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Sheikh Mujib, Six Points, Tikka’s Salute and Lahore

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Sheikh Mujib, Six Points, Tikka’s Salute and Lahore

Sheikh Mujib - Six Points - Tikka’s Salute and LahoreAt Lahore airport on 23 February 1974, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced his new army chief Tikka Khan to Bangladesh’s leader Sheikh Mujib, General Tikka Khan saluted the man he had taken prisoner in the early hours of 26 March 1971

By Syed Badrul Ahsan

History in our part of the world has often had its interesting, even intriguing moments. And with Bangabandhu having played a vast role in the making of history in South Asia, the imagination cannot but go back to his links with certain periods in time, with certain places in the region.

Take a journey back in time, to February 1966. On the fifth day of the month, the future founder of independent Bangladesh took his initial step, in Lahore, toward liberating his Bengalis. Anyone who studies the antecedents of Lahore will certainly be aware of its significance through the moving chronicles of time. And what Bangabandhu was doing — and he was doing it three years before he transitioned from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to Bangabandhu and five years before he led his people to freedom — was informing the world of the new dimension which had come into his politics.

On 5 February 1966, that new dimension was the announcement of the Six Points, a broad outline of the autonomy the Bengali leader envisaged for the constituent provinces of Pakistan but specifically for East Bengal. It was in Lahore, therefore, that the road to Bengali liberation was taken. Imagine once again the playing out of history in Lahore. It was in March 1940 in Lahore that the All-India Muslim League adopted the resolution that has come to be known as the Lahore Resolution and the Pakistan Resolution. The seeds of Pakistan were thus sown in Lahore.

Observe the irony. Lahore was the place where the idea of Pakistan, indeed of a vivisection of India on the basis of a so-called two-nation theory took shape. Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s politics had reached a point, in the opinion of his followers, where a state for Muslims needed to be carved out of a centuries-old India. And yet twenty six years later it was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was informing the world that Pakistan needed to reinvent itself through his Six Points. The bigger idea, as yet unstated, was that if that reinvention did not occur, the Six Points would coalesce into a single point, that of sovereignty for Pakistan’s eastern province.

The Six Points were a fresh new addition to the historical legacy that Lahore embodied. And if we go back once more in time, we will recall that in the early 1950s, as the authorities in East Bengal went around arresting or detaining a nascent political opposition to the central government based in Karachi, Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani advised the young Mujib to travel to Lahore and apprise Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy of the situation. The Moulana was anxious that the young, rising politician should not come into the government’s dragnet. Once in Lahore — and this is what Bangabandhu relates in his Unfinished Memoirs — Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was unable to meet Suhrawardy, who had gone out of town. The state of Mujib’s finances was not healthy. But when a few days later Suhrawardy returned to Lahore, circumstances took a turn for the better.

In Lahore in that long-ago season, Bangabandhu certainly did not envision the role the city would play in his political career. Or put it another way: no political segment in Lahore could imagine at that point of time the vision an older, more mature Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would demonstrate through his Six Points more than two decades down the line. Here was a city that had been witness to some of the most horrific of communal riots in the run-up to Partition, and even later. It was a city which the Mughals loved and which invaders in the past coveted beyond measure. It was in Lahore that the Indian National Congress had in 1930 held its grand convention.

Sum it all up thus about Lahore — in 1930 the Congress spoke of Indian independence; in 1940 the Muslim League voiced the argument for Pakistan; and in 1966 the Awami League articulated the demand for political and constitutional rights for the people who inhabited the eastern segment of what had once been a united and unified Bengal. And, yes, a year and a half after Bangabandhu announced his Six Points, Lahore would be the very place where the Pakistan People’s Party would take shape. That would be in November 1967.

After February 1966, Bangabandhu’s next visit to Lahore was in July 1970 as part of the election campaign of the Awami League. It was a tour he was undertaking in the four western provinces of Pakistan, the other cities being Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar. In the very heart of the Punjab, the province that dominated the country’s civil-military bureaucracy, Bangabandhu spelled out his vision of the future, let his audience know of the deprivation their compatriots in East Bengal had suffered through the twenty three years that had elapsed since August 1947.

It was a city that was home to the Nawabzada Nasrullahs, the SM Zafars, the Chaudhry Mohammad Alis, the Mumtaz Daultanas, indeed the entrenched political elite of Pakistan. And in that city the future Bangabandhu unequivocally mapped the road to a future Bangladesh. A year later, in 1971, as history would sadly be stood on its head, he would be a prisoner in solitary confinement in that province, the Punjab, even as soldiers with roots in it would be on a rampage in his beloved Bangladesh a thousand miles away.

A moment of absolute triumph for Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Lahore came in February 1974. A day after the Islamic Republic of Pakistan formally accorded recognition to the People’s Republic of Bangladesh on 22 February, Bangabandhu and his team to the summit of Islamic heads of state and government proudly listened to the Pakistan army playing ‘Amar Shonar Bangla’ at Lahore airport. It was now playing Bangladesh’s national anthem, on its own soil, before a statesman.

At Lahore airport on 23 February 1974, supreme irony was again the centerpiece of the action when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced his new army chief Tikka Khan to Bangladesh’s leader. General Tikka Khan, combining in himself the dubious reputations of Butcher of Baluchistan and Butcher of Bengal, saluted the man he had taken prisoner in the early hours of 26 March 1971. It was an arrogant Tikka who had, a few days after that night of unmitigated horror, placed Bangabandhu on an aircraft and dispatched him, as a prisoner accused of treason, to Karachi and from there to incarceration in Punjab, to be tried before a military tribunal in camera. As he saluted Bangladesh’s Prime Minister and then extended his hand to him, Bangabandhu smiled. ‘Hello, Tikka’, he said — and then moved on.

In February, it is these consequential details of history that arise, to inform us of the story that was written in Lahore on the ethos of Bangladesh. In February 1966, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was a significant political leader whose influence on Pakistani politics would begin to expand into a larger landscape. In February 1974 in Lahore, the state of Pakistan would welcome him as the founding father of a sovereign Bangladesh.

History throws up great men through the ages. In Bangabandhu’s instance, it was the great man himself who drew the contours of history and shaped them to his specifications. And Lahore was part of that story.

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Syed Badrul Ahsan is a writer and a columnist
Courtesy: Daily Sun, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Respecting the lost souls

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Respecting the lost souls
Respecting the lost souls
Japaneses Obon Festival: Remembering the loved ones by lighting the candles

All cultures have a tradition of reaching out to their loved ones, who are no more. Followers of the Buddhism, particularly in Japan have a unique way to memorialize their dead relatives.

By Nazarul Islam

All cultures have a tradition of reaching out to their loved ones, who are no more. Followers of the Buddhism, particularly in Japan have a unique way to memorialize their dead relatives.

Japanese believe that every autumn the spirits of fallen ancestors rise all across Japan. During this season of the dead spirits called Obon, the living commemorate them with offerings of food at altars, gather for festivals, and perform collective dances known as Bon Odori. People, all over Japan, stream back to their home towns to be with family and visit cemeteries to pay respects to their dead.

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Watch Video about Bon Odori Dance

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“Graves are a place to talk,” says Yamazaki Masako of Zenyuseki, a tombstone carvers’ trade association.

This year covid-19 has upset the routine. Japan’s viral caseload is relatively small, with just 1,148 total deaths, roughly America’s daily average. But a recent rise in infections, especially in big cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, has spread the jitters. Citizens have been discouraged from travelling home and festivals have been cancelled. Family reunions have been held online to protect vulnerable elderly relatives.

Failure to visit grave-sites creates “a different type of stress—different from not being able to travel”, laments Ms. Yamazaki. To help relieve the pain of missing those obligations to the past, her association turned to futuristic technology. For ¥25,000 ($236) it will produce a virtual-reality experience to let you visit a grave from the comfort of your home. “You can see it from all directions, 360 degrees,” boasts Ms. Yamazaki. “It’s like you’re actually there.”

Others have hired proxies to visit the dead on their behalf. With Japan’s population ageing and urbanizing, online graveyard visits and tombstone-cleaning services were already doing brisk business. Goendo, one such firm, says inquiries and website traffic have doubled this year. Its agents can be hired to weed, pick up rubbish, wash tombstones, arrange flowers and light incense sticks—then live-stream it all for families by video-chat.

Respecting the lost souls - bon-odori dance
Japan: Bon Obori dance on Obon Festival

Kurashi no Market, an online services marketplace, reported that demand for grave visits in this year’s Obon had nearly tripled. Reviewers have raved. “I was so relieved to see the image of a beautifully cleaned grave with flowers,” wrote a client who had fretted about not being able to visit in the flesh.

Obon came to Japan via China along with Buddhism. The word is thought to derive from the Sanskrit Ullambana (deliverance from suffering). First practiced in Japan in the seventh century, the custom fused with local folk traditions. “At another tap of the drum, there begins a performance impossible to picture in words, something unimaginable, phantasmal—a dance, an astonishment,” wrote Lafcadio Hearn, a 19th-century chronicler of Japan, who was in awe of a Bon Odori.

“All together glide the right foot forward one pace, without lifting the sandal from the ground, and extend both hands to the right, with a strange floating motion and a smiling, mysterious obeisance.”

Today’s live-streamed moves might seem equally fallacious!

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About the Author

Nazarul IslamThe Bengal-born writer is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier, and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America.

World Poets on the Silk Road

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World Poets on the Silk Road

World Poets on the Silk Road - Four Spaces - cover photo- Sindh CourierThe Silk Road Literature Series has recently published a poetic anthology written by four poets from Asia, Africa and Europe – Eva Petropoylou Lianoy (Greece), Mbizo Chirasha (Zimbabwe), Santosh Kumar Pokharel (Nepal) and Ashraf Aboul-Yazid (Egypt).  Entitle “Four Spaces”

Sindh Courier

Cairo: The Silk Road Literature Series has recently published a poetic anthology written by four poets; Eva Petropoylou Lianoy (Greece), Mbizo Chirasha (Zimbabwe), Santosh Kumar Pokharel (Nepal) and Ashraf Aboul-Yazid (Egypt).  Entitle “Four Spaces”, the anthology joins series in its digital form, after pausing the printed version in paper.

World Poets on the Silk Road - Eva Petropoylou Lianoy- Greece-Sindh Courier-1In this issue, Greek poet and writer Eva Petropoylou Lianoy continues her writings on love and peace, in her poem “Destiny” she writes: “ I forget my life before poetry, Leaving between the verses, Music gave me a message, Writing gave me a purpose”.

Eva was born in Xylokastro where she completed her basics studies. She loved journalism and attended journalism lessons at the ANT1 School. In 1994 she worked as a journalist in French newspaper “Le LIBRE JOURNAL,” but her love for Greece won and returned to her sunny home. Since 2002, she lives and works in Athens. She works as a web radio producer reading fairy tales at radio logotexniko vima every Sunday. She is responsible for the children literary section in Vivlio anazitiseis publications in Cyprus, publication agent of 30 Birds in UK.

World Poets on the Silk Road -Santosh Kumar Pokharel Nepal - Sindh Courier-2From Nepal, Santosh Kumar Pokharel comes. He is a multilingual poet, editor and translator from Nepal. He writes in Nepali, English, Hindi and Russian. His poems have been translated in seventeen languages so far and published. Poet Pokharel, a senior civil engineer by profession completed his masters in engineering from peoples’ Friendship University Moscow. His poetic journey started from the age of 13.

He was recognized with International Award of the Year 2018 for the Creative Writing from Mahatma Gandhi Welfare Society and Education Foundation Aurangabad, Maharastra India, had also represented Nepal in the 39th World Congress of Poets in Bhubaneshwar.

In “Four Spaces”, his poem “YOUR LIGHT WASN’T THERE” shows the suffering of a creative person: “ I wrote your poem, The poem flowed smoothly, Open without music, Scattered with the flow along the rock and across, Only your voice was not there. And it poured in a stream but was empty, Had speed supposedly, there was no energy, There was no part of the beauty, The poem fell like a haystack, Leaving dignity aside, Like an indecent clown from the theater, From some far and wide.”

World Poets on the Silk Road - Mbizo Chirasha Zimbabwe - Sindh Courier-3Another suffering is told by the African poet from Zimbabwe; Mbizo CHIRASHA. It is the sufferings of his country and continent, as he writes in “BLACK ORANGES” for Africa and her people: “Xenophobia my son, I hear a murmur in the streets, A babble of adjoining markets, Your conscience itching with guiltiness like, Genital leprosy, Your wide eyes are cups where tears never fall, When they fall the storm wash down bullet drains and garbage cities ‘Come nomzano with your whisper to drown,Blood scent stinking the rainbow altar. Darfur, petals of blood spreading, Perfume of death-choking slum nostrils, Slums laden with acrid smell of mud and, Debris smelling like fresh dungs heaps, Fear scrawling like lizards on Darfur skin, Kibera. I see you scratching your mind like ragged linen, Smelling the breath of slums and diesel fumes, The smoke puffing out through ghetto ruins is the fire dousing the emblem of the state.”

Mbizo CHIRASHA is an African Contributor Poet / Essayist at Monk Arts and Soul Magazine (UK). He has published his poems in tens of publications worldwide; including Ditch Poetry (Alberta University, Creative Writing, Canada): Poetry Potion ( Canada), Full of Crow (Canada), Scarlet Leaf (Canada), Poetry Soup (USA), Poem Hunter (USA),One Ghana One Voice (Ghana), Rhythm International Voices (Canada), AfricanWriter.com(Nigeria), Ovi Magazine (Finland), Atunis Galatica (edited Agron Shele, Belgium), Black WellPoetry Pamplhet (Oxford School of Poetry, UK), Lit net (South Africa), Ofi Press ( Mexico City), Fem  Asia Magazine (UK), Ink Sweat and Tears (UK) and Squack back (USA).

World Poets on the Silk Road - Ashraf Aboul-Yazid -Egypt - Sindh Courier-4The theme of maps ends the anthology with Ashraf Aboul-Yazid poems: “Maps of the Mirage”, as in his piece” A Map for Google’s Sons”: “You are just a few points and lines. You are colors left in some corners and circles.

Nothing could identify you; no heart pulses, no breast Breathes, and no words. You are the sons of a research engine; you are numbers and letters, typed on the maps of Google.”

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid is an Egyptian poet, novelist and journalist born in 1963. He is the Editor-in-Chief, THE SILK ROAD LITERATURE SERIES. He has been working in Cultural Journalism for more than 30 years. He authored and translated 35 books. Some of his novels and poetry volumes have been translated into English, Spanish, Turkish, Persian, Korean, Malayalam, Sindhi and German books and anthologies. He was chosen the Man of Culture for the Year, 2012, Tatarstan, Russia. He won   Manhae Prize in Literature, 2014, the Republic of Korea. He won the Arab Journalism Award in Culture, 2015, UAE. Currently he is the president of Asia Journalist Association.

The new anthology has been put on ISSUU for free reading. Click on Four Spaces to read the anthology.

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Shared by Silk Road Literature, Egypt and TheAsiaN, South Korea

During Nazi occupation, Muslims saved Jews from the extinction

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During Nazi occupation, Muslims saved Jews from the extinction

During Nazi occupation Muslims saved Jews from the extinction-2During the Nazi occupation of Caucasus, Muslims aided efforts to hide the origins of the local Jews, preventing the extinction of a community.

By Alissa Abramov

In July of 1942, the German Wehrmacht began occupying territories in the northern Caucasus. Although this occupation lasted only a few months, the Jewish communities of the area were severely impacted. In villages such as Bogdanovka and Menzhinsky, where there were collective kolkhozes of Caucasus Jews (or Mountain Jews) and Ashkenazi Jews, large scale massacres were carried out by firing squads.

At first, the Nazis didn’t treat the local Jewish population any differently. They thought that their fate should be similar to that of the European Jews. The term “Mountain Jews”, commonly used by the Russians, disclosed the community’s origins. However, when German forces conquered the city of Nalchik, there were those who tried to challenge the community’s Jewish identity, in a desperate attempt to save it.

At the time, there were thousands of Jews in the city. With heavy bombardment underway, the Nazis ordered the Jews to register with the SS unit that accompanied the German military. The esteemed Efraimov and Shaulov families were the first to be executed. A group of local Jewish leaders, headed by Markel Shaulov, tried to save the community from the threat of annihilation by attempting to convince the Nazis that the Mountain Jews weren’t actually part of the Jewish race. They instead claimed to belong to the Tat people, one of the various ethnic groups living in the Caucasus.

During Nazi occupation Muslims saved Jews from the extinction-1As part of this effort at benevolent deception, the Jewish leaders made use of their excellent relationship with the local Muslim community. The head of the Kabardino-Balkarian National Council appealed to the Nazi command and requested that they treat the Mountain Jews as one of the ethnic communities of the Caucasus.

The German army, which, for political and military reasons, adopted a cautious approach toward the local Muslim population, delayed execution of the order instructing the annihilation of the city’s Jews for a period of two months. During that time, German research institutes, headed by the Reich Genealogical Office, studied the issue. Questions were raised regarding common origins with European Jews, while religious symbols, literature, traditional clothing, customs, and spoken language were also examined. The entire Jewish community tried to cover up any indications of its true identity. Many Jews hid and buried books and sacred objects in the courtyards of their houses.

During Nazi occupation Muslims saved Jews from the extinction
German soldiers conquering the Caucasus – Photo Courtesy: The German Federal Archive

During this period, a famous event transpired, which is mentioned in several autobiographical accounts of the period. These accounts concern an attempt to secretly remove Torah scrolls from the local synagogue. A group of men, led by the city’s chief rabbi, Nachmiel Amirov, staged a funeral in order to conceal the Torah scrolls and bury them in the ground, while wrapped in funeral shrouds. The fictitious funeral procession advanced toward a cemetery which was located near German headquarters. In order to keep the Nazi SS officers away, the funeral organizers convinced them that the deaths were the result of a typhoid epidemic, which had indeed become widespread during World War II. These rumors of disease caused the SS soldiers to keep their distance, and the Torah scrolls were successfully buried.

The efforts to delay the resolution of the question of the community’s Jewishness finally saved most of the city’s Jews. It wasn’t long before the German army had to withdraw its forces from the Caucasus, following its defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad. However, during this brief period of occupation, the Nazis were able to loot property, harass Jews, and send many to forced labor.

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Courtesy: National Library of Israel
Read about Mountain Jews 

Bear with me, I’m still around…

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Bear with me, I’m still around…
Bear with me - I’m still around-2
Illustration Courtesy: Pinterest

  • Twenty eight years after my first article was published, I am proud to say: ‘I am still around’ – And ready to start afresh.

  • There was pain and gain, too, though grossly disproportionate. There was fame and lots and lots of shame. I had to beg, and borrow, but stole only hearts.

  • For writers like me, existence has been a challenge from day one.

By Nazarul Islam

Pride sometimes, is a legitimate indulgence. For me personally, a small fish that I am in a turbulent ocean infested by sharks, pride is the only source of sustenance.

Pride for survival, therefore, is a reality and every day, in the last four years I have taken time to learn what my readers like to say behind my back. Celebrating the dawn of this day is a real relief to me first and a motivation to look back how my readers have responded to my published pieces. Juvenile, though it may seem, I have loved my indulgence in reading these sweet, sour and bitter feedbacks.

So, every year, I promptly reach for the trumpet, which is blown by me and for me to keep me dancing through what is often a futile and fanciful pursuit. In this pursuit, my future is the last on my mind. Are we aware, in human life and all its labored endeavors ‘forever’ is still finite?

In writing my stories, I somehow feel like running on the treadmill machine, pacing hard under sweat—covering distances in a frenetic pace and burning mental calories just to stay in the same place. Growth and progress are to be measured by the seemingly laughable logic of perennial status quo.

It is not surprising that existential and health issues continue to stare at me in all forms, and all times. Time and life only move forward. There is no rewind button. Racing towards my seventies, reading, writing, copying, pasting, fumbling, I find myself fooling around with words in a bid to create reading ‘delicacies’, that  keeps me going. To be honest, all this has relaxed me more than ever.

Every day, the raw spices (masala) meant for writers, rain down, from the sky for me to pick up, smell the rot then write about it. A lot of my well-wishers, read this or say they read this, to amuse themselves. After that, my pieces are dumped out of memory bins. Next day, the same repeats itself with a different issue to be pondered about, before it is trashed the next morning!

I keep receiving emails mails from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and messages through Facebook with all forms of likes and emojis. Life has changed so much, in the last five years that I have to look for emojis, for everyday survival.

For petty writers like me, existence has been a challenge from Day one. I have come to terms at last that small fishes are in the same league as the sharks who thought themselves unshakable. But, small fries like me will still blow the trumpet and say our extinction, if it befalls us or the industry itself, was with distinction – the distinct factor being we were not supposed to last this long – something that my guru late S R Ghouri, was always aware of and drilled into me, and his many other disciples.

Now, let me set aside such morbid tidings. To me, personally, ever since I unsuspectingly grasped live wire called South Asia magazine, which brought me laurels along with cusses and curses. It has been a roller-coaster ride, enjoyable, entertaining, engrossing and enlightening, but with troughs outnumbering the crests.

For me and my platforms, there was never any carryover bread in the oven and we have to earn it every day in less than four hours flat. A typical morning starts with my fingers toying over the phone keys for ensuring the daily dough before moving on to the laptop keys for pouring out the daily dose. Here it is numeric-alpha, if you see what I mean. But the birth pangs ease and cease once the pieces are ‘delivered’ via the new technology.

I was able to rub shoulders with the high and mighty but the frictions have dwarfed the fun. Of course, it goes with the profession. But, being a small writer, I feel I am among the children of a lesser God. So, if the barons bent before the powers that be us (small fry) writers were supposed to break.

I assure, never once did I feel inferior or intimidated and instead was happy to wear my ‘smallness’ as a badge of honor. The heady cocktail of passion and the indulgence has made me immune.

In pursuit of hope, chasing an impossible dream—I have attempted nuttier things: Like for instance, with no access to money, power, muscle power or man power, I embarked on ventures — adventures really — in the ‘fond’ belief that the establishment in each of the countries, where my pieces are read would one day pip the rest of the print world, including the Tribune, the Observer, Today, New Age—to the wooden post.

There was pain and gain, too, though grossly disproportionate. There was fame and lots and lots of shame. I had to beg, and borrow, but stole only hearts — very few as they may be. I can go on, what with memories overlapping and the decades of the daily drill fusing into an amorphous jelly of thoughts, faces, events, information and all other phases a newspaper goes through.

So, how did I survive with this addicting albatross around my neck? For one, my guru’s dictum, ‘Target is trouble, so speak your mind’, which I have been doing, kept me going. His carefree, bordering on the cavalier, taglines, ‘Easy, Racy, Full of Life’ and ‘As long as it goes’, kept me constant company in what was essentially a solitary mental sojourn.

So, when problems overwhelmed, I stopped taking myself seriously; keeping the escapades of opinion young despite me greying in the fringes; and, above all, showing up every day, come what may, as if today is the first day. But the biggest motivation is you—who have stayed put through the rare thicks and the frequent thins.

Six years later, and twenty eight years after my first article was published in the Editorial page of Morning News, I am proud to say: ‘I am still around’

And ready to start afresh.

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About the Author

Nazarul IslamThe Bengal-born writer is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier, and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America.
Also read: You think writing’s a dream job? It’s more like a horror film

When the Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded

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When the Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded

MaryQueenofScotsAfter 19 years of imprisonment, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England on February 08, 1587 for her complicity in a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth I.

Queen Elizabeth I of England and Mary, Queen of Scots were two of the greatest, most legendary rivals in recorded history—although they never even met. In one castle was Elizabeth, the childless “virgin” queen: bawdy, brilliant, tactical and cynical. In the other, Mary: feminine, charming, romantic and reckless.

In 1542, while just six days old, Mary ascended to the Scottish throne upon the death of her father, King James V. Her mother sent her to be raised in the French court, and in 1558 she married the French dauphin, who became King Francis II of France in 1559 but died the following year. After Francis’ death, Mary returned to Scotland to assume her designated role as the country’s monarch.

In 1565, she married her English cousin Lord Darnley in order to reinforce her claim of succession to the English throne after Elizabeth’s death. In 1567, Darnley was mysteriously killed in an explosion at Kirk o’ Field, and Mary’s lover, the Earl of Bothwell, was the key suspect. Although Bothwell was acquitted of the charge, his marriage to Mary in the same year enraged the nobility. Mary brought an army against the nobles, but was defeated and imprisoned at Lochleven, Scotland, and forced to abdicate in favor of her son by Darnley, James.

In 1568, Mary escaped from captivity and raised a substantial army but was defeated and fled to England. Queen Elizabeth initially welcomed Mary but was soon forced to put her friend under house arrest after Mary became the focus of various English Catholic and Spanish plots to overthrow Elizabeth. Nineteen years later, in 1586, a major plot to murder Elizabeth was reported, and Mary was brought to trial. She was convicted for complicity and sentenced to death.

On February 8, 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother’s execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603 he became king of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Mary Queen of Scots

Letters that helped to bring down Queen Mary  

In 1567, a tempestuous, unhappy queen picked up her pen and wrote a passionate sonnet to her lover. “My love for him is not an empty show,” she wrote, “But purest tenderness and constancy.”

Or did she?

The sonnet was one of 12. And those documents were part of a larger hoard called the casket letters, explosive papers that played a part in the bizarre story of the tragic end of Mary, Queen of Scots’ marriage to her second husband, the chaotic beginning of a new union, and the events that would cause the Scottish throne to slip through her fingers.

But though the casket letters would be used against Mary, their authenticity have always been in question. Were the letters really penned by Mary Stuart? Or were they the fabrication of the enemies determined to tear down her rule and even have her killed?

Mary Queen of Scots - Castle where she was born-1
The Castle where Mary, Queen of Scots was born

Mary Stuart had technically been queen of Scotland since she was six days old. But her grip on the Scottish throne had always been threatened by her political enemies, many of whom resented the Catholic queen.

The most serious threat to her rule broke out in 1567 with the murder of her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. He had been recuperating from smallpox when the house in which he was staying was bombed. Later, it was found that barrels full of gunpowder had been hidden beneath his bedroom. But the bombs didn’t seem to be what killed Lord Darnley. Rather, he appeared to have been strangled.

Lord Darnley’s bizarre death was interpreted as evidence of a plot to kill him, and suspicion soon turned toward Mary herself. It had been common knowledge that she didn’t love her husband, had been appalled by his arrogance and carousing, and had differed with him about matters political and personal. He had also infuriated her by attempting to rule equally alongside her. In 1566, when she was four months pregnant, Darnley had worked with a group of anti-Mary conspirators to murder her friend and private secretary, David Rizzio, in front of her. The assassination had been the last straw. She convened a meeting of advisers to figure out how to divorce her husband.

But did she conspire to murder him?

Mary’s cousin Elizabeth I, queen of England, apparently wondered as much. After the murders, she wrote a sympathetic letter to Mary (the cousins never met in person). But it also contained a word of warning. “I will not at all dissemble what most people are talking about,” she wrote, “which is that you will look through your fingers at the revenging of this deed.” By failing to avenge her husband’s death, Elizabeth suggested, Mary was keeping the rumor mill alive and implicating herself in the deed.

Mary Queen of Scots - Castle where she was detained
Castle, where Mary, Queen of Scots was detained for 19 years

Mary ignored her cousin, and quickly remarried one of her advisers, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell. It was unclear whether she married him willingly; it was rumored that he had raped her and forced her into the marriage. Either way, the union horrified Mary’s subjects, who called him a murderer and assumed she had been unfaithful to Darnley. A group of Scottish lords raised an army and forced Mary to abdicate in favor of her one-year-old son with Darnley.

Mary had one ally left—or so she thought. She fled to England with Bothwell and begged in letters for her cousin Elizabeth’s support and help regaining her throne. Instead, worried that Mary wanted to overthrow her, Elizabeth had her imprisoned. Then, she insisted on determining if Mary was guilty of both murder and adultery. But Elizabeth knew that one queen couldn’t get away with impugning another, so she convened not a trial, but a 1568 conference in which the English Privy Council, Elizabeth’s closest advisers, would consider Mary’s actions.

And that’s where the casket letters—eight letters, two marriage contracts, and 12 sonnets—come in. They had supposedly been found in a silver casket among Mary’s possession after she fled Scotland, and the implications for Mary’s monarchy were scandalous. If they were true, that is.

The contents of the caskets were salacious and explosive. The marriage contracts included a promise on Mary’s part to marry Bothwell and a contract signed over a month before Darnley’s death. The sonnets, supposedly written by Mary, painted her as a passionate and faithful lover trying to seduce and convince her secret love. And the letters supposedly showed the lovers conspiring to kill Darnley and create a sham abduction by Bothwell that resulted in their marriage.

There were serious holes in the argument that the casket letters were genuine. First, they had been produced by James Stuart, Earl of Moray, Mary’s half-brother and longtime political foe. Second, they were not signed, addressed, or dated. The facts they supposedly presented were also inconsistent. But when the council compared the handwriting to Mary’s, they determined that they were authentic.

It’s hard to determine whether that’s true today, since the letters have been lost. Using copies and passed-down transcriptions of the letters, historians now speculate that the letters were a mix of fact and fiction that combined Mary’s actual writings with false dates, additional information, and misdirection. Historian John Guy believes that about half of the information in the letters is false. “The Casket Letters were a fix by Mary’s enemies to destroy her, an ingenious, devious one,” he writes. Others argue that they were pure forgeries.

Elizabeth’s council apparently believed the information in the letters, but Mary never defended herself in front of them. Since she considered herself to still be Queen of Scots, she couldn’t publicly acknowledge that an English court or council had any power over her. Nor did Elizabeth take the opportunity to find her cousin guilty of anything. Instead, she considered the evidence gathered by her council and decided that nothing had been proven.

The public, though, had come to its own conclusions. It got access to the casket letters through an unauthorized leak in 1571. A detection of the actions of Mary Queen of Scots concerning the murder of her husband, and her conspiracy, adultery, and pretended marriage with the Earl Bothwell and a defence of the true Lords, maintainers of the King’s Majesties action and authority offered titillating reading, but they served a bigger purpose.

By that point, Mary had been in Elizabeth’s custody—locked up in a palace, but locked up all the same—for over a decade. But her allies still plotted to help her take over Elizabeth’s throne. The letters were published to undermine public opinion in someone that, without the help of sensational claims about her evil ambitions, might have been regarded as a pitiful monarch whose throne had been stolen and who had served years of unfair imprisonment. True or not, the casket letters still had the potential to hurt Mary.

Ultimately, Mary was imprisoned for nearly 19 years before being found guilty of a plot to assassinate Elizabeth and assume her throne. She was beheaded in 1587. By then, her letters had disappeared. The casket, though, is still in existence. It’s kept at Lennoxlove, a Scottish castle, along with a death mask of the queen whose loose letters may have sealed her fate.

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Courtesy: History
Photo Courtesy: Historic Environment and Apollo Magazine  

The Himalayan tragedy: A story of greed, nepotism, and brazen violations

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The Himalayan tragedy: A story of greed, nepotism, and brazen violations

Himalayan tragedy- A story of greed nepotism and brazen violationsIn life, love for one another is much like a dam: if you allow a tiny crack to fall through which only a trickle of water can pass, the trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure, and soon no one will be able to control the force of the currents. This is exactly what happened in the Himalayas.

By Nazarul Islam

A shocking report this morning, has confirmed the debilitating tragedy in the Himalayas. Dozens of people are missing and feared dead after a Himalayan glacier crashed into a dam and triggered a huge flood in northern India.

As the dam broke open, a deluge of water poured through a valley in the state of Uttarakhand. Villages have been evacuated, but officials warned more than 125 people may have been caught in the torrent.

The remoteness of where this tragedy happened means no-one has a definitive answer, so far. Experts say one possibility is that massive ice blocks broke off the glacier due to a temperature rise, releasing a huge amount of water.

And that could have caused avalanches bringing down rocks and mud.

At 3,500 meters above sea level, Himalayan glaciers melt to create Ganga and Yamuna, rivers that support over 600 million Indians. This ecologically sensitive region in the state of Uttarakhand is now the site of a massive 900-km highway-building project called the Char Dham Pariyojana.

The project seeks to improve road connectivity to four Hindu pilgrimage sites, Gangotri and Yamunotri, near the source of the rivers, and the temple towns of Badrinath and Kedarnath. In 2013, a cloudburst above Kedarnath had caused flash floods in the region which killed over 5,000 people.

Himalaya Tragedy- MapWhen Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation for the Char Dham Pariyojana in December 2016, he had dedicated it to the flood victims ignoring the consensus among environmentalists that over-construction in the hills had exacerbated the 2013 tragedy.

The environmental groups opposing the project have won a significant victory in the Supreme Court. Based on the recommendation of a high-powered committee appointed in 2019, the court passed an order favoring a narrow width for the highways that are being built as part of the project.

But the order had come after substantial damage had already been done to the Himalayan ecology. As the committee’s report painstakingly documents, nearly 700 hectares of forest land have already been lost to the project, 47,043 trees felled, and the natural drainage of streams and springs blocked by muck dumping. With the hills being cut vertically, oftentimes without forest clearances, 11 landslides have occurred in just four months of 2020, causing deaths and injuries.

While the Supreme Court’s order could help reduce further damage, say environmentalists, it is silent on the illegality at the heart of the Char Dham project – 900 km of highways are being built in one of India’s most fragile and important ecosystems without a study measuring the environmental impact.

In possibly the first statement released on the Char Dham project, the Modi government had said in December 2016 that its aim was “developing 900 km of national highways” at the cost of Rs.12000 crores. Ordinarily, a highway project on this scale would require a full-scale environmental impact assessment under India’s laws. This would be presented to the environment ministry, which would decide whether the project should be given an environmental clearance, without which the project cannot be implemented.

Himalayan tragedy- A story of greed nepotism and brazen violations -4But the Modi government found a way to avoid an environmental scrutiny of the Char Dham project: the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways claimed the 889-km long project was made of “53 civil works”, each less than 100 km in length, separated by 16 bypasses. Since 2013, highway expansion projects of less than 100 km in India have been exempt from an environmental impact assessment.

In 2018, an environmental non-profit organization in Uttarakhand, Citizens for Green Doon, filed a petition in the National Green Tribunal, a special court for environmental cases, challenging the loophole utilized by the road ministry. The tribunal set up an oversight committee headed by a former High Court judge. But the non-profit decided to appeal in the Supreme Court, which modified the tribunal’s order and directed the environment ministry to form a high-powered committee in August 2019.

The committee was tasked with carrying out an independent review of the impact of the Char Dham project and suggesting measures to minimize environmental damage in the Himalayan region. The Supreme Court also asked the committee to prepare the terms of reference – or the framework – for an environmental impact assessment of the project.

This was a tacit acknowledgement that the road ministry had lied about the nature of the project, to bypass environmental scrutiny.

“In reality, it has always been one continuous project,” said Ravi Chopra, director of the People’s Science Institute in Uttarakhand, who was appointed as the chairperson of the high-powered committee formed on the orders of the Supreme Court.

Himalayan tragedy- A story of greed nepotism and brazen violations -1Speaking to Scroll.in on Tuesday, hours after the Supreme Court stamped its approval on his recommendation for narrowing down the width of the highways, he said bluntly about the government: “By not having an EIA, they have done incalculable harm.”

The high-powered committee did not produce a consensus view on the road width.

Barring Chopra and a handful of independent experts, the 26-member committee was dominated by those working for the government: eight district magistrates, the Uttarakhand forest and environment secretary, officials from the Union environment and defence ministries, and scientists working in government-run institutions.

On July 14, before Chopra could submit the committee’s final report to the environment ministry, other members, most of whom were government officials, sent a report, which they claimed reflected the majority view.

Two days later, Chopra sent a letter to the environment ministry alleging that the majority report had been sent without his knowledge. He alleged that the “subterfuge” was presumably conducted by the committee’s member secretary, who was also the forest and environment secretary of Uttarakhand, a state ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is also in power at the Centre. “You can imagine my absolute shock and amazement on hearing this and figuring out this miserable conspiracy,” Chopra wrote in the letter which accompanied his version of the final report.

Harbans Singh Chugh, the member secretary of the committee till July, declined to respond to Scroll.in’s queries on the matter. Singh said: “Everything is left available in records.”

Strikingly, both the reports – the majority report and the one sent by Chopra – contain identical findings, which paint an alarming picture of the impact of the Char Dham project in a region that the committee describes as “geographically fragile” and “seismically active”. But there is one substantial difference.

Himalayan tragedy- A story of greed nepotism and brazen violations -2While the report submitted by Chopra recommends that the width of the highways built as part of the project be limited to 5.5 meters, the majority report recommends a width of 12 meters – or double lane with paved shoulders, known as DL+PS in engineering parlance.

This design standard was outlined in a circular issued in 2012 by the roads ministry, which was shared with the committee. Based on this circular, in June, 14 members of the committee voted in favor of building 12 meter-wide highways, while two members voted in favor of 5.5 meters, one member abstained from voting and the chairman declined to express his views, both reports state.

However, two days after the voting was done, an amended version of this circular surfaced. Issued in 2018, the circular states the width of hill roads should be 5.5 meters with a two-lane structure.

When the committee asked the chief engineer in the road ministry’s regional office to explain why the 2018 circular was not brought to its notice, he cited three reasons for why the amended circular would not apply to the Char Dham Pariyojana.

For one, he claimed a “conscious decision” was taken after the 2013 floods to widen all the connecting routes to the Char Dham to ensure “prompt relief and evacuation” during disasters in the future. Two, the Char Dham projects had been sanctioned before the 2012 circular was amended in 2018. Three, the routes were highways leading to international borders “which are very important from [a] strategic point of view, which requires uninterrupted and speedy movement of defence equipment and supplies”.

Another round of voting took place on the issue of road width, with 13 committee members still sticking to the 12-metres recommendation.

But Chopra maintained this design would not be suitable for a hilly terrain because it “results in cutting deep into the hill slopes, resulting in extensive loss of green cover, slope failures and landslides”.

“Elimination and reduction of such extensive damage is the most urgent and pressing need in this sensitive Himalayan region,” he wrote in a preface to the report. “Mitigation after the fact will not do. Hence some of us suggested that a reduced road width that would serve the anticipated traffic flow and yet significantly prevent future damage was the only judicious solution.”

Given the split within the committee, he wrote that the matter of the road width should be left to the Supreme Court. Until then, he suggested that any action based on the majority “may be held in abeyance”.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court validated Chopra’s recommendation and ruled that the 2018 circular alone would apply.

In court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta arguing on behalf of the Central government called the 2018 circular “prospective in nature”. However, the Supreme Court dismissed his argument. “Having taken stock of the current situation and of the fragility generally of the eco system in mountain terrain, we are of the view that this argument has no legs to stand on,” the court said in its order.

Himalayan tragedy- A story of greed nepotism and brazen violations -3Speaking to the media, after the order was pronounced, Chopra said the majority of the committee voting in favor of a wider road simply reflected the fact that they worked for the government. “For example, the district magistrates, they are just told how they are going to vote,” he said. “Even the scientists and experts who came to us from institutions primarily funded by the government, even they did not take an independent stand. They just followed the government decision.”

Explaining why the road width was crucial, he said: “If you have a road that is narrow then you have to cut less of a mountain…Secondly, with narrow roads, you can also try some valley-side filling.”

A tarred road surface of 5.5 meters would still require space for a drain on the hillside and a crash barrier on the valley side, he said. The formation width – or the scale of the cut that needs to be made – would be at least 7 meters.

In the 12-metre width design, he said: “You cut much more because on the mountain side you will have to put up a protection wall…The greater the formation width, the greater the width of the protection wall base, the higher will be the slope cut….And the more you cut, the more muck you generate. And you have to find a place to put that which is usually forest land.”

But JC Kuniyal, a scientist at GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment, among the majority of members who voted in favor of widening the roads, argued that the future needs of the region also needed to be taken into account.

“We have to plan for the next 40 to 50 years,” he said. “Pilgrims are increasing, population is increasing, the demand is high and the road congestion will also go up. A wider road will reduce emissions and the travel time of tourists and the traffic congestion.”

Responding to the criticism that the majority report reflected the views of the government, Kuniyal said it was unfair. “I am from an autonomous institution. I am a scientist,” he said. “It is wrong to say that I am from the government.”

“If we want development then we have to bear some damage,” he added. “People have to adapt.”

Himalayan tragedy- A story of greed nepotism and brazen violations -5Another scientist from the majority group alleged that the committee did not have serious discussions on the matter. “It was discussed only in the last meeting when voting had taken place and the chairman had not disclosed his view…and then all of a sudden we read his view in the letter [dated July 16] that he wanted to leave it to the Supreme Court to decide,” said Vikram Gupta, a scientist at Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Uttarakhand.

“We said that if we want to change the road width then let us invite chief engineers from the road ministry,” Gupta added.

Responding to these criticisms, Chopra asked: “What is your priority? Is your priority saving a fragile ecological region? Or is it that you want to make money?”

All the four Char Dham shrines are within a radius of 50 km, he pointed. “The last 30 km to 40 km of these roads are very narrow valleys,” he said. “What happens in one valley influences what happens in the other valleys. There are cumulative impacts.”

Wider roads would lead to more vehicular traffic, he said. “The more people you take by motor vehicles, the more carbon dioxide you will generate.”

“We calculated that during the 60-day peak period, every day the Badrinath route adds half a microgram of carbon dioxide, which comes up to 30 micrograms per cubic meter for that two-month period,” he explained. “The average worldwide carbon dioxide concentration today is about 400 microgram per cubic meter. In two months, we have increased that by 7.5%. This is a very concentrated amount of carbon dioxide generation. Should we accept this?

Himalayan tragedy- A story of greed nepotism and brazen violations -6Chopra’s grim assessment is expressed in both the reports, which say carbon added to the atmosphere because of construction activity and higher number of road vehicles once the Char Dham project is complete, could potentially lead to “regional climate warming” around the 50 km radius where the shrines are located.

Barring the divergence on the question of the road width, both the reports, in fact, contain identical findings on the impact of the project.

The reports note that the Char Dham Pariyojana “has been undertaken almost solely as an engineering exercise with little concern for the loss of green cover or impacts on social life.”

Roads were being widened mostly by cutting hillsides, even when space was available for expansion on the valley side. Heavy earth excavators were being used instead of less destructive equipment which could minimize the environmental damage. “The Pariyojana authorities have adopted a high risk approach to road widening,” the reports state.

The freshly cut hill slopes had been neglected and slope protection measures were missing. At least 40 slope failures or landslides had been recorded, causing deaths and injuries to road users and laborers. “This neglect indicates that the project authorities are more worried about meeting the project schedule than people’s lives,” the reports state.

Both remote sensing imagery and field visits showed “muck has been deposited at unauthorized locations, including forests”. This had blocked the natural drainage of streams and springs and “severely degraded riverine vegetation that cannot be regenerated at any other type of habitats”.

Nearly 700 hectares of forest land has been diverted for 30 projects, with 47,043 trees felled, and another 8,888 trees facing the axe. The reports add that the roads ministry had an “insufficient understanding” of multiple forests and viewed them “just as trees”.

The routes for the Char Dham project lie in close proximity to ecologically sensitive zones like the Rajaji National Park, Valley of Flowers, Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary and Govind National Park, the reports point out. The felling of trees was leading to a loss of habitat, which would force animals into invading human settlements, endangering human safety and farm productivity.

The impact of the project could be felt by residents in the region as well, said Himanshu Arora of Citizens for Green Doon, the original petitioners in the case. “There are regular accidents here, boulders are falling…it is in front of everyone,” Arora said. “We are giving an invitation to 2013 again,” he said, referring to the flash floods in the state that year.

While the Char Dham Pariyojana had evaded an environmental impact assessment, each of the individual projects that were part of it still needed to apply for clearances under the Forest Conservation Act.

On August 13, Chopra sent a detailed note to the environment ministry flagging how project proponents had flouted these forest and wildlife laws.

The committee found work had started at four projects that fall under eco-sensitive zones. While applying for a forest clearance, the project proponents had incorrectly answered “No” to a question about whether the project fell under an eco-sensitive zone. One of the projects also dodged obtaining a clearance from the National Wildlife Board.

Further, work continued on five projects even after their Stage-I forest clearance had expired. Under the Forest Conservation Act, Stage-I clearance is granted for one year and can only be extended after the state government sends a progress report to the Centre. The committee found that the progress report of many of these projects was still awaited.

Tree felling for these five projects took place even before any orders were issued by the divisional forest officer. “The entire construction work in the above mentioned projects including cutting of thousands of trees therefore, started illegally,” the note states.

Pointing out that these projects were allowed to bypass procedures, the note cites a letter sent by state forest department officials to the project authorities in February 2018: “Since Chardham project is related to the ambitious plan of Hon’ble PM…considering the importance of project, tree felling in above listed 1-6 matters is completed without having any compliance report.

Though, without complying of in-principle approval such act is in fact is in clear violation of the conditions of Govt. of India.”

The note also points out that two other projects were started on the basis of old forest clearances granted to Border Roads Organization between 2002 and 2012, “even though the nature of the works was quite different”.

Three projects did not have fresh forest clearances. When the committee visited the sites in October 2019, work had not started on these projects. The committee made recommendations to the roads ministry against starting work at these sites, but subsequently found that the project proponents had gone ahead with tree felling and hill cutting, despite not having forest clearances.

“This is a brazen violation, as if the Rule of Law does not exist,” the note states.

Himalayan tragedy- A story of greed nepotism and brazen violations -7In an affidavit to the Supreme Court in April 2019, the road ministry had identified 19 projects where work was yet to begin. The court explicitly tasked the committee with reviewing such projects to “recommend measures which will minimize the adverse impact on environment, social life…” However, even before the committee could submit its recommendations, work began at these sites, the note points out.

The main report itself extensively recounts one instance – the Kund bypass – where project officials reassured visiting committee members in October 2019 that “the forest would not be touched until the HPC gave clearance”.

“Surprisingly, during the second site visit, barely two months later in December 2019, the HPC members were shocked to see earthmoving machinery inside the Kund forest with significant damage already inflicted to the slopes, trees and other vegetation,” the report states.

The report also mentions that the committee repeatedly requested the road ministry official to “respect the spirit of the Supreme Court’s order” and avoid starting fresh work sites until the project’s environmental impact had been assessed. But these requests were ignored. “This willful non-compliance has caused disappointment and a feeling of helplessness among the HPC members in fulfilling their responsibility,” the report states.

Mallika Bhanot of the Ganga Avhaan, a non-profit organization working to protect the river Ganga, pointed out that the Uttarakhand government was equally responsible for allowing the work to continue despite the violations. “The state government is equally culpable and hands in glove with the roads ministry,” Bhanot said.

Chopra said: “Now that the court has shown its own firmness, we will be a lot more firm in dealing with the violations.

The Supreme Court’s verdict has been welcomed by environmental groups. “The lies had begun by dividing this project into 53 parts,” said Himanshu Arora of Citizens for Green Doon, the petitioner in the case. “Truth has triumphed and the court has caught this. The court has also accepted that there is no need for such a wide road.”

But questions still remain about the legality of the Char Dham project. In the past, the courts have often struck down projects that have proceeded without an environmental impact assessment. However, the Supreme Court has chosen to stay silent on this aspect while adjudicating on the Char Dham Pariyojana.

Even the high-powered committee avoided direct comment on the way the roads ministry had evaded the environmental clearance process, barring a fleeting counter to the ministry’s argument that an EIA was not required since “individual project-stretches are all less than 100 km in length”.

“In this geologically unstable and ecologically fragile Himalayan region, length of the road should not have been the criteria because ecological variability is altitudinally governed,” the committee said.

It added that “such projects are required to conduct a pre-feasibility study in the context of ecological security, the carrying capacity of the Char Dham valleys, disaster management planning and a decentralized pilgrim/tourism plan to avoid ecological overburdening and therefore minimizing the susceptibility of the area to landslides and other disasters.”

One of the tasks entrusted to the committee by the Supreme Court was preparing the terms of reference – or framework – for a rapid environmental impact assessment of the Char Dham project. The committee sent the terms of reference to the roads ministry in October 2019. But almost one year later, the road ministry is yet to submit the EIA report.

Chopra said: “It is only in June that [the ministry] awarded the contract [for the EIA] and like any other contract the contractor is not going to deliver it in four months. He is going to take six months or eight months, who knows.”

“So practically the [EIA] becomes useless now,” he concluded. Or, is that so….

In life, love for one another is much like a dam: if you allow a tiny crack to fall through which only a trickle of water can pass, the trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure, and soon no one will be able to control the force of the currents. This is exactly what happened in the Himalayas.

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About the Author

Nazarul IslamThe Bengal-born writer is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier, and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America.
 Photo Courtesy: India Today 

 

 

Language, linguistics and Society

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Language, linguistics and Society

Language-Linguistic-Society-1In Sindhi linguistics, there is dearth of research work. The work which is being projected and presented in the name of linguistics focuses on historical and social aspects of the language. Other disciplines of the linguistics are also important and need to be researched.

By Noor Ahmed Janjhi

Man with his power of knowledge…reason, study, experience, observance and love…. has made wonderful advancement and it is very worth to be appreciated. Still much more lies ahead. This is only a glimpse of human potential in shape of his achievements, inventions and discoveries. Many a structural formation, invention and discovery came to the fore that had been mind boggling. By focusing on these advancements, man is going to think beyond to be a man. However, he has to be a human yet. Somewhere he seems behind animals. As human intellectual growth is limited to few and far between so it takes time to reach to a wide circle of people. As a new concept makes its way to the masses, another new idea replaces it. Thus human intellectual development and its transformation take place and travels further. The travelling of minority of ideas advances towards majority of thinking. Man is consistent in his doings in future direction and his untiring attitude leads him further. It revolves around his aspiration and inspiration. As the aspiration shifts into greed and ambition it gathers negative potential. It distorts his real image and the things become worse. All of the intellectual achievement or development is shared mostly through a language. A language is a wonderful cognitive bestowal which enables human being to be distinct from the other animals. Allah has created human being and taught him how to express, speak or narrate.

There are many proposed definitions of language. Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language scholar, said: “Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.” The American linguists Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager formulated this definition: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.”  Such definitions of language make a number of presuppositions and beg a number of questions. The language remains complicated yet. Some others tag a language as “the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture.” Some call it “a system of communication used by a particular country or community.”

Language-Linguistic-Society-2Language is a beautiful phenomenon of human life because it is means of the expression human self, human communication and the cultural identity.  In this way language has three major roles. They are; to express inner self, to communicate with the people knowing the same language and to observe cultural identity through language. A language is a verbatim of human concepts and ideas. It becomes easy in documentation when it gets a writing system. The writing system attempts to transform the images of concepts and ideas in set symbols. The writing system has a long historical journey too. People preserve their languages in their thinking process and cultural mosaic. In this way they transfer their linguistic heritage through verbal heritage until the development of its script or writing system. All the languages are spoken items firstly and then they move ahead towards documentation in black and white after development of writing system. Some languages get official patronage and flourish than the other contemporary languages. It is another point that the language greased by the market suppresses other languages and its speakers pose as superior to others. Such influx of power inculcates feelings of inferiority and superiority among people. Resultantly people abandon their own languages. It concludes in the death of any language and strengthens deculturization process. Aware societies strive for their survival.

History of the grammar development is very much old in language process. People have tried to study the language, the rules of language, the derivative system of language, the progression, refinement, forgetting, and destruction of language. From the ancient grammar of Panini to the universal grammar of Noam Chomsky, there is vast history of language studies. The study has reached to the scientific study of language called linguistics. It is studied the sound system of the language, writing symbols for the sounds, grammatical structures and study of meaning system of words through the linguistics. The linguist, by using the scientific methods, try to teach the processes of phonemes, morphemes, words, sentences, structural dynamics and internal potential or meaning of words. All the process takes place in the complicated domain of life. None takes place beyond to reason in this process. Different concepts and ideas are passed through experimental process as the same may be tested. The whole process starts with the phoneme. “A phoneme is an indivisible unit of sound in a given language. It is a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another in a particular language.” The language is a systematic and dynamic combination of sounds. There is a great importance of linguistics in daily life. People observe their behaviour when they express or narrate anything. They joke and show inner feelings. They keep names according to their thinking process and social context. They express abuse and curse the people. Through all of the processes there emerge many a linguistic points. Besides, there is a great human history in the background of words and sayings formations. The history reveals the pearls of cultures, faiths and the history itself. Through that linguistic process, it is known that how a human being is a human being .How the language is used? How a language functions? How a language emerges, develops during the process and how it becomes obsolete. The linguistics is a diversified, interactive and dynamic study of language. Therefore there is wide range of issues and problems pertaining to the study of linguistics. Further it is divided into different branches as phonology, phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Interdisciplinary of linguistic studies involve two or more academic disciplines which are considered distinct. The most common interdisciplinary branches of linguistics are: Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Ethnolinguistics or Anthropological Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, and Neurolinguistics.

Applied linguistics has a great importance in linguistics.  According to Corder,  “Applied Linguistics is the utilization of the knowledge about the nature of language achieved by linguistic research for the improvement of the efficiency of some practical task in which language is a central component.” According to Schmitt & Celce-Murcia, “Applied Linguistics is using what we know about (a) language, (b) how it is learned, and (c) how it is used, in order to achieve some purpose or solve some problem in the real world”.

Language-Linguistic-Society-3In Sindhi linguistics, there is dearth of research work. The work which is being projected and presented in the name of linguistics focuses on historical and social aspects of the language. Other disciplines of the linguistics are also important and need to be researched. There should be study of fundamentals of the linguistics in the universities and there should be development of the text books in Sindhi for linguistics. These definitions should be purely from the sound system and culture of Sindhi language rather than blind following of the matter written in English. It would enable students, researchers, scholars and common men to use pertinent, exact and better language. The language is training as well because it is a complicated process to be performed by a set frame of organ performance. All the business of language is incomplete without training. To know the linguistics is very necessary for the training of language. If one will not understand the phonetic system, one may feel difficulty in teaching the language as well as the change and distortion in the language. This is the age of media and social media is surpassing the traditional media. There is a viewing process along with the reading and hearing process. There happen many changes and distortions in the language. The study of linguistics is necessary for its understanding. The study of linguistics should be important part of the language planning as there may be arranged properly for the study of linguistics at school, college and university level. Besides it, there is necessary to train the mothers as the infant learns early phonemes from the mother. If there will be no capacity of a primary school teacher and the mother in this regard, then there will be no expert of computer or a linguist able to save the language from its distortion. The language survives and sustains because of its speakers rather than the experts in computer and linguistics only.

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About the Author

Noor Ahmed JanjhiNoor Ahmed Janjhi is a senior educationist based in Desert District Tharparkar of Sindh province. He is author of several books in Sindhi and English on folk literature including two poetry books.

 

 

Rampant Road Accidents in Pakistan Pose Special Challenge

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Rampant Road Accidents in Pakistan Pose Special Challenge
Rampant Road Accidents in Pakistan Pose Special Challenge-1
File Photo

The present situation with regard to road accidents, poses a special challenge in Pakistan as beside poor healthcare system, which is unable to cope with the requirements needed to treat the persons injured in accidents, the authorities concerned as well as the people in general are least prepared to respond to this assault.

By Maria Khushk

Road accidents are a universal issue, as according to data collected through international studies, an estimated 10 million motor vehicle crashes are reported annually worldwide. This is the leading cause of death of people of all ages including adolescents and young adults. Nearly three quarters of deaths resulting from these crashes occur in developing countries. Pakistan is also one of the developing countries in South Asia where the road accidents have registered sharp increase with increased use of motor vehicles.

The road accidents not only put burden on healthcare facilities but also devastate the families. The deaths and injuries are being recognized as one of the important public health challenges.

The present situation with regard to road accidents, poses a special challenge in Pakistan as beside poor healthcare system, which is unable to cope with the requirements needed to treat the persons injured in accidents, the authorities concerned as well as the people in general are least prepared to respond to this assault.

According to the data compiled by Federal Bureau of Statistics, as many as 10779 road accidents were reported during the year 2018-19, of which 4879 accidents were fatal and 5901 were non-fatal. These accidents caused death of 5932 while 13219 people were injured.

The province-wise breakup of data shows that 972 accidents occurred in Sindh during the same year, of which 620 were fatal and 352 non-fatal which killed 725 people and injured 829. The data shows that the number of road accidents in Sindh was less as compared to other provinces but still it is a matter of great concern.

The major reasons for the accidents can be attributed to poor road engineering and deficient road structure, careless driving, lack of road safety awareness, inconsistent and improper law enforcement and unsafe means of pedestrian crossings.

According to my observation, in most of the cases the accidents occur due to the carelessness of drivers be it truck drivers, bus drivers or the drivers of cars and other vehicles. The truck drivers use to drink and drive, and sometimes they drink or use narcotics while driving. It causes many accidents leading them to death but in spite of this other drivers do not get any lesson from it.

They run the truck over on the wrong path or crash with the trees or collide with other vehicles. Similarly, if we examine, the bus drivers mostly overtake the cars and other vehicles and cause the accidents. They are least concerned with the results of rash driving that takes the life of many people. Even they do not have concern of their own family, as perhaps they believe their life is a trash box which has no meaning at all.

Furthermore, a few days back, we watched an unbelievable video which shocked us completely – a five-year boy drove a car by himself all alone for having an ice-cream!

We all have seen such cases wherein under-age boys use to ride a bike or car. If someone gets injured, the parents accuse the government holding it responsible but the question is why the parents allow their children to drive the bike or car? May I ask the parents who is responsible for it?

The dangerous vehicle on the earth is the bike. Teenagers habitually use a bike for one wheeling without helmet for enjoyment; they think, they’re playing but they do not think actually they are playing with their own life. Many young and older people do not like to wear helmet for safety, as they think it is old fashion. I’m an eyewitness to such kind of accident that occurred at Three Sword in Karachi where two bike riders slipped and one of them hit to the footpath. The blood was oozing from his head.

The performance of traffic police is also questionable. Of course, the duty of traffic cops is really tough, but the fact is that they are more concerned with extracting money from violators of traffic rules and allowing them to continue reckless driving rather than controlling the traffic. This happens not only in our cities but also on highways and motorways. The result is obvious – road crashes and loss of precious lives.

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About the Author

Maria Khushk is the M. Phil scholar and author of a book ‘The Cage of Innocence’. She is freelance writer and contributes write-ups on reality and current situation. Her book is compilation of short stories. In her short stories, she thematically focuses on feminism. She belongs to Baloch family, where in previous decades it was quite difficult to pursue education. It’s now the talk of the past decades but from her pen still such stories spill in the form of blood on moony pages.

Admiral Tahliani – A Sindhi who became India’s Naval Chief

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Admiral Tahliani – A Sindhi who became India’s Naval Chief

Admiral Tahliani - A Sindhi who became Indian Naval Chief - Sindh CourierAdmiral Radhakrishna Hariram Tahiliani, a Sindhi hailing from a small village Thatt Bhojraj near Mithiani town of Naushehro Feroze district of Sindh, served as the 11th Chief of the Naval Staff of Indian Navy from December 01, 1984 to November 30, 1987.     

Admiral Tahiliani, who was born in Karachi on 12 May 1930 and passed away on 14 October 2015, had also served as the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief (FOC-IN-C) of the Western Naval Command, FOC-IN-C of the Southern Naval Command and Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet (FOCWF). A carrier-based aircraft pilot, he also served as the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant.

Childhood and Early Education

Although Admiral Tahliani was born in Karachi, his ancestral village was Thatt Bhojraj, located near Mithiani town of district Naushehro Feroze (formerly in Nawabshah district) Sindh. Admiral Tahliani’s grandfather lived in Karachi due to his job in postal department and father Hariram was studying in Karachi.

He got his primary education at his village school. Recalling his childhood days in an interview late Tahliani had said, “I and my cousins often visited our ancestral village. I spent many years at village Thatt Bhojraj and studied at local school where only one teacher used to teach the children. That teacher also served as postman of the village.”

Admiral Tahliani-8“My father had also joined postal department after he completed his education, and was posted in Naushehro Feroze. We lived there for some time, but as my father’s first love was teaching, he quit postal department’s job and joined education department, where he was posted as principal of a school in Tando Allahyar.”

“Since my father had a big family and his salary was low, he also had to quit the teaching to shift to Baroda in Indian much before partition, and joined a business,” Admiral Tahliani told adding that at the time of shifting to Baroda, he was 13 years. He got rest of the education in Baroda, where he was admitted in a missionary school.

The partition didn’t affect his family as they had already shifted to Baroda and lived there in a rented flat. However, they lost their agricultural lands and other property due to partition.

Watch and Listen to Admiral Tahliani’s interview.   

Naval career

Admiral Tahliani - A Sindhi who became Indian Naval Chief - Sindh Courier-1Tahiliani was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 1 September 1950, and was confirmed as a sub-lieutenant on 17 May 1952. He joined the Indian Naval Air Arm and qualified as a pilot for carrier-based aircraft. He is a graduate of the Naval War College, United States and the National Defence College, New Delhi. He also qualified as a test pilot. He was a distinguished graduate of the French Test Pilot School and an outstanding pilot.

Promoted lieutenant-commander on 16 July 1960, he was the first naval pilot to land an aircraft on the deck of INS Vikrant, when he landed his Hawker Sea Hawk fighter on 18 May 1961. He served as a carrier-based strike pilot on board INS Vikrant; following his promotion to captain on 31 December 1970, he commanded its carrier borne squadron during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. His exemplary vision, catapulted the Indian Naval Air Arm to where it is today. He was instrumental in the procurement of the second aircraft carrier INS Viraat along with its fighter complement of Sea Harrier aircraft.

Admiral Tahliani-4Later, he served as the commanding officer of INS Trishul (1960) and INS Vikrant. Promoted to acting Rear Admiral on 30 December 1977, he was appointed Flag Officer, Goa Area, with promotion to substantive rear admiral on 1 February 1978. Later, he was appointed the Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet.

His next appointment was as Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff at Naval Headquarters. This was followed by appointment as the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff. He was promoted to Vice Admiral while in this office.

In February 1982, Tahiliani was appointed the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Southern Naval Command.

In March 1983, he was appointed the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Naval Command. In May 1984, he was appointed the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff.

On 1 December 1984, he took over as the Chief of the Naval Staff of the Indian Navy.

Tahiliani retired from the Indian Navy on 30 November 1987.

Admiral Tahliani-2Awards

Admiral Tahiliani was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal and the Param Vishisht Seva Medal for his distinguished service for 37 years.

Later career

After retirement, Admiral Tahliani didn’t sit idle and engaged himself in social work, for which he founded an organization named as “Servants of the People Society”. After a couple of years, then Prime Minister of India V. P. Singh offered him to be the Governor of Sikkim, which he accepted. Tahiliani served as the Governor of Sikkim from 8 February 1990 to 20 September 1994 when he tendered resignation.

After quitting the office of Governor, he again became active in Servants of People Society. During that time he helped launch the India chapter of Transparency International as a founder member in 1997. He served as the chairman of the India chapter practically from its founding until 2010 and was chairperson of Balvantray Mehta Vidya Bhawan Anguridevi Shersingh, a senior secondary school located in the South District of New Delhi, India.

Tahiliani was elected to the board of Transparency International in 2002.

Admiral Tahliani-3Admiral Tahiliani, while he was chairman of TI India chapter, once had said, “If the political leadership is serious in tackling poverty as it professes, it has to deal with corruption first”.

He was very much outspoken on issue of corruption in India. When the Transparency International released a report about corruption in India, he had said, “This study is not at all surprising as some of the most significant legislations have not yet been passed. The Lok Pal Bill, declaration of assets by politicians, auditing of accounts of political parties, speedy trial of erring politicians, forfeiture of illegally acquired property and many other such legislations are in a limbo.”

Admiral Tahliani - Veena Shringi
Eminent writer and broadcaster Veena Shringi interviewing Admiral Tahliani for All India Radio when he was Chief of Naval Staff of Indian Navy

Personal life

Tahiliani was married to Jaswanti Tahiliani. His wife Ms. Jaswanti Tahliani was equally distinguished as the first female engineer in Mumbai. He is the father of noted Indian fashion designer, Tarun Tahiliani, and executive director of Ensemble India, Tina Tahiliani Parikh.

His son Tarun Tahlianimother, in an interview had jokingly said, “My father, one of the most wonderful men, has got the worst taste. Every time he bought something, even bed sheets, I got nightmares.”

But his mother, he admits, had a great aesthetic eye. “She loved beautiful things and was a model once.” It could be the Sindhi blood in his veins, too.

“Sindhis are generally very shaukeen (fond), you know,” he said.

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Source: Press Information Bureau Ministry of Defence India, India Today, BMVBASMA, Indian Navy Press Release, NDTV, Indian Navy Aviation Press Release, Stratpost, The South Asian and other websites
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