It's impossible to negotiate with the Taliban

 As expected, talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been stalled, despite Turkey's best efforts to get the Taliban to agree. By now it should be clear that the Taliban believe that they are right and every one else is wrong. Perhaps they think that because the Americans and the Soviets had to leave their country, they are invincible. They've forgotten or are ignoring the fact that it was Pakistan that helped them throw the invaders out. As for that phrase    "Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires", nothing could be further from the truth. Afghanistan has been ruled by many invaders before. The British, the Moghuls, even the Sikhs occupied the country for many decades. it's only because the country is mountainous that rebels are able to fight the invaders. But it's also a fact that they can be subdued with money.

The Taliban's intransigence is evident from the fact that even today they allowed infiltrators to enter Pakistan, despite talks being in progress. They are helped of course by the Muslim-hating Hindutva government of India, which wants to occupy not only Pakistan but parts of Afghanistan and Iran as well. Hindutva bigots should understand that if Pakistan falls to the Taliban, they will invade India as well (to turn that India into a Muslim-majority country). 

Banning political parties is not the answerr

Many political parties were banned in the past, but that has never worked. Bhutto banned the National Awami Party (NAP), but it resurfaced as Awami National Party (ANP). For some time, even the Peoples Party was banned, it once contested elections as PPPP (Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians). After the recent failed march to Islamabad by the extremist TLP, the government is considering banning the party, but this will make the party even more popular.

In fact, the TLP (Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan) is already very popular among Pakistan's largely illiterate population of those who follow the Barelvi version of Islam. The Punjab government is planning to take against those who have financed the party in the past (there are about 4,000 of them). The party head (Saad Rizvi) has gone underground, but in a raid on his house, the cops found gold and currency (including Indian rupees) reportedly amounting to more than a hundred million. The TLP chief also has 95 bank accounts, and the party "owns" three hundred and thirty mosques as well as 223 madressas. 

All this proves that extremism in Pakistan is rampant and will be difficult to eliminate merely by banning politico-religious parties. One wonders why the government did not take any action when the party was building mosques and seminaries on government land. But perhaps it was because the TLP was encouraged in the past to destabilize Nawaz Sharif's government by those in the Establishment who wanted to remove him from power and install their puppet Imran Khan in his place.

 

15 year old girl allowed to be married by an IHC judge!

I was not at all surprised when the learned Justice Mohammed Azam Khan of the Islamabad High Court did not annul the marriage of an under-age girl and allowed her to live with her husband (whose age was definitely more than 18). For those who don't know, the minimum age for marriage in Pakistan is 18, but in practice this is widely flouted. Practically every male in Pakistan considers himself an expert on Sharia (without ever having read it), so he naturally assumes that a girl should be married off the day she finishes her first period. There is therefore no way of preventing this, as even a judge of the high court believes it.

Around the time I was 15, two girls in my neighborhood (both sisters definitely aged less than 18), were married off. There was a German engineer and his wife who were employed by the girls' father at the time. The German woman actually wept and asked the father of the girls why he was giving away two helpless children so soon. I think the father must've said the usual thing about all Muslims being ordered to do so.

Come to think of it, even some US states allow girls as young as 14  to marry. So I guess we shouldn't be shocked that there are more than 19 million child brides in Pakistan.

56th Independence Day

Published in The News on August 29, 2002 

With reference to the letter "Could be 56th!" by Hafiz Sultan Ahmed (25th August), the writer doesn't understand how Pakistan celebrated its 56th independence day this year on August 14. He's not the only Pakistani who is confused about it. The massive nationalisation of schools and colleges by ZAB has ensured that Pakistan will always remain a backward country, where graduates are unable to determine their own ages, nor able to compose a simple letter of application for a job, and sometimes one comes across college principals who cannot sign their own names!

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

Saudi-Pakistan defense pact: Modi and Hindutva Indians are stunned

On the face of it, the recently-signed defense pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is nothing new. Pakistan has always had close ties with the Saudis, and in case of an attack by Israel on the kingdom, Pakistan would have immediately provided support, even without the pact. Indians were delighted with the massive Saudi investment in the country, but the situation changed radically after the 4-day war in which India was soundly thrashed, leading even Trump to lean towards Pakistan.

But the turning point came with Israel's bombing of Qatar to kill Hamas leaders. Arab states realized that the US is no longer a reliable ally and if Israel attacks another Gulf state, US support is no longer guaranteed. So they have to turn to the other superpower (China) for support, and for that they need Pakistan.

Rabid Hindutva Indians of course are stunned. They want India to be considered the region's policeman to protect US interests, and now find that they have no role to play. With US sanctions on India preventing it from developing Chabahar port in Iran (which was being used by India to supply weapons to Baloch terrorists), India has been dealt a massive blow. Hindutva supporters in the Indian media are wondering how Pakistan was able to go nuclear, and are even hoping that Israel will destroy Pakistan's nuclear assets.  

So this is why Pakistan is a failed state

I've always wondered why Pakistan has not been able to progress the way many other countries have, and why most of its citizens are so illiterate. Every now and then, there's a suicide attack (like the one in Quetta yesterday), or a bomb blast, or an honor killing, or brothers killing each other over property disputes. Lack of a good education, of course, is the main reason, but why are our people so illiterate?

It turns out that instead of factories, we have been building mosques and seminaries (madressahs) in the country. There are more than half a million mosques (about 600,000) and about 50,000 madressahs, compared to only 23,000 factories. This is why people want to leave the country and try to reach Europe via boats or other illegal channels. But so many mosques and madressahs in the country results in most of our children growing up without acquiring any marketable skills. Even those who are skilled can't find jobs due to the dearth of factories. So these madressah graduates occupy plots and build mosques there. Later, they build houses for themselves. Naturally, when the owners of the plots return from abroad, they cannot demand that the mosques and houses be demolished. 

So the mosques and madressahs will keep on increasing, and we'll see more and more unemployed men with dozens of children who will grow up to be criminals or suicide bombers.

Why is Trump favoring Pakistan and penalizing India?

Indians are in a state of shock. US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn't like India and has imposed a 25 percent tariff on Indian exports to the US. Not only that, he has penalized India for buying Russian oil despite a ban. He has also described the Indian economy as "dead".

Indians must be wondering what happened. Modi has spent the past ten years trying to get Pakistan declared a terrorist state. The Indian cricket team has been prevented from playing matches with Pakistan. Last April, Modi got a terrorist attack staged in which thirty two Indians were slain, just to provide him with an excuse to bomb some so-called "terrorist havens" in Pakistan. That attempt ended with six or seven Indian Rafael fighter jets being shot down. After that, Pakistan has been viewed by the international community as a more reliable and trusted country compared to India.

Modi and his cronies of course refuse to admit that India was beaten. But opposition politicians are baying for his blood, one of them even asking him to prove that the thirty six Rafael fighter jets India bought are still there. I doubt if he'll remain in power for long, despite his attempts to disenfranchise Muslims (who have traditionally voted against his party).

I believe that Trump has now realized that India is not the superpower it has pretended to be. He's against Apple setting up a factory in India. Perhaps he knows that India is useless at containing China. He may have realized that it's better to be friends with China. Whatever the reason, India is the loser. It will have to bend backwards to appease Trump, like buying at least a hundred F-35s for instance, for which it will have to spend billions of dollars. The Indian economy will be "dead" and the common Indian will suffer.

 

More honor killings

After the horrific murder of a man and woman in Baluchistan, a spate of honor killings has erupted in the country. It's like a contagious disease like polio, spreading from one person to another. First, there was a divorced woman in Sukkur who was killed because she refused to marry either of two men who had been pestering her. Then, a nineteen-year old girl in Rawalpindi was killed after being sentenced to death by a jirga (a tribal court). The shameless man who ordered her to be killed also performed her namaz-e-janaza (funeral prayer). Her crime? She had been absent from her home for a week or so. It was believed that she went to her boyfriend's house but apparently he backed out of his promise to marry her.

The latest is that of a couple from a village in Gujranwalla who eloped and escaped to Karachi. Just a week before their murder, the man changed his religion from Christianity to Islam. Despite that, the girl's brother is reported to have killed the couple. I can't understand how he was able to locate the couple so soon after their marriage.

I'm convinced that the most unfortunate people in the world are Pakistani women (particularly those who live in rural areas or who belong to illiterate families). In the countryside, their bodies belong to the local feudal lord, who can rape them himself or ask his cronies to do so. He can even order them to marry the person he has selected for them. Even in illiterate families in the cities, girls are married off a couple of years after puberty. Their parents do not let them study after the age of twelve (assuming they're put in schools at all). They have to agree to marry their cousins (who may be junkies or street criminals). And after marriage they have to bear at least seven or more children (because that is what their husband want). And I doubt if this situation will change in the next five decades, if ever. 

It appears that Pakistan will always have polio

Already seventeen cases of polio have been recorded in the country. It's not only the illiterate parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated against the dreaded disease. About forty years back I asked an engineer if he had got his first child vaccinated. He laughed. "It's all a scam to make vaccine manufacturers rich", he said. This is what many Americans believe as well, and some of them are suffering from the after-effects of Covid. 

In Pakistan, however, the problem is compounded by clerics and some influential people. Many years ago, there was a mullah who used the FM radio channels to brainwash housewives into believing that vaccination causes male children to be impotent, and female children to be infertile. "This is one way of reducing our population devised by the evil Westerners", he used to say. No wonder many polio women workers have been killed in the northern areas of the country, and in those districts where Pathans live.

So I doubt if this and successive governments will ever eradicate polio in country. They should give up trying and the money saved can be used for treating people suffering from cancer or other diseases.

                   

Why some businessmen are reluctant to pay tax

A few years back I was explaining the benefits of paying income tax to some Memon businessmen. Of course, I've been paying income tax since 1967 (58 years ago), but when I found that getting a visa for the UK and other countries, it is necessary to be registered with the FBR and file income tax returns (even if you don't earn anything), I got my wife registered and we immediately got visas for the UK, Singapore, etc. Despite this, the Memons were not convinced. One of them said, "Once you start paying income tax, they will harass you no end, they will come to your office and try to find some mistake in your accounts so they can extract bribes from you".

He was, of course, telling the truth. I remember once getting a notice for a huge amount from a lady income tax officer (she is a non-Muslim). Without giving any reason, she got my company's bank accounts frozen, and the income tax consultant took quite a lot of money to operate our accounts again.

This is why the system is so rotten. The income tax officer can do anything and will never have to face accountability for any illegal activity. So, when People's Party representatives in parliament objected to giving sweeping powers to FBR officials to arrest people, I understood their concerns (even though our politicians are highly corrupt). Until and unless FBR officials are told that they cannot act without proof and they will be tried for using their powers to harass innocent people without proof, businessmen will be reluctant to pay tax.

 

Mystery of the missing Indian female pilot

During last month's Indian attack on Pakistan, Indian army and airforce claimed that all the pilots returned safely. But they have yet to explain why their female Rafale pilot (Shivangi Singh) has not been seen since after the war ended. Earlier, a video clip had gone viral showing a woman surrendering after parachuting down to a place which was obviously in northern Pakistan. Later, the Governor of Pakistan's KP province had claimed that she was in Pakistan's custody (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSQIm72qHBQ). Later, the Al-Jazeera TV channel also reported the same thing.

But when asked if she was in Pakistan's custody, the Pakistan army spokesman denied it, claiming that someone had spread this news on social media. 

On Facebook, worried Indians are asking Modi to clarify whether she's dead or in Pakistan, but they are not getting any response from Modi (the butcher of Gujarat).

I suppose if the Indian leader admits that she's dead or in Pakistan, it will prove that he and his army has been lying about the war. No sane Indian would then believe him when he says that the four day war achieved its objective. 

Indian attack on Pakistan: no one should be suprised

Finally it happened. There were those who doubted that India would attack Pakistan, that all the belligerence and hype was to fool the Indian public. But we knew was that Narendra Modi killed more than 2000 Muslims and staged the so-called surgical strike in 2019 just to win elections. He knows that he needs the support of Hindu extremists to remain in power and to ensure that his party wins the next elections. But this time he must've been surprised at the abject failure of his army and air force after Pakistan downed six Indian planes last night.

There are credible reports that India told a few neutral countries to persuade Pakistan not to respond to its attack. So it must've shocked him at the swift and strong retaliation. He will have great difficulty explaining to his voters why all the money he spent on the latest Rafael jets went down the drain. Share prices of the French company manufacturing Rafael jets crashed after reports that they were easily shot down by Pakistan. It will make other countries wonder whether they should go for fighter planes manufactured by France, as Chinese fighters are more reliable, and less expensive.

Pakistan under threat: US weapons being used by terrorists

Every sane Pakistani should be worried about the fact that the Taliban government of Afghanistan has sold some of the advanced US weapons it got after the American withdrawal from Kabul. According to Trump himself, these weapons are valued at eighty five billion dollars. Even if they're sold at a quarter of their value, the bigots ruling Afghanistan will not have to worry about the economy of their country for the next few years or so.

I'm particularly worried about the anti-aircraft missiles the terrorists have. These can be used to attack civilian planes at our airports. The problem is, there is nothing we can do. Our deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar has gone to Kabul, but what can he do? The terrorists will either demand that we adopt the Sharia system (meaning that we lock up our women) or hand over to them two of our provinces. They have the upper hand now, and they will never listen to reason. We're in for a tough time. With the present political deadlock in the country, with one opposition party allied with the terrorists, it's going to be difficult for the country to remain stable. I hope we do not have another Bangladesh.

Council of Islamic Ideology's latest blow to women's rights

In this day and age, no Muslim needs the advice of the nearby mosque's imam, the internet is enough to answer any question he may have. But in Pakistan we have the Council of Islamic Ideology that is composed of men who have mindsets of people who lived in the Stone Age. I have written elsewhere that clerics like them should migrate to an island where there are no women.

The latest blow to women's rights by these bigots is astounding. They have never accepted the fact that Muslim men should take permission from their existing wives before taking other wives. After all, the only thing most Pakistani Muslim men know about Islam is that they can have four wives and they can divorce by simply pronouncing "talak" three times. The 1961 Family Law bequeathed to us by Ayub Khan stipulates that a man cannot take another wife unless his first wife agrees. But this is anathema to most moulvis. So, when the apex court ruled that a woman has the right to divorce if her husband takes another wife without her permission, these bigots (Council of Islamic Ideology) were incensed. They say that the Supreme Court's decision is against Islam and Sharia. This is just the kind of thing that gives Islam a bad name. Next thing you know, they will say that a woman who asks for a divorce should immediately be killed.

Violent Pakistanis and civil war

In case no one has noticed, there is a civil war raging in the country. Every day, there are attacks by terrorists in KP on the police and the army. We all know who the killers are and why they're doing it. Imran Khan allowed forty thousand terrorists to return to the country from Afghanistan, assuming that by doing so, his vote bank would increase and he would gain the support of the locals. But if there's one thing about the Taliban that everyone knows, it's that they cannot be trusted. 

For some reason, Pakistanis are a violent people. The other day a man shot a woman and her uncle for refusing his proposal to marry her. Yesterday a man killed his fasting mother because she didn't provide breakfast on time. The father of the notorious killer Armaghan threatened to kill the prosecutor and the investigating officer. All this in the sacred month of Ramazan when Muslims are supposed to fast and control themselves. 

Perhaps it's because of poverty and joblessness. Unemployed men tend to gather in mosques where they are told about the glorious days when Muslims ruled the world and how it can be done again (by killing those who are not true Muslims). It'll be a long time before the killings will stop.

Recent events that makes me pessimistic about Pakistan

Daily you hear or read something that makes you wonder whether Pakistan will be able to survive. Besides Imran Khan's efforts to weaken the country, and attacks by terrorists in KP and Baluchistan, the rampant corruption of our police and judiciary make me despondent and regret not leaving the country when I had the chance about fifty years ago.

The stunning revelations in the Mustafa Amir murder by someone who is a criminal and psychopath has proved that our judges can be bought (something that has been evident for some time). The lower court judge, after talking to the killer's father, reversed his decision and remanded the killer to judicial custody instead of handing him over to the police. He was so stupid that he spread "whito" over his original order and wrote the revised order on it. It makes you wonder how he ever got to be a judge. As for the killer's father, one wonders how he managed to become a citizen of the US. Then there are the cops who actually helped the killer (Armaghan) to indulge in smuggling of narcotics.

Then there is the case of the woman who ran over two waiters two years ago in Islamabad. The woman (Shanzay Malik) fled after killing the two men. Of course, if she'd been an ordinary person, she'd have been convicted, but being the daughter of a Supreme Court judge (Shehzad Malik), the lower court magistrate said the cops didn't present enough evidence against her (although there was a CCTV footage of the accident).  

I know that people will say that this kind of thing happens in many other countries, but Pakistan has enough problems of its own without its police and judges being criminals.

The government should immediately take steps to stop killing of Punjabis in Balochistan

It's become routine now. Punjabi speakers going back to their home towns in Punjab from Balochistan are massacred almost every other month and the government is not at all concerned. It reminds one of the last few months of united Pakistan before it was dismembered. If the government does not do something to stop the killings immediately, we might see the country disintegrating again.

Usually, the terrorists stop a bus going to Punjab, order all the passengers to get out, then check their identity cards to find out which ones are Punjabis. One man miraculously escaped in the latest killing spree on 18 February because the details in his national identity card were in English, which the terrorists couldn't read. 

The question arises, why can't the government have police squads escorting such buses? If the British could control lawlessness a century ago, surely it can be done now. But the usual response is "The President, Prime Minister, Chief Minister, etc have condemned the killings and have vowed that every effort will be made to arrest and punish the killers, blah blah blah". Something drastic needs to be done, and done immediately, before the situation gets out of hand.

Solar panel scandal proves corruption in Pakistan is rampant

I've often said that Pakistan should be re-named Corruptistan.  The latest scandal involving massive over-invoicing in the import of solar panels proves that honest Pakistanis are a dying breed.

Normally, it is under-invoicing of imported goods that can enrich the businessman as well as the Customs personnel helping him. Imported goods costing, say, a hundred thousand dollars are under-invoiced to show the value as twenty or thirty thousand dollars, and the duties and taxes paid are charged on the under-invoiced value. The importer saves at least thirty thousand dollars this way. The balance seventy or eighty thousand dollars are remitted to the foreign supplier via unofficial channel (havala). This has been going on for a long time.

Now the importer has found a new way to make money. He imports goods on which there is zero duty and taxes. Ten thousand dollars worth of imported goods is over-invoiced as thirty thousand dollars.  The excess money remitted to the foreign supplier is treated as advance money for other under-invoiced goods. If the actual value is thirty thousand dollars, the invoice value is shown as five thousand and the duty and taxes paid accordingly.

This is what happened in the import of solar panels in which the government was deprived of a hundred and ten billion rupees. Truly Pakistanis are very creative when cheating their government.

Why are the EU & IMF suddenly concerned about human rights in Pakistan?

First it was the European Union which warned that Pakistani exports to the EU would no longer enjoy duty free status if human rights violations, child marriages, media curbs, etc were not ended. Now the IMF has sent a delegation to meet politicians, judges and others to determine whether there has been any improvement after their money started flowing. I'm against this government's policies, particularly the curbs on the media, but why do the EU and the IMF suddenly want to do it now?

Why didn't the EU say anything when the then Bangladesh government started executing pro-Pakistani politicians some years back? Is there something about Pakistan that they feel threatened by?

I can't help thinking that it is Imran Khan's blitzkrieg that's behind all this. He is so rich that he doesn't mind spending a few million here and there to get out of jail. Last week he got another US politician to ask Trump to get Imran released. One wonders how far the convicted leader will go to malign Pakistan.

So-called Kashmir Day holiday

I've always known that there is no difference between Imran Khan and Bhutto. Both narcissists, both suffered from an inferior complex, both megalomaniacs and both behaving as if they were above the law. Bhutto was born to be executed, and if Imran Khan continues to believe he can never die, he too will be hanged.

One fine day, Bhutto called for a strike throughout the country and in both parts of Kashmir. People asked why a strike should be called when it would serve no purpose. But Bhutto being out of touch with reality, stubbornly declared every 5th of February a holiday called Kashmir day. The question arises, why should Pakistan be so concerned about Kashmir, knowing that most people in Indian-held Kashmir no longer want to join Pakistan? Of course they don't want to remain in India, but why should they want to be a part of a virtually failed state? 

Someone once told me that the Brits decided to keep the two countries fighting after independence, so they bequeathed us the Kashmir dispute. This might well be true. For many years after partition, a big chunk of our budget (up to 75 percent) was spent on defence. Peace with India is no longer possible, so we'll have go on spending to defend the country to prevent its further break-up.