Mapping ourselves over

Pulished in Daily Times  

Sir, 

There is talk about a new map showing a truncated Pakistan, which is causing much concern. Whoever made the map has suggested that parts of Iran and Pakistan be united to form a new country. Further, the proposed name of this new country is Balochistan. The northern Pashtun areas of Pakistan should be given to Afghanistan, leaving a truncated and demarked version of what was once though of re-drawing India's boundaries? After all, India is rife with communal and sectarian violence, with many freedom movements in which rebels are demanding independence. In some areas of the northeast, the writ of the state does not exist. 

Obviously, since Pakistan and Iran are Muslim countries, it is acceptable to talk of breaking them up, while a "secular" India, with its huge market remains a sacred cow and no one even dares consider dividing it into smaller units.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

India is no longer a democracy

Embed from Getty Images

Modi's party (BJP) has swept to power in many states which it had never ruled so far. It has done so mainly by removing the names of more than ten million Muslims in voters' lists in West Bengal and many more in other states like Assam (where Muslims comprise more than thirty percent of the population). The Indian Election Commission is headed by someone appointed by Modi, so it colluded with him in disenfranchising Muslim voters. It's evident now that India is a one-party state (like China), and it is no longer what its founding fathers had hoped it would be (a secular democracy).

Modi had postponed raising fuel prices as that would have meant alienating voters, but now Indian newspapers predict that petrol and diesel prices will soon shoot up (LPG prices have already gone up by fifty percent). So we know why Modi appealed to his fellow Indians to conserve fuel, stop importing gold and reduce traveling to other countries, to conserve foreign exchange. It must've shocked those Indians who've been brainwashed into believing that their country's economy is the third largest in the world. If the Iran war continues, India will no longer be able to pretend that it's like China or the US.

India's attempts to isolate Pakistan have failed

India has never fully accepted the existence of Pakistan. Just a few days after independence, India illegally occupied Kashmir, and even though Nehru promised to hold a plebiscite to determine the will of the people of Kashmir, India backed out on one pretext or the other. Before the Indus Waters Treaty was signed, India would periodically shut the water flow into Pakistan. 

In 1971, after the secession of East Pakistan, Indian analysts confidently predicted the break-up of what remained of Pakistan, but that didn't happen. 

For many years now, India has tried to isolate Pakistan from cricket, sometimes even preventing foreign players from playing in Pakistan. The tables have turned now, and the world of international cricket is in turmoil, because of Pakistan's refusal to play one match against India on 15 February in support of Bangladesh (as the ICC refused to accept the latter country's plea to play matches in Sri Lanka because it felt that its players were not safe in India).

Indians are bewildered how Pakistan can forego many millions just to support Bangladesh, which had also declined to play in Pakistan when it was ruled by an Indian-dominated woman. 

It should be interesting to see how the Indian-dominated ICC will deal with this situation.

A different approach (dealing with India)

Published in Dawn on October 12, 2025

WITH the Bihar elections in India due soon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his henchmen are likely to do their best to blame Pakistan for all their failures. They want their people to believe that Pakistan is responsible for all their problems, including the fact that 40 per cent Indians are living below the poverty line, and many children have died after consuming contaminated cough syrups.

I suggest that instead of responding to any threats hurled by Indians, we should stay calm and not respond in kind. The best thing to do, of course, is to pretend that India does not exist, but since that is not possible, we should find an alternative way.

We could, for instance, point out that India could solve most of its problems by reducing its defence budget by half, and spend the money saved to feed its hungry masses. We could suggest that India would be better off buying fighter jets and missiles manufactured in Pakistan instead of France. Of course, the Indian government would not respond, but at least our offer would go some way towards convincing ordinary Indians not to fall for Pakistan-bashing.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1948353/a-different-approach

Trump's new blows on india: H-1B visa fees and sanction on comstructing Iranian port

Suddenly, Trump has dealt two new devastating blows on India (in addition to the 50 percent duty on Indian goods). First, he removed the exemption India enjoyed for constructing Chahbahar Port in Iran. Now, he has increased the H-1B visa fees from about 2000 dollars to 100,000 dollars (which went into effect yesterday, 21 September 2025). About 75 percent of these visas are given to Indians who are mostly employed in the US IT industry. 

Even though the government made it clear that this fee would be imposed only on new applicants, and those who already had the visa need not worry, there was panic in India. Thousands of Indians working in the US were visiting India due to the marriage season and a religious festival (Durga Puja). They desperately tried to get back to the US before the deadline, as a result of which air fares to the US surged to five times the normal cost. Those already seated with boarding cards in San Francisco and other US airports begged to be off-loaded, fearing that they would be deported on returning to the US from India. One Indian IT executive even said that his annual salary is not US $ 100,000, so how could he pay that much to renew his visa.

What Indians can't explain is why they need to work in other countries, since (as they claim) India has the fourth largest economy. Already Indian exports have declined so much that a 100 million Indians have been rendered jobless (due to the 50 percent tariff on Indian goods imposed by Trump).

India has warned the US that imposing this high amount is detrimental to humanity, but Trump will not budge. People are wondering why he has suddenly turned against India. Perhaps it's because the US has now realized that India can no longer be depended upon to fight a war with China, which became evident after Pakistan inflicted a crushing defeat upon it in May this year.

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.  

As expected, Trump makes a U-turn on India

Embed from Getty Images

Like all narcissists, US president Donald Trump frequently backs out when he finds out he was wrong. He slapped a fifty percent tariff on almost all goods India exports to the US, not knowing that India had the option of rushing into the arms of China (with whom it has had a very bitter relationship due to its alliance with Pakistan). In fact, all BRIC countries regarded India as a Trojan horse due to its special relationship with the US. So, when Trump saw that his policy had backfired, he started calling the repulsive Modi his friend, and now it seems that India will soon start sleeping with the US.

This doesn't mean that India will get everything it wants from the US, like for instance the stoppage of military assistance to Pakistan. India's recent misadventure against Pakistan proved that it is not the superpower it pretends to be. The only thing favoring India is that it's a huge market, which is why US companies have already invested heavily in India. But unless India agrees to Trump's demands, like access to its agriculture, Trump will never agree to restore the special relationship it had before with the US.

Suddenly, Indians have grown fond of China!

Until a few days ago, Indians hated China. They would explain India's humiliating defeat in the 4-day war with Pakistan by saying that India couldn't have won against 3 countries (Pakistan, China and Turkey), ignoring the fact that India had Israeli weapons and French and Russian warplanes as well as American weapons. There was much vitriol spewed against Turkey and Azerbaijan as well, Indians cancelled their vacations to both countries.

Suddenly, everything changed after Trump imposed the huge tariff of 50 percent on all Indian goods. Now, Indians even say that Pakistan had been supported by the US in the war, forgetting that it was China which did so.

But is the new fondness for China going to last? I doubt it. India has hired a US lobbying firm to persuade Trump to change his mind, which will happen anyway if Trump wins the Nobel peace prize. Then everything will be as before, India becoming a strategic ally and all that BS. China will of course never give up its claim to Indian-occupied Arunachal Pradesh. Indians will suddenly remember that their much-touted Rafaels were shot down by Pakistani jets manufactured jointly by China and Pakistan. 

Indians promoting fake news about Trump calling Modi four times!

As the deadline approached for Trump to impose 50 percent duty on Indian goods, Indians desperately tried to tell the world that they are not beggars, and Trump had called Modi four times. Why would the most powerful person in the world try to persuade the leader of a desperately poor country like India to agree to his demands? If it had been China, he'd have called ten times, but India? Indians most probably think that the rest of the world are very stupid and would believe any good fake news about their prime minister. The world knows that seventy percent of Indians are hungry and desperately trying to survive on a dollar a day. In fact, Modi should stop spending so much (90 billion dollars a year) on defense, he can buy fighter jets and other equipment from Pakistan and easily save 70 billion dollars every year to feed hungry Indians (besides providing them with toilets).

Of course, Trump didn't back out, he imposed the highest duty on India, and Indian exporters are spending sleepless nights.

But I know that the well-being of Indians is far from Modi's mind. He just wants his friends Ambani and Adani to earn billions in kickbacks so he will continue to buy Rafales from France and MIGS from Russia.

Controversy over Modi's degree

A couple of days back, the Times of India suddenly started accepting my comments, although I still can't reply to any commentator who contacts me on its app. One guy recently asked me whether I'm the same man who used to write on Chowrangi.com, but my reply to him bounced back. 

One of the topics bothering many Indians is whether Modi really has a university degree. It's obvious that the man is practically illiterate, if he really has been able to graduate, then there is something seriously wrong with the education system in India. The fact that he got the high court to prevent disclosure of the list of graduates on 1977-78 proves that he lied when he claimed to have a degree. Another thing, pointed out by many Indians, is that if he really had a degree, he should have no hesitation in showing it to the public.

It's really amusing that some Indians can't see that the man is a fraudster. How can someone who arranged the massacre of over 2000 Muslims be educated? Plus, why did he choose to become a simple tea vendor  (chai walla) at a railway station if he is educated?

Indian Air Force Chief's desperate attempt to save Modi!

Embed from Getty Images

I've always believed that most Indians and Pakistanis are so similar that they might be first cousins. The people of our Punjab are remarkably like those who live in Indian Punjab. They are both good technicians, they are good fighters, they look alike, they speak the same language and they have the same customs. They even have the same primitive beliefs about women (but that is true of most Pakistanis as well).

So I wasn't very surprised when the Indian Air Force chief (Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh) suddenly declared that his air force had shot down six Pakistani planes in the four day war in May this year. In fact, I wonder why he didn't make this fantastic statement earlier, why did he do it three months after the conflict? Better late than never, I suppose.

The timing is very significant. It came after Trump repeatedly said that five or six jets had been shot down, as Pakistan has proved. So even Indian analysts are amazed. One of them even says that it's a lie, and it will have a demoralizing effect on Indian air force officers, who know the truth. Obviously, it's a desperate attempt to save Modi from humiliation. But I doubt if it will succeed.

Trump should realize he's making Modi very popular

Embed from Getty Images

The more Trump says things that make him look stupid, the more convinced I become that there's something terribly wrong with the American education system. Trump has antagonized Indians with his threats to further penalize India for buying oil from Russia. He hasn't stopped after imposing a high duty rate (25%) on Indian goods that are being exported to the US. On the contrary, he's threatened to increase the duty rate even more. He tried the same thing with China, but it didn't work. The same has happened in India.

India has pointed out that both the US and the EU are importing from Russia (including oil and gas), so why shouldn't they be allowed to do it? India's resistance to the threats and refusal to bow down to Trump are increasingly making Muslim-killer Modi even more popular. I doubt if India will ever agree to stop importing arms and oil from Russia. In fact, being a member of BRICS, it will have the support of Brazil as well as China in its defiance of Trump. I believe it would be appropriate for Trump to stop issuing threats to India immediately, otherwise the situation will no longer be in his control. 

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.

 

Boeing hired Indian software engineers at US$ 9.00 an hour!

Published in DAWN on July 01, 2025

THIS is with reference to the editorial ‘Air India tragedy’ (June 15) which stated that Boeing had reached an agreement with the United States Justice Department to pay $1.1bn to avoid prosecution for the two widely reported 737-MAX crashes. Boeing has a history of trying to cut costs, and for this purpose it outsourced to Indian engineers the development of its 737-MAX planes, paying them only nine dollars an hour because their American engineers would have charged $35-40 an hour, as reported by IndustryWeek, which quoted Mark Rabin, a former software engineer.

Rabin, while talking about Indian engineers’ lack of competence, said: “The coders … were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code. Frequently, it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”

Also, an Indian company, Hindustan Computers Ltd (HCL), played a major role in the development of the 787 Dreamliners, one of which crashed recently less than a minute after take-off from Ahmedabad.

The teams investigating the crash should seriously consider all the relevant background while looking into the incident.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1921317/dangerous-option

Indians amazed at Pakistan's influence on Trump

Finally, Indians have realized that they can't fool Americans all the time. They planned and executed the failed attack on Pakistan, but found that the world did not accept their reasons for doing so. Now, with the Israel Iran war entering its second week, US President Trump did not ask for their advice, but invited Pakistan's army chief for consultations on how to proceed in the war. Immediately after the two hour lunch with Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir ended, Trump announced a delay of two weeks before he would decide whether to enter the war against Iran. Indians are flabbergasted, and their political analysts are accusing Muslim-killer Modi for his failed foreign policy (as well as the debacle of its failed attack on Pakistan). Modi must be wondering what went wrong.

Of course, Modi is not the only one spending sleepless nights. The traitors in our midst, Imran Khan and his cronies, are wondering why the millions they spend every month lobbying against our army have not worked. Even when the Field Marshal was there, they staged demonstrations against him and the army. I hope he rots in his prison cell until he dies.

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. 

Adam's bridge (Ram Setu)

 Sir,

Fundamentalist Hindu parties in India are up in arms, against the central government for wanting to demolish Adam's bridge (called Ram Setu by orthodox Hindus) in a five hundred million dollar project to dredge a passage which would reduce the time taken by cargo ships to sail from India's west coast to its eastern shore by 6 hours. The row erupted after the Archaeological Survey of India submitted an affidavit claiming that the bridge was not man made and there was no evidence that Ram ever existed. Of course, we have known this all along (since the events depicted in the Ramayana are supposed to have taken more than a million and a half years ago, when modern man had not yet appeared on the planet).Geologists say that the bridge is a submerged stretch of limestone shoals that formed naturally about five to seven thousand years ago. This casts further doubts on Ram's existence. But if Ram never existed,the claim that the Babri Masjid was built on his birthplace is false, and there was no need for the BJP and Shiv Sena to demolish the mosque, an event which resulted in the killing of thousands of persons. But, like our own militants, those across the border are also not willing to listen to anything which challenges their cherished beliefs. They want anyone who doubts Ram's existence to be tried for blasphemy

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

India miscalculated Pakistan's strength

The recent four-day war between India and Pakistan exposed India's weaknesses. It miscalculated Pakistan's strength and over-estimated its own. The first mistake India did was to assume that China would not support Pakistan. In past wars between the two countries, China had opted to stay neutral, but now it came out openly to support Pakistan. 

But its biggest mistake was to assume that Pakistan would be diplomatically isolated due to its propaganda about Pakistan supporting terrorism. For this, the present Hindutva government is to blame. They supported the killing of Muslims and Christians thinking that they could get away with it. By burning down over two hundred churches in Manipur and attempting to destroy many mosques, they thought the international community would say or do nothing. They were in for a shock.

Not one country (except the pariah state of Israel) supported India. Pakistan, on the other hand, came out on top, with three countries openly backing it, and no one criticizing it or blaming it for the war. On the contrary, to India's dismay and surprise, even Donald Trump praised Pakistan.

Now Modi and his Hindutva militants know they cannot attack Pakistan in future without severe consequences.

Indians surprised after losing the war

Indian gibberish

Published in DAWN on May 31, 2025

THIS refers to the article `India`s failed gambit` (May 18), which suggested that in the wake of aggression, the Indians stood surprised by Pakistan. Indeed, this was not the first time that Indians have been surprised. At the time of Independence, leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel fully expected Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to beg them for taking Pakistan back into the Indian fold within six months, as they thought Pakistan would never survive.

Of course, this was due to what they had read in school textbooks, which said that the climate in the areas comprising Sindh, West Punjab and East Bengal was not suitable for industrialisation, even though both cotton and jute were grown in those places. The textbooks did not say that those were Muslim-majority areas.

Later, in 1965, India was surprised when Pakistan successfully defended itself.

Indian tourists in Europe and other countries are surprised when they see Pakistani tourists in those places. They have been brainwashed by the Hindutva leaders into believing that Pakistan is a very poor country where people are dying due to hunger and starvation.

Their television anchors confidently proclaimed that major Pakistani cities had been bombed and that Indian troops had taken over the country. No wonder they were hugely surprised at being cut to size in the recent four-day war.

Shakir Lakhani

Lessons for India

Published in DAWN on May 23, 2025

THIS is with reference to the editorial `The way forward` (May 12). Now that hostilities between Pakistan and India have ceased and talks are scheduled, I have a couple of suggestions for the Indian side.

The first is that they should teach their schoolchildren that there is no seaport in Lahore. The one they claimed to have bombed exists only in the imaginations of their hate-filled and venom-spewing television anchors.

Second, there are some Indians, including retired army officers, who think that Pakistan is a nation of beggars. One of them even used the word `phateecher` to describe Pakistanis. They should know that the per capita debt of India is nearly twice that of Pakistan; in 2024 it was $2,504 vs $1,130. So, who is the beggar? It is amazing to see the Indian media claiming even now that it was Pakistan that capitulated, even though international media houses have reported more than once that it was India that approached the United States for a ceasefire.

Finally, Donald Trump should take over the India-occupied Kashmir and make it the 51st American state.

India, in such a scenario, will no longer have to maintain 700,000 troops there, and, so, it should have no objection to it.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://epaper.dawn.com/DetailImage.php?StoryImage=23_05_2025_007_006