A good follow up question to ask would be: Do all the Jamaati leaders send their children to Madrassahs?
Times of India 13 December 2009
Interview
'POOR PAK CHILDREN ARE BEING SOLD TO JIHADIS'
Pakistani peace activist Karamat Ali disses terrorism-fomenting
mullahs, pseudo-nationalism and ugly politicians
by Mohammed Wajihuddin | TNN
Karamat Ali doesn't want more wars between India and Pakistan.
And it's not just because he's a committed peacenik. There's also a
personal reason.
"My wife, Amrita Chhachhi, is an Indian and lives in Delhi. If I
happen to be in India and a war breaks out, I will be imprisoned,''
he deadpans, triggering loud laughter in the audience that's gathered
at the Mumbai Press Club to hear him speak.
A senior trade unionist and founding member of the Pakistan-
India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy, the Karachi-based Ali
was in the city this week to give away prizes to the winners of an
essay-writing competition organised by Peace Mumbai and Mumbai
University. On the sidelines of the award ceremony and a subsequent
seminar on Indo-Pak relations, the fearlessly outspoken activist took
potshots at multiple targets, not just in Pakistan but the whole
South Asian region: the Taliban, marauding mullahs in cahoots with
"the Washingtonbacked Pakistani army'' and contemporary rulers who
had "colonised'' their own masses.
His Marxist ideology and bullin-a-China-shop demeanour colour
the 64-year-old's every statement. "I am not a practising Muslim. I
do hold a Pakistani passport, but I don't believe in nationalism.
Call me a South Asian,'' he declares, adding, "Over 22% of the
world's population lives in South Asia, and 60% of this population is
poor. The poor will have to unite and fight.''
Ali, who's known to maul politicians and babus at debates, has
been jailed several times but not deported yet ("Well, they may not
like me, but they can't throw me out just because I question them
constantly,'' he reasons). He has a clear definition for them: "Don't
call them people's representatives. They are rulers. And rulers have
a common interest in keeping subjects hungry and desperate.''
Rulers everywhere find sanctuary in a skewed interpretation of
religion, is Ali's firm belief. So have the rulers of Pakistan, who
misuse Islam when they are caught in a quandary. Ali remembers the
time when Asif Ali Zardari was attacked in the media for breaching
the pre-poll pact he had signed with Nawaz Sharif, and had famously
and shamelessly shot back: "The terms of the pact are not Quranic
that one cannot breach them.''
The activist is also uncomfortable with the spirit of Pakistan's
Constitution which mandates that it is the inviolable duty of every
citizen to be loyal to the state. "Nothing could be more foolish. Why
should citizens be loyal to the state? It should be the other way
round. It is the duty of the state to protect me, and I am free to be
loyal to my conscience,'' he declares. He also pooh-poohs the
ludicrous condition the Constitution lays down for the President's
job: 'at least 45 years old, a male and a Muslim'. "They want a male
as the President because the army will feel humiliated to salute a
woman President,'' he laughs.
Bring up the topic of terrorism, and Ali gets agitated about the
sense of helplessness induced in both the people and the State by
suicide bombers who strike suddenly and at targets ranging from
marketplaces to army and government headquarters. "A minister
recently said that people were selling their children to be trained
as suicide bombers at Rs 5 lakh per child,'' he says. "As the
situation worsens and desperation deepens, they'll become available
at cheaper rates.''
This dire prognosis is self-explanatory: the
suicide bomber comes not from the Pakistani elite but the
dispossessed. Ajmal Kasab, a landless farmer's son and school
dropout, went to a big city in search of livelihood but ended up in a
jihadi camp. "Why is it that the children of religious leaders are
not becoming suicide bombers?'' Ali asks rhetorically, going on to
denounce fundamentalist mullahs who tell jihadis that they will enjoy
divine comforts in jannat even if they get blown up.
But what is Pakistan's civil society doing to check the
onslaught of the suicide bombers?
"We are not silent spectators. We
have protested and are protesting. Soon over 100 activists will march
to Peshawar to sympathise with the terror-affected families,'' Ali says.
And as an antidote to all sorts of terrorism, including state-
sponsored, the veteran activist prescribes cooperation between South
Asian countries where hassle-free visas and intelligence-sharing will
be part of the practice, not just holy homilies delivered at SAARC
summits. Then, in Ali's dream, at present a bit of a Utopian chimera,
a day will come when Ajmal Kasab and his Pakistani masters, including
the incendiary Hafiz Saeed, will be tried not in India or Pakistan,
but by a South Asian People's Tribunal, in a neutral place. Maybe
Kathmandu—no longer capital of the Hindu Himalayan kingdom but of the
People's Republic of Nepal.
Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.
__._,_.___
