PAKISTAN President Pervez Musharraf has been included among 20 of the world’s worst dictators.
The Parade, a weekend magazine has placed Musharraf at the 17th position in the list of world’s 20 worst dictators along with the likes of Kim Jong II, Mugabe King Abdullah and Fidel Castro. Last year, Musharraf was placed seventh in the list.
The magazine said that Musharraf seized power in a military coup overthrowing an elected government.
Appointing himself President of Pakistan in 2001 Musharraf attempted to legitimize his rule by staging an election in 2002.However, the election never came close to meeting international standards, the report said.
Musharraf also reneged his promise to step down as the Army Chief on grounds that Pakistan needed an uniformed President for the sake of its political and militatry unity.
“Musharraf agreed to step down as head of the military but then changed his mind, claiming that the nation needed to unify its political and military elements and that he could provide this unity. He justified his decision by stating, ‘I think the country is more importantly than democracy’,” the magazine said.
Omar al- Bashir of Sudan has been placed at number one followed by Kim Jong II of North Korea and Than Shwe of Myanmar in second and third position. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan follow them at fourth and fifth position.
Cuban leader Fidel Castro who last year was placed at 13th position has been placed at the 15th place in this year’s list.
REVOLT IN BALUCHISTAN
PAKISTAN is in trouble again. This time, it is mass revolt against Islamabad by the Pakistan’s most backward province of Baluchistan. Pakistani army has been using combat jets,helicopter gunships and sophisticated weapons in suppressing the tribal insurgents who have declared war against President Pervez Musharraf.
It appears, Pakistan has still to learn the lessons of 1971, when it lost its Eastern wing.Of the same patterns of political mismanagement, compounded by indicriminater and brutal use of military force. The army, the main culprit in that case is still looking for alibis to explain the debacle.
The situation in Balochistan is deteriorating very fast with the passage of every day. It is likely to snowball into a major crisis in South Asia if Musharraf does not take remedial measures. The trouble in Baluchistan has not flared up suddenly. In January 2005, four Pakistani soldiers were accused of raping a lady doctor in the premises of Sui Refinery, Queta. The doctor was employed by Pakistan Petroleum at the Sui gasfield in Baluchistan when the authorities failed to nab the culprits. Bugti tribesmen attacked the gas field. Other tribes joined hands with them, hitting the port at Gwadar as well as railway lines and military installations in and around Queta. The federal forces responded in strength and unleashed war against the Baloch tribesmen. The tribal leaders saw the conflict as a last opportunity to get what they considered a fair share of Baluchistan’s enormous gas resources,
This low intensity conflict has been gathering momentum since December. Since then hundred are said to have died in the fighting. According to reports, the current militant assault was provoked by a rocket attack on a rally held by President Musharraf in the town of Kohlu in December. Two days later, the Baluch freedom fighters opened fire on a helicopter carrying the Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps, Major General Shujaat Zamir Dar and some other military officers. Soon after these attacks army was pressed into action, which bombed the hideouts of the insurgents, resulting in the death of scores of Balcu rebels.
President Pervez is playing the old game and blaming India for creating this trouble by supplying them war equipment. Though New Delhi has strongly denied that the rebels were receiving any support from India. Nawab Akber Khan Bugti, the chieftain, has slammed President Pervez Musharraf’s claims that India was providing support to the Baluch freedom fighters. His objective is to defame the legitimate demands of the people of Baluchistan, says Sardar Bugti.
It is time Pakistan realised that the predatory culture that dominates its politics and overwhelmingly, its army will not benefit it. Musharraf has been eloquent in his advocacy of what he calls "self-governance" and "self-determination" in J&K. Pakistan’s leadership continues to believe that it is securing a strategic advantage through its campaign of terror in J&K. But the truth is that Pakistan is being systematically hollowed out by these campaigns.
Last year, Musharraf had issued a threat to the Baluch declaring, "this is not the 1970s…they will not even know what and from where something has come and hit them." No doubt, this is not the 1970s and the world will not long tolerate the sort of campaigns of genocide that Pakistan got away with in 1973-77 and that it is trying to repeat now.
Baluchistan is a vast land—3,47,641 square kilometers, accounting for as much as 43 per cent of Pakistan’s total landmass, but amounts to nearly 10 million people, who are today, utteerly alienated from Islamabad.
It is a difficult job on the part of Pervez Musharraf to restore peace in strife-torn Baluchistan. If conditions like present one persist for sometime more, time is not far off when Baluchistan will turn into an independent sovereign country like Bangladesh.
It appears, Pakistan has still to learn the lessons of 1971, when it lost its Eastern wing.Of the same patterns of political mismanagement, compounded by indicriminater and brutal use of military force. The army, the main culprit in that case is still looking for alibis to explain the debacle.
The situation in Balochistan is deteriorating very fast with the passage of every day. It is likely to snowball into a major crisis in South Asia if Musharraf does not take remedial measures. The trouble in Baluchistan has not flared up suddenly. In January 2005, four Pakistani soldiers were accused of raping a lady doctor in the premises of Sui Refinery, Queta. The doctor was employed by Pakistan Petroleum at the Sui gasfield in Baluchistan when the authorities failed to nab the culprits. Bugti tribesmen attacked the gas field. Other tribes joined hands with them, hitting the port at Gwadar as well as railway lines and military installations in and around Queta. The federal forces responded in strength and unleashed war against the Baloch tribesmen. The tribal leaders saw the conflict as a last opportunity to get what they considered a fair share of Baluchistan’s enormous gas resources,
This low intensity conflict has been gathering momentum since December. Since then hundred are said to have died in the fighting. According to reports, the current militant assault was provoked by a rocket attack on a rally held by President Musharraf in the town of Kohlu in December. Two days later, the Baluch freedom fighters opened fire on a helicopter carrying the Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps, Major General Shujaat Zamir Dar and some other military officers. Soon after these attacks army was pressed into action, which bombed the hideouts of the insurgents, resulting in the death of scores of Balcu rebels.
President Pervez is playing the old game and blaming India for creating this trouble by supplying them war equipment. Though New Delhi has strongly denied that the rebels were receiving any support from India. Nawab Akber Khan Bugti, the chieftain, has slammed President Pervez Musharraf’s claims that India was providing support to the Baluch freedom fighters. His objective is to defame the legitimate demands of the people of Baluchistan, says Sardar Bugti.
It is time Pakistan realised that the predatory culture that dominates its politics and overwhelmingly, its army will not benefit it. Musharraf has been eloquent in his advocacy of what he calls "self-governance" and "self-determination" in J&K. Pakistan’s leadership continues to believe that it is securing a strategic advantage through its campaign of terror in J&K. But the truth is that Pakistan is being systematically hollowed out by these campaigns.
Last year, Musharraf had issued a threat to the Baluch declaring, "this is not the 1970s…they will not even know what and from where something has come and hit them." No doubt, this is not the 1970s and the world will not long tolerate the sort of campaigns of genocide that Pakistan got away with in 1973-77 and that it is trying to repeat now.
Baluchistan is a vast land—3,47,641 square kilometers, accounting for as much as 43 per cent of Pakistan’s total landmass, but amounts to nearly 10 million people, who are today, utteerly alienated from Islamabad.
It is a difficult job on the part of Pervez Musharraf to restore peace in strife-torn Baluchistan. If conditions like present one persist for sometime more, time is not far off when Baluchistan will turn into an independent sovereign country like Bangladesh.
CASTE SYSTEM AND VARNASHARAM
THE caste system is not likedby many educated Hindus. But what do they really propose to do about it ? Total abolitionists of caste are stil in a minority and include only persons who have some real experience of western society. The masses are certainly vehement supporters of the systyem.
Those among the educated classes, who want to retain the institution as it is ,sometimes wrongly identify it with the Shastric Varnashrama institution. But neither Varna nor Ashrama has anything to do with caste. Varnma did not mean colour. Varna is explained by the Mahabharata as individual disposition. Asharama means the four-fold division of the life of a twice-born,prescribed by the Shastras.
Caste is the division of the Hindu society into a very large number of exclusive hereditary groups. This arrangement is wrongly believed, on the supposed authority of the Shastras, to be the Karma of individuals in their previous births. A person is supposed to be born in a higher or a lower caste according as his Karma in the previous births is better or worse.
Such belief is sometimes sought to be supported by misinterpretation of certain passages ofthe Shastras with Varna and not with jati (birth,heredity). The inborn disposition of a person is the result of his deeds in his previouslives. It is changed by deeds performed during the present lige. There are many texts to the effect that a Brahman isliable to lose his Varna, by unspiritual conduct,during his life-time.Rebirth in the forms of lower animal,tree,or stone is declared to be the result of the deliberate practice of thoughtlessness by a person in his previous births as man. There is no mention of cast in this connection.
The Varnashrama organisation of society is part and parcel of the Vedic religion. The present Hindu society is however, not organised into castes by reference to the stage of life and individual disposition. The caste-system is proobably te historical descendant of the tribal organisation of pprimitive society on which was imposed, in an unwarrantable way , the decayed tradition of the Vasrnashrama organisation. It seems to be one of the worst crimes that have been ever committed against the well-being of a eole by ecclesiastical self-seeking.
Current Hinduism has learnt to take its stand on the caste under the wrong impression that it is identical with the Varnashrama organisation. Sufficient cogent historical causes have made the caste system a necessary part of the present social order of the Hindus, and its summary abolition is, therefore sure to lead to social anarchy and far worse confusion that what we are experiencing by its retention.
Nevertheless it is not less true that the Vedic religion can be practised in its living form only within the Varnasharma oooooooorganisation. In caste-ridden India however it is very difficult to obtain a sympathetic hearing for the Varnashrama organisation which is altogether different in its form and spirit from the caste. The tradition of this Shastric organisation is maintained in the caste arrangement by the retention of certain designatins and forms of practice. Under the cover of these forms of practice. Under the cover of these names and forms there have grown up very strong vested interests within the caste,whose very life is threatened by any proposal for the re-establishment of the Varnasharama organisation in India.
The soocial supremacy of the caste-Brahmanass is.however, opposed to the democratic sirit of the Age. It is also being assailed by the labours of scholars who are restoring the ppproper reading of the texts of the Shaastras, on the deliberate perversions of which the superstitiooous andirrational upholders of a spurious system have been accustomed upptil now to place their chief reliance.
Those among the educated classes, who want to retain the institution as it is ,sometimes wrongly identify it with the Shastric Varnashrama institution. But neither Varna nor Ashrama has anything to do with caste. Varnma did not mean colour. Varna is explained by the Mahabharata as individual disposition. Asharama means the four-fold division of the life of a twice-born,prescribed by the Shastras.
Caste is the division of the Hindu society into a very large number of exclusive hereditary groups. This arrangement is wrongly believed, on the supposed authority of the Shastras, to be the Karma of individuals in their previous births. A person is supposed to be born in a higher or a lower caste according as his Karma in the previous births is better or worse.
Such belief is sometimes sought to be supported by misinterpretation of certain passages ofthe Shastras with Varna and not with jati (birth,heredity). The inborn disposition of a person is the result of his deeds in his previouslives. It is changed by deeds performed during the present lige. There are many texts to the effect that a Brahman isliable to lose his Varna, by unspiritual conduct,during his life-time.Rebirth in the forms of lower animal,tree,or stone is declared to be the result of the deliberate practice of thoughtlessness by a person in his previous births as man. There is no mention of cast in this connection.
The Varnashrama organisation of society is part and parcel of the Vedic religion. The present Hindu society is however, not organised into castes by reference to the stage of life and individual disposition. The caste-system is proobably te historical descendant of the tribal organisation of pprimitive society on which was imposed, in an unwarrantable way , the decayed tradition of the Vasrnashrama organisation. It seems to be one of the worst crimes that have been ever committed against the well-being of a eole by ecclesiastical self-seeking.
Current Hinduism has learnt to take its stand on the caste under the wrong impression that it is identical with the Varnashrama organisation. Sufficient cogent historical causes have made the caste system a necessary part of the present social order of the Hindus, and its summary abolition is, therefore sure to lead to social anarchy and far worse confusion that what we are experiencing by its retention.
Nevertheless it is not less true that the Vedic religion can be practised in its living form only within the Varnasharma oooooooorganisation. In caste-ridden India however it is very difficult to obtain a sympathetic hearing for the Varnashrama organisation which is altogether different in its form and spirit from the caste. The tradition of this Shastric organisation is maintained in the caste arrangement by the retention of certain designatins and forms of practice. Under the cover of these forms of practice. Under the cover of these names and forms there have grown up very strong vested interests within the caste,whose very life is threatened by any proposal for the re-establishment of the Varnasharama organisation in India.
The soocial supremacy of the caste-Brahmanass is.however, opposed to the democratic sirit of the Age. It is also being assailed by the labours of scholars who are restoring the ppproper reading of the texts of the Shaastras, on the deliberate perversions of which the superstitiooous andirrational upholders of a spurious system have been accustomed upptil now to place their chief reliance.
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