SACW | 7 June 2005

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 7 June,  2005

[Interruption Notice:  There will be no SACW 
dispatches between the period 8 - 12 may 2005 ]

[1]  Nukes' seventh anniversary  - South Asia's misfortunes (M B Naqvi)
[2]  Pakistan: Musharraf is losing his grip (Ahmed Rashid)
[3]   Things Sufi  - the informal sector of faith
- A Sufi resurgence in Punjab (Annie Zaidi)
- Kashmir searches for its lost Sufi music (Sheikh Mushtaq)
[4]  Pakistan-India Peoples' Forum for Peace and 
Democracy Convention (Pune, June 10 to June 12)
[5]  Book Review: The Road to 'Animal Farm,' Through Burma (William Grimes)

______



[1]


The News International
June 6, 2005

Nukes' seventh anniversary-IV
South Asia's misfortunes

M B Naqvi

South Asia's future has been jeopardized by the 
Indian and Pakistani nukes, politically and 
possibly physically, depending upon whether there 
will be a nuclear war between the two. India and 
Pakistan's neighbours have no option but to 
helplessly wait for what will happen. Nepal, 
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan resent 
being adversely affected whether there is a war 
or not.

The misfortunes non-nuclear countries continue to 
face, even if there is no war, have to do with 
the function of mistrust between India and 
Pakistan. The current deluge of protocol goodwill 
and fomenting a feel good factor by the two 
governments -- under American prodding -- has not 
removed their mistrust. Which South Asian country 
can ignore it? Their worry is reasonable.

Pakistani nuclear missiles are ready to be fired 
at Indian targets. If they are fired, a few 
cities in India will be incinerated. And it will 
take only a few minutes to destroy Pakistan if 
the Indian nukes are fired in this direction. 
Neither side will have the time for defensives 
measures. During the east-west cold war, there 
were 27 minutes available for decisions. Both 
sides could read blips on their radars as 
missiles or geese or some debris. In South Asia, 
a missile's flying time to its target is 3 to 5 
minutes. No government can react in this 
timeframe and the scope for misunderstanding, 
wrong calculations and unauthorized launches by 
power-hungry groups or terrorists in both 
countries cannot be ignored.

Even if there is no war between the two 
adversaries and the present no-peace-no-war 
situation continues, South Asians' future remains 
compromised -- because the Indo-Pakistan mistrust 
pre-empts optimal regional cooperation. The fact 
is India and Pakistan have to remain at 
hair-trigger alert. And if war does break out, 
some radioactivity is bound to fall on 
neighbours, who will suffer for no fault of their 
own. For non-nuclear South Asians, both sets of 
nukes are a misfortune, requiring efforts to 
destroy them.

Some argue that EU is an example of regional 
cooperation and integration to follow. Two EU 
members are nuclear powers, France and Britain. 
What is the rationale for the French and British 
nukes? Apart from national grandeur or the desire 
to sit at the high table, the French and the 
British nukes are a strategic insurance policy 
against the resurrection of German power. The 
Anglo-French nukes only make sense if Germany's 
aggressive instincts are assumed a priori.

Modern Germany accepts this Anglo-French 
apprehension and has chosen against ever becoming 
a nationalist or isolationist power. It has 
consciously anchored its revival in European 
entity -- away from pan-Germanic ideas that led 
to three aggressions uptil 1939. Germany is happy 
to stay non-nuclear; Germans see their future in 
peace and look upon French and British nukes with 
part-unconcern and part-curiosity. So the EU 
example clearly does not apply to South Asia.

Here, unlike Europe, the two nuclear powers look 
upon each other as bitter adversaries. About 
India there may still be a few illusions that 
once it becomes a world power with American 
support: it may still promote peace in Asia by 
cultivating Russia, China and other Central 
Asians simultaneously. Insofar as Pakistan is 
concerned, it has yoked itself irretrievably to 
the USA. It will do what America wants, without 
ifs and buts. Since both countries listen to the 
USA with respect, they will be able to put in 
place many more confidence building measures 
(CBMs), while the main disputes may remain 
unresolved. Such a situation is fundamentally 
unstable: some public relations-oriented cultural 
exchanges may coexist with no basic change of 
orientation.

Other South Asians need to exhibit their 
preference for peace: one that promotes 
rapprochement between India and Pakistan, based 
on a resolution of disputes -- Kashmir, nukes and 
dams. Without resolving disputes, the resumption 
of hostile propaganda is just waiting to happen. 
Both are capable of resuming confrontation. India 
and Pakistan being differently oriented, how can 
South Asians read the deepening of détente by 
CBMs as making Pakistan and India lasting 
friends? Why does a true Indo-Pakistan 
rapprochement look difficult? Obviously what 
stands in the way, are serious disputes.

This exposes the current peace process as 
shallow. Why? Because it leaves out basic and 
highly emotional disputes. Thus fears of a 
possible war are not unwarranted in the rest of 
South Asia. It is for the Indians and Pakistanis 
to prove that there would be no war. They have to 
show this by the success of their Peace Process. 
And while one could assert that Kashmir is likely 
to be left aside, and eventually disregarded, 
this will not happen to the nukes. They cannot be 
ignored. The very presence of nukes in India is 
an incentive to Pakistan to remain nuclear. If 
Pakistan remains nuclear, India's nuclear 
disarmament is impossible. Both also want to 
utilise nukes for their advancement: one wants 
permanent membership of the UNSC and the other 
wants to be a leader of Islamic countries.

The question of questions is what sort of Peace 
Process will, or can, succeed between India and 
Pakistan? There are forces in both societies that 
favour a lasting peace. Both governments have 
recognised popular pressures for peace. Both have 
called this peace process irreversible. But it is 
not, though it should be made so. Hitherto both 
bureaucracies have kept the peace process under 
strict control. Not one step has been taken that 
can enable popular aspirations and yearnings to 
reduce that control. The Establishments running 
both states refuse to permit socio-economic 
realities free play. The Establishments 
importantly include local versions of 
industrial-military complexes that require 
hostility between India and Pakistan.

The two contending forces are the entrenched 
establishments in both countries and common 
popular yearnings to be friends and ensuring 
peace and cooperation between the two countries. 
Which will succeed and when? Possibly, the 
popular sentiments will someday overwhelm the two 
establishments to make up and do the right thing 
about their nukes.

The democratic and peace lobby has to clear the 
road to nuclear disarmament to make South Asia a 
Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. But when will popular 
forces overwhelm the establishments? It is not 
likely to be soon. The peace process is rather 
unsteady, due to entrenched vested interests in 
both countries. So far the two bureaucracies have 
had the last laugh; the visa regime is still 
restricted. Real concessions continue to elude us.

South Asians do not deserve this Democle's sword 
over their heads. They are peace loving and 
cannot be accused of doing anything to disturb 
international peace. If there is an 
India-Pakistan war, it is sure to affect them 
adversely, as well as their ecology and climate, 
including radioactive rains and other long term 
consequences.

Even the present no-war-no-peace between India 
and Pakistan is adversely affecting South Asians 
-- because so long as India-Pakistan 
confrontation lasts, there will be no real 
regional cooperation and eventual integration.

South Asians need regional grids of 
communications, power, oil and gas, weather 
forecasting, investments and free trade, more 
cultural exchanges, regional arrangements to 
watch over human rights violations and maybe 
regional courts to enforce human rights and so 
forth. Regarding the starry-eyed idealism of 
today, power brokers in India and Pakistan will 
say is unrealistic. The Establishments have to 
preserve conditions in which they enjoy large 
budgets, respect and autonomy. That promises 
advancement and riches to powerbrokers. Other 
South Asians must get involved and help the 
embattled peace lobbies of Pakistan and India in 
the common cause of peace and progress for the 
sake of their people.


_______


[2]

International Herald Tribune
June 2, 2005

MUSHARRAF IS LOSING HIS GRIP
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
	by Ahmed Rashid
 
 
		LAHORE, Pakistan When Pakistan 
announced the arrest of a senior Al Qaeda 
operative last month, it was another feather in 
the cap of President Pervez Musharraf, with 
President George W. Bush describing the capture 
as "a critical victory in the war on terror." 
Musharraf's peace overtures toward India and 
criticism of Islamic extremism have also won high 
praise abroad, especially in Washington, which in 
March awarded him with a supply of F-16 fighter 
jets. But Musharraf's growing international 
standing is at odds with his faltering position 
at home.

His government is unraveling under the twin 
pressures of Islamic fundamentalists whom he 
refuses to resist and political opponents whom he 
harasses and jails. In April, thousands of 
members of the Pakistan People's Party were 
arrested to prevent big rallies for one of the 
party's leaders, Asif Ali Zardari. The Pakistan 
People's Party has been effectively sidelined 
since Musharraf took over in a military coup in 
1999. Zardari - here for a visit from Dubai, 
where he lives in exile with his wife, former 
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto - says he wants to 
test Musharraf's promises to restore genuine 
democracy.

The crackdown on the party is in sharp contrast 
to the extent to which the government has bowed 
to the demands of a coalition of six Islamic 
fundamentalist parties, even though many of these 
same fundamentalists consider Musharraf too 
secular and demand his resignation. The 
government has recently accepted the 
fundamentalists' demands that it stop men and 
women from running marathons together, and that 
it delay reform of the Islamic schools called 
madrassas, as well as efforts to amend laws on 
blasphemy and to curb honor killings.

Meanwhile, the civilian government brought to 
power by the military in 2002 after what many 
international monitors considered to be a rigged 
election has failed to deliver what Musharraf 
desired - a coherent and effective civilian 
facade for the military, which actually runs the 
country. Instead, the ruling party, the Pakistan 
Muslim League, is riven by factionalism, and 
Parliament is often forced to suspend business 
because it lacks a quorum.

Shaukat Aziz, the third prime minister since 
2002, is a former finance minister who has no 
political experience and is too beholden to the 
army to be an effective political leader. 
Challenged by its own ineptitude and by those 
parties demanding democracy, the Muslim League 
finds it convenient to pander to the 
fundamentalists, who are strong enough to keep 
the democrats at bay.

Musharraf's problems are compounded by 
insurgencies in the provinces. In Baluchistan, 
separatists are demanding greater autonomy and 
control over their natural resources. For the 
past three months the country's largest gas 
fields have been besieged by the separatists.

In North-West Frontier Province, a neo-Taliban 
resistance against the army continues with the 
return of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban who have 
been recently trained in Iraq. In the southern 
province of Sind there is growing alienation 
because of interethnic strife, increased 
criminality and corruption and tensions between 
the majority Sindhis and the central government.

The only answer to the domestic problems now 
tearing the country apart is more democracy - in 
particular a free and fair election in which the 
political elements that have been disenfranchised 
since 1999 get a political stake in determining 
the country's future. The next few months will be 
crunch time for the army, the Americans, the 
mullahs and the political parties. All the major 
players know that the present political situation 
under Musharraf is unsustainable.

It is time that the world sat up and took notice 
of events in Pakistan, because with 160 million 
people, nuclear weapons and a myriad of Islamic 
extremist groups still operating openly, Pakistan 
remains critical to regional and global stability.

 
	(Ahmed Rashid is the author of 
''Taliban'' and, most recently, ''Jihad: The Rise 
of Militant Islam in Central Asia.'')


_______


[3]


Frontline
June 03, 2005


A SUFI RESURGENCE

Annie Zaidi
in Jalandhar

The sudden spurt of interest in all things Sufi 
in Punjab is seen not merely as an assertion of 
marginalised people but also as a recognition of 
Sufism's secular ethos.


Bibi Channi Shah, the master at the Sufi Pind in 
Hoshiarpur, was named by her guru as his 
successor..

IT is only when you visit the region called Doab 
in Punjab that you begin to understand Sufism and 
its impact on a country as diverse as India. This 
is the land where `cultural confluence' is a 
reality as solid as the Sufi tombs dotting the 
rural landscape. Images and symbols are 
seamlessly interwoven without any obvious sign of 
conflict.

It is this improbable magic of a unique 
socio-cultural tradition and the complex 
political situation that makes this possible that 
has been captured in Ajay Bhardwaj's documentary 
film Kitte Mil ve Mahi (Where the Twain Meet). 
Indeed, the twain do seem to meet.

There are temple bells hanging in one dargah. In 
another, the keeper of the shrine raises his 
hands in Islamic prayer - hands that are tattooed 
with the `Om' symbol.

The Sufi lineage in Punjab cuts across religions, 
for it does not matter what caste or religion one 
is born into. Once blessed by the Guru, a 
disciple takes on the name of the Guru, as well 
as his place, known as the gaddi (seat).

And yet, it was injustice and intolerance that 
first fuelled Sufism, and is now, perhaps, 
leading to its resurgence.

The history of Sufism is linked inextricably to 
Dalits and other marginalised sections of society.

Bhardwaj is aware that his film is not about the 
Sufi tradition alone. "The trigger was the 
understanding of Punjabi history in the past 
century. We think of three major milestones - 
Partition, the Green Revolution, and 1984. But 
parallel alternative realities have been ignored. 
The Dalit reality, the Sufi reality, has been 
made invisible. And as you will see in the film, 
there are moments when some Dalits refuse to talk 
about their own oppression. Part of the reality 
of marginalisation is that they stay silent. 
Despite all our talk of empowerment and reform 
laws, they fear too many repercussions. Two years 
ago, Talhan was the scene of a major 
confrontation between Dalits and Jats, and this 
was over the issue of management of a shrine. The 
film is set in the same cultural landscape."

Baba Bhagat Singh Bilkha believes that anyone who 
is against caste and for humanity is a Sufi.

The socio-cultural traditions are significant in 
a State such as Punjab, where the percentage of 
Dalits in the State's population (according to 
the 1991 Census) is 28.31 per cent, as compared 
to 16.48 per cent for the average in India.

One sees how powerful a Sufi symbol can be when 
one meets Najjar Shah, the caretaker of the 
shrine of Baba Choor Shah in Jalandhar.

Najjar Shah, who is 81 years old, is not only the 
current guru, but also a cobbler. He sits outside 
the dargah and mends shoes for a living. He said: 
"We trace our lineage from Ravidas Maharaj, who 
was also a Balmiki and a cobbler. I used to work 
as a mason on construction sites. But when I 
became a devotee of Baba Choor Shah, he told me I 
ought to become a cobbler. If Ravidas did not 
feel any shame, why should I?"

Bhardwaj explained: "It is a powerful statement. 
He won't collect money, not even for the urs (the 
annual fair), because begging is not part of Sufi 
tradition. By turning into a cobbler, he is 
affirming his Chamaar identity."

Ravidas, Kabir, Brahmdass and a host of other 
Sufi saints in Punjab were from the oppressed 
castes and stood for their own rights. This 
tradition continues; for example, at the site of 
Brahmdass' tomb, his successor is running an 
English medium school for Dalits. A powerful 
statement is also made by Bibi Channi Shah, the 
current murshid (master/guru) at Sufi Pind in 
Hoshiarpur. She traces her lineage to Brahmdass 
and Pritamdass. She recalls that her guru had 
once told her he would hang her up on the highest 
hook. "I had no clue that this is what he meant, 
that he would name me his successor."

The fact that a woman was named a Sufi saint's 
successor was a rare event, and the aura of power 
and equality around Bibi Channi Shah is evident, 
as she smokes a hookah, keeps hunter-dogs as pets 
and blesses lakhs of devotees each year.

Bhagat Singh Bilkha, now 98 years old, president 
of the Deshbhakt Yaadgaar Committee and formerly 
a member of the Ghadar party, believes that 
anyone who is against caste and for humanity is a 
Sufi. "In my own village, we have a mazaar called 
Miyan ka Dera. The gaddi went to Rang Shah, who 
was Muslim, and to Natha Singh, a Sikh, and to 
Shiv Kumar, a Hindu. Sufism is rooted in 
secularism."

He quotes an Urdu couplet to explain: "Aye Ishq 
kahin le chal, ye dair-o-haram chore,

in dono makaano mein jhagdaa nazar aata hai 
(Come, love, let us turn away from both temple 
and mosque; between these two houses, there is an 
on-going feud). Bulle Shah, Baba Fareed, Shah 
Hussain, Namdev, Baba Nanak, Kabir - all Sufis. 
This legacy is being destroyed, unfortunately. 
Powerful people are misusing spirituality by 
dragging people away from their true faith."


In prayer outside a dargah.

The impact of Sufism in Punjab, as it exists now, 
is highly debated. Lal Singh `Dil', a noted 
writer, said: "Sufism doesn't solve anything. It 
favours Dalits, though, because of their need for 
a place of refuge." He added: "Sufism can be 
defined as a critique of society. That was the 
root. Although Sufi songs are nice to bond over, 
they must not be de-contextualised. The logic of 
this Sufi tradition lies in non-Brahmanical 
culture, and not in secularism."

Punjabi journalist and writer Desraj Kali adds a 
twist to the tale. "These places are the scene of 
cultural-literary marginalisation. Gurdwaras used 
to be like community centres, but no longer. 
After the Green Revolution, land-value went up. 
Community land was captured."

This is most in evidence in Noor Mahal, in 
Jalandhar district, where a dargah dedicated to 
Shah Fateh Ali Shah was demolished. The tomb was 
destroyed and taken over by a group that claimed 
it was built on the site of a gurdwara. Now, the 
board outside proclaims it as the site of a 
gurdwara again, and some of the land has been let 
out to shopkeepers and is being used for 
commercial purposes. There is only a mattress, 
where the tomb used to be, but devotees continue 
to visit the place. The irony is that according 
to popular belief, this site was given to Shah 
Fateh Ali Shah, known as one of the three roshni 
ke fakir, by the fifth Sikh Guru Arjan Singh.

Kali added: "Now, there is discrimination from 
Sikh religious leaders too. There are reports of 
Dalit sarpanches being killed or beaten up. 
Sometimes people will not allow Dalits to go into 
the fields to relieve themselves."

In the given situation, the return to the 
non-Brahmanical Sufi tradition comes as no 
surprise. Kali himself is a devotee and his 
father took the guru-diksha from Pritamdass, 
whose lineage is traced back to Baba Fareed, one 
of the oldest saints. Kali said: "At first it was 
only my father. Now my elder brother and my 
cousins and nephews have become Bibi Channi 
Shah's chelas (disciples). There are often 200 
disciple families in a single Sufi village."


The new wave of Sufi resurgence has a lot to do 
with renewed cultural interest in the Sufi 
tradition of song and music.


A devotee we met at Phillaur village also agrees 
that the ranks of Sufi devotees are swelling. 
Prem Singh, a mason, regularly visits the shrine 
at Phillaur. "It is a family tradition but it is 
much bigger now. There are at least one lakh 
visitors to the urs, even in Phillaur village. 
And the urs used to be a day-long affair; now it 
goes on for three days."

The new wave also owes its resurgence to renewed 
cultural interest in the Sufi tradition of song 
and music. Satish Gulati, who owns Chetna 
Publications in Ludhiana, vouches for it. "I have 
a new reprint of Bulle Shah's books and posters 
of all the old Sufi saints. I expect each edition 
to sell out within the year. Another factor is 
that people are sick of remixes and repetitive 
entertainment. They are buying, reading and 
listening to Sufi kalaams (poems/songs). We plan 
to bring out the collected works and histories of 
Sultan Bahu, Shah Hussain, Baba Fareed and so on."

The dissenting voice is that of Dr. Seva Singh, a 
retired Professor, who held the Kabir Chair at 
Guru Nanak University. Although he agrees that 
Sufism is crucial because it gave India a new 
ethical code, something that had not happened on 
the subcontinent since Gautam Buddha's era, he 
also believes that this new resurgence is a false 
one.

"The new wave is not of Sufism. Whenever there is 
an economic crunch, when there is frustration and 
insecurity and apoliticisation, people turn to 
spiritualism. Now, people are deprived of 
ideology. There are only rough, caste-based power 
equations. People may have more money but they 
have no mooring and are afraid to lose the little 
they have gained. They turn to mysticism or to 
religion, because they need some kind of faith."

He points out that the crowds might be swelling 
at Sufi dargahs but it is equally true of Kumbh 
Melas, mosques and gurdwaras. "There is no Sufi 
thought there, because people like Bulle Shah 
were against all kinds of institutionalised 
faith."

Seva Singh is also suspicious of this new 
resurgence in that it seems only to encourage 
those philosophies that will strengthen religious 
institutions. "Sufis lived with truth and 
self-respect. They broke free from the shackles 
of property. Nowadays, people use the folk songs 
of Bulle Shah and Kabir but ignore their 
criticism of priests, or Baba Fareed's criticism 
of property laws. They romanticise Sufism and 
indulge in it like nostalgia. But they refuse to 
let it become an agent of change. This amounts to 
cultural appropriation."


o o o o


Dawn
June 3, 2005

KASHMIR SEARCHES FOR ITS LOST SUFI MUSIC

By Sheikh Mushtaq

KRALPORA (India): Amid the daily roar of gunfire 
and grenades, there's something new in Kashmiri 
villages these days: music classes. A dozen 
teenagers, cradling ancient Kashmiri string 
instruments and notebooks listen in rapt 
attention to teacher Mohammad Yaqoob speak about 
Sufyana Mosaqi, Kashmir's classical music.
"It is a Himalayan task to revive Sufyana Mosaqi, 
but when I listen to these young girls and boys 
singing haunting melodies, I see a ray of hope," 
says 45-year-old Yaqoob. "In this kind of a 
situation, it is very difficult to motivate 
youngsters to learn this music. But I will keep 
trying."
The strains of the 500-year-old musical form, 
drawn from the rituals and teachings of the Sufis 
or Muslim mystics, have been drowned in the 
16-year separatist conflict in one of the world's 
most beautiful regions claimed by both India and 
Pakistan. Teachers fled the region because of the 
violence and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism 
which sought to restrict Kashmiris from pursuing 
art and replace its gentle Sufi traditions.
But a few Kashmiri musicologists are now trying 
to revive the tradition as they hold classes 
under the shadow of the gun, look for surviving 
artists in far flung villages and try to recover 
lost pieces of music. Experts say that Sufyana 
Mosaqi, a style of choral music performed by five 
to ten musicians, has already lost 130 out of the 
180 "ragas" or melodies referred to in ancient 
scripts.
A Kashmiri musicologist, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, has 
preserved 42 melodies by notating them over the 
past 15 years in a four-volume monumental book 
"Kashur Sargam" or Kashmiri music. The fourth 
volume is under publication.
"The tradition of verbally passing down ragas 
from generation to generation also contributed to 
the disaster besides the ongoing militancy," said 
75-year-old Aziz, the only contemporary theorist 
of Kashmiri music.
"I am weak now. I can't go looking for more ragas 
and the situation is not good." Aziz, lying in 
bed in his house in Srinagar said he travelled to 
remote villages and towns of Kashmir, met old 
musicians, music lovers and collected Sufyana 
ragas for his project.
Also lost is the once-celebrated Hafiza dance 
associated with the Sufyana Mosaqi. A solo female 
dance, the Hafiza expresses the meaning of poems 
sung by musicians through delicate postures and 
gliding steps similar to the Kathak dance 
tradition in northern India.
The popular Hafiza dance was performed by 
Kashmiri women to the accompaniment of Sufyana 
Kalam or spiritual poetry, but musicians say 
Hafizas or female dancers disappeared from the 
scene in the 1940s after some were linked with 
prostitution.
GENTLE WAY OF LIFE: Sufism is a gentle Muslim way 
of life preached by Sufi saints in Kashmir, which 
was known for its scenic beauty, Sufi poets and 
religious tolerance before the rebellion broke 
out in late 1989 in which more than 45,000 people 
have died.
Sufi music and its mystic dance were brought to 
the idyllic Himalayan valley from Central Asia in 
the 15th century. Many musicians still sing 
Persian poems. Some instruments also face 
extinction.
The dhokra, an antique Kashmiri drum, has been 
replaced by the Indian tabla instrument. Very few 
players are left to string the Saz-e-Kashmir, a 
violin-like instrument.
The other instruments used for performing Sufyana 
are the stringed santoor and Kashmiri sitar. 
Ironically while Sufi music is struggling for 
survival in Kashmir, its popularity is growing in 
elsewhere in India. -


_______


[4]

Pune Newsline
June 04, 2005
 
250 delegates for Indo-Pak meet in city on June 10
Pak ex-finance minister, Admiral L Ramdas (retd) 
to be present for 3-day conclave
Express News Service
Pune, June 3:	FORMER finance minister of 
Pakistan and founder-member of Pakistan People's 
Party (PPP) Dr Mubashar Hassan will be in the 
city to participate in the national-level 
convention of Pakistan-India Peoples' Forum for 
Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) from June 10 to June 
12.

The fifth national convention will be attended by 
250 delegates from all over the country.

Former chief of naval staff Admiral L Ramdas will also be present.

The delegates will discuss issues related to the 
two countries and take stock of the current 
relations, informed Jatin Desai, a national 
committee member of PIPFD.

An endeavour of citizens from both sides of the 
border, the meet has been organised after a 
bi-lateral convention held in New Delhi this 
February.

According to Desai, citizens are in favor of 
strengthening people-to-people interaction, a 
significant factor in the thawing of diplomatic 
relations between the countries.

The State-level meeting of PIPFD will be held on 
June 10, followed by a public discussion of the 
ongoing peace process between India and Pakistan.

On June 11, at the national convention, the 
proceedings of the bilateral meet held in 
February will be discussed.

On June 12, a public meeting to discuss various 
issues governing the relations between the two 
countries has been scheduled in Symbiosis 
Vishwabhavan at 6 pm which will be graced by 
Admiral Ramdas.

The meeting will be followed by a play Nakab 
written by Pakistani playwright Rafi Pir and 
based on the Hiroshima tragedy.

_______


[5]

Book Review

New York Times
June 7, 2005

Books of The Times | 'Finding George Orwell in Burma'

The Road to 'Animal Farm,' Through Burma

By William Grimes


Fresh out of Eton, George Orwell spent five years 
in Burma as a policeman in the colonial service. 
He left in 1927, fed up with "the dirty work of 
Empire," but the country never quite left him. It 
provided the material for the novel "Burmese 
Days" and one of his most famous essays, 
"Shooting an Elephant." In his final days, as he 
lay dying of tuberculosis, he sketched out a 
novella, "A Smoking Room Story," about a young 
Englishman changed forever by his experiences in 
colonial Burma.

FINDING GEORGE ORWELL IN BURMA
By Emma Larkin
294 pages. The Penguin Press. $22.95.

Emma Larkin pursues the young Eric Blair (the 
pseudonym would come later) all over Burma in 
"Finding George Orwell in Burma," revisiting the 
places where he lived and worked to reimagine the 
experiences that helped shape his political 
outlook and his writing. Her mournful, 
meditative, appealingly idiosyncratic book is a 
hybrid, an exercise in literary detection but 
also a political travelogue that uses Burma to 
explain Orwell, and Orwell - especially the 
Orwell of "Animal Farm" and "Nineteen 
Eighty-Four" - to explain the miseries of 
present-day Myanmar (as it is now known).

"Burmese Days" is set in Katha, in the northern 
part of the country, but it took Orwell several 
years to get there. He began his tour of duty in 
Mandalay, at the Police Training School, and then 
drew the short straw. Just 19 years old, he was 
posted to the delta region of lower Burma, an 
area renowned, Ms. Larkin writes, for having "the 
largest, liveliest mosquitoes in the Empire." 
Britons who had spent time in the delta, it was 
said, were easy to spot because of their habit of 
darting into a room and quickly slamming the door 
shut behind them, still pursued by phantom 
insects.

Orwell later dismissed his time in Burma as "five 
boring years within the sound of bugles." In 
fact, he landed right in the middle of a fearsome 
crime wave. Roving gangs bent on robbery, mayhem 
and murder had turned Burma into "the most 
violent corner of the Indian Empire." It was 
Orwell's job to gather intelligence and, sailing 
up the delta's canals, track down criminals. The 
fine-meshed net of British surveillance, and its 
attendant bureaucracy, Ms. Larkin theorizes, 
proved invaluable to Orwell when it came time to 
write "Nineteen Eighty-Four." So did his 
overpowering sense of isolation, as he labored 
for a system he came to loathe.

In Orwell's time, Burma was a prosperous country. 
Today, under a tenacious dictatorship that has 
lasted more than 40 years, Myanmar has the lowest 
income in Southeast Asia and ranks as one of 
least-developed countries in the world. With no 
external enemies, it supports an army nearly as 
large as that of the United States. A Stasi-style 
system of secret police and citizen informers 
closely monitors the population.

All-embracing censorship laws extend to 
"incorrect ideas," "opinions which do not accord 
with the times" and statements that, although 
factually accurate, are "unsuitable because of 
the time or the circumstances of their writing." 
The ruling party of this militaristic, 
underdeveloped nation has adopted a satisfyingly 
Orwellian name: the State Peace and Development 
Council.

The only safe topics for public discussion are 
things like the lottery, the weather and 
football. Yet in her travels, over endless cups 
of tea, Ms. Larkin elicits the hushed testimony 
of frightened citizens desperate for breathing 
room. Some simply want to try out their English, 
like the would-be hipster who thinks that "see 
you later, alligator" is up-to-date American 
slang. An elderly Anglo-Burmese woman, left 
stranded by the end of colonial rule, reminisces 
about the good old days as she fondles her last 
piece of English china.

Others pour out their hearts. And still others 
distill their anguish into a single bitter 
remark. "We Burmese people are totally content," 
one man tells Ms. Larkin. "Do you know why? 
Because we have nothing left. We have been 
squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until there is 
nothing left."

Ms. Larkin, in reading Orwell's two political 
novels as sequels to "Burmese Days," is not being 
eccentric, not in Myanmar. When the BBC's Burmese 
service broadcast a radio dramatization of 
"Animal Farm" a few years ago, listeners talked 
about it for weeks. For them, Orwell's parable 
clearly described Myanmar's plight. The only 
matter of debate was which animals represented 
which real-life figures.

As Ms. Larkin makes her way across the country, 
her movements are tracked, sometimes blocked, by 
the police, military personnel, bureaucrats, 
spies, informers and ordinary citizens instructed 
to report on any encounters with foreigners. When 
registering at a guest house she must fill out 
forms to be sent to nine separate departments. 
Shopping at a local market, a police informer 
dogs her heels, asking, over and over, who she 
is, where she is going and what she is trying to 
find out. She has changed the names of most of 
the Burmese she talked to and, lest she be barred 
from returning to Myanmar, has published this 
book under a pseudonym.

Ms. Larkin eventually makes her way to Katha, to 
which, she suggests, Orwell might have been 
posted as punishment for shooting that elephant, 
a highly valuable asset for its owner. The Katha 
Tennis Club, centerpiece of "Burmese Days," still 
stands. The club building is now a government 
cooperative. The tennis court, oddly enough, 
remains intact, complete with umpire chairs and 
night-time floodlights. For Orwell, the club 
symbolized all the injustice of the empire.

The empire has disappeared, but not the 
injustice. A Burmese friend of Ms. Larkin's, old 
enough to have lived through both systems, tells 
her, "The British may have sucked our blood, but 
these Burmese generals are biting us to the bone!"


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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
matters of peace and democratisation in South 
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit 
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