Knight, not pawn: Habib Jalib Baloch

Daily Times	Thursday, July 22, 2010

COMMENT:Knight, not pawn: Habib Jalib Baloch —Dr Mohammad Taqi

More striking than Habib Jalib's flowing long hair was his political maturity that was certainly beyond his years. This transition from a student politician to a statesman is rather rare in our part of the world

“Aiy haak ki may nagrin qawm e jis o gor int,

Aiy haak a pa maa taah e jatag shaklein zinday” — Mir Gul Khan Nasir.

“This soil has been our home, after death it has been our grave,

So, for evermore, I am this soil’s slave.”



In the parlance of nationalist movements in Pakistan, the motherland (watan) has often been described as the place where one’s home and grave are (kor and gor, respectively in Pashto, for example). The Baloch revolutionary poet Gul Khan Nasir’s above verse, however, took the concept to a new height. And in his death, on July 15, 2010, Comrade Habib Jalib Baloch immortalised the verse, the concept and the struggle that is befitting of this ideal.

In their February 2000 monograph titled ‘Knights, not Pawns: Ethno-Nationalism and Regional Dynamics in Post-Colonial Balochistan’, Paul Titus and Nina Swidler note that, “In the pivotal years of 1947 and 1948, the Muslim League was able to outmanoeuvre and suppress these ambitious young (nationalist) movements, but they did not die. In subsequent decades, Baloch and Pashtun nationalism became key elements in the political discourse and the equation of power in Balochistan, and they remain so today.”

These movements did not die simply because they have had in their ranks revolutionary dervishes like Ajmal Khattak and Habib Jalib Baloch. These knights have overshadowed almost all pawns that the Pakistani establishment has produced and used to derail the nationalist movements. Their shining armour has been nothing but dedication to their cause and its adornments are their intellect, humility and contact with their people. A sense of pride in their self-chosen, dignified poverty and shunning material incentives is the Teflon that kept every blemish away from their armour and person.

63 years, four martial laws and six major military operations later, the Baloch struggle for autonomy, self-governance and the right to self-determination continues while the fringes of the movement now demand outright independence from the downright knaves of the establishment. It is highly unlikely that silencing a voice of reason like Jalib Baloch will succeed in gagging the demand for rights. In the poem quoted above, Gul Khan Nasir goes on to express the resolve of his people:

“Dastanai bebanday ta ke chammani bebanday,

Kohani zirab a che pa aram a na nenday.”

“Tie our hands behind our backs or blindfold our eyes,

our seething furious mountains will always make us rise.”

By physically eliminating the moderate leaders, the oppressors of Balochistan stoke the fury of mainstream individuals. We keep hearing the ‘foreign hand’ being involved in Balochistan and how the ‘evil’ nationalist chieftains seek and get help from India or Afghanistan. Selig Harrison, however, noted decades ago: “In contrast to [Khair Bakhsh] Marri who is uneasy and ambivalent about seeking Soviet or other foreign help for an independence struggle, [Ghaus Bakhsh] Bizenjo stated that ‘in a crisis, naturally we will seek help from somewhere, and if we get it, we will accept it. When a nationality is fighting for survival, what do you expect?’”

One should bear in mind that Marri was considered the hardliner and the late Bizenjo was considered the perennial moderate. In fact, so great was Bizenjo’s penchant for talks that instead of Baba-e-Balochistan (father of the Baloch nation), his detractors called him ‘Baba-e-muzakraat’ (negotiation). Jalib Baloch belonged to the same league of towering intellectuals of a moderate political persuasion of the likes of Bizenjo. While Jalib remained committed to the political process, his assassination might push those with similar views to the fringes.

I had an opportunity to briefly interact with Jalib Baloch during the lawyers’ movement. We shared a good laugh at an APDM rally in Islamabad when I asked if Nur Muhammad Tarakai’s sartorial preferences had inspired him to don the long black overcoat. As most obituaries have pointed out, he indeed was a humble, soft-spoken and unassuming man who appeared younger than his age. However, more striking than his flowing long hair was his political maturity that was certainly beyond his years. This transition from a student politician to a statesman is rather rare in our part of the world. In this, he ranked right up there with the greats of the past like Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo and contemporaries like my good friend Afrasiab Khattak of the ANP.

One can argue about Jalib’s political views and what he perceived as the correct means to achieve the rightful place for the Baloch people in the political economy of Pakistan and the region. However, what he would not have wanted is the bickering that has apparently broken out between various Baloch political and resistance groups.

The obscure group, Baloch Musallah Defai Tanzeem might have accepted the responsibility for Jalib Baloch’s murder but history points its finger towards forces that have been implicated in the systematic killings of their political and intellectual opponents from Hassan Nasir, Zahir Rehan, Shahidullah Kaiser, Mir Lawang Khan, Asadullah Mengal, Nazir Abbasi, Ayaz Sammo, Munir Baloch and Maula Bux Dasti to Abdus Samad Khan, ZA Bhutto, Dr Najibullah, Nawab Bugti and Benazir Bhutto.

Once Sardar Ataullah Mengal said, “That man [late Bizenjo sahib] cannot live without politics. I can do without it, but he has to have it all the time or he will perish.” I would plead with Sardar sahib, Nawab Marri and other senior Baloch elders and leaders that without their taking up an active role in politics to help banish the factionalism among the Baloch, the chances of everyone perishing together are very real. The state apparatus is going full steam ahead with its colonisation of Balochistan while the civilian government stands by. Without a swift agreement on a minimum common programme, the Baloch may not survive this wave of oppression. No armed resistance can succeed without a robust political leadership.

S T Coleridge once wrote:

“The knight’s bones are dust,

And his good sword rust,

His soul is with the saints, I trust.”

I have no doubt that Habib Jalib Baloch’s soul is with the saints but it is up to the Baloch leaders to protect his life’s work from tarnish and rust. Knights must not become pawns.

The writer teaches and practices Medicine at the University of Florida and contributes to the think-tanks www.politact.com and Aryana Institute. He can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

A foregone conclusion

Daily Times	Thursday, July 15, 2010

COMMENT: A foregone conclusion —Dr Mohammad Taqi

Only after the disaster in Swat spilled over into Buner and the media spotlight showed the true colours of Sufi Muhammad, did both the military and civilian leadership spring into action

The Pakistani parliament’s Special Committee on National Security (SCNS) received a briefing this past week from the Secretary Defence Lieutenant General (R) Syed Athar Ali and Director General ISI Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha.

An English language daily, reporting on the proceedings at the SCNS, noted that “the members were told in categorical terms that no Punjabi Taliban network exists in any part of the country and no organisation under the banner of the Taliban in any particular area of the country has been found. The recent terror incidents are the handiwork of the splinter groups and persons of outlawed organisations, which have lost their bases in the tribal areas and elsewhere.”

If this press report is indeed true — and no statement contradicting it has yet appeared — then coming on the heels of the Data Darbar bombing and a day before the massacre in the Mohmand Agency, this briefing was nothing more than hogwash. But given the history of such briefings and those delivering them, it is hardly a surprise.

On the eve of the crisis in Swat last year, General Pasha, apparently defending the jihadists, asked his Der Spiegel interviewer, “Should they not be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Is that not freedom of opinion?” Just a few months before this January 2009 interview, he had certified Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlullah as ‘patriotic’ Pakistanis because they had offered not only a ‘ceasefire’ with the army but also the offer to fight alongside the military against India, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

Exactly a year before that, General Pasha — then the Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Pakistan Army — had declared on January 17, 2008 that the “operation Rah-e-Haq in Swat to re-establish the writ of the government and clean the area from miscreants has been successfully accomplished.”

Prior to these musings, the general had served as the commandant of the Command and Staff College in Quetta. While the position may not have had any operational responsibilities, it is hard to assume that someone in charge of a course almost mandatory for promotions beyond the lieutenant colonel rank would be unaware of the Quetta Shura taking shape in his neck of the woods.

That Rawalpindi’s line has been to consistently deny the existence of the Taliban and al Qaeda networks, first in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or FATA and now in Punjab, is not surprising but the civilian leadership’s constant acceptance of such denials at face-value is rather perplexing.

Upon assuming power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2008, the coalition partners, the Awami National Party (ANP) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) reluctantly signed on to the military effort already underway in Swat since July 2007, to supposedly flush out the Taliban from Swat. While drawing severe criticism from its supporters, the coalition government then inked the well-publicised peace deal with the Swat Taliban on May 21, 2008 and agreed to impose shariah in Swat.

Barring an occasional muffled protest from the ANP’s provincial assembly members, the coalition did own the army campaign in Swat, over which it had little or no operational control. While privately complaining about the army’s inaction, the spin-masters of the federal and provincial governments worked hard then to present the breakdown in the state’s writ as the greatest breakthrough.

Only after the disaster in Swat spilled over into Buner and the media spotlight showed the true colours of Sufi Muhammad, did both the military and civilian leadership spring into action. However, the civilian leadership subsequently made startling revelations about how they had to negotiate with the Taliban under duress and with suicide bombers standing guard on occasion.

At its peril, the civilian government, especially the ANP, had opted not to take the people of Pakistan, or even its own leaders like Afzal Khan, into confidence about the shenanigans of the army and the Taliban in Swat. No effort was made to mobilise the street or media to ask why, if at all, in less than a year the people who had voted overwhelmingly against the mullahs were suddenly craving shariat. The information given by the political leadership, off and on record, later about the civilian government being between the army’s inaction and the Taliban onslaught, was too little and too late to mould opinion around the world.

The 18-member SCNS led by Senator Raza Rabbani, which is supposedly the eyes and ears of the civilian government on national security issues, has apparently fallen into the same trap as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in 2008 and the two Benazir Bhutto administrations before that. The deliberations of this committee potentially have far-reaching impact in terms of formulating a counter-terrorism doctrine.

Throughout their attacks in Punjab during 2009 and 2010, the terrorists have displayed a level of impunity and a variety of tactics that only outfits deeply entrenched in the heartland can muster. No evidence has been brought to the fore that from the June 12, 2009 bombing of the Jamia Naeemia in Lahore to the Data Darbar bombing a year later, any of the attacks carried out in Punjab had been planned or manned by anyone from outside the province.

From the capture of al Qaeda bigwigs like Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (Rawalpindi), Abu Zubaidah and Sheikh Isa al-Masri (both Faisalabad) to the more recent arrival in Punjab of west-born would-be terrorists, the province has been the crossroads of terrorist traffic in and out of Pakistan. With its sprawling madrassa network, it is a recruitment ground, nursery and sanctuary of jihadist terrorism, complete with indoctrination and training capabilities.

Without acknowledging the existence of these militant networks in Punjab, it is hard to make a case for countering them effectively, whether by police-led domestic counter-terrorism or the army. Through its complacency at the briefing, the SCNS is letting the military continually dictate foreign and national security policies, setting the civilian government up for a disaster much bigger in magnitude and fallout than Swat. That the jihadist menace in Punjab will continue to grow is a foregone conclusion.

The writer teaches and practices Medicine at the University of Florida and contributes to the think-tanks www.politact.com and Aryana Institute. He can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

The changing face of APPNA

The changing face of APPNA

By Dr. Mohammad Taqi

July 1,2010

The Pakistan Post, New York

Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life. By the same token, life is adaptation.

                                                                                   (Alvin Toffler - Future Shock)

Alvin Toffler was right on the dot in highlighting the inevitability and importance of change in human life and the world we live in. However, even he recognized that there are limitations to the adaptability that individuals and societies can go through. And organizations are no exception.

For organizations to remain viable and relevant in a world rapidly changing around them, it is simply not possible to take a decision today without first imaging how the world will look like tomorrow. Successful adaptation is the art of anticipation.

Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) was launched some thirty-three years ago with attention to the ideals and needs of the founding members. The group focused on providing a platform to the Pakistani doctors, who had arrived in this country, to further their professional, educational, charitable and social interests. The rather unique ethnic makeup of the outfit also narrowed down , de facto , the geographical focus of its activities i.e. within the USA and Pakistan.

The medical profession, the USA and Pakistan have thus, over the years, come to define what APPNA stands and strives for. This triumvirate of organizational inertia survives after more than thirty years that the group has been in existence and is the perimeter within which APPNA operates.

Compared to groups like the American Medical Association, which was founded in 1847, APPNA is literally in its youth. The growth and the inevitable change that comes with it, trigger two different kinds of anxieties in two different categories of the association’s membership.

Several individuals from the first generation of the membership, often referred to rather unkindly as the “old guard”, have come to see the organization as their baby and rightly so. However, with this emotional attachment there also exists an element of a patriarchal decision-making that is out of sync with the realities within the organization and the world within which it functions. The comfort of the known and apprehensions about the unknown - bordering on fear - has often put them at odds with a wave of younger “activists” who had cut their political teeth in Zia’s Pakistan.

The latter group apparently wants to live a political life vicariously through APPNA.While there is nothing wrong with such activism per se, the organization’s mandate and culture are frequently perceived as hurdles by this generation of members. It is not uncommon to hear demands ranging from somehow getting involved in the Palestine-Israel peace process to lobby to repeal the anti-blasphemy laws in Pakistan.

While the first generation membership wishes to preserve, what it perceived as a pristine and golden era, the younger generation wants to turn the organization into some form of a Delta Force, ready to intervene in the world conflicts at the drop of a hat.

What is probably true of APPNA was summarized by President Lincoln who had said that “the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”

Just like a high school grad at the cusp of choosing a career path, APPNA is at a juncture in its organizational life where it has to anticipate the future and define its role in that future world.

As much as it is important to preserve the past and the great values that embodied it, it is equally important to grow successfully and remain viable by defining anew our role. It is not possible to grow without changing and adapting to the new realities.

In a world serviced by the contemporary electronic media networks, it would be impossible for any individual or corporate citizen to remain aloof from the happenings around them. No organization - not even for-profit business-houses - can ignore their social responsibilities as global citizens.

Secular ethos, respect for civil and human rights and duty to the environment are now the norms, adherence to which adds to a groups stature Shirking these duties is not really an option for any twenty-first century enterprise.

However, such change must not flow from making decisions in a knee-jerk manner. There certainly are limits to the organizational inertia and resilience. The line between a meaningful change and disorder is a thin one. If approached casually, an attempt to break the status quo could easily result in a descent into chaos.

Fortunately for APPNA, it has been able to maintain, since its inception a level of democratic character against all odds. A considered decision by the members and leaders, reached through democratic means, can steer the organization into a robust modern body representative of forward-looking individuals and reflective of progressive, secular ethos. The occasion, no doubt, is piled high with difficulty, but we must rise with the occasion. The time to think anew and act anew is now.

When Data sahib turned malamati

Daily Times	Thursday, July 08, 2010

COMMENT: When Data sahib turned malamati —— Dr Mohammad Taqi

Like in Iraq, the al Qaeda-Taliban strategy in Pakistan appears to focus on the existing divisions between the major Islamic sects. The jihadists are attempting to play on the historical religious fault-lines in Pakistani society and trigger internal violence and mayhem

“The path of blame has been trodden by some of the sufi sheikhs. Blame has great effect in making the love (for God) sincere. The followers of the Truth (ahle haq) are distinguished by their being the object of vulgar blame (malamat)” — Data Ganj Bakhsh in Kashful Mehjoob.



Professor Reynold Nicholson, in his 1911 translation of the above quoted work, had called the 14th chapter of Kashful Mehjoob (Revelation of the Mystery or Unveiling the Veiled) as the most remarkable one. This is the section where the author Syed Abul Hasan Ali bin Usman bin Ali al-Ghaznavi al-Jullabi al-Hajvery, popularly known as Data Ganj Bakhsh or simply Data sahib, discusses the various sufi (mystic) orders. Incidentally, the sufi order Malamatiyyah (the reviled ones) and their practices are described first.

Data sahib acknowledged the practice of drawing upon oneself the blame and insult of worldly men (duniya) to achieve closeness to the Almighty, only within the confines of God’s prescribed ways. He, thus, discouraged the sufi to purposely draw upon himself blame and contempt, as that too may be pretentious. He wrote that “to seek blame is ostentation and ostentation is mere hypocrisy”. However, Data sahib narrates an episode from his travels where he became the target of hate and ridicule of some, and concludes, “The more they scoffed at me the more glad became my heart, so that the endurance of this burden was the means of delivering me of that difficulty which I had mentioned (earlier).”

Violence against the innocent and the dead is perhaps the most vulgar form of blame and an extreme manifestation of hate. On July 1, 2010, Data Ganj Bakhsh and his followers became the subjects of this hate and blame: over 900 years after his death. As a result, the suicidal zealots have elevated this Junaydiyyah sufi Sheikh to the highest rank of the Malamatiyyah sufi order as well.

I had just walked into the annual convention of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) in Dallas, Texas, when I received the news about the suicide bombings at the Data Darbar shrine. I had carried with me that day awards for two former presidents of APPNA and Khyber Medical College Alumni Association. These awards were titled Rehman Baba lifetime achievement awards, in the memory of that Pashtun sufi, whose shrine was bombed by the Wahabiists of al Qaeda and the Taliban not too long ago.

The thoughts racing through my mind were like a collage of destruction unleashed at the tombs of the holy men by the Taliban and their Wahabi-Salafi antecedents. They went all the way from the desecration and bombing of the Masjid-e-Nabwi in Madina, levelling of the Al-Baqee cemetery in the same city and the destruction of Imam Hussain’s shrine at the hands of Wahabiists, to the more recent destruction of Haji Sahib Turangzai and Rehman Baba’s tombs and the occupation of Pir Baba’s shrine in Buner. But the most striking resemblance of the carnage at Data Darbar was with the bombing — twice — of the Al-Askariyah shrine at Samarra, Iraq, by al Qaeda operatives.

Like in Iraq, the al Qaeda-Taliban strategy in Pakistan appears to focus on the existing divisions between the major Islamic sects. The jihadists are attempting to play on the historical religious faultlines in Pakistani society and trigger internal violence and mayhem. Shrines like Data Darbar or Bari Imam make porous, soft targets that are hard to defend and capture media headlines. The net effect of such attacks is a perception of the state’s weakness in its fight against the jihadist insurgency. In the process if the jihadists are able to trigger sectarian violence along multiple faultlines, it would give them further traction.

I then read the news about Mian Nawaz Sharif’s call for negotiating with the Taliban. Upon his return from exile in 2007, Mian sahib was called ‘Lahore ka rakhwala’ (the guardian of Lahore) by Aitzaz Ahsan, I reminisced. It is not known if Mr Ahsan was in a generous mood or an appeasement mode back then, but the guardian’s response to the mayhem in his city was to adopt a ‘hands up’ posture immediately. He was not offering his other cheek but that of the millions whose safety he has pawned away to the likes of Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi of the ‘defunct’ terrorist group, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). So much for the Mard-e-Ahan’s steely resolve. I decided to keep on reading my Urdu and English copies of the Kashful Mehjoob.

The Urdu translation is by none other than the late Mian Tufail Muhammad, Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, completed during his years in Sahiwal prison. The preface to Professor Arnold’s translation had been written by the late Justice (R) Pir Karam Shah. He records: “Yet it is an irony of the situation that in the midst of these throbbing bands of believers of mystic blessings, an antagonistic group of decriers of the great mystics and also of the creed of mysticism has cropped up, which spares no time and energy in denouncing this creed of mystics as anti-Islamic and touching the fringes of kufr (religious infidelity) and faithlessness.”

Pir Karam Shah was almost prophetic in his above note. But ironically, he also worked hard to have the Ahmediyya declared non-Muslims, defended this act of the Pakistani state at international legal fora and served as a judge of Ziaul Haq’s Federal Shariat Court. Like Mian Nawaz Sharif and his party’s Punjab government, he may not have realised that the appeasement of the fascists throughout history has backfired on those who did so to save their skin.

On many occasions the path of malamat, in life like Mansur Bin Hussain Hallaj or after death like Data Ganj Bakhsh, is the only way out of an abyss. Professor Arnold records in his translation that: ‘tis sweet to be reviled for passion’s sake. But those at the helm in Punjab think otherwise.