ONCE UPON A TIME

 There was a King and a beautiful queen.  The story starts as usual with a King and a Queen. But this is a true story of the king, Ramendra Narayan Rai, the 2^nd Kumar of a tiny kingdom Bhawal  (now Gazipur/Tangail region of Bangladesh) who lived with his queen in the Kingdom of Bhawal some time at the end of Nineteenth century.  

Eventually, the beautiful queen fell in love with the king' s physician, that developed into a serious affair. The lovers decided to kill the king by poisoning him. The opportunity came soon. During the summer the royal family decided to go on a vacation to the hill-resort of Darjeeling, a quiet, cool and pleasant resort city that was also the summer capital of British Magistrate of Bihar.

 Arsenic, which is odorless and tasteless was mixed with the king's tea. The king became very sick, with typical vomiting diarrhea and dehydration. The physician examined the patient and declared it to be Cholera. Arsenic poisoning mimics cholera; and cholera was a very feared disease at that time. This scared the visitors and even attendants and they tried to stay away as far as possible.

Soon the king became lethargic/dehydrated and almost pulseless. The doctor declared him dead and ordered funeral arrangements. He was to be cremated; the pyre was readied. But suddenly the sky turned dark and a thunderstorm struck.  Pouring rain, thunder began; but the Queen  and the doctor did not want to cancel the funeral. They pushed some people to take the body to the riverside and start a fire using gasoline and what not.

It was a night of thunder and lightening and there was Cholera infested body,....the hindus were superstitious about ghosts and their taboos....they took the body to the pyre under threats, but were in no mood to go thru with the cremation. As water flooded the area, mud-slides came down the hills....they threw the body into the river, came running back and declared that they have cremated the body.

They royal family believed and did not argue.  Next day as the weather cleared, they returned to the kingdom of Bhawal and declared that the king had died of Cholera in Darjeeling (in 1909) and needed a successor.  

The British Magistrate who was assigned to the kingdom, picked a seven year old nephew of the king and put him on the throne, under the guardianship of the Queen. But somehow this magistrate had some suspicion about the king's sudden demise, and he noted his suspicion in his report to the English authorities. The Empire did not think any further investigation was necessary since there was no plaintiff.

Eventually, the king did not die. He had been deeply unconscious and dehydrated. Fortunately for him, the rain and the floods washed his body and he swallowed large amount of water. He was washed down by the landslide flooding waters, somewhere down the river. He lay in the sand shore for hours or days.

A group of Hindu monks were travelling; one of them spotted his body. They came, picked him up, found that he was breathing and was trying to wake up. They carried him to their temple. They nursed him and fed him and he gradually recovered. But he had total amnesia. He couldnot remember his name, who he was or what he was doing there. The monks questioned him again and again but he couldnot remember anything at all. They finally told him, he could stay at the temple/monastery and become a monk.

The king remained.....they gave him a name and monk's clothes. Days passed, months passed, years passed.  The monks used to walk to different villages preaching their religion.  Almost 12 years later, this group of monks were passing thru the kingdom of Bhawal.  As the king walked in front of the palace , suddenly he looked at the sculpture of the lion at the gate, and he screamed. Memory came back to him. He began screaming at the top of his voice : this is my palace; this is my kingdom, this is Bhawal, this is my kingdom. Every body was awe struck. The palace guards came out and pushed the monks away.

But now he knew who he was. He came back to the monastery and started telling the story. He went to the bazaar in Bhawal and looked up some old-timers, and some of them began recognizing him.

Of course, the royal family disagreed....the old queen dismissed it as hogwash, and nonsense. The British magistrate had changed and he was a different guy. He could not be of any help. The royal family became irritated with this bazaar gossip, and sent out their guards to kick this "lunatic" out of the area; they threatened to kill him.

But the then British Magistrate smelled something fishy. He began looking at the old files and came across a notation that his predecessor Magistrate had made about the suspicious nature of the king's death and disappearance. He called the monks to his office and advised them to file a law-suit in the Calcutta High Court.

This became a high sensation. Newspapers published stories after stories. Finally, the case went into trial in 1921--22. This was a high profile trial. Witnesses were called by both sides. Arguments were flying. Tempers were rising. Finally the king/monk took the stand. After describing several personal things and what went on in the palace, he took a deep breath and said, I will describe something on my wife's body. On her inner thigh, on the right side, there is 3" long birthmark. Nobody but her parents or her husband would know this. The Court ordered a medical examiner to examine the queen, and she testified that it was exactly as described.

The defendants still fought....the privy council of King George  the 5th, convened a special session in London. They examined all the papers and said whatever the Calcutta High Court decides will be abiding. The court gave verdict for the king....restored him his kingdom......the old queen and the physician were given life sentences. The king entered his kingdom victorious.

ISRAR HASAN

16 JUNE 2014

PAKISTAN v/s. TALIBAN - II

 Financial Times report today that the “Pakistan army regained control of the country’s largestairport in the southern port city of Karachi after an overnight battle with suspected Taliban militants who stormed the airport late on Sunday, June 8, disguised as policemen and airport guards.

 “At least 29 people, including 10 militants, died in the battle between the attackers and commandos which raged for more than five hours around Jinnah International Airport, said authorities.

“A separate suicide bombing in the country’s southwest killed 23 Shia pilgrims returning from Iran on Sunday, authorities said.

“The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for the airport attack, saying it was a message to the government ‘that we are still alive’.

“Two senior Pakistani intelligence officials said the gunmen appeared to be of Uzbek nationality. “We’ll carry out DNA tests to be certain but their facial features suggest they may be Uzbeks” said on Monday, Maj. Gen. Rizwan Akhtar, a senior army official who oversaw the operation.”

Congressional Research Services of the USA reports that at least 70,133 Uzbeks are living as Afghan refugees in Pakistan since 2005. An increase in their number is estimated most probable.  The suspect perpetrators, it is believed, were already in Pakistan somewhere and did not come from outside for the job. But how did they pass thru. airport security  armed with bombs and rockets is a puzzle to guess.

Dear readers, here I would like to draw your attention to a paragraph of my earlier article, “Pakistan v/s. Taliban”, wrote and published in my blog,  “www.IsrarHasan.com”  on 22 Feb. 2014. It runs as follows:

“TTP have plenty of hideouts within Pakistan and outside Pakistan. The USA exit from Afghanistan will provide a wider opportunity for Taliban to achieve their lost regime. Here in Pakistan they are mingled with locals like sugar and salt in water from Peshawar to Karachi. Moreover, they have friends inside the country, the many fundamentalist parties throughout Pakistan, who are members of Pakistan parliament as well as those disbanded by the government.  They are now blood-cell in the body of Pakistan.  The two big brothers, the USA and Russia could not overcorstme them. This many-headed creature has no physical body to crush them; no central place to capture them. Pakistan is now victim of its own venomous snake.”

Can Pakistan Army clean up insurgents in South and North Waziristan with any fruitful and potential outcome without sending back all the Afghan refugees from Pakistan? The current army actions will not damage Taliban insurgencies as much as it will damage and uproot the local tribal lives and properties, resulting in people’s hatred and opposition to government and army alike. No government plans for peace and security or any schemes of social, economical or political developments can materialize without first solving the issue of all sorts of terrorism.

To achieve the goal of peace inside, security outside, progress and developments in the country, first a unanimous understanding between the government and its military forces is obligatory before any action for reform in governance or before any military actions to quell insurgencies.  The current scenario goes diametrically opposite to each other which make them closer and closer to national devastation.

ISRAR HASAN

9 JUNE 2014

Hitt2010@gmail.com

KASHMIR: A NIGHTMARE

The unresolved issue of Kashmir between India and Pakistan reminds me a Biblical story I read some time during my student life.  A case was brought to King Solomon the Great. Two women claimed to have born the same baby under dispute. Each woman had convincing details of their motherhood. King Solomon, after listening their claim gives his judgment: ‘Cut the baby in two equal halves and give each half to each of them.’ The two women were awe-struck to hear the verdict. After a minute’s trauma one surrendered her claim to the other woman. King Solomon revised his judgment to give the child in one piece to the surrendered women.

Today we have no King Solomon to solve our Kashmir issue. What we have now is the lesson and the moral we have from King Solomon’s judgment. Today the issue is not of a live baby, but a live country of 17 million live inhabitants (12.5 plus 4.5 million either sides). What lesson India and Pakistan can deduce from this story to solve the Kashmir issue?  The best is the best, i.e. to let the country survive independent in the community of the world of nations.

The root causes of Kashmir problem between India and Pakistan is multi-dimensional. Kashmir acceded to India as and when Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir signed the Agreement of Accession, under compulsion of outside attacks from insurgent tribes and Pakistan forces to occupy as much area as possible. India airlifted forces from Delhi to Kashmir to fight and oust the insurgents’ forces.

After Independence of 1947 the 565 princely states of British India were given free choice to pick India or Pakistan or remain independent. The Kashmir valley, being a Muslim populated territory, Pakistan expected it to accede to Pakistan. For Indians, Kashmir demonstrates that a Muslim-majority state can exist in India—making it a key example of how India brings together people of different faiths. Today, the total count of Indian Muslims is more than Pakistan Muslims. Pakistan claimed to be a homeland for Muslims of India, but never allowed its citizenship to any migrant Muslim from India after 1953. 

The ruling British Parliament in London decided to quit India as early as possible after end of World War II. They jumped the opportunity of Hindu-Muslim differences on communal issues and communal genocides, split the Indian subcontinent, those provinces having Muslim majority in the East and West provinces of India became Pakistan. The 565 Princely states throughout India were given the choice to join India or Pakistan or remain independent. The Maharaja of Kashmir delayed his decision with an intention to remain independent. But since tribal insurgents and Pakistan fighting forces started infiltrating and occupying lands and properties into the Kashmir adjacent to Punjab and NWFP (now Paktoonkha), the Maharaja asked help from Mountbatten, then Governor General of India. Mountbatten helped Hari Singh on condition of his signing the Accession document to join Indian Union and sent Indian forces to oust insurgents and Pakistan forces from Kashmir.

Today, the wisdom lies in following up the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s approach at Simla Conference in 1972. At the end of fighting between the two in 1971, as part of the India-Pakistan war that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh, an accord signed in the Indian city of Simla in 1972, expressed the hope that henceforth, the two countries would “settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations". The agreement converted the cease-fire line in Kashmir into the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan and it was agreed that "neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations". The Indian side was known as State of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan side called Azad Jammu and Kashmir with Gilgit-Baltistan. 

Contrary to popular belief, the Simla agreement did not agree over repatriation of prisoners of war (POW) and it was in 1974 in a separate agreement that resulted into three way exchange of POW between Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. 93,000 Pakistan POW were held in Indian jails.(Wikipedia.org/wiki/simla-agreement).  The agreement did not help in improving bilateral relationship between the two countries and went on deteriorating to the point of armed conflict, in the Kargil War of 1999.

The Pakistani side of Kashmir, called Azad Kashmir, is neither a province nor an agency of Pakistan but has a government of its own that is regarded by Pakistan as “independent,” even though it is protected by and economically and administratively linked to Pakistan. It has an area of approximately 650 square miles (1,680 square km) and an estimated population of about 4.5 million. It consists of an arc of territory bordering the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to the east, the Pakistani provinces of Punjab to the south and southwest and North-West Frontier Province to the west, and the Gilgit and Baltistan regions of Pakistani-administered Kashmir to the north.

More than a generation’s lives and properties have been lost only due to the folly of warring politicians. My suggestions to Nawaz Sharif in the current state of affairs are as follows to the best of my analysis.

(a) Maintain status quo without going into any adventurism from Pakistan side. This can be followed by the following road map.

(b) Let India and Pakistan make a firm commitment to each other, endorsed by the UNO, not to interfere henceforth in the affairs of each other within their respective territorial limits set by LoC.

(c) After guaranteeing no interference and having a congenial environment of peace and security in both sides, let India and Pakistan introduce reformation measures in their respective territory for immediate implementation of economic, political, social, and civic amenities. 

 (d) Maintaining good governance in Azad Kashmir by granting self-determination to local parliament, and prospering economy with law, order and justice system.

(d)  A system of free passage thru. LoC for Kashmiris on both sides will greatly promote friendly understanding, with high rise in trade and commerce, resulting in good opportunity for employment and earnings on both sides.

(e) The last and most detestable and destructive solution kill (zabah) the chicken and take all the eggs at one stroke.  The choice rests on the warring psycho of India and Pakistan who are still thinking on the line of 1940’s while the world is moving fast through scientific, technological and digital information, inventions and explosion with jet speed.

There are some reasons in the above suggestions.  The more peaceful, democratic and progressive condition in AJK,  the more favorable will be the pull for the population of IJK (Indian Jammu and Kashmir) who are now passing through suppression and persecutions of 500,000 police forces in the Valley. The congenial and progressive atmosphere is supposed to be the greatest weapon to win the hearts and minds of the people on the other side.

ISRAR HASAN

7JUNE 2014

Email: Ihasanfaq@yahoo.com