Losing a Secular, Godfather-Guardian By Frank Huzur

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Frostie

He was a man with a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. He was the kingfish of literature. Like Voltaire, he was the original enlightenment writer of Indian milieu.

To lose a lodestar is a beautiful accident in the fleeting celebration of skyfall. But to lose a guiding spirit is a tragedy for one and all. For me, the departure of a classic chaperone in Rajendra Yadav is as good as a ship steaming out of harbor. Then when was the ship built for the harbor even when it safe there. We all are destined to sail in the sunset one way or the other but we all are not as destined to light the lamp of thoughts, ideas, logic and reason in our twilight. Rajendra Yadav might have become antagonist for his detractors who saw in him a monolithic fountain who sired a great tribe of writers and thinkers from the margins of society, thereby, demolishing iron curtain of feudalism in popular culture and literature. For me and tens of thousands the ‘Tin Godesque’ protagonist was the fulcrum of life around whom revolved the wagon wheel of secular and subaltern discourse. Before he kissed the classic arrows of his last nicotine breath, he had ploughed the lonely furrow for 28 summers and turned Munshi Premchand’s vehicle of new idea and socialist discourse, Hans, into a heritage literary magazine. A magazine that could easily compete with the class and chutzpah and colour of Western literary bible, such as Granta of Britain and New Yorker of the United States!

Almost twenty fours ahead of his fatal fall to the respiratory attack, precipitated by a heightening sense of anxiety over the past couple of months, I have had a brief talk with him over telephone from Mumbai. As always, there was the same liveliest effusion of wit and humour in his baritone booming into my ear. Strain of the same naughty chuckle was tugging at the ear-lobe as if the lion was roaring. Effervescence and flamboyance in his persona was dripping through his confident tone and tenor. There was more expectation and little exhaustion. As if he was loitering in his lustful pursuits of free life!

I informed him about posting of a new picture in sepia tone of him on Facebook, which shows his tousled hair and shining head in bouts of contemplation while columns of smoke waft like charcoal drops of cloud around his stellar back revolving chair and square deodar wood table pregnant with piles of story-spread, perched firmly in the Spartan sanctum sanctorum of Hans office in Dariya Ganj on the edge of walled city and Lutyen’s Delhi.

Rajendra Yadav in his 85th season of spring and autumn was not an old man. Nobody could claim that he was the mumbling old man, saddled by demon. For you and me, us and them, literary giant who pioneered the new wave literary movement in early decades of India’s independence was a pathfinder. He was full of optimism and hope and had special penchant for sarcasm and wit. If at all he was saddled by some poisoned chalice of demon that was zest for spreading the sparks of his enlightened secular fundamentalism through his most-sought after editorial commentary of modern India. If at all he was besieged by the demon of any kind, the storyteller was in the siege of telling another mesmerizing tales of smile and tear, ghost and god, hope and fear, love and lust, faith and betrayal, passion and fashion.

It was 3 o’clock in the misty Mumbai morning when I jerked out of the bed to read a Facebook message from a literary lensman Bharat Tiway. A groggy look at few words declaring the unthinkable, ‘sir nahi rahe (sir has departed for his heavenly abode) left me disbelieving for a moment or so before I could rush out after a hasty shower to board the first available flight to New Delhi. But the tunnel of my eyes bathed me in river of tearful sorrow. Needless to say there was a sudden surge of emptiness within. Even after a fortnight I am not able to reconcile to the truth that the ‘light’ has went out of my life.

Nevertheless, I feel at ease when some sacred sentiments of Rajendra Yadav echo in my heart. Here was the giant, who despised mourning and sorrow. He would often say, “Anxiety is the cancer of heart. Sorrowful state is one thing and to celebrate sorrow with more sorrow is cowardice and stupidity. I want people to celebrate my departure with smile, not tears. A death is an opportunity just as life is. Opportunity is not mourned.”

He led such a life that when he died a vast crowd of people worldwide, from President of India Pranab Mukherjee to popular peace campaigner Tommy Schmitz in Ohio of America, readers and admirers, did mourn him and while he was alive a vast sea of humanity, from jungle of Bastar to fertile fields of Punjab and Hindi heartlands longed for his company.

It was the summer afternoon of 13 May 2000. My maiden rendezvous with Rajendra sahib could take place due to graciousness of filmmaker Anwar Jamal, an avant garde filmmaker of ‘Swaraj’ fame. I was wandering in search of literary and journalistic moorings at the time. All of 23 years of age in the millennium year I was wrestling with quantum of challenges after the controversial ban on my virgin drama, Hitler in Love with Madonna. Much before the play could be mounted on stage, it was dismantled by the Hindu College authorities at the behest of the then BJP-led NDA government because one of the protagonists in the play was modeled with implicit giveaways on the then Union Home Minister and mascot of resurgent and militant Hindutva, L.K. Advani. Lusting solidarity with the secular sentinels of New Delhi, I was face to face with ‘Voltaire’ of modern India’s socio-cultural and political discourse. Sitting across him and separated by mountain of loose story sheets, I could experience the enchantment. The swishing drag of his burning smoke pipe, as he listened to me in rapt attention before breaking into a conversation, was akin to harvesting my imagination.

More than his short stories and contemporary classical novel like Saara Akash, Rajendra Yadav’s philosophical discourse fascinated me. It was equally true for tens of millions others across India. He was a brave heart commentator who had the audacity to bear any kind of consequences for his thoughts and actions. I could recall vividly how unfortunate it was for him to experience a barrage of hate mail and communal onslaught, not to mention the credible threat to his life, for writing, ‘Ravan ke darbar mei Hanuman ek aatankwadi tha jaise ki Angrezo ke darbar mei Bhagat Singh dahshatgard tha (Hanuman was a terrorist in the court of Ravana just like Bhagat Singh was a terrorist in the court of British Raj). The controversy took the literature world by storm, creating dangerous fissures of communal and caste polarization. Then, he was always a polarizing figure.

Vedic custodians of obscurantist mythological fortresses dubbed him as a ‘hate figure’ and continued to ridicule him with barbwires invectives. So much so that his fast friend of many decades and country’s leading literary critic Namwar Singh had the cheeks to growl and frown in public, ‘Hans Kauwa ban gaya hai. (Hans-the swan-has become a crow now). Rain or shine, Rajendra was unafraid in his solidarity with the hapless dreamers of his rainbow society. He would not let literary oligarchy to rest in peace and carried on assault over the sacred scriptures and ivory towers of Brahmanical doctrine.
Like tens of millions across India, I would simply marvel at his iconoclastic, yet mystic illumination. Like a Noam Chomsky of the first world, he was lethal in his attack on caste-ridden Hindu society and didn’t hesitate to ridicule its discriminatory ethos, apartheid against woman, Dalit and Muslim and others while questioning the ‘society of sin’ over rampant hypocrisy, superstition, and evil customs like honour killings, dowry and foeticide.

There was soul of Jean Paul Sartre and Friedrich Nietzsche in him speaking when he needled fellow god-fearing Indians in another enlightening editorial: Don’t we need religion only in adolescence? After passing the adolescence, an adult doesn’t need religion and God. Both man and woman should stop and think do they really need religion and god. Does a woman need religion and god? Why would she need after being the silent sufferer of tyrannical customs, rites and rituals? So, whether a woman is Dalit or Brahman, she must wage a battle for her emancipation.”

However, he would not impose his rational beliefs over others. His wife for thirty five years, noted novelist and story writer Mannu Bhandari, practiced her religion without fear and favour from her husband and at times he reluctantly participated in the rituals too only to keep her in good humour.

In many spheres of his life, he was a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist. But he never underestimated the power of others, old or young, to outsmart him in his own turf. He dared to doubt his own conviction ahead of winning the war of wits against his counterparts. Just as British philosopher Bertrand Russell led the British “revolt against idealism” in the early 20th century and Voltaire enlightened the French with his anti-establishment and anti-Church discourse, Rajendra Yadav led the charge of subaltern voices of resistance against the dominance of upper-caste Brahmanical fortress. As a result of his relentless crusade, quite a great number of thought leaders, including Ajay Nawaria and Sheeba Aslam Fehmi, emerged on the social and cultural firmament of India to hold his baton aloft. Hans and his own world became a nursery for grooming thought and opinion leaders, not to speak of storytellers.

At a time when the opportunity to publish and propagate was like eating peanut butter and jelly for the upper reaches caste Hindus, notably Brahmans, he stepped in with his giant-like-shadow to corner them. His phenomenal versatility democratized the literary horizon. For Dalit and Muslim writers along with a large segment of Other Backward Class, it was a golden opportunity of lifetime. It was the same segment which was also squirming in its shell to grab the political space from their Brahminist lords. In the toil and tumult of ‘90s, politics of identity was shaping the agenda and ideology of India’s marginalized majority. As if to answer the providential call, Rajendra became the literary lamppost around which all the moths were attracted only to glitter in more grace and luminosity. In the post-Mandal era of politics, some commentators hail him, little wonder, as the Vishwanath Pratap Singh of Indian literature. While there are some who claim he is the soul of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Kanshi Ram in his free-thinking attributes.

By all means, Rajendra Yadav demonstrated exemplary swagger in his solidarity with subaltern writers. With poise and power in the spectrum of pride and performance, he would virtually mock at the narrow prism of hereditary upper castes. About my needling him for his views on persecution of OBCs, Dalit, Muslims and decline of Buddhism, he would say, “It’s like state-sponsored terrorist attacks. Just as state uses terrorism to advance its own interests, devil advocates of Brahmanical doctrine have sponsored attacks on all aspects of non-Brahman castes and communities in India. Towards the end of previous century, the communalization of politics directed its war for hegemony against Muslims of all denominations even though persecution of dalits and other marginalized communities go on unabated.”

He was radical for his times. Indeed, he was an atheist. In course of decade-old association, he became a secular god father and guardian for me and million others. There was a tremendous power of persuasion in him. Both for friends as well as foes, he would reserve his best to floor them with some classical surprises up his sleeve. I could remember how much firm was his faith in the ability of a farmer and an outlaw who came into contact with him. He would urge them to write their experiences in a story form. In his view, there was a story inside each one of us, whether one is an unlettered folk or a doctorate. Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, Bihar strongman and five-time member of Parliament, could script his story in autobiographical format only due to massive push of Rajendra Yadav. His memoir, Drohkal ke Pathik, became a publishing reality on account of Rajendra saheb’s keen interest in thrilling story of a non-Brahman backward boy fighting fascism and domination of upper caste bullies in north Bihar.

Rajendra Yadav became the fulcrum of my life after I surfaced before him with Mukta Singh after the dramatic elopement on 9 July 2002. He could sniff the sense of insecurity out of our adventure and was generous in extending warm welcome. There was magnanimity in his promise and hope. I told him, “We have burnt bridges in the course of breaking caste barriers for consummating the brief, shining romance. I could dare to dream of the unorthodox ways of choosing a companion only under the spell of his combatant opinions.” He would tell us, “You are not the only pair. Several adventurers of love and lust have entered my life and each one of them deserves respect and support. Chitra Mudgal also belonged to the same tribe of elopers.”

Since then we would become a doting member of his inner world. And he accorded a pride of place to both of us. In a period over a decade, birthday after birthday on 28 August and annual event of discourse to mark Munshi Premchand’s Birth anniversary on 31 July, I along with Mukta would be present in flesh and blood to soak in the remarkable occasion. When I rechristened my name from Manoz Khan to Frank Huzur while rechristening Mukta to Fermina, he was quite amused. So much so that he mocked my decision and accused me of copying the name of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s heroine in epic novel, Love in Time of Cholera. Are you imposing your silly choice and decision upon the poor girl? Why don’t you let her remain what she is, Mukta? You are free to conduct name-changing ceremony umpteenth times but you become a despot in your demeanour when you are condemning the woman to your eccentricities.”

He would never want a woman to remain meek and week. He never approved of Hamlet’s famous statement, Frailty thy name is woman. Whatever it would take for him to shape the destiny of anyone in his affinity, he would go out of way to inject into her all the ingredients of guts, grind, and gallantry. Rajendra Yadav taught his woman to be fire-eating, stout-hearted lioness. Women of all social and cultural segments befriended him like Casanova befriended his ladies. However, Rajendra Yadav would not treat each of them as his ‘Dora Black.’ He became friend to some, guide to some more and father-like support system to many others. But not all were fair to him as he would go on courting many beauties like a playboy of the Western world. There was a faint edge of Mario Puzo’s don Veto Corleone and especially the marquee resemblance with Marlon Brando in his high cheekbones and glowing skin bathed in the extra virgin olive oil. And, that was a temptation for many butterflies down the decades of his life. But he was not a Don Juan as some would have us believe so with many tales of adultery. His scruple for conducting a beautiful relationship even outside marriage was superbly crafted in moral cannons.

As a matter of fact, his philosophy underlines his detachment with the family to an extent he actually appears to reject the institution of family altogether. Nonetheless, he was a doting father inside his incendiary heart to his loving daughter, Rachna Yadav Khanna, an exponent of Kathak who happily settled with an ace thematic photographer Dinesh Khanna, a bristling bearded roving storyteller with his lens.

As much as I could gather, his women of imagination were as ordinary and mortal, fragile and vulnerable as many bees in his own bonnets. But here was the man who turned them into women of substance. Glorious outspokenness was his gift to docile, saree-clad, bindi-sporting housewife who thronged him in quest of new pastures. Especially, women belonging to the margins who could have remained unsung cog in the wheels of feudal persecution complex found in him an oarsman. Like a master sculptor he sculpted the edifice of their mind and heart. He would say, “Longings of a woman are about identity and freedom whereas longings of man are about lust, ambition and domination. For the woman to taste the fruits of freedom she should liberate herself first from her body.”

When the Almighty has produced you ‘naked under the sun’ whatever you do thereafter the birth, right from shaving the beard to cutting the nails, is in direct violation of the religion and God’s commandment. But the man and woman are endowed since their ‘in-the-buff birth’ with the mental faculty to invent ways and means to finish the unfinished agenda of ‘God.’ Like a lion-hearted opinion maker, he wrote in the editorial of November 1988, Meri Teri Uski Baat, Hans, about raging controversy of The Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie. True to his smart ass, bold and brassy flair, he ridiculed self-styled orthodox Islamist intellectual like Syed Sahabuddin who was pandering to the gallery of Muslims, caught in the warp and weft of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khoemeni. The reluctant politician, Rajeev Gandhi, was Prime Minister at the time after tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi. Religion dies before the caste and caste further melts into the big pot of market juggernaut. He opined in his famed editorial of November, 2007. He would not like us to resign to the will of God. Because, surrender to the silent deity of stone and mud, in his view, was not the cure of disease of mind.

He was a prominent anti-war activist. He championed anti-imperialism. Even though he couldn’t go to prison for his pacifism during China and Pakistan wars and Emergency days, he was campaigning against dictatorial ways of Indira Gandhi just as he rebelled against ways of Adolf Hitler in his teen years. Even when a score of his fellow writers were crawling before corporate halo of Gujarat Chief Minister-turned-Prime Minister hopeful of the BJP, Rajendra Yadav boycotted Amitabh Bachchan in a public show only for the marquee star’s endorsement of ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ campaign.

His love affair with Marxism continued into his eight decade but he was always wary of Stalinist totalitarianism clouding Indian communists psyche. Still later, he was disenchanted with the sight and sound of communist movement and believed that socialist movement under Akhilesh Yadav and his wrestler father Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik has crushed the spirit of communist footsoldier in northern heartlands of country.

Besides, lifelong he remained an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament while his opposition to United States involvement in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan was inspired more by reason than rhetoric. When I was visiting Pakistan in search of credible political narratives about Imran Khan, legendary cricketer-turned-politician, he would exhort me to keep an eye on social and cultural ethos of people of Pakistan in face of growing intolerance and fundamentalism. In November 2009 upon my return from Lahore, he was pivotal in pushing me to write a ‘Pakistan Diary’ for benefits of Indian readers, who in his enlightened opinion, are offered only ‘jingoistic war cry’ to rev up war hysteria. He was in agreement with my view that Wagah Border is the Berlin wall of South Asia and sooner or later the wall would crumble under the tearful flood of humanists from both sides of the divide.

Not many characters come to mind when I think about vivacity and zest for good life. Rajendra Yadav was epitome of good taste and good life. While I was in London during the winter of 2011 and wandering into streets of whorehouses of Soho, he would banter like a boy over phone. After my encounter with a porn star in sex district of London, I wrote a diary. It was published online on the portal of Sarokar run by author-activist Rakesh Kumar Singh. Later, Rajendra sahib liked it so much that he thought it was a suitable narrative for sharing it with readers of Hans. If I could attempt to write in Hindustani, it would only be attributed to his spurring.

Rajendra Yadav continues to light the soul and lift the spirit of his readers, admirers, and friend-foe alike. Sometimes, shadows are more powerful than the sunshine. In Latin America, especially in Mexico, people celebrate a ritual called Dia de Muertos. This ritual is about honouring the dead with festival and lively celebrations. Mexicans believe that the dead would be insulted by mourning or sadness. Dia de Muertos celebrates the lives of the deceased with food, drink, parties, and activities the dead enjoyed in life. Recognising death as a natural part of human experience, a continuum with birth, childhood and growing up to become a contributing member of the community. Rajendra sahib always believed in the same spirit of Latin Americans as he would exhort us to be like them after he departs the scene in blood and flesh. For he shall ever be present in spirit and soul. Yet, I feel orphaned after losing my secular, godfather guardian.

CHARIOT OF HOPE—CYCLE OF CHANGE

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Catherine Balavage

The Young Indian Socialist on Wheels

By Frank Huzur in Lucknow-Kanpur –Indian heartland.

Charisma is a sparkle in people that money can’t buy. It’s an invisible energy with visible effects.”

— Marianne Williamson

He may not be Harrison Ford. But he is surely James Dean. The rebel with a cause for socialist celebre! And, his name is Akhilesh Yadav, the young Indian socialist titan who is charioting the revolutionary socialist wheels on dusty roads of India’s largest population province of Uttar Pradesh.

Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British sports drama film. It is a story of two athletes who compete in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddel, a devout Scottish Christian runs for the glory of God and Harold Abrahams, a British Jew runs to bury the wheels of prejudice and discrimination. The film surprised critics by winning seven Academy Awards. Little wonder, Chariots of Fire, has become 19th most famous film in the British Film Institute’s list of top 100 British films in history of cinema. For those who have liking for poetic justice, the title of the film was inspired by the poem of William Blake, Bring me my chariot of Fire! It is the same Blake whose prophetic poetry and painting shaped the imagination of boys and girls of the Romantic Age in London of eighteenth century.

Blake’s verses were tickling my senses to cast a glance at the wheel of a chariot in heart of Lucknow, the Capital of Uttar Pradesh where I had chosen to be in search of witnessing a history of earthly colours. Lucknow is seat of erstwhile Persian glory and could easily qualify as Lahore of northern India in etiquette and courtly reputation.

Politics of Chariot in India has a prophetic tryst. People remember the rolling of one chariot of fire in winter of 1990 which ended up fanning the flames of hatred against about 200 million Muslims of India. That was L K Advani-led Chariot which had a Muslim driver but it ended engineering blood-thirsty hatred against Muslims across the country. It is a nightmare of post-Independent politics of India. About three years ago, India’s socialist titan, Mualayam Singh Yadav had undertaken a chariot journey of socialist orientation and it had stormed the villages and towns and triggered a string of idioms of resistance and protest politics. So much so that Advani had no hesitation in emulating it with his own discriminatory dose of chalk and cheese. Fear and anguish was hanging in the air of every Muslim homes of Indian nation. Hundreds perished in the communal frenzy. Politics is a blood sport.

It is sunny September morning on 12 September 2011. Painting the socialist country red is the blast of exuberant cries of ‘Hail Socialism’ on smiling and shouting faces of young and old alike. The reason for the congregation of a large number of young men and women is the inauguration of a motorised socialist chariot journey, Kraanti Rath Yatra, the charioteer of which is a young socialist icon, Akhilesh Yadav. Just as the average height as Rahul Gandhi is, ashen faced and robust in his expression of smile and satisfaction, Akhilesh alias Tipu breezes past the swarming crowd. When I cast a glance at the chariot of socialist revolution it is glimmering in blood-red hues of miniature designs of cycle after cycle on the rectangle floor of the motor bus. Here is the tech-savvy socialist. A quick glance reveals his fancy for state-of-art public address system staring into the crowd on hoot of the motor bus. So is the sight of the music box belting out socialist songs cut to the beat and rhythm of Bollywood music. The interior of the sophisticated chariot is pulsating with plasma screen, laptop tuned into internet dongles manned by his acolytes VJ Chauhan, Anurag Saxena, Rahul Bhasin, Naved Siddique, a Radio Jockey and Gazendar Singh and others, deluxe sofas for reclining in peace, toilet on wheels and the hydraulic lift to catapult the socialist icon on the metal roof of the rath as and when the campaign stops.

Chariots are central to Indian and also Persian mythology. Most of the gods in the pantheon can be seen riding them. The Sanskrit word for a chariot is Ratha, a collective ‘reth’ to a Proto-Indo-European word ‘roto’ for ‘wheel’ that also resulted in Latin rota and is also known from Germanic, Celtic and Baltic.

A huge mass of crowds, with red cap sitting prettily on their skull and red and green socialist flags with picture of socialist Patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav fluttering out of the slim bamboo staff in their hands, are cheering the young socialist Akhilesh Yadav on the green lawns of Socialist Party headquarters: 19, Vikramaditya Marg, less than kilometre of the residence of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, 5-Kalidas Marg.

The young socialist smiles and waves his right hands in acknowledgement of the cheering crowd.

In the middle of September 1987, his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav who was just a member of state legislature at the time with penchant for street fighting for the cause of poor Indian peasantry, had sowed the seeds of revolutionary socialism through his debutant journey on wheels. Chaudhary Charan Singh, ex-Prime Minister of India addressed Mulayam Singh as ‘Little Napoleon’ of India. A couple of years later, he would be sworn in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh when Rajeev Gandhi would lose power to Vishwanath Pratap Singh in New Delhi for the hot seat of Prime Minister. The young son who is less than forty years of age and younger to Congress crown prince Rahul Gandhi, is being egged on by socialist stalwarts, Mohan Singh, Braj Bhushan Tiwari, Azam Khan and his uncle Shivpal Singh and patriarch father Mulayam Singh, to repeat the historical act of overthrowing the ruling party and pave the way for return of Samajwadi Party (Socialist) to power in Lucknow.

Just as Mulayam Singh Yadav flagged off the Kraanti Rath for the first round of three-day roll around 150 km stretch circling textile town of Kanpur, Unnao and strings of rural townships, the bugle of transferring the rein to young socialist ahead of crucial 2012 springtime Assembly elections is also sounded. Akhilesh knows the heavy weight of expectations and responsibilities thrust on his shoulders. He has done it in the past when he left Sydney after securing a master’s degree in environment engineering to learn the ideals and principles of socialism walking the dusty village roads, fields of paddy and wheat and orchards of mangoes in the province. Today, he is a member of Indian Parliament in lower house, House of Commons, Lok Sabha from Kannauj and is also the president of State Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. His baptism in national politics is over a decade old since 1999 debut. Hardly any village is left to tread for the young man where he has not left his footprint as he has cycled over thousand kilometres in search of joy and sorrow of the ordinary folks.

The cycle atop his sports utility vehicle Pajero follows the motorised chariot. The cycle is the symbol of Indian socialist party, the weapon of change for Akhilesh who cycles out of much passion and determination while exhorting hundreds of young workers to set the pace alongside him.

The chariot on wheels roll past the stone memorials of Dalit icons, including statues of serving chief minister Maywati who is fighting the swelling armies of disenchanted people in the province over charges of monstrous corruption. Her discredited regime further swells the size of crowd on roadside waiting to welcome the chariot of young socialist politician. A caravan of young biker is speeding ahead of the chariot, screaming in delightful renting of socialist slogans. It is quite a spectacle with young boys looking spirited in their moment of reckoning as their red cap shimmers in the shining September Sun.

One of the first stops of Akhilesh is just in front of the Ambedkar Park housing hundreds of elephants in stone. The Elephant Castle! He emerges on the top of the roof through hydraulic lift to the wild cheers of the crowd. Some pelts marigold and rose on him in greeting as others are dancing in the middle of the road to the beat of socialist songs. The red cap is adorning the crown of young socialist. He breaks into his cry for the revolutionary change.

Revolution is a noun in the part of speech. It is different from rebellion. It is neither debacle nor uprising. A rebellion is open resistance to a government or authority whereas revolution is a rebellion that succeeds in overthrowing the government and establishing a new one. The young socialist is wheeling on his chariot for revolution.

He roars, “I want you all, brothers and sisters, to overthrow the corrupt, ego-maniac and stone-hearted regime of Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). She takes pride in being a daughter of Dalit. Does she bother about the miserable plight of her Dalit sisters when she sends her private jet to bring sandals from Bombay? A dalit girl is victim of rape every hour in the province yet she lives in luxury and pomp. Nowhere in the world does any politician order erection of their own statue but she has the audacity to get herself sculpted in her lifetime. Forget her own sculpture she has wasted your hard-earned money in sculpting over 2000 elephants, each elephant statue costing 10 million rupees!”

The crowd cheers in rising crescendo. Old men and women stares into him to steal a glimpse of the young man. The caravan moves ahead to reiterate the pledge at the next stop which is not more than a kilometre away. Hundreds of people go on walking up and down in the front and the back of the chariot, making it crawl-like-cockroach at a snail’s pace. The socialist songs blaring out of the record keeps the marching socialist supporters in high spirit. A vast crowd of young boys and girls trailing before the young socialist are not walking without any reasons. The previous socialist governments under Mulayam Singh was disbursing unemployment allowance to young boys and girls and also offering special incentives to young girls. It is called ‘Kanya Vidhya Dhan (Special fund for Girls’ education) and unemployment allowance to jobless youths. There is special yearning for the same amongst majority of youth because the Mayawati government scrapped the social welfare programme out of discriminatory prejudice.

I can relate the marching columns of socialist caravan with the Long March of Pakistani lawyers under the leadership of chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. Imran Khan, playboy-turned-politician had turned the light brigade in Pakistan at the time. The once deposed chief justice had taken the country by storm through his more than one Long Marches from Lahore to Islamabad and Khyber to Karachi while galvanising around tens of thousands of lawyers to rally around him against military regime of General Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf was a dictator loved and hated in equal proportion in his country. The ruling head of Uttar Pradesh is widely perceived in democratic polity as a dictator with much contempt for democratic transparency in her functioning.

Indeed, Akhilesh feels divinely inspired when he hops over his cycle or he is running to shakes hand with surging crowd of supporters. He is a fitness fanatic and his lithe, urbane disposition makes him agile like an athlete as other workers struggle to catch up with his pace. There is a spring in his steps.

He would tell me, “I believe that I am born with a divine purpose. I am fast, and when I run, I feel divinity presence in propelling my pleasure walk.”

The years of dedication and training are paying the dividends. Socialist ideals and principles hang around his neck like a millstone. He grew up watching his patriarch socialist father whenever he could catch up with him during summer and winter vacations in Saifai green meadows, mingling with peasants, labourers and poor city folks like his near and dears. His father is elder statesman of Indian socialist politics. A man for all seasons! He follows his conscience. He renew his strength by taking a quick nap on the campaign trails and then springs back to his steps to mount up a fresh charge as if he were mounting up with wings as eagles. He runs and never feels weary. He walk and never faint.

When a young adolescent or pre-adolescent child appears near his shoulder, he raises his right and left hand to pat the back and shoulder of the young boys like an elder brother. Quite a good number of them are awestruck about the glistening walls of the chariot whereas others are charged up to touch him just as hundreds of thousands appear to touch the apron strings of Sonia Gandhi and her crown prince Rahul Gandhi in the dust swirls of heartland villages.

Akhilesh Yadav is a clear favourite in province of Uttar Pradesh to lead and he beats Rahul Gandhi phenomenon by a long mile in popularity. The young socialist exudes confidence when he says, “I think about smiles and tears of my people every single day. I spend three hundred days in villages and towns of Uttar Pradesh whereas Rahul ji only visits for 60-65 days. Still later, I wish Rahul Gandhi succeed in doing something remarkable for the people. I want him to perform better. I’ve respect for him.”

Rahul phenomenon has been much of a widely televised spectacle as and when scion of the Gandhi dynasty ventured to read the pulse of people. Whether the spectacle included spending the night on string cot of a Dalit woman or claiming in fury of Bhatta Parsaul on the fringe of Delhi that women were raped and molested with dozens of poor buried in bone fry of ash stones! The corporate Indian media has not been equally benevolent with the socialist icon. Like his Prime Minister father Rajeev Gandhi, Rahul also comes across as a reluctant politician and has struggled to floor the audience with hypnotising public address. Even the Wikileaks cable reveals Rahul doesn’t enjoy public meetings. However, sincerity does ooze in his talk but that is not enough to sway the masses which demands theatrics and rhetoric laced with witty remarks and pungent humour.

When the socialist chariot wheels into textile city of Kanpur cantonment, the young socialist is swarmed by hundreds of thousands of Muslim men and women. A bunch of bouquet and wheel-size rose and tulip and marigold garland are furled in the air. Some land on the target, ashen-neck of the young socialist whereas some fall flat on the glittering roof of the motor chariot.

The state of Uttar Pradesh boasts of 22 per cent of Muslim population. There are as many as 150 constituencies out of 403-strong UP Assembly which is under the direct influence of Muslim voters who only decide whom to send to the floor of the Assembly. For over past two decades and especially after the demolition of Babri Mosque by army of fanatic and militant Hindutva workers under direct insinuation of the then BJP-led government, Muslims of not only Uttar Pradesh (Northern Province) but also the rest of India have felt safe and sound under the wings of socialist patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. Kalyan Singh was the chieftain of the communal BJP government, who acted on sly in demolition of the Babri Masjid whereas the New Delhi central government was headed by PV Narsimha Rao, only the first non-Gandhi family Prime Minister to complete the full tenure.

It is worth mentioning that the Socialist Party of India-Samawadi Party was founded a month ahead of the demolition of the Babri Mosque on 6 December 1992. It was November without rain when the socialists of India gathered together at Hazrat Mahal park in Lucknow to pledge their ambition and aspirations under the charismatic leadership of Mulayam Singh Yadav and others. The Socialism received a new lease of life.

The young socialist in Akhilesh knows it quite well how the politics of his land changed for ever. It was his father who had ordered police firing on the marauding Hindu-caste Kar Sevaks in dying days of October 1990 and thus saved the disputed structure. Mulayam Singh was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at the time. His famous refrain, ‘Koi Parinda bhi par nahi mar payenga’ (I will not allow even a bird to flutter near the dome of Babri Mosque) became the stuff of legend in homes and hearths of Muslim across India. The same constituency of late has been reportedly drifting away from the socialists in mystifying circumstances. The divide and rule doctrine and indeed certain decisions have plagued the solidarity. Even so, emergences of quite a few parties like Peace Party and Ulema Council with Muslim faces who have been walking the Muslim quarters with the lofty ambitions of winning their lost glories are also contributing to pool of confusion in largely neglected and deprived quarters of Muslims. However, the characters heading these groups are alleged to be prop up of Hindu-caste communal and vested groups and they don’t have wherewithal or charisma to guide or lead or for that matter win any seats on their own. At the most, they are prancing in the battlefield only to eat into crucial Muslim votes. So far as any analysis of the delicate pole-position comes to the surface it only indicates a sinister agenda at work to spoil the party of Socialist candidates who are more ideally placed to defend the Muslim homes and hearths.

Are Muslims really drifting away from their once cherished party-Socialist Party of India or Samajwaadi Party? I spoke to Rizwan Solanki and Hasan Roomi in the sprawling and historic Phool Bag, formerly Queen Victoria Garden, ground of Kanpur (Cawnpore) in the simmering afternoon of 13 September. Phool Bag is an historic ground with whoever of little political consequence must conduct their political rituals there as has been established tradition since the British days. Akhilesh Yadav was addressing the huge crowd of cyclists in their red cap and flag fluttering from their handles from atop the roof of the Kraanti Rath. The young socialist was expected to alight from the motorised chariot and join other workers, including local candidates Haji Irfran Solanki and Hasan Roomi on the dais but the dais was uprooted and ransacked in middle of the night by local administration for apparent reasons. Socialists have become habituated of such uncivil interference in Mayawati’s prejudiced regime. Rizwan is a stocky, a little pot-bellied young man in his early twenties. He smiles the smile of an adolescent pregnant with image of a shy boy and tells me, ‘Muslims in Kanpur are socialists. Capitalism or communism doesn’t enchant them. They don’t want to think about any other political formations, let alone Peace Party or whatever. Akhilesh Yadav is our leader and we want him to take on the mantle of Chief Minister after February 2012 Assembly elections.”

Akhilesh disembarked from the deluxe interiors of motorised chariot and leads a team of over thousands of cyclists as he goes on cycling for next twenty three kilometres into heart of Unnao, an industrial district carved out of Kanpur. I see hundreds of cyclists panting and fumbling in the scorching sun, including Irfan Solanki, a UP Legislative Assembly member and a candidate in the elections, but not the young socialist who is unfazed by the heat and dust of the not so handsome roads. He goes on peddling like a pied piper of his socialist army, sweating bucketful of toxic yet smiling like a champion Tour-de France cyclist Lance Armstrong. While the rhythm of race reaches its pace, there are scores of youngsters and old men alike who want to whistle near him and prod the running battery of photographers to shoot a picture for their walls.

When the chariot wheels was dusting down the narrow metalled stretch of Muslim bastion of Miangan, Hasanganj and Hafizabaad in Bangarmau between Unnao and Lucknow borders, the crowd was turning in and out in its instinctive strength to register its presence on both sides of the divide. It was Takia square and I could see the bold letters sculpted into masthead of a stone and cement gate, Ashfaqullah Khan memorial gate. The chariot grinds to halt. Hundreds of thousands clap in chorus and rents the sky with socialist slogan to receive the young socialist Akhilesh Yadav. I get hold of a Muslim gentleman in his forties and ask his name. His skull cap is missing but his flowing beards are neatly hanging down his robust chin. There are wrinkles creasing his forehead. When he smiles, his teeth are a little mashed up to portray the picture of a seasoned community campaigner. He blurts out without further delay-Raes Ahmed. I poke him again and ask him why is he here to welcome the socialist chariot. He told me, “Mulayam Singh Yadav has been saviour to Muslims of India. Now, his son is amongst us. He is more promising in his outlook. Akhilesh is not only a Chief Ministerial material, but he is a Prime Ministerial material. What Mulayam couldn’t achieve in his lifetime his socialist son would achieve. This young man is messianic. He is a deliverer, preserver and redeemer. All of us Muslims believe him and tasted him. He replies to even an ordinary workers’ phone call like his father. There have been numerous occasions when we troubled him in middle of the night and he was not sleeping.”

The chariot of fire and socialist resolve rolls on the village road breezing past small hamlets surrounded by popcorn, wheat and maize fields. I see the young socialist chatting animatedly with his team of young tech-savvy planners and campaigners, most of them are upper-caste Hindu socialists. For long, his father and the party has been criticised in certain urban pockets of Delhi and Bombay for being the party beholden to his own strong agriculturist clan of Yadavas and Muslims, yadavas who share common descent with famous king Porus who won the battle of wits with Alexander the Great in the epic battle on the banks of Sutlez and Indus. This charge might sits pretty with Lalu Prasad in Bihar banks but not with the Socialist comrades in Uttar Pradesh. The social engineering of young socialist is complete and his team has as many members from Brahmin, the priestly and top-of-the-Hindu pyramid as he has from kshatriya, kayasths, traders Vaishyas, Muslims and any other segments, including Dalits and other other segments of society. He knows the art of integration more than Rahul Gandhi. There are more than six thousands divisions in the Hindu-caste fold and each caste has more than hundred divisions in their folds, including the Brahamans.

This is young Indian socialist Akhilesh who knows the soil of his farm lands and can tell with the authority of an agricultural scientist which season will yield what particular variety of crops. His degree in environmental science is of handsome utility to him in his socialist politics and he is making great use of the craft he learnt in Australian University. Farmers are nation builder in his heart and he values their judgement and native wisdom more than anybody else. Like father like son.

(Frank Huzur is an author, poet and playwright. He is biographer of Imran Khan. Imran Versus Imran-The Untold Story is his latest non-fiction. Also view www.frankhuzur.com. He can be contacted at frankhuzur@live.co.uk)

Pakistan’s Flood. When the Indus became the Yellow River of sorrow By Frank Huzur in Islamabad, Pakistan

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Catherine Balavage

Pakistan’s battle fatal Floodwaters

When the Indus became the Yellow River of sorrow

By Frank Huzur in Islamabad, Pakistan

Ahead of preparing to visit Lahore for the seventh time in three years, my mind was occupied with frightening wave of terror attacks experienced during the previous tour in October-November 2009. Quite a good number of tempestuous terror attacks had continued to bedevilled the life on streets of Pakistan in the intervening months. However, I had not anticipated the sudden death to suicide bombing by the rising currents of the Indus and Chenab. That Indus river will become the ‘Yellow river of sorrow’ and wreak havoc and destruction unbearable than that of suicide bombings was inconceivable until floodwaters raged in terminal fury and wrath in the wee hours of 29 July 2010.

In the holy month of Ramadan fasting, millions of Pakistanis running helter skelter for food, water and shelter evokes the ghostly memories of the bloody month of Ramadan 63 years ago in 1947 when largest migration of Hindus and Muslims bloodied the waters of the Indus river.

In New Delhi, I didn’t have the faintest idea of the tempest I would be up, close and personal shortly after landing in Lahore. News trickling in Indian media about the devastating deluge destroying village after village in all the four Pakistan’s provinces didn’t probably have shocking punch of the enormity of the tragedy. The gargantuan scale of the water-borne human tragedy hit me hard soon when my eyes stared into relief camps, which had sprung up nearly at every traffic corner and market square. Whenever my host’s car came to a screeching halt at the red light intersection, young boys and girls began to knock at the windowpanes with a square paper box soliciting for the suffering millions.

I could sniff screaming silence in the air of Lahore. The city was crying in the month of Ramadan. In a swift departure from suicide blasts days, drivers of vehicles were not reluctant to welcome an advancing band of fund-raisers on streets of Lahore for the idea of a terrorist inching closer in the garb of a mendicant or a hawker was blown away in the surge of floodwaters.

In a fortnight of surging floodwaters, stories of displacement and death began to unravel in cruel mathematics of humanitarian disaster of monumental proportion. Civilisation has thrived on banks of the Indus for over 5,000 years. The deluge of August threatens to devour the sanctum sanctorum of the Indus valley civilisation, Mohan Jadero in Sindh. While 30 million people are languishing in agonising despair loss of home and hearth, daughters and brothers, their lamentation has few takers.

Their President was gambolling in the summery breeze of Paris and London, admiring the frescoes of his castle, fobbing off hurled shoes from expatriates and defending his jaunt by claiming his visit in hours of catastrophe brought more publicity and triggered healthy largesse from the international community. People on streets scoff at President’s appeal and call him ‘Nero of Rome.’

There are many tales of pillage and plight floating like the rickety boat on Indus and Chenab. It was chilling to learn of the dilemma of about 50,000 Hindus in Jacobad, Thund, Sultanpur and Khanpur areas of upper Sindh. A band of university boys from Karachi ventured on the rickety boat to discover the pinch hole. Larkana of Bhutto is however safe and sound, and people of Larkana are sheltering displaced Hindus population.

Majority of Hindus live in upper Sindh area and are affluent traders. However, imperiling their affluent existence is the reported increase in kidnapping of young Hindu girls in age group of 10-16 who are compelled to convert to Islam. Some elders of the community grumble their complaint is not registered at the local police station. Similar is the fate of young Christian girls in Punjab.

The mysterious disappearance of young girls and boys are actual cause for concern in the middle of humanitarian disaster. There are precedents of such atrocious missing and skeptics of minority as well as majority community are feeling the pins and needles of restlessness.

The Sikhs of North West Frontier Province are also living in disquietude and despair. The newly christened province of Khyber has won reprieve from booming sounds of suicide and car bombings but the angst of living through bomb blasts has given way to drag of saving their houses, livestock and their women and men. Not less than10,000 Sikhs are bearing the brunt of the catastrophe. Temples and Gurudwaras in Larkana and Peshawar are transformed into rehabilitation camp and community kitchen.

Christians in Punjab are in equal misery. The scale of tragedy has, for once, blurred the religious divide in Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Communities are reaching out to each other in distressing moments.
Nevertheless, millions of those who found themselves homeless and other millions who are still marooned are candid in confessing that they have lost faith in the democratic dispensation of President Zardari. The entire democratic machinery, the elected representatives across the party spectrum, have gone missing. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, popular as Maulana Diesel, who heads the right wing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JuI) is performing Umrah in Jeddah. His detractors frown he is scared of making an appearance in his constituency.

The Taliban of Afghanistan is the creation of madrassas run by Rahman across all provinces in Pakistan. His capacity to raise battalion of fighters is his claim to political importance irrespective of ruling party in Islamabad. He is son of Maulana Mufti Mahmood, former chief minister of Khyber Pakthunwa who had defeated Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the Dera Ismail Khan constituency in the 1970 general elections.

Dir and Swat are the worst-hit in the tribal areas. Swat continues to be cut off from the mainland Pakistan. Landmines and anti-aircraft missiles of terrorists are also flowing in floodwaters downstream from South Waziristan.

The system has crashed. Vivacity in the leadership has gone for a walk and the confidence in the leadership to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of unfortunate population is at its rock bottom. Parliamentarians and provincial legislators of both Pakistan People’s Party and Nawaz Sharif league are afraid of fetching the pump with dirty water. They fear lynching in public should they gather courage to console devastated flood victims.

Umar Khayyam, a Lahore-based advocate and political analyst, sums up the misery of his people. “As the tip of the iceberg continues to swell, the State’s capacity to meet the challenge continues to shrink. To reach out to the people, in a time of crisis, to express solidarity with them while pulling out all the stops in ameliorating their distressed lot is the hallmark of a functional, effective Government. On all these counts the incumbents have failed miserably. While strategic foresight, administrative finesse and political acumen have never been the strengths of the Zardari-led cabal of novices; but never have their failings been exposed as brutally before, as during this dire crisis. Pakistanis are being crunched in the pincer of monstrous calamity coupled with ineffectual and criminally negligent Governmental response. Only a historic and unprecedented aid programme can save millions of imperilled lives, or else Pakistan is all set to plunge into the deepest crisis of its national life.”

It’s anybody guess what the deepest crisis of Pakistan’s national life Umar is pointing at. With the vacuum in leadership right from the onset of the water tragedy, foot-soldiers of extremist organisations have rushed in where angels of Zardari and Sharif are reluctant to tread.

The unprecedented calamity hands Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s dipping stock a much-needed lifeline and an opportunity to redeem itself in the eyes of international community. Hafeez Sayeed receives a major boost, get his cadre swing into action much ahead of the state machinery. The alleged mastermind of Bombay terror attacks, sought by Indian government, floated a new charity organisation, Falah-e-Insaniat to storm the flooded areas.

In a telephonic chat with a popular Pakistani TV channel, when buck-beard Hafeez Sayeed was grilled over the source of funding for his organisation, he raised his voice to boast his funding sources are transparent and regularly audited by professional chartered accountants from Lahore who visit Muridke (headquarters of Jamaat-ud-Dawa on the western outskirts of Lahore) every month. The most wanted terrorist by the New Delhi government also boasted that Jamaat-ul-Dawa’s huge infrastructure and network has beaten all other charities and agencies in bringing relief to the suffering millions.

Hafeez Sayeed is working in tandem with Kidhmat-e-Khalq of Jamaat-e-Islami(JI) in the affected areas.

The New York Times headlined an August 6 article, Hard-Line Islam Fills Void in Flooded Pakistan. The newspaper pondered over the tangibles before sounding the bugle. Hafiz Sayeed is a free man in Pakistan, and he and his boys are saviours for hundreds of thousands of uprooted rural families, from backwaters of Sindh to Balochistan. Even the college students of Punjab University who have volunteered to run relief camps are swearing by the meticulously planned relief efforts of Hafeez’s organisation.

Musha Ghaznavi, 20 years old collegian of Lahore, told me, “Jamaat-ud-Dawa is running community kitchen, medical camp and tarpaulin shelters in over 100 centres across southern Punjab, Sind, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Villagers hail him as protector and benefactor in backwaters of southern Punjab but they also fear his wrath. Mothers lull their crying babies to sleep by chanting in their ears, ‘son, you close your eyes and sleep lest Hafeez Sayeed will appear.”

Leadership vacuum is palpable like the floating rags of poor swept by the bullish rage of Indus. Just as Indus waters began to breach barrage after barrage, it was American military aircraft which flew out of their Dubai airbase, and later Shahbaz airbase in Punjab, airlifting hundreds of thousands to safe banks. Pakistan military swiftly followed. Until now, it has outclassed the democratic government machinery in rescuing record number of marooned civilians. About 60,000 Pakistani military personnel are deployed in the floodwaters-battered areas, providing impetus to the relief and rescue operations.

The growing appreciation of Pakistan army’s role only reinforces the perception outside and within Pakistan that brass tacks still pull the string of power. Growing disenchantment with the democratic government gluts street rife with all shades of speculation over the durability of Zardari government. Observers and some media analyst told me on condition of anonymity that the next 90 days would trigger desperate attempt to dethrone the incumbents. A power storm is brewing in air of the Blue Area of Islamabad, the seat of power.

Will the Indus’s flood fury sink Zardari? This is the open question in Pakistan on streets. Yet, nobody has the million dollar answer as to who would bell the cat?

Still later, nobody is predicting the military coup or affirming hope in the audacity of General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to boot out Asif Ali Zardari. Instead, observers are hoping for a third alternative, the surprise emergence of a dark horse backed by GHQ, Rawalpindi, minus Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, to clean the pungent odour.

This is a dark omen, and international community has reasons to worry about amidst rising evidence of complete collapse of both provincial and federal machinery. Credibility quotient of President Zardari (Jemima Khan wondered in her column for The Sunday Times, 15 August 2010, how formerly Mr 10 per cent has upgraded himself since his Presidency to 110 per cent) having dipped to alarming level in recent months, the country is struggling to convince donors that $5 billion needed to build homes and hearths of 30 million victims will not fall in the hand of rogue, extremist and terrorist organisations who have pitched in ahead of the state. Turbulence swarms around.

The lukewarm response to the tragedy is further rattling well-reasoned Pakistanis. I was talking to my Liverpool-based activist friend, Shirley Rohan, who was skeptical of her donation reaching the poorest of poor victims in backwaters of Pakistan. She told me, “I fear my money will end up in hands of Taliban. Instead of bringing smiles to faces of innocent country folks, it might fund a suicide vest of a potential suicide bomber. Who should I trust to for my money?”

Unlike Shirley, Nic Careem is clear who he will trust to bring smiles to hapless millions in Pakistan. My London-based friend Nic has booked the West End’s Lyrical Theatre for special performance for his mass hit play, And Then They Came For Me, which features step sister of Anne Frank, Eva Schloss in the cast, in order to raise fund for the Pakistan’s flood victims. Nic told me, “I am inviting Jemima Khan and Imran Khan to the fund-raiser on 17th October, and will contribute the money raised to his newly set up Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund.”

Clearly, the misuse of funds during the previous natural disasters and contingency funds released during displacement of millions of people in tribal areas during Pakistan army’s offensive against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban in tribal areas has been a stuff of local nightmare and international disenchantment.

Ahmed Quraishi, a veteran journalist of Geo TV, blames the democratic dispensation of President Zardari for increasing failure to offer any contingency planning. He said, “Our rains and floods could never have turned into a tragedy worse than Haiti and Kashmir earthquake and the Indian ocean Tsunami combined if not for the manmade factors: an entire government and administrative structure that failed to offer any contingency planning before the tragedy or rapid response after. Village after village, Pakistanis saw how cardboard local administrations raised white flags and handed power over to the Pakistan military (army, navy, and air force) at the slightest hint of challenge.”

Ahmed talks about the video footage of Sindh chief minister who having been alerted by the Punjab government about floods, headed his way, stood before a camera to laugh along with his aides at how Punjab opened the waterways now that there is a flood, a thinly-disguised reference to the water disputes among provinces. The tragedy has virtually pitched people of Balcohistan against powerful landowning families of Sindh and Punjab.
Anarchy is reigning supreme in certain areas where displaced people have begun to blame some powerful families of deliberately breaching the embankment for flooding their farmlands in order to save theirs. Not less than former Prime Minister Mir Jafarullah Jamali took umbrage against some feudal lords of Sindh for flooding a vast chunk of Balochistan. Already Balochs are disenchanted with Islamabad, the fresh wave of realisation fills them with acute sense of alienation.

To top that, food riots are rampant in several areas. Convoy of trucks carrying food materials and clothes were attacked by burqa-clad women in Dera Ismail Khan.

The presidency rubbishes the rumour and conspiracy theories of deliberate flooding of certain areas. Senator Farhatullah Babar told me PPP government doesn’t believe in such theories and is committed to organise speedy relief to victims and efficient use of foreign and local aids.

But even local traders and business magnates are fighting shy of trusting the Zardari government-controlled flood relief agencies. A foreign journalist shocked President Zardari by asking him tongue-in-cheek, “Mr President, your government is riled on streets for massive fraud and corruption. People don’t want to donate because of the malaise. Are you the problem?”

Image deficit and distrust virus is spreading the blanket of gloom in Islamabad. When President Zardari convened a meeting of top industrialists and business magnates in Islamabad, majority of those invited feigned unavailability citing one reason or the other. The talk of introducing Flood Tax further soiled the environment.

Whereas President Zardari is assuming offensive posture in combating all-round attack on his credibility and efficiency, his Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is brutally frank in admission of the ‘Image deficit.’ He was candid in his confession aboard his military aircraft while taking aerial view of the flood-hit areas when he told a television anchor, “My government credibility is lower than that of your channel. You can raise more funds.”

Little wonder, the Prime Minister Relief Fund (PMRF) set up with much pomp and fanfare at the cost of over Rs 10 million worth advertising blitz in national media attracted not more than four million in the kitty. Compare this sum with that of a residential fund-raising centre of Model Town, set up by a local wing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), they have raised similar amount of money without spending a single rupee on advertising. This speaks volume for the public distrust in Zardari-led Pakistan People’s Party. Similar is the fate of Nawaz Sharif-led party. Nawaz is as much reviled along with his Punjab chief minister brother Shahbaz Sharif for failing to uplift the sordid plight of millions of victims in Punjab.

Shohaib Sherwani, a bubbly young worker of the PTI in Model Town, Lahore, showed me around the relief camps of different political parties. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had set up the camp just alongside PTI. I saw people carrying relief materials, from clothes to food grains and cache of water bottles, giving precedence to Imran Khan’s party camp than that of Nawaz Sharif’s party.

“Three million displaced people are like Atom bombs for Pakistani society. They would find it tough to return to their village, the farmland is wasteland for next couple of years, seed of their harvest washed away. Politicians are occupied with target killings of their opponents in Karachi and Sialkot. These hapless, homeless people are leaderless, and have no faith in the ruling coalition. The leadership vacuum is being filled by religious fanatics and other fringe groups because their foot-soldiers are risking the surging floodwaters, sailing in rickety boats to provide food and tent to the victims,” said Oriyan Maqbool Jaan, a leading intellectual from Lahore who heads heritage conservation centre.

Pakistan needs not less than Rs 150 billion from the world community to plug in rescue, rehabilitation and reconstruction works. It is a challenge considering the whipping publicity about the ‘Image and trust deficit’ Islamabad is drawing not only outside its frontiers but also within.

It is reliably learnt that the government growth forecast of 4.5 per cent will be missed by miles. Agriculture support 60 per cent of $167 billion economy. With nearly half of the country farmland under the ‘scorpion grip’ of Indus deluge, food security is all set to go into the tailspin. Inflation will only accelerate further eventually throwing fiscal discipline in complete disarray.

Questions doing rounds in concerned quarters on the Blue Area of Islamabad are whether International Monetary Fund (IMF) will allow Central Bank of Pakistan to print money to finance the deficit. The IMF had set conditions in exchange for an $11.3 billion bailout in last two years. Islamabad received $7.6 billion loan from the premier credit doling body in 2008 to avoid defaulting on its overseas debt and the credit agreement was increased to $11.3 billion in 2009.

Mashhood Elahi Khan, a Lahore and Atlanta-based political analyst, laments, “Distrust is the deterrence. Tales of corruption abound in the government corridor as one goes back to another monumental catastrophe in October 2005 when over 80,000 people perished in monster temblor of Kashmir. Pakistan’s foreign debt today stands at $53 billion and it coughs up $3 billion in repayment of its loan every year.”

The long-running and all-weather friend of Islamabad, the United States administration earlier pledged to donate $35 million dollar but it has become the largest donor with $250 million. Senator John Kerry announced $200 million in aid upon his arrival in Islamabad. Saudi Arabia is also chipping albeit cautiously with $44 million. Nevertheless, Pakistanis are fuming over the meagre amount released from their most emotional ally. The United Kingdom offered $16 million whereas China has already pledged $9 million. The monetary aid is like a cipher in comparison to $6 billion the world community stepped forward to deliver shortly after the Kashmir earthquake.
When New Delhi, the arch rival, offered $5 million in assistance, the offer was greeted with usual cynicism. A day later, the government sources suggested the Manmohan Singh government offer should be routed through the United Nations. Street harangues mocked the Indian offer as ‘usual suspect’s olive branch’ whereas some folks on streets of Lahore and Islamabad gesticulated that the ‘India Shining’ establishment should cough up more in hours of Pakistan’s Greek tragedy.

Opinions, however, were divided on the streets whether Pakistan should accept the offer. At end of the day, Pakistan accepted the New Delhi offer.

Farrukh Sohail Goindi, a leading intellectual and an editor, told me, “This is embankment floods. They are sudden, destructive and programmed. Barrage after barrage have been breached. Some public intellectuals are arguing over the Kalabagh dam, the completion of which could have prevented catastrophe of this order. But there is no consensus between provinces over the dam. The country coffer has drained down by Rs 50 billion. Seven million acres of land is under water and we don’t harbour any hopes of re-planting for the coming crop season. More distressing is the ravage of one million acre of cotton growing area in Punjab and Sindh. I don’t see solution in the exit of Zardari government. Nature has put us in hellish dilemma to rise above petty politics.”

Muzaffargarh is one of the oldest districts of Punjab in Pakistan. Home to overwhelmingly Seraiki speaking population, this southern district town forms a strip between the river Chenab on its east and Indus on its West. Of the two million inhabitants of the district, only ten per cent of those living in the district town are surviving with their brick and mortar houses intact, the remaining ninety per cent population of the district has been displaced, with their houses washed away in the surging waters of Indus and Chenab.

Alongwith Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan districts are monstrously-hit and account for over 10 million people who are in throes of massive displacement and health emergency. Cholera and other water-borne diseases are now slowly choking their little ones to death.

In the village of Abbas Wala near Daira Deenpanah, Aleena, 16 years of age, was dreaming of a fairytale wedding. The water washed away her dreams and put tears into her dreamy eyes. Her eyes are swollen in flood of tears. Her grief-stricken countenance mirrors the tragedy of a benighted district.

The Indus floodwaters dealt her multiple blows. It blew away her mud house, killed her 57 years old father, Abur Rehman, and if these were not enough to punish the innocent, beautiful girl, her privation compelled her fiancee to call off the wedding scheduled a few week later. The floodwaters demolished the castle of her dreams.
Aleena’s family was preparing for her wedding to Aslam from the neighbouring hamlet. When Aslam learnt that his would-be-bride has been reduced to an orphan without home, he declined out rightly to enter into matrimony with the ill-fated Aleena. Aslam himself in throes of displacement claimed he needed dowry to rebuild his own house.
Amidst the total collapse of the government, the crisis has thrown up a score of middle-class entrepreneurs and young professionals who are battling odds in the surging stream of Indus waters. Confidence powers their resolve to reach the survivors against all oddities. Most of them are aligning either with Imran Khan-led Paksitan Tehreek-e-Insaf or going solo.

Nadeem Muhammad has left his cloistered business in Dubai to return to his native city of Sialkot. He is running quite a few community kitchens under the umbrella of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in worst hit areas of Muzaffargarh. He told me, “The government is full of fraudsters, fake degree holders and proclaimed cheats. Not a single representative of either provincial or federal government is anywhere to be seen. Just alongside my kitchen, workers of two ruling parties, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) set up a medical camp. When Shahbaz Sharif, Punjab chief minister arrived with a retinue of media persons from Lahore in a chopper, all he could do was take a lazy view of the submerged area, pose for a photo and leave hastily. Farooq Sattar, MQM leader and federal minister also appeared to be in a tearing hurry to board a flight to Nine Zero, Karachi. Shortly after the leader left, the medical camp turned silent, with a handful of doctors making no attempt to attend any victims.”

Only to counter the bad publicity over ‘Image and trust deficit’, Pakistan’s largest media conglomerate, Jang Group of Publications which also owns the Geo TV roped in Imran Khan to launch flood relief fund. Imran is undoubtedly the man with sterling philanthropic credentials who has raised over $1 billion for the Cancer hospital he set up in memoriam of his mother, Shaukat Khanum.

Islamabad is famous for more trees on its boulevards than houses. Haroon Rashid, celebrated Urdu journalist told me there are 1.1 million trees in the city whereas there are only 1 million households. Rains are lashing the clean streets of Pakistan Capital where power elites are looking clueless over the titanic tragedy.
I was jostling among the milling crowds of admirers and battery of press persons at Islamabad Press Club on 19 August. There was optimism in the air and the harbinger of optimism was Imran who had returned from a successful fund-raising tour of America.

Imran appeared at the press club in Islamabad in starch white Shalwar Kameez to announce that he was going alone to raise funds through his Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund in collaboration with Mir Khalilur Rahman Foundation (MKR)-Pukaar of Jang Group, because the Pakistan government has failed yet again. He told me, “There is no disaster that can’t become a blessing, and no blessing that can’t become a disaster. I have no faith in the much touted talk of Flood Relief Commission which Nawaz Sharif is trying to push. This national disaster needs a national mobilisation. We should not expect ‘dollar rain’ every time calamity strikes us. There are 30 million Khandan (household) in Pakistan and I am confident these 30 million household can look after 30 million people displaced in the flood fury. I accept total responsibility for the total accountability of every single rupee donated to my account no: 06027900799703, Habib Bank Limited (Toll free number: 0800-00048).”

When I asked Imran whether he would fall back on his celebrity friends in Indian tinsel town of Mumbai for raising funds, he broke into faint smiles. “I haven’t thought of bothering my friends outside as of now. People of Pakistan shall join hands together and god willing, overcome the crisis.” However, Imran agreed to back any initiative of organising India-Pakistan charity cricket match if some proposals is floated by the respective cricket boards.
Imran Aslam, chairman of Mir Khalilur Rahman Foundation said, “Only to counter the bad publicity over ‘Image and trust deficit’ we are collaborating with Imran Khan. We are taking pledge to build every single homes.”
Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund is the brainchild of stocky-looking Nadeem Iqbal, the group director of Geo TV. The bespectacled creative genius Iqbal conceived the MKR Foundation during turbulence of Tsunami and marvelled in rehabilitation of over a million IDPs (Internally Displaced Peoples) during Pakistan military offensive (Rah-e-Nizat) against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban in Waziristan and Kashmir earthquake.

As Umar Khayyam in Lahore noted, these, indeed, are calamitous times for Pakistan; the most humongous deluge in recorded national history has unleashed its ferocity across vast swathes of its land, engulfing huge masses of humanity; swallowing up thousands, displacing millions while devastating over 15 million livelihoods. Natural monstrosities have come visiting this land before too, but this is the mother of all disasters. It has wiped out school after school, electrical transformer, roads and bridges and house after homes. The sheer magnitude of the destruction, the mere scale of wreckage strewn across Pakistan leaves one benumbed. Such is the volume of devastation that despite several days of its unleashing, the monster is refusing to abate to preclude any pertinent damage ascertainment.

Imran’s thought at end of the meet left me with something to ponder about the siege of Pakistan today. “Both optimist and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.” Indeed, Imran is a complex being in his battered country and he does have the reputation of making desert bloom and lakes dies. Once again, Pakistanis are looking up to his philanthropic brilliance to build their homes, children’s school and fire their hearths.

(Frank Huzur is a biographer of Pakistan legendary cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan. His upcoming book, Imran Versus Imran: The Untold Story is expected soon. He can be reached at frankhuzur@falcon-falcon.co.uk. Website link: www.falcon-falcon.co.uk)

Frank Huzur on Imran Khan, Jemima, the Taleban and writing.

Posted on July 4, 2010 by Catherine Balavage

I was delighted to interview writer Frank Huzur recently. Frank specializes in Indo-Pak political affairs and is incredibly knowledgeable on India, the Afghanistan war and the Taleban. He has a book coming out soon, Imran versus Imran: The UNTOLD STORY, the biography of Imran Khan.

Frank had this to say about the book and then the interview follows:

It has not been a smooth journey across the border. For an Indian national, irrespective of profession-media is more notorious in India-Pakistan for stoking the fire of jingoism and sowing the seed of hatred—it is always a thorny affair to travel to each country. I somehow have been fortunate to visit Pakistan seven times in three years. Writing the biography of Imran Khan was, indeed, a powerful motivation. Nevertheless, travelling through different areas, Lahore, Mianwali (ancestral place of Imran Khan and his political constituency) and Islamabad–was always a tough ask, considering the combustible political situation on streets. Terror attacks, hundreds of them–quite big in size and casualty, have hit high profile targets, some of them during my visit.

Irrespective of everything, I maintained my focus on the goal, and returned each time armed with a vast range of anecdotes and impressions of Imran Khan and Pakistan politics. People of Pakistan have been very beholden to my literary endeavour and have never discouraged me from probing further into their lives and times.

Imran and his family and friends were very warm and friendly during numerous round of interviews for the biography. His brother-in-law and sisters in Lahore were candid in sharing their side of the story.

Jemima Khan in London was equally considerate and beholden to my requests. She was very forthright in sharing her impressions of Imran. I am indebted to her for taking the interview at her Studio One apartment, Fulham Broadway in April, 2008.

1) How did you get into writing?

FH: I discovered as early as in 8th grade at school that writing was my natural instinct. The urge to write began with composition of poems in English. Reading of Wordsworth’s poems, I wandered lonely as a Cloud, The Solitary Reaper, Strange Fits of Passion have I known romanticised my imagination. By the time I was a school graduate at the age of 15, I tasted blood with the publication of some of my poems on the New Delhi-based English dailies, including The Asian Age. I was in love with the romantic age in English literature, and doted on the Lyrical Ballads, a joint publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Before taking a maiden shot at playwriting, I had composed over 100 poems under the title of Remembering Her. When I joined Hindu college, Delhi University in 1995, poetic sentiments found expression in prose and play. In summer of 1998, I published my maiden play, Hitler in Love with Madonna. The title of the play was dubbed weird by friends, and critics were attracted like moth to the lamp during rehearsal itself. However, it brought me a fair share of public acclaim in the national press, for its political undercurrents.

Poetry and play further fired my imagination to comment on the burning issues of society and politics. In the spring of 1997, I had the temerity to launch a monthly newsmagazine, Utopia, with heavy dose of political reportage from around the world. The inaugural issue of Utopia in March 1997 coincided with the political debut of Imran Khan across the border in Pakistan. Since then, political churning in the subcontinent and elsewhere continues to fire my imagination to dabble in chiefly three genre of literature, poetry, drama (fiction) and non-fiction. I am still a few years away from writing a novel.

2) You have written a lot about Imran Khan and have a book coming out soon about him. What can you tell us about him and why is he so fascinating to you?

FH: The fascination with Imran, to speak the truth, bordered on paranoia during school days. I was growing up in Patna, capital of a benighted state like Bihar in India, where cricket was staple diet. Throughout ‘80s Imran was a household name for apparent reasons. However, I found myself increasingly obsessed with the other side of his charismatic persona, such as his philanthropic passion, which was on display during the 1987 World cup semi-final in Lahore. Imran lost the battle against Aussies, announced his retirement and despite winning the car in the ‘Man of the Series’ award, he gifted it to Abdul Qadeer. He had already started a fierce campaign to build the cancer hospital in memoriam of his mother, Shaukat Khanum. I was a 10 years old cricket wannabe at the time. Still, I could experience the magic moments of Imran’s other side, a cricketer who was a crusader for a public cause and an opinionated sportsman who could talk for hours on issues of public interest. Gathering such impression of Imran in the face of prevailing media stereotype at the time like he was a playboy, junkie and Lothario was quite a unique experience. Doting on a superstar from across the border, supposedly an enemy country for an average Indian youth, was another surprise.

Nevertheless, Imran Khan was a ticket to hate-free zone vis-a-vis Indo-Pak barbed wire rivalry goes. He has never been an anti-India rhetorician.

The childhood obsession with Imran became a passionate act of observing his political innings in the prime of my youth as a writer and journalist. Visiting Pakistan for over half-a-dozen occasion in the past three years of troubled past opened my eyes to a vast sheaf of reality bites. Not only about the man who has been deep into maelstrom of his political struggle and movement for justice, but also about the bedevilled country, mired into morass of bad political morals.

My biography of Imran Khan, Imran Versus Imran: The Untold Story (expected last week of July, 2010, Falcon & Falcon Books Ltd. London) is an unambiguous enquiry into his political innings. This is not about a cricketing legend. Imran versus Imran brings out the so far unknown sides of a legendary crusader who has sacrificed on several fronts, including his marriage to Jemima, children living in London while he braves the heat and dust on Pakistani streets, luxury of cloistered life in the West and a lucrative career in cricket administration or commentary box. Like a Sufi who lives by his passion and instinct for a cause, Imran has been an Avant-garde voice against the status-quo in Pakistan.

3) What do you think is next for Imran?

FH: Imran will not fade out in the present avatar. Those who know the former captain of Pakistan cricket team will testify to his childlike lust for grabbing his toy. Capturing power is not his agenda. Power doesn’t please him, which is why he has been quick in rejecting several offer of alliances with nearly all the political formations. He could have won a good number of seats in February 2008 Parliamentary elections. Yet he listened to the voice of his conscience and boycotted the polls as a tribute to lawyers’ struggle for restoration of Independent judiciary.

Like Jemima told me, even if Imran doesn’t succeed in electoral terms, he will remain a yardstick by which honesty of a politician in mud pond of Pakistan politics will be measured. However, Imran will not give up. The youth of the country are solidly behind him, and he is promising them a ‘bloodless revolution.’ Imran will go down even in his political innings a successful crusader. Even though he is still not a maverick and a great organiser of political programmes, he does stand his chance. He is gearing up to go for jugular sometime in near future.

Having said that, Imran Khan is a unique politician who is rabidly against the American policies and on-going drone attacks in the tribal areas, not to mention a series of suicide bombings targeting civilian population in Lahore and elsewhere. Imran will not soften his anti-America stand in order to capture power. He wants to create history like Ayatollahs in Pakistan, and he doesn’t give damn to those who accuse him of being a ‘devil advocate’ of Taleban.

4) What do you think of the current political and economical situation of the world today?

FH: The world politics is on the brink of tectonic shift in its scope and character. Forces of privatization and globalisation are under intense scrutiny in nearly all the countries, be it the USA, Europe, Latin America or Indian Sub-continent. The economic crisis, in the past couple of years, has robbed the crystal ball gazing off its sheen.

Europe is experiencing a paradigm shift vis-a-vis confrontation with corporate state. The upsurge in stocks of Liberal Democrat in the British Parliamentary elections is a testimony to the ‘wind of change blowing in the air.’ In Germany, there is a surge of support for Die Linke (The Left) led by Oskar Lafontaine. In Nederland, the Socialist party is looking set to replace the Labour Party as the principal opposition party. Greece’s economic woes have triggered a massive surge in mass support for the rapid rise of the Coalition of the Radical Left. Spain and Norway, Socialists are already entrenched in power corridor. Least said the better about the Latin American countries like Bolivia, Venezuela, Brasil and others where socialist sentiments have acquired a zing even among youth.

In Indian subcontinent, love affairs with corporations continues and it will have its moment of reckoning in near future. Though the ruling party, Indian National Congress is a centrist party, its policies of late have been hammered on public streets for extreme pro-corporation bias. The principal opposition party led by Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is not perceived much different from the ruling coalition of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). However, a vast crowd of poor Indians, especially in northern provinces of Hindi heartland where majority of Indians live on their small agricultural holdings, are veering towards the third alternative, socialist party of India. Samajwadi Party, (Socialist Party of India) is the third largest political bloc on the floor of Indian Parliament. Over the past couple of years, the party is registering massive inroads into hearts and minds of common Indians under the vibrant leadership of its young leader, Akhilesh Yadav, who is a suave, English-educated master in Environment from University of Sydney. Akhilesh is the principal rival to Rahul Gandhi’s juggernaut in the most populous province of Uttar Pradesh, and probably a counterfoil to Rahul Gandhi’s premier ambition to rule the highly-cherished state.

The politics across the border in Pakistan is a worrying sign for us all in the sub-continent. However, the transfer of power from President Zardari to Prime Minister Gilani and recent surge in judicial activism augurs well for fledgling civil institutions in the beleaguered nation, which has been an important ally of the USA-led coalition against war on terror. Imran Khan’s role can’t be discounted, as he has fired the imagination of Pakistani people over pros and cons of democracy and dictatorship.

In all, President Obama is yet to demonstrate his famous ‘audacity of hope’ calibre, and as of now, he is looking like an Ostrich over Afghanistan. General Stanley McChrytal’s unceremonious exit is a serious setback to the American strategy in Kabul.

5) Do you think the war in Afghanistan is winnable?

FH: There are no winners in war, whether in Afghanistan or Vietnam. For centuries, the Great Game theory has been pounded of its barest bone and flesh in the opium fields of Kandhar. The Soviets were sucked into interminable conflict and by the time realisation dawned upon them, they had become paupers in every conceivable way. The USA and Britain didn’t learn a lesson from the condemned past before committing chaotic blunder after blunder.

The Taleban should have been taken out of their hideouts. Nine years later, the army of rugged Pathans are now lurking at gates of Kabul. Nine years of bloated and arrogant war machinery has created only mausoleum of thousands of innocent Afghan men, women and children, over 1,000 American soldiers and over 100 British soldiers, not to mention tragic loss of NATO soldiers and a great number of promising journalists, including Daniel Pearl. Had the war on terror in Afghanistan been on the course of achieving even ten percent of its laid-out objectives, Taleban would not have mushroomed in the tribal areas of Pakistan and bombing its innocent civilians and military General Headquarters.

Adding further insult to injuries, the cost of Afghan war has overtaken that of Iraq for the first time this summer. President Obama is committing $65 billion more, with total cost of fighting the Taleban and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan all set to zoom past $100 billion in 2010 alone.

The Afghan war is a catastrophic blunder on all fronts. Just as the Soviet’s humiliating withdrawal destabilised the neighbouring regions, the prevailing situation on the border of Pakistan bodes ill for even eastern neighbourhood of India.

6) What is your writing schedule?

FH: Writing is a spontaneous process for me. I never plan my writing schedule. However, I am a night animal, and prefer to borrow more from arterial stretches of imagination late into the night. The midnight hours are more simulating as the din of daytime robs me off creative cultivation of thoughts.

7) Do you think it is possible to defeat the Taliban?

FH: Taleban is a stateless phenomenon. Which is why it is difficult to root these faceless warriors out for once and all. Taleban is an idea, and a vampire-like creation out of the monstrous cocktail of Jihadi ideology and distorted interpretation of Islam. If the Western powers commit to fight the idea of Taleban, only then its elimination is possible. Liberal and democratic forces should be encouraged to penetrate into the deep pockets of extremist heartland where young, impressionable minds are being indoctrinated to slaughter innocents of the civilised society.

8 ) India is known as a place where people go to find themselves. What makes India so magical?

FH: India is not just a place populated with people of diverse faiths and caste-ridden Hindu population. India’s secret weapon is her tenacity, ability to smile in face of fierce tragedy. There are islands of poverty in every single metropolis, not to mention hundreds of small towns and millions of villages, yet beauty of India cuts through rivers of sorrow as millions of Indians rise and fall in their perennial search for salvation. Every Hindu caste Indian has his own deities, his own temple where he believes his deity will rain milk and honey if he surpass other fellows in his offerings. Spiritual fascism of high priests apart, there are many portals of liberating one’s soul. The vastness of the country offers its own aesthetic beauty where a person from northern temple town of Benares will find himself alien in the southern temple city of Tirupati in lingua and look, yet a northerner and southerner will be united in their common pursuits of salvation at the feet of stone-deity.

India is home to more Muslims than Pakistan, and its secular, democratic polity has endured powerful assaults over the fabric of its communal accord. However, the land of mystic seers and shrines is in the grip of difficult challenges, of late as terrorism of all shades rears its ugly head.

9) What is next for you?

FH: I am about to write a couple of more biographies, preferably a biography of India’s socialist titan, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has ruled India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh three times and has also been ex-defense minister. I am also working on the biography of Britain’s top Muslim, Dr Khurshid Ahmed, who is winner of CBE from the Queen, for his pivotal role in improving the image of West in Muslim countries. In addition, I am also working on my debut novel, albeit a tad slow.

Thank you Frank.

For more on Frank, follow the link

Frost Magazine

Books and Lifestyle

Tag Archives: imran khan

Losing a Secular, Godfather-Guardian By Frank Huzur

CHARIOT OF HOPE—CYCLE OF CHANGE

Pakistan’s Flood. When the Indus became the Yellow River of sorrow By Frank Huzur in Islamabad, Pakistan

Frank Huzur on Imran Khan, Jemima, the Taleban and writing.

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