Abbottabad Diary

Pashtoon Panchayat

Bidding me farewell, my wife is concerned that “They” might start asking why I am visiting Pakistan so often. It is my fourth trip in four months. This time I’m on my way to Abbottabad at the invitation of the Sungi Foundation, established by the murdered Omar, son of Air Marshall Asghar Khan, over 90 and still going strong, to speak to grassroots workers from Swat, FATA, Gilgit, Baltistan, Dir and ‘Azad’ or ‘Pak-occupied’ Kashmir, and a sprinkling of the restive local Hazaras, led by favourite son Gohar Ayub, son of Ayub Khan, who are unhappy at the NWFP being renamed Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, about how we in India are tackling (or failing to tackle) our problems of poverty through the political empowerment of the poor. Panchayat raj apparently excites more interest in distant Pakistan than in our own corridors of governance.

A Baloch Kutty

Having set off an hour late from Delhi, we are informed in Karachi, in dreary instalments, of my connecting flight to Islamabad being delayed cumulatively by five hours! But what would otherwise have been an impossible wait is enlivened by a chance encounter with former senator Iqbal Haider, Benazir Bhutto’s law minister, who regales me with tales of the many months he spent in jail with my principal host, B.M. Kutty, politicial advisor to the late Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, doyen of all Balochistan freedom fighters. (Curious how even a revolution in Balochistan requires a Malayali amanuensis!) Iqbal, however, balks at my suggestion that I accompany him to a PPP rally to mourn the anniversary of Zia’s overthrow of Bhutto on July 5, 1977.

Alphabets In A Soup

Ahmed Raza Qasuri is now Pervez Musharraf’s chief advisor in Musharraf’s attempted return to Pakistan politics. As with Benazir, his too is being scripted from exile in Dubai. He is proposing an All Pakistan Muslim League under his leadership that will bring under one roof the numerous factions of the old Pakistan Muslim League, now divided into as many factions as there are alphabets in the English language. It seems a doomed endeavour, but Qasuri is buoyant, and his endless fund of stories as Pakistan’s principal raconteur are interrupted with numerous calls from TV channels getting his latest take on Musharraf. It’s fascinating to listen to Qasuri responding from the sofa next to me and simultaneously hearing his voice on the TV screen opposite.

Getting on the plane at last, I am greeted by an ebullient Senator Begum Niloufer Bakhtiar, who lost her ministership under Musharraf for having publicly held hands with a fellow para-glider as they floated down to wild applause from an enthralled Paris audience! (Eat your heart out, Shashi Tharoor!) She keeps apologising for the delay; I reassure her that I have been held up as long at Indian airports and even longer at US airports. It is a relief to finally fall into bed at 3 am Pakistan time—half an hour later in India by my body clock.

So That We Listen

Up and out on the road to Abbottabad, I arrive as a feisty, even fiery lady orator, Tahira Abdullah, carries her audience to flights of indignation over the injustices being heaped on the poor. But she loses her listeners as she suddenly accuses those sitting in front of her of collaborating with the Taliban in Swat. They shout her down, saying she lives in comfort in Lahore while they daily fight the Taliban. One protester objects: she is denigrating Pakistan in the presence of a foreigner, and an Indian at that.

So, when my turn to speak comes, I begin by saying Tahira has no need to be ashamed of telling an Indian how bad poverty is in Pakistan because both our countries—as, indeed, all of South Asia—are victims of the same evil. India is wallowing at position 134 on the UN Human Development Index a full 15 years after it first hit 134 in 1994, despite a 15 times increase in budget allocations over this period for social sector and poverty alleviation programmes. What both countries need is effective local self-government to administer these programmes by, for and of themselves, since 85 paise in the rupee is usurped by the bureaucracy as administrative expenditure, as Rajiv Gandhi pointed out two decades ago.

A note is slipped to me asking whether I will also tell them about the “water issue” and “Kashmir”. I readily oblige—there is relief at being reassured of Indian intentions and the mechanisms to resolve such disputes. Why is South Block unable to leverage the eager willingness of the aam Pakistani hazrat and khatoon to listen to common sense delivered without hectoring?

Far Fetching Distances

We take off from Lahore for Delhi six hours late. Pakistan Paindabad! Of the last 60 hours, I have spent 20 at airports waiting for PIA to take off, six in PIA planes, about eight hours on the road, and under eight in bed over two nights.