[Reader-list] Ten myths about Pakistan

[Aman Sethi]

Dear Taraprakash,
Mohammed Hanif is in fact, the HEAD of the BBC Urdu service, - the
very same service that you so approvingly quote. So I would give him
far more credence than you have.  Further, since the BBC Urdu appears
to be a paragon of journalistic practice - i think he is well suited
to make a few remarks on the stereotypical way in which pakistan is
portrayed in the Indian media.

I find it really amusing that indians can dedicate reams to pointing
out (in painful detail i might add) how barkha dutt or rajdeep
sardesai got it wrong - but when a pakistani writes a reasonably
illuminating opinion piece - he is asked to put his house in order.
best
a.

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 3:14 PM, taraprakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder if this article is talking about Pakistan or Pakistanis. Generally
> when media talks about a country, India, Pakistan, US etc., they mean the
> governments not the people. If you need to know about the nexus between
> Pakistan state apparatuses and these Jihadi groups, one can just visit
> www.bbcurdu.com
> As far as I know, this site is not part of the Indian media. BBC Urdu
> service, that has its headqurters  in Pakistan, and that was first to send
> its correspondents to Kasab's village to confirm his identity as a Pakistani
> national, is running a feature on Jihadis and Pakistan establishment links.
> The site also has an interview with Hamid Gul, former ISI chief and one of
> the founding members of these jihadi groups. On being asked "what was the
> relevance of these groups once the USSR forces had been defeated in
> Afghanistan?" Gul says that earlier the US had an even-handed approach
> towards India and Pakistan. But now there is a tilt towards India, so these
> nonstate actors are required as a deterant to India. The author of the below
> article also ignores the fact that different Jihadi groups are working
> towards different agenda. So much so that Pakistan establishment  differs
> between good taliban, those who don't  attack Pakistani army, and bad
> Taliban, those who destroy pakistani infrastructure. So much about the
> homogenity of these groups. How much active these Jihadi groups in the
> Indian territory, is also dependent on what kind of relationship India and
> Pakistan governments have. So much about decoupling of the Pakistani state
> and these groups. I wonder if the mango exporting author heard that Navaz
> Sharif interview that was not broadcast only on India media. In the
> interview given to one of the Pakistani channels Sharif said that the
> government had something to hide in Faridkot. I wonder if the mango
> exporting author reads anything by Hoodboy and Mariana Babar, both
> Pakistanis. Yes, Indian media have lots of shortcommings, but before anyone
> from Pakistan addresses them, they need to first put their house in order.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "M Javed" <javedmasoo at gmail.com>
> To: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 1:19 AM
> Subject: [Reader-list] Ten myths about Pakistan
>
>
>> Ten myths about Pakistan
>> 4 Jan 2009, 0032 hrs IST,
>> Mohammed Hanif
>>
>> Living in Pakistan and reading about it in the Indian press can
>> sometimes be quite a disorienting experience: one wonders what place
>> on earth they're talking about? I wouldn't be surprised if an Indian
>> reader going through Pakistani papers has asked the same question in
>> recent days. Here are some common assumptions about Pakistan and its
>> citizens that I have come across in the Indian media...
>>
>> Pakistan controls the jihadis: Or Pakistan's government controls the
>> jihadis. Or Pakistan Army controls the jihadis. Or ISI controls the
>> jihadis. Or some rogue elements from the ISI control the Jihadis.
>> Nobody knows the whole truth but increasingly it's the tail that wags
>> the dog. We must remember that the ISI-Jihadi alliance was a marriage
>> of convenience, which has broken down irrevocably. Pakistan army has
>> lost more soldiers at the hands of these jihadis than it ever did
>> fighting India.
>>
>> Musharraf was in control, Zardari is not: Let's not forget that
>> General Musharraf seized power after he was fired from his job as the
>> army chief by an elected prime minister. Musharraf first appeased
>> jihadis, then bombed them, and then appeased them again. The country
>> he left behind has become a very dangerous place, above all for its
>> own citizens. There is a latent hankering in sections of the Indian
>> middle class for a strongman. Give Manmohan Singh a military uniform,
>> put all the armed forces under his direct command, make his word the
>> law of the land, and he too will go around thumping his chest saying
>> that it's his destiny to save India from Indians . Zardari will never
>> have the kind of control that Musharraf had. But Pakistanis do not
>> want another Musharraf.
>>
>> Pakistan, which Pakistan? For a small country, Pakistan is very
>> diverse, not only ethnically but politically as well. General
>> Musharraf's government bombed Pashtuns in the north for being
>> Islamists and close to the Taliban and at the same time it bombed
>> Balochs in the South for NOT being Islamists and for subscribing to
>> some kind of retro-socialist, anti Taliban ethos. You have probably
>> heard the joke about other countries having armies but Pakistan's army
>> having a country. Nobody in Pakistan finds it funny.
>>
>> Pakistan and its loose nukes: Pakistan's nuclear programme is under a
>> sophisticated command and control system, no more under threat than
>> India or Israel's nuclear assets are threatened by Hindu or Jewish
>> extremists. For a long time Pakistan's security establishment's other
>> strategic asset was jihadi organisations, which in the last couple of
>> years have become its biggest liability.
>>
>> Pakistan is a failed state: If it is, then Pakistanis have not
>> noticed. Or they have lived in it for such a long time that they have
>> become used to its dysfunctional aspects. Trains are late but they
>> turn up, there are more VJs, DJs, theatre festivals, melas, and
>> fashion models than a failed state can accommodate. To borrow a phrase
>> from President Zardari, there are lots of non-state actors like Abdul
>> Sattar Edhi who provide emergency health services, orphanages and
>> shelters for sick animals.
>>
>> It is a deeply religious country: Every half-decent election in this
>> country has proved otherwise. Religious parties have never won more
>> than a fraction of popular vote. Last year Pakistan witnessed the
>> largest civil rights movements in the history of this region. It was
>> spontaneous, secular and entirely peaceful. But since people weren't
>> raising anti-India or anti-America slogans, nobody outside Pakistan
>> took much notice.
>>
>> All Pakistanis hate India: Three out of four provinces in Pakistan -
>> Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP - have never had any popular anti-India
>> sentiment ever. Punjabis who did impose India as enemy-in-chief on
>> Pakistan are now more interested in selling potatoes to India than
>> destroying it. There is a new breed of al-Qaida inspired jihadis who
>> hate a woman walking on the streets of Karachi as much as they hate a
>> woman driving a car on the streets of Delhi. In fact there is not much
>> that they do not hate: they hate America, Denmark, China CDs, barbers,
>> DVDs , television, even football. Imran Khan recently said that these
>> jihadis will never attack a cricket match but nobody takes him
>> seriously.
>>
>> Training camps: There are militant sanctuaries in the tribal areas of
>> Pakistan but definitely not in Muzaffarabad or Muridke, two favourite
>> targets for Indian journalists, probably because those are the cities
>> they have ever been allowed to visit. After all how much training do
>> you need if you are going to shoot at random civilians or blow
>> yourself up in a crowded bazaar? So if anyone thinks a few missiles
>> targeted at Muzaffarabad will teach anyone a lesson, they should
>> switch off their TV and try to locate it on the map.
>>
>> RAW would never do what ISI does: Both the agencies have had a
>> brilliant record of creating mayhem in the neighbouring countries.
>> Both have a dismal record when it comes to protecting their own
>> people. There is a simple reason that ISI is a bigger, more notorious
>> brand name: It was CIA's franchise during the jihad against the
>> Soviets. And now it's busy doing jihad against those very jihadis.
>>
>> Pakistan is poor, India is rich: Pakistanis visiting India till the
>> mid-eighties came back very smug. They told us about India's slums,
>> and that there was nothing to buy except handicrafts and saris. Then
>> Pakistanis could say with justifiable pride that nobody slept hungry
>> in their country. But now, not only do people sleep hungry in both the
>> countries, they also commit suicide because they see nothing but a
>> lifetime of hunger ahead. A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide
>> in Maharashtra and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi
>> because she can't feed them: this is what we have achieved in our
>> mutual desire to teach each other a lesson.
>>
>> The writer is the author of 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes'
>>
>> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Sunday_TOI/Ten_myths_about_Pakistan/articleshow/3932145.cms
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