Basant is a centuries old cultural tradition of Punjab. Over the years, it gained an element of controversy as the fundamentalism wiped the norms of tolerance and co-existence in our society. Disregard of law and for the lives of fellow citizens turned it into a bloody sport. 

Recently I came across a book “URS AUR MELAY” by Aman Ullah Khan Arman, published by Kitab Manzil Lahore in 1959. I am reproducing the chapter on Basant (p.276-277) here: “Basant (a Sanskrit word for spring) is a seasonal festival of Indo-Pak sub-continent and it has no religious bearings. Basant is the herald of the spring and celebrated in winter (Magh) on the fourth or fifth day of lunar month. This is the reason why it is called Basant Panchami. Basant season starts on this day, therefore, Basant is regarded the herald of spring, wheat grows, and mustard blossoms in this season. (Old Aryan tradition divides a year into six seasons each having two months. Mustard blossom that is yellow in color is considered the color of spring and accordingly yellow outfits were worn). 

BASANT’S MODE: 

According to poet Kalidasa, rivulets and streams suddenly started flowing, mango bear flowers, honeybees hum and love god enamors the hearts in Basant… 

BASANT’S TRADITIONS: 

In pre-partition India Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs all celebrated Basant. Basant festivals held in all major cities of Punjab. Yellow clothes were worn; men wore yellow turbans and women yellow dupattas and saris. It was common to sway swings among Hindu, Muslim and Sikh women together and Basant’s traditional songs were sung that reflected the liveliness and romance of life in Punjab. Kite flying was common but on a small scale with decency. 

POST-PARTTION BASANT: 

After partition where many other evils take roots, some festivals too lost their original colors. After departure of non-muslims Basant was reduced to kite flying and other traditions were also forgotten. Now a day neither yellow clothes nor swings came in sight or any civil activity. Here and there, crowds of kite flyers show their ill manners. Children, grownups and old alike fly kites on rooftops from dawn to dusk. Kite battles and brawls are common scenes… 

KITE FLYING EPIDEMIC: 

 Most of the kite flyers are less educated or illiterate laborers. Some educated also do the same and the kite flying epidemic is spreading among the school children”. 

This is a narration of Basant celebration nearly 50 years ago but much has changed. Sadly, the festival has lost its true colors and instead became a game of death.   

Celebrate Basant- but don’t snatch away lives.

Now a days love reigns supreme; it’s everywhere, on the idiot box, on radio shows, trashy songs and exploitative marketing and urbania is drifting away in an oscular hysteria. It appears that Cupid has shaken hands with the prophets of neo-liberalism. It is portrayed as one may fall into or come across by a matter of chance or better a commodity that could be purchased or exchanged in market. Ironically at the same time lovers are murdered in cold-blood and stoned for honor across the country.  

Recent scientific studies reveal that love is a transitory phenomenon triggered by the surge of the dopamine in the mind and usually ends. (National Geographic Mag. Feb. 2006) As the euphoria dies the concord also loses its charm. 

Erich Fromm calls the love “an answer to the problem of human existence”, and “an active concern for the life and growth of which we love”. Core to the phenomenon of love is “giving” not material but giving of yourself…your expressions and what is alive in you with “care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.” 

Freud associated love with sex and now neo-liberalism is striving to institutionalize it or tying the herd to it without any trace of difference in action or thought. 

As the capitalism has made a commodity of man so we have to invest our life in such a way that may bring the maximum profit and be able to buy everything for our happiness and love is no exception to this mind set. It is core of the organized love. In the words of Fromm “ the world is a great object for our appetite, a big apple, a big bottle, a big breast; we are the sucklers, the eternally expectant ones, the hopeful ones- and eternally disappointed ones. Our character is geared to exchange and to receive, to barter and to consume; everything, spiritual as well as material object, becomes an object of exchange and consumption.” 

 Such is the story of organized love called Valentine. 

 

 

Perhaps our crafty custodians of thinking, morality and virtue sensing the hollowness of their Orwellian rhetoric lifted the senseless blanket ban on the popular blogging site Blogger. This arbitrary action was a futile exercise and did nothing except frustrating the users. More the people can’t be stopped from thinking in the age of participatory and personal media. 

Censorship in Pakistan has a long history and its first victim being the founder of the nation Mohammad Ali Jinnah. On 11 August 1947 when he delivered his first speech “You are free, you are free to go to your temples…..” before the Constituent Assembly; within hours some shadowy figures became active and “tried to have some secularist passages of the speech blacked out in the press” (Press In Chains P. 35-39) But luckily the then editor Dawn Altaf Hussain came in their way and threatened to go to Qauid. So the attempt to muzzle Qauid’s voice failed. 

The second major attack was the closure of illustrious Civil & Military Gazette(C&MG) when in 1949 it carried a story by its Delhi correspondent that Pakistan and India are devising a formula to partition Kashmir. Pakistan denied the report so the paper published the denial, regretted the report and fired the correspondent. But on 6^th May 1949 16 West Pakistan newspapers carried a joint editorial by the title of “TREASON” and asked government to suspend the (C&MG) publication “for a suitable period.”  The East Pakistani editors “refused to join the chorus” and the government closed the paper for six month and the paper where once writers like Rudyard Kipling had worked (1882-1887) never recovered from the closure. 

Ayub Khan within the first week of his coup detained Syed Sibt Hassan, Ahmed Nadim Qasimi and Faiz Ahmed Faiz who worked for Progressive Papers Limited (PPL) and went a step further and took over the PPL papers on April 1959 and this move was aimed at reining the PPL from roaming in the “DISTANT ORBITS AND ALIEN HORIZONS” as the PPL backed Progressive Ideology. In 1964 National Press Trust was established and all the PPL papers were given to this monster and NPT role in the blackening the image of journalism is by no means hidden on any one. 

During the Bhutto era the intimidation and muzzling continued with the same zeal and the most shameful event was the re-arrest of the Altaf Gauhar editor Dawn on the ridiculous charges of “ forging a passport, possessing obscene literature, contraband liquor”  and what not. 

The Zia era contrary to its name was a dark tunnel for the journalists and in 1978 four journalists were flogged within 90 minutes after a phony court ordered it.  The later democratic governments of Benazir and Nawaz were no better than their military comrade-in-arms. Daily Khabrain, Daily Jang, Friday Times and many more papers and journalists faced their wrath. The violence from the ethno-religious outfits is in addition to this. 

The same things are happening in the era of our enlightened despot but thanks to the advancement of science and technology now the citizen journalism has opened many avenues to defy ridiculous decrees of rulers. The history of journalism in Pakistan is a fairy tale of courage, hope and idealism against the dictates of the mighty. Pakistani bloggers are with their comrades of pen in spreading the voices of dissent and the massage of hope. 

“A lifetime’s devotion,
And yearning have I given,
Not in vain,
That the nightingales play
To roses in full bloom.
It must come, it’ll come.
My reason, my dream.
Does it matter,
If I am gone?
Others will share the ecstasy-
All my roses,
All my nightingales.”

(Faiz poem Tr. M.A. Akhyar Press in Chains)  

                                                                                 

Throughout the history tribes, groups and peoples have fought each other for political, economic and ideological reasons. So does they also developed institutions to resolve these disputes. Panchayat in India, Mediation Committees in China and Jirga in Afghanistan, NWFP and tribal areas of Pakistan are the informal ways to resolve conflict but differ from each other in nature. Jirga is Pashto word which refers to the gathering of people. Jirga is a conciliatory body, “where people gather and sit … in order to resolve disputes and make collective decisions about important social issues.”

Jirga is an important aspect of the Pushtunwali (the code of Pashtun) is an unwritten code and is a collection of traditional and customary laws that determine the form and character of the Pashtun life. It entails the elements of melmastia (hospitality and protection to the guests and even it can’t denied to the enemy), nanawati (going in or entering in the house of someone), and after one enters into someone house he is bound to protect him at any cost whether he is a friend or foe, Badal (kill for kill) which is most dominant characteristics of the Pashtun code and Jirga the resolution of disputes through mediations. It is a Peghor for a Pashtun not to take revenge and it deem him libel to be called coward. Among other include Nang (protection of one’s rights and honour) Pashto (the sum total of all Pashtun ethical, moral and cultural codes), Ghairat (honour) as defined by the poet Abdul Ghani Khan, as “A Pathan will shoot the seducer of his sister and walk proudly to the British-made gallows for it. “hero”, shout the Pathans”, “murderer”, says the judge.” among others.

The main function of the Jirga is to mitigate the consequences of Badal and to provide an avenue of peace to the feuding parties. It will be convened by a malik (tribal leader) or a group of individuals if the parties hint at reconciliation. And the Jirga manages a truce for a certain time and if the parties agree then permanent cessation of hostilities also can be arranged and monetary compensation is also imposed to achieve a balance or security. “By one estimate, Jirgas settle over 95% of Afghanistan’s disputes, civil and criminal” but the figures for Pakistan are a bit lower.

Once a party submits to Jirga then it is bound to abide by its rulings. Also acting against one’s commitments is against the Pushtunwali and therefore punishable. The Jirga will panelize the offenders of the truce by imposing a heavy fine and in case of non-compliance their houses will be destroyed. This order of Jirga will be executed through “Lashkar” (Army) composed from the different segments of the tribe.

In case of murder a Jirga can order the guilty party to compensate the victims with cash or WichPur (dry debt) or Lundpur (wet debt) where the parties has to exchange women. In this regard a Pashto proverb says that “Blood cannot wash away blood but blood can be turned into love,” being against the principals of human rights it often invokes criticism from human right groups.

There are different types and forms of Jirgas among the Pashtuns including Maraka, Qawmi (national) Jirga and Loya (grand) Jirga etc, the latter is big forum and is used to settle political issues but it mainly belongs to Afghanistan. The most prominent of the Loya Jirga in Afghan history being one that held in 1747 in Kandahar during which various Afghan tribes selected Ahmed Shah Durrani as the first king of modern Afghanistan. It is called periodically and its main function is the “selection of a new ruler, declaration of war or adoption of treaties of peace, adopting a constitution, and deciding on the status of the country vis-à-vis global conflicts and political/military blocks.”

A nation is a living entity and has a collective psyche, mind or character. Different nations and cultures behave differently according to their compositions under identical conditions. Sometimes back I came across an op-ed piece in one of our dailies where the columnist complained the lack of awareness about the national character or mind in Pakistan. Yesterday I came across a very interesting formula which the author calls “A Pseudo Scientific Formula” to know the character of a nation and here I am sharing the formula with you.

Borrowing the author words, “Let “R” stand for a sense of reality (or realism), “D” for dreams (or idealism), “H” for a sense of humor and … “S” for sensitivity.  As we can’t invent words like “humoride” or “humorate” after the fashion of Chemistry, we may put it thus: 3 grains of Realism, 2 grains of idealism, 2 grains of humor and 1 grains of sensitivity makes an Englishman.”

R3 D2 H2 S1 = the English

R2 D3 H3 S3 = the French

R3 D3 H2 S2 = the Americans

R3 D4 H1 S2 = the Germans

R2 D4 H1 S1 = the Russians

R2 D3 H1 S1 = the Japanese

R4 D1 H3 S3 = the Chinese

So what makes a Pakistani?

Note: “4” stand for abnormally high, “3” for high,”2” for fair and “1” for low.

2006 is about to be a part of a vast wilderness called past. What is in the fleeting days and nights, except a creeping sensation of passing through the limits of space and time? What are the joys, tears and sorrows attached to the sandcastle called life? Every sorrow has its happiness and happiness its tears. In a nutshell happiness is all about tomorrow, whatever we do is all for the singing tomorrows. As the yesterday/past in nothing but a long trail on the desert of time we left behind while heading towards the oasis we call tomorrow or future. Every tomorrow has a message, radiance and hope about it. It calls us to let bygones be bygones and fix our gaze at the future or on the singing tomorrows.

Daily Times reports that family of an Afghan writer believes he has been picked up by the Pakistani agencies over writing memories of his three years imprisonment in Guantánamo Bay prison. Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost went missing on September 29 after his book “The Broken Shackles of Guantánamo” hits the market on 3^rd September 2006. Accordingly the shadowy guys earlier approached him to restraint from publishing his book. During the war Pakistani and Afghan bounty hunters sold scores of people to the CIA for US$ 5000 per head. Earlier this year an Amnesty International report said that “The road to Guantánamo starts in Pakistan”. Ironically 300 people have been released from the Gulag of our Times without any charge or indictment which is brimming with inmates thanks to the Mush all out support to the war on terror. 85percent detainees were not directly arrested by the Americans but by the Afghan Militias and Pakistani government who later handed over them to the US. 

A BBC report narrates the waning influence of the neo-conservatives in US after Iraq debacles. In the words of the report, “The Project for the New American Century” has been reduced to a voice-mail box and a ghostly website. A single employee has been left to wrap things up.”

Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was established in 1997 to spearhead the goal of US global leadership. Its main exponents include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Armitag Francis Fukuyama, Jeb Bush, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, and Paul Wolfowitz etc who were the main force behind the US attack of Iraq. BBC’s Paul Reynolds writes that, “They saw the war in Iraq as their big chance of showing how the “New American Century” might work.”

But the Iraq failures doomed them; in a recent issue of Vanity Fair the brains behind the plan even assailed the president Bush for the failures in the Iraq.

Subjectivity is the essence of art and like the ripples on a pond it spreads outwards and reaches to the shores of eternity. And in the process affects everything which came into contact.

It is the inner self of the artist that shines in the light of spontaneous artistic activity and this come from a personal energy, creative impulse or inspiration whatever we name it. It is the process in which the artist explores that part of himself which is hidden in the dark cellars of personality.

By Czeslaw Milosz

Your unhappy and silly youth.
Your arrival from the provinces in the city.
Misted-over windowpanes of streetcars,
Restless misery of the crowd.
Your dread when you entered a place too expensive.
But everything was too expensive. Too high.
Those people must have noticed your crude manners,
Your outmoded clothes, and your awkwardness.

There were none who would stand by you and say,
You are a handsome boy,
You are strong and healthy,
Your misfortunes are imaginary.

You would not have envied a tenor in an overcoat of camel hair
Had you guessed his fear and known how he would die.
She, the red-haired, because of whom you suffer tortures,
So beautiful she seems to you, is a doll in fire.
You don’t understand what she screams with her lips of a clown.

The shapes of hats, the cut of robes, faces in the mirrors,
You will remember all that unclearly, as something from long ago,
Or as what remains from a dream.

The house you approach trembling,
The apartment that dazzles you–
Look, on this spot the cranes clear the rubble.

In your turn you will have, possess, secure,
Able to be proud at last, when there is no reason.

Your wishes will be fulfilled, you will gape then
At the essence of time, woven of smoke and mist,

An iridescent fabric of lives that last one day,
Which rises and falls like an unchanging sea.

Books you have read will be of use no more.
You searched for an answer but lived without answer.

You will walk in the streets of southern cities,
Restored to your beginnings, seeing again in rapture
The whiteness of a garden after the first night of snow.

(Translated, from the Polish, by Howard Gardner and Robert Hass)

From Howard Gardner’s book Creating Minds ( !993)