BANGLADESH FIGHT FOR LIBERATION

Prologue

 The 1970 elections in East Pakistan and West Pakistan resulted in a situation where Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League won 167 of the 169 seats in East Pakistan, whereas Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) won 81 seats out of 138 in West Pakistan. In order to pressurize both the parties, and to meet the constitutional deadline,  Gen. Yahya convened the National Assembly at Dhaka on 3 March 1971.  As the deadline approached, neither one of the two main political parties showed any flexibility. Although Mujib was supposed to be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan, Bhutto was not ready to accept, and refused to sit in the National Assembly as opposition party.  General Yahya Khan postponed the National Assembly session.

On 12 Jan. 1971, Gen. Yahya Khan held a decisive meeting with Sheikh Mujib.  Sheikh Mujib was not prepared to concede any ground and the President closed the meeting in disgust.  He left Dhaka in some anger and went straight to Larkana where he was Bhutto’s guest.  There they were joined by General Abdul Hamid Khan.  During the next two days, momentous decisions were taken about the fate of the country.  A lot has been written about this meeting but it is all guesswork.  However, one thing appeared to be reasonably certain: the trio appeared to have reached an understanding about various issues.[1]  

On denial from Gen. Yahya to convene the National Assembly session, Mujib, in a public rally in Dhaka on March 7, 1971 called upon the Bengalis to launch movement against the Pakistan regime.  In this circumstance, Tikka was sent out to put down the unrest swelling in East Pakistan. Tikka took over Eastern Command on 7 March 1971 from Lt Gen. Sahabzada Yaqub Khan  who resigned. Tikka directed the brutal military crackdown (officially known as Operation Searchlight) on 25 March 1971, with the help of Major General Rao Farman Ali and other Army generals that stunned the Bengalis with gross violence, atrocities and massive human rights abuses.

Yakub’s replacement was backed up by a continuous inflow of reinforcements for the garrisons.  President Yahya in a speech on March 6 had given further provocation by blaming Sheikh Mujib for the crisis and not even alluding to Bhutto.  For this reason it was believed by many that Mujib would use his public meeting of March 7 to proclaim independence, since Yahya had shown no willingness to come to terms with the consequences of his earlier decision.  The army itself was put on full alert to go into action on March 7 in the event of such a declaration.

 “Mujib realized that any such proclamation would invoke massive carnage on Bengalis, and was reluctant to assume such a responsibility.  His decision to persevere with non-cooperation, thus leaving the door open for a negotiated settlement within Pakistan was a compromise between the counter-pressures of the street and army.” By the afternoon of March 7 he had successfully contained these pressures and committed his party to negotiations within the framework of Pakistan.”[2]

At this stage, it is pertinent to mention that during Jan. and Feb. 1971 Gen. Yahya had visualized the possibility of a military crackdown accompanied by the suspension of all political activity. He therefore prepared a plan called Operation Blitz, which was cleared with the headquarters of the Chief Martial Law Administrator and a copy provided to General Headquarters.  In essence Operation Blitz meant the suspension of all political activity in the country and a reversion to Martial Law rule.[3]

 General Yaqub Khan, the commander of East Command insisted that General Yahya must not postpone the session of the National Assembly elected after the 1970 election.  “All of a sudden, General Yaqub Khan was bundled off as a student on the Imperial Defence College course. This clumsy and unceremonious action was obviously taken to get him out of the way.”[4]

Gen. Niazi Replaces Gen. Yaqub Khan

General Niazi took the command of East Pakistan, wearing a pistol holster on his web belt,  became abusive and started raving.  Breaking into Urdu, he said: Main iss haramzadi qaum ki nasal badal doon ga. Yeh mujhe kiya samajhtey hain. (I will change this illegitimate-born race; what they think of me).  He threatened that he would let his soldiers loose on their womenfolk. There was pin drop silence at these remarks. Next morning, a Bengali officer Maj Mushtaq went into a bathroom at the Command Headquarters and shot himself in the head.”[5]

Niazi also asked Raja (the author of the book in reference) for phone numbers of his Bengali girlfriends: “Abhi tau mujhey Bengali girlfriends kay phone number day do.” [6]  Now just give me phone numbers of your Bengali girlfriends.

Hartal and boycott 

Mujib’s house in the Dhnmandi  area of Dhaka became the focal point of all political activity, and the Awami League high command went into continuous session there.  Responsibilities were delegated for all functions of the government including the public utility services, banks, transportation, and  the information media.  Even the buses and railway trains were left at wayside stations where they were deserted by their staff. The Dhaka airport staff also went on strike and disappeared.  The unity of action and purpose demonstrated by the entire province was surprisingly complete. The Martial Law Administrator, at this stage, was left with no one to answer his commands, except his troops.  In fac, it seemed obvious that on a clarion call from Sheikh Mujib, they would even take up arms in his support.

Lt. Gen. Yaqub Khan Resigns

 Lt. Gen. Yaqub Khan felt that the President should visit Dhaka in person at the earliest, and take decisions that only he could take. Yaqub sent several messages, via telephone and in writing, but President was not convinced that his presence would help. He wanted Yaqub and his Eastern Command to do their best. During the ensuing few days, this tug-of-war went on between the Commander Eastern Command and the President through Lt. Gen. Peerzada, the President’s Principal Staff Officer. Yaqub indicated to Peerzada that since the President’s visit did not materialize, he was resigning from his post, and that the written resignation would be communicated on the morning of 5 March.[7]

Sheikh Mujib Speaks on 7 March

However, with every passing day Awami League tightened its grip on the administration in East Pakistan.  All organs of the government reported to Sheikh Mujib’s headquarters for instructions.  Even Inspector General of Police had stopped coming to Martial Law headquarters, but started reporting to Sheikh Mujib’s residence. Sheikh Mujib had,  in the meantime, announced that he would address a public rally at the Ramna Race Course on 7 March 1971 at 4 p.m.  

“While the army was standing by in the cantonment, I listened directly to Sheikh Mujib’s speech.  His tone was conciliatory and he merely repeated the four earlier demands of his 4 March speech.  Within a few minutes, the speech was over.  Before the recalcitrant elements could raise a hue and cry, Sheikh Mujib had hurriedly left the stage.  In fact, the whole event was a bit of an anti-climax, but I thanked Allah and heaved a sigh of relief.  I had recorded, briefly, the points made by Sheikh Mujib during his speech on 7 March.  It will be useful to reproduce them for the reader:  (a) He called upon his followers not to do anything that may precipitate an already explosive situation; (b) Together they should seek the cooperation of the army for the maintenance of law and order.  If the army shot an innocent people in future, he would be the first to declare them an army of occupation. (c) Pakistan must remain united and he was not seeking political separation. (d) An elected leader of the majority, he expected the President to consult him in all major matters and decisions. (e) They had to do all they could for the inter-wing hatred to die down. (f) They must request West Pakistan not to treat them as a colony. (g) They must bring to the notice of the world press the recent happenings in East Pakistan.[8]

 Yahya and Bhutto Negotiate with Sheikh Mujib

Tikka Khan had settled down for barely a week when President Yahya arrived on 15 March.  He called a conference the evening he arrived.  He was explained the details of the prevailing situation.  On 16 March, he went into negotiations with Sheikh Mujib.  “At about 10 p.m., on 17 March, I received a call from Tikka Khan asking Maj.Gen. Farman and me to go over to the Command House to see him.  We both went and found that Gen. Abdul Hamid Khan was also present.  Tikka Khan informed us that the negotiations with Sheikh Mujib were not proceeding well and the President, therefore, wanted us to be ready for military action and to prepare a plan accordingly.  No further verbal or written directions were issued.   On the morning of 18 March 1971, Farman and I assembled in my office to work on the plan.  Short of time, we agreed on the broad details of the plan.  The President had his own plan—to flee from Dhaka prior to the military action.”[9]

 On 21 March Mr. Bhutto arrived with his party advisers and lieutenants. We made arrangements to receive Bhutto, arranged for his lodging at the Inter-Continental Hotel, and provided security for him during his stay.  Bhutto was thus able to join the negotiations with Sheikh Mujib which reportedly failed. On failure of negotiations,  he returned to West Pakistan safely.

Operation Searchlight

 The new plan, prepared by Farman and myself, was named ‘Searchlight’. The troops were stationed in eight permanent and temporary cantonments spread all over the province: Dhaka, Comilla, Chittagong, Sylhet, Jessore, Rajshahi, Saidpur, and Rangpur.  In addition,  2 East Bengal  Regiment was based in Joydebpur, a few miles outside Dhaka. As the crisis deepened, I felt apprehensive about the East Bengal battalions which were part of each brigade.[10] 

 I was instructed to put Operation Searchlight into action on the night between 25 and 26 March 1971. This was a momentous decision and I was very sad for the country. I was left amazed at the nonchalant way in which this decision was taken, almost light-heartedly.  The President had apparently decided to dump East Pakistan and let it go its own way.  He seemed to be concerned about his personal safety only.  Therefore, he left Dhaka under some sort of a cover plan at about 7 p.m. on 25 March, which fooled nobody except, probably, himself.[11]

 After disarming of almost all centers of the East Pak. Rifles, elements of the East Bengal Regiment and the Reserve Police, the Pakistan Army, in collusion with religious extremist Razakars of  Al-Badr and Al-Shams, engaged in the systematic genocide and atrocities of Bengali civilians, particularly nationalists, intellectuals, youth and religious minorities.[12] ^{and [13]} Neighboring India provided economic, military and diplomatic support to Bengali nationalists, and the Bangladesh government-in-exile was set up in Calcutta.   Mujib was arrested and flown to West Pakistan. Most of the Awami League leaders fled and set up a government-in-exile in Calcutta, declaring Bangladesh an independent state. Internal resistance was mobilized by some Bengali units of the regular army, notably by Major Zia ur-Rahman, who held out for some days in Chittagong before the town's recapture by the Pakistan army. He then retreated to the border and began to organize bands of guerrillas. A different resistance was started by student militants, among whom Abdul Kader Siddiqi with his followers, known as Kader Bahini, acquired a reputation for ferocity and killings of  non-Bengali civil and razakars in collaboration of Muki Bahini.

The civil war created a widespread displacement of civilians in East Pakistan and widespread violations of human rights – carried out by the Pakistan Army with support from political and religious militias, beginning with the start of Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971. Independent researchers put the toll at 300,000 to 500,000.  A further eight to ten million people fled the country to seek safety in India.[14]
      A large section of the intellectual community of Bangladesh were murdered, mostly by the Al-Shams and Al-Badr forces, at the instruction of the Pakistani Army.[15] Just two days before the surrender, on 14 December 1971, Pakistan Army and Razakar militia (local collaborators) picked up at least 100 physicians, professors, writers and engineers in Dhaka, and murdered them, leaving the dead bodies in a mass grave.[16]  There are many mass graves in Bangladesh, with an increasing number discovered throughout the proceeding years.  The first night of war on Bengalis, which is documented in telegrams from the American Consulate in Dhaka to the United States State Department, saw indiscriminate killings of students of Dhaka University and other civilians.[17]  Numerous women were tortured, raped and killed during the war; the exact numbers are not known and are a subject of debate.  Bangladeshi sources cite a figure of 200,000 women raped, giving birth to thousands of war babies.[18]   

 India-Pakistan War

Wary of the growing involvement of India, the Pakistan Air Force launched a pre-emptive strike on Indian Air Force bases on 3 December 1971. The attack was intended to neutralize the Indian Air Force planes on the ground. The strike was seen by India as an open act of unprovoked aggression. This marked the official start of the Indo-Pakistani War. Three Indian corps were involved in the liberation of East Pakistan. They were supported by nearly three brigades of Mukti Bahini fighting alongside them, and many more fighting irregularly. This was far superior to the Pakistani army of three divisions. The Indians quickly overran the country, selectively engaging or bypassing heavily defended strongholds. Pakistani forces were unable to effectively counter the Indian attack, as they had been deployed in small units around the border to counter guerrilla attacks by the Mukti Bahini.  Unable to defend Dhaka, the Pakistanis surrendered on 16 December 1971.[19]

Surrender of Pak. Army

On 16 December 1971, Lt. Gen A. A. K. Niazi, CO of Pakistan Army forces located in East Pakistan signed the Instrument of Surrender. Over 93,000 Pakistani troops surrendered to the Indian forces, making it the largest surrender since World War II.  Bangladesh sought admission in the United Nation with most voting in its favour, but China vetoed as Pakistan was its key ally. The United States, also a key ally of Pakistan, was one of the last nations to accord Bangladesh recognition. To ensure a smooth transition, the Simla Agreement was signed in 1972, between India and Pakistan. The treaty ensured that Pakistan recognized the independence of Bangladesh in exchange for the return of the Pakistani 93,000 PoWs.[20]

Hamoodur Rahman Commisstion Report

The Report of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission of Inquiry into the 1971 War as Declassified by the Government of Pakistan is highly critical of the  military leadership for strategic and tactical errors and misjudgments and for its treatment of the Bengali population.  It also criticizes Bhutto’s concept of two majorities, two constitutions and two parliaments in Pakistan.  It also notes that the Awami League held a majority in the assembly with the power to impose a constitution for Pakistan. The commission suggested that Yahya and his associates, such as Tikka Khan, should be tried for illegal usurpation of power from Ayub Khan, but no trials were held.   

Some excerpts from Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report are vital for our information on the subject.

Chap. 4, Para 5; We have also touched upon the negotiations which Gen. Yahya Khan was pretending to hold during this period with Sk. Mujibur Rahman on the one hand and political leaders from West Pakistan on the other.  Although he never formally declared these negotiations to have failed, yet he secretly left Dacca on the evening of the 25th of March 1971, leaving instructions behind for military action to be initiated when his plane reached the Karachi area.

Chap 4, para 7. All the Senior Army Commanders who were concerned with the administration of Martial Law in East Pakistan as well as the senior civil servants who were inducted into the civil administration in East Pakistan, have expressed the view that military action could not have been a substitute for a political settlement. Most of these witnesses have stated that the most favourable time for a political settlement was between the months of May and September, 1971, during which a reasonable amount of normalcy had been restored and the authority of the Government had been re-established at least in most of the urban areas, if not throughout the countryside.  However, no effort was made during these months to start a political dialogue with the elected representatives of the people of East Pakistan; instead fraudulent and useless measures were adopted

8. The use of excessive force during the military action and the conduct of some of the officers and men of the Pakistan Army during the sweep operations had only served to alienate the sympathies of the people of East Pakistan.

9. Precious moments were thus wasted, during which the Indians mounted their training programme for the Mukti Bahini and started guerrilla raids into Pakistan territory.

34. Even more painful than the military failures of Lt. Gen Niazi is the story of the abject manner in which he agreed to sign the surrender document laying down arms to the so-called joint-command of India and Mukti Bahini, to be present at the Airport to receive the victorious Indian General Aurora, to present a guard of honour to the Indian General, and then to participate in the public surrender ceremony at the Race Course, to the everlasting shame of Pakistan and its Armed forces.  Even if he had been obliged to surrender, by force of circumstances, it was not necessary for him to behave in this shameful manner at every step of the process of surrender.  The detailed accounts which have been given before the commission by those who had the misfortune of witnessing these events, leave no doubt that Lt. Gen. Niazi had suffered a complete moral collapse during the closing phases of the war.

36. While we have not specially condemned the performance of senior Officers other than Lt. Gen. A.A..K. Niazi, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Jamshed, Maj. Gen. M. Rahim Khan and some of the Brigadiers, we cannot help remarking that all the Senior Officers stationed in East Pakistan immediately before and during the war of 1997 must be held collectively responsible for the failings and weaknesses which led to the defeat of the Pakistan Army.

CHAP. 5: Para 3. There is consensus on the imperative need of bringing to book those senior Army Commanders who have brought disgrace and defeat to Pakistan by their subversion of the Constitution, usurpation of political power by criminal conspiracy, their professional incompetence, culpable negligence and wilful neglect in the performance of their duties and physical and moral cowardice in abandoning the fight when they had the capability and resources to resist the enemy.  Firm and proper action would not only satisfy the nation's demand for punishment where it is deserved, but would also ensure against any future recurrence of the kind of shameful conduct displayed during the 1971 war.  We accordingly recommend that the following trials be undertaken without delay.

i) That General Yahya Khan, General Abdul Hamid Khan, Lt. Gen. S.G.M.M. Pirzada, Lt. Gen. Gul Hasan, Maj. Gen. Umar and Maj. Gen. Mitha should be publicly tried for being party to a criminal conspiracy to illegally usurp power from F.M. Mohammad Ayub Khan in power if necessary by the use of force. 

Conclusion

The recommendations of Hamoodur Rahman Commission remained confined to the pages and did not see its implementation by the Governnment of Pakistan. This state of affairs shows the bankruptcy of justice system as well as failure of the state administration.  The identical replay is going on now in the left-over Pakistan by allowing free-hand to home and foreign terrorists now spread from Waziristan to Karachi. 

It is my firm opinion that any reversal of the past events in East Pakistan would have been much better than the uncertain situation we are beset now.  Awami League’s six points were virtually their legitimate demands for share in the assets and liabilities of Pakistan, and it was, by no means, against any infringement of any benefits of West Pakistan.  They deserved for their rights not only by virtue of the Pakistan Constitution only but also by virtue of their being majority in population and winning majority seats in the Elections of 1970, the only first and fair elections in Pakistan ever.  The East Pakistan tragedy is an irreparable tragedy. And I think this tragedy occurred simply due to a sick and psychological trait of mind of West Pakistan Army along with  the political icons of the time.

ISRAR HASAN

16^TH DEC. 2013

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[1] A Stranger in My Own Country; Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Khadim Hussain Raja, Oxford Univ. Press, 2012; New York; p.41.

 [2] Ibid. Maj. Gen. K. H. Raja, p.42.

[3]  Ibid. Maj. Gen. K.H.Raja, p. 42.

[4] Khaled Ahmed, ‘Genetic engineering’ in East Pakistan, pub. In The Express Tribune, July 7, 2012.

 [5] Man. Gen. K.H. Raja’  p.98

 [6] Ibid. p.99.

[7] Ibid. Lt. Gen. KH Raja; p.57.

[8] Ibid. Maj. Gen. KH Raja, p. 63.

[9] Ibid. p.71.

[10] Ibid. p. 78.

[11] Ibid. p. 79.

[12] "Leading News Resource of Pakistan". Daily Times. May 17, 2010..

[13]  Bangladesh Genocide Archive | Collaborators and War Criminals. Genocidebangladesh.org. Retrieved Dec. 16, 2013.

[14] Rummel, Rudolph J., "Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900", Chapter 8, Table 8.2 Pakistan Genocide in Bangladesh Estimates, Sources, and Calculations.

[15] Asadullah Khan “The loss continues to haunt us” in The Daily Star 14 

[16] "125 Slain in Dacca Area, Believed Elite of Bengal". The New York Times (New York, NY, USA). 19 December 1971. 

[17] Sajit Gandhi The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian Crisis of 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 79 16 December 2002.

[18]  Menen, Aubrey (23 July 1972). "The Rapes of Bangladesh". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 November 2011.

[19] En. Wikipedia, Chap. Bangladesh Liberation War.

[20] En. Wikipedia, “Bangladesh Liberation War 1971”.

PAKISTAN & DRONE QUAGMIRE

A U.S. drone strike on an Islamic seminary in Pakistan killed a senior member of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network early on Thursday, Nov. 21, Pakistani and Afghan sources said. It was the first drone strike since Pakistani Taliban chief, Hakimullah Mehsud was killed, Nov. 1 in an attack that sparked a fierce power struggle within the fragmented insurgency.[1]

Maulvi Ahmad Jan, an adviser to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network, was in the madrassa when at least three rockets hit his room in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa just before sunrise. At least four other people also died in the attack along with Ahmad Jan. The missiles hit only two of the nine rooms in the seminary where Maulvi Jan was staying with several other militants. Dozens of students sleeping in other rooms were unhurt. "Only the two rooms where Maulvi Ahmad Jan and other Afghan Taliban leaders were staying were hit by the drone. The remaining seven rooms remained intact," a local resident said.[2]

The group is one of the main enemies of U.S.-led forces in neighboring Afghanistan, frequently launching attacks on foreign troops from mountainous hideouts in Pakistan's lawless North Waziristan region.  But it has been under considerable strain this month since its chief financier, Nasiruddin Haqqani, was shot dead in Islamabad on November 11. No one claimed responsibility for that shooting.

Pakistan publicly opposes U.S. drone strikes, saying they kill too many civilians and violate its sovereignty, although, in private, officials admit the government broadly supports them.

The attack took place a day after Pakistan's foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz was quoted as saying the United States had promised not to conduct drone strikes while the government tries to engage the Taliban in peace talks. The United States did not comment on Aziz's remarks.[3]

I append below an excerpt from my article, PAKISTAN: The Days After,  which appeared in my blog: IsrarHasan.com, and which I published and circulated to almost all English dailies and weeklies of Pakistan, on July 21.

“After unprecedented 9/11 attacks within American soil, the US administration thinks that their country is insecure so long Al-Qaeda, Taliban and their affiliates hide in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Cessation of drone attacks on Pakistan soil will not be an easy task for Nawaz Sharif so long Pakistan remains committed with the United States on War on Terror and so long the in-house terrorists of al-Qaeda, Taliban and their affiliates like TTP and Haqqani network are committed to fight against the United States and NATO. The United States and Al-Qaeda are deadly enemy to each other. America, after 9/11 attack on its soil and after denial of Afghan govt. to handover the hosted guests of al-Qaeda with Osama bin-Laden, the US dismantled the Afghan government of Taliban.”[4]

The War in Afghanistan from 2001–present, refers to the intervention by NATO and USA allied forces in the Afghan political struggle, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to dismantle the al-Qaeda terrorist organization and to remove from power theTaliban government, which at the time controlled 90% of Afghanistan and hosted al-Qaeda leadership. U.S. President George W. Bush  demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and expel the al-Qaeda network which was supporting the Taliban in its war with the Afghan Northern Alliance. The Taliban declined to extradite him without evidence of his involvement in the 9/11 attacks. The United States refused to negotiate and launched on 7 October 2001 joined by the United Kingdom, Germany and other western allies, to attack the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in conjunction with the Northern Alliance inside Afghanistan.

 The war expanded into neighboring North-West Pakistan.  In 2004, the Pakistani Army began to clash with local tribes hosting al-Qaeda and   militants. The U.S. military launched drone attacks in Pakistan in order to kill leaders of the insurgent groups. This resulted in the start of an insurgency in Waziristan in 2007.

Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA’s drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan’s government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos obtained by The Washington Post, described by Greg Miller and Bob Woodward, published in October 24, 2013. The files describe dozens of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal region and include maps and aerial photos of targeted compounds over a four-year stretch from late 2007 to late 2011 in which the campaign intensified dramatically.

The armed conflict began in 2004 when tensions, rooted in the Pakistan Army's search for al-Qaeda fighters in Pakistan's mountainous Waziristan area (in FATA), escalated into armed resistance of local tribes. Clashes further erupted between unified Pakistan Armed Forces and the Central Asian militant groups, allied with the Arab fighters.  The foreign militants were joined by Pakistani non-military veterans of the Afghan war, which subsequently established the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) and other militant umbrella organizations such as LeI (Lashkar-e-Islam) and the TNSM (Tehrike Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi). 

Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said,  “Whatever understandings there may or may not have been in the past, the present government has been very clear regarding its policy on the issue. “We regard such strikes as a violation of our sovereignty as well as international law. They are also counter-productive.”

The U.S. and allies drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Most al-Qaeda and Taliban members escaped to neighboring Pakistan in Waziristan adjoining its border with Afghanistan. Mullah Omar reorganized the Taliban movement and in 2003 launched insurgency against the Afghan government and ISAF forces.  The Taliban insurgents, like the Haqqani Network and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, have waged assymmetric warfare with guerilla raids and ambushes in the countryside, suicide attacks against urban targets, and turncoat killings against coalition forces. The US has been asking Pakistan without any fruitful result to contain the Haqqani network spread throughout Waziristan. 

 Nawaz Sharif  and his government, after taking oath of office in May last have constantly been asking that the United States cease its drone strikes in Pakistan, while at the same time Pakistan is hosting 3 million foreign Afghan refugees easily supplyig fighters and manpower to Haqqani network. The United States has been giving a patient hearing of all the complaints of Pakistan but has not commented on any.  The US is going on with its targeted drones inside Pakistan and its targeted preparation for pull back from Afghanistan in 2014 .  The strategy seems to withdraw from Afghanistan with as little damages and loss of American lives and materials as possible and at the same time to cleanse Waziristan and FATA by killing as much leaders of insurgents as possible.  I have no doubt that drone strikes in Pakistan will consequently subside by itself in late 2014, hopefully.

But a new kind of more havoc problem will emerge in Pakistan when insurgents of Afghanistan will join hands with Pakistan Taliban and other insurgent groups of central Asian operatives to get their lost regime in Afghanistan.  America and its allies are going to use their best to maintain their western influences in Afghanistan, especially in view of the recent nuclear-power deal of Iran with the five great powers of the world.  A new front of war, unrest, anarchy and killings will ensue, most possibly, on the horizon of Afghanistan and Pakistan in post 2014 era.

ISRAR HASAN

Nov. 26, 2013

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[1] Reuter, US Edition, Nov.21, 2012

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] IsrarHasan.com, dt. July 21, 2013,  titled Pakistan: The Days After, chap. Drone Strikes.

PAKISTAN TALIBAN: TALK OR NO TALK?

      Should Sharif’s government talk with Pakistan Taliban or use military might against them, is the burning question in Pakistan media since the two senior military officers were killed on Sept. 15^th by a remote controlled explosive device in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the military is fighting Al Qaeda and Taliban-led militants. “War is continuing, it was started by the government and they will have to stop it,” Shahidullah Shahid, the main spokesman for the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), declared from an undisclosed location, writes Dawn correspondent on Sept. 17^th.  Of all the political parties’ expressions on tv media on this issue, I find views of political analysts are widely conflicting and varied. 

      The issue of terrorism in all the four states of Pakistan is multi-dimensional.  The parties involved in the terrorism are not only Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). There is said to be 30 plus factions of Pakistan Taliban and al-Qaeda, in addition to terrorist groups of almost all political parties of Pakistan.  Apart from Talibans and al-Qaeda, there are Sunni and Shia factions of Lasshkar-e-Jhangvi, Jundullah, Sipah Muhammadi, Tehrik-i-Jafaria, and so on.

Reconciliation talks with Taliban, if agreed by both the government and TTP, will only take care of one dimension of Terrorism in Pakistan.  It does not uproot terrorism in all the cities of Pakistan.  Sectarian, ethnic and religious killings and blood lettings of shias, Ahmedis,  and minority communities; arson, loot, bombing and burning of settlements, mosques, churches in different parts of Pakistan are old episodes, even when there were no Tehrik-e-Taliban and al-Qaeda.  In this scenario an agreement of peace with Taliban will, no doubt, somewhat ease the prevailing tension, otherwise it will spread like epidemics. Pakistan government has no options except to talk who wants to talk and fight who wants to fight.  Invitations of talk and reconciliation be first issued by the Pakistan government to all factions of TTP, eliminating all foreign jihadists of al-Qaeda, Afghan Taliban and other nationals.

      There is every wisdom to talk to those Taliban who are citizens of Pakistan and who commit to live in Pakistan.  Past governments and Pakistan forces are at fault to alienate them from the overall fabric of Pakistan after end of Soviet expulsion from Afghanistan and after joining the partnership of United States on War on Terror.  The scope of this survey does not permit me to go in details. Those interested to know the facts should read literatures, especially on FATA, Balochistan and Pakhtoonkha.

      As regards drone attacks in Pakistan, I give below an excerpt from my article “Pakistan: Today and Tomorrow” of 14^th Aug. 2013. It can be seen at my websites  “Israrhasan.com” OR “Righteous-right.blogspot.com”.

          “Neither the drone attacks on Pakistan soil will cease nor the home       terror from Karachi to North Waziristan seems to go away so long Pakistan       remains committed with the United States on War on Terror and so long        the in-house al-Qaeda and Taliban are committed to fight against the United States.  Pakistan’s thorny relation with the United States, India, and     Afghanistan in the forthcoming days will not be an easy pill to swallow.”

      Nawaz Sharif’s current visit to New York, attending the UNO Gen. Assembly meeting and recording Pakistan’s complaint against drone strikes and making an understanding with Obama administration on this issue will not bring any substantial relief to Pakistan.  What Nawaz Sharif can get at most is some adjustments in this issue but cannot get rid of drone strikes altogether. And Taliban will not be at peace with Pakistan government so long the drone strikes goes on targeting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

 ISRAR HASAN

September 28, 2013

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY

    It is necessary to understand the remarkable spread of Christianity across the civilized world.  There had been dozens – probably hundreds – of religions before Christianity; we have seen that there was a kind of worldwide religious explosion in the 5^th century BC.  None had achieved the same impact or spread with the same speed as Christianity.  And this is basically because Christianity was a reaction against Roman materialism.  Roman religion was almost comically literal mind; they believed, for example, that a vote in the senate could send their late emperor to the abode of the gods. (It is true that this is not so different from the Catholic Church’s procedure for canonization).  Roman religion was not even original; it was simply taken over wholesale from ancient Greece. Roman literature, Roman art, Roman philosophy, were all superficial.  There was nothing in Roman culture that could appeal to a man of imagination.  Christianity was an expression of a craving for a deeper meaning in human existence. 

The agitator known as Jeshua – or Jesus – of Nazareth was born in about the 20^th year of the reign of Augustus – around 10 BC.  Pompey the Great has placed the Jews under Roman rule in 63 BC and the Jews loathed it.  Crassus had plundered the temple.  Herod the Great, appointed by the Romans to rule Judea, was as violent and murderous as any of the later Roman emperors, and was hated by all the religion factions with the exception of the Hellenized Sadducees.  So the expectation of the long-awaited Messiah, a warrior-king who would free the Jews from foreign rule, increased year by year. 

The early records of Jesus of Nazareth were so tampered with by later Christians that it is difficult to form a clear picture of his few brief years as a teacher and prophet.  Even his physical description was altered; it was reconstructed in the 1920s by the historian Robert Eisler in ‘The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist’. Among the documents Eisler used was a ‘wanted notice’ signed by Pontius Pilate, and later quoted by the Jewish historian Josephus, whose reconstructed text runs as follows.[i]

“At this time, too, there appeared a certain man of magical power, if it is permissible to call him man, whom certain Greeks call a son of God, but his disciples the true prophet, said to raise the dead and heal all diseases.

“His nature and form were human; a man of simple appearance, mature age, dark skin, small stature, three cubits high (about five feet), hunchbacked, with a long face, long nose, and meeting eyebrows, so that they who see him       might be affrighted, with scanty hair with a parting in the middle of the head, after the manner of the Nairites, and an undeveloped beard.”  

This original portrait of Jesus – with a humped back, long nose, half-bald head and scanty beard – was altered by the later Christians to read: ‘ruddy skins, medium stature, six feet high, well grown, with a venerable face, handsome nose, goodly black eyebrows with good eyes so that spectators could love him, with curly hair the colour of unripe hazel nuts, with a smooth and unruffled, unmarked and unwrinkled forehead, a lovely read, blue eyes, beautiful mouth, with a copious beard the same colour as the hair, not long, parted in the middle, arms and hands full of grace . . '

 And so it went on, turning the unprepossessing little man into an early Christian equivalent of a film star.  It is easy to see why it is difficult to take most of the Chirstian texts about Jesus at their face value.

If the Romans had been coarsened by success and victory, it could be said that the Jews had been refined by failure and defeat.  At about the time the Mediterranean was undergoing its ordeal by fire at the hands of the ‘sea peoples’, the Hebrews, who lived in the land of Goshen near the Nile delta, had been enslaved by the Egyptians.  At about the time of the Trojan War, they were led out of Egypt by Moses and spent hard years wandering in the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula.  Hardship deepened their religious sense; they became a people of one God, whose laws were based on religious ideals. … Under Joshua, they achieved victories in the land of Canaan and adopted many of the ways of Canaanites.  Then there was along and desperate struggle against the Philistines, who were finally conquered by King David around 1000 BC.  But after the death of Solomon (about 930 BC) there were unsettled times, and two Israelites came under the brutal Assyrian yoke, and in 705 BC the kingdom of Israel ceased to exist.  After the destruction of Nineveh (612 BC) the Babylonians became the dominant power in the Middle East, and the Jews were again dragged into captivity.  They were allowed to return to the ruined city of Jerusalem when Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylonians (538 BC), but remained under Persian rule for two centuries.  Under the leadership of the Persian Jew Nehemiah they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and returned to the old religious ways taught by Moses.  In 332 BC Persian rule was overthrown by Alexander the Great, and for nine years the Jews were his subjects.  After his death, they again fell under the rule of Egypt.  One of Alexander’s generals, Seleucas, had conquered an empire and founded a dynasty, so from 198 to 168 BC Jews were ruled by the Seleucids.  It was the attempt of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV to Hellenize Judea and ban the Jewish religion that led to the revolt of Judas Maccabeus and a brief period of political freedom.  But less than a century later, Pompey conquered Jerusalem, and the Jews become Roman vassals.

So, over the course of many centuries, the Jews had become accustomed to war, persecution and a foreign yoke.  The Jewish religious impulse was deepened by adversity.  Understandably, it laid emphasis on pacifism, on gentleness and mercy, on the blessedness of the meek and humble and the rewards of the next world.  Rabbi Akiba said that the essence of the Mosaic message is to love one’s neigbour, while Rabbi Hillel stated that the central  message of Judaism is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.. 

At the time of Jesus, there were three main religious sects in Judea: the Sadducees who were conservatives, the zealots who were revolutionaries, and the Pharisees who occupied the middle ground. There was also a powerful group known as the Essenes, who might be called ‘withdrawalists’.  They founded their own communities, where they lived pious and abstentious lives.  In 1947, some of the scriptures of the Essenes  came to light in caves on the shores of the Dead Sea – where the Essenes had once lived. These Dead Sea scrolls revealed that the Essenes called themselves the Elect of God, that they initiated new members through baptism, and that they had a protocol for seating that resembles that of the Last Supper described in the New Testament.  John the Baptist was almost certainly one of the Essenes.  And the Dead Sea scrolls make it clear that Jesus was heavily influenced by them. 

So, the doctrines we now associate with Jesus were familiar in the Jewish world for centuries before his arrival.  Judaism already forbade men to hate their enemies.  This carpenter’s son from Nazareth, who began to preach in the twenty-eighth year of his life, went a step further and declared that we should also love our enemies, and that if someone strikes us on one check, we should turn the other.  Upto the time of Roman occupation, this must have seemed to most people sheer stupidity. This pacifistic doctrine can have had no wide appeal in 20 A.D., the sixth year of the reign of Tiberius, though Jesus’s personal magnetism seems to have been remarkable.  The answer which emerges from contemporary documents is that Jesus taught that some immense, catastrophic change was about to take place: in fact, the end of the world.  The kingdom of God was at hand. There would be wars and rumours of wars, famines and earthquakes. The dead would be brought back to life. The sun would be turned into darkness and the moon to blood, and stars would fall from heaven. All this would not be at some vague date in future centuries, but within the lifetime of people then alive.  Accordingly, it would be better for the faithful to take no thought for the morrow. 

The teachings of this apocalyptic preacher offended Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots alike.  The Zealots had no patience with this preaching about ‘kingdom come.’ The Sadducees were inclined to Hellenism and disbelieved in life after death; for them Jesus was an uncultivated fanatic.  The Pharisees were the Temple party and stood for strict observance of every minor religious ritual.  The result is that Jesus had few real supporters during his lifetime.  He was a minor and rather unpopular prophet; if he had lived to be seventy and died in his bed, he would probably now be totally forgotten. 

But after four years of preaching, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and proclaimed himself the Messiah, the savior who had been awaited for centuries.  This made him suddenly dangerous to the Jewish establishment. Accordingly, he was arrested and taken before the high priest.  Caiaphas has come off rather badly in the history books, but he cannot really be blamed for what followed. When asked if he was the Messiah, Jesus replied in the affirmative.  Caiaphas was understandably outraged, for it must have seemed obvious to him that nothing was less likely than that this unprepossessing little man with his hump-back and straggly beard could be the man destined to lead the Jews to freedom. He called Jesus a blasphemer and sent him off to Pilate to be judged. But Pilate was a cultured Roman, and when he asked Jesus the same question, Jesus was cautious enough to reply only ‘You have said so.’ Pilate had been a weary spectator of the endless religious squabbles of the Jews for years.  He no doubt resented the attempt of Caiaphas to make him the executioner of this gentle-looking little man. He tried to get Jesus released – mercy was shown to a condemned man every Passover – but the people, who were as clamorous as a Roman mob, said they would prefer another rebel called Barabbas, who at least had tried to kill a Roman guard.  Pilate gave way.  He decided this Jesus was to be crucified between the two other victims.  And so, like thousands of other victims of Rome, Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross. 

                                         

But how did Jesus go on to conquer the world after his insignificant death.  The reasons are complex. The most important is undoubtedly that soon after his death his disciple claimed to have seen him again, and actually touched him.  One historian, Hugh Schonfield, argued in his The Passover Plot (1966) that Jesus was probably given a drug that made him appear to be dead when taken from the cross by giving a good bribe to the Roman centurion.  In another controversial book, published in 1982 (The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh). Henry Lincoln also suggested the drug hypothesis; and he went further to cite a secret Rosicrucian tradition that Jesus was married, and left Judea with Mary Magdalene to live out the remainder of his life in Gaul (now xxx   xxxx), where his descendants became the Mrovingian kings.  Skeptics may feel that the explanation could be altogether simpler, and that the whole story of the Resurrection was invented by the followers of Jesus. Whatever the explanation, it is certain that stories of Jesus’s miraculous revival after death were circulating soon after the crucifixion.  

Nothing spreads faster than tales of the marvelous;  and this undoubtedly explains why Jesus’s death on the cross only made his name more potent than ever. At this early stage there were two distinct groups of disciples.  The Nasoraeans, or Messianists, were the original followers, who believed that Jesus was a political Messiah who would lead the Jews to freedom.  He was still alive, and would in due course reappear to fulfill his promises.  They most emphatically did not believe that Jesus was a god in any sense of the word – this would have been contrary to all Jewish religious teaching.  The other group, called Christians, were followers of Paul as much as of Jesus. Within a few years of the crucifixion, this Paul, who loathed the Messianists, had undergone a sudden conversion.  Paul created a new version of Messianism that was far more strange and mystical than that of the Nasoraeans.  Paul’s Jesus was the son of God, who had been sent to earth to save men from the consequences of Adam’s sin.  All men had to do was to believe in Jesus and they were ‘saved’.  And when the end of the world occurred – as it was bound to do within the next few years, according to Jesus – these Christians would live on an earth transformed into paradise.

The Messianists and the Christians detested one another with the peculiar virulent loathing that seemed to characterize Jewish religious controversies. Paul’s version won through a historical accident. The Jews broke into open rebellion just before the end of the reign of Nero. Nero sent his general Vespasian to subdue them. But in the year after Nero’s suicide, Rome had four emperors who succeeded one after another as a result of rebellions and killings.  Vespasian, the new emperor sent his son Titus to subdue the Jewish rebels.  Titus subdued the Jews rebellion with Roman brutality and ruthlessness.  After a six month siege, the temple was buried, the Zealots massacred, more than a million, and the treasures of the Temple were carried back to Rome. The Messianists were among those who were slaughtered.  Paul’s Christian, who were scattered all over the place, were the only followers of Jesus left

. 

Any Messianists who remained must  certainly have felt that this Christianity of Paul was a blasphemous travesty of the teachings of their Messiah; and in a  literal sense they were correct.  Whether Jesus was Jewish by nationality or not (Galilee contained more Arabs than Jews) he was undoubtedly a Jew by religion, and as such would have been horrified at the notion that he was a god. Bernard Shaw once suggested that Jesus  went insane at some later point in his career – when he became convinced he was the Messiah.  Jesus statement that he could forgive sins suggests that he believed he was in some kind of direct communication with God.  Christians believe that this was true; but it seems clear that Jesus also believed that the end of the world was about to occur,  and if he believed that this was also a message from God, he was mistaken.  By modern standards, Jesus was suffering from delusions. 

Jews in the time of Jesus were much preoccupied with the question of how, if God is good, He could have made so much misery and suffering. The answer of the rabbis, of course, was that Adam had sinned, and so been expelled from Eden.  Now Paul, in one stroke, had added an amazing new dimension to Judaism, saying that Jesus had vicariously atoned for the sins of mankind; after Armageddon, Jesus followers would live forever. 

This new version of Christianity appealed to gentiles as much as Jews.  Any one of any sensitivity only had to look at the Rome of the era of Jesus to understand just what Paul meant about the fall of man. In the environ of debauchery, prostitution, Roman brutality, materialism and licentiousness, Christianity sounded a deeper note; it offered a vision of meaning and purpose, a vision of seriousness.  For strong, it was a promise of new heights of awareness.  For weak, it was a message of peace and reconciliation, of rest for the weary, of reward for the humble.  And for everyone, it promised an end to the kingdom of Caesar, with its crucifixion, floggings and arbitrary executions.  The Christians hoped it was a promise of the end of the world. 

Recognizing that the empire was now too big and too chaotic for one man to govern, Rome returned to the serious business of conspiracy and assassination.  In seventy years there were more than seventy emperors or would-be emperors.  This high turnover was due to the fact that the army was now the only real power, and if the soldiers took a dislike to an emperor, they killed him, When Titus besieged Jerusalem there was a plague in Rome followed by a great fire. In 79 AD Mount Vesuvius erupted, causing a darkness that lasted for days, and burying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under many feet of muddy ash.  

The complicated struggle for succession went on for several years until Constantine, the son of Constantius, was enthroned. He was hailed as emperor by his father’s troops. After another dozen years of civil wars, he became Constantine the Great, sole ruler of the Roman Empire.  

And here we come to one of the major unsolved puzzles of history.  Constantine was as unpleasant a character as we have encountered so far in the story of Rome, not merely ruthless but gratuitously cruel.  One example will suffice. When he decided to get rid of his wife Fausta – daughter of Maximian and sister of Maxentius, both of whom Constantine had killed – he had her locked in her bathroom and the heating turned up until she literally steamed to death.  Yet this is the man who claimed he had been converted to Christianity in rather the same manner as St. Paul.  He alleged that, on the eve of the battle of the Milvian Bridge, he had seen a cross in the sky and the words ‘By this sign shall ye conquer.’  Constantine went into battle with a spear turned into a cross as his standard, and conquered.  From then on, Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity has naturally been grateful to Constantine ever since, and his biographer Eusebius explains how Constantine had prayed earnestly for a sign from God, which was given in the form of the cross.  The fact remains that Constantine did not become a Christian until he was on his death bed.  And a life of betrayals, perjuries and murders – including his own son – indicate that he remained untouched by the spirit of Christinity.

So why did Constantine decide to make Christianity the official religion of the empire?  There are several possible explanations.  One is that he did indeed see a cross in some natural cloud formation which he superstitiously took to be a ‘sign’ – we have seen that the Romans were obsessed by omens.  Another possibility is that he was influenced by his mother Helena, a British princess (or according to Gibbon, an innkeeper’s daughter), who at some point became a Christian and later made a famous pilgrimage to the Holy Land and located the cross on which Jesus was crucified.  This is just possible, except that Constantine saw very little of his mother during his early manhood.  Another possible explanation is that he was influenced by the death – by disease – of the ‘Caesar’ Galerius, who had persuaded Diocletian to persecute the Christians and who died believing that his illness was sent by God to punish him.  Finally – and most likely – seems the explanation that Constantine thought it would be appropriately dramatic for the all-powerful conqueror to raise up the minority religion (only about one-tenth of his subjects were Christians) to a position of supreme importance. 

Whatever the answer, it seems unlikely that Christianity finally conquered because Constantine became convinced of its truth.  The historian Eusebius was being either naïve or dishonest when he wrote: ‘When I gaze in spirit upon this thrice-blessed soul, united with God, free of all mortal dross, in robes gleaming like lightning and in ever-radiant diadem, speech and reason stand mute.’  For it seems likely that the empress Helena made her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in an attempt to atone for the crimes committed by her son, while Constantine himself felt no such misgivings.

When, in 326 A.D., Constantine decided to move his capital from Rome to Byzantium, on the Hellespont, he was, in effect, handing over Rome to the Christians.  The city whose name had become identified with materialism and violence became the city of love and salvation, as we shall see, raised the intriguing question of which actually conquered the other.

ISRAR HASAN

Sept.22, 2013

Source: [i]Colin Wilson’s  “A Criminal History of Mankind”; 

             Published by Panther Books, Granada Publishing Ltd., London, 1985.