Page quoted from Prelude to Partition,  The Indian Muslims and the Imperial System of Control 1920-1932, OUP, 1982.

The British dependence on Punjab for  military manpower after the 1857 mutiny heavily influenced  British policies towards land, administration, franchise and demands for self-rule in that province. These quotes provide glimpses  of the particularity exercised towards Punjab by the British.  

Punjab and the 1857 mutiny
Ian Talbot writes:
John Lawrence, the first Chief Commissioner of the British Punjab favoured the interests of the cultivators rather than the landowners. He fell out with his brother Henry, a fellow member of the Punjab Board of Administration, over the treatment of the jagirdars left by Sikh rule. The debate raged fiercely over the fate of the Sikh jagirdars of the central Punjab. But the British were keen to confirm the landed authority of the Tiwanas and other ‘tribal’ leaders who had supported them against the Sikhs in the conflicts of 1845-6 and 1848-9 in the West Punjab. Such families as the Noons, Tiwanas, and Hayats of Wah were to subsequently play central roles in the future colonial administration to the localities.

The British recognition of such ‘tribal’ leaders paid a rich dividend in 1857. Historians remain divided over the causes and nature of the uprising of that year but agree that this was the supreme moment of truth for the British in India. The crucial support of the Punjab’s chiefs safeguarded the Raj. It ended any doubts concerning the desirability of maintaining the influence of the rural intermediaries.

On 10 May 1857, soldiers of the Bengal Army mutinied at Meerut. News of this event reached the Punjab at midnight two days later. The concentration of European troops in this key frontier region left towns in the Gangetic Plan open to attack. The fabric of Government collapsed in Oudh which had been recently annexed by the British and also in the North Western Provinces. Henry Lawrence was killed in the fighting in Oudh to which he had been recently transferred. John Lawrence organised irregular forces of Punjabi cavalry to snuff out disturbances in the region before mounting an attack to recapture Delhi.

Groups of sepoys mutinied in their Punjabi cantonments of Ferozepore, Jullunder, Ambala and Jhelum. When a body of sepoys massed for an attack on the British district headquarters at Shahpur, Malik Sahib Khan rode over from Mitha Tiwana to parley with the anxious British deputy commissioner. Their meeting entered the Raj’s folklore.

Malik Sahib stood before Mr. Ousley, salaamed and offered him the handle of his sword with the point directed to his own body and said ‘I have fifty horsemen and I can raise three hundred. I can clothe them and feed them, and if no questions are asked, I can find them arms too. They and my life are yours.’ Malik Sahib Khan’s dramatic gesture was the first offer of assistance to the beleaguered authorities in the West Punjab. Moreover, it was proffered at a time when the triumph of British arms was uncertain. The deputy commissioner was well aware that he could have mounted only token resistance, if the Tiwana chief had jointed the ‘rebels’. The British thereafter remembered that the Tiwanas’ loyalty had stood firm when it had been put to the test.

Malik Sahib Khan’s forces defeated the sepoys of the Bengal Army in battles at Jhelum and Ajnala during the course of July. In one episode they captured 200 ‘rebels’ without firing a shot. In August, the Tiwana troops joined the forces which John Nicholson was massing in Amritsar to recapture Delhi. By this stage the Tiwana contingent had been swollen to a thousand sowars with the addition of the forces of his brothers,.. and great nephew.. They joined the British forces on the Ridge outside Delhi. The besieged city finally fell on 14 September. The aged Mughal Bahadur Shah escaped with his life, but the British exacted a heavy retribution on its other Muslim citizens.

Following the siege of Delhi, Malik Sahib Khan with his brothers took part in several other actions including the battle of Kalpu which sealed the fate of the Rhani of Jhansi. Malik Sahib Khan then accompanied General Napier on his campaign in central India. The British were so impressed by the fighting capacity of the Tiwana irregulars that a detachment was incorporated in the regiment of the 2nd Mahratta Horse at Gwalior which was raised for duty in central India. In the military reorganization at the end of the revolt, the unit became the 18th Bengal cavalry.

When the Prince of Wales(the future George V) visited India in 1906 he became Colonel in chief of the regiment which changed its title to the 18th(Prince of Wales’ Own) Tiwana Lancers. Finally in 1921, the 19th Bengal Lancers amalgamated to form the 19th King George V’s Own Lancers. Both Umar and Khizr[Tiwana, Malik Sahib Khan’s descendants] displayed great pride in wearing the regiment’s scarlet uniform and blue pagari in their capacity as Honorary-Colonel. Tiwanas held most of the regular Indian commissions in the regiment, as the British saw their ‘natural leadership’ as vital to discipline in a fighting force recruited entirely from the Salt range.

The creation of the Tiwana regiment climaxed the ‘tribe”s emergence as military sub-contractors of the state. Henceforth military service and their local power as landholders were closely enmeshed. Army pay and pensions enabled Tiwana chiefs to both increase agricultural productivity in their home villages, and invest in land elsewhere. No other Muslim Rajput ‘tribes’ formed their own regiments, but they were heavily recruited in the Indian Army from the late 1870s onwards… The economic multiplier effects of military service enabled the transition from ‘tribal’ chief to West Punjab landlord to be completed. A military-agriculturalist lobby also emerged. Provincial autonomy which was introduced by the 1935 Government of India Act gave it full expression. The Unionist Party became its mouthpiece and fittingly a Tiwana served as the last Unionist Premier.

British policy in Punjab 1857-1920
Ian Talbot writes:
The loyalty of the Muslim and Sikh landowners of the newly annexed Punjab region in 1857 confirmed the school of thought associated with Henry Lawrence. This sought to govern with the assistance of rural intermediaries. The British richly rewarded those who had stood by them in their darkest hour. The Tiwanas were the most successful but by no means the only rural family which embarked at this time on what were to prove lengthy and lucrative ‘loyalist’ careers. The Noons and Hayats shared a similar history.

Officials recognised the need for securing the support of the rural elites, however, not only because they were local peacekeepers, but because they were military contractors. The Tiwanas, as we have noted, exemplified this role, although it was played by many other Rajput ‘tribes’ following the Punjabisation of the Indian Army. This resulted from the thorough overhaul of military organisation after 1857.

By the end of the First World War, the Punjab so dominated the Indian Army that three-fifths of its recruits were drawn from the region. Moreover, they hailed from a narrow range of Hindu Dogra, Sikh Jat and Muslim Rajput  ‘martial castes’ which represented less than 1 per cent of the subcontinent’s total population. Punjabis saw action  in the mud of Flanders, in the deserts of Arabia and in the bush of East Africa, winning over 2,000 decorations, including three Victoria Crosses. The Punjabi ‘martial castes’ continued to dominate the Indian Army throughout the inter-war years.

At no time did the Punjabi contingent drop below three-fifths of the total strength. The imperative to secure the loyalty of the ‘martial castes’ understandably exerted a profound impact on the Punjab’s political economy.

The British adopted a number of policies to secure rural stability in the sword arm of India. Overriding all other considerations, until it was fatally dislocated by the Second World War, was the imperative to defend the rural power structure. This was achieved by the following methods: first by associating the ‘natural leaders’ of the ‘agriculturist tribes’ with their executive authority; second, by ensuring that the rural leaders politically controlled the economic forces set in train by the colonial encouragement of a market-oriented agriculture; third by using the resources which this produced to reward the agriculturalist population rather than stimulate industrial development; fourth by establishing a framework of political representation which institutionalised the division between the ‘agriculturalist’ and ‘non-agriculturalist’ population.

The British identification of the ‘tribe’ as the focus of rural identity underpinned all of these policy initiatives. Indeed, the maintenance of the tribal structure of rural society became the legitimising principle of British rule, thereby obscuring realpolitik imperatives. However, as David Gilmartin has revealed, the definition of the ‘tribe’ was vague and ‘workable principles of tribal grouping were extremely elusive’. The British therefore created their own around the artificial construct of the ‘agriculturalist tribe’. Although this built on pre-existing social structures, it was a political definition enshrined in the 1900 Alienation of Land Act. This measure not only ‘crystallized the assumptions underlying the British Imperial administration’ but ‘translated’ them into popular politics. Henceforth, both the justification of British rule and the programme of the leading men of the ‘tribes’ and clans who banded together eventually in the Unionist Party was the ‘uplift’ and ‘protection’ of the ‘backward’ agriculturalist tribes.

The British co-opted the ‘natural leaders’ of rural society into their administrative system by means of the semi-official post of the zaildar.This was unique to the Punjab’s local administration…Subordinate to it but serving a similar purpose was the post of sufedposh. ‘Tribal’ chiefs and landowners were also tied to the administrative system by being made honorary magistrates and members of the darbar… Posts were also reserved for agriculturalists in the official ranks of the local administration.  Sir Michael O’Dwyer’s governorship witnessed an especially sharp increase in the agriculturalists tribes’ representation in the public services. In the Irrigation Branch of the Public Works Department this rocketed from 29 to 66 per cent of the officials. Such reservation strengthened ‘tribal’ as against ‘communal’ identity.

The Pax Britannica encouraged the commericalisation of agriculture. The British also vastly extended irrigation facilities and slashed transport costs. The West Punjab underwent an agricultural revolution as arid subsistence production was replaced by commercialised production of huge amounts of wheat, cotton and sugar.

The Shahpur district stood at the forefront of this transformation. The Lower Jhelum Canal converted the waste of the Kirana bar into first class irrigated land. This was parceled into 337 colony villages or ‘chaks’. New market towns came into existence where the agriculturalists brought their commercial crops. These were lined by rail to Sargodha from where 500,000 tonnes of wheat were being annually dispatched to Karachi by the 1920s. At this date the Punjab produced a tenth of British India’s total cotton crop and a third of its wheat. The region thus emerged as the pace-setter of the subcontinent’s agricultural development well before independence. At the most conservative estimate, per capita output of all crops had increased by nearly 45 per cent between 1891 and 1921.

The Lower Jhelum was just one of the Punjab’s nine Canal Colony areas. These transformed the endless waste and scrub of the Jhang, Lyallpur and Shahpur districts into flourishing agricultural regions. The Lyallpur district which had been only sparsely populated by nomadic herdsmen possessed a million inhabitants within thirty years of the opening of the Chenab Canal in the 1880s. Three and a half million rupees worth of crops were annually produced from its Lower Chenab Canal Colony. The whole area was neatly laid out into plots of land known as squares, with market places, towns and villages spaced along the roads and railways which criss-crossed the Colony. By thus ‘creating villages of a type superior in civilisation to anything which the region had previously experienced’ the British hoped to establish a model for the Punjab’s development.

The Canal Colonies were also intended to mop up surplus population from the crowded districts of the central Punjab. Large number of Sikh Jats migrated to the Lower Chenab Canal Colony where they eventually owned a third of the land. In all, a million Punjabis moved to the nine Canal Colonies. They not only relieved congestion but formed a market for the produce of other regions, as the colonists specialised in cultivating a narrow range of cash crops. Furthermore, they remitted much of their income to their home villages.

The Canal Colonies’ creation coincided with the Punjab’s emergence as the sword arm of India. Indeed enlistment was encouraged by the British policy of rewarding ex-servicemen with lucrative grants of land in the Canal Colonies. Much land in the Lower Bari Doab Canal Colony was set aside for this purpose. The vast increase in productive land also enabled the British to earmark large areas for breeding horses and cattle for the Indian Army. During the First World War, the Lyallpur Canal Colony provided huge amounts of wheat and flour for the troops and gifts of horses and mules were made to the Army. The Shahpur District was, however, the main areas for Army horse breeding. In all 200,000 acres within it were leased for this purpose….

Although the bulk of the land in the Canal Colonies was sold to peasant proprietors, the Punjab Government reserved areas to reward both the ‘martial castes’ and the ‘landed gentry’. At the end of the First World War over 420,000 acres of Colony land were distributed to just 6,000 Commissioned and Non-Commissioned Army Officers. Under the terms of the ‘landed gentry status’ seven and a half per cent of the Lower Bari Doab Canal Colony alone was earmarked for the landowning elite. It is important to note that such land was among the best in the whole of the subcontinent and was highly valued….

The Tiwanas

 

 


A file picture of 1945 in which viceroy Lord Wavell (left), convener of the conference greeting Malik Khizar Hayat Khan Tiwana (centre), premier of Punjab while premier of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) (2nd from left) and Bhulabhai Desai look on, at Simla conference, in Simla.

The Collaborator


 

Viceroy Wavell

A file picture of 1945 in which viceroy Lord Wavell (left), convener of the conference greeting Malik Khizar Hayat Khan Tiwana (centre), premier of Punjab while premier of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) (2nd from left) and Bhulabhai Desai look on, at Simla conference, in Simla.

   
Credit : (Source: The Times Of India Group)
© BCCL
Photograph Date: : 01/06/1945 (tentative)
     
     
     
 
 

 

The Tiwanas like other Punjab chiefs shared in this bonanza. When Umar was a minor, about 90 squares of land in the Chenab Colony was purchased on his behalf at an auction. The main village was called Umarpur. The Government also gave him 43 squares on nazrana terms during his minority.

British rule, however, also swept away the barriers which had previously prevented moneylenders from acquiring land in the countryside. As land prices rose- the result of the Pax Britannica, as well as improved communications and irrigation- it became increasingly tempting for landowners to pledge land in return for easy credit. Moneylenders supported by a westernised legal system foreclosed mortgages on the lands of agriculturalists debtors. In other parts of India, most notably Bengal, following the Permanent Settlement of 1793, land had changed hands dramatically in this way. A similar process in the Punjab, however, would threaten political stability in a region of immense importance to wider Imperial interests. Furthermore, it would strike at the heart of its administration’s strongly held assumptions and beliefs.

S.S. Thorburn in his book ‘Mussulmans and Moneylenders in the Punjab’ sounded the tocsin. Thorburn, a Deputy Commissioner in the Dera Ghazi Khan district highlighted the alarming rate at which land was being alienated to money lenders. The large Muslim landlords of the trans-Indus districts were not, however the moneylenders’ only victims. The Hindu Rajputs of the submontane districts of Ambala Division also suffered at the hands of powerful moneylenders who ‘exact free services and free fuel fodder and ghi and (take their) dues as much in grain as in cash. The Hindu Jat cultivators of the agriculturally poor Rohtak district also suffered from the moneylenders’ exploitation…’

The British first attempted to solve this problem with piecemeal measures. They took a large number of encumbered estates under the wing of the Court of Wards Administration. It soon became apparent, however, that more sweeping action was required. After a sharp internal debate concerning the virtues of intervention against sticking to laissez-faire principles, the Punjab Government implemented the 1900 Alienation of Land Act. It barred the transfer of land from  agriculturalist to non-agriculturalist tribes. The former were designated by name in each district. They included not only the Rajput martial caste landowners and Jat, Arain and Gujar cultivators, but the Muslim religious elites-the Syeds, Sheikhs, Qureshis. The measure not only halted their expropriation by the non-agriculturalist commercial castes of Khatris and Banias, but also provided the framework for the structuring of politics around the idiom of the ‘tribe’, rather than that of religious community. The Unionists Party’s agriculturalist ideology was directed rooted in this legislation. ..

The British had in fact earlier prepared the ground for a rural domination of Punjab politics… ..Only members of the agriculturalist tribes, as defined by the 1900 Alienation of Land Act were allowed to stand as candidates for the rural constituencies of the New Legislative Council created by the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms.[1919].

1900-1920s British military recruitment in Punjab and allied concerns
David Page writes:
  ‘..out of a total of 683,149 combatant troops recruited in India between August 1914 and November 1918, 349,688 came from the Punjab….Out of the 250,000 soldiers recruited up till April 1918, the lion’s share had been provided by three main communities, the Muslims of West Punjab, the Jat Sikhs of Central Punjab and the Hindu Jats of the Ambala Division.

The first community provided 98,000 combatant troops, the second 65,000 and the third 22,000. The finest record, however, belonged to the Muslim majority districts of the Rawalpindi division. From Rawalpindi and Jhelum over thirty per cent of the manhood of the district went to the War; in Attock the figure was sixteen per cent, in Gujrat thirteen per cent and in Shahpur ten per cent. These five districts were amongst the eight most heavily recruited districts in the entire Punjab, the other three being Ludhiana and Amritsar, the two main Sikh recruitment areas, which sent fourteen and eleven per cent respectively, and Rohtak, the main Hindu Jat recruitment area which sent fifteen per cent.’

..In the 1920s, the total rural electorate excluding soldiers amounted to 216,324 while 163,085 had the right to vote on account of their military services to Government.

Ian Talbot writes:
By 1928 over Rs. 140 lakhs were being paid annually paid out in pensions. There were 16,000 military pensioners in the Rawalpindi district alone.

David Page writes:
The Governor of Punjab Michael O’Dwyer said this in the Imperial Council in in 1917 : “The great improvement in the pay, pensions and allowances of the Indian army has already given a powerful stimulus to the fighting classes, the earmarking of 180,000 acres of colony land for allotment to men who have rendered distinguished services in the field is a further encouragement, which the recent announcement in regard to the grant of Commission will specially appeal to the landed gentry.”

Next, after casting aspersions on the courage of the urban classes and hinting at further legislation to regulate usury, he laid stress on the importance of the Land Alienation Act. “It is to it[he continued] that we owe the fact that we are appealing today not to be a sullen, discontented and half-expropriated eager perhaps for a change which might restore them to their own, but to a loyal and contented body of men who realise that Government has stood and still stands between them and ruin and who consequently rally in their tens of thousands to its support.”

“But [he continued] we have not only done what legislative and administrative measures could do to maintain the zemindars in possession of their paternal acres, we have also relieved congestion and increased their prosperity by opening up to them several million acres in the great canal colonies. In allotting those lands we have invariably given them priority seeking not so much the profit of the Government as the advantage of the rural population…
..
Again, take the question of land revenue settlement. The Punjab government has long accepted it as a principle of revenue administration that the peasant proprietors, especially in those districts from which the Indian army is  largely drawn, shall receive special favour in assessment. The re-assessment of all the rich districts of the Central Punjab has been completed within the last 5 or 6 years and I am in a position to say that Government has rarely imposed a demand above half of the half net rental which is supposed to be the standard of assessment in the Province. At the same time, where agricultural conditions are fairly stable and fully developed it has raised the terms of settlement from 20 to 30 years. The result of this leniency is to appreciate enormously the value of proprietary rights which 50 years ago sold at from 5 to 10 times by now sell at an average of 170 times the land revenue demand, a figure which excites the envy and admiration of other provinces, even those under permanent settlement.

All these things are done in the interests of our zemindars and especially of those tribes and classes which enlist so freely in the Indian Army…”

Post-World War I British crackdown on Punjab
Encyclopedia Britannica writes:
Politically, as well as economically, the postwar years proved depressing to India’s high expectations. After the war British officials, who in the first flush of patriotism had abandoned their ICS posts to rush to the front, returned to oust the Indian subordinates acting in their stead and carried on their prewar jobs as though nothing had changed in British India. Indian soldiers also returned from battlefronts to find that back at home they were no longer treated as invaluable allies but reverted immediately to the status of ”natives.” Most of the soldiers recruited during the war had come from Punjab, which, with only 7 percent of India’s population, had supplied over 50 percent of the combatant troops shipped abroad.

Indian Support of the British

It is thus hardly surprising that the flash-point of postwar violence that shook India in the spring of 1919 was Punjab province. The actual issue that served to rally millions of Indians, arousing them to a new level of disaffection from British rule, was the government of India’s hasty passage of the Rowlatt Acts early in 1919. 

Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus in a United Front

These ”black acts,” as they came to be called, were peacetime extensions of the wartime emergency measures passed in 1915 and had been rammed through the Supreme Legislative Council over the unanimous opposition of its Indian members.

Indian leaders viewed the autocratic enactment of such legislation, following the victorious conclusion of a war in which India had so loyally supported Britain, as a confession of British treachery and duplicity and the abandonment of the promised policy of reform in favour of a new wave of repression. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the Gujarati who had returned from South Africa shortly after the war started and was by then recognized throughout India as one of the most promising leaders of Congress, called upon his country to take sacred vows to disobey the Rowlatt Acts, launching a nationwide movement for the repeal of those repressive measures. Gandhi’s appeal received the strongest popular response in the Punjab, where the nationalist leaders Kichloo and Satyapal addressed mass protest rallies from the provincial capital of Lahore to Amritsar, sacred capital of the Sikhs. Gandhi himself had taken a train to the Punjab early in April 1919 to address on of those rallies, but he was arrested at the border station and taken back to Bombay by orders of the tyrannical lieutenant governor of the Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer.

On April 10, in Amritsar, Kichloo and Satyapal were arrested and deported from the district by deputy commissioner Miles Irving, and when their followers tried to march to Irving’s bungalow in the camp to demand the release of their leaders they were fired upon by British troops. With several of their number killed and wounded, the enraged mob rioted through Amritsar’s old city, burning British banks, murdering several Englishmen, and attacking two Englishwomen.

Gen. R.E.H. Dyer was sent with troops from Jullundur to restore order, and, though no further disturbances occurred in Amritsar until April 13, Dyer marched 50 armed soldiers into the Jallianwallah Bagh (Garden) that afternoon and ordered them to open fire on a protest meeting attended by some 10,000 unarmed men, women, and children without issuing a word of warning. It was a Sunday, and many neighboring peasants had come to Amritsar to celebrate a Hindu festival, gathering in the Bagh, which was a place for holding cattle fair and other festivities. Dyer kept his troops firing for about ten minutes, until they had shot 1650 rounds of ammunition into the terror-stricken crowd, which had no way of escaping the Bagh, since the soldiers spanned the only exit. About 400 civilians were killed and some 1200 wounded. They were left without medical attention by Dyer, who hastily removed his troops to the camp. 

Sir Michael O’Dwyer fully approved of and supported the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre, and on April 15, 1919, issued a martial law decree for the entire Punjab: The least amount of firing which would produce the necessary moral and widespread effect it was my duty to produce . . . from a military point of view, not only on those who were present, but more specially throughout the Punjab.”

Dyer was relieved of his command, but he returned to England as a hero to many British admirers, who presented him with a collected purse of thousands of pounds and a jeweled sword inscribed “Saviour of the Punjab.”

 The Jallianwallah Bagh massacre turned millions of patient and moderate Indians from loyal supporters of the British raj into national revolutionaries who would never again trust to British “fair play” or cooperate with a government capable of defending such action. The following year, Mahatma Gandhi launched his first Indian satyagraha (“clinging to the truth”) campaign, India’s response to the massacre in Jallianwallah Bagh.

 

(http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/india/history/colonial/massacre.html)

British policy towards rural indebtedness in Punjab in the 1930s
Ian Talbot writes:
.. The 1935 Government of India Act and the Communal Award which had preceded it, reflected Fazl-i-Hussain’s powerful influence.

Landowners accounted for over 60 per cent of the Punjab’s restricted electorate. This stood at just over of two and a quarter million voters, just 1 in ten Punjabis. Moreover, non-agriculturalists were still disallowed from contesting rural constituencies. This resulted in men committed to the imperial connection dominating every government which was elected in the new era of provincial autonomy…

[..The 1930s witnessed a growing problem of rural indebtedness, brought on mainly by falling agricultural prices, but also partly by the kind of conspicuous consumption we have noted above. The Batra moneylenders of Sahiwal and Girot, like their counterparts elsewhere in the province, grew fat on the indiscretions of the landowning class. By 1937 rural indebtedness amounted to about Rs. 200 crores and the Punjab’s farmers annually paid back in interest on their loans 4 to 5 times the aggregate amount of land revenue and the water rate. ]

..The Restitution of Mortgaged Lands Act was another retrospective piece of Unionist legislation. Sunder Singh Manjithia introduced the measure in the Assembly in June 1938. It enabled farmers to recover all the land which they had mortgaged before the passage of the 1900 Alienation of Land Act. The Hindu and Sikh moneylenders claimed it was merely a cover for the expropriation of their land. They wanted it to cover transactions involving the agriculturalist money lending class which had grown up after 1900. This demand was of course rejected. The upshot was that over 200,000 Hindus and Sikhs had to return an estimated 700,000 acres to its original owners. ..

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