And more reactions:
Prathap Madhav foresees ‘dark days’ for South Asia:
With the loss of Benazir, India lost a valuable partner who has vision to mend ties with India and take her country forward.
Now, Mushraff has no option but to make a deal with former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif.Dark days ahead for Pakistan and for the rest of the South Asia.Only future will tell what’s in store for the security and stability in South Asia.
Apna Avenue, opines that it is a ‘well-planned assassination’.
I found a week-old post by Astral Wicks a particularly useful read now- some excerpts:
Linked by kuffir. Join Blogbharti facebook group.This past week Fatima Bhutto has been knocking on all liberal doors. Read an article by Fatima Bhutto about the status of Pakistan post the imposition of emergency by Musharaf. A poet, activist, she wrote lucidly about the affairs of the state or non-state that is in turmoil. Benazir touted to be the only alternative to Musharaf has some serious dirty linen. The neice also accuses her aunt of hijacking the democracy platform with her accent, American support and excellent media management. Possible in today’s democracy or despotism. [...]
Can you be pro-democracy and be bad for your country/state/family? Of course you can. The Pakistan President by promulgating a new ordinance has annulled all cases that Benazir was charged with. She gets special treatment to voice her displasure with the present (mis) government. None others do. And we smell a fish here.
Who represents the new opposition in Pakistan? Who is ready to take on the general, his cronies in all shapes and sizes and forge a new alliance? An alliance of what?[...] When every attempt at ushering liberal secural values is crushed under one pretext or other, sometimes by the military, the police, the state machinery, the polity must foster an alliance on a greater Ideal. Musharaf has given a great chance that way to a generation of Pakistanis. What that Ideal is…can and should be defined by only the Pakistanis…not its military, its police, its generals, Americans, Indians, intelligentsia, media.
Madhav seems to have been taken in by the liberal image of Benazir Bhutto that our media has been trying to project, primarily because she studied in the UK! They do not remember that the Taliban were created when she was the PM, and that she was a willing instrument of Pakistan’s destructive policy towards India, using Islamic terrorism.
I will not be surprised if our media soon discover that Jinnah was India’s best friend too. After all he studied in the UK and was a pork eating, whiskey-swigging, Saville Row suited gentleman, just the kind that our media love to call liberal!
Hi Vinod,
I do agree to your views but I was only thinking what is best for India. People change with times. Remember Advani praising Jinnah ?? Have we ever expected that to happen ?
I was of the view that Benazir is the best person whom we can deal with as Mushraff doesn’t have public support and Nawaz Sharif is more close with the right wing parties.
To be a successful Pakistani politician, they got to be Anti-India. If not, they should be ready writing their obituaries.
Regards,
Madhav
Hi Madhav,
You hit the head. Yes, they got to be anti Indian. The question people don’t like to answer is: Why?
There lies the answer in many disturbing layers.It is comfortable pretending that it does not exist.So, you look for ‘liberals’, the kind that live in you make-believe world, to gloss over disturbing reality which, if confronted squarely, will make you sound quite like the realistic hard liners whom you loathe!
Look, much has been made of Advani’s remarks on Jinnah, made during a visit to Pakistan, at his mausoleum. Surely that is what decent protocol demands.Nothing earth shaking need to have been read into it. In fact, if you read Jinnah’s complete address to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly in August 1947, you would not be wrong in concluding, for most part, that those could have been the words of Mahatma Gandhi or Nehru! If anything, that speech should be adopted as the very foundation of a new Pakistan, if the country has to have any real chance of being brought back from the brink. You can find relevant portions of the same under the label ‘jinnah’ at http://www.vinodksharma.blogspot.com
No matter who is in power in the Pakistan of today, doing business is going to be tough and almost impossible. You have yourself stated why!