Main Page «
Front Page «
Metro «
Business «
International «
Sports «
National «
Editorial «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplements «

The road looked undistinguished, even forlorn, with no vehicles, few people walking on or cycling by and covered in thin crimson dust deposited by the read bricks through wear and tear. Macadam carpeting had not reached Faridpur town and concrete road was unheard of. Being brick-soled, however intermittently, was the “red-badge of honour” sotosay, for a road in a mufassil town and Tepakhola road basked in that rare distinction. It was a very straight and reasonably wide road with ditches (Noyanjuli) on both sides from where earth had been dug up to make the elevation above normal flood level. During the four years of his stay in Faridput, the highest flood level was not exceeded and the town was safe and secure even at the height of monsoon. A year after he left Faridpur, he was told, there was a severe flood inundating the town and its environs. It brought helicopters from Dacca carrying relief materials and relief workers. In those days nothing stirred a district town with feverish activities and frission more than the visitation of VIP and natural disaster, (sometimes bracket to-gather) both evoking the same awe and wonder among the people. He missed the rare spectacle of a flooded Faridpur town and all the hoopla surrounding relief work. But he was fortunate enough to witness the arrival of a Provincial minister by a sea. Plane in Padma near Tepakhola. The whole town and the villages on both sides of the river crowded the banks to see the miracle. It stretched everyone’s credulity that a heavy transport like a plane, however small, could land on water and keep afloat. But the white sea plane with a foreign pilot accomplished that wonder and cheers went up from the crowd as much for the plane, as for the minister. The whole credit for the safe landing and subsequent departure went to the minister, for pilot, giving the impression of guiding him. To the ordinary people a minister was all powerful, on land, water or at high altitude!
   The minister was known to his father, coming from the same district. By skipping protocol, he had lunch at their house where some of the local dignitaries also were invited. Cutleries and crockesies, befitting the occasion, were brought from Dacca and the lunch table looked quite respectable, even smug. The minister was a small cater and in deference to his ‘bon appetite’, the guests nibbled at frustration the savoury dishes with miserable looks. They tried to hide their bravely behind an air of ‘noblesse oblige’ and administrative protocol. The cooks, waiters and servants had a field day eating the mountain of food left untouched. The dogs in the locality were so overwhelmed with unexpected hospitality that they did not scavenge for food for several days after that manna from the sky” (sea-place metaphor) blessed them so generously!
   The experience with a formal dinner thrown in honour of the Prime minister Khawaja Nazimuddin was, however, very different. After opening an apology of an Industrial and Agricultural Fair in Faridpur town, he retired to the red-brick circuit house for rest. Dinner was served soon afterwards, again with local selected dignitaries as guests. The long table was crowded with dishes that had more to do with mughal tradition than Bangali cuisine. There were different types of Pilaf, (even a small goat was stuffed with Pilaf), whole chicken roast, murgi musallam, mutton Rezala, Beef ghouash, several kinds of kebabs and a dish with mutton curry where small balls of fat floated like tip of ice bergs. The Bacchanalia-like feast. Khawaja Nazimuddin was no fish eating Bengali and was quite at home with mughlai culinary. The way he dispatched the dishes, one after another, with out a respite, like an invincible gladiator, was a virtuoso performance, to say the least. Particularly, the ball of fats floating in the mutton curry dish became the first casualties, all disappearing in quick succession as he pressed them between his tongue and the upper part of the mouth. Apparently, that was his favourite dish. The guests ate slowly, partly to watch him eat with admiration and partly out of consideration for the hosts who might be embarrassed if food ran out on the table faster than they were served.
   Khawaja Nazimudding was a polite man and engaged in small table talks to put the guests at ease. He appeared self-assured and confident and gave the impression of having genuinely enjoyed the dinner. Everyone felt relieved because his gastronomical reputation was widely known and lot of planning had gone into the preparation of the dinner. By the conventional standard of a visit by a VVIP, (i.e. feasting) it was a grand success. Later he was also feted privately by Mohon Mia, the prominent Muslim League leader and Zomindar of Faridpur. In fact it was he who had invited Khawaja Nazimuddin to Faridpur to inaugurate the Industrial Fair. Some time later, Mohon Mia became a Provincial minister, though his eyes night have been set higher. The portfolio of a minister in the Central Govt. was given to his elder brother who was more popularly known Lal Mia Tara mia, was their only brother, who did not become a minister or hold any post of distinction. He appeared contented with the affairs of Zamindari and spent most of the time in Faridpur. All these did not happen in 1950 but he feels like narrating their experiences as events in their own right and with no reference to a historical context. It could be done that way if he had kept a diary but he never wrote down his daily or weekly experiences and so memories come rushing to him as he recalls the past whose span is broad even when regimented.
   He was describing the state of the Tepakhola road before digressing into flood and visits by VIPs. This way he can end up narrating most of the experiences he had in Faridpur during the four years from 1950 to 1954 and yet leave some part of the elusive road still uncovered in the narration. But then the beauty of a road that has few landmarks alongside is revealed when it can throw up characters, events and sights at random that are the stuff of memory. With a crowded and busy road he would be remembering the past in a linear Trajectory, albeit in fragments, with little scope off going of the track.
   With the above excuse he can now try to pick up the thread that he left on Tepakhola road near their official residence. Leaving their house the road went past the sprawling police line on the left and several one-storied white buildings on the right used by govt.-officials, one of whom had the peculiar designation of Khas Mohal officer. He would learn later that the Farsi word stood for govt.-owned land and the officer in charge of the same. Being in charge of leasing out Khas (govt. land) he was a very important official, particularly for those who wanted to get lease of land, through fair means or foul. With the abolition of Zamindari in 1950 under East Bengal State Acquisition Act, this office became very important to Zamindars and other intermediary interests.
   After the few one-storied buildings on the right appeared a small mango-grove and a well tended garden of many fruit trees. Tucked inside was a two-storied yellow building with a Kitsch architectural pattern. From the road only glimpses of the building could be seen. Beside it, divided by a dirt road, was a small church with a long spyre and a cross. It was the bishop’s house where a foreign Priest lived alone. He had a big dog kept under leash and it made menacing faces at the pigs and piglets, that wallowed in the mud nearby. Except the pigsty and the dirty pigs that Bishops house looked like a picture postcard. Later in class IX when his English teacher would read out the story, ‘Bishop’s Candlestick” he would think of the yellow house and the priest who lived there. He would wonder if he really had a silver candle stick.

The reverberations of the bomb blast that killed Rafik Hariri recently will be heard across the Middle East for a long time. The former Lebanese prime minister, a self made billionaire was held in high esteem among the Arab leaders for his moderate views and widely respected for his contribution in the reconstruction of Lebanon after the 15-year civil war from 1975 to 1990.
   The political assassination of Lebanese leaders is not a new phenomenon. President elect Bashir Gemayel was assassinated in 1982. Prime Minister Rashid Karami, who held the office 16 times, was killed in 1987 and President Reni Moawad died in a bomb explosion in November 1989. Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt was killed in 1978. However, none of these killings created such an outrage as the Hariri’s death. There is also fear of Lebanon relapsing into civil war.
   Anti Syrian sentiments have united Druzes, Christians and Sunnis, while the Shias and the Hezbollah organization accuse Israel of destabilizing Lebanon and Syria through this tragedy.
   While it is not known who is behind this act, there is much speculation and political opponents are keen to settle scores by exploiting Mr Hariri’s death for their own gains. The US has expressed “profound outrage” and Mr Bush has vowed that the perpetrators would be “punished”.
   While there is no evidence of it, yet Syria is being blamed for the tragedy. A blitz of media reports point towards its culpability. Without directly accusing Syria, Washington summoned its ambassador to Syria for consultations. Israel has also jumped into the fray. The Israeli media has held Syria directly responsible. The influential Yediot Aharonot has reported assassination carried the banner line - “Syria’s revenge”. The media in the West has displayed similar bias in its reports and comments.
   There is no compelling evidence of Syria’s complicity except that Mr Hariri resigned as premier last October in protest against the Syrian role in Lebanese politics. The presence of 15,000 strong Syrian troops in Lebanon in keeping with the terms of the Taif Agreement stationed there after the civil war has vexed Lebanese nationalists and the US. Mr Hariri’s killing has come as a godsend opportunity for the hawks in the US administration to increase the pressure on Syria, whose inveterate opposition to Israel has earned it the distinction of “unusual and extraordinary threat to the US”.
   Since the death of President Hafez Al Assad, Syria has been under relentless pressure from Washington based on flimsy pretexts. In May, Bush labelled Syria “an unusual and extra ordinary threat” and imposed ban on its exports. He also severed banking relations with the Commercial Bank of Syria, froze the assets of Syrians and Syrian entities suspected of involvement in terrorism or WMD development. Syrian flights to and from the United States were also suspended. The sanctions were taken from the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which the president signed into law in December 2003.
   Bush’s neo-con advisors feel that the current international disarray and paralysis of Muslim states is an ideal opportunity to implement the agenda of making Israel the regional hegemon. Henry Kissinger once remarked that there cannot be a war in the Middle East without Egypt and peace without Syria.
   The late President Assad, during his 30-year rule, refused to submit to threats and insisted on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, before peace could be agreed upon. The invasion of Iraq, without any shred of evidence or justification has emboldened the hawks in the Bush administration to replicate the Iraq experience, again without any justification or concern for the consequences.
   A Syrian exile Farid Ghadri, like Iraq’s Ahmed Chalabi before he fell out of favour, is being groomed to organize similar anti-regime movement. He is lobbying for the pending “Syria Liberation Act” which would commit the Bush administration to undertakes regime change in Damascus.
   A neo-conservative lobby group. “Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) established in August 2004, invited Ghadri to a symposium in collaboration with the Foundation for Defence of Democracies” (FDD), created two days after 9/11 and whose views reflect those of diehard pro-Israel activists. The FDD Board of advisers include former deputy secretary defence Richard Perle, former CIA director James Woolsey and former US ambassador to the UN Jean Kirkpatrick.
   Slowly but surely noose is being tightened against Syria and preparations are afoot to give US actions a legal cover. Getting the UN Security Council involved in a political murder is without precedent. Similarly, for America to pledge, “to punish those responsible for this terrorist attack”, is equally unwarranted and has no locus as the tragedy has no bearing on US interests in any way. Lebanon is a sovereign country and it alone can determine the course of action and investigations.
   The blatant manner in which President Bush is exploiting the Hariri assassination leaves one in no doubt that he regards it as an opportunity for him to act as a judge, a jury and an executioner. The observation “This murder today is a terrible reminder that the Lebanese people must be able to pursue their aspirations and determine their own political future, free from violence and intimidation and free from Syrian occupation” is simply disingenuous.
   The Washington Post, in a recent report quoted an unnamed official as saying that former President Saddam Hussein’s loyalists operating in Syria were providing money and other support to rebels fighting the US-backed interim Iraqi government.
   The statements of King Abdullah of Jordan and President Ghazi Al-Yawer of Iraq claiming that “foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria” have also been given wide publicity. Syria is being accused of supporting terrorism, pursuing weapon of mass destruction, being in complicity with Iran, supporting Iraqi “insurgents” and now of the assassination of Mr. Hariri.
   The campaign against Syria has since been gathering momentum. Analysts associated with the FDD and other rightwing think-tanks are painting a scary scenario of Syria’s potential for mischief and are openly urging the administration to take military action against Syria for its alleged “material support to terrorist groups killing American soldiers in Iraq” “Syria is a hostile regime. We had sweet talk and tough talk. Talk has failed - we now need to take action to punish and deter Assad’s regime” is the refrain.
   Recent editorials and articles in US papers like The Wall Street Journal Washington Post and Washington Times have brazenly recommended military action against Syria. “We could bomb Syrian military facilities. We could go across the border in force to stop infiltration” was the recommendation of William Krsitol, the guru of the neocons. The administration is accordingly raising pressure on Damascus. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on December 21 warned Syria of dire consequences of its “failure” to accept UNSC Resolution 1559 urging withdrawal of troops from Lebanon.
   The intimidation of Syria achieved new dimensions, when in his state of the union address, Bush issued the first warning, that “We must confront regimes that continue to harbour terrorists and pursue weapons of mass destruction. Syria still allows its territory and part of Lebanon to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. We expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom.”
   Arthur Schlesinger, national security adviser under Kennedy laments that “never in American history has the Republic been so unpopular abroad, so mistrusted, feared even hated.” Bush and his super hawks, however, are not deterred by such criticism. Bush’s reelection is regarded by them as an endorsement of his policy of truculent unilateralism and with their belief in the right of Israel to biblical boundaries are keen to redraw the map of Middle East and help realize the Zionist dream of creating a Greater Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
   These ominous developments suggest that neocons have Syria as their immediate target. Renowned rightist columnist and a former presidential candidate against Reagan, Pat Buchanan has exposed the true agenda of the neo-cons: “To neocons this war was never about WMDs or any alleged Iraqi ties to 9/11. Their real reason was empire, and making the Middle East safe for Israel. The neocons’ agenda means escalation; enlarging the army, more troops in Iraq, widening the war to Syria and Iran and indefinite occupation of the Middle East, as we forcibly alter the mindset of the Islamic world to embrace democracy and Israel.”
   Syria realizes that heavy odds are stacked against it, and has followed a policy of caution and circumspection to defuse the situation. President Bashar Assad’s offer to reopen negotiations with Israel on Golan Heights were dismissed with contempt by both Israel and the US. President Bush’s response was “now Assad needs to wait first for peace between Israel and Palestine, and then we will see what to do with Syria.” Syria has also said it would redeploy its troops in Lebanon closer to its own holders in accordance with the Taif accord that stipulates a phased withdrawal of Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon.
   Syria, at this critical juncture, needs a high degree of statesmanship and diplomatic trapeze to avert the impending catastrophe. The US coercive diplomacy has already humbled and humiliated the once revolutionary Libya.
   The writer is a former Pakistani diplomat. This article has been published by arrangement with Dawn

Capital egocentricism is seen around the South Asia, but Kathmandu takes the cake Kathmandu Valley, by now largely urbanised, lives in detachment from the rest of the country. Since the royal takeover of February First, the countryside has seen bandas and blockades by the Maoists, but the capital tries hard not to notice.
   Whole regions have been locked up, transportation all over is a memory, supplies have dried up, industries are closed, vegetables and milk can’t make it to market. People walk like in the old days to collect salt, oil and essentials, and hill folk in some places walk 100 km from the Indian border to reach home. Elsewhere, people are hunkered down without news and information. Either the press and FM radio stations are shuttered, or the transportation is not there to bring the papers.
   But the word so far in Kathmandu Valley’s supermarket checkouts and cafes is that things are fine, the buses are running. Only inside the Ring Road, but that is all that matters until the perishables disappear from the market and the gas stations and LPG depots run dry. At that point, the fickle middle class will decide that things have indeed got serious, but that will not be because of any sensitivity for the national population.
   This disconnect of the capital valley from the rest of Nepal has been part of a process that is about three decades old, but now the separation seems complete. There used to be a time when other than local Kathmandu residents, everyone else laid claim to origins from one district or another. The standard greetings used to be to ask the acquaintance’s point of origin, “Tapainko gaun kahan?” The question has evaporated together with Kathmandu’s links to the hinterland.
   Walk up any of the hills that encircle this Valley in the early morning, and you can look out across the expanse of the clear blue midhills and the Himalayan snows that stretch out more than 300 km. The Valley below is socked in and invisible under a lethal haze, its million plus inhabitants breathing a brew of diesel fumes, brick kiln and cremation pyre smoke. The pollution comes as part of Kathmandu’s unplanned, dangerous expansion, but the rest of the country out there is as bright and clear as it is innocent and exploited. And all you smell is woodsmoke.
   Kathmandu’s voracious appetite wants everything for itself to the exclusion of the districts that house 23 million Nepalis. The services are all concentrated here, and now the Valley suddenly wants a second ‘outer ring road’. The Valley is mandated a two-day weekend while the rest of the country has just Saturday off. Kathmandu also wants to be a sanctuary by itself, and so more than half of the country’s security forces are concentrated here while the Maoists have the run of the countryside.
   This all-pervading Kathmandu-centricism has played a role in distorting the national political process and even derailing democratic evolution. The Valley’s middle and upper classes, in unison, have for years now denigrated the political parties as well as the parliamentary practice that they embody. Only now is it becoming clear why the political parties were detested to such a degree, far out of proportion with reference to the sins they did commit. For the first time in 250 years, political power was being distributed outside the Valley in a process led by the political parties. This proved unacceptable to Kathmandu Valley’s designated classes.
   Capital egocentricism is seen all around Southasia. Dhaka, for example, is increasingly remote from the surrounding delta, especially its exclusive sectors such as Bonani and Baridhara. With the expansion towards Gurgaon, New Delhi increasingly fancies itself as a bubble civilization that would rather not look back at the jhuggies of the trans-Jamuna colonies. Islamabad’s separation from the rest of Punjab and Pakistan is legendary. And yet, even Islamabad genuflects towards Rawalpindi, and Karachi and Lahore counterbalance its administrative might. Kathmandu’s evolving centricism is the most grievous in all Southasia, because Nepal remains a one-city country, and any and all interests and prejudicial preoccupations converge in this Valley of 700 sq km.
   Kathmandu Valley has the power and it will take the first bite out of the public exchequer and the donor largesse. There was a hope that the rampant and unplanned urban expansion would at least be controlled naturally by a lack of water supply. But trust Kathmandu’s planners and politicians to propose a $ 120 million dollars project to bring the most expensive water ever to feed the valley’s future thirst and expansion. And trust the city’s civil society and development set, who speak so eloquently of sustainability, to remain dead silent on this.
   And now, when the rest of the country is socked in and brutalised by the Maoist insurgents, Kathmandu Valley’s comfortable classes continue with their ability to disfigure priorities and derail political evolution. We still think the country is doing all right by February First, because for us the country is the Valley.
   As and when a new Nepal does evolve that is democratic, inclusive and empathetic, its touchstone will be whether it serves the people of all Nepal or coddles the population of this unreflective, disdainful place.